Chapter 50 Chapter 50

I have a feeling that some people are born where they don't belong.Accidental events place them in certain circumstances, but they are always nostalgic for a homeland they themselves do not know.They have instead become strangers to their birthplace, and the leafy alleys they have known from childhood, or the bustling streets where they have played, are but a part of their journey. Just one stop.Having spent their entire lives among their friends and relatives, they remain alone, feeling alone among their familiar scenes.Perhaps it is this strangeness that makes people search for something eternal all over the world, and this eternal thing becomes their attachment.Perhaps some deep-seated atavism drove the duckweed-like wanderer back to the land his ancestors left in the chaos of ancient times.Sometimes a man happens to come to a place where he somehow feels he belongs, here is the home he seeks, and he takes up residence among scenes he has never seen, among people he has never seen, It seemed that he had been familiar with these people from the moment he was born.It was here, at last, that he found his resting place.

I told Tiari a story about a man I knew at St Thomas' Hospital.He was a Jew named Abraham.He was a fair-haired, rather stocky young man.Shy, very humble, but he has outstanding ability.He entered the hospital as an intern with a scholarship, and during the five years of course study, he has included all the awards he is eligible to participate in.He has been a resident physician and a resident surgeon.His talent is obvious to all and has been unanimously recognized by everyone.In the end, he was elected to the leadership of the hospital, and his career was booming. As long as the world is predictable, it is absolutely certain that he will climb to the top of the industry, and various honors and fortunes are beckoning to him.Before he took up his new post, he wished to take a vacation, and since he had no money of his own, he took a temporary job as a live-in doctor on a tramp bound for the Levant.Generally speaking, there are no doctors on this kind of freighter. It is only because a senior doctor in this hospital knows the supervisor on this route, so Abraham took advantage of this convenient condition to get this position.

A few weeks later, the hospital authorities received Abraham's resignation letter, declaring that he would give up the coveted position of many people.While everyone was shocked, rumors abounded.Whenever someone behaves unexpectedly, those around him attribute it to the most incredible motives.But there were plenty of people ready to fill Abraham's place, and he was quickly forgotten.Since then, he has not been heard from, as if he disappeared from the earth. After about ten years, I took a boat for Alexandria one morning.As instructed, I lined up with other passengers to wait for the doctor's examination.The doctor was a stocky man, dressed in rags.When he took off his hat, I noticed that his head was completely bald.In a flash, I felt as if I had seen him somewhere before.Suddenly, I remembered.

"Abraham," I called. He turned to me with a confused face, and then, recognizing me too, grabbed my hand.After a surprise confession between the two of us, knowing that I was going to spend the night in Alexandria, Abraham invited me to join him for dinner at an English club.In the evening, when we met again, I expressed my surprise to meet him here, who now holds a lowly position and seems to be living in distress.Next, he told me his story.When he set off for a holiday in the Mediterranean, he had planned to return to London to work at St Thomas' Hospital after the holiday.One morning, when the ship was moored in Alexandria, he looked at the city from the deck. In the sun, the city was white, and the docks were bustling; he also saw locals in tattered robes, blacks from Sudan, noisy Noisy throngs of Greeks and Italians, stern-looking Turks in tarbushs.Under the sunshine and the blue sky, something touched him in his heart, he couldn't explain it clearly, he said, like a thunderclap in the flat ground.Then, as if dissatisfied with the statement, he said, like some kind of apocalypse.It was something that wrestled with him, and suddenly he felt a ecstasy, a wonderful, free feeling of being back in his homeland, where, then, he quickly made up his mind to spend the rest of his life in Alexandria.He left the ship without much trouble, and twenty-four hours later, with all his belongings, he was on shore.

"The captain must think you're completely crazy," I said with a smile. "I don't care what other people think, it's not like I'm acting, but something stronger in my soul is driving me to do it. I look around and think I should go to a small Greek hotel, as if I know the way, You know, I walked right up there and when I saw the hotel, I recognized it right away." "Have you been to Alexandria before?" "No, I've never been out of England before." Soon he found work in a government service, where he has remained ever since. "Have you ever regretted it?"

"No, I haven't lived a minute, I've barely got enough to live on, but I'm content. I don't want anything but to live like this until I die. I'm living the life I want to live." I left Alexandria the next day and had almost forgotten about Abraham until recently, when I was having dinner with another old friend in the medical profession.My old friend, Alec Carmichael, was back from a short holiday in England. I chanced upon him in the street and congratulated him on being knighted for his wartime service.The two of us planned to find a good night to catch up. I agreed to have a meal with him, and he also suggested that in order not to be disturbed, he would not call anyone else, just the two of us.He had a beautiful old house in Queen Anne Street, which, for a man of good taste, he had kept up to be envied.On the walls around the dining-room I saw a charming Bellotto and two Zofani which I admired.His wife, a tall, gilded and pleasant-looking wife, greeted me and left.I laughed and teased him, saying that compared to when we were both poor students in medical school, he has changed from shot to shot, and he is not what he used to be.Both of us considered it a luxury to have a meal at a shabby little Italian restaurant in Westminster Bridge Street when we were both at school.Now, Alec works as a specially appointed doctor in six or seven hospitals. I think he can earn 10,000 pounds a year. His knighthood is just the beginning of many honors, and such honors will surely roll in in the future.

"I've done well," he said, "but, oddly enough, it's all a stroke of luck." "What do you mean by that?" "Well, you remember Abraham? He was a bright future. When we were students, his grades kept beating me. He took all the awards and scholarships I was looking for. I was always one step behind him. Well, if he keeps going, I'll be where I am today. This guy is a genius with a scalpel, no one can compete with him. When he was appointed as the attending doctor of St. Thomas' Hospital, I didn't know I haven't had a chance to be in a hospital yet. I can only be a general practitioner. You know what a general practitioner is like at the time. I can't even escape the old path of a general practitioner. But Abraham made room for me, and I Got the job that belonged to him. From then on, I've been lucky."

"That's exactly what happened." "It's just luck, I think Abraham's not sure what he's messing with, poor guy, he never recovered. He got a job in the medical department in Alexandria - quarantiner or something, earning a tri-core Two dates. I was told that he lived with an old ugly Greek bitch and had six or seven lumpy kids. I think, actually, brains are not enough However, it is character that plays a decisive role, and Abraham has a flaw in his character." character?I should be able to imagine that it was because of his personality that he threw away a good career after only half an hour of thinking.Never regret taking a sudden step because you see that another way of life makes more sense and requires more character.But I said nothing, and Alek Carmichael went on thoughtfully:

"Of course, I would be hypocritical if I pretended to be sorry for what Abraham did, after all, I got so much out of it." He smoked a long Crona cigar, enjoying himself. Puffing out smoke rings, "However, if I don't think about it from a personal point of view, I still feel sorry for the waste of this genius. It seems a terrible thing for a person to make life into such a mess." I do wonder if Abraham really messed up his life.Do what you want to do most, live a life that makes you the happiest under certain conditions, and you are always in a state of indifference and tranquility. Could it be that life has become a mess?Besides, is being a famous surgeon earning £10,000 a year and marrying a beautiful wife a sign of success?I think it depends on what meaning you give to life, on what obligations you have to society, on what you ask of yourself.Yet again I kept silent, for how could I argue with a Sir?