Plague - Apr 16

One evening Cottard and Tarrou went to the Municipal Opera House, where Gluck’s Orpheus was being ________(表演/公开进行).

Gonzales ________(守约), at noon, and while he and the journalist were talking, they saw the two boys coming toward them, laughing.

That way he’d ________(掌握了...的要领) things.

“We ________(安排/确定) at the gate,” Marcel explained.

In the soft hum of ________(举止优雅的轻声交谈), they regained ________(被剥夺了的自信) when they walked the dark streets of the town; evening dress was a sure ________(护身符) against plague.

Some rather jerky movements he ________(参加/参与[尤指违法行动]) gave our connoisseurs of statecraft an impression of clever, if slightly overdone, effects, intended to ________(使表现出) the emotion of the words he sang.

Thus for several months our theater had been resounding every Friday evening with the melodious laments of Orpheus and Eurydice’s vain appeals. None the less, the opera continued ________(大受欢迎) and ________(常常爆满).

While the musicians were discreetly ________(调弦), men in evening dress could be seen moving from one row to another, bowing gracefully to friends under the flood of light bathing the proscenium.

Not until the big duet between Orpheus and Eurydice in the third act—at the precise moment when Eurydice was slipping from her lover—________(一阵惊叹声席卷整座剧院).

For at the same moment the orchestra stopped playing, the audience rose and began to leave the auditorium, slowly and silently at first, like worshippers leaving church when the service ends, or a ________(死了人的房间) after a ________(对亡者的吊唁),

women lifting their skirts and moving with bowed heads, men ________(手挽着女士带路) to prevent their brushing against the ________(翻座) at the ends of the rows…

But gradually their movements quickened, whispers rose to exclamations, and finally the crowd ________(蜂拥至出口), ________(一起挤在狭窄的门口通道), and pouring out into the street in a confused mass, with shrill cries of dismay.

“We’ll ________(约定一个时间), you and I. If I don’t turn up, go straight to their place. I’ll give you the address.”

Rambert ate and drank heartily, and Gonzales informed him he was “________(good sort - A physically attractive woman).” Actually the journalist was thinking solely of the coming week.