Chapter 15 Chapter Fourteen
On the night express, the young wife sits thinking about something.Lo was asleep in a corner of the car, covered with a blanket.However, the young bride could not fall asleep. She heard the autumn wind whistling along the train, so she sat quietly in the other corner of the carriage, lost in thought.She gave her life to another in the hope of happiness, in the hope of her own destiny, in the hope of being able to pass on her piety, and that was happiness and nothing else.Aunt Therese is right, though she, Ellie, has a very different conception of piety, happiness, and destiny.What she wants is more than emotion and thought, what she wants above all is action.She has always been an activist, though at first her passion was tennis, then sculpture, and finally she put her sorrows into words and sent them to an editor and a publishing house.Now she's just as eager to jump into action, or at least actively collaborate.She looked at Lo sadly, and felt that she loved him, however different it was from what she had felt in her first relationship.Different from the previous relationship, her love for him is less for herself and more for her partner. She wants to motivate him to do great things.As for what kind of big event it is, she doesn't know, but for him, she is ambitious, which is an ambition derived from love.What a pity he should have wasted his talent on witty little essays and hastily written prose.These articles are just like his conversation, easy and interesting, but neither the author himself nor the readers can be convinced that he can do better, much better.Maybe writing fiction isn't a big deal, maybe writing is a big deal, but fiction isn't.what is that?She was looking for it and hadn't found it yet, but she was sure, or she knew she would find it, and it would inspire Lo.Yes, they will be happy, happy forever.There, in Italy, she will find.Perhaps she would find it in the past, in history, in things that had passed, in things that had died peacefully and were still beautiful and noble... Then why was she so melancholy?Or, it was just a continuation of the melancholy she had been feeling vaguely in the past.This melancholy seemed to be the morbidity behind all her behavior, and it made her quick and fluent speech stumble from time to time.She is melancholy, because she is a child with no father, no mother, no brothers and sisters, her youth can only bloom quietly in an old man's big house.He had been good to her, fatherly; but he was too old, and his advanced age oppressed her.There are always many old people around her.For as long as she could remember, she had known old Mrs. Deckers and Dr. LeLoves, since she was a child, when they were very old.So is Lo, she thought.Although a man who travels a lot leads a different life than a girl who stays at home all day, Luo also feels oppressed by the elderly around him.No doubt this is why his fear of growing old became a mental obsession.Aunt Stephanie and uncles in The Hague are old, their friends and acquaintances seem to be dead, and in that small town they have no other contemporaries, but walk alone in the streets, going to and from their respective homes, coming and going. Back and forth, back and forth... so bleak, so lonely.They were very blue because of it, and she felt it all through her teenage years...she couldn't keep friends with other girls.She stopped seeing the girls at the tennis club, and she gave a quick nod of greeting to her schoolmates in the street.After the unfortunate breakdown of her first marriage contract, she closed herself more and more, just spending time with Lo, walking and chatting together; he was also lonely in The Hague and had no friends, he said, he had many friends in Italy... …how strange that both of them were surrounded by an endless sense of loneliness and devastation!Unlike most people, and most families, they had no friends or acquaintances.No doubt they were oppressed by those two very old men.However, she couldn't think further, she felt that she missed something, she didn't know about that matter, but it was always pressing her there, letting others hide away.That dark old story haunted the minds of the old gentleman and the old lady, and hung like a fog over the others--the old lady's children and the old gentleman's granddaughter.That thing can't be described, but it's definitely palpable, as if you can just reach out and grab it...
I feel dazed and confused when I think about it, and I can't even think about it.She just had an intuition that there seemed to be a horrible past, nothing else, just that.However, that incident sometimes made her unable to breathe freely, unable to enjoy her youth, unable to walk fast, unable to speak loudly, and she had to work hard to get rid of its influence.She knew Lo felt the same way, she knew it from two or three slurred words, from the emotion they conveyed, and it made her sympathize with Lo from the bottom of her heart.He was a strange man, she thought, watching him sound asleep.He was, she thought, a very young boy, from appearance and from the petty mannerisms he exhibited, sometimes a child, but there was something in his boyishness which made his speech sometimes tactful but lacking. Sincerity; under the surface, he is weak, quite selfish, and has a neurotic attachment to his own affairs. At the same time, he is very capable of dealing with his mother, which can be regarded as a strong character, because only he can get along with his mother .He has talent in such a character, but he doesn't take it seriously, even though he depends on talent to write.He was a man full of contradictions, serious and childish, emotional and cold, masculine and weak, unlike anyone she had ever known before.As proud as he was of his talent, he was even more proud of his blond hair, and pleased more with compliments on his cravat than his best essays.It was such a child, a boy, a man she loved: it seemed strange to her to think, but she loved him and was only happy with him.
He wakes up, asks why she isn't sleeping, and puts her head on his chest.The jolt of the train and the contemplation just now made her feel tired, and she fell asleep.He looked out the window, they had already passed Lyon, and the faint morning light shrouded the desolate and cold land.He longed for the sea, for the blue sky, for the heat, for everything young and fresh: he was going to the South of France with Ellie, to the Riviera, and then to Italy.He used to be muddled, now he hopes to be happy, to be happy with thoughts and company, because loneliness makes people depressed and makes us constantly think about our slow aging process...
"She's so charming," he thought, looking down at her sleeping on his chest.He resisted the urge to kiss her because she had just fallen asleep. "She's charming and she has a really good sense of art. I'm definitely going to get her back into sculpting...or writing something, both of which she's really good at. Her short story was really good, Although a little too subjective and girly. There are many good things in life, although life is only a transitional state of little meaning in this decaying world, there must be other life forms, other worlds. One day, people will No more physical pain, at most only mental pain. At that time, all our physical anxieties will disappear... But this physical life is still attractive... If we forget all suffering for a while. Everyone will have A good time: I think my good time has come. If only it could stay like this, but it can't be. Everything will change... Better not to think about it and write, better write something, Write even while travelling. Ellie would love it. Florence has it, Rome has the papacy, I don't know which to choose, I have to choose one or the other. But such a subject is too heavy, too heavy for me Doubt I'll be able to write a good history of civilization. I hate organizing notes, those tattered scraps of paper...it's no good for me if I can't see the whole thing at once. I'm not for it Research, I have to see, feel, appreciate or experience the shock of the soul. If I don’t do this, I’m useless. What I’m best at is writing prose, language is like a butterfly, you just lightly Grab it lightly by the wings and let it fly away. Serious history books and art books are like fat beetles, crawling slowly... Oh! That's a good metaphor, I must use it In future articles, butterflies dance lightly in the air, while clumsy beetles..."
They are sailing to Marseilles, at 2pm they will arrive in Nice...
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