雷蒙·斯尼奇的不幸历险 第一集 The Bad Beginning第2课

 　　Sunny Baudelaire, the youngest, liked to bite things. She was an infant, and very small for her age, scarcely larger than a boot. What she lacked in size, however, she made up for with the size and sharpness of her four teeth. Sunny was at an age where one mostly speaks in a series of intelligible¹ shrieks². Except when she used the few actual words in her vocabulary, like "bottle," "mommy," and "bite," most people had trouble understanding what it was that Sunny was saying. For instance, this morning she was saying "Gack!" over and over, which probably meant, "look at the mysterious figure emerging from the fog!“Sure enought, in the distance along the misty³ shore of Briny⁴ Beach there could be seen a tall figure striding toward the Baudelaire children. Sunny had already been staring and shrieking⁵ at the figure for some time when Klaus looked  up from the spiny⁶ crab⁷ he was examing, and saw it too. He reached over and touched Violet's arm, bringing her out of her inventing thoughts.

　　"Look at that," Klaus said, and pointed⁸ toward the figure. It was drawing closer, and the children could see a few details. It was about the size of an adult, except its head was tall, and rather square.

　　"What do you think it is?" Violet asked.

　　"I don't know," Klaus said, squinting⁹ at it, "but it seems to be moving right toward us.""We're alone on the beach," Violet said, a little nervously¹⁰. "There's nobody else it could be moving toward." She felt the slender, smooth stone in her left hand, which she had been about to try to skip as far as she could. She had a sudden thought to throw it  at the figure, because it seemed so frighting.

　　"Ir only seems scary," Klaus said, as if reading his sister's thoughts, "because of all the mist."This was true. As the figure reached them, the children saw with relief that it was not anybody frightening at all, but somebody they knew: Mr. Poe. Mr. Poe was a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire's whom the children had met many times at dinner parties. One of the things Violet, Klaus, and Sunny really liked about their parents was that they didn't send their children away when they had company over, but allowed them to join the adults at the dinner table and participate in the conversation as long as they helped clear the table. The children remembered Mr. Poe because he always had a cold and was constantly excusing himself from the table to have a fit of coughing in the next room.

　　Mr. Poe took off his top hat, which had made his head look large and square in the fog, and stood for a moment, coughing loudly into a white handkerchief. Violet and Klaus moved forward to shake his hand and say how do you do.

　　"How do you do?" said Violet.

　　"How do you do?" said Klaus.

　　"Odo yow!" said Sunny.

　　"Fine, thank you," said Mr. Poe, but he looked very sad. For a few seconds nobody siad anything, and the children wondered what Mr. Poe was doing there at Briny Beach, when he should have been at the bank in the city, where he worked. He was not dressed for the beach.

　　"It's a nice day," Violet said finally, making conversation. Sunny made a noise that sounded like an angry bird, and Klaus picked her up and held her.

　　"Yes, it is a nice day," Mr. Poe said absently, staring out at the empty beach. "I'm afraid I have some very bad news for you children."本文本由51persistence网友听写，非常感谢他的分享。如有错误，欢迎指出。

1 intelligible   

adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的

参考例句：

• This report would be intelligible only to an expert in computing.只有计算机运算专家才能看懂这份报告。
• His argument was barely intelligible.他的论点不易理解。

2 shrieks   

n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• shrieks of fiendish laughter 恶魔般的尖笑声
• For years, from newspapers, broadcasts, the stages and at meetings, we had heard nothing but grandiloquent rhetoric delivered with shouts and shrieks that deafened the ears. 多少年来， 报纸上， 广播里， 舞台上， 会场上的声嘶力竭，装腔做态的高调搞得我们震耳欲聋。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

3 misty   

adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的

参考例句：

• He crossed over to the window to see if it was still misty.他走到窗户那儿，看看是不是还有雾霭。
• The misty scene had a dreamy quality about it.雾景给人以梦幻般的感觉。

4 briny   

adj.盐水的；很咸的；n.海洋

参考例句：

• The briny water is not good for the growth of the trees.海水不利于这种树木的生长。
• The briny air gave a foretaste of the nearby sea.咸空气是快近海的前兆。

5 shrieking   

v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The boxers were goaded on by the shrieking crowd. 拳击运动员听见观众的喊叫就来劲儿了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They were all shrieking with laughter. 他们都发出了尖锐的笑声。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 spiny   

adj.多刺的，刺状的；n.多刺的东西

参考例句：

• This is the Asiatic ornamental shrub with spiny branches and pink blossoms.这就是亚洲的一种观赏灌木，具有多刺的枝和粉红色的花。
• Stay away from a spiny cactus.远离多刺仙人掌。

7 crab   

n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气

参考例句：

• I can't remember when I last had crab.我不记得上次吃蟹是什么时候了。
• The skin on my face felt as hard as a crab's back.我脸上的皮仿佛僵硬了，就象螃蟹的壳似的。

8 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

9 squinting   

斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看

参考例句：

• "More company," he said, squinting in the sun. "那边来人了，"他在阳光中眨巴着眼睛说。
• Squinting against the morning sun, Faulcon examined the boy carefully. 对着早晨的太阳斜起眼睛，富尔康仔细地打量着那个年轻人。

10 nervously   

adv.神情激动地，不安地

参考例句：

• He bit his lip nervously,trying not to cry.他紧张地咬着唇，努力忍着不哭出来。
• He paced nervously up and down on the platform.他在站台上情绪不安地走来走去。