Plague - May 09

Thus even when the plague had ________(任其发展/自生自灭), they went on living by its standards. They were, in short, ________(落伍/过时).

But, generally speaking, the epidemic was ________(败退) ________(时时/到处/全线); the official communiqués, which had at first encouraged no more than shadowy, ________(不热心的/冷淡的) hopes, now confirmed the popular belief that the victory was won and the enemy ________(丢失阵地).

Still, had anyone been told a month earlier that a train had just left or a boat ________([船]入港/停靠港口), or that cars were to be allowed on the streets again, the news would have been received with looks of incredulity; where as in mid-January, an announcement of this kind would have caused no surprise.

Some of them plague had imbued with a skepticism so thorough that it was now a second nature; they had become allergic to hope in any form.

Thus, though for weary months and months they had endured their long ordeal with dogged perseverance, ________(一线希望待来的兴奋感) had been enough to shatter what fear and hopelessness had failed to impair.

Really, however, it is doubtful if this could be called a victory. All that could be said was that the disease seemed to be leaving as unaccountably as it had come.

In the case of others—chiefly those who had been living until now in forced separation from those they loved—the rising wind of hope, after all these months of durance and depression, had ________([前文-希望如风一般]将人们的不耐烦点燃起来) and swept away their self-control.