Chapter 27 magician steps down and bows

My spell is gone, All I have left is this strength... This little bit of weak strength... Now that I have regained my former identity, and have forgiven those who have deceived me, Then please don't force me to live on this desert island, Please be kind to everyone and release me. ——In Shakespeare's "The Tempest", the great magician's final monologue Wherever there is a boundary is a prison— Life is a prison. Many people were about to be pulled out for execution, so they yelled and held on to the door frame desperately, making other prisoners feel very bad.Of course, there are also those who leave the stage with smiles, and those who deliver impassioned speeches before going to execution.

There were also people who escaped from prison quietly under everyone's watchful eyes. Everyone was left behind in the early morning of the next day, rubbing their sleepy eyes, looking at the empty cell, wondering, "Where is the person? Why is he gone?" Zhang Ailing is gone. Jailbreak successful. Many people died quietly, and many people successfully escaped from prison. But Zhang Ailing is a serious criminal in life—— She chopped off a few pieces of gold from her life, committed a few huge crimes, left behind a few clues, and then drifted away. "Do you know why Zhang Ailing took the last public photo with the newspaper headline 'Kim Il Sung's sudden death'?" Smart lover asked me.

"Isn't it because I hate Koreans?" I replied. "Of course not!" Smart Lover provided an answer: "When Zhang Ailing saw this news, she must have been sneering in her heart—'Heh heh heh, is Kim Il Sung running away like this considered a great deal? See then Mine!'" It is of course ridiculous for the wise lover to express Zhang Ailing's heartfelt voice in such a quack tone.However, judging from Zhang Ailing's expression in the last photo, I'm afraid it's not an outrageous guess. In the face of my lover who was full of joy and praise, I had no choice but to take down "The Tempest" from the shelf and read a passage at the end of the play. The protagonist, the great magician, secretly represented Shakespeare and bid farewell to the audience.

"My spell is gone, "I only have this little strength left..." The great magician, through fatigue and comprehension, destroyed by himself what was regarded as a powerful and supremely magical spell in people's eyes. Eileen Chang's spells, too, have long since disappeared. Literature has nothing to do with literary history. I will not fall in love with the dull epic "Song of Roland" because of my place in the history of literature; just as I will not fall in love with the platypus because of my place in the history of animal evolution. I was fascinated by Zhang Ailing, but I never thought that she had any relationship with the history of literature.Most of the people who are fans of Eileen Chang are close fans and caring fans——

Who would want to see Calvin Klein underwear in a museum? My Zhang Ailing is Zhang Ailing who has nothing to do with literary history. What's more, what is there to dominate the entire history of modern Chinese literature that is not in the climate? Eileen Chang's incense is offered in the shrine where any religion is possible in the chest of every ecstasy, not on the big temple with glazed yellow tiles. Responsive and secretive Eileen Chang. I read Zhang Ailing, unconsciously since I was a child, and read it in Shanghai dialect. I never realized this until one day, a friend surnamed Jiao asked me: "Hey, I heard that you speak Eileen Chang in Shanghainese?"

"Yes." I said, "Otherwise, how would I pronounce it?" "Read it in Mandarin." "Gah? Then how do you read the words in 'Osmanthus Fragrance Steaming A Xiao Beiqiu'? How do you read Ah Xiao's son who muttered to himself when he was staring blankly at the sky, '...the moon is small, the stars are young...'? " The other party read "The moon is small, the stars are small" in Mandarin. I was very surprised to hear her finished reading, and I was shocked that someone read Zhang Ailing like this! She turned around and asked me to read it again in Shanghai dialect, "the moon is less, the star is less".I did so, and she was also taken aback: "It turns out that someone read Eileen Chang like that!"

Indeed, there are pagans of all kinds. Shanghai people, like people in any city, are mostly old-fashioned. But I don’t know why, if any urbanite puts it side by side with a Shanghainese, it’s easy to be “a little earthy”.It is not necessarily the soil of appearance, the soil of knowledge, most of the time, it is a soil of facing life. What I'm talking about is naturally the Shanghainese at that time. Take all the writers of the 1930s, put them by Zhang Ailing's side, and immediately tell the difference; The only one who didn't like it was Qian Zhongshu, but he wrote it and then stopped writing it.

There are also those who want to surround Zhang Ailing so that no one can touch her, and there are also those who want to provoke Zhang Ailing, but they cannot provoke enough. I don't want to mess with her either. I also don't want to spy on her. If she wanted to, during those years in Los Angeles, she would always be able to catch a glimpse of her by ambushing on the side of the road she must pass through.But that's not how I want her to show up. The only way I want her to appear is to stand in the middle of the stage like the only legendary Uranus superstar among modern Chinese novelists, receiving cheers from hundreds of thousands of fans, and feel how many people are because of her. The novel tasted the taste of life that I had missed altogether.

Maybe someone will bring a bowl of fried eel noodles with shrimp, someone will offer a plate of glutinous rice and lotus root, or something like that. Anyway, it's not something like the Nobel Prize. However, she doesn't care. She doesn't care about spells that have been and are not; cheers that have been and are not. She escaped from her life and escaped from prison.