…Like the singing of a woman in a foggy area, she sang an ancient legend full of sorrow and love, telling the misfortune of a princess who was imprisoned in the tower by her father because of love.Adelein or Sylvie. Aurelia or Laura.The name of a French woman is weak and melodious, reminiscent of a slender figure and slender fingers.What about Spanish women's names: sparkling, mysterious, big eyes with black circles.I can't help harboring a slight resentment towards our ancient country, when I chose names for the sisters in this lament, after thinking and thinking, I finally let them be the three nameless sisters.Three, or seven, an inauspicious number, Maeterlinck's number.Also, why did I feel a little cold when I saw a black shadow, because I remembered those lonely childhood?

Thirty years ago, twenty years ago, until now.Girls in the countryside are still confined in the boudoir, waiting for the orders of their parents and the words of the matchmaker.In Europe, although there was a time when young girls were confined in monasteries and returned to family and society at a certain age, it is still different from our ancient customs.Now urban girls have some new and vague ideas about love.We have seen some brave rebels walk into misfortune.But I am more moved by those hopeless and silent time.There is a smile on the haggard red lips, which belongs to the girl of the past era.Don’t mention Spinoza and any mechanical world view, just rely on our little human feelings, some fragmented thoughts, and a kind of intuition. There is no doubt that we can do nothing about our "tomorrow", and the hand of the ghost is weaving for us. In the brocade, in a hurry, but with a well-thought-out plan, who can see the opposite?

Who can know the unfinished drawing? The girlhood of our grandmothers and our mothers is impossible to imagine, because even imagination requires a little kind memory.Our sisters, like us, have gone astray in many ways.What reminds us most is our young and beautiful aunts, and the dying boudoir life.Uh, we have seen the pale face appearing on the small building, between the open windows facing the distant mountains, facing the blue sky and a white cloud, it has been a long time.I saw again the long and slender fingers with nails stained with the red juice of the impatiens, slowly closing the window in the twilight.

Or sit on a small stool with your head down, facing the light from the window, doing embroidery, a pillowcase, a door curtain, tired but carefully chasing your wedding dress.The wedding dress has already filled several boxes.Next to the new box are some old boxes, where her mother's and her grandmother's wedding dresses are placed. The wide lace on the large cuffs is the style of the grandmother's time, and the thin round satin border on the tight cuffs is the mother's. The clothes of the times are already outdated.When she opened those boxes, there would be a happy but tearful laugh.Stop our imaginations.My memory of my aunts is very simple.Between the eldest aunt and the second aunt, I only remember that the former is slender and sickly, and I can no longer remember the difference in their appearance.As for the laughter of joy or tears, I have not heard it, but I have seen their garden at home: clear, a kind of hazy clarity.Stone platforms, earthen pots, and various flowers and plants, I can't name them.At that time, if I were left alone among the streamers of orchid leaves, the wild-haired evergreen leaves, and palm fronds, I would utter a cry of being lost in the deep forest.I do like the pool in the garden and the rare three-story pavilion in the countryside, how many times it has aroused my fantasies, how many times my young heart was excited, but I dare not go through the dark corridor to climb.Do my aunts often walk through the dark corridors and run up the winding stairs to look into the distance?Do you often look down at the water and the algae in the water by leaning on the stone railing by the pool?I haven't seen it.Their home is in the same old house as ours, and the long stone steps in front of the hall, the well, the well, and the high wall that echoed as a boundary all show a kind of menace, a kind of hint.And the news of my slender and sickly aunt's death was passed down the long stone steps.

Let us leave that tall and empty old mansion.A house growing old, like a person growing old, has a queer, unpredictable character.We are already on a newly built stockade. Our house is next to the house of my aunts. At the end of the village, I can hear the sound of hitting stones and the voices of workers all day long. We are repairing watchtowers and pools.According to my grandfather's opinion, according to his worm-eaten board book or yellowed handwritten book, that direction could not be started that year, because, according to the book, it violated the three evil spirits.My grandfather was a polymath who knew and believed in many strange things.Whoever doubts the ancient and mysterious knowledge, let him argue.And he had already recited a secret scriptures in the middle of the night before the burning incense case.I have recited it for many nights.What puzzled us was that the explanation was ineffective. First, a mason fell from the end of the rock, and then a three-year-old sister of my uncle's family and my second aunt died consecutively.

Regarding the third aunt, my memory is relatively long, but it is still simple: I bowed my head in front of the window of the small building and traced patterns; Accompanying the elders under the light to make paper leaf spleen and yawn.Confined in that stockade together with my long and simple childhood.The stone-built stockade perched high on the rock reminds one of the ancient castles in France or Italy, inhabited by declining aristocrats and girls with blond or chestnut hair, who often sang an ancient song with a trembling voice rising to the sky. The legend is full of love and sorrow.In the distance, from the high pavilion of the church, there was a loud, deep sound, the sound of the bell that hurt the Buddha awakened from his dream.But our castle is filled with a desolation of sound.In the morning, at noon, a few long cock crows.The cyan shadow of the eaves crawled over the city wall, slowly, and finally climbed over, and landed in the field under the rock, and the sun was setting.That is a very accurate timepiece, so I know when I should run down the watchtower to start my morning class, or afternoon class, reading those ancient and mysterious books, just like our father, our grandfather's childhood .And my third aunt may be sitting in front of the window of the small building, tired but careful about her wedding dress.She has already made a promise to others, according to her parents' order and the matchmaker's words.

Everything will pass away.Everything corresponds to the inscription on King David's ring.That phrase makes us happy when we are sad, and it makes us sad when we are happy.We have spent some long and simple years in a foreign land, and we have some memories of other houses and girls.Leaning on the railing of a moving steamboat, with short hair blown by the river wind, girls who have just escaped from the countryside, or girls who have drifted overseas with others and come back with some vague new ideas, from them From their slightly frowning eyes, what can we guess? Remember our young and beautiful aunts?We have been away from home for three years, four years, five years, and after the fatigue of a long journey, we are back in the country. One of the most sunny days, we are very surprised that the woods, streams, and roads have not changed. Has come to the door of the house.The door let out an old groan.We have already entered the small hall, and the worn-out lacquer chairs are still lined up on the side of the table. On the table there is still a bottle of broken gallbladder with nothing in it. The "past" of time, or everything there exists outside of time.At last, we saw a few traces of silver on the mother's temple hair, and from her excited and incoherent whispers, we knew that some old people had passed away from lingering illnesses, and some middle-aged people had passed away in an unfortunate encounter. .It was in this confusing and moving situation that I heard the last news of my third aunt: married, then died; dead and forgotten.But when her silhouette appeared in our minds, it was not as Azorin said, we saw a garden, a country woods, and those small trees covered with dust, and the hanging trees blown by the winter wind. A lamp on a skewed wooden post...

January 16, 1935