-
(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
It Can't Happen Here
by Sinclair Lewis
Chapter 35
In his two years of dictatorship, Berzelius Windrip daily became more a miser1 of power. He continued to tell himself that his main ambition was to make all citizens healthy, in purse and mind, and that if he was brutal2 it was only toward fools and reactionaries3 who wanted the old clumsy systems. But after eighteen months of Presidency4 he was angry that Mexico and Canada and South America (obviously his own property, by manifest destiny) should curtly6 answer his curt5 diplomatic notes and show no helpfulness about becoming part of his inevitable7 empire.
And daily he wanted louder, more convincing Yeses from everybody about him. How could he carry on his heartbreaking labor8 if nobody ever encouraged him? he demanded. Anyone, from Sarason to inter-office messenger, who did not play valet to his ego9 he suspected of plotting against him. He constantly increased his bodyguard10, and as constantly distrusted all his guards and discharged them, and once took a shot at a couple of them, so that in all the world he had no companion save his old aide Lee Sarason, and perhaps Hector Macgoblin, to whom he could talk easily.
He felt lonely in the hours when he wanted to shuck off the duties of despotism along with his shoes and his fine new coat. He no longer went out racketing. His cabinet begged him not to clown in barrooms and lodge12 entertainments; it was not dignified13, and it was dangerous to be too near to strangers.
So he played poker14 with his bodyguard, late at night, and at such times drank too much, and he cursed them and glared with bulging15 eyes whenever he lost, which, for all the good-will of his guards about letting him win, had to be often, because he pinched their salaries badly and locked up the spoons. He had become as unbouncing and unbuzzing a Buzz as might be, and he did not know it.
All the while he loved the People just as much as he feared and detested16 Persons, and he planned to do something historic. Certainly! He would give each family that five thousand dollars a year just as soon now as he could arrange it.
And Lee Sarason, forever making his careful lists, as patient at his desk as he was pleasure-hungry on the couch at midnight parties, was beguiling17 officials to consider him their real lord and the master of Corpoism. He kept his promises to them, while Windrip always forgot. His office door became the door of ambition. In Washington, the reporters privily18 spoke19 of this assistant secretary and that general as "Sarason men." His clique20 was not a government within a government; it was the government itself, minus the megaphones. He had the Secretary of Corporations (a former vice-president of the American Federation21 of Labor) coming to him secretly every evening, to report on labor politics and in especial on such proletarian leaders as were dissatisfied with Windrip as Chief--i.e., with their own share in the swag. He had from the Secretary of the Treasury22 (though this functionary23, one Webster Skittle, was not a lieutenant24 of Sarason but merely friendly) confidential26 reports on the affairs of those large employers who, since under Corpoism it was usually possible for a millionaire to persuade the judges in the labor-arbitration courts to look at things reasonably, rejoiced that with strikes outlawed27 and employers regarded as state officials, they would now be in secure power forever.
Sarason knew the quiet ways in which these reinforced industrial barons28 used arrests by the M.M.'s to get rid of "trouble-makers," particularly of Jewish radicals--a Jewish radical29 being a Jew with nobody working for him. (Some of the barons were themselves Jews; it is not to be expected that race-loyalty should be carried so insanely far as to weaken the pocketbook.)
The allegiance of all such Negroes as had the sense to be content with safety and good pay instead of ridiculous yearnings for personal integrity Sarason got by being photographed shaking hands with the celebrated30 Negro Fundamentalist clergyman, the Reverend Dr. Alexander Nibbs, and through the highly publicized Sarason Prizes for the Negroes with the largest families, the fastest time in floor-scrubbing, and the longest periods of work without taking a vacation.
"No danger of our good friends, the Negroes, turning Red when they're encouraged like that," Sarason announced to the newspapers.
It was a satisfaction to Sarason that in Germany, all military bands were now playing his national song, "Buzz and Buzz" along with the Horst Wessel hymn31, for, though he had not exactly written the music as well as the words, the music was now being attributed to him abroad.
As a bank clerk might, quite rationally, worry equally over the whereabouts of a hundred million dollars' worth of the bank's bonds, and of ten cents of his own lunch money, so Buzz Windrip worried equally over the welfare--that is, the obedience32 to himself--of a hundred and thirty-odd million American citizens and the small matter of the moods of Lee Sarason, whose approval of him was the one real fame. (His wife Windrip did not see oftener than once a week, and anyway, what that rustic33 wench thought was unimportant.)
The diabolic Hector Macgoblin frightened him; Secretary of War Luthorne and Vice-President Perley Beecroft he liked well enough, but they bored him; they smacked34 too much of his own small-town boyhood, to escape which he was willing to take the responsibilities of a nation. It was the incalculable Lee Sarason on whom he depended, and the Lee with whom he had gone fishing and boozing and once, even, murdering, who had seemed his own self made more sure and articulate, had thoughts now which he could not penetrate35. Lee's smile was a veil, not a revelation.
It was to discipline Lee, with the hope of bringing him back, that when Buzz replaced the amiable36 but clumsy Colonel Luthorne as Secretary of War by Colonel Dewey Haik, Commissioner37 of the Northeastern Province (Buzz's characteristic comment was that Luthorne was not "pulling his weight"), he also gave to Haik the position of High Marshal of the M.M.'s, which Lee had held along with a dozen other offices. From Lee he expected an explosion, then repentance38 and a new friendship. But Lee only said, "Very well, if you wish," and said it coldly.
Just how could he get Lee to be a good boy and come play with him again? wistfully wondered the man who now and then planned to be emperor of the world.
He gave Lee a thousand-dollar television set. Even more coldly did Lee thank him, and never spoke afterward39 of how well he might be receiving the still shaky television broadcasts on his beautiful new set.
As Dewey Haik took hold, doubling efficiency in both the regular army and the Minute Men (he was a demon40 for all-night practice marches in heavy order, and the files could not complain, because he set the example), Buzz began to wonder whether Haik might not be his new confidant. . . . He really would hate to throw Lee into prison, but still, Lee was so thoughtless about hurting his feelings, when he'd gone and done so much for him and all!
Buzz was confused. He was the more confused when Perley Beecroft came in and briefly41 said that he was sick of all this bloodshed and was going home to the farm, and as for his lofty Vice-Presidential office, Buzz knew what he could do with it.
Were these vast national dissensions no different from squabbles in his father's drugstore? fretted42 Buzz. He couldn't very well have Beecroft shot: it might cause criticism. But it was indecent, it was sacrilegious to annoy an emperor, and in his irritation43 he had an ex-Senator and twelve workmen who were in concentration camps taken out and shot on the charge that they had told irreverent stories about him.
Secretary of State Sarason was saying good-night to President Windrip in the hotel suite44 where Windrip really lived.
No newspaper had dared mention it, but Buzz was both bothered by the stateliness of the White House and frightened by the number of Reds and cranks and anti-Corpos who, with the most commendable45 patience and ingenuity46, tried to sneak47 into that historic mansion48 and murder him. Buzz merely left his wife there, for show, and, except at great receptions, never entered any part of the White House save the office annex49.
He liked this hotel suite; he was a sensible man, who preferred straight bourbon, codfish cakes, and deep leather chairs to Burgundy, trout50 bleu, and Louis Quinze. In this twelve-room apartment, occupying the entire tenth floor of a small unnotorious hotel, he had for himself only a plain bedroom, a huge living room which looked like a combination of office and hotel lobby, a large liquor closet, another closet with thirty-seven suits of clothes, and a bathroom with jars and jars of the pine-flavored bath salts which were his only cosmetic51 luxury. Buzz might come home in a suit dazzling as a horse blanket, one considered in Alfalfa Center a triumph of London tailoring, but, once safe, he liked to put on his red morocco slippers52 that were down at the heel and display his red suspenders and baby-blue sleeve garters. To feel correct in those decorations, he preferred the hotel atmosphere that, for so many years before he had ever seen the White House, had been as familiar to him as his ancestral corn cribs and Main Streets.
The other ten rooms of the suite, entirely53 shutting his own off from the corridors and elevators, were filled night and day with guards. To get through to Buzz in this intimate place of his own was very much like visiting a police station for the purpose of seeing a homicidal prisoner.
"Haik seems to me to be doing a fine job in the War Department, Lee," said the President. "Of course you know if you ever want the job of High Marshal back--"
"I'm quite satisfied," said the great Secretary of State.
"What do you think of having Colonel Luthorne back to help Haik out? He's pretty good on fool details."
Sarason looked as nearly embarrassed as the self-satisfied Lee Sarason ever could look.
"Good God! Luthorne killed? Why didn't I know it?"
"It was thought better to keep it quiet. He was a pretty popular man. But dangerous. Always talking about Abraham Lincoln!"
"So I just never know anything about what's going on! Why, even the newspaper clippings are predigested, by God, before I see 'em!"
"It's thought better not to bother you with minor57 details, boss. You know that! Of course, if you feel I haven't organized your staff correctly--"
"Aw now, don't fly off the handle, Lee! I just meant--Of course I know how hard you've tried to protect me so I could give all my brains to the higher problems of State. But Luthorne--I kind of liked him. He always had quite a funny line when we played poker." Buzz Windrip felt lonely, as once a certain Shad Ledue had felt, in a hotel suite that differed from Buzz's only in being smaller. To forget it he bawled58, very brightly, "Lee, do you ever wonder what'll happen in the future?"
"Why, I think you and I may have mentioned it."
"But golly, just think of what might happen in the future, Lee! Think of it! Why, we may be able to pull off a North American kingdom!" Buzz half meant it seriously--or perhaps quarter meant it. "How'd you like to be Duke of Georgia--or Grand Duke, or whatever they call a Grand Exalted59 Ruler of the Elks60 in this peerage business? And then how about an Empire of North and South America after that? I might make you a king under me, then--say something like King of Mexico. Howjuh like that?"
"Be very amusing," said Lee mechanically--as Lee always did say the same thing mechanically whenever Buzz repeated this same nonsense.
"But you got to stick by me and not forget all I've done for you, Lee, don't forget that."
"I never forget anything! . . . By the way, we ought to liquidate54, or at least imprison61, Perley Beecroft, too. He's still technically62 Vice-President of the United States, and if the lousy traitor63 managed some skullduggery so as to get you killed or deposed64, he might be regarded by some narrow-minded literalists as President!"
"All right. You're the boss. G'night," said Lee, and returned from this plumber's dream of paradise to his own gold-and-black and apricot-silk bower66 in Georgetown, which he shared with several handsome young M.M. officers. They were savage67 soldiers, yet apt at music and at poetry. With them, he was not in the least passionless, as he seemed now to Buzz Windrip. He was either angry with his young friends, and then he whipped them, or he was in a paroxysm of apology to them, and caressed68 their wounds. Newspapermen who had once seemed to be his friends said that he had traded the green eyeshade for a wreath of violets.
At cabinet meeting, late in 1938, Secretary of State Sarason revealed to the heads of the government disturbing news. Vice-President Beecroft--and had he not told them the man should have been shot?--had fled to Canada, renounced69 Corpoism, and joined Walt Trowbridge in plotting. There were bubbles from an almost boiling rebellion in the Middle West and Northwest, especially in Minnesota and the Dakotas, where agitators70, some of them formerly71 of political influence, were demanding that their states secede72 from the Corpo Union and form a cooperative (indeed almost Socialistic) commonwealth73 of their own.
"Rats! Just a lot of irresponsible wind bags!" jeered74 President Windrip. "Why! I thought you were supposed to be the camera-eyed gink that kept up on everything that goes on, Lee! You forget that I myself, personally, made a special radio address to that particular section of the country last week! And I got a wonderful reaction. The Middle Westerners are absolutely loyal to me. They appreciate what I've been trying to do!"
Not answering him at all, Sarason demanded that, in order to bring and hold all elements in the country together by that useful Patriotism75 which always appears upon threat of an outside attack, the government immediately arrange to be insulted and menaced in a well-planned series of deplorable "incidents" on the Mexican border, and declare war on Mexico as soon as America showed that it was getting hot and patriotic76 enough.
Secretary of the Treasury Skittle and Attorney General Porkwood shook their heads, but Secretary of War Haik and Secretary of Education Macgoblin agreed with Sarason high-mindedly. Once, pointed77 out the learned Macgoblin, governments had merely let themselves slide into a war, thanking Providence78 for having provided a conflict as a febrifuge against internal discontent, but of course, in this age of deliberate, planned propaganda, a really modern government like theirs must figure out what brand of war they had to sell and plan the selling-campaign consciously. Now, as for him, he would be willing to leave the whole set-up to the advertising79 genius of Brother Sarason.
"No, no, no!" cried Windrip. "We're not ready for a war! Of course, we'll take Mexico some day. It's our destiny to control it and Christianize it. But I'm scared that your darn scheme might work just opposite to what you say. You put arms into the hands of too many irresponsible folks, and they might use 'em and turn against you and start a revolution and throw the whole dern gang of us out! No, no! I've often wondered if the whole Minute Men business, with their arms and training, may not be a mistake. That was your idea, Lee, not mine!"
Sarason spoke evenly: "My dear Buzz, one day you thank me for originating that 'great crusade of citizen soldiers defending their homes'--as you love to call it on the radio--and the next day you almost ruin your clothes, you're so scared of them. Make up your mind one way or the other!"
Sarason walked out of the room, not bowing.
Windrip complained, "I'm not going to stand for Lee's talking to me like that! Why, the dirty double-crosser, I made him! One of these days, he'll find a new secretary of state around this joint81! I s'pose he thinks jobs like that grow on every tree! Maybe he'd like to be a bank president or something--I mean, maybe he'd like to be Emperor of England!"
President Windrip, in his hotel bedroom, was awakened82 late at night by the voice of a guard in the outer room: "Yuh, sure, let him pass--he's the Secretary of State." Nervously83 the President clicked on his bedside lamp. . . . He had needed it lately, to read himself to sleep.
In that limited glow he saw Lee Sarason, Dewey Haik, and Dr. Hector Macgoblin march to the side of his bed. Lee's thin sharp face was like flour. His deep-buried eyes were those of a sleepwalker. His skinny right hand held a bowie knife which, as his hand deliberately84 rose, was lost in the dimness. Windrip swiftly thought: Sure would be hard to know where to buy a dagger85, in Washington; and Windrip thought: All this is the doggonedest foolishness--just like a movie or one of these old history books when you were a kid; and Windrip thought, all in that same flash: Good God, I'm going to be killed!
He cried out, "Lee! You couldn't do that to me!"
Then the Berzelius Windrip who could, incredibly, become President really awoke: "Lee! Do you remember the time when your old mother was so sick, and I gave you my last cent and loaned you my flivver so you could go see her, and I hitch-hiked to my next meeting? Lee!"
"Hell. I suppose so. General."
"Yes?" answered Dewey Haik, not very pleasantly.
"I think we'll stick him on a destroyer or something and let him sneak off to France or England. . . . The lousy coward seems afraid to die. . . . Of course, we'll kill him if he ever does dare to come back to the States. Take him out and phone the Secretary of the Navy for a boat and get him on it, will you?"
"Very well, sir," said Haik, even less pleasantly.
It had been easy. The troops, who obeyed Haik, as Secretary of War, had occupied all of Washington.
Ten days later Buzz Windrip was landed in Havre and went sighingly to Paris. It was his first view of Europe except for one twenty-one-day Cook's Tour. He was profoundly homesick for Chesterfield cigarettes, flapjacks, Moon Mullins, and the sound of some real human being saying "Yuh, what's bitin' you?" instead of this perpetual sappy "oui?"
In Paris he remained, though he became the sort of minor hero of tragedy, like the ex-King of Greece, Kerensky, the Russian Grand Dukes, Jimmy Walker, and a few ex-presidents from South America and Cuba, who is delighted to accept invitations to drawing rooms where the champagne87 is good enough and one may have a chance of finding people, now and then, who will listen to one's story and say "sir."
At that, though, Buzz chuckled88, he had kinda put it over on those crooks89, for during his two sweet years of despotism he had sent four million dollars abroad, to secret, safe accounts. And so Buzz Windrip passed into wabbly paragraphs in recollections by ex-diplomatic gentlemen with monocles. In what remained of Ex-President Windrip's life, everything was ex. He was even so far forgotten that only four or five American students tried to shoot him.
The more dulcetly they had once advised and flattered Buzz, the more ardently90 did most of his former followers91, Macgoblin and Senator Porkwood and Dr. Almeric Trout and the rest, turn in loud allegiance to the new President, the Hon. Lee Sarason.
He issued a proclamation that he had discovered that Windrip had been embezzling92 the people's money and plotting with Mexico to avoid war with that guilty country; and that he, Sarason, in quite alarming grief and reluctance93, since he more than anyone else had been deceived by his supposed friend, Windrip, had yielded to the urging of the Cabinet and taken over the Presidency, instead of Vice-President Beecroft, the exiled traitor.
President Sarason immediately began appointing the fancier of his young officer friends to the most responsible offices in State and army. It amused him, seemingly, to shock people by making a pink-cheeked, moist-eyed boy of twenty-five Commissioner of the Federal District, which included Washington and Maryland. Was he not supreme94, was he not semi-divine, like a Roman emperor? Could he not defy all the muddy mob that he (once a Socialist) had, for its weak shiftlessness, come to despise?
"Would that the American people had just one neck!" he plagiarized95, among his laughing boys.
In the decorous White House of Coolidge and Harrison and Rutherford Birchard Hayes he had orgies (an old name for "parties") with weaving limbs and garlands and wine in pretty fair imitations of Roman beakers.
It was hard for imprisoned96 men like Doremus Jessup to believe it, but there were some tens of thousands of Corpos, in the M.M.'s, in civil service, in the army, and just in private ways, to whom Sarason's flippant régime was tragic97.
They were the Idealists of Corpoism, and there were plenty of them, along with the bullies98 and swindlers; they were the men and women who, in 1935 and 1936, had turned to Windrip & Co., not as perfect, but as the most probable saviors of the country from, on one hand, domination by Moscow and, on the other hand, the slack indolence, the lack of decent pride of half the American youth, whose world (these idealists asserted) was composed of shiftless distaste for work and refusal to learn anything thoroughly99, of blatting dance music on the radio, maniac100 automobiles101, slobbering sexuality, the humor and art of comic strips--of a slave psychology102 which was making America a land for sterner men to loot.
General Emmanuel Coon was one of the Corpo Idealists.
Such men did not condone103 the murders under the Corpo régime. But they insisted, "This is a revolution, and after all, when in all history has there been a revolution with so little bloodshed?"
They were aroused by the pageantry of Corpoism: enormous demonstrations104, with the red-and-black flags a flaunting105 magnificence like storm clouds. They were proud of new Corpo roads, hospitals, television stations, aeroplane lines; they were touched by processions of the Corpo Youth, whose faces were exalted with pride in the myths of Corpo heroism106 and clean Spartan107 strength and the semi-divinity of the all-protecting Father, President Windrip. They believed, they made themselves believe, that in Windrip had come alive again the virtues108 of Andy Jackson and Farragut and Jeb Stuart, in place of the mob cheapness of the professional athletes who had been the only heroes of 1935.
They planned, these idealists, to correct, as quickly as might be, the errors of brutality109 and crookedness110 among officials. They saw arising a Corpo art, a Corpo learning, profound and real, divested111 of the traditional snobbishness112 of the old-time universities, valiant113 with youth, and only the more beautiful in that it was "useful." They were convinced that Corpoism was Communism cleansed114 of foreign domination and the violence and indignity116 of mob dictatorship; Monarchism with the chosen hero of the people for monarch117; Fascism without grasping and selfish leaders; freedom with order and discipline; Traditional America without its waste and provincial118 cockiness.
Like all religious zealots, they had blessed capacity for blindness, and they were presently convinced that (since the only newspapers they ever read certainly said nothing about it) there were no more of blood-smeared cruelties in court and concentration camp; no restrictions119 of speech or thought. They believed that they never criticized the Corpo régime not because they were censored120, but because "that sort of thing was, like obscenity, such awfully121 bad form."
And these idealists were as shocked and bewildered by Sarason's coup11 d'état against Windrip as was Mr. Berzelius Windrip himself.
The grim Secretary of War, Haik, scolded at President Sarason for his influence on the nation, particularly on the troops. Lee laughed at him, but once he was sufficiently122 flattered by Haik's tribute to his artistic123 powers to write a poem for him. It was a poem which was later to be sung by millions; it was, in fact, the most popular of the soldiers' ballads124 which were to spring automatically from anonymous125 soldier bards127 during the war between the United States and Mexico. Only, being as pious128 a believer in Modern Advertising as Sarason himself, the efficient Haik wanted to encourage the spontaneous generation of these patriotic folk ballads by providing the automatic springing and the anonymous bard126. He had as much foresight129, as much "prophetic engineering," as a motorcar manufacturer.
Sarason was as eager for war with Mexico (or Ethiopia or Siam or Greenland or any other country that would provide his pet young painters with a chance to portray130 Sarason being heroic amid curious vegetation) as Haik; not only to give malcontents something outside the country to be cross about, but also to give himself a chance to be picturesque131. He answered Haik's request by writing a rollicking military chorus at a time while the country was still theoretically entirely friendly with Mexico. It went to the tune132 of "Mademoiselle from Armentières"--or "Armenteers." If the Spanish in it was a little shaky, still, millions were later to understand that "Habla oo?" stood for "¿Habla usted?" signifying "Parlez-vous?" It ran thus, as it came from Sarason's purple but smoking typewriter:
Señorita from Guadalupe,
Qui usted?
Or come to bed!
Señorita from Guadalupe
If Padre sees us we're in the soup,
Hinky, dinky, habla oo?
Señorita from Monterey,
Señorita what's that you say?
You're Swede, Ay tank!
But Señorita from Monterey,
You won't hablar when we hit the hay,
Hinky, dinky, habla oo?
Señorita from Mazatlán,
Once we've met,
You'll smile all over your khaki pan,
For days you'll holler, "Oh, what a man!"
And you'll never marry a Mexican.
Hinky, dinky, habla oo?
If at times President Sarason seemed flippant, he was not at all so during his part in the scientific preparation for war which consisted in rehearsing M.M. choruses in trolling out this ditty with well-trained spontaneity.
His friend Hector Macgoblin, now Secretary of State, told Sarason that this manly136 chorus was one of his greatest creations. Macgoblin, though personally he did not join in Sarason's somewhat unusual midnight diversions, was amused by them, and he often told Sarason that he was the only original creative genius among this whole bunch of stuffed shirts, including Haik.
"You want to watch that cuss Haik, Lee," said Macgoblin. "He's ambitious, he's a gorilla137, and he's a pious Puritan, and that's a triple combination I'm scared of. The troops like him."
"Rats! He has no attraction for them. He's just an accurate military bookkeeper," said Sarason.
That night he had a party at which, for a novelty, rather shocking to his intimates, he actually had girls present, performing certain curious dances. The next morning Haik rebuked138 him, and--Sarason had a hangover--was stormed at. That night, just a month after Sarason had usurped139 the Presidency, Haik struck.
There was no melodramatic dagger-and-uplifted-arm business about it, this time--though Haik did traditionally come late, for all Fascists140, like all drunkards, seem to function most vigorously at night. Haik marched into the White House with his picked storm troops, found President Sarason in violet silk pajamas141 among his friends, shot Sarason and most of his companions dead, and proclaimed himself President.
Hector Macgoblin fled by aeroplane to Cuba, then on. When last seen, he was living high up in the mountains of Haiti, wearing only a singlet, dirty white-drill trousers, grass sandals, and a long tan beard; very healthy and happy, occupying a one-room hut with a lovely native girl, practicing modern medicine and studying ancient voodoo.
When Dewey Haik became President, then America really did begin to suffer a little, and to long for the good old democratic, liberal days of Windrip.
Windrip and Sarason had not minded mirth and dancing in the street so long as they could be suitably taxed. Haik disliked such things on principle. Except, perhaps, that he was an atheist142 in theology, he was a strict orthodox Christian80. He was the first to tell the populace that they were not going to get any five thousand dollars a year but, instead, "reap the profits of Discipline and of the Scientific Totalitarian State not in mere25 paper figures but in vast dividends143 of Pride, Patriotism, and Power." He kicked out of the army all officers who could not endure marching and going thirsty; and out of the civil branch all commissioners--including one Francis Tasbrough--who had garnered144 riches too easily and too obviously.
He treated the entire nation like a well-run plantation145, on which the slaves were better fed than formerly, less often cheated by their overseers, and kept so busy that they had time only for work and for sleep, and thus fell rarely into the debilitating146 vices147 of laughter, song (except war songs against Mexico), complaint, or thinking. Under Haik there were less floggings in M.M. posts and in concentration camps, for by his direction officers were not to waste time in the sport of beating persons, men, women, or children, who asserted that they didn't care to be slaves on even the best plantation, but just to shoot them out of hand.
Haik made such use of the clergy--Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Liberal-Agnostic--as Windrip and Sarason never had. While there were plenty of ministers who, like Mr. Falck and Father Stephen Perefixe, like Cardinal148 Faulhaber and Pastor149 Niemoeller in Germany, considered it some part of Christian duty to resent the enslavement and torture of their appointed flocks, there were also plenty of reverend celebrities150, particularly large-city pastors151 whose sermons were reported in the newspapers every Monday morning, to whom Corpoism had given a chance to be noisily and lucratively152 patriotic. These were the chaplains-at-heart, who, if there was no war in which they could humbly153 help to purify and comfort the poor brave boys who were fighting, were glad to help provide such a war.
These more practical shepherds, since like doctors and lawyers they were able to steal secrets out of the heart, became valued spies during the difficult months after February, 1939, when Haik was working up war with Mexico. (Canada? Japan? Russia? They would come later.) For even with an army of slaves, it was necessary to persuade them that they were freemen and fighters for the principle of freedom, or otherwise the scoundrels might cross over and join the enemy!
So reigned154 the good king Haik, and if there was anyone in all the land who was discontented, you never heard him speak--not twice.
And in the White House, where under Sarason shameless youths had danced, under the new reign115 of righteousness and the blackjack, Mrs. Haik, a lady with eyeglasses and a smile of resolute155 cordiality, gave to the W.C.T.U., the Y.W.C.A., and the Ladies' League against Red Radicalism156, and their inherently incidental husbands, a magnified and hand-colored Washington version of just such parties as she had once given in the Haik bungalow157 in Eglantine, Oregon.
点击收听单词发音
1 miser | |
n.守财奴,吝啬鬼 (adj.miserly) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 brutal | |
adj.残忍的,野蛮的,不讲理的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 reactionaries | |
n.反动分子,反动派( reactionary的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 presidency | |
n.总统(校长,总经理)的职位(任期) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 curt | |
adj.简短的,草率的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 curtly | |
adv.简短地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 inevitable | |
adj.不可避免的,必然发生的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 labor | |
n.劳动,努力,工作,劳工;分娩;vi.劳动,努力,苦干;vt.详细分析;麻烦 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 ego | |
n.自我,自己,自尊 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 bodyguard | |
n.护卫,保镖 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 coup | |
n.政变;突然而成功的行动 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 lodge | |
v.临时住宿,寄宿,寄存,容纳;n.传达室,小旅馆 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 dignified | |
a.可敬的,高贵的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 poker | |
n.扑克;vt.烙制 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 bulging | |
膨胀; 凸出(部); 打气; 折皱 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 detested | |
v.憎恶,嫌恶,痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 beguiling | |
adj.欺骗的,诱人的v.欺骗( beguile的现在分词 );使陶醉;使高兴;消磨(时间等) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 privily | |
adv.暗中,秘密地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 spoke | |
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 clique | |
n.朋党派系,小集团 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 federation | |
n.同盟,联邦,联合,联盟,联合会 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 treasury | |
n.宝库;国库,金库;文库 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 functionary | |
n.官员;公职人员 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 lieutenant | |
n.陆军中尉,海军上尉;代理官员,副职官员 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 confidential | |
adj.秘(机)密的,表示信任的,担任机密工作的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 outlawed | |
宣布…为不合法(outlaw的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28 barons | |
男爵( baron的名词复数 ); 巨头; 大王; 大亨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
29 radical | |
n.激进份子,原子团,根号;adj.根本的,激进的,彻底的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
30 celebrated | |
adj.有名的,声誉卓著的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
31 hymn | |
n.赞美诗,圣歌,颂歌 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
32 obedience | |
n.服从,顺从 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
33 rustic | |
adj.乡村的,有乡村特色的;n.乡下人,乡巴佬 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
34 smacked | |
拍,打,掴( smack的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
35 penetrate | |
v.透(渗)入;刺入,刺穿;洞察,了解 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
36 amiable | |
adj.和蔼可亲的,友善的,亲切的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
37 commissioner | |
n.(政府厅、局、处等部门)专员,长官,委员 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
38 repentance | |
n.懊悔 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
39 afterward | |
adv.后来;以后 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
40 demon | |
n.魔鬼,恶魔 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
41 briefly | |
adv.简单地,简短地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
42 fretted | |
焦躁的,附有弦马的,腐蚀的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
43 irritation | |
n.激怒,恼怒,生气 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
44 suite | |
n.一套(家具);套房;随从人员 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
45 commendable | |
adj.值得称赞的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
46 ingenuity | |
n.别出心裁;善于发明创造 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
47 sneak | |
vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝);偷偷摸摸做;n.潜行;adj.暗中进行 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
48 mansion | |
n.大厦,大楼;宅第 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
49 annex | |
vt.兼并,吞并;n.附属建筑物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
50 trout | |
n.鳟鱼;鲑鱼(属) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
51 cosmetic | |
n.化妆品;adj.化妆用的;装门面的;装饰性的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
52 slippers | |
n. 拖鞋 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
53 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
54 liquidate | |
v.偿付,清算,扫除;整理,破产 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
55 liquidated | |
v.清算( liquidate的过去式和过去分词 );清除(某人);清偿;变卖 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
56 purge | |
n.整肃,清除,泻药,净化;vt.净化,清除,摆脱;vi.清除,通便,腹泻,变得清洁 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
57 minor | |
adj.较小(少)的,较次要的;n.辅修学科;vi.辅修 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
58 bawled | |
v.大叫,大喊( bawl的过去式和过去分词 );放声大哭;大声叫出;叫卖(货物) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
59 exalted | |
adj.(地位等)高的,崇高的;尊贵的,高尚的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
60 elks | |
n.麋鹿( elk的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
61 imprison | |
vt.监禁,关押,限制,束缚 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
62 technically | |
adv.专门地,技术上地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
63 traitor | |
n.叛徒,卖国贼 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
64 deposed | |
v.罢免( depose的过去式和过去分词 );(在法庭上)宣誓作证 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
65 wailed | |
v.哭叫,哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
66 bower | |
n.凉亭,树荫下凉快之处;闺房;v.荫蔽 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
67 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
68 caressed | |
爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
69 renounced | |
v.声明放弃( renounce的过去式和过去分词 );宣布放弃;宣布与…决裂;宣布摒弃 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
70 agitators | |
n.(尤指政治变革的)鼓动者( agitator的名词复数 );煽动者;搅拌器;搅拌机 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
71 formerly | |
adv.从前,以前 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
72 secede | |
v.退出,脱离 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
73 commonwealth | |
n.共和国,联邦,共同体 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
74 jeered | |
v.嘲笑( jeer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
75 patriotism | |
n.爱国精神,爱国心,爱国主义 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
76 patriotic | |
adj.爱国的,有爱国心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
77 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
78 providence | |
n.深谋远虑,天道,天意;远见;节约;上帝 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
79 advertising | |
n.广告业;广告活动 a.广告的;广告业务的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
80 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
81 joint | |
adj.联合的,共同的;n.关节,接合处;v.连接,贴合 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
82 awakened | |
v.(使)醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 );(使)觉醒;弄醒;(使)意识到 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
83 nervously | |
adv.神情激动地,不安地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
84 deliberately | |
adv.审慎地;蓄意地;故意地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
85 dagger | |
n.匕首,短剑,剑号 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
86 grunted | |
(猪等)作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 ); (指人)发出类似的哼声; 咕哝着说 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
87 champagne | |
n.香槟酒;微黄色 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
88 chuckled | |
轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
89 crooks | |
n.骗子( crook的名词复数 );罪犯;弯曲部分;(牧羊人或主教用的)弯拐杖v.弯成钩形( crook的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
90 ardently | |
adv.热心地,热烈地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
91 followers | |
追随者( follower的名词复数 ); 用户; 契据的附面; 从动件 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
92 embezzling | |
v.贪污,盗用(公款)( embezzle的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
93 reluctance | |
n.厌恶,讨厌,勉强,不情愿 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
94 supreme | |
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
95 plagiarized | |
v.剽窃,抄袭( plagiarize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
96 imprisoned | |
下狱,监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
97 tragic | |
adj.悲剧的,悲剧性的,悲惨的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
98 bullies | |
n.欺凌弱小者, 开球 vt.恐吓, 威胁, 欺负 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
99 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
100 maniac | |
n.精神癫狂的人;疯子 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
101 automobiles | |
n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
102 psychology | |
n.心理,心理学,心理状态 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
103 condone | |
v.宽恕;原谅 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
104 demonstrations | |
证明( demonstration的名词复数 ); 表明; 表达; 游行示威 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
105 flaunting | |
adj.招摇的,扬扬得意的,夸耀的v.炫耀,夸耀( flaunt的现在分词 );有什么能耐就施展出来 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
106 heroism | |
n.大无畏精神,英勇 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
107 spartan | |
adj.简朴的,刻苦的;n.斯巴达;斯巴达式的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
108 virtues | |
美德( virtue的名词复数 ); 德行; 优点; 长处 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
109 brutality | |
n.野蛮的行为,残忍,野蛮 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
110 crookedness | |
[医]弯曲 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
111 divested | |
v.剥夺( divest的过去式和过去分词 );脱去(衣服);2。从…取去…;1。(给某人)脱衣服 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
112 snobbishness | |
势利; 势利眼 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
113 valiant | |
adj.勇敢的,英勇的;n.勇士,勇敢的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
114 cleansed | |
弄干净,清洗( cleanse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
115 reign | |
n.统治时期,统治,支配,盛行;v.占优势 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
116 indignity | |
n.侮辱,伤害尊严,轻蔑 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
117 monarch | |
n.帝王,君主,最高统治者 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
118 provincial | |
adj.省的,地方的;n.外省人,乡下人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
119 restrictions | |
约束( restriction的名词复数 ); 管制; 制约因素; 带限制性的条件(或规则) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
120 censored | |
受审查的,被删剪的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
121 awfully | |
adv.可怕地,非常地,极端地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
122 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
123 artistic | |
adj.艺术(家)的,美术(家)的;善于艺术创作的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
124 ballads | |
民歌,民谣,特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 ); 讴 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
125 anonymous | |
adj.无名的;匿名的;无特色的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
126 bard | |
n.吟游诗人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
127 bards | |
n.诗人( bard的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
128 pious | |
adj.虔诚的;道貌岸然的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
129 foresight | |
n.先见之明,深谋远虑 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
130 portray | |
v.描写,描述;画(人物、景象等) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
131 picturesque | |
adj.美丽如画的,(语言)生动的,绘声绘色的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
132 tune | |
n.调子;和谐,协调;v.调音,调节,调整 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
133 hoop | |
n.(篮球)篮圈,篮 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
134 savvy | |
v.知道,了解;n.理解能力,机智,悟性;adj.有见识的,懂实际知识的,通情达理的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
135 wont | |
adj.习惯于;v.习惯;n.习惯 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
136 manly | |
adj.有男子气概的;adv.男子般地,果断地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
137 gorilla | |
n.大猩猩,暴徒,打手 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
138 rebuked | |
责难或指责( rebuke的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
139 usurped | |
篡夺,霸占( usurp的过去式和过去分词 ); 盗用; 篡夺,篡权 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
140 fascists | |
n.法西斯主义的支持者( fascist的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
141 pajamas | |
n.睡衣裤 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
142 atheist | |
n.无神论者 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
143 dividends | |
红利( dividend的名词复数 ); 股息; 被除数; (足球彩票的)彩金 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
144 garnered | |
v.收集并(通常)贮藏(某物),取得,获得( garner的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
145 plantation | |
n.种植园,大农场 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
146 debilitating | |
a.使衰弱的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
147 vices | |
缺陷( vice的名词复数 ); 恶习; 不道德行为; 台钳 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
148 cardinal | |
n.(天主教的)红衣主教;adj.首要的,基本的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
149 pastor | |
n.牧师,牧人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
150 celebrities | |
n.(尤指娱乐界的)名人( celebrity的名词复数 );名流;名声;名誉 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
151 pastors | |
n.(基督教的)牧师( pastor的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
152 lucratively | |
获利多的,赚钱的; 合算的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
153 humbly | |
adv. 恭顺地,谦卑地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
154 reigned | |
vi.当政,统治(reign的过去式形式) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
155 resolute | |
adj.坚决的,果敢的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
156 radicalism | |
n. 急进主义, 根本的改革主义 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
157 bungalow | |
n.平房,周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
参考例句: |
|
|