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Help me with some more phrases please

GreenCat

先輩
24 Aug 2009
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Searching on the web got me to a text version of the novel(Note sure about copy right issue but saves me a trouble of typing):
http://www.stargate.uk.net/Bradbury, Ray - Dandelion Wine.txt

1)"Price and that electrical contraption!"
"We must've killed him. And someone must've seen and followed us. Look..."
Miss Fern and Miss Roberta peered from the cobwebbed attic window. Below, as if no great tragedy had occurred, the oaks and elms continued to grow in fresh sunlight. A boy strolled by on the sidewalk, turned, strolled by again, looking up.
In the attic the old women peered at each other as if trying to see their faces in a running stream.
"The police!"
But no one hammered the downstairs door and cried, "In the name of the law!"
"Who's that boy down there?"
"Douglas, Douglas Spaulding! Lord, he's come to ask for a ride in our Green Machine. He doesn't know. Our pride has ruined us. Pride and that electrical contraption!"
"That terrible salesman from Gumport Falls. It's his fault, him and his talking."
Talking, talking, like soft rain on a summer roof.
"Our pride" seems to be a reference to "Green machine" and so is "that electrical contraption".
But then, "Pride and that electrical contraption!"
With coordinating conjunction "and" between, now it sounds like two are different things?

Could you explain what the line means and for what effects it is written like this?

2)like an ancient, wheeled vision.
"Well," said Fern defensively, "my hip's bothered me for years, and you always get tired walking. It seemed so refined, so regal. Like in the old days when women wore hoop skirts. They sailed! The Green Machine sailed so quietly."
Like an excursion boat, wonderfully easy to steer, a baton handle you twitched with your hand, so.
Oh, that glorious and enchanted first week--the magical afternoons of golden light, humming through the shady town on a dreaming, timeless river, seated stiffly, smiling at passing acquaintances, sedately purring out their wrinkled claws at every turn, squeezing a hoarse cry from the black rubber horn at intersections, sometimes letting Douglas or Tom Spaulding or any of the other boys who trotted, chatting, alongside, hitch a little ride. Fifteen slow and pleasurable miles an hour top speed. They came and went through the summer sunlight and shadow, their faces freckled and stained by passing trees, going and coming like an ancient, wheeled vision.
"And then," whispered Fern, "this afternoon! Oh, this afternoon!"
"It was an accident."
seems like A silly question but what is a "wheeled vision"?
A sort of extrasensory perception?
3)tremble with a soft awakening to any breeze
The first light on the roof outside; very early morning. The leaves on all the trees tremble with a soft awakening to any breeze the dawn may offer. And then, far off, around a curve of silver track, comes the trolley, balanced on four small steel-blue wheels, and it is painted the color of tangerines. Epaulets of shimmery brass cover it and pipings of gold; and its chrome bell bings if the ancient motorman taps it with a wrinkled shoe.
I cannot tell if:
Leaves twitching as morning breeze touches them and the leaves recognise it?
or
leaves are awaking and twitching in response to the breeze?

4)Death won't get a crumb by my mouth I won't keep and savor
"I don't want any Halloween parties here tomorrow. Don't want anyone saying anything sweet about me; I said it all in my time and my pride. I've tasted every victual and danced every dance; now there's one last tart I haven't bit on, one tune I haven't whistled. But I'm not afraid. I'm truly curious. Death won't get a crumb by my mouth I won't keep and savor. So don't you worry over me. Now, all of you go, and let me find my sleep...."
Somewhere a door closed quietly.
What is the meaning of the... um saying?

5)Strange the hot rooms with the sweating people pressed tightly back into them
The three women moved along the street under the black trees, past suddenly locked houses. How soon the news had spread outward from the ravine, from house to house, porch to porch, telephone to telephone. Now, passing, the three women felt eyes looking out at them from curtained windows as locks rattled into place. How strange the popsicle, the vanilla night, the night of close-packed ice cream, of mosquito-lotioned wrists, the night of running children suddenly veered from their games and put away behind glass, behind wood, the popsicles in melting puddles of lime and strawberry where they fell when the children were scooped indoors Strange the hot rooms with the sweating people pressed tightly back into them behind the bronze knobs and knockers. Baseball bats and balls lay upon the unfootprinted lawns. A half-drawn, white-chalk game of hopscotch lay on the broiled, steamed sidewalk. It was as if someone had predicted freezing weather a moment ago.
"We're crazy being out on a night like this," said Helen.
"Lonely One won't kill three ladies," said Lavinia. "There's safety in numbers. And besides, it's too soon. The killings always come a month separated."
A shadow fell across their terrified faces. A figure loomed behind a tree. As if someone had struck an organ a terrible blow with his fist, the three women gave off a scream, in three different shrill notes.
"Got you!" roared a voice. The man plunged at them. He came into the light, laughing. He leaned against a tree, pointing at the ladies weakly, laughing again.
"Hey! I'm the Lonely One!" said Frank Dillon.

"sweating people pressed tightly back into them behind the bronze knobs and knockers"
Um, embarrassing but I have to admit that I have not got a clue.

Who are them? bronze knows and knockers? Or the girls?
Who or what is doing pressing?
"pressed back into"? What does it mean?

6)in an ever circling inventory
"Let me see now," said Great-grandma. "Let me see..."
With no fuss or further ado, she traveled the house in an ever-circling inventory, reached the stairs at last, and, making no special announcement, she took herself up three flights to her room where, silently, she laid herself out like a fossil imprint under the snowing cool sheets of her bed and began to die.
Again the voices: "Grandma! Great-grandma!"
"she traveled the house in an ever-circling inventory"
"travel in inventory", does it mean travelling like following a list of things?

in‧ven‧tory [See pronunciation table in "How to use dictionary" pages] plural inventories
1 [countable] a list of all the things in a place
inventory of
[Look up a word starting with D or S for samples of headword or sentence pronunciations on the LDOCE CD-ROM] We made an inventory of everything in the apartment.
2 [uncountable and countable] American EnglishBBT all the goods in a shop [= stock]

7)a sea moving along an endless and self-refreshing shore.
Somewhere a door closed quietly.
"That's better." Alone she snuggled luxuriously down through the warm snowbank of linen and wool, sheet and cover, and the colors of the patchwork quilt were bright as the circus banners of old time. Lying there, she felt as small and secret as on those mornings eighty-some-odd years ago when, wakening, she comforted her tender bones in bed.
A long time back, she thought, I dreamed a dream, and was enjoying it so much when someone wakened me, and that was the day when I was born. And now? Now, let me see... She cast her mind back. Where was I? she thought. Ninety years... how to take up the thread and the pattern of that lost dream again? She put out a small hand. There... Yes, that was it. She smiled. Deeper in the warm snow hill she turned her head upon her pillow. That was better. Now, yes, now she saw it shaping in her mind quietly, and with a serenity like a sea moving along an endless and self-refreshing shore. Now she let the old dream touch and lift her from the snow and drift her above the scarce-remembered bed.
Downstairs, she thought, they are polishing the silver, and rummaging the cellar, and dusting in the halls. She could hear them living all through the house.
"a sea moving along an endless and self-refreshing shore."
"moving along", does this mean the sea rising or moving towards the land?

"self-refreshing shore.", growing larger so it will never be completely covered by the sea? Or just not eroded? Could you tell me what is the meaning and what sort of trope this is?


Thank you for reading.
Thanks to the help people in the forum gave me, learning got much easier:D
Your help really appreciated.
 
Searching on the web got me to a text version of the novel(Note sure about copy right issue but saves me a trouble of typing):
http://www.stargate.uk.net/Bradbury, Ray - Dandelion Wine.txt
1)"Price and that electrical contraption!"
"Our pride" seems to be a reference to "Green machine" and so is "that electrical contraption".
But then, "Pride and that electrical contraption!"
With coordinating conjunction "and" between, now it sounds like two are different things?
Could you explain what the line means and for what effects it is written like this?
The English "pride" is ambiguous in isolation because it could allude to either the interloper Spaulding's 'not knowing' or 'green machine.' It is likely better and more natural with the former, I just can't say for sure without asking you to kindly rephrase the entire background to this excerpt. :D
 
"Who's that boy down there?"
"Douglas, Douglas Spaulding! Lord, he's come to ask for a ride in our Green Machine. He doesn't know. Our pride has ruined us. Pride and that electrical contraption!"
"Our pride" seems to be a reference to "Green machine" and so is "that electrical contraption".
But then, "Pride and that electrical contraption!"
With coordinating conjunction "and" between, now it sounds like two are different things?
Could you explain what the line means and for what effects it is written like this?
Since I haven't read the book myself, I'm not exactly sure what the woman means by "our pride", but as you said, the use of "and" here makes it distinct from "that electrical contraption", which must refer to the Green Machine.

I disagree with Elizabeth, who posted that "our pride" refers either to the machine or to the boy Spaulding, probably the boy. Her interpretation seems to assume that "our pride" refers to some thing or person that the two women were proud of. While that is certainly one meaning of the expression, it doesn't seem to fit the usage here.

I think the speaker means the emotion of "pride" and is claiming that this emotion has ruined them, presumably through some foolishness or lack of caution that such pride can cause. Somehow the Green Machine has also helped to bring about this apparent disaster.
 
Fifteen slow and pleasurable miles an hour top speed. They came and went through the summer sunlight and shadow, their faces freckled and stained by passing trees, going and coming like an ancient, wheeled vision.
seems like A silly question but what is a "wheeled vision"?
A sort of extrasensory perception?
Here a "vision" refers to an apparition: something you see which seems to be of supernatural or otherworldly origin. Calling it a "vision" gives it a sense of mystery and grandeur, and the word is often used in a religious sense. (For example, prophets in the Bible often see elaborate visions.) In this case, the vision happens to have wheels.
 
The leaves on all the trees tremble with a soft awakening to any breeze the dawn may offer.
I cannot tell if:
Leaves twitching as morning breeze touches them and the leaves recognise it?
or
leaves are awaking and twitching in response to the breeze?
I don't think it's possible to tell. It seems Bradbury is being deliberately ambiguous here in order to be more poetic. In fact, to me it almost sounds like he wants us to imagine the leaves waking and trembling on their own, in anticipation of dawn breezes which have not arrived yet. Of course, real leaves don't do that, but the imagery is what matters here.
 
I've tasted every victual and danced every dance; now there's one last tart I haven't bit on, one tune I haven't whistled. But I'm not afraid. I'm truly curious. Death won't get a crumb by my mouth I won't keep and savor.
What is the meaning of the... um saying?
Heh, that's a bit hard to parse, isn't it? Don't worry, it's certainly not a standard saying. Here the speaker seems to be using two different metaphors for death in the same sentence. One is a personification, which is pretty common. But the other is as a piece of rare, delicious food to be fully experienced and enjoyed, as the speaker has done with all other experiences in her life. (Just before this statement she makes two other references to food which prepare the reader for this imagery: "tasted every victual" and "one last tart I haven't bit on".)

To explain the metaphor further, "won't get a crumb by my mouth" means that no crumb will escape the speaker's mouth; she will eat every bit. In adding "I won't keep and savor", the speaker is saying that she will retain each bit of this "food" in her mouth as long as possible to fully enjoy its flavor. The sentence is a bit more readable if you mentally add an implied "that":
Death won't get a crumb by my mouth [that] I won't keep and savor.​
It's also a bit ungrammatical, repeating the negative to emphasize the point that nothing will be missed. (A more grammatical version might say "... that I could keep and savor." instead.)
 
The three women moved along the street under the black trees, past suddenly locked houses. How soon the news had spread outward from the ravine, from house to house, porch to porch, telephone to telephone. Now, passing, the three women felt eyes looking out at them from curtained windows as locks rattled into place. How strange the popsicle, the vanilla night, the night of close-packed ice cream, of mosquito-lotioned wrists, the night of running children suddenly veered from their games and put away behind glass, behind wood, the popsicles in melting puddles of lime and strawberry where they fell when the children were scooped indoors. Strange the hot rooms with the sweating people pressed tightly back into them behind the bronze knobs and knockers. Baseball bats and balls lay upon the unfootprinted lawns. A half-drawn, white-chalk game of hopscotch lay on the broiled, steamed sidewalk. It was as if someone had predicted freezing weather a moment ago.
"sweating people pressed tightly back into them behind the bronze knobs and knockers"
Um, embarrassing but I have to admit that I have not got a clue.
Who are them? bronze knows and knockers? Or the girls?
Who or what is doing pressing?
"pressed back into"? What does it mean?
Well, the overall situation is one of a neighboorhood of people who just moments ago were enjoying themselves outdoors on a hot summer night, but who have suddenly dropped everything to shut themselves up inside their own hot, uncomfortable houses in terror.

Knowing that, the sentence, "Strange the hot rooms with the sweating people pressed tightly back into them behind the bronze knobs and knockers" describes how these people have shut themselves up within the hot rooms of their houses, behind their own front doors. These doors have bronze doorknobs and door knockers, and the sentence simply refers to those to represent the doors they are attached to.

"Them" refers to the "hot rooms", and the people have pressed themselves into the back of these rooms, cowering in terror in the rear, as far away from their front doors as they can get.
 
With no fuss or further ado, she traveled the house in an ever-circling inventory, reached the stairs at last, ...
"she traveled the house in an ever-circling inventory"
"travel in inventory", does it mean travelling like following a list of things?
Yeah, or like making such a list, as a shopkeeper might take inventory in his shop. From the sound of it, she is checking over every part of the house she considers important to her before going upstairs.
 
"a sea moving along an endless and self-refreshing shore."
"moving along", does this mean the sea rising or moving towards the land?
"self-refreshing shore.", growing larger so it will never be completely covered by the sea? Or just not eroded? Could you tell me what is the meaning and what sort of trope this is?
I also found this imagery ambiguous and difficult. For "moving along", the only image that works for me is the way that waves from the sea constantly roll in onto the shore. (Actually, the use of the expression "moving along" makes me think of a sea that is somehow running parallel to the shore, but I have trouble accepting that image because it jars badly with my normal mental image of a seashore.) With this, "self-refreshing shore" would mean that the shore constantly renews itself, never letting the waves erode it and immune from lasting injury.

As for the meaning, this seems to be an image Bradbury dreamed up himself, so you can choose whatever meaning fits for you. I tend to read it simply as a visual image of the serenity of the woman's mind in death, and possible as a reference to an eternal cycle of lives, deaths, and rebirths, like so many ocean waves.
 
I disagree with Elizabeth, who posted that "our pride" refers either to the machine or to the boy Spaulding, probably the boy. Her interpretation seems to assume that "our pride" refers to some thing or person that the two women were proud of. While that is certainly one meaning of the expression, it doesn't seem to fit the usage here.

I think the speaker means the emotion of "pride" and is claiming that this emotion has ruined them, presumably through some foolishness or lack of caution that such pride can cause. Somehow the Green Machine has also helped to bring about this apparent disaster.
I pointed out the word drew its reference from Spaulding (most likely). Clearly it is used in the negative and not specifying him as a source central to their dignity or self-respect (pride). Perhaps related in the sense of not having informed the boy on some facts related to the non-operable vehicle out of conceited arrogance. ??
 
Thank you Colin Howell for your elaborate and beautiful posts.
You did make me say "Wow" with glee. I have not assimilated all the ideas yet but, thanks to your very accurate and yet succinct way of describing them, I know it will be easy and fun👍

"possible as a reference to an eternal cycle of lives, deaths, and rebirths, like so many ocean waves."
In the chapter, the lady says something like "life is a dream and death, a beginning of another long-forgotten dream." So I think your intuition got you to the right spot.



Also thank you Elizabeth for always helping me out.
I tend to forget my manners but not like I ever forget how much I owe you🙂

The English "pride" is ambiguous in isolation because it could allude to either the interloper Spaulding's 'not knowing' or 'green machine.' It is likely better and more natural with the former, I just can't say for sure without asking you to kindly rephrase the entire background to this excerpt.
I did not think about it but, yes, "pride" could mean many things, so Douglus can be taken to be their pride too.
I'm sorry for leaving you with something so insufficient and can be taken to be anything, I should have explained more.

As to the story, first appears a pair of elderly ladies hiding in an attic afraid as they claim to have kill a man, then they lay the blame on a sales man, who sold them an electric runabout, the Green Machine, and on the contraption itself. Soon they start having a flashback of how the sales person purred away his sales talks and the wonderful days they had with the runabout until the moment they hit a man.


Code:
Bang!
	A door slammed. In an attic dust jumped off bureaus and bookcases. Two old women collapsed against the attic door, each scrabbling to lock it tight, tight. A thousand pigeons seemed to have leaped off the roof right over their heads. They bent as if burdened, ducked under the drum of beating wings. Then they stopped, their mouths surprised. What they heard was only the pure sound of panic, their hearts in their chests.... Above the uproar, they tried to make themselves heard. "What've we done! Poor Mister Quartermain!"
	"We must've killed him. And someone must've seen and followed us. Look..."
	Miss Fern and Miss Roberta peered from the cobwebbed attic window. Below, as if no great tragedy had occurred, the oaks and elms continued to grow in fresh sunlight. A boy strolled by on the sidewalk, turned, strolled by again, looking up.
	In the attic the old women peered at each other as if trying to see their faces in a running stream.
	"The police!"
	But no one hammered the downstairs door and cried, "In the name of the law!"
	"Who's that boy down there?"
	"Douglas, Douglas Spaulding! Lord, he's come to ask for a ride in our Green Machine. He doesn't know. Our pride has ruined us. Pride and that electrical contraption!"
	"That terrible salesman from Gumport Falls. It's his fault, him and his talking."
	Talking, talking, like soft rain on a summer roof.
	Suddenly it was another day, another noon. They sat with white fans and dishes of cool, trembling lime Jell-O on their arbored porch.
	Out of the blinding glare, out of the yellow sun, glittering, splendid as a prince's coach...
	THE GREEN MACHINE!
	It glided. It whispered, an ocean breeze. Delicate as maple leaves, fresher than creek water, it purred with the majesty of cats prowling the noontide. In the machine, his Panama hat afloat in Vaseline above his ears, the salesman from Gumport Falls! The machine, with a rubber tread, soft, shrewd, whipped up their scalded white sidewalk, whirred to the lowest porch step, twirled, stopped. The salesman leaped out, blocked off the sun with his Panama. In this small shadow, his smile flashed.
	"The name is William Tara! And this--" He pinched a bulb. A seal barked. "--is the hem!" He lifted black satin cushions. "Storage batteries!" A smell of lightning blew on the hot air. "Steering lever! Foot rest! Overhead parasol! Here, in tote, is The Green Machine!"
	In the dark attic the ladies shuddered, remembering, eyes shut.
	"Why didn't we stab him with our darning needles!"
	"Shh! Listen."
	Someone knocked on the front door downstairs. After a time the knocking stopped. They saw a woman cross the yard and enter the house next door.
	"Only Lavinia Nebbs, come with an empty cup, to borrow sugar, I guess."
	"Hold me, I'm afraid."
They shut their eyes. The memory-play began again. An old straw hat on an iron trunk was suddenly flourished, it seemed, by the man from Gumport Falls.
	"Thanks, I will have some iced tea." You could hear the cool liquid shock his stomach, in the silence. Then he turned his gaze upon the old ladies like a doctor with a small light, looking into their eyes and nostrils and mouths. "Ladies, I know you're both vigorous. You look it. Eighty years"-he snapped his fingers--"mean nothing to you! But there are times, mind, when you're so busy, busy, you need a friend indeed, a friend in need, and that is the two-seater Green Machine."
	He fixed his bright, stuffed-fox, green-glass-eyed gaze upon that wonderful merchandise. It stood, smelling new, in the hot sunlight, waiting for them, a parlor chair comfortably put to wheels.
	"Quiet as a swan's feather." They felt him breathe softly in their faces. "Listen." They listened. "The storage batteries are fully charged and ready now! Listen! Not a tremor, not a sound. Electric, ladies. You recharge it every night in your garage."
	"It couldn't--that is--" The younger sister gulped some iced tea. "It couldn't electrocute us accidently?"
	"Perish the thought!"
	He vaulted to the machine again, his teeth like those you saw in dental windows, alone, grimacing at you, as you passed by late at night.
	"Tea parties!" He waltzed the runabout in a circle. "Bridge clubs. Soirees. Galas. Luncheons. Birthday gatherings! D. A. R. breakfasts." He purred away as if running off forever. He returned in a rubber-tired hush. "Gold Star Mother suppers." He sat primly, corseted by his supple characterization of a woman. "Easy steering. Silent, elegant arrivals and departures. No license needed. On hot days--take the breeze. Ah... He glided by the porch, head back, eyes closed deliciously, hair tousling in the wind thus cleanly sliced through.
	He trudged reverently up the porch stairs, hat in hand, turning to gaze at the trial model as at the altar of a familiar church. "Ladies," he said softly, "twenty-five dollars down. Ten dollars a month, for two years."
	Fern was first down the steps onto the double seat. She sat apprehensively. Her hand itched. She raised it. She dared tweak the rubber bulb horn.
	A seal barked.
	Roberta, on the porch, screamed hilariously and leaned over the railing.
	The salesman joined their hilarity. He escorted the older sister down the steps, roaring, at the same time taking out his pen and searching in his straw hat for some piece of paper or other.
	And so we bought it!" remembered Miss Roberta, in the attic, horrified at their nerve. "We should've been warned! Always did think it looked like a little car off the carnival roller coaster!"
	"Well," said Fern defensively, "my hip's bothered me for years, and you always get tired walking. It seemed so refined, so regal. Like in the old days when women wore hoop skirts. They sailed! The Green Machine sailed so quietly."
	Like an excursion boat, wonderfully easy to steer, a baton handle you twitched with your hand, so.
	Oh, that glorious and enchanted first week--the magical afternoons of golden light, humming through the shady town on a dreaming, timeless river, seated stiffly, smiling at passing acquaintances, sedately purring out their wrinkled claws at every turn, squeezing a hoarse cry from the black rubber horn at intersections, sometimes letting Douglas or Tom Spaulding or any of the other boys who trotted, chatting, alongside, hitch a little ride. Fifteen slow and pleasurable miles an hour top speed. They came and went through the summer sunlight and shadow, their faces freckled and stained by passing trees, going and coming like an ancient, wheeled vision.
	"And then," whispered Fern, "this afternoon! Oh, this afternoon!"
	"It was an accident."
	"But we ran away, and that's criminal!"
	This noon. The smell of the leather cushions under their bodies, the gray perfume smell of their own sachets trailing back as they moved in their silent Green Machine through the small, languorous town.
	It happened quickly. Rolling soft onto the sidewalk at noon, because the streets were blistering and fiery, and the only shade was under the lawn trees, they had glided to a blind comer, bulbing their throaty horn. Suddenly, like a jack-in-the-box, Mister Quartermain had tottered from nowhere!
	"Look out!" screamed Miss Fern.
 
If it has not already been pointed out, it should be noted that in the following passage:
"Douglas, Douglas Spaulding! Lord, he's come to ask for a ride in our Green Machine. He doesn't know. Our pride has ruined us. Pride and that electrical contraption!"
"That terrible salesman from Gumport Falls. It's his fault, him and his talking."
the words "Pride and that electrical contraption" do not form a complete sentence. Sentence fragments are normally avoided in discursive prose (though even there they can occasionally be used for special effect), but are common in speech, and it is speech that is being represented here. Translated into textbook English, the meaning of "Our pride has ruined us. Pride and that electrical contraption" would be something like, "Our pride and that electrical contraption have together led to our ruin."
 
Searching on the web got me to a text version of the novel(Note sure about copy right issue but saves me a trouble of typing):
http://www.stargate.uk.net/Bradbury, Ray - Dandelion Wine.txt

1)"Pride and that electrical contraption!"

Pride and that contraption have both ruined us.

2)like an ancient, wheeled vision.
Vision is a vision, an imaginative scene. It's often used as a regular noun to emphasize the attached adjective or feature.

She was a vision in white.
(She was wearing a lot of white)

Model is also used the same way.

You're a model of honesty.
(You're so honest) - note, could be sarcastic.

3)tremble with a soft awakening to any breeze

I cannot tell if:
Leaves twitching as morning breeze touches them and the leaves recognise it?
or
leaves are awaking and twitching in response to the breeze?
Leaves are responding to the breeze. Leaves often receive verbs like tremble, shake, etc., to indicate their state of fragility.

4)Death won't get a crumb by my mouth I won't keep and savor

What is the meaning of the... um saying?
The grammar isn't so great, it's excused because it probably comes from the pen of a noted writer whose ideas are their own and garner artistic license. It means "Of these crumbs I keep and savour, death (the grim reaper, personified death) will not get any of these crumbs." or "I won't let any of these precious crumbs fall"

5)Strange the hot rooms with the sweating people pressed tightly back into them


"sweating people pressed tightly back into them behind the bronze knobs and knockers"
Um, embarrassing but I have to admit that I have not got a clue.

Who are them? bronze knows and knockers? Or the girls?
Who or what is doing pressing?
"pressed back into"? What does it mean?
As-is, it doesn't make much sense to me either. Please provide a larger context.
At a glance, it sounds like sweating people are forced to return into small sweaty rooms.

6)in an ever circling inventory

"she traveled the house in an ever-circling inventory"
"travel in inventory", does it mean travelling like following a list of things?
It sounds like a noun whose use is out of context from what I can see, we don't use inventory this way. But, perhaps the writer wished to convey completeness. She was looking at, passing by, walking past, etc. more and more items each time she circled the house.

7)a sea moving along an endless and self-refreshing shore.

"a sea moving along an endless and self-refreshing shore."
"moving along", does this mean the sea rising or moving towards the land?

"self-refreshing shore.", growing larger so it will never be completely covered by the sea? Or just not eroded? Could you tell me what is the meaning and what sort of trope this is?



Thank you for reading.
Thanks to the help people in the forum gave me, learning got much easier:D
Your help really appreciated.
Sea follows land for as long as land continues. It's the coastline. There's an endless area of sea movement as the coast continues along.
 
It sounds like a noun whose use is out of context from what I can see, we don't use inventory this way. But, perhaps the writer wished to convey completeness. She was looking at, passing by, walking past, etc. more and more items each time she circled the house.
I must disagree with the first point to this extent: while I have never encountered "inventory" used precisely this way outside of this passage, there is nothing wrong or obscure about the usage. As bakaKanadajin correctly interprets, it means that the woman moved through the house taking mental note as she did so of the various things in the house. It is her last trip through the house before dying, so she is saying goodbye to all the things that she has become familiar with in the course of her long residence in the house.

In some houses it is indeed possible to walk in a circle on the main level. One can walk, say, from the kitchen to the dining room to the living room and back to the kitchen without backtracking. In my life I have lived in two houses in which this was possible, and seen others in which it was. Older houses may even have front-stairs and back-stairs (formerly used by servants) and in such houses it is even possible to go up and down levels without backtracking.
 
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