Chapter 3 third chapter

Kublai Khan has noticed that Marco Polo's cities are almost all in the same shape, as if they can be transferred from one city to another without travelling, just by changing the elements of the combination.Therefore, every time after Marco described a city, Khan would set off in his imagination, dismantle the city piece by piece, and then replace, move, and reverse the pieces, and reassemble them in another way. At this time, Marco continued to report his journey, but the emperor did not listen. Kublai Khan interrupted him: "From now on, it is up to me to describe the city to you, and you have to tell me whether there are such cities in the world, and whether they are exactly as I imagined. First, I It is about a city with many steps, which is located in a half-moon-shaped harbor, and there is often a hot wind blowing through it. Now I will list some of its wonders: a glass tank that is regarded as a church, and citizens can observe swallow fish swimming The palm trees play their harps in the wind with their leaves; the horseshoe-shaped marble tables surrounding the square, covered with marble tablecloths, serve marble food and drink."

"Khan, you are in a trance. It was this city I was talking about when you interrupted me." "You know the city? Where is it? What's its name?" "It has no name and no place. I will repeat my reasons for describing it to you: the composite elements of a city which lack a connected thread, no internal law, no definite proportions, and no communication with each other must be excluded from the conceivable Beyond the city. Cities are like dreams: anything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most bizarre dream is a riddle in which desires are hidden, or opposite fears are hidden, like dreams. Cities are also Created by desire and fear. Though there is but secret communication between the two, absurd regularities and false proportions, though each conceals the other." "I have neither desire nor fear," said the Khan, " My dreams are only born of the heart, or are formed by accident."

"Cities also think of themselves as creatures of mind and chance, but neither can hold up their walls. You like a city not because it has seven or seventy wonders, but because it suggests answers to your questions "Or in the questions it forces you to answer, like the Theban sphinx." City and Desire No. 5 From there, in six days and seven nights you will be in Zobeid, the moonlit white city whose streets are tangled like wool.It is said that the city was built like this: some men of different nationalities had exactly the same dream.They saw a woman running through an unknown city at night; they only saw her back, with long hair and naked body.They chase her in a dream.They chased round and round, but each ended up losing track of her.After waking up, they set off to search for the city, but they couldn't find it, but they walked together; they decided to build the city in their dreams.Everyone paves the streets according to their own experiences in dreams, and arranges strange spaces and walls where the woman is lost, so that she can no longer escape.

This is the city of Zobeid, where they lived and waited for the dream to reappear.Among them, none of them met the woman again.The streets of the city are where they work every day, and it has nothing to do with the pursuit in their dreams.To tell the truth, the dream has long been forgotten. Other men came from other countries, and they all had the same dream, and they saw that the streets of Zobeid looked like the streets in the dream, so they changed the position of the arcades and stairs so that they Get closer to chasing the woman's line and blocking all exits where she disappeared.

The newcomer could not understand what attracted these people to this trap of Zobeid, this ugly city. Cities and Marks IV Travelers from far away face the problem of changing language, but none like my experience in Hypatia, because things were changed, not words.It was morning when I entered Hypatia, and the Magnolia Garden was reflected in the blue lake. I walked between the fences, expecting to see beautiful girls playing in the water, but the ones at the bottom of the water were Crabs, biting the eyes of the drowned, with stones tied around their necks, and their hair tangled in green weeds.

I felt cheated and decided to seek justice from the Sultan.In the loftiest domed palace, I climbed porphyry steps and crossed six tiled courtyards with fountains.The central hall is fenced with iron bars: prisoners in black iron shackles are digging for basalt rock in an underground mine. I had to ask a philosopher.I went into the Great Library, lost, surrounded by nearly collapsed shelves full of parchment scrolls, I followed the faded alphabet, in and out of the lobby, up and down the stairs and bridgeways.In the remotest papyrus bookcase, amidst the clouds of smoke, I saw the glazed eyes of a young man lying on a mat with an opium pipe in his mouth.

"Where is the philosopher?" The opium smoker pointed out the window.Outside is a garden with children's game equipment: wooden bottles, swings, spinning tops.The philosopher sits on the grass."Marks make language, not the kind you think you know," he said. I had always relied on images to guide me in what to pursue, and now I realized that I had to free myself from them: only then could I learn the language of Hyperdia. Now, just hearing the neighing and whipping of the whip fills me with erotic terror: in Hypatia you had to go to the stables and the riding lot to see beautiful women on horses with bare legs If young foreigners approached them, they would be pushed down on dry straw or sawdust piles and squeezed by their strong breasts.If my spirit wanted nothing but music, and no other stimulation or sustenance, I knew that I should go to the graveyard: in the graves the musicians pass, and from grave to grave the musicians answer each other with flute trills and harp chords.

Yes, in Hypatia, one day, my only wish is to leave.At this time, I knew that instead of going to the harbor, I had to climb the tallest spire of the castle and wait for the passing ships.But will the ship pass by?There is no language that is absolutely not deceptive. skinny city 3 I don't know whether Amela became what it is now because it was never built, or because it was destroyed by some kind of delusion or whimsy.Anyway, it has no walls, no roof, no floor: nothing that makes it look like a city at all except the water pipes, which stand vertically where the houses should be and jut horizontally where the floors should be: clumps The water pipe ends with a faucet, a shower, a spout, and an overflow pipe.The blue sky sets off the white washbasin or bathtub or other enamel vessels, like late-ripe fruit hanging from the treetops.You'd think the plumbers had finished their work and gone, but the builders hadn't started; perhaps their immortal water delivery system had survived a catastrophe, earthquake, or termite infestation.

Whether Almela was abandoned before or after it was inhabited, we cannot say it is a ghost city.As long as you raise your eyes, you can see a slender young woman in the water pipes at any time, many young women are enjoying the pleasure of bathing in the bathtub, bending over under the suspended shower device, washing and wiping Or wear perfume, or comb your long hair in front of the mirror.The shower lines fanned out in the sun, the spouts, splashes, splashes, and soap suds from the sponge brush gleamed from the taps. I believe in this explanation: the ownership of the water poured into the Ameira water pipe has always belonged to the river god and the river fairy.They are used to moving in the underground veins, so it is not difficult for them to walk into new waters, rush out of fountains, find new mirrors, new games, and new ways of playing with water.The misuse of water made the river god angry. Their intrusion may be the wish that humans made when they prayed to the river god for blessings.Anyway, the fairies seem content now: you can hear them singing in the morning.

Trading Cities II Strangers walk the streets of the great city of Chloe.Every time they meet, they imagine a thousand possibilities: meeting, talking, surprise, caress, bite.But in reality no one greeted the other; they would look at each other for a second, then look away sharply, searching for other eyes, never stopping. A woman approached, twirling a parasol over her shoulder, her round hips twitching slightly.A woman in black came, aging, with restless eyes behind a veil, her lips trembling.A tattooed man came; a white-haired young man; a midget; twin sisters in coral-red dresses.There is something moving between these people, and the gazes cast on each other are like lines, connecting all the individuals, drawing arrows, stars, triangles, etc., until every combination has been used, and then there is another Characters appear: Yuren leading a leopard, a prostitute holding an ostrich fan, a young man, and an obese woman.Thus, if some people get together by chance (to shelter from the rain under a porch, or huddle under a tent in a market, or listen to a band in a square), it will develop into a meeting, a flirtation, an adultery, a drinking party, etc., but They don't exchange a word, poke a finger, or even lift an eyelid.

Chloe, the most chaste city, is always shaken by carnal desires.If men and women began to live out their fleeting morning-dew dreams, each ghost would become a human being, with its own tale of quest, disguise, misunderstanding, conflict, and oppression, and the merry-go-round of fantasy would come to a standstill. one of the city and the eye Valdrada was built by the ancients on the shore of the lake. The houses with balconies overlapped one after another, and the high street was surrounded by iron fences on the side facing the lake.In this way, travelers can see two cities here: one stands upright by the lake, and the other is the reflection in the lake.No matter what appears or happens in Valdrada, it will be repeated in another Valdrada, because the structural characteristics of the city are that every detail is reflected in the mirror. Ornamentation also reflects the interior ceilings, floors, aisles and wardrobe mirrors. The inhabitants of Valdrada know that their every action is immediately reflected in a mirror, with the peculiar dignity of an image; this knowledge keeps them from being careless.Even when skin-to-skin lovers writhe their naked bodies for the most comfortable position, when a murderer stabs an artery in the neck—the more blood flows, the deeper the blade penetrates—what matters is not their copulation or Murder, but the copulation or murder of those clear and cold images in the mirror. Mirrors sometimes raise and sometimes lower the value of things.Things that seem precious outside the mirror are not necessarily so in the reflection.The cities of Twinlands are not equal, for what appears or happens in Val Drada is not symmetrical: for every face and gesture there is a corresponding face and gesture in the mirror, but they are reversed.The two Valdradas depend on each other, their eyes meet; but there is no affection between them. The Khan dreamed of a city: he described it to Marco Polo thus: "The port is in the shadows, facing north. The pier is much higher than the black water, the waves lapping at the parapet; the stone steps are covered with seaweed, wet and slippery. Passengers who go out linger in the bay saying goodbye to their families, mooring on the pier Waiting for them in a pitched boat. The farewell was silent, with tears. It was cold, and everyone wrapped their heads in scarves. The people on the boat shouted that there could be no more delay; the boat carried the travelers away from the shore , he looked at the people who had not dispersed from the bow; the people on the shore could no longer see his face clearly; the boat approached the boat parked at sea; a shrunken figure climbed up the ladder and disappeared; the rusted anchor chain was pulling There is a sound of clashing anchor pipes as it rises. The people on the shore are on the stone pier, their eyes are over the earth bank, and they follow the boat around the headland: they wave the white cloth one last time. "Go, search all the coasts, and find this city," said the Khan to Marco, "and come back and tell me whether my dream is true or not." "Forgive me, King Khan, sooner or later, I will sail from that pier one day," said Marco, "but I will not come back and tell you. The city does exist, and it has a simple secret: It only knows how to set off, not how to return.”