Plague - Apr 28

He ________(归功于) of this to Dr. Castel’s new serum, which, indeed, had brought off some quite unlooked-for recoveries.

The walls served another purpose: they ________(保护/遮掩/遮蔽) the unfortunates in quarantine from the view of people on the road.

The result was that poor families were ________(经济窘迫), while the rich ________(缺/不足) practically nothing.

Poor people who were ________([尤指因赚钱不如以前多而]感到拮据) thought still more nostalgically of towns and villages in the near-by countryside, where bread was cheap and life without restrictions.

It is true that the actual number of deaths showed no increase. But it seemed that plague had settled in for good ________(处于最致命的状态), and it took its daily toll of deaths with the punctual zeal of a good civil servant.

The authorities, who had long been desirous of giving a fillip to the morale of the populace, but had so far been prevented by the plague from doing so, now proposed to convene a meeting of ________(医疗人员) and ask for an announcement on the subject.

The effect of this regrettable event, which, sensational as it was, actually proved nothing, was to make our authorities ________(重新回到某种状态) pessimism as inconsequently as they had previously indulged in optimism.

If one was to believe what one read in them, our populace was giving “a fine example” of courage and composure. But in a town ________(使依赖/使依靠) itself, in which nothing could be kept secret, no one had illusions about the “example” given by the public.

Against this advantage may be set the fact that the inmates could hear all day, though they could not see them, the passing streetcars, and recognize by the increased volume of sound coming from the road the hours when people had ________(敲落工作，歇工，这里是下班的意思) or were going to it.

Unfortunately, just before the meeting was due to take place, Dr. Richard, too, was ________(使丧命) by the plague, then precisely at “high-water mark.”

Theoretically, and in the view of the authorities, this was a hopeful sign. The fact that ________(在一直升高后，曲线开始趋于平稳) seemed to many, Dr. Richard for example, reassuring. “The graph’s good today,” he would remark, rubbing his hands.