Chapter 1 Physiognomy 1 The woman was about sixty or sixty-five, and I watched her from a deck chair by the health club pool.This is the top floor of a tower from which you can have a panoramic view of Paris.I was waiting for Professor Avenelius, and we met here to chat whenever necessary, but today he was late, so I had to look at the woman.She stood alone in the waist-high water, staring straight at a young lifeguard in sweatpants who was teaching her how to swim.He issued instructions: let her put her hands on the edge of the pool and take a deep breath.She did it so hard and earnestly, like an old steam engine snorting underwater. (That poetic voice has long been forgotten. If you want to describe it to those who don’t know it, you might as well say it’s like the sound of an old woman submerging in the water while holding her hand by the swimming pool. That could not be more accurate.) I can see it god.She fascinates me because of her comical pose (also noticed by the lifeguard, with a slight twitch at the corners of his mouth).At this time, an acquaintance came to strike up a conversation and distracted my attention.When I want to read it again, the lecture is over.She was walking around the pool towards the exit.She passed the lifeguard and took three or four steps forward.Suddenly, she turned her head and smiled brightly, beckoning to him.At this moment, my heart thumped!That smile, that movement clearly belonged to a twenty-year-old girl!There was an ecstasy in the softness with which she lifted her arms, as if playfully flinging a colorful ball at her lover.Her smile and movements were elegant and charming, but her face and body were completely charmless.It was the power of a movement drowned in the glamor of the body.There is no doubt that the woman has realized that she is no longer beautiful, but at this moment, she has forgotten this.There is a part of each of us that exists outside of time.We may only be aware of our age in certain special moments, but most of the time we are ageless.Anyway, the moment she turned, smiled, and waved to the young lifeguard (he couldn't help sneering), she didn't think about her age.Her inner charm, which existed outside of time, was revealed at the moment of that movement, which dazzled me.I was strangely moved.Thus, the word Agnes came to mind.Agnes, I never knew a woman named Agnes.

2 I lay on the bed, dozed off happily.At about six o'clock in the morning, there was a moment of turning over before waking up. I reached out and took out the small semiconductor radio next to the pillow, and pressed the button.The morning news program is on, but I can't make out what it's talking about.I fell asleep again in a daze, so the announcer's words mixed into my sleep.Money can't buy sleep, it's the most pleasant moment of the day: thanks to the radio, I can savor the pleasure of waking up, and it's wonderful to be able to swing between waking and sleeping, and for that alone, we shouldn't have to. Regret for being born.Am I dreaming, or am I actually at the opera, listening to a duet about the weather by two tenors in cavaliers?Why don't they sing about love?Come to think of it, they were announcers.The singing stopped, and they started to tease: "It will be hot and stuffy today, and there may be thunderstorms." Before the first voice finished speaking, the second interjected like a joke, "Really?" The previous voice also responded with a joke "Mais oui, please forgive me, Bernard. But it is what it is. We have to suffer." Bernard laughed and said, "This is the punishment for our sins." And then The previous voice: "Bernard, why should I be punished for your sin?" Bernard laughed louder, in order to let the audience understand what this sin meant.I guess what he means is that it's a desire deep in our beings: for everyone to see us as sinners!Let our wickedness be likened to a storm, a whirlwind, a hurricane!When the French open their umbrellas later today, let them recall with envy Bernard's ambiguous laugh.I tuned to another station because I felt another bout of drowsiness was coming and I wanted some more interesting imagery to mix into my sleep.On the next station, it was a woman's voice saying that today would be hot and muggy, with the possibility of thunderstorms.I'm glad that there are so many stations in France saying the same thing with the same words at the same moment.This is the perfect combination of unity and freedom - what more could a human being want?So I dialed back to the place where Bernard was talking about his sins, but this time it was another voice singing the praises of a new type of Renault; Women's chorus; pull back to the Renaud station, just in time for the last two beats of Renault's hymn, followed by Bernard's voice again.He monotonously imitated the fading melody, and then announced that a new biography of Hemingway-the one hundred and twenty-seventh biography was published, saying that this biography was really worthwhile because it revealed that Hemingway never said a word in his life. The truth of the word.He exaggerated the number of times he was wounded in the First World War. He always pretended to be a veteran seducer, but he proved it as early as August 1944, and proved it again later. loss of sexual function. "Ah, really?" another voice laughed, and Bernard replied with a sneer: "Mais oui..." Then we felt like we were on the opera stage again, with an impotent Hemingway, saying As he spoke, a very serious voice came out of nowhere, discussing the trial that had been attracting the attention of the whole of France for several weeks: a young woman died of a very simple operation due to inadvertent anesthesia.Because of this accident, an organization formed to protect what it calls "consumers" has suggested that all surgical procedures in the future must be videotaped and archived on film.The Association for the Protection of Consumers believes that only in this way can the courts properly deliver justice to every French man and woman who died on the operating table.Hearing this, I fell asleep again.

I woke up at about 8:30, and when I woke up I tried to draw an image of Agnes.Like me, she was also lying on a big bed.The right side of the bed is empty.Who should her husband be?Apparently, someone who had to leave home early on a Saturday morning.That would explain why she was alone now, sweetly circling between waking and sleeping. Then she gets up.Facing her was a TV, supported by a long crane-like leg, and she casually put her nightgown on the display screen, quite like a white curtain covered with tassels on the stage.She was standing against the bed, and this was the first time I saw her naked: Agnes, the heroine of my novel.I stared intently at this beautiful woman, perhaps sensing my gaze, and hurried into the next room to get dressed.

Who is Agnes? Just as Eve was born from Adam's rib, just as Venus was born from the waves, Agnes emerged from the gesture of the sixty-year-old woman by the swimming pool waving to the lifeguard, and the woman's facial features It has faded from my memory.At the time, that gesture aroused in me a deep, unexplainable nostalgia for the past that gave birth to the woman I called Agnes. Shouldn't a person, or more broadly, a character in a novel, be by definition a unique, inimitable being?How, then, when I see someone make a gesture, this gesture that is associated with her, this gesture that characterizes her and is part of her charisma, at the same time becomes the inner substance of another person, becomes my dream What do you see?This is worth thinking about:

If our planet has seen 80 billion people, it's hard to imagine that everyone has a unique movement routine.Mathematically, this is also impossible.There is no doubt that there are far fewer movements in the world than there are in people.This leads to a surprising conclusion: an action is more personal than a person.To put it more succinctly: more people, less action. When I was talking about the woman by the swimming pool, I said, "Her inner charm, which exists outside of time, appeared at the moment of that movement, and it dazzled me." This is how I felt at the time, but I was wrong.That movement didn't show the woman's inner essence at all, in fact, it was the woman who showed me the charm of a movement.A movement cannot be regarded as an expression of a person, nor as his creation (for no one can create a movement that is completely original and belonging to no one), nor as an instrument of that person, on the contrary, It is precisely actions that use us as their instruments, as their vehicles or incarnations.

Agnes was now fully dressed and entered the living room.She stopped and listened.There was a faint sound next door, and she knew it was her daughter who just got up, so she hurried into the corridor, as if trying to avoid her.She stepped into the elevator and pressed the button to go to the lobby. Instead of descending, the elevator shook like a chorea.This is not the first time that the elevator made a mischief and made her frightened.Once she wanted to go downstairs, but the elevator ran up; another time the door didn't open, and she was imprisoned for half an hour.She felt that it was trying to come to an understanding with her, to tell her something in its rude, wordless, bestial way.She complained to the concierge several times, but the elevator was quite normal and friendly to other tenants, so the concierge thought it was her own fault that Agnes and the elevator did not get along, and ignored it.This time Agnes was dumbfounded and had to get out of the elevator and down the stairs.Unexpectedly, just as the door of the stairwell was closed, the elevator was back to normal and followed her downstairs.

Saturday was the hardest day for Agnes.Her husband, Paul, usually leaves home before seven o'clock to have lunch out with friends, and she has to use the free time of the day to take care of hundreds of chores that are more annoying than serious business: half an hour in line at the post office, Supermarket shopping, got into a fight with a clerk there, wasted time waiting at the checkout counter, called the plumber and begged him to come on time so he wouldn't have to wait all day; A sauna, a rest, was something she couldn't do all week; and in the evenings, she found herself surrounded by vacuum cleaners and feather dusters, as the maids who came to clean them every Friday became more and more dispirited.

But this Saturday was different: it happened to be the fifth anniversary of her father's death.A special scene appeared in front of her eyes: her father was sitting with his back arched, in front of a pile of torn photos, and Agnes's sister was yelling at him: "Why are you tearing up mom's photos?" Ah Guness sided with her father, and the sisters quarreled, their sudden hatred driving them out of their minds. She went out and got into the car parked in front of the house. ①French, meaning "yes". 3 The elevator took her to the top floor of the tower, which was the health club with a large swimming pool, whirlpool, sauna, Turkish bath, and panoramic views of Paris.Rock music boomed from the locker room speakers.When she first came here ten years ago, the club didn't have so many members, so it was relatively deserted.Year after year, the club keeps changing: there are more and more glass, colorful lights, artificial flowers, cacti, stereos, music, and more people. One day, the manager of the club decided to cover all the walls of the gym The installation of large mirrors doubled the number of people several times.

She opened a wardrobe and began to undress.Two women were chatting aside.One, a contralto, complained leisurely about everything her husband had spread out on the floor: books, socks, newspapers, even matches and pipes.The other is a soprano, whose mouth is twice as fast, which is completely the habit of the French. The last syllable of each sentence is raised an octave, which sounds like a hen crowing angrily after laying eggs: "Your words really make me cry." Surprised! You really let me down! I'm really surprised! You have to make up your mind! You can't just take him so cheaply! It's your house after all! You have to make up your mind: don't let him pinch you!" The other woman Yibi Between two choices, one being her friend, whom she respected, and the other being her husband, whom she still loved; she had to explain gloomily, "What should I do? He's just like that." Personal! Always. Ever since we've known each other, he's spread stuff all over the place!" "Then he has to stop doing that! This is your house! Don't let him get this cheap! You gotta make that clear to him !” said the soprano.

Agnes had never participated in such a conversation; she had never spoken ill of Paul, even though she sensed that it alienated her somewhat from the other women.She turned to look in the direction of the contralto: she was a young woman with light hair and an angelic face. "No, no! You're right, no doubt! You can't make him do that!" the other woman went on: Argyes noticed that she was bobbing her head from side to side and shrugging her shoulders as she spoke, Raising her eyebrows, as if someone had the audacity to disrespect her friend's personality, she must express great anger and shock.Agnes knew the gesture: her daughter Bridget shook her head and raised her eyebrows exactly the same way.

Agnes undresses, closes the cupboard door, and enters through a revolving door into a large tiled room with a shower at one end and a glass-enclosed sauna at the other.Women sit crammed on wooden benches inside, some wrapped in special plastic sheeting that acts like an airtight cover over the body (or other body parts, most commonly the belly and buttocks) so the skin can sweat more , they lose weight faster, or so they believe. She climbed onto the tallest stool, for that was the only room left.She sat against the wall and closed her eyes.The sound of the music can't be heard that far, but the chatter of the women is still loud enough.A young woman who didn't look familiar walked into the sauna room. As soon as she entered the door, she yelled at everyone to move, asked them to squeeze, and then lifted a bucket of water and poured it on the stone.Hot steam rose and hissed.A woman sitting next to Agnes recoiled from the heat and covered her face with her hands.The newcomer saw it and said: "I like the hot steam, it gives me a real sauna feeling." She squeezed into the two naked bodies as she spoke, and began to talk about the chat show on TV yesterday, saying is a well-known biologist who has recently published his memoirs. "He's amazing!" she said. Another woman nodded: "Ah yes! And so humble!" The newcomer said, "Humble? Don't you think that guy is so arrogant? But I like that! I adore arrogant people!" She turned to Agnes and asked, "Do you think he's humble?" Agnes said she didn't watch the show.The newcomer seemed to feel that this was a mild dissent, looked straight at Agnes, and repeated loudly: "I hate modesty! Modesty is hypocrisy!" Agnes shrugged.Newcomer says: "In a sauna, all you need is real heat. I have to sweat. Then I have to have a cold shower. Cold shower! My favorite! I like cold showers even in the morning. I I find hot baths disgusting." A moment later she declared that the sauna was too boring; after repeating how much she hated modesty, she got up and left. When Agnes was a little girl, she used to go for walks with her father.Once she asked him if he believed in God.The father replied, "I believe in the Creator's computer." The child remembered it because it was a strange answer. "Computer" is a strange word, and "Creator", my father never said "God", always "Creator", as if he wanted to limit the importance of God to his engineering activities.The Creator's Computer: How can a human communicate with a computer?So she asked her father if he prayed."It's like praying to Edison when a light bulb burns out," he said. Agnes thought to herself: the Creator put a detailed program in the computer and left.The idea that God created the world and then gave it to man; that abandoned man in the middle of nothingness cries out to God without answer—all these ideas are not really new.But it is one thing to be abandoned by the God of our ancestors, and quite another to be abandoned by the God who invented the cosmic computer.The program took his place, and the program continued to run in his absence, and no one could change it.Program the computer: This does not mean that everything in the future is planned and everything is written by "God".For example, the program does not specify that there was a great battle at Waterloo in 1815 and the French army was defeated. It only shows that human nature is aggressive and destined to fight, and technological progress will make the war more dangerous.From the Creator's point of view, everything else is insignificant, just a game of permutations and combinations in a general program.These are not prophetic expectations of the future, they merely mark the limits of possibility within which determining forces are at the mercy of chance. The same is true of what we call human design.The computer never arranged an Agnes or a Paul, it only planned the so-called archetype of a person, on the basis of which a large number of samples were produced, all of which had no inner personality.It is like a Renault car, its inner substance is stored outside the car, in the archives of the design center office.Individual cars differ only by serial number.The serial number of the human sample is the physiognomy, that is, the combination of various facial features, which is purely accidental but not repeatable.It reflects neither character nor soul nor what we call ourselves.The face is just the serial number of the sample. Agnes thought back to the newcomer who hated hot showers.She came in to inform all the women present 1.She likes hot sauna bath; 2.She advocates arrogance; 3.She cannot bear modesty; 4.5. She likes cold showers;She hates hot showers.With just five strokes, she outlines a self-portrait. Through these five points, she defines her self and shows it to everyone.She didn't display humility, (after all, she said she hated modesty!) but aggression.The verbs she uses, such as "worship" and "hate", are full of passion, which seems to announce that for each of these five strokes, for each of these five points, she is ready to fight to the death at any time. Why so excited?Agnes asked herself.She thought: Tossed into the world as we are, we must first identify with that particular roll of the dice, with the contingent movements orchestrated by the transcendental computer: we see "this" (the one facing us in the mirror Reflection) is our self, so don't be surprised.We cannot live, at least not take life seriously, without the belief that the face is the self, without this fundamental illusion, the primordial illusion.It's not enough to identify with yourself, it has to be passionately identified as a matter of life and death.Only then can we see ourselves not merely as a variant of the human archetype, but as a being with its irreplaceable inner substance.That's why the newcomer made a portrait of himself and made it clear to everyone that it embodies something unique and irreplaceable, something worth fighting for and even dying for. After a quarter of an hour in the sauna steam, Agnes got up and plunged into a pool filled with cool water.Then, she also came to the big house to lie down and rest.There were women all around, still talking endlessly. She wanted to know what kind of existence the computer program arranged after death. Two possibilities appeared in her mind.If the sphere of activity of the computer is limited to our planet, and our destiny is entirely dependent on it, then there will be no existence after death but the few arrangements we have experienced in this world; we will repeat similar scenarios and being.Will we be alone or in groups?Unfortunately, solitude is not possible; there is only a little bit of it in life, so what can we hope for after death!In any case, the dead far outnumber the living!She is now reclining on a deck chair, and her posthumous existence is at best similar to her current experience: the voices of women chattering and chattering can be heard from all directions.This interminable voice is eternity: of course worse similes can be imagined, but the interminable voice of a woman is enough to make her cling to life and keep death at a distance by all means. place, the farther the better. There is a second possibility: there may be other, more advanced computers besides the ones on our planet.Then, the future will not repeat our past, and there will be hope when people die. Although it is hazy, it is a hope worth embracing.Agnes recalled a scene that had been haunting her recently: a stranger came to see her.This person has a kind attitude and a lovely personality.He picked up a chair and sat down, facing her and her husband, talking eloquently.His friendliness had a special appeal.Paul was in a great mood, talking and laughing, and pulled out the family album.The guest flipped through the pages, confused by some of the photos.For example, there is a photo of Agnes and Brigitte standing under the Eiffel Tower, and the guest asks: "What is that?" "That's Agnes, yes," Paul replied. "This is our daughter Bridget!" "I know," said the visitor, "that it is the structure I am asking about." Paul looked at him in surprise: "Ah, that's the Eiffel Tower!" "Oh, it's the Eiffel Tower!" He sounds like you've shown him a photo of your grandpa and he says, "Ah, that's your famous grandpa! Nice to finally meet him." Paul is puzzled, but Agnes doesn't.She knew who the man was, why he had come, and what he would ask, so she was a little nervous; she wanted to take Paul away and be alone with him, but she didn't know how to arrange it.