Johnyxxx
Senior Member
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2014
- Member Type
- Interested in Language
- Native Language
- Czech
- Home Country
- Czech Republic
- Current Location
- Czech Republic
Hi,
Can anybody help me to understand the bold text?
For several nights she had slept poorly, with appalling dreams. A gust would seem to blow under her bed—a slowly panting, heavy-breathing gust that dreadfully compressed the mattress-springs and nosed uncertainly about the floor beneath. ‘Umph,’ it said. ‘Umph’ . . . And then the ploughing, ‘rootling’, and exploring sounds would cease and she would have instead a vision of—yes, ‘Bob’. But not of the beast merely. In the repellent, brutish lineaments of Caliban would be reflected, flickeringly, other features . . . As through a mask, another face would look, another well-remembered countenance too plainly peer. A fiendish resemblance waxed and waned, and faded. Before her eyes a hideous parody took smirking shape and substance. A gross absurdity, a sheer unthinkability, crowned with a glossy ‘topper’ although horned and hooved, solicited her entertainment and assent. With the high, thready gasp of terror she would awaken and switch on the light.
John Metcalfe, The Renegade, 194?
Thank you very much.
Can anybody help me to understand the bold text?
For several nights she had slept poorly, with appalling dreams. A gust would seem to blow under her bed—a slowly panting, heavy-breathing gust that dreadfully compressed the mattress-springs and nosed uncertainly about the floor beneath. ‘Umph,’ it said. ‘Umph’ . . . And then the ploughing, ‘rootling’, and exploring sounds would cease and she would have instead a vision of—yes, ‘Bob’. But not of the beast merely. In the repellent, brutish lineaments of Caliban would be reflected, flickeringly, other features . . . As through a mask, another face would look, another well-remembered countenance too plainly peer. A fiendish resemblance waxed and waned, and faded. Before her eyes a hideous parody took smirking shape and substance. A gross absurdity, a sheer unthinkability, crowned with a glossy ‘topper’ although horned and hooved, solicited her entertainment and assent. With the high, thready gasp of terror she would awaken and switch on the light.
John Metcalfe, The Renegade, 194?
Thank you very much.
