首页
登录
职称英语
In the summer of 1896, Mr. William Holt, a wealthy manufacturer of Chicago,
In the summer of 1896, Mr. William Holt, a wealthy manufacturer of Chicago,
游客
2023-12-12
29
管理
问题
In the summer of 1896, Mr. William Holt, a wealthy manufacturer of Chicago, was living temporarily in a little town of central New York, the name of which the writer’s memory has not retained. Mr. Holt had had "trouble with his wife, " from whom he had parted a year before. Whether the trouble was anything more serious than "incompatibility of temper, " he is probably the only living person that knows:he is not addicted to the vice of confidences.
One evening he had left the house of a brother whom he was visiting, for a stroll in the country. It may be assumed—whatever the value of the assumption in connection with what is said to have occurred—that his mind was occupied with reflections on his domestic infelicities and the distressing changes that they had wrought in his life.
Whatever may have been his thoughts, they so possessed him that he observed neither the lapse of time nor whither his feet were carrying him; he knew only that he had passed far beyond the town limits and was traversing a lonely region by a road that bore no resemblance to the one by which he had left the village. In brief, he was "lost."
Realizing his mischance, he smiled; central New York is not a region of perils, nor does one long remain lost in it. He turned about and went back the way that he had come. Before he had gone far he observed that the landscape was growing more distinct- was brightening. Everything was suffused with a soft, red glow in which he saw his shadow projected in the road before him. "The moon is rising, " he said to himself. Then he remembered that it was about the time of the new moon, and if that tricksy orb was in one of its stages of visibility it had set long before. He stopped and faced about, seeking the source of the rapidly broadening light. As he did so, his shadow turned and lay along the road in front of him as before. The light still came from behind him. That was surprising! he could not understand. Again he turned, and again, facing successively to every point of the horizon. Always the shadow was before- always the light behind, "a still and awful red."
Holt was astonished—"dumfounded"is the word that he used in telling it—yet seems to have retained a certain intelligent curiosity. To test the intensity of the light whose nature and cause he could not determine, he took out his watch to see if he could make out the figures on the dial. They were plainly visible, and the hands indicated the hour of eleven o’clock and twenty-five minutes. At that moment the mysterious illumination suddenly flared to an intense, an almost blinding splendor, flushing the entire sky, extinguishing the stars and throwing the monstrous shadow of himself athwart the landscape. In that unearthly illumination he saw near him, but apparently in the air at a considerable elevation, the figure of his wife, clad in her night-clothing and holding to her breast the figure of his child. Her eyes were fixed upon his wife with an expression which he afterward professed himself unable to name or describe, further than that it was "not of this life."
The flare was momentary, followed by black darkness, in which, however, the apparition still showed white and motionless; then by insensible degrees it faded and vanished, like a bright image on the retina after the closing of the eyes. A peculiarity of the apparition, hardly noted at the time, but afterward recalled, was that it showed only the upper half of the woman’s figure:nothing was seen below the waist.
The sudden darkness was comparative, not absolute, for gradually all objects of his environment became again visible.
In the dawn of the morning Holt found himself entering the village at a point opposite to that at which he had left it. He soon arrived at the house of his brother, who hardly knew him. He was wild-eyed, haggard, and gray as a rat. Almost incoherently, he related his night’s experience.
"Go to bed, my poor fellow, " said his brother, "and—wait. We shall hear more of this."
An hour later came the predestined telegram. Holt’s dwelling in one of the suburbs of Chicago had been destroyed by fire. Her escape cut off by the flames, his wife had appeared at an upper window, her child in her arms. There she had stood, motionless, apparently dazed. Just as the firemen had arrived with a ladder, the floor had given way, and she was seen no more.
The moment of this culminating horror was eleven o’clock and twenty-five minutes, standard time. [br] The word "infelicities" in Paragraph 2 probably means
选项
A、trifles.
B、adversities.
C、possessions.
D、matters.
答案
B
解析
语义题。本文开篇首段就提到了Holt的情况“Mr.Holt had had‘trouble with his wife,’fromwhom he had parted a year before.”,第二段末句“his mind was occupied with reflections on his domestic infelicities and the distressing changes that they had wrought in his life”中的they指代前面刚刚提到的infelicities,从distressing(令人痛苦的)changes可以看出与妻子离婚这件事情给他带来了痛苦,对他而言是件不幸的事,故[B]符合文意。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3267688.html
相关试题推荐
WhichofthefollowingisNOTaRomanticpoet?A、WilliamWordsworth.B、GeorgeEll
TheheadquartersofCNNandCoca-ColaareinthecenterofA、Atlanta.B、Chicago.
WhichisNOTShakespeare’scomedy?A、AMidsummerNight’sDream.B、AsYouLikeIt.
TheAgeofWilliamShakespeareisalsocalledthesecondperiodofA、Elizabethan
ThenovelForWhomtheBellTollsiswrittenbyA、ScottFitzgerald.B、WilliamFau
WhichofthefollowingnovelistswroteTheSoundandtheFury?A、WilliamFaulkner
TheFinancieriswrittenbyA、MarkTwain.B、HenryJames.C、WilliamFaulkner.D、Th
WilliamMakepeaceThackeray’smostfamousworkisA、TheSchoolforScandal.B、Pas
WilliamWordsworthisanEnglishA、poet.B、novelist.C、playwright.D、critic.A考查英
WilliamShakespearedescribedoldageas"secondchildishness"—sansteeth,
随机试题
ThingstobeTaughtinEverySchoolⅠ.Introduction:Importanceofstude
为了提升市场竞争地位,某汽车制造企业成立跑车事业部,投资研发运动型硬顶敞篷跑车,
在买卖合同中,买受人的义务有()。A.对标的物提供质量保证 B.受领标的物
根据上图,下列说法正确的是()。 A.2004年以来,每生产一把该型号职
某社区为地方性氟中毒流行区,一般认为氟骨症多见的年龄段为()。A.幼儿 B
肥胖症小儿肝超声显示有A.肝硬化 B.脂肪肝 C.肝脓肿 D.肝内胆管结石
油务工作人员在取、放、加油和滤油作业时,现场严禁烟火并应有防火措施,做到油不漏在
C2C网站的主要利润来源是()。A.支付环节收费 B.交易提成 C.广告费
"大鱼"号货轮在航行中遇雷暴天气,船上部分货物失火燃烧,大火蔓延到机舱。船长为灭
一位50多岁男患者,患慢支肺气肿多年,某日上午因用力咳嗽,突感胸痛气促,立即被送
最新回复
(
0
)