Chapter 17 "My Life - A Mainlander's Story" 17

seventeen One Sunday, after lunch, my sister came to my house and had tea with me. "I read a lot now," she said, showing me a book she'd picked up from the city library on her way to see me. "Thanks to your wife and Vladimir, they awakened my self-realization. They saved me and made me feel like a human being now. I used to be unable to sleep at night because of all kinds of worries:" oops , We ate so much sugar this week!Oops, don't pickle cucumbers too salty! 'Now I can't sleep, but what I think is different from the past.I am sorry that I have lived half my life so stupid and cowardly.I despised my past, was ashamed of it, and now I see my father as an enemy.Ah, how grateful I am to your wife!And Vladimir!What a wonderful man he is!

They opened my eyes. " "It's not good if you can't sleep at night," I said. "You think I'm sick? I'm not sick at all. Vladimir examined me and said I'm perfectly healthy. But it's not about health, it's not that important. ...you tell me, am I right? " She needs moral support, that's clear.Masha is gone, Dr. Bragovo is in Petersburg, and no one in the town but me can tell her that she is right.She stared intently at my face, trying to read what was going on in my heart.If I brooded in her presence, she would think it was her fault, and would be sad.I have to be careful all the time.Whenever she asked me if she was right, I always quickly answered that she was right, and I respected her deeply.

"You know what? The Arokings wanted me to play a part," she went on. "I want to act. I want to live. In a word, I want to drink the wine of life. I have no talent at all. My whole line does not exceed ten lines, but it is still better than pouring tea five times a day. Beware of the cook." Eating a piece of bread is infinitely wiser, and nobler. The main thing is to let my father finally see that I can resist." After drinking tea, she lay down on my bed, closed her eyes, and rested for a while, her face very pale. "What weakness!" she said, sitting up. "Vladimir says that all the women and girls in the city are anemic from idleness. What a wise man Vladimir is! He's right, absolutely right. Work!"

Two days later, she went to A Ruojing's house to rehearse with her script book.She wore a black dress with a string of coral beads around her neck, a brooch that looked like a sandwich from a distance, and large earrings in her ears that sparkled with diamonds.I looked at her, feeling awkward, and secretly surprised that she couldn't dress like this.She was also noted for wearing diamond earrings inappropriately and for being eccentric.I saw smiles on their faces, and heard someone laughing and saying, "Kleopatra of Egypt." She tried her best to appear high-society demeanor, casual and calm, so she seemed artificial and weird.She is no longer simple and cute.

"I explained to my father just now that I'll rehearse the play," she said, walking up to me, "and he yelled at me that if he didn't recognize me as a daughter, he almost beat me. You know, I can't play this well." role," she said, looking at her script book. "I'm bound to make a mess. Fate, then," she said passionately. "Let it be fate. ..." She felt that everyone was watching her, everyone was amazed that she had made up her mind to take this big step, and everyone was expecting something out of the ordinary from her.She would never believe that no one pays attention to such dull people as me and her.

She didn't play until the third act.She plays a guest, a rapping woman from the mainland.Her play is limited to standing outside the door for a while, pretending to eavesdrop, and then giving a short monologue.There was at least an hour and a half before her appearance.While others were walking up and down the stage, reading their lines, drinking tea, and arguing, she never left me a single step, always muttering her lines and rubbing her lines book impatiently.She thought everyone was watching her, and when she came out, she ran her trembling hands through her hair, and said to me, "I'm going to make a mess. . . . How heavy my heart is, if only you knew! I I was so scared in my heart, as if someone would take me to the execution ground soon.”

Finally it was her turn to play. "It's your turn, Kleopatra Alexeyevna!" said the director. She went to the center of the stage, with a frightened look on her face, ugly, clumsy, and stood there for half a minute, as if petrified, motionless except for the big earrings in her ears dangling. "You can read the script book for the first rehearsal," someone said. I could see that she was trembling, she couldn't speak, she couldn't turn the script book, she couldn't care about her role at all.I was just about to go up to her and say something to her, when suddenly she knelt down in the middle of the stage and wailed.

There was a commotion and a commotion, and I was the only one standing there, leaning against the side set, aghast at what was happening, not understanding nor knowing what to do.I watched as others lifted her up and led her out.I saw Anyuta Bragovo coming towards me. I hadn't seen her in the hall before, but now she seemed to come out of the ground.She wore a bonnet and a veil, and, as usual, she made the appearance that she was here only for a moment and was about to leave. "I told her not to act," she said angrily, uttering each word incoherently, flushing. "This is—nonsense! You should have stopped her!"

The mother of the Aruojing family walked over quickly. She was thin and thin, wearing a short-sleeved top, and her chest was stained with soot. "This is dreadful, my friend," she said, wringing her hands and keeping her usual eyes fixed on my face. "This is terrible! Your sister is pregnant, . . . she is pregnant! Please, take her away. . . . " She gasped with excitement.Her three daughters stood beside her, shriveled and thin like herself, huddled against each other in panic.They were disturbed and petrified, as if a convict woman had just been caught in their family.How humiliating, how terrible!You know, this venerable family has fought superstition all their lives.Obviously, they think that all the superstitions and fallacies of human beings lie in not lighting three candles, tabooing the number thirteen and the unlucky day-Monday!

"Please, ... please ..." Madame Arodina repeated, and when she said "please", she pressed her lips together into a heart shape and pronounced it in the sound of "zone". "Please, take her home." "Notes" ① Refers to Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt (before 69-30).