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Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley
Chapter Three - continued
Lenina shook her head. "Somehow," she mused1, "I hadn't been feeling very keen on promiscuity2 lately. There are times when one doesn't. Haven't you found that too, Fanny?"
Fanny nodded her sympathy and understanding. "But one's got to make the effort," she said, sententiously, "one's got to play the game. After all, every one belongs to every one else."
"Yes, every one belongs to every one else," Lenina repeated slowly and, sighing, was silent for a moment; then, taking Fanny's hand, gave it a little squeeze. "You're quite right, Fanny. As usual. I'll make the effort."
Impulse arrested spills over, and the flood is feeling, the flood is passion, the flood is even madness: it depends on the force of the current, the height and strength of the barrier. The unchecked stream flows smoothly3 down its appointed channels into a calm well-being4. (The embryo5 is hungry; day in, day out, the blood-surrogate pump unceasingly turns its eight hundred revolutions a minute. The decanted6 infant howls; at once a nurse appears with a bottle of external secretion7. Feeling lurks8 in that interval9 of time between desire and its consummation. Shorten that interval, break down all those old unnecessary barriers.
"Fortunate boys!" said the Controller. "No pains have been spared to make your lives emotionally easy-to preserve you, so far as that is possible, from having emotions at all."
"Lenina Crowne?" said Henry Foster, echoing the Assistant Predestina-tor's question as he zipped up his trousers. "Oh, she's a splendid girl. Wonderfully pneumatic. I'm surprised you haven't had her."
"I can't think how it is I haven't," said the Assistant Predestinator. "I certainly will. At the first opportunity."
From his place on the opposite side of the changing-room aisle11, Bernard Marx overheard what they were saying and turned pale.
"And to tell the truth," said Lenina, "I'm beginning to get just a tiny bit bored with nothing but Henry every day." She pulled on her left stocking. "Do you know Bernard Marx?" she asked in a tone whose excessive casualness was evidently forced.
Fanny looked startled. "You don't mean to say ...?"
"Why not? Bernard's an Alpha Plus. Besides, he asked me to go to one of the Savage12 Reservations with him. I've always wanted to see a Savage Reservation."
"But his reputation?"
"What do I care about his reputation?"
"They say he doesn't like Obstacle Golf."
"They say, they say," mocked Lenina.
"And then he spends most of his time by himself-alone." There was horror in Fanny's voice.
"Well, he won't be alone when he's with me. And anyhow, why are people so beastly to him? I think he's rather sweet." She smiled to herself; how absurdly shy he had been! Frightened almost-as though she were a World Controller and he a Gamma-Minus machine minder.
"Consider your own lives," said Mustapha Mond. "Has any of you ever encountered an insurmountable obstacle?"
The question was answered by a negative silence.
"Has any of you been compelled to live through a long time-interval between the consciousness of a desire and its fufilment?"
"Well," began one of the boys, and hesitated.
"Speak up," said the D.H.C. "Don't keep his fordship waiting."
"I once had to wait nearly four weeks before a girl I wanted would let me have her."
"And you felt a strong emotion in consequence?"
"Horrible!"
"Horrible; precisely," said the Controller. "Our ancestors were so stupid and short-sighted that when the first reformers came along and offered to deliver them from those horrible emotions, they wouldn't have anything to do with them."
"Talking about her as though she were a bit of meat." Bernard ground his teeth. "Have her here, have her there." Like mutton. Degrading her to so much mutton. She said she'd think it over, she said she'd give me an answer this week. Oh, Ford, Ford, Ford." He would have liked to go up to them and hit them in the face-hard, again and again.
"Yes, I really do advise you to try her," Henry Foster was saying.
"Take Ectogenesis. Pfitzner and Kawaguchi had got the whole technique worked out. But would the Governments look at it? No. There was something called Christianity. Women were forced to go on being viviparous."
"He's so ugly!" said Fanny.
"But I rather like his looks."
"I think that's rather sweet," said Lenina. "One feels one would like to pet him. You know. Like a cat."
Fanny was shocked. "They say somebody made a mistake when he was still in the bottle-thought he was a Gamma and put alcohol into his blood-surrogate. That's why he's so stunted14."
"What nonsense!" Lenina was indignant.
"Sleep teaching was actually prohibited in England. There was something called liberalism. Parliament, if you know what that was, passed a law against it. The records survive. Speeches about liberty of the subject. Liberty to be inefficient15 and miserable16. Freedom to be a round peg17 in a square hole."
"But, my dear chap, you're welcome, I assure you. You're welcome." Henry Foster patted the Assistant Predestinator on the shoulder. "Every one belongs to every one else, after all."
One hundred repetitions three nights a week for four years, thought Bernard Marx, who was a specialist on hypnopaedia. Sixty-two thousand four hundred repetitions make one truth. Idiots!
"Or the Caste System. Constantly proposed, constantly rejected. There was something called democracy. As though men were more than physico-chemically equal."
"Well, all I can say is that I'm going to accept his invitation."
Bernard hated them, hated them. But they were two, they were large, they were strong.
"The Nine Years' War began in A.F. 141."
"Not even if it were true about the alcohol in his blood-surrogate."
"Phosgene, chloropicrin, ethyl iodoacetate, diphenylcyanarsine, tri-chlormethyl, chloroformate, dichlorethyl sulphide. Not to mention hydrocyanic acid."
"Which I simply don't believe," Lenina concluded.
"The noise of fourteen thousand aeroplanes advancing in open order. But in the Kurfurstendamm and the Eighth Arrondissement, the explosion of the anthrax bombs is hardly louder than the popping of a paper bag."
"Because I do want to see a Savage Reservation."
Ch 3 C6H2(N02)3+Hg(CNO) 2 =well, what? An enormous hole in the ground, a pile of masonry18, some bits of flesh and mucus, a foot, with the boot still on it, flying through the air and landing, flop19, in the middle of the geraniums-the scarlet20 ones; such a splendid show that summer!
"You're hopeless, Lenina, I give you up."
"The Russian technique for infecting water supplies was particularly ingenious."
Back turned to back, Fanny and Lenina continued their changing in silence.
"The Nine Years' War, the great Economic Collapse21. There was a choice between World Control and destruction. Between stability and ..."
"Fanny Crowne's a nice girl too," said the Assistant Predestinator.
In the nurseries, the Elementary Class Consciousness lesson was over, the voices were adapting future demand to future industrial supply. "I do love flying," they whispered, "I do love flying, I do love having new clothes, I do love ..."
"Liberalism, of course, was dead of anthrax, but all the same you couldn't do things by force."
"Not nearly so pneumatic as Lenina. Oh, not nearly."
"But old clothes are beastly," continued the untiring whisper. "We always throw away old clothes. Ending is better than mending, ending is better than mending, ending is better..."
"Government's an affair of sitting, not hitting. You rule with the brains and the buttocks, never with the fists. For example, there was the conscription of consumption."
"There, I'm ready," said Lenina, but Fanny remained speechless and averted22. "Let's make peace, Fanny darling."
"Every man, woman and child compelled to consume so much a year. In the interests of industry. The sole result ..."
"Ending is better than mending. The more stitches, the less riches; the more stitches ..."
"Conscientious24 objection on an enormous scale. Anything not to consume. Back to nature."
"I do love flying. I do love flying."
"Back to culture. Yes, actually to culture. You can't consume much if you sit still and read books."
"Do I look all right?" Lenina asked. Her jacket was made of bottle green acetate cloth with green viscose fur; at the cuffs25 and collar.
"Ending is better than mending, ending is better than mending."
Green corduroy shorts and white viscose-woollen stockings turned down below the knee.
"Then came the famous British Museum Massacre27. Two thousand culture fans gassed with dichlorethyl sulphide."
A green-and-white jockey cap shaded Lenina's eyes; her shoes were bright green and highly polished.
"In the end," said Mustapha Mond, "the Controllers realized that force was no good. The slower but infinitely28 surer methods of ectogenesis, neo-Pavlovian conditioning and hypnopaedia ..."
And round her waist she wore a silver-mounted green morocco-surrogate cartridge29 belt, bulging30 (for Lenina was not a freemartin) with the regulation supply of contraceptives.
"The discoveries of Pfitzner and Kawaguchi were at last made use of. An intensive propaganda against viviparous reproduction ..."
"Perfect!" cried Fanny enthusiastically. She could never resist Lenina's charm for long. "And what a perfectly31 sweet Malthusian belt!"
"Accompanied by a campaign against the Past; by the closing of museums, the blowing up of historical monuments (luckily most of them
had already been destroyed during the Nine Years' War); by the suppression of all books published before A.F. 150."
I simply must get one like it," said Fanny.
There were some things called the pyramids, for example.
My old black-patent bandolier..."
And a man called Shakespeare. You've never heard of them of course."
'It's an absolute disgrace-that bandolier of mine."
'Such are the advantages of a really scientific education."
'The more stitches the less riches; the more stitches the less ..."
'The introduction of Our Ford's first T-Model ..."
'I've had it nearly three months."
'Chosen as the opening date of the new era."
'Ending is better than mending; ending is better ..."
'There was a thing, as I've said before, called Christianity."
'Ending is better than mending."
'I love new clothes, I love new clothes, I love ..."
'So essential when there was under-production; but in an age of machines and the fixation of nitrogen-positively a crime against society."
'Henry Foster gave it me."
All crosses had their tops cut and became T's. There was also a thing called God."
It's real morocco-surrogate."
We have the World State now. And Ford's Day celebrations, and Community Sings, and Solidarity33 Services."
Ford, how I hate them!" Bernard Marx was thinking.
There was a thing called Heaven; but all the same they used to drink enormous quantities of alcohol."
'Like meat, like so much meat."
'There was a thing called the soul and a thing called immortality34."
'Do ask Henry where he got it."
'And what makes it worse, she thinks of herself as meat."
'Two thousand pharmacologists and bio-chemists were subsidized in A.P. 178."
Six years later it was being produced commercially. The perfect drug."
Let's bait him."
Glum, Marx, glum." The clap on the shoulder made him start, look up. It was that brute38 Henry Foster. "What you need is a gramme of soma."
All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects."
Ford, I should like to kill him!" But all he did was to say, "No, thank you," and fend39 off the proffered40 tube of tablets.
Take a holiday from reality whenever you like, and come back without so much as a headache or a mythology41."
Take it," insisted Henry Foster, "take it."
"Stability was practically assured."
"One cubic centimetre cures ten gloomy sentiments," said the Assistant Predestinator citing a piece of homely42 hypnopaedic wisdom.
"It only remained to conquer old age."
"Damn you, damn you!" shouted Bernard Marx.
"Hoity-toity."
"And do remember that a gramme is better than a damn." They went out, laughing.
"All the physiological46 stigmata of old age have been abolished. And along with them, of course ..."
"Don't forget to ask him about that Malthusian belt," said Fanny.
"Along with them all the old man's mental peculiarities47. Characters remain constant throughout a whole lifetime."
"... two rounds of Obstacle Golf to get through before dark. I must fly."
"Work, play-at sixty our powers and tastes are what they were at seventeen. Old men in the bad old days used to renounce48, retire, take to religion, spend their time reading, thinking-thinking!"
"Idiots, swine!" Bernard Marx was saying to himself, as he walked down the corridor to the lift.
"Now-such is progress-the old men work, the old men copulate, the old men have no time, no leisure from pleasure, not a moment to sit down and think-or if ever by some unlucky chance such a crevice49 of time should yawn in the solid substance of their distractions51, there is always soma, delicious soma, half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity52 on the moon; returning whence they find themselves on the other side of the crevice, safe on the solid ground of daily labour and distraction50, scampering53 from feely to feely, from girl to pneumatic girl, from Electromagnetic Golf course to ..."
"Go away, little girl," shouted the D.H.C. angrily. "Go away, little boy! Can't you see that his fordship's busy? Go and do your erotic play somewhere else."
"Suffer little children," said the Controller.
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1
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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promiscuity
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| n.混杂，混乱；（男女的）乱交 | |
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smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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embryo
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| n.胚胎，萌芽的事物 | |
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decanted
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| v.将（酒等）自瓶中倒入另一容器( decant的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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secretion
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| n.分泌 | |
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8
lurks
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| n.潜在，潜伏；（lurk的复数形式）vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的第三人称单数形式） | |
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9
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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12
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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13
grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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14
stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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inefficient
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| adj.效率低的，无效的 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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17
peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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18
masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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19
flop
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| n.失败(者)，扑通一声；vi.笨重地行动，沉重地落下 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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21
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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22
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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23
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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24
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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25
cuffs
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| n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打，拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 ) | |
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26
mowed
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| v.刈，割( mow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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27
massacre
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| n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀 | |
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28
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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cartridge
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| n.弹壳，弹药筒；(装磁带等的)盒子 | |
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bulging
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| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
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31
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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32
ethics
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| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
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33
solidarity
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| n.团结；休戚相关 | |
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34
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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35
cocaine
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| n.可卡因，古柯碱（用作局部麻醉剂） | |
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36
glum
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| adj.闷闷不乐的，阴郁的 | |
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narcotic
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| n.麻醉药，镇静剂；adj.麻醉的，催眠的 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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fend
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| v.照料（自己），（自己）谋生，挡开，避开 | |
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40
proffered
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| v.提供，贡献，提出( proffer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
mythology
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| n.神话，神话学，神话集 | |
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42
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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43
hormones
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| n. 荷尔蒙，激素 名词hormone的复数形式 | |
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44
transfusion
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| n.输血，输液 | |
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45
magnesium
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| n.镁 | |
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46
physiological
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| adj.生理学的，生理学上的 | |
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47
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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48
renounce
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| v.放弃；拒绝承认，宣布与…断绝关系 | |
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49
crevice
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| n.(岩石、墙等)裂缝；缺口 | |
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50
distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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51
distractions
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| n.使人分心的事[人]( distraction的名词复数 )；娱乐，消遣；心烦意乱；精神错乱 | |
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52
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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53
scampering
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| v.蹦蹦跳跳地跑，惊惶奔跑( scamper的现在分词 ) | |
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54
majestically
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| 雄伟地； 庄重地； 威严地； 崇高地 | |
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55
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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56
rubies
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| 红宝石( ruby的名词复数 )； 红宝石色，深红色 | |
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