Chapter 7 Chapter Six

The sun has moved away from the midheaven.Its light is no longer direct, but slanted down.Now it shone on the edge of a cloud, making it shimmer like a burning island of fire where no one could settle.Then the sun's rays fell on another cloud, and another, and another, so that the waves below seemed to be struck by clusters of fiery feathered arrows flying erratically from the swaying blue sky. hit. The leaves at the top of the treetops are slightly curled under the sun.They were blown by the erratic breeze and made a dry rustling sound.The birds perched on the branches motionless, but they turned their little heads from side to side nimbly from time to time.They all stopped singing now, as if they were tired of the noise, as if the rich noon had satiated them.A dragonfly paused motionless on a reed for a moment, then its thin blue thread-like body continued to fly into the air.There was a faint humming sound from a distance, like some slender wings dancing up and down in the distant sky, making intermittent tremors.The water held the reeds motionless now, as if they had been solidified with glass around them;The cows and horses with their heads bowed in thought stood on the field, and then moved forward clumsily step by step.The faucet on the bucket next to the house had stopped dripping, as if the bucket was full, but then the faucet dripped three drops in succession.

There are fiery spots of light changing in the windows, the kink of a twig, and then a pure, transparent void.Curtains hung bright red on either side of the windows, and arrows of light from the room fell on the tables and chairs, spotting their painted and polished surfaces.The waist of the emerald water jug ​​is bulging, and the shadow of the long white curtain is reflected on its side wall.The light drives away the shadows, and divides them generously into every corner of the room and all the carvings on the walls; but it still squeezes the shadows into disjointed heaps. The tide surged and rose, the crest of the wave fluctuated, and then broke and splashed.Stones and gravel were splashed one after another.The tide brushes over the rocks, throwing up high spray, which splashes all the walls of the cave which were dry a moment ago, and leaves patches of water on the shore; when the tide subsides, there will be some stranded fish There flapping their tails.

"I've signed my name twenty times," Louis said. "Me, and then me, and me. My name is there, clear, definite, unambiguous. I'm myself well-defined, Unambiguous. But there is a lot of inherited life experience accumulated in me. I have lived for thousands of years. I am like a maggot that has eaten into the trunk of a very old oak tree. But now I am solid ;Now, on this bright morning, my mental state is very concentrated. "The sun was shining in the clear sky. But at twelve o'clock it was neither rain nor sunshine that concerned me. This was the time when Miss Johnson brought my letters to me in a wire basket. On these snow-white sheets I sign my name. The leaves rustle, the water rushes down the gutters, the deep shade is dotted with dahlias and zinnias; I, now a duke, now Plato, Socrates' Companion; the wandering wading of the dark or sallow; the eternal procession of women carrying their briefcases through the Strand as they once carried the flood Pots to the Nile; all my curled and tightly folded pages containing many facets of life, now all condensed in my name; sometimes clearly, sometimes vaguely inscribed on the page. Now, as a mature man; Now, standing upright in the sun or in the wind and rain, I must strike down like an axe, and strike an oak tree with absolute strength. Snow, melting and obliterating.

"I am somewhat in love with the typewriter and the telephone. By letters, telegrams, and simple, courteous orders to Paris, Berlin, and New York, I have brought many aspects of my life into one; And perseverance, I've drawn lines on that map that connect the different parts of the world. I love walking into my office at ten o'clock; I love this dark mahogany The shimmering purple luster; I love the table and its sharp outlines; and the drawers that slide smoothly. I love the telephone with its mouthpiece sticking out for my whispers, and the calendar hanging on the wall; And the appointment note. Four o'clock appointment with Mr. Prentiss; four-thirty appointment with Mr. Erez.

"I love being called into Mr. Birchard's private office to report on our business dealings with China. I hope to inherit an armchair and a Turkish rug. I work hard; I overcome whatever is in front of me Difficulty, to extend commerce far and wide to every part of the world where there is no order. As long as I persevere and establish order in the disordered world, then one day, I will find that I have the status that Chatham once had, with Pitt, Burke, and Robert Peel once held. That way, I can remove some stains, some old shame: the woman who plucked me a little flag from the Christmas tree; my accent; beatings and All kinds of other sufferings; those braggart boys; my father in the Bank of Brisbane.

"I once read my favorite poet in a restaurant; and, as I stirred my coffee, I listened to the clerks making bets at the little tables, and watched the women hesitate at the counter. I thought that whatever They should not be irrelevant, such as a yellowed piece of paper thrown on the floor. I think they must have a purpose in their travels; they deserve to earn their weekly income under the command of a dignified master Two pounds ten shillings; there shall be a hand to caress us at night, and a robe to wrap us around. Once I heal these rifts, once I understand these deformed monsters, so that they need no pardon No need for defense either - it's just a waste of our energy, I'll give back what they lost when they fell to the ground and broke their bones on a rocky beach at a hard time like this To this street, to this restaurant. I'll collect words and hammer a circle around us.

"But right now I can't spare a little extra time. There's no respite here, no shade from the shade of quivering leaves, or an arbor to hide from the sun, or in the cool evening Come and sit with a lover. The weight of the world is on our shoulders; the phantoms of the world are everywhere; if we only blink our eyes, or look sideways, or turn our backs and ponder Plato's or recall Napoleon and his conquests, and we inflict some misguided damage on the world. Such is life; four o'clock appointment with M. Prentice; It was about four-thirty. I loved the soft gliding of the elevator, the thump to a stop on my floor, and the heavy footsteps of a man walking majestically down the corridor. That's it, by Together, we have sent ship after ship to the farthest places in the world; bathrooms and gyms. The weight of the world is on our shoulders. This is life. If I persevere, I will One could inherit a chair and a rug; an estate in Surrey with glasshouses that other merchants would envy, and rare conifers, melons, or flowers.

"Yet I still keep my little attic. There I used to look through the little paperbacks; there I used to watch the raindrops glisten on the tiles until at last they shone like policeman's raincoats." bright; there I could see the battered windows of poor people's houses; could see a lean cat, or some whore ready to hit the streets, winking and grooming her face in a cracked mirror. Rhoda Sometimes I go there because we are lovers. "Percival is dead (he died in Egypt; he died in Greece; all deaths are ultimately a death). Susan has had children; Neville hastened to eminence. Life is passing The clouds are constantly changing over our house. I do this, I do that, then I do this, and I do that. The same temperament has formed different habits of doing things. However, if I don't keep these imprints firmly, and combine the many different characters lurking in me into one person, existing here and now , rather than ephemeral like snowflakes drifting in the distance; and ask Miss Johnson about the movie as she walks through the office, and have a cup of tea and a slice of my favorite biscuit, if not , I will surely fall like snow and melt away.

"However, at six o'clock, I would touch my hat to the liveried porter, and since I was so eager to be accepted, I was always very courteous; and then I would I buttoned my clothes tightly, bowed my waist, faced the wind, and struggled to move forward. My chin was blue by the wind, and my eyes were full of tears; whenever this happened, I hoped There was a dainty typist in my lap; I would remember that my favorite meals were liver and bacon; Some common small hotels, you can see the shadows of passing ships at the end of the alley, and women often fight in that kind of place. But I quickly regained my senses, and I reminded myself that I had agreed to meet with Plantis at four o'clock, and Erez agreed at half-past four. The ax must strike the wood; the oak must be hewn to the heart. The weight of the world is on my shoulders. Here are pens and paper; on letters in wire baskets I'm going to sign my name, me, me, me."

"Summer comes, and then winter," said Susan, "and the seasons come and go. The pears are plump and ripe, and fall from the tree. A dead leaf clings to it. But the windows are clouded by the steam. I sit By the fire, watching the water boil in the pot. Through the streams of steam running down the window, I could see the pear tree. "Sleep, sleep, I always hum, whether it's summer or winter, May or November. I hum a lullaby—I never get into tune, never hear Music, except country music, like the barking of a dog, or the jingle of a bell, or the rattle of a wheel on gravel. I hum my song by the fire like an old dog on the beach. Old Shell was whispering. Go to sleep, go to sleep, I'm humming; I'll use my voice in case someone makes a sound by knocking a milk can, shooting a rook or shooting a rabbit, or whatever They were warned not to bring the destructive shock beside the wicker cradle, startling the delicate limbs curled up under the pink quilt.

"I have lost all my old indifference, my vacant eyes, my pear-open eyes, which looked at the roots of plants and trees. I am no longer January, or May, or any Other seasons, instead spun with all my strength into a thin thread around the cradle, wrapping the delicate limbs of my little babe in a cocoon of my own flesh and blood. Sleep, I hum, and feel my There is a very wild, very dark, ferocious force in my body. If anyone dares to break into this room and wake up the sleeping child, I will go up and punch the intruder and kidnapper. land. "I spend all day in my room wearing an apron and slippers, pacing up and down, like my mother who died of cancer. I no longer know whether the season is summer or winter, from the weeds on the moor or the heather to judge; I have only to see whether the window is covered with steam or frost, and when the lark swoops down with a loud cry, and falls from the sky like an apple peel, I will Lower body, hello my little baby. I used to roam in the beech woods, and notice how the jay's feathers turned blue when it flew down, and I used to walk past shepherds and wanderers, who Staring at a woman squatting beside a wagon dumped in a ditch; and now I walk from room to room with a dust duster in hand. Go to sleep, I hum and hope I hope that sleepiness will come down like a down blanket, covering the tender limbs of a child; at the same time, I ask that life can withdraw its sharp claws, restrain its lightning, and pass through peacefully, taking my own The body becomes a nest, a warm shelter in which my child can sleep. Sleep, I hum, sleep. Sometimes I go to the window and I watch the duck build The tall nest; and the pear tree.' When I close mine, his eyes will surely be watching.' So I thought. I will see India. He will return victorious and lay the spoils at my feet. He will increase my wealth.' "However, I never got up at dawn to see the purple dew on the cabbage leaves and the pink dew on the roses. I never sniffed around like a setter, or lay there at night. and watch how the leaves cover the stars, how the stars move and how the leaves still hang there still. The butchers are yelling and selling; the milk should be in the shade, lest it go rancid. "Go to sleep, I hum, go to sleep. At this time, the water in the pot boiled, and the water vapor increased, and a stream of air jetted out from the spout. Life filled my whole body like this. Life Just like that in my limbs. That's how I'm driven by life, opening and closing doors and going in and out from dawn to dusk until I'm too busy to cry.' Enough. I've Tired of those natural pleasures.' But there's more to come, more children; more cradles; more baskets in the kitchen and hams cooking; and Shiny shallots; and more lettuce and potatoes. I am like a leaf blown by the wind; The feeling would pass away from me, the oppression caused by the sleeping people in the room would melt away, and we could sit there and read while I would hold still the thread that had just passed through the eye of the needle. A firework is reflected in the heavy panes. A firework is burning in the center of the ivy. I can see a brightly lit avenue among the holly bushes. I can hear the noise of traffic in the wind blowing through the alley. , the staccato chatter and laughter, and Jenny's cry as the door opened: 'Come on! Come on!' "But no sound broke the stillness of our house, only the sigh of the field by the gate. The wind blew through the elms; a moth flew straight for the lamp; a cow lowed; Suddenly there was a crackling sound, and I passed the thread through the eye of the needle, muttering at the same time—'Go to sleep'." "Now is the time," said Jenny, "now that we have met and we are reunited. Now let's talk, let's tell the story. Who is he? Who is she? I Filled with endless curiosity, and at the same time I didn't know what was going to happen. If you had told me when we first met, 'The shuttle leaves Piccadilly at four o'clock', I wouldn't have Instead of delaying picking up some essential supplies to put in a suitcase, I'd rush over right away. "Let's just sit here under these pruned bushes, on the couch next to this picture. Let's keep decorating our Christmas tree with facts. People leave fast; let's catch up with them Well. That man over there, the one standing by the glass case; can you believe him, he lives surrounded by china. Break a piece and it's a thousand pounds wasted. He used to be in Rome, love He once had a girl, but the girl abandoned him. That's why he messed with these pots and pans, these old objects, these things found in other people's apartments, or unearthed in the barren desert. Since the beautiful things should remain Beauty must have the possibility of being broken every day, so he stayed still, his life was frozen in a sea of ​​chinaware. But it is strange to say that when he was young, he used to sit in the wet On the dirt floor, drank rum with a group of soldiers. "You've got to be quick and nimble, and deftly add facts, like hanging toys from a tree and tying them with your fingers. He's always nodding. See, he's even in front of a rhododendron." he even bowed to an old woman for wearing diamonds in her ears, and, as she ran her fortune in a small hansom, pointed out who deserved relief, which tree fell, and which to-morrow Who drives away. (I must tell you that I have been enjoying my life all these years, and I am now well into my thirties, full of adventures, like a goat jumping from one precipice to another I never stay anywhere very long; I never allow myself to get very close to anyone; but you will find that if I raise my arm, someone will stop what they are doing and hurry Come to me.) Oh, and that man over there is a judge; that one over there is a millionaire. And that one over there with glasses, he shot an arrow through his housegirl when he was ten the heart of a teacher; later he was sent on horseback across the desert and in the revolution; now he is collecting material for the family history of his mother's long-settled Norfolk home. The right hand of the little man with the blue jaw is Shrunken. But how? We don't know. That woman, please speak softly, with pearl-studded pagodas in her ears, was once a pure fire that set one of us ablaze. The life of a statesman; since his death she has been able to see genies and foretell the future, and she adopted a young man with coffee-colored skin and called him Messiah. The one with the drooping beard and the cavalry He was an officer, and lived the most licentious life (reported in several memoirs), until one day he met a stranger in a train, who was traveling from Edinburgh to Carlisle, by Reading the Bible converted him to religion. "Thus, in a few seconds, we can deftly decipher the hieroglyphs written on other people's faces. Here, in this room, are many broken shells thrown on the shore. The doors keep opening. The room keeps filling with knowledge, anguish, ambition of all kinds, a lot of indifference and some disappointment. If we all work together, do you believe we can build cathedrals and shape politics , can sentence some people to death, can manage certain affairs of state. The richness of our common experience is ancient. The two of us have many children, both boys and girls, and we educate them. When measles is epidemic, go to school. To visit them and hopefully bring them up to inherit our estate. We are all making this day one way or another, this Friday, some by going to court; some by going to town, some by going Nursery; some marched in ranks, formed four files. Thousands of hands were sewing, and carrying buckets filled with bricks. All the activity was never-ending. By the next day these The activity will start again; the next day we will create Saturday. Some will go to France by train; some will go to India by steamer. Some will never come to this room again. Some One may die tonight. Another may have a child. From us, buildings, politics, adventures, paintings, poems, children, factories, of every kind will spring. Life is always Come and go; we make life. Do you think so? "But we live in flesh and blood, and we can only see the outlines of things through the imagination of flesh and blood. I see these rocks in bright sunlight. I cannot take these facts into a cave and blind I can't sit still for long. I have to get up and go. The bus may have left Piccadilly. I Throw away all these facts—diamonds, shriveled hands, china jars, and everything else—like a monkey flings away nuts with his bare paws. I cannot tell you what life is This or that. I'm trying to squeeze my way through this chaotic crowd. I'm trying to push and push; "Because my body, my always-signaling companion, which always says a somber 'No' to a hearty 'Come' on a whim, is calling at this moment. Some have Moved. Did I raise my hand? Did I glance somewhere? Did my yellow scarf with dotted strawberries wave, signal? He ran away from the wall. He followed ...I was followed through the forest. Everything was mesmerizing, it all happened at night, flocks of parrots screeching through the trees. All my senses were on fire. Now I feel The rough texture of this curtain I am pushing aside; now I feel the cold iron railing in my hand and its rough paint. Now the cool dark tide is over me. We are in the Out of doors. The night spreads out; the night crosses before our eyes with the moths that swim; the night hides the wandering lovers seeking adventure. I smell the roses; I smell the violets; I saw the red and the blue that had just faded. Now gravel and grass under my feet. The backs of houses stood high with timid lights. These flickering lights set all London in a state of restlessness. Middle. Now let's sing our love song—come, come, come. Now my booming signal is like a dragonfly, nervously flying up. Chirp, chirp, chirp, I sing Like a nightingale whose melodious song always seems to be stuffed in its too-small throat to burst out. Now I hear the snapping and splitting of branches, the cracking of antlers, like the forest All the beasts in the forest were hunting, and they all stood up on their hind feet and then lay down on the ground among the thorn bushes. One beast pierced me with its horn. One beast pierced me deeply. "Moreover, those moist and cool tender flowers and leaves cover me, wet my whole body, and make my body exude fragrance." "Oh," said Neville, "see that clock ticking on the mantelpiece? Yes, time is passing. And we are growing old. But with you, and you alone Here, sitting together in this fire room in London, where you sit and I sit here, is enough. Every corner of the world, however far it may be, has been plundered, and all its The peaks and highlands of the mountains have been plundered, and all the flowers have been picked, and there is nothing left. Look at the light of the fire, rising and falling, reflecting on the golden thread on the curtain. The fruit illuminated by the fire is heavy. Hanging there. The light from the fire on the toes of your shoes puts a pink halo on your face--I think it's the firelight, not your face; I think those against the walls are books, Here is a curtain, and there maybe an armchair. But when you came, everything changed. When you came this morning, the cups and saucers all changed. I threw the newspaper in On the one hand, at the same time, I thought, there is no doubt that our unsightly and mediocre life will become glorious and meaningful only under the eyes of love. "I get up. I've had my breakfast. What we'll have is a full day, and a fine, warm, easy day, and we walk across the park to Embankment and down the Strand. to St Paul's Church and then to a shop where I bought an umbrella and we talked and stopped every now and then for a look. But will this last? I'm in Trafalgar Beside the lion in Ergar Square, beside the lion that one sees once and never forgets, ask myself;—so that I recall my old life scene by scene; there is an elm tree, Percy There's Val lying there. We'll keep it forever, forever, I swear. Then I rush forward, with my usual suspicions, and hold your hand tight. You leave me. Go. Going into the subway was like a farewell. We were separated, we were separated by the countless faces, and the draft that seemed to blow over the barren gravel. I stared open-eyed, sitting In your own room. I didn't know you were breaking your word until five o'clock. I grabbed the phone and from your empty room came the stupid buzz, buzz, buzz, torture to my heart; just then the door opened and you stood there. It was the best meeting we ever had. But those meetings, those partings, ended up destroying us. “Now this room seems to me to be the center, something to be dug out of the eternal night. Outside the house all the threads are intertwined, but they surround us and wrap us up. Here we are in the center. Here we can be silent, or speak without raising our voice. Have you ever noticed this, noticed that? We said. He said that too, meaning... She stammered Said, so I knew I was under suspicion. But anyway, I once heard someone talking on the stairs in the middle of the night, heard a sobbing sound. That meant the relationship between them was over. Therefore, we always have endless Going around in circles, saying things that don't matter, and saying them in a measured way. We'll talk about Plato and Shakespeare, and we'll talk about unknown characters, who are irrelevant anyway. I hate some people On the left side of their waistcoats hangs a cross. I hate all the ceremonies and mourning, the image of Christ trembling and mourning next to another trembling and mourning image. And the ones who are all dressed up and full of stars and medals, who in The deliberate pomp and nonchalance under the chandelier, their always inappropriate rhetoric. Yet a few twigs in a hedge, or a sunset over a flat winter field, or The appearance of an old woman on the bus with her hands on her hips and a basket on her shoulders—when we encounter such a scene, we will point each other out to have a look. It’s really nice to be able to point out to each other and ask each other to have a look. An incomparably great comfort. And then the relative silence of each other in silence. Going into the past along the hidden path of consciousness, flipping through the books, pushing aside the leaves, picking the fruit. And you can understand and be curious about it, just like I can follow the involuntary movements of your body, and wonder at its deliberation, its strength—how dexterous your hands are when you slam the window open. For, alas, my The mind is a little clumsy, it tires easily; I am often bored, perhaps disgusted, by an object. "Ah! I can't ride around India with a sun hat on and come back to a bungalow with a verandah. I can't be like you, a half-naked lad stumbling around on the deck of a steamer and spraying each other with hoses. I need this fire, I need this easy chair. I need someone to sit by me after all the hard work and all the troubles, all the listening and the waiting and all the doubts. .After quarrels and reconciliations, I need quiet—just with you to bring order to the din. For, like a cat, I am used to tidiness. We must object to the desolation and destruction of the world, One must oppose the rampage of the swarms of its vomited waste. Even one must cut the pages of a novel neatly with a paper knife, tie the bundles of letters neatly with green ribbons, The ashes-sweeping broom sweeps up the cinders in a heap; all things must be put in order against the terror of being ruined. Let us read the writers of the solemnity and virtue of the Romans; let us pass through Desert to seek perfection. Yes, but to your shining gray eyes, to the swaying grass, the summer breeze, and the children at play--those naked on deck spraying each other with hoses The cabin boys of the water—the laughter and shouting, but I would rather ignore the virtue and seriousness of those noble Romans. So I am not like Louis, who is indifferent to world affairs and only wants to cross the desert in search of perfection. Various colors Often smeared on the pages, and flakes of cloud often flitted over them. Even poetry, I think, is only spoken by your voice. Alcibiades, Ajax, Hector, and Percival , all of you. They love horses, they risk their lives in a wild way, they are not great scholars. You are not Ajax or Percival, though. They will not use your beautiful gestures Wrinkle your nose, scratch your brow. You are you. That's what comforts me, in spite of all my imperfections--my ugly face, my frail body, despite the decay of the world, the passing of youth, and the fact that Percival is dead and There are countless annoyances, resentments and jealousies. "However, if one day you don't come after breakfast, if one day I see in a mirror that you may be looking for someone else, if the phone buzzes and buzzes in your empty room, then I would, after suffering unspeakable anguish, I would—for the craving of the foolish human mind is endless—I would seek another, find another you. But now, let us Smash that ticking clock. Come on, come closer."