Chapter 31 Chapter 23 Rising Flames

The village from which the springs flowed was changed.The mender of roads still goes there every day to knock stones on the road for a few pieces of bread to keep his ignorant soul from leaving his emaciated body.The prison on the top of the cliff is not as majestic as before.There were soldiers guarding, but there were fewer of them; and officers overseeing the soldiers, but not knowing what they were going to do—only knowing that they might do things they hadn't been ordered to do. The ruined countryside stretches on all sides; it produces nothing but desolation.Every green leaf, every piece of grass, every leaf of every crop is shrunken and pitiful like the suffering people.Everything bows, decadent, stressed, dying.The houses, the fences, the livestock, the men, women, children, and the land that bore them—all were exhausted.

The lords who were once the most noble gentlemen were also the auspicious signs of the country.They are a model of civility in a life of luxury and splendor, they bring a chivalry to everything, and they have played a huge role in other similar matters.As a class, the Lord Sirs have added luster to the life in China in various forms.It's strange that the Great Thousand World, which was specially designed for the Lord Sir, would be exhausted and drained so quickly!Eternal arrangements are undoubtedly short-sighted!But that's how it is.People who have nothing have been drained to the last drop of blood, the last screw of the torture instrument has been used many times, the victim has collapsed, and now the screw turns around and can no longer bite anything.The grown-ups had no choice but to run away from such a depressing and unexplainable phenomenon.

But that's not what has changed in this village and many like it.For tens of hundreds of years, the adults only squeezed and squeezed this village, and rarely visited it in person, except when hunting for fun—sometimes he hunted people, and sometimes he hunted beasts.In order to keep the wild beasts at bay, the adults set aside a large piece of land for their growth and let it go to waste.No, no, the change in the village does not lie in the absence of noble, statue-like, blessed and blessed faces, but in the addition of unfamiliar faces of low status. During this period, the mender of roads worked alone in the dust.He seldom bothered to think about the dust from which he came, and to dust to which he came.He spent too much time thinking about too little supper, and how much he would eat if there was food available—at this period, when he looked up from his solitary labors, he always saw a savage The figure came forward on foot.This was rare in this area before, but now it is commonplace.When the figure stepped forward, the road mender would not be surprised to find that he was a tall and hairy man almost like a savage, and the wooden shoes on his feet were too cumbersome even for the road mender.The man was fierce, rough, and dark, soaked in the dust and mud of the high road, soaked in the moisture of the lowland swamp, and covered with thorns, leaves, and moss from the forest road.

At noon on that July day, there was such a person walking towards him like a ghost.At that time, he was sitting on a rock pile under a steep wall trying to avoid a hailstorm. The man looked at him, at the village in the valley, at the windmill, and at the prison on the top of the cliff, and having recognized these objects in his unknowing mind, he said in a barely intelligible dialect: "How's the situation, Jacques?" "Good, Jacques." "Shake hands, then!" The two shook hands.The man sat down on a pile of stones. "No lunch?" "There's only supper now," said the mender of roads with a look of hunger.

"It's fashionable not to eat lunch now," the man grunted. "No one I've seen anywhere eats lunch." He took out a dark pipe, filled it with a cigarette, lit it with a scythe, and drew out a red light. He took it away suddenly, and pinched something into it with his thumb and forefinger. The thing ignited and turned into a fire A wisp of blue smoke. "Let's shake hands, then," after watching this action, it was the road mender's turn to speak.The two shook hands again. "Tonight?" said the mender of roads. "Tonight," said the man, putting the pipe to his mouth.

"where?" "here." He and the mender of roads sat on the stone and looked at each other in silence.Hail fell between them, as if the bayonets of Lilliputian were attacking.The sky over the village finally cleared. "Show me!" So the traveler came to the top of the mountain and said. "Look!" replied the mender of roads, holding out his finger. "Go down here, straight across the street, past the spring—" "Go to hell!" The man interrupted his words, his eyes rolled towards the scene. "I don't walk by the street, I don't walk by the spring. How then?"

"Well! About two leagues on the hilltop side of the village." "Okay. When do you leave work?" "sunset." "Will you wake me up before you get off work? I've been walking for two nights without a break. I'm going to fall asleep like a baby when I'm done smoking. Will you wake me up?" "no problem." The traveler finished smoking the pot of tobacco, put the pipe in his arms, took off his big wooden shoes, lay down on the pile of stones, and immediately fell asleep. The mender of roads went to his dusty work.At this time, the clouds containing hail rolled and dispersed, revealing streaks of blue sky, and the scenery also flashed streaks of silver light.The little road mender who now replaced the blue hat with a red hat seemed to be fascinated by the figure on the stone pile, and his eyes often turned to him. Although the tools in his hands were working mechanically, they seemed to be useless.The man's bronze skin, unkempt beard and hair, rough red wool cap, poor clothes of a mixture of home wool and wild animal skins, a strong figure emaciated from hardship, and a sullen and fierce sleep. Tight lips, which awed the mender of roads.The traveler's foot was worn out from much travelling, and his ankle was wounded and bleeding; his huge wooden shoe was stuffed with leaves and grass.After walking such a long distance, these shoes are too heavy.There were many holes in his clothes and many wounds on his body.The mender of roads stooped to see his secret weapon, tucked in his chest or elsewhere, but couldn't see it, because he slept with his arms folded over his chest and pressed tight, much like his tight lips.In the eyes of road menders, the fences, outposts, gates, ditches, and drawbridges of a city with deep ditches and high fortifications all dissipate as easily as smoke in front of this man.By the time he looked up at the horizon and around him, in his little fancy, figures like this man were invading the central cities of France.

The man continued to sleep soundly.The hailstones fell one after another, the sun and shadows alternated on his face, and the ice beads hit him with a pop sound, and were turned into diamonds by the sun, but he ignored it completely.The sun finally set, reflecting a sunset glow, and the road mender packed up his tools and planned to go down the mountain and return to the village, which woke him up. "Good!" said the sleeping man, propping himself up on his elbows. "Two leagues over the top of the hill?" "About two." "About two. Good!" The mender of roads went home, dust flying in front of him because of the direction of the wind.He soon came to the spring, squeezed into the herd of lean cows led there to drink, and whispered to the people in the village, and it seemed that even the cows had heard the news.Instead of climbing into bed as usual after their poor supper, the villagers came out and stayed there, whispering a strange news.When the people in the village gathered by the spring in the dark, there was another bizarre wait-and-see behavior spread: everyone looked at the sky in the same direction, as if waiting for something.Mr. Garber, the main local official, was worried. He climbed up to his own roof and looked in that direction; Sacristy, you may need to ring the bell later.

As the night darkened, the wind blew up, and the deep woods that surrounded and isolated the ancient mansion began to sway before the wind, as if threatening the dark and majestic buildings.Raindrops ran frantically up the two steps like a hasty messenger, knocking on the huge door as if to wake the occupants inside.A restless wind blew into the hall, past the ancient spears and knives, and whimpered up the stairs, blowing the draperies beside the bed where the last Marquis slept, and four heavy-footed, disheveled figures passed The forests in the east, west, north and south stepped down the long grass and broke the dead branches. They came carefully to the yard, lit four fires there, and then scattered in all directions.Then everything returned to darkness.

But the darkness was not long, and at once the mansion illuminated itself strangely with its own light, as if it were about to become a luminous body.Then a sparking flame flared up behind the front buildings, and emerged from the light, illuminating balustrades, arches, and windows, and then the flames grew higher and higher, spreading and brightening in all directions.Soon, flames burst from twenty or so large windows, waking up stone faces, all staring out of the fire. The few who remained on the estate, after a murmur and murmur, prepared their horses, and some rode away.The sound of driving horses and splashing water passed through the darkness and stopped by the village spring.The horse was foaming and standing at Mr. Garber's gate, "Mr. Garber, put out the fire! Call everyone to put out the fire!" The alarm bells rang urgently, but no other rescue came (if there was, there was no help.) Come).The mender of roads and his two hundred and fifty pals stood with folded arms by the spring, looking at the pillar of fire in the sky. "It must be forty feet high," they said dryly, but did not move.

Riders and foaming horses from the mansion clattered through the village up the stone stairs to the prison door on the cliff.A group of officers watched the fire in front of the door, and a group of soldiers stayed away from them. "Sir, sir, put out the fire! The manor is burning, you can save some valuables by going there early! Put out the fire! Put out the fire!" The officer looked at the soldiers, but the soldiers looked at the fire.No one gave an order, everyone shrugged and pursed their lips, "I have to burn it!" The village was brightly lit up as the riders clattered down the hill and through the streets.The mender of roads and two hundred and fifty close friends had an inspiration that is common to a man and a woman: light a candle to celebrate.They all entered the house, and lighted candles behind every dim little pane.There was a general shortage of goods here, and everyone went to borrow them from Mr. Garber rather unceremoniously.The palace official was very reluctant, hesitated for a while, and the road repairer who used to be very submissive in front of the authority said now: "It would be fun to smash the carriage and make a bonfire, and the stage horse can also be grilled and eaten!" The mansion started a fire and burned down.The flames roared and raged, and the scorching wind blew out from the hellish sea of ​​flames, as if it was going to wipe out the mansion.The incandescent flames jumped and flew, illuminating the stone-carved human face as if it was enduring torture.Large chunks of stone and timber collapsed.The stone face with the dimple on the nose was buried, but then it emerged from the fireworks, and it was the face of the cruel Marquis who was burning at the stake and struggling in the flames. The mansion was burning; the nearby trees were scorched and shriveled at the touch of the flames; the distant forest, set on fire by those four wicked men, surrounded the incandescent mansion with a new forest of smoke.Molten lead and iron boiled in the marble basin of the fountain, scorching the water; The crystallized patterns split like branches, bursting out huge gaps and cracks.The birds, stupefied with fright, whirled through the air and fell into the furnace.In the light of the beacon they created, four ferocious figures strode along the road wrapped in darkness, east, west, north, south, towards a new goal.The village illuminated by the fire has taken away the alarm bell and driven away the legal bell ringer, and it has been ringing happily. This was not enough, and the village, dazzled by famine, fire, and bells, remembered Mr. Garber's rent tax, and was eager to negotiate with him, although Mr. Garber had only recently collected a small installment tax, The ground rent and house rent were not collected.They surrounded his house and summoned him to come out and talk.Mr. Garber had to close the door tightly and hide to think of a way.The result of the consideration was to hide again on the roof behind the chimney.This time he made up his mind that if the door was broken in, he would throw himself down from the top of the battlements and catch a man or two (he was a small Southerner with a vengeful heart). Mr. Garber spent a long dark night on the roof.He probably regarded the distant mansion for candles, and the knocking of doors and the merry chiming of bells for music.Not to mention the ominous street lamp dangling by the side of the street in front of his inn, the villagers once clamored to exchange places with him.He spent a whole summer night on the verge of black death, ready to fall down at any time according to his established determination!That feeling of dread is very challenging.But at last the friendly dawn came, and the village-shaped rush candles crackled and went out, and the people dispersed merrily.Mr. Garber took his life temporarily and went down to the ground. That night and other nights there were many other fires within a hundred miles.Some of the officials there were not necessarily so lucky.When the sun came out, they were hanging in the once peaceful street where they had been born and raised.There are also rural or urban dwellers who are not as fortunate as the road mender and his companions.Officers and soldiers fought back and also hung them up.But the vicious people are still reckless, moving around in the east, west, north and south.No matter who was hanged, the fire was still set.No matter what mathematical formula the officials used, they could not figure out how high the gallows would have to be built to turn into water and put out the fire.