Chapter 12 The scenery when the soul is enlightened-Country house in the suburbs of New York

1. The Fortress of Freedom Uncle let Karl start the prelude to his wandering life.The Pollanders' villa was a true bastion of freedom, and Karl groped in the dark to appreciate its grace.It is completely closed and there is no exit; at the same time, it is full of cracks and full of drafts; when one enters it, one can only make desperate judgments instinctively, and must understand in his heart that all decisions must be made. All judgments must be borne by themselves.All of this is what Karl is least used to and dislikes; with his upbringing, he has never made any decisions out of thin air, and he must have a reason before making any decisions.But this villa is such a den that it sucks out all the justifications in Carl's mind, drives him over a cliff, then hurls him down again, and makes it all his voluntary choice!Why did he choose such a path?It was supernatural forces that were working on Karl in the fortress.You can also ask in reverse: how could he not choose such a path?Could it be that he could live in peace with those terrible characters in such a place without making mistakes?Could it be that he can really return to his uncle's house and be a good boy?Those assumptions were all excuses he used to deceive himself.The strange thing is that these excuses did not prevent him from making the right choice, but instead became the reason for his choice. Fortress kept dissolving these reasons, and he kept creating new ones.He made his choice in the process of fighting nothingness.

There is no turning back in such a fortress. Whenever he lost his way and wanted to return, he would find that the back road had disappeared, and there was only a black hole in front of him.This forces him to face choices every step of the way, constantly coming up with new worldly excuses to act.The persistent Karl also seems to be a good hand at making excuses. He can always adapt to the situation and carry out logical reasoning to the end until the reasoning fails completely.All his performances are reminiscent of that uncle. Maybe the reasoning ability comes from the family inheritance. Maybe the uncle trained Karl in this way to let Karl reach his state, in which reasoning is no longer regarded as a thing.Carl got there the instant he was thrown from the room.Of course, one cannot stay in that realm for long, and a new round of reasoning will start all over again.As a fledgling teenager, Karl is always under the urge to "return to the womb".The Bastion was designed to respond to this urge.This kind of design adopts the method of "dropping bags", which makes the return become an exodus.The baptism of spiritual independence was completed unconsciously.

This guest trick is a great deception.But who is lying to whom?In Karl's eyes, it was his uncle and others who lied to him, brought him to this place when he was unprepared, and later abandoned him.But in the eyes of the uncle, Karl has been lying to himself, because everyone has never promised Karl anything, if he has fantasies, it is his own business; and what everyone has done is to expose Karl's deception, Break down the barriers and set him free.The atmosphere in the fort was a real one, and Karl couldn't stand being real for long, as everyone expected.No one wants to keep him, they just want him to cultivate his temperament here.Because his European style, shallow human touch, romantic sadness, etc. are really not good for his future wandering life, and everything in him has to be reformed.So is it a misunderstanding between them?Yes, misunderstanding is a good thing, Carl's life will be with it, and no one is disappointed by his misunderstanding.The deeper his misunderstanding, the more reassured the uncle: look how my nephew can deceive himself, how quickly he invents a new deception after one deception has been exposed!And Mr. Pollander will look at him with serious and expectant eyes, hoping that he will do something earth-shattering in his wrong explanation.Because human beings, unfortunately, can only live in false interpretations.Only Grain, terrible Grace, pushed him out of the darkness when Carl made that explanation again.But that doesn't prohibit him from explaining, it just pushes his explanation to a new turning point.However, they really wanted to clear up his misunderstanding!What else are they doing?Clara's savagery and Pollander's hypocrisy have already shattered Karl's illusions about them?Isn't Karl much more sober than when he first came to visit?It seems that whether it is Karl or the people around him, their intentions are all ambiguous.This is the atmosphere of freedom, and those who do not want to be depressed can find their way in this atmosphere.

Two, vitality Pollander's daughter, Clara, was the typical American girl Carl had never met.Carl's prior vision of her was all wrong.This healthy and beautiful body tightly wrapped in the skirt is boiling with wild vitality.In the short time she had been with Carl, all manner of etiquette had been thrown out of the blue, and she hadn't had it.She used her brute force to unreasonably knock Carl down on the couch, leaving him terrified and annoyed as if he had seen a ghost.The strange thing is that this crazy girl seems to be very harmonious in the family, in front of her fiancé, and even in front of Karl's enemy Grein.They didn't think she was 'crazy' at all, but Karl himself, who seemed clumsy, stupid, and in the way. The problem was Karl, the outsider who had stepped into the real world, and the standards of judging things were all imported from outside. He I don't know, there is no etiquette in this fortress, and there are no rules of hospitality, just "yes" or "no", "yes" or "don't", everything is abrupt and rude, because the pretense and pretense have been removed. Carl immediately realized that he could not stay in this kind of life for a moment, he had to escape. In fact, before he came to the villa, he had observed this kind of American vitality from Mark's riding skills. He sent out sincere praise. It can be seen that he is "Ye Gong loves the dragon". The real dragon is indeed terrible! Karl, the son of Europe, lacks the iron will of these people, and he cannot make his desires surge like them. But he has potential , he is still developing, he will become an outcast in American society.

3. Pollander's love and Grain's ruthlessness Like his uncle, Pollander's love for Karl is a kind of spiritual love.This kind of love is also expressed as a kind of hesitation, that is: should Karl meet the cruel reality immediately?Or let Carl continue to deceive himself?The discussion about whether Carl should be a guest at the villa is a discussion about the nature of existence.Of course, neither Uncle nor Pollander could draw conclusions about such a discussion. The conclusions should be drawn by Karl.Pollander carried Karl affectionately to his house, and continued to take care of him thereafter.This is of course the love shown by the elders, but this kind of love is spiritual love.Carl, who was blindfolded, wanted to look for worldly things from this kind of love, but of course he couldn't find it.So in the eyes of the world, his love has become useless and hypocritical.What Pollander cares about is the healthy development of Karl's spirit, and what Karl cares about is getting rid of the predicament and gaining liberation.The two are so irreconcilable, but they fit together seamlessly.Pollander never forgets to give Karl a hard time and let Karl choose freely.Karl had already arrived at his house, and he proposed to send him back; later, Karl insisted on leaving, and he thought of various reasons to test his determination; finally, when things were done, he disappeared.

Contrasted with Polander's love is Grain's ruthlessness.The former focuses on "deceiving" Carl, while the latter focuses on revealing the truth, and the two people have the same purpose.When Carl came to this home with a warm European fantasy, the old bachelor Glenn who was full of scheming had already arrived first.He taunted Karl at the dinner table, flirted with Clara, said things that Karl didn't like to hear, and everything he did made Karl sick.However, such a person gets along very well with the father and daughter, and there is a tacit understanding between the three.Grayne's image is everywhere reminiscent of reality.The truth is unsightly, so Carl always wants to get rid of him.But he is not so easy to get rid of, he is Karl's shadow, following him to death.He despises Karl, his reasons for those actions.He kept the fatal verdict against Karl in his purse, but he kept it out until he had teased Karl to the point of exhaustion before telling him the truth.Finally, regardless of Carl's plea, he brutally pushed him out the door.

These two characters performed his duties instead of the uncle, or they were the uncle's two parts.People's needs are always twofold, and they need to deceive themselves while figuring out the truth.So both are essential to Karl's spiritual growth.Grain stayed in the fort from beginning to end, and he couldn't leave unless Karl left. 4. The Road to Uncle Karl made a long speech to Mr. Pollander, and he was going back to his uncle.A road appeared in front of his eyes. This road passed through the glass door of the villa, crossed the stairs, passed through the avenue, crossed the road, passed through the suburbs, reached the main road in the city, and led to his uncle's house.At the same time, he had a strange feeling that this road was a completely unfamiliar road, it was connected as a whole, everything was prepared for him, and there was a powerful voice calling to him from the empty, flat front. , that voice is irresistible.So even though Carl was full of fear, he still had to act now.This is Karl's double sense of the future.On the one hand, he thought he was going to run towards his uncle's warm embrace, and on the other hand, he felt an indescribable sense of strangeness.

Uncle's letter seems to have blocked Karl's way to him, leaving Karl to find another way.But Karl, who was driven out of the villa, didn't he just follow the call of the powerful voice and walk on the road he had imagined at first?Isn't this irresistible road leading to the uncle's heart?It can be seen that as long as Karl acts according to his intuition, he is following his uncle's will.His intuition will never lie to him, and everything he has vaguely felt will become reality.