Chapter 4 Immortal (4)

9 After dinner, they all sat in the living room.With a brandy glass and a half-filled coffee in front of him, the first brave guest stood up and bowed to his hostess with a smile.The others took it as a signal, and they jumped out of their armchairs with Paul and Agnes and hurried to their respective cars.Paul was driving, and Agnes sat beside her, concentrating on the constant flow of traffic, the flickering lights, and the inexplicable restlessness of the metropolis night.Once again a strong and peculiar feeling came over her--a feeling that had come up more and more often these days: she felt that she had nothing in common with those bipeds with their heads on their shoulders and their mouths on their faces. .For a while, she was very interested in their politics, science, and inventions, and she regarded herself as a tiny part of their great adventure, but one day, she suddenly had a feeling that she was not one of them. member.It was a strange feeling, she resisted it as much as she could, she knew it had no moral implications and it was absurd, but she decided in the end.She couldn't condemn her own feelings: she couldn't torture herself with their wars, she couldn't rejoice in their festivities, she was convinced it had nothing to do with her.

Does this mean that she is cold-hearted?No, it has nothing to do with heart.In any case, no one gave as much money to beggars as she did.She never ignored them when she met them on the road, and they seemed to sense it, always turning to her for help; they could single her out of hundreds of passers-by as someone who cared for them. Caring people. —Yes, it is true, but I must add that her charity to beggars is also based on the opposite reason.She gave them money not because beggars were part of humanity, but because they were not, because they were excluded from it, and perhaps, like her, they felt alienated from it.

Not among humans: this is her attitude.Only one thing can change her course: a specific love for a specific person.If she really loves someone, she will not be indifferent to the other's fate, because her lover will also depend on that fate, he will be a part of it, and then she will no longer feel human suffering, Wars and festivals have nothing to do with her. She shuddered at her final thought.Does she really not love anyone?What about Paul? She remembered the moment before they left for dinner hours ago, when he had held her tightly in his arms.Yes, there was a thought in her mind: lately she had been haunted by the idea that her love for Paul was only a wish, a wish to love him: a wish for a happy marriage.As long as she relaxes a little from this desire, love will fly away like a bird out of its cage.

At one o'clock in the evening, Agnes and Paul are undressing.If they are asked to describe each other's actions at this moment, they will be embarrassed.It's been a long time since they looked at each other like this.Because there was no contact at the time, their memory mechanisms failed to record what their shared night life was like before lying in the marriage bed. The marriage bed: the altar of marriage; when one says altar, the other answers sacrifice.Here one of them makes a sacrifice for the other: neither can sleep, the snorting of their companion wakes them; so they squirm, arching to the side of the bed, leaving a wide gap between them; they pretend Sleeping soundly, thinking that this will make the partner fall asleep, and then I can toss and turn without disturbing the other.Unfortunately, the partner didn't take advantage of this opportunity, because he (for the same reason) was also dozing off and didn't dare to flip.

Can't sleep, and won't let myself turn: that's the marriage bed. Agnes lay flat on her back, scenes flashing through her mind: another visit from that polite stranger, a man who knew them well but didn't know what the Eiffel Tower was.She wanted to have a private conversation with him anyway, but he deliberately chose to call when they were both home.Out of helplessness, she had to trick Paul into going out with a trick.The three sat around a small table with three coffee cups, and Paul was about to entertain guests.Agnes just waited for the visitor to say what she wanted.In fact, she knew his purpose.but.She knew and Paul didn't.The guest finally interrupted Paul's words and got to the point: "I believe you have already guessed where I come from."

"Yes," Agnes said.She knew he was from another distant planet, a place of great importance in the universe.She added hastily, still with a shy smile on her face, "Is life better over there?" The guest just shrugged: "Agnes, of course you know where you live." Agnes said: "Maybe death does exist. But can't things be arranged in other ways? Does one really need to give up one's body, does the body have to be buried in the ground or thrown into the fire? It's all too much." Terrible!" "It's a well-known fact that the earth is terrifying," the guest said.

"One more thing," said Agnes. "Perhaps you find this a ridiculous question. Do the people who live there have any face?" "No. Only here has a face, nowhere else." "And how are the people who live there distinguished from each other?" "Each of them is his own creation. That is, each has to conceive his own self. But it's hard to talk about, you can't understand. One day you will understand. I came to tell you that in the next life you will will not return to Earth." Of course, Agnes already knew what the guests were going to say to them, so she wasn't surprised.But Paul was shocked.He looked at the visitor, then at Agnes.She had no choice but to say, "And Paul?"

"Paul won't stay here either," replied the guest. "I came here to tell you this. We always tell those who have been chosen. Here is just one question: do you want to be together in your next life, or never meet?" Agnes knew he was going to ask this question, so she wanted to be alone with the visitor.She knew Paul was there and she couldn't say, "I don't want to be with him anymore." She wouldn't say that in front of him, and neither could he, even though he probably hoped that Ka would never be with Agnes, Live a different life.However, asking them to say to each other, "We don't want to be together in our next life," is equivalent to saying, "There was never love between us, and there is no love between us now."And this is precisely what cannot be said, because their entire life together (already more than twenty years of living together) has been based on an illusion of love, which they have been conscientiously guarding and fostering. phantom.In this way, whenever she imagines this scene, she knows that she will surrender when she encounters this problem, and she will say against her will: "Yes, of course. I hope we will still be together in the next life."

But today, for the first time in her life, she made up her mind: even in front of Paul, she must muster up the courage to say her wish, the real wish buried in her heart; The courage, even if it destroys everything between the two of them.She heard the sound of her breathing getting heavier beside her.Paul has really fallen asleep.She seemed to put the same film back into the projector and re-live the whole scene: she was talking to the guest, Paul watched in amazement, and the guest said: "Do you want to stay together forever or never meet?" (Strange: even if he has all the information about them, he is not ignorant of earth psychology, and he is not familiar with what love is, so he can't imagine that such a sincere, honest, and well-intentioned question would cause such difficulties situation.)

Agnes summoned up all her courage and replied firmly: "We would rather never meet." With a click, the phantom of love was locked out of the door.