Chapter 13 Landscape when the soul is awakened - the road to Ramses

1. Out of place After Karl was on the road, he met two companions. These two people were completely different from Karl in every way. They were types that Karl had never seen before.They live in hotels without any luggage; they don't take off their clothes or shoes when they sleep, they just fall on the bed; they have no interest in human status; Personality; they do not believe in any worldly good intentions, and always insist on their own independence; they completely despise the worldly life, relying on daydreams for the support of life.A comparison shows that the difference between these two tramps and Karl who has just become a tramp lies in their purity, that kind of real detachment.What Karl valued was worthless to them, because their values ​​were the opposite of Karl's.He was also wandering at the call of the mysterious voice, but Karl's performance was quite different from them.Those two people were unrestrained and free, and they had a clear judgment on everything that happened, and their every move was full of American style.Carl, on the other hand, is timid, sour, even stingy, sentimental, unsure of the future, and over-valued things outside of him.All this shows that Karl has to go through countless hardships to become a pure person.Perhaps he would never be that kind of person, could not learn the American style, but the mysterious call was making him work in that direction without knowing it.

Karl has always been loyal to these two men, he maintains his credit, honor, and even makes sacrifices for them at times.The female chef asked him to stay overnight in the restaurant, but he refused in order to share the joys and sorrows with the friends he just met.And these two friends broke open his box while he was away, and lost his precious photos.Carl's credit, honor, and privacy are equal to zero for them, and all good efforts are ridiculed and misunderstood, and communication is completely impossible.From the point of view of Drama and Robinson, the situation is just the opposite.They think that Karl is full of human bad temper, lying to himself all day long, being sentimental, and adhering to a hypocritical morality.They found his weakness intolerable and required a good lesson to bring him back to his senses.In order to educate him, they try to destroy his most important support, such as money, such as family, such as friendship and so on.Because Carl's seriousness about these things disgusted them, and they thought he was utterly hypocritical.In terms of grasping reality, Karl was not at all comparable to the two of them.Standing in front of New York, Karl only had an indescribable feeling, but Delamash and Robinson were able to distinguish clearly immediately and name various places.Their evaluation of Uncle's shipping company also told the truth, saying that it was notorious for recruiting workers by shameful deceit.Worldly life, in their eyes, consists of deceit and deserves their contempt.Karl thought their comments about his uncle's firm had hurt his feelings.There is no doubt that these two tramps have pursuits. They pursue a high-level, dream life.Everything in the world makes them impatient and angry.With no sustenance for their dreams, they had no choice but to wander around.

2. The principle of the homeless The tramp not only has pursuit, but also two very rational and principled people.Among them, Robinson is a little gentler, but he is also uncompromising in principle.What are their principles?Their principle is the complete negation of the secular.But they themselves are not aliens, but two people with physical bodies, so they inevitably have secular needs.Because of this contradiction, their adherence to principle takes on an absurd appearance.They all look down on Carl's view of money, but try to cheat money from Carl for them to eat and drink (sometimes forced); Smash what little blood love Karl has left, but accuse Karl of hurting their feelings (only secular ones, of course).Maybe it's the flaw of the principle itself that makes them only have this dubious rascal's face, maybe it's their face that hides their inner passion, this world is so wrong.Carl's first impression of them was "suspicious".This impression is entirely correct.To adhere to a strange principle in such a strange way, how can it not make people suspicious everywhere?Therefore, while living the truth, the tramp also lives in the absurd, the noble pursuit and the despicable lingering at the same time.How can you not live with it?When people are hungry, they need to eat, and when they are sleepy, they hope to have a bed and a roof to shelter them from wind and rain.Sometimes, however, when principle prevails, tramps do not hesitate to sacrifice their enjoyment.At the end, for example, when Carl asked them to return the photos (acknowledging the value of worldly affection), they would rather sacrifice a comfortable hotel bed and stay in the wild.They are inseparable from this sour worldliness.A careful analysis of Carl's muddled love for his parents will reveal that everything is really so hypocritical and meaningless, which is tantamount to being stupid.Such irresponsible and extremely cruel parents should be punished by God, not remembered.But Karl is from Europe, self-deception is his nature, he can't forget his father's gaze, and his mother's gentle hands.No matter what his parents did to him, his memories are always tender.It's not his fault, it's a flaw in worldly life itself.Since both principles and worldliness are fatally flawed, the two things are interdependent and inseparable.The tramp's empty principles cannot be separated from Karl's vulgarity, and Karl's vulgar pursuit cannot be separated from the guidance of principles.The former absorbs the basis of existence from the latter, and the latter learns the method of detachment from the former.The hobos dumped the picture of Carl in order to give him an emotional leap, to harden and numb his soft heart to the dire circumstances.

From the performance of the tramps, it can be seen how impossible it is to realize the principle in life, and how contradictory it is to do this impossible thing.But principles do not disappear.Once it is produced, people's feet will step on two worlds.The strange life of the tramps is the refraction of Carl's future life and the summary of his short life after coming to America.Although the contradictions are still displayed in the external form, the internal energy is accumulating, which is the force that will eventually lead to the explosion of division. 3. Lost and regained, gained and lost again

Carl's suitcase, a symbol of the old humanity, is transformed throughout the work like a magic box, lost for a while, and returned to him for a while, in order to lose it again.Every time such a change happened at the turning point of his fate.This kind of change makes people firmly believe that nothing will be truly forgotten, human nature is inseparable from it, and the birth of today's new things draws on yesterday's nutrition.However, in this special child, fate is particularly rough and unfeeling. Every action is like pulling out his roots, and there is no room for him to be nostalgic, and then thrust him into a new life.This kind of rough and rapid conversion requires a strong adaptability to bear, and Carl just has this talent.No matter how deteriorating the environment is, he has been living, thinking, and planning for the future in a hurry.He didn't have too much time to be nostalgic, and the old emotions were just some pale shadows in his journey, which became weaker and weaker with the passage of time.Maybe one day he will finally meet yesterday, but by then, yesterday will have taken on a whole new meaning.From the time he ran away from home until he suffered all kinds of hardships and started a new round of journey, he never once thought of returning to the old warmth to find comfort.All the sufferings are borne by himself, gritting his teeth to live is the greatest comfort.

This chapter focuses on the photo of the parents in the box.Looking at this photo from the other side of the ocean, everything seems incomprehensible.Memories are gradually blurring away from him, and strange emotions have replaced everything.Of course, out of inertia, he still regards the photo as precious, and still has fresh memories of the gentle hand in the photo of his mother.This remaining inertia was later cleaned up by two homeless men—they only picked the sore spot to poke.After Karl experienced this severed from the past, the question of whether to write to his parents (the ghost of the past) naturally no longer circled in his mind.He has too many problems to think about and too many emotions to go through in his turbulent life.The love and hate of the past have no chance to intervene.