The last dance was a waltz. Luke took Meggie’s hand and put his arm about he

游客2023-12-03  19

问题     The last dance was a waltz. Luke took Meggie’s hand and put his arm about her waist, drew her against him. He was an excellent dancer. To her surprise she found she didn’t need to do anything more than follow where he propelled her. And it was a most extraordinary sensation to be held so against a man, to feel the muscles of his chest and thighs, to absorb his body warmth. She had honestly thought that what she felt in his arms she would never feel in anyone else’s. Yet though this was quite different, it was exciting: her pulse rate had gone up, and she knew he sensed it by the way he turned her suddenly, gripped her more closely, put his cheek on her hair. As the Rolls purred home, making light of the bumpy track and sometimes no track at all, they didn’t speak very much. Braich y Pwll was seventy miles from Drogheda, across paddocks with never a house to be seen all the way, no lights of someone’s home, no intrusion of humanity. The ridge which cut across Drogheda was not more than a hundred feet higher than the rest of the land. Luke stopped the car, got out and came round to open Meggie’s door. She stepped down beside him, trembling a little: was he going to spoil everything by trying to kiss her? It was so quiet, so far from anyone!
    There was a decaying dogleg wooden fence wandering off to one side, and holding her elbow lightly to make sure she didn’t stumble in her frivolous shoes, Luke helped Meggie across the uneven ground, the rabbit holes. Gripping the fence tightly and looking out over the plains, she was speechless: first from terror, then, her panic dying as he made no move to touch her, from wonder.
    Almost as clearly as the sun could, the moon’s still pale light picked out vast sweeping stretches of distance, the grass shimmering and rippling like a restless sigh, silver and white and grey. Lifting her head, she tried to count the stars and could not: as delicate as drops of dew on a wheeling spider’s web the pinpoints flared, went out, flared, went out, in a rhythm as timeless as God. They seemed to hang over her like a net, so beautiful, so very silent, so watchful and searching of the soul, like jewel eyes of insects turned brilliant in a spotlight, blind as to expression and infinite as to seeing power. The only sounds were the wind hot in the grass, hissing trees, an occasional clank from the cooling Rolls, and a sleepy bird somewhere close complaining because they had broken its rest: the sole smell the fragrant, indefinable scent of the bush.
    Luke turned his back on the night, pulled out his tobacco pouch and booklet of rice papers, and began to roll himself a cigarette. "Were you bom out here, Meghann?" he asked, rubbing the strands of leaf back and forth in his palm, lazily.
    "No, I was born in New Zealand. We came to Drogheda thirteen years ago. " He slipped the shaped tendrils into their paper sheath, twiddled it expertly between thumb and forefinger, then licked it shut, poked a few wisps back inside the tube with a match end, struck the match and lit up. "You enjoyed yourself tonight, didn’t you?"
    "Oh, yes!"
    "I’d like to take you to all the dances. "
    "Thank you. "
    He fell silent again, smoking quietly and looking back across the roof of the Rolls at the stand of timber where the irate bird still twittered querulously. When only a small remnant of the tube sputtered between his stained fingers he dropped it on the ground and screwed his boot heel viciously down upon it until he was sure it was out. No one kills a cigarette as dead as an Australian bushman.
    Sighing, Meggie turned from the moon vista, and he helped her to the car. He was far too wise to kiss her at this early stage, because he intended to marry her if he could: let her want to be kissed, first. But there were other dances, as the summer wore on and wore itself down in bloody, dusty spendor: gradually the homestead got used to the fact that Meggie had found herself a very good-looking boyfriend. Her brothers forbore to tease, for they loved her and liked him well enough. [br] The description in Paragraph Three serves all of the following functions EXCEPT to______.

选项 A、create the atmosphere
B、introduce the setting
C、make a contrast
D、develop the plot

答案 C

解析 篇章结构题。由题干提示定位至第三段。本段主要对男女主人公所处的环境进行了细致的描写。小说中的景物描写是为故事情节发展做铺垫的,因此作者没有必要将此处的景物与别处相比较,这样做对情节发展和人物性格起不到任何作用,因此[C]符合题意。本段的景物描写给人一种静谧安详的气氛,为男女主人公微妙的心理活动创造了氛围,因此[A]符合文意,故排除;这段景物描写也提供了必要的信息,交代了男女主人公这段故事发生的地点,因此[B]符合文意,故排除;小说中的景物描写同时也起着推动情节发展的作用,这样安静和谐的夜色促进了男女主人公情感的发展,因此[D]符合文意,故排除。
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