Chapter 57 Chapter 53 Reviewing Again

I have to stop again.Oh, my baby wife, among the crowds that come and go in my memory, there is a shadow that is quiet, motionless, overflowing with innocent love and childlike beauty.Don't think of me - think of the little flower that falls to the ground when it is falling. I did that.Everything else blurred and disappeared.I'm in our little house with Dora again.I don't know how long she was ill.I was feeling so used to her being sick that I couldn't count the days.Actually, it was just a few weeks or months, not very long; but, in my daily experience, it was a very, very tiring period.

They don't tell me "wait a few more days" anymore and I've started to have a vague fear that maybe, one day I'll never see my doll wife and her old friend Jeep race in the sun . The Jeep seemed suddenly very old.Perhaps it was because it had not received from its mistress something to cheer it up and keep it young.It was listless, with vision loss and weakness in limbs.My aunt and grandma are worried about it, and it doesn't hate her anymore.When he slept on Dora's bed, he crawled up to his aunt who was sitting by the bed, and licked her hand softly. Dora lay there smiling at us.She looked so beautiful, she never complained, she was never agitated.We were all too good to her, she said; she knew that her dear, careful older child was too weary.My aunt and grandma didn't sleep well, but she was still very alert, always so thoughtful and kind.Sometimes those two little bird-like ladies came to see her, and we talked about our wedding day, and all the good times.

I sit in the quiet of my tidy little bedroom blocked from the light, my doll wife turns her blue eyes to me, her little fingers around mine, my life - inside and out Life—what a strange repose and pause to have here!I sat like this for many, many hours.But of all the countless times I sat with her, three came to my mind most vividly. Once in the morning.Dora, so neatly groomed after being groomed by her aunt herself, showed me how her beautiful long hair would rise and fall like waves on the pillow; she told me how long and shiny it was; and told me , she likes to keep her hair loose in a hairnet.

"Not that I brag about it, you mocking child," she said, when I smiled; "but because you used to say you thought they were beautiful; and because, when I first missed you, I used to look in the mirror , wondering if you'd really like to get a bunch. Oh, fat, what a silly fool you were when I gave you a bunch!" "That was when you drew the bouquet I gave you, Dora, when I told you how much I love you." "Ah! but I don't want to tell you," said Dora, "how I cried over those flowers then, because I believed you really loved me! When I could run about like I used to Well, Fatty, let's go see those places where we used to be like a pair of little fools. Let's go for a walk in those places and don't forget poor Papa, shall we?"

"Okay, we'll do that and have a good time. So you should get well soon, my dear." "Oh, I'm going to be better soon! I'm much better, you don't know!" Once at night.I sat in the same chair next to the same bed.The same face turned to me.Neither of us said anything.She has a little smile on her face.At this time, I no longer carried my light burden up and down the stairs.She lay down all day. "Big Fat!" "My dear Dora!" "You told me Mr. Wickfield was ill, and what I'm going to say doesn't strike you as unreasonable? I want to see Agnes. I want to see her."

"I must write to her, my dear." "Do you know?" "I'll write it right away." "What a sweet and kind child! Fatty, give me a hug. My dear, it's not a wild idea. It's not a stupid idea. I really want to see her!" "I'm pretty sure she'll come if I tell her so." "You're pretty deserted now that you've gone downstairs, don't you?" Dora whispered, putting her arms around my neck. "I see your seat is empty, how can I not feel deserted?" "My seat is empty!" She hugged me silently, "Do you really miss me, Big Fat?" She looked up at me and smiled brightly, "Although I am so poor, self-willed and stupid?"

"My dear, who else do I think about the most bitterly in this world besides you?" "Oh husband! I'm so happy and so sad!" She leaned closer to me and put her arms around me.She cried and laughed, and then she was quiet and happy. "That's it!" said she, "greeting to Agnes for me, and telling her how much, how much I want to see her; I have nothing else to desire." "Besides getting better, Dola!" "Ah, Fatty! Sometimes, I think—you know I've always been such a little fool!—I'm never going to get better!" "Don't say so, Dora! Dearest lover, don't think so!"

"If I could bear it, I wouldn't be so, Fatty! But I'm happy; though my dear child is too deserted before his baby wife's empty seat!" Once at night.I am still with her.Agnes has arrived, and has spent the night and the day with us.She, my aunt, and I, we all sat with Dora from morning till night.We didn't talk much, but Dora was content and happy.Now there were only two of us left. At this time, do I already know that my baby wife is going to leave me?They have told me so, and what they said is no different from what I thought, but I must not accept the truth with my heart.I can't understand its meaning.Several times that day, I walked away to hide from crying.I remember who wept at parting between the living and the dead. ①I recall all the plots of the story of love and sympathy.I want to let myself think about it and comfort myself; I hope I can do this to some extent; but what I dare not be sure in my heart is: the ending is inevitable.I hold her hand, I own her heart, I see her love for me clearly.I could not give up the dim and bleak hope that she would not die, which hovered like a shadow in my mind.

-------- ① See Chapter 11, Section 35 of the "New Testament Gospel of John" in the "Bible". "I want to talk to you, Fatty. Don't you mind if I tell you something I've been wanting to say lately?" She gave me a tender look. "Mind? My baby." "Because I don't know what you think, or how you sometimes think. Maybe you do think that sometimes. Fat, dear, I'm afraid I was too young to live." I put my face close to her pillow, she looked into my eyes and spoke very softly.As she went on, I became aware, with a broken heart, that she was speaking of her as if she were a dead person.

"My dear, I was too young. I don't just mean young, I mean inexperienced, immature, and all. I was such a little fool! I'm afraid we'd better just be like little boys and A little girl falls in love and forgets about it. I'm starting to think I'm not the right wife." Fighting back my tears, I replied, "Oh, Dora, my love, just as I am not fit to be a husband!" "I don't know," she said, shaking her curls in the old fashion. "Perhaps! But if I'm a better fit for marriage, I might make you a better fit. Besides, you're smart, and I've never been .”

"We are very happy already, my dear Dora." "I was very happy, very much. But, as the years went by, my dear boy grew weary of his baby wife. She became less and less his companion. He felt more and more wanting in his home." .She won't be improved. Let it be." "Oh, Dora, dearest, don't say that to me. Every word seems like a reproach!" "No, not at all!" she replied, kissing me. "Oh, my dear, you are never to blame, and I love you too much to be serious—except pretty—or you think I'm like that—seriousness is my only strength—I won't seriously blame you a word. Isn't it too deserted downstairs, Fatty?" "very very!" "Don't cry! Is my chair still there?" "It's in the old place." "Oh, how my poor child weeps! Don't cry, don't cry! Here, promise me something. I want to say something to Agnes. Tell Agnes so when you go downstairs." and ask her to come upstairs to me. Also, no one is allowed to come in while I am speaking to her—not even my aunt. I will speak to Agnes alone. I will speak to Agnes alone. say." I promised that she would come at once; but I could not go away from her because I was too sad. "I said, let it be!" she said in a low voice, putting her arms around me, "Oh, fat, in a few years you won't love your baby wife as much as you do now; and, really In a few years she will embarrass and disappoint you, and you may not love her half as much as you do now! I know I am too young and too stupid, and let it be!" Agnes was downstairs when I entered the drawing-room; I performed my mission to her. She went up, leaving me and Kip. Jeep's Chinese-style house by the fire.It lay restless and drowsy on its fleece bunk.The high moon is bright and bright.I looked out of the window into the night, and immediately burst into tears again, and my uncultivated heart was heavily reproached—very heavily reproached. I sat by the fire, and recalled, with a vague regret, the feelings that had been secretly growing in my heart since our marriage.I thought of every little incident between me and Dora, and felt the truth of the saying "The little things make up the whole life."That dear child, the image of her when I first met her, is constantly tumbling out of the sea of ​​my memory, and still has infinite charm through the exaggeration of my love with her when I was young.Would it really be better if we just fell in love like little boys and little girls and then forgot about it?Uncultivated mind, answer! How time passed, I don't know.Finally, I was awakened by the cry of my baby wife's old friend.It's more irritable than before.It crawled out of its house, looked at me, walked towards the door, and then whined and tried to go upstairs. "Don't go up to-night, Jip, don't go up to-night!" It came slowly to me, licked my hand, and raised its dull eyes to my face. "Oh, Jeep, maybe never again!" It lay down in front of my feet, stretched out as if going to sleep, and wailed.it's dead! "Oh, Agnes! Look, look, here!" —that face full of pity and sorrow, that rain of tears, that heavy silence that moved me, that solemn hand raised to the sky! "Agnes?" It's over.There was darkness before my eyes; for a while there was a blankness in my memory.