Chapter 5 Chapter Four

Taking advantage of Rodion's opportunity to deliver breakfast, she slipped into the cell from under his hands holding the plate. "Go, go, go," he said, setting the chocolate drink on the table.He closed the door behind him softly with his foot, and whispered to his beard, "This kid is so naughty..." Meanwhile, Amy ducked away from him, crouching under the table. "Reading, eh?" said Rodion, radiant and kindly. "It's a good way to spend time." Cincinnatus agreed in an iambic voice without lifting his eyes from the page, but his eyes had lost sight of them.

Rodion completed the uncomplicated task, used a rag to wipe away the dust dancing in the beam of sunlight, fed the spiders, and left. Amy is still squatting, but the tension has been reduced a little, as if swaying slightly on a spring, her fluffy arms are crossed, her pink mouth is slightly open, her long, almost white eyelashes are blinking, her eyes Throw across the tabletop towards the door.It was an already familiar gesture: she brushed the flaxen hair away from her temples with a few fingers at random, and cast a sideways glance at Cincinnatus, who had put the book aside and was waiting for what was to come. .

"He's gone," Cincinnatus said. She left the place where she was squatting, but still bent over and looked towards the door.She was rather embarrassed and didn't know what to do.She made a sudden look of anger, and saw her ballerina-like calves swaying quickly, and she rushed to the door-the door was of course locked.Her corrugated belt quickened the air flow in the cell. Cincinnatus asked her two general questions.She pretended to be gentle and said her name, twelve years old. "Are you sorry for me?" Cincinnatus asked. To which she made no reply.There was an earthen jar in the corner, and she held it up to her.The crock was empty and made a dull sound.She yelled a few times into it and quickly threw it away.Now she was leaning against the wall, propping herself up only on her shoulder blades and elbows, sliding forward on her taut feet in flat shoes, then straightening up again.She smiled to herself, and when she continued to slide, she looked at Cincinnatus sullenly again, as if at a sunset.All this shows that she is a restless wild child.

"Don't you feel sorry for me at all?" said Cincinnatus. "It's impossible. I can't imagine it. Come here, you silly little girl, and tell me someday I'm going to be executed." But Amy didn't answer, just slid to the floor.She sat down quietly, her chin resting on her bent knees, and she pulled the hem of her dress tight over her knees. "Tell me, Amy, please...you must know all about it—I can see you know...your father talked about it at the dinner table, your mother talked about it in the kitchen...everyone was talking about it A thing. Yesterday's paper was neatly cut with a small square - which means that everyone is talking about it, and I'm the only one..."

As if caught in a whirlwind, she jumped from the floor, sprinted to the door, and began pounding on the door, not with the palm of her hand, but with the heel of her hand near the wrist.Her blond hair was loose, soft and sleek, hanging in curls at the ends. "If only you were a grown-up," Cincinnatus mused, "if your soul had a little of my air, you'd make prison The guard drinks the magic potion. Amy!" he cried, "I beg you—I will never give up—tell me, when will I die?" Biting her fingers, she walked over to the table, on which a pile of books was stacked high.She opened one, cracked the pages so much that she nearly tore them off, closed the book with a snap, and picked up another.Her face kept moving: first she wrinkled her freckled nose, then puffed out her cheeks with her tongue.

The door slammed.Rodion, who might have peeped through the peephole, came huffing in. "Go away, damn girl! I really deserved it." She burst out laughing shrillly, avoiding his claw-like hands, and rushed towards the open door.On the threshold, she stopped suddenly with the uncanny precision of a dancer—maybe blowing a kiss, or silently making a covenant—and looked back at Cincinnatus.Then, she ran away suddenly and rhythmically, her steps were long, high and elastic, and she was about to fly. Rodion grumbled as he struggled after her, the keys jingling. "Wait!" cried Cincinnatus. "I've read all these books. Send me the list again."

"Book..." Rodion mocked him angrily, and locked the door with a bang. Extremely painful!Cincinnatus, in agony!Pure misery, Cincinnatus - relentless booming bells, fat spiders, yellow walls, rough black blankets.The scum of a chocolate drink.Lift it up from the middle with two fingers, grab it all over, it is no longer a flat covering, but like a little brown skirt with pleats.The drink below was still lukewarm, slightly sweet, and lifeless.Three slices of toasted bread with a burnt crust like a turtle shell.A small round piece of butter embossed with the Warden's initials.What anguish, Cincinnatus, what crumbs on the bed!

He moaned, complained, and cracked all his knuckles, then got out of bed, put on his disgusting dressing gown, and started pacing up and down the cell.Once again he carefully examined the inscriptions on the wall, hoping to find something new somewhere.He stood on the chair for a long time, like a fledgling crow standing on a tree stump, staring up at a pitifully small sky motionless.He walked around again for a while.He read again the eight rules for prisoners, which he had already learned by heart: 1. It is strictly forbidden to leave the prison. 2. Prisoners should be proud of being submissive.

3. Strictly keep quiet from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. every day. 4. Women are not allowed to be received. 5. Singing, dancing, and joking with the guards are only allowed on specific days when both parties agree. 6. It is best for a prisoner not to have dreams that are not commensurate with his situation and status at night, such as beautiful scenery, outings with friends, family dinners, and sexual intercourse with people who would not let the prisoner approach her in real life or in a waking state , because the prisoner can be judged by the law as rape.In case of dreaming, the prisoner should immediately engage in self-restraint.

7. Since prisoners enjoy the hospitable environment of the prison, when the prison staff cleans up or does other work, if the prisoner is asked to participate, the prisoner must not refuse. 8. The prison management department shall not be responsible for the property or personal loss of prisoners. Pain, pain, Cincinnatus.Go on pacing, Cincinnatus, and wipe first the walls with your robes, then the chairs.pain!I finished reading all the books on the table.Although Cincinnatus knew that the books were all read, he continued to search, check, and open a thick book... He didn't bother to sit down, and eagerly flipped through the pages he was already familiar with.

It was a bound magazine, published so early that I hardly remember the date.The prison library, the second largest in the city in terms of size and collection of rare books, houses several of these curios.It was an age-old world where the simplest things shone with youth and an innate arrogance born of reverence for the labor that went into producing them.It was an age when everything was flowing; well-lubricated metal silently performed silent acrobatics; the unprecedented softness of strong bodies highlighted the harmonious lines of male clothing; the huge windows at the corners of buildings were filled with smooth glass; A girl in a swimsuit is as light as a swallow, flying high above the swimming pool, looking no bigger than a flying saucer; Creases, it looks like it is resting lazily; A shadow with wings fell from above.Everything is full of radiance and shines brightly.Everything moves passionately toward a kind of perfection that by definition is frictionless.Life, drunk with all the lures of its own cycle, soon becomes dizzy, and the ground dips, caves, falls, limp with nausea and exhaustion—must I say it?In a way, it has entered a new dimension... Yes, the matter is old and tired, and there is very little left from those legendary days-a few machines, two or three eye fountains and no one misses the past , and even the notion of the "past" has changed. "But perhaps," thought Cincinnatus, "I have misunderstood these pictures. I have identified the characteristics of period photographs with the period itself. Lots of shadows, strong light, tanned shoulders. Gloss, the rare reflection of light, the flow of one composition into another—perhaps it all belongs only to the quality of the snapshot, to the collotype, to that particular form of art which the world never really Less intricate, less dank, less fast - in the same way we today record the world we have hastily assembled and painted with uncomplicated cameras in their own way." "But maybe," (Cincinnatus begins scribbling on a lined paper) "I misunderstood...of that age...so much...intense...fluctuation...that the world never actually Neither... Like... But how can all this rumination ease my pain? Oh, my pain - what am I going to do with you, with myself? How dare they hide it from me... I have to go through excruciating pain In order to maintain a little dignity (in any case, I only suffer in silence-I am not a hero...) During the test, I must try to control all my senses, I, I... my body is gradually weakening... ...indecision sucks--hell, why don't you tell me, tell me--but you don't, you make me die all over again every morning...On the other hand, can I know, let me do a little...short-term work...documenting proven ideas...one day someone will see it and suddenly feel like he's awakened in a strange country for the first time. What I mean by that is, I'll make him burst into tears of joy, his eyes will melt in tears, and he'll feel the world is cleaner and fresher after the experience. But how can I start when I don't know if I have enough time What about writing? If you say to yourself, 'Start writing yesterday, there's plenty of time,' you'll be miserable - and you'll think 'I wish I started writing yesterday...' Not a must-do clarity And precise work is not the gradual preparation of the soul for the morning when you have to get up, when—when you, soul, bathe in the executioner's bucket, you will involuntarily wallow in meaningless, meaningless In the dull dream of running away - oh my god, running away... Today, when she ran in, stomping and laughing - that is, I mean - no, I should still record, leave Next something. I'm not an ordinary--I'm one of you alive--not only my eyes are different, but my hearing, my taste--not only my smell like a deer, My sense of touch is like that of a bat - and above all, I have the ability to connect all this at one point - no, the secret has not yet been revealed - it is only flint - and I have not yet spoken of the ignition itself. My Life. As a child, on a school excursion, I broke away from the group—although it might have been only a dream—and found myself in the hot midday sun in a sleepy town with a man Dozed off on a bench under a brightly painted white wall, and when he finally got up to help me find my way, his blue shadow on the wall didn't follow him right away. Oh, I get it, I get it , I must have overlooked it myself, the shadow has not dawdled at all, can we simply think that it is hung by the unevenness of the wall... But what I want to express is: the difference between his action and the lagging shadow Between actions—that moment, that swooning moment—a moment I seldom experience—a pause, a gap, when the heart is like a feather... I also want to write about the constant shockTo write about how a part of my mind always clings to that invisible umbilical cord that connects the world to something else--to something else that I don't want to say yet... But when I How could I start writing it when I was worried that there would not be enough time to finish it, and that it would be futile to turn all these thoughts out?When she ran in today—just a child—and now I want to say—just a child, gave my mind a few vents—and I dreamed to the rhyme of an ancient poem— —Can't she give those guards a poisoned drink, can't she save me?Let's hope she stays as childish as she is now, but at the same time she's mature and understanding - then it's possible: her hot cheeks, a dark, stormy night, rescue operations, rescue operations...but I was wrong , I repeatedly thought that there was no refuge for me in the world.Actually there is!I can find it!Lush ravines in the desert!A piece of snow under the shade of a high mountain cliff!But it's not healthy - what I'm doing is: my body is already weak, and I'm still stimulating myself, squandering what little energy I have left.What a pain, oh what a pain... Apparently I haven't got the final film out of my fear. " He was lost in thought.He dropped the pencil, got up, and started to walk.He heard the bell strike.The footsteps surfaced using the bell as a platform; the platform floated away, but the footsteps remained, and then two men entered the cell: Rodion with the soup, and the librarian with the bibliography. The latter was tall and sickly, pale, with dark circles around his eyes, a ring of black hair surrounding a bald head, a long torso, and wore a blue jumper, faded in places, with indigo patches on his elbows.His hands were in his trouser pockets, the trousers were extremely narrow, and a large book was tucked under his arm, bound in black leather.Cincinnatus had had the honor of seeing him once before. "Here's the bibliography," said the librarian, with a terrific laconicity and evident contempt. "Very well, let's put it here," said Cincinnatus. "I'll choose some books. If you'd like to sit and wait a while, please do. But if you want to go--" "I'm leaving now," said the librarian. "That's good. I'll ask Rodion to return you the bibliography. Also, you can take these books back with you... These ancient magazines are so beautiful... You know, this heavy book is like ballast Like a thing, it kept sending me to the bottom of time. It was an intoxicating feeling." "No," said the librarian. "Send me some more and I'll copy down the year I want. I want a novel, the latest one. Are you leaving? Do you have all kinds of attractive content?" Cincinna Tess was alone, drinking his soup and flipping through his books.Its centerpiece is beautifully printed and attractive.Numerous book titles are inserted in the printed text in small but legible red ink.If you are not an expert, it is very difficult to understand the meaning of the bibliography, because the titles are not arranged in alphabetical order, but in the order of the page number of each book, and it also indicates how much extra is posted in each book Zhang (this is to avoid repetition).Therefore, Cincinnatus just looked around randomly, without a definite object in mind, and picked out what seemed to be attractive when he came across it.The cleanliness of the bibliography is exemplary, and as such it is all the more surprising that a series of pencil drawings of a child appear on the white reverse of the front page of a book.Cincinnatus did not understand the meaning of those pictures at first.