Content #
“Come closer,” said Mrs. Dubose. “Come to the side of the bed.”
We moved our chairs forward. This was the nearest I had ever been to her, and the thing I wanted most to do was move my chair back again.
She was horrible. Her face was the color of a dirty pillowcase, and the corners of her mouth glistened with wet, which inched like a glacier down the deep grooves enclosing her chin. Old-age liver spots dotted her cheeks, and her pale eyes had black pinpoint pupils. Her hands were knobby, and the cuticles were grown up over her fingernails. Her bottom plate was not in, and her upper lip protruded; from time to time she would draw her nether lip to her upper plate and carry her chin with it. This made the wet move faster.
I didn’t look any more than I had to. Jem reopened Ivanhoe and began reading. I tried to keep up with him, but he read too fast. When Jem came to a word he didn’t know, he skipped it, but Mrs. Dubose would catch him and make him spell it out. Jem read for perhaps twenty minutes, during which time I looked at the soot-stained mantelpiece, out the window, anywhere to keep from looking at her. As he read along, I noticed that Mrs. Dubose’s corrections grew fewer and farther between, that Jem had even left one sentence dangling in mid-air. She was not listening.
I looked toward the bed.
Something had happened to her. She lay on her back, with the quilts up to her chin. Only her head and shoulders were visible. Her head moved slowly from side to side. From time to time she would open her mouth wide, and I could see her tongue undulate faintly. Cords of saliva would collect on her lips; she would draw them in, then open her mouth again. Her mouth seemed to have a private existence of its own. It worked separate and apart from the rest of her, out and in, like a clam hole at low tide. Occasionally it would say, “Pt,” like some viscous substance coming to a boil.
I pulled Jem’s sleeve.
groove #
noun a long, narrow cut or depression, especially one made to guide motion or receive a corresponding ridge 导轨，槽
liver spot #
noun a small brown spot on the skin, especially as caused by a skin condition such as lentigo 雀斑，黄褐斑
pinpoint #
adjective [attrib.] tiny. 极小的 a pinpoint hole. 小孔。
cuticle #
the dead skin at the base of a fingernail or toenail （手或脚趾甲的）角皮
bottom plate #
下牙板
viscous #
[ˈvɪskəs] adjective having a thick, sticky consistency between solid and liquid; having a high viscosity 黏性的；黏滞的
viscous lava. 黏滞的熔岩。
From #
To Kill a Mocking Bird