Chapter 6 chapter Five

The sun is already high in the sky.It is no longer flickering, its existence can only be guessed from some shadowy signs and light beams, like a girl lying on a mattress in the blue sea, with a crystal ball on her forehead. Jewels, jewels flashing lance-like opaline beams that flickered and waved in the twilight atmosphere like a leaping dolphin baring its belly, or the glare of a cleaved blade.Now the sun has spared no effort, and is actually burning up.It shines on the hard sand, and the rocks become red-hot furnaces; it searches every puddle, and catches the small fish that hide in the crevices; it exposes the rusty wheels on the beach, the pale or a laceless boot as black as iron.It makes everything appear in its truest colour; the sand dunes in their innumerable shiny grains, the weeds in their lustrous green; It zigzags into furrow ruts, sometimes sweeps over deserted signpost piles, and sometimes dots on short green wild trees.It illuminates the golden serenity of mosques, the fragile red-and-white cardboard houses of the rural South, the saggy breasts, hair Pale woman.The slowly rumbling ship on the sea is also caught by the straight sunlight, and the sunlight shines through the yellow awning on the passengers who are taking a nap or taking a walk on the deck, and the ship is carrying them boringly on the sea Day after day, they crowded on the greasy and oscillating ship's side, and from time to time they put their hands on their eyes to search for the distant land.

The sun shone down on the peaks of the densely-packed mountains in the south, and down on the deep stony riverbeds where the water had dwindled beneath the high drawbridges, and the women kneeling on the scorching stones to wash their clothes could barely Wet their laundry; scrawny mules carefully chose their way among the rattling gray stones with their pans on their backs.At noon the scorching sun baked the hillocks gray as if they had been gouged and scorched by an explosion; There was a little light shining on the smooth flat hillside, as if there was a guardian holding a green lamp and walking from room to room.The sun shines through the gray-blue particles of the air on the fields of England, on the moors and ponds, on a snow-white seagull perched on a stake, on the trees leveled at the top, the growing crops and Slowly drifting cloud shadows over the rolling dry grass.It shone on the orchard wall, and every crater, every grain of the brick wall shone with dazzling silver and purple, as if it was soft to the touch and would melt into a scorching heat if touched. of dust.Clusters of grapes hung by the walls like red ripples and waterfalls; growing plums swelled out from under the leaves, and the stems of countless grasses merged into a large, shining green.All the tree shadows shrank into a dark pool of water around the roots of the trees.The sun pouring down like a flood melted the original layers of branches and leaves into a large pile of green and verdant.

The birds sang in unison with unearthly enthusiasm, as if addressed to only one, and then all fell silent.While chirping in a low voice, they carried a small piece of straw or branch to the black branch of the tall tree.Glittering with gold and purple, they settled in the garden, where the cones of the nasturtium and the loose-leaf, gleaming with gold and lavender, were falling, for at this noon the garden was in full bloom, Even the passages under the bushes changed their hues from time to time, turning green, purple, and brown, according to whether the sunlight came in through the pink petals, or through the broad yellow petals, or was touched by something. A thick, hairy, green flower stalk conceals it.

The sun fell vertically over the house, blinding the white walls between the gray windows.The window panes, densely entwined with green flower stems, circled the dark shadows that could not be seen.A sharp wedge of light falls on the window sill, illuminating the contents of the room: plates with blue rings, teacups with curved handles, the protruding waist of a large bowl embroidered with crosses rugs, and the corners and corners of wardrobes and bookcases that are hard to get around.Behind the colossal mass of these cupboards rests a shadow, and in this shadow there may be a recognizable shape, which has escaped the shadow, or remains in the dark depths, deeper. dim.

After the waves broke, the water quickly flooded the beach.One after another, the waves surged high and then crashed down; with the momentum of the crest falling, the waves burst and splashed.The whole body of the wave after wave is blue, only the top of the wave crest is shining like a diamond, and the wave crest undulates, just like the muscles on the back of a strong horse galloping up and down.Waves crashed down; receded, then crashed down again, like the stamping of a gigantic beast. "He is dead," said Neville, "he fell from his horse. His horse tripped. He was thrown. The sail of the world snapped and fell on top of my head. It was all over. The world The light was extinguished. Ahead stood the great tree that I could not pass.

"Oh, crumple up this telegram in my hands--let the light of the world shine again--say it never happened! But why turn a man's head around and try to avoid it? It's true. It's true. His horse stumbled; he was thrown. The trees and white railings flew up in a jiffy. There was a whirl; there was a roar in his ears. Tight Then came the blow; the world collapsed; he gasped heavily. He died where he fell from his horse. "The barn in the country and the summer day, and the room we used to sit in—all these things now reside in that unreal world that never returns. My past is cut off from me They made contact. The men came running. The men in the riding boots, the sun hats, they carried him into a gazebo; he died among strangers. Solitude and loneliness were often I watched him. He used to leave me. Then, when he came back, I said, 'Look how wonderful he is!'

"Those women walked slowly past the windows, as if there hadn't been a chasm in the street, and a tree with stiff leaves that we couldn't get over. So we should stumble over a mole's nest Fallen. We walked slowly, with eyes closed, in the deepest depression. But why should I suffer like this? Why do I try to lift my feet up and climb the stairs? Here is where I stand; here is where I stand with a telegram in my hand. The place. The days of old, the days of summer and the rooms we used to sit in, like ashes of paper still gleaming with red sparks, are gone forever. Why party and start over? Why still Talking to other people, eating, making new connections? I'm all alone from now on. No one will understand me anymore. I've gotten three letters saying, 'I'm going to hang out with a colonel Hoop game, so write so much.' So he ended our friendship, waved his hand, and disappeared in the crowd. Such a farce does not need a serious celebration. But if Then someone said: 'Wait a minute'; if the horse's girth were tightened two or three more eyelets--then he would have justly judged the case for fifty years, would have sat in court, and would have rode first Marching at the head of a procession, would condemn some heinous tyranny, would come back to us.

"Now I think, somebody's grinning; somebody's looking for excuses. Someone's gotta be taunting us behind our backs. The boy almost slipped and fell off when he jumped on the bus. Percival fell; dead; buried; and I watched the passers-by; clutched to the handrail of the bus; determined to save their lives. "I don't want to lift my feet to climb the stairs. I want to stand under the inescapable tree for a while while the cook downstairs is opening and closing the fire door repeatedly, and be alone with the man whose throat was cut. I Don't want to climb the stairs. We're all doomed, all of us. The women walk by with shopping bags. The people keep coming and going. But you won't destroy me. Because this moment, this moment , the two of us are staying together. I hold you tight. Come on, pain, satisfy you with me. Drive your fangs into my flesh. Rip me apart. I whimper, whimper."

"It's an incredible coincidence," Bernard said, "and that's the intricacies of things. When I walk down the stairs, I can't tell which is happy and which is sad. I My son was born; Percival died. I seemed to hang on a pillar, squeezed from right and left by two naked emotions; but which is sorrow and which is joy? I asked myself, and answered No, all I know is that I need to be quiet, to go outside by myself, to have an hour to think about what happened to my world, what death has done to my world. "Then this is the world that Percival will never see again. Let me take a look. The butcher is delivering his meat to the house next door; two old men are shambling along the pavement; The sparrow flew down. Then the machine started; I noticed the rhythm, the vibration, but it was just something that had nothing to do with me, because he couldn't see it anymore. (He paled, lying in a room all covered in bandages.) So now is my chance to figure out what is the most important thing, but I have to be careful not to lie. My feeling about him has always been: he In the center of that place. I will never go to that place again. That place is empty.

"Oh yes, the man in the felt hat and the woman with the basket, I can assure you that you have lost something that was dear to you. You have lost a leader you could have followed; One of you has lost your happiness and your children. The one who was supposed to give it to you, he is dead. In a hot hospital in India, he is covered in bandages, lying on a camp bed, some coolies squatting Shaking those cattail fans on the floor - I forget what they call it there. But this one is important; 'you're probably mistaken', when the pigeon landed on the roof, my son just When I was born, I said it as if it was an indisputable fact. I remember him as a child with his strange detached air. And I went on (my eyes filled with tears, and then dried up) : 'But it's better than you dared to think.' I said to some invisible abstraction facing me in mid-air at the end of the street: 'Is this the best you can do? what?' and then we rejoiced. Because you really did your best. I said in vain to that pale stern face (for he was only twenty-five when he should have lived to be eighty). I am not prepared to lie down and cry through a life of troubles. (This should be in my notebook; a tribute to those who have suffered senseless deaths.) And it is very important; I must be able to put him in some kind of boring and funny situation, so that he doesn't feel how absurd he is riding on a tall horse. I must be able to say to him: 'Percival, a ridiculous name.' And yet, to all of you men and women hurrying to the subway station, you should have had a lot of respect for him. You should have followed him in long lines. Oh, in a crowd of open What a strange thing it must be to walk among those who watch life with empty and eager eyes.

"But the signal light was already on, and it kept beckoning, trying to lure me back. Curiosity was only briefly shaken off. You couldn't live even half an hour without this machine. I noticed that people's Bodies have become common in appearance, but inside they are different—this is perspective. Behind that newspaper board is a hospital; The man was pulling the rope; afterward they held a funeral for him. However, since people say that a famous actress is divorced, I will immediately ask which one. But I can't come up with a penny; I I couldn't buy a newspaper; I couldn't bear to be interrupted. "I asked myself, if I could no longer see you, and fix my gaze on that entity, then by what means would we be connected? You have walked across the courtyard, farther and farther, and put the connection between us That thread is getting thinner and thinner. But you still exist somewhere. Something about you remains. As a judge, for example. That is, if I discover a new temperament in myself, I You will be invited to judge in private. I will ask, what is the outcome of your judgment? You will remain in the role of arbiter. But how long will this last? It will become increasingly difficult to explain: will All sorts of new things come up; isn't my son already born. I'm at the culmination of an experience. It's going to fade away. I'll never again cry out in conviction: 'How many Good Luck!' Gone are the high spirits, the landing of the flocks. The chaos, the details, are back. I'll never fuss with the names written on the windows again. I won't Why rush again? Why catch a train? The order of things is restored; one thing leads to another—the usual order. "Yes, but I still loathe the usual order. I haven't made myself receptive to the order of things. I'm going to keep walking; I'm not going to stop and look around and change the rhythm of my head; I'm going to Walk on. I'm going to climb these steps, into the gallery, and let myself be influenced by minds like mine that are not bound by order. Time is running out for questions; my energy is fading; I've become Getting duller and duller. Here are some pictures. Here are some impassive Madonnas hanging in colonnades. May they make that restless heart, that bandaged head, and those who are People pulling the ropes, all calmed down, so that I could discover something elusive in the depths of things. Here are some gardens; and Venus statues among flowers; here are some saints and Madonna with melancholy expression. Happily these portraits are unexamined; they neither suggest nor point. So they broaden the range of my idea of ​​him, and make him appear quite different in the I replayed it. I remembered how handsome he was. 'Look how amazing he is.' I used to say that. "These lines and colors almost convinced me that I, too, could be heroic. I, as someone who can produce rhetoric so easily, was so easily seduced, so happy with the situation, unable to clench my fist, only to be indecisive. , hesitatingly inventing beautiful words according to my circumstances. Now through my weakness, I rediscover what he means to me: my opposite. , he can't see the essence of these exaggerated words at all, he is a man based on his natural sense of propriety, he is definitely a master of the art of life, so he also appears to be rich in experience, covering himself with a layer of serenity everywhere— —even a feeling of indifference, of course his indifference to his own success, though at the same time he possessed great compassion. A child was playing—a summer evening—the door would open and shut, Switching on and off, through the door I see things that bring tears to my eyes. Because they are unspeakable. That's why we're lonely, that's why we're lonely. I turn to this place in my head , to find it so empty. My own weakness oppresses me. From now on he will never contrast them again. "Look, now, this melancholy Madonna is weeping. This is my funeral. We have no ceremony, only personal eulogies, and no conclusions, only a few strong, disconnected emotions. It has nothing to do with our actual situation. We sit in the Italian gallery of the National Gallery, looking at fragments and fragments. I wonder if Titian has thought of this rat-like gnawing. The painter always lives orderly, A life of concentration, drawing their pictures stroke by stroke. They are not always scapegoats like poets; they are not chained to rocks. It is for this reason that this Serenity, such sublimeness. But that crimson must have displeased Titian at one time. No doubt he once held up the horn of abundance in his strong arms, and then was disgraced in this depravity. But this stillness oppressed me heavily—this demand for the eyes to concentrate on it for a long time. This oppression was intermittent and vague. button, but it either fails to ring the bell, or makes some inexplicable, absolutely piercing yelling. I revel in a certain splendor without restraint; that crumpled crimson against a green background; that row of columns the procession of the trees; the orange light that shone behind the prickly-eared, jet-black olive trees. There was a prickly agitation down my spine, but without order. "But there was something in my understanding. Something was lurking deep in it. There was a moment when I wanted to catch it. But it was lurking, lurking; let it lurking In the depths of my mind, quietly growing, until one day it will bear fruit. After a long, loose life, at the moment of revelation, I may reach out and touch it, but now the idea is already there. My hands are shattered. Those thoughts have been shattered countless times, and it is almost difficult to form a complete concept. They always shatter, always pouring on my head.' They will last longer than lines and colors ,so……' "I yawned. I had had enough. I was so exhausted by the tension and the long, long time—twenty-five minutes, half an hour—that I had to get away from the machine, a I am alone. I have become dull; I have become rigid and indifferent. How can I break this torpor which shames my sympathetic heart? There are other people who suffer too—there are Lots and lots of people are suffering. Neville is suffering. He loves Percival. But I can't take the pain anymore; I need someone with whom I can laugh and yawn with , to be able to recall with him how he once scratched his head; this is someone he once associated with freely and liked (not Susan, who he loved; or rather Jenny). In her In the room I can still make a confession. I can ask: did he ever tell you how I turned him down when he invited me to Hampton Court Palace that day? Thinking of these things, my heart is full in the middle of the night. Waking up painfully--these are the sins that one would take off one's hat and confess in any lively fair in the world; one would not go to Hampton Court that day. "Now, however, I long to be in the middle of life, among the books and trinkets of all kinds, and the bustle of the merchants' daily visits, so that I can rest after the exhaustion I have suffered. My head, close my eyes for a moment after this revelation. Then I'll go straight down the stairs, hail the first taxi I meet, and drive over to Jenny." "There's a puddle here," Rhoda said, "and I can't get over it. I hear the big grinding wheel whirling and whirling within a foot of my head. My face. All tangible forms of life have deserted me. Unless I can reach out and touch something solid, I am sure to be permanently scraped along the passage of eternity. So what can I touch Things? What kind of bricks, what kind of stones? To help me cross this chasm and get back into me safely? "The shadows are gone now, and the magenta light is slanting down. The figure once richly clothed is now in rags. When they say they like to hear his voice on the stairs, and the old shoes and When I spent those times with him, I told them that the figure standing on the grave mound overlooking the steep cliff had been disillusioned. "Now I'll walk down Oxford Street, and imagine the world torn apart by lightning; I'll look at the oaks, where the flowery branches break off, and the big red gaps open. I'll go to Oxford Street to buy a pair of socks for a ball. I'll do what I usually do under the lightning. I'll pick some violets on the bare ground and tie them up in a bouquet to give to Percival as my A little thing for him. Now look at what Percival sent me. Look at this street, now that Percival is dead. The houses have such weak foundations that a breath would They collapsed. Cars roared, roared, and chased us like hounds to nowhere. Human faces are ugly. But this is just what I like. I need public attention, I need fanatical action, I need Smashed like pebbles on the rocks. I love factory chimneys, cranes and delivery trucks. I love the faces and faces and faces that come and go, strange, unfeeling faces. I hate beauty; I loathe silence. I want to float on the stormy waves, I want to drown in it, and I don't need someone to save me. "Through his death, Percival gave me this gift: He made that terrible thing come to light, leaving me alone to bear this humiliation--faces of all shapes and sizes, as a kitchen helper brings vulgar, greedy, inattentive; peering into shop windows with assorted bags. Winking, flushed, ruining everything, even our love, now by them Even dirty hands become impure after touching them. "Here is the sock shop. I can almost believe that beauty is pouring out again. Its voice comes from the aisles between these shelves, through these lace, in these baskets full of colorful ribbons, faintly Audible. There are warm caves, then, deep in the center of this tumult; and quiet alcoves in which we may hide, under the shade of beauty's wings, from the truth I long for. When When a girl gently opened a drawer, the pain was temporarily put aside. But then she began to talk; her voice woke me up. I searched for the roots of this weedy place, And found envy, jealousy, hatred and resentment all crawling up the sand like crabs as she spoke. These are the things we're inseparable from. I'll pay my bills and take my bag . "Here is Oxford Street. Hate, envy, haste, and indifference, thronging a vulgar life. These are the things we never leave. Think of the friends who sit with us at dinner Well. I think of Louis, reading the sports section of an evening paper, always worried about being a laughing stock; a snobbish fellow. He said, as he watched the passing people: If we would follow, he would Willing to watch over us. If we obey, he can set us on the right path. Then he can blot out Percival's death with contentment, and look intently past the condiment bottles and look at the houses in heaven. At the same time Bernard, red-eyed, sank into an easy chair. He would pull out his notebook; he would jot down 'words and phrases in mourning' in the column marked 'D'. Jenny would jump Jian Wu, across the room, sat on the arm of his chair and asked: 'Does he love me?' 'Does he love me more than he loves Susan?' Susan - has been busy cooking On her farm in the country, she would stand for a second before the telegram with a plate in her hand; After staring at the window for a while, seeing something through my tears, and asking: 'Who passed the window?' - 'What a lovely chap?' That's what I dedicate to Percy Val's gift; withered violets, black violets. "Where do I go next? To some museum with earrings and rings in glass cases and a showroom with the clothes the queens wore? Or to Hampton Court Palace, to see the Red walls, courtyards, and yew groves arranged like black spiers on flowery meadows? Can I rediscover beauty there, and restore order to my scratched, tangled mind? But a man What can I do in loneliness? When I'm alone, I'll stand in the empty grass and say: a rook is flying; a man walks by with a bag; a gardener pushes a wheelbarrow ...I would stand in the queue, sniffing the sourness of sweat and the horrible smell like sourness of sweat; at the same time hanging like a piece of meat among many, with the others. "This is a ticketed hall; a place where you can listen to music among the drowsy people who come here after lunch in the heat of the afternoon. We had a hearty meal of beef and Pudding, enough to live a week without eating anything. So we swarm like maggots on the back of something to carry us wherever. Polite, dignified—under our hats gray hair; tiny shoes; dainty handbags; clean-shaven cheeks; military beards here and there; never allowing a speck of dust to settle on our velvet clothes. , open it up, and say hello to our friends, and we settle down, like some walruses stranded on rocks, like lumbering bodies that can't waddle into the sea, expecting a wave to float us up , but we are too heavy, and there are too many dry pebbles between us and the sea. We lie there with food in our stomachs, languid in the heat. At this time, the body is swollen and wrapped in smooth The satin sea-blue woman came to our rescue, pursing her lips in a preoccupied pose, puffing up just in time and swirling like she saw an apple and Her voice was like a sharp arrow, making this note: 'Ah!' "An ax cuts into the heart of a tree; the heart is warm; there is a trembling sound from beneath the bark. 'Ah!' a lady leans out of a window in Venice and cries to her lover. 'Ah, ah!' she yelled, and then she yelled 'Ah!' and she transmitted a yell to us. But it was just a yell. So what is a yell? Now, those beetle-like men They came with their violins; they waited; they counted the time; they bowed their heads; Hear the light laughter, as the wind blows the olive trees and their myriad tongue-like gray leaves. "'As if', 'as if', 'as if'—but what lurks behind the apparent resemblance? Now that the lightning has struck the tree, and the blossoming boughs have fallen, Percival, through his death, Give me this gift so that I can see things as they are. Here is a square; there is a rectangle. The athletes take the square and put it on the rectangle. They put it Placed very precisely; they made a perfect shelter. Almost nothing was left out. The frame is now clearly visible; the early stages are explained here; we are not so different or selfish Be stingy; we have done some oblongs and erected them on squares. This is our victory; this is our consolation. "This sweet taste of contentment flows down the walls of my consciousness and sets my understanding free. Wander no more, I say; this is the destination. The rectangular has been placed in the square." above the thing; at the top is a corkscrew. We've been dragged across the pebbly beach and down into the sea. The athletes are at it again. But they're wiping the sweat off their faces. They no longer look So chic, and not so gay anymore. I'm going. I'm going to put the afternoon away. I'm going on a long walk. I'm going to Greenwich. I'm going to hop on the tram without fear , hopped on the bus. As we staggered down Regent Street, I was shoved and bumped into this woman, this man, but I wasn't hurt or moved by the collisions Indignation. A square is erected on top of a rectangle. There are some rough streets here, and bargaining scenes can be seen everywhere in the market along the street. All kinds of iron bars, bolts, and screws are all placed outside, and people swarm Walking down the sidewalk, crunching the raw flesh with clumsy fingers. The structure is already visible. A shelter has been built outside. "These are, then, those flowers which grow neither open nor fruit in the weeds of the moors, trampled by horses and oxen, and battered by wild winds, and almost unrecognizable. These are the things I learned from the sidewalks of Oxford Street. Uprooting brought my penny bouquet, my penny bouquet of violets. Now, from the window of the tram, I see the poles appearing between the chimneys; the river is there side; there are ships bound for India. I'll walk along the river. I'll walk across this embankment, where an old man is reading a newspaper in a glass shed. I'll go up to this platform, Look at the ships going down the stream. A woman is walking on deck, with a dog barking around her. Her dress is blowing; her hair is blowing; they are sailing to sea; they Is leaving us; they are fading away this summer evening. Now I'm withdrawing; now I'm giving up. Now at last I'm letting go of the pent-up, stifled desire to do as we please, to squander our lives. We We shall ride together over those desolate hillsides, past where swallows skim and fly over dark pools and columns stand straight. We shall ride into the waves that break the shore, into the foam-splashing Stormy seas at the ends of the earth. I will throw away my violets, my gift to Percival."