Chapter 18 17

17 Marianne looked down at her own reflection in the gleaming silver spoon, which seemed upside-down, huge in size and shrunk to the size of a needlehead when it reached the handle.She tilted the spoon slightly, and her forehead grew horribly, then shrunk.Her mind was very peaceful. She looked tenderly at Peter who sat across the table, covered with a white cloth, with dishes and a bread-basket, and Peter smiled at her.Candles were lit beside the table, and the candlelight shone through the lampshade, showing a piece of orange red. Under this kind of light, his face appeared angular and sharp.In the shadows, his jaw was stronger and his features less smooth.It was true, she thought, anyone who saw him thought he was very handsome.He had on a stately winter suit--a black suit with a dark, well-made tie, which was elegant, though less fashionable, than his few suits of the day.Ainsley once called him "wow-packed," but now Marianne found his taste pleasing.He not only knows how to choose clothes according to different occasions, but also can be ingenious.There are men who just can't wear black suits because they have dandruff on their shoulders or they're scuffed and shiny on the back, but that's not the case with Peter.To be with him in this more or less public place, to let others see that he belonged to her, she couldn't help feeling a surge of pride. She reached across the table to take his hand, and he pressed his hand on it. on her hand.

The waiter came over with the bottle. Peter tasted it and nodded. After pouring the wine, the waiter took a step back and disappeared into the darkness. This was again one of Peter's strengths, he decided things like that effortlessly.Over the past month or so, she has unconsciously gotten used to letting him order food for herself.This saves her the trouble of having the menu in her hand and always hesitating about what she really wants to eat.But Peter would immediately order what the two of them wanted. He preferred steak and roast beef, not much interest in special things like veal haggis, and he didn't like fish at all.Tonight they're ordering veal steak.It was getting late, and they stayed at Peter's residence for a while before going out. Both said they were starving.

While they waited for the food to be served, they resumed their discussion of what they had been talking about before going out, and while they were getting dressed again, they talked about the education of children.Peter only played on the theory, talking about children in general, being careful not to touch on specific instances.But she knew full well that what they were talking about was really about their future children, and that was why it was so important.Peter believes that if a child is at fault, he should be punished, even corporal punishment.Naturally, adults cannot beat children to vent their anger. The important thing is that they should do what they say.Marianne worries that this will have bad consequences for the child's feelings.

"My dear, you don't understand such things," said Peter. "You've been living a carefree life." He squeezed her hand. "But I've seen that kind of evil result a lot. The court is full of juvenile offenders of this kind, and many of them come from good backgrounds. This issue is very complicated." He pursed his lips tightly. Marianne was convinced that she was not wrong, and she was a little unhappy when Peter said that she lived a carefree life. "Then, shouldn't they be given understanding? If..." He smiled magnanimously. "Those little thugs who ride around all day on motorcycles, who are addicted to drugs, and who sneak over from the US to avoid military service, give these people an understanding? Try it. I bet, You never go to them, and some of them have lice. Marianne, you think good intentions will solve everything, don't you? Not at all, they have no sense of responsibility, they go everywhere They wander around and smash things because they have the intention. This is related to the education they have received since childhood, but no one taught them a lesson when it was time to teach them a lesson, and they thought the world owed them a debt of gratitude.”

"Perhaps," said Marianne gravely, "someone has given them a hard time when they shouldn't, for children are very sensitive to injustice, you know." "Well, I'm all for justice," said Peter, "and what justice is there to those whose property they destroy?" "I think you can teach them not to drive around and run over people's hedges." Peter giggled happily.Her criticism of that, and his laughing at her about it, has become a benchmark in their new relationship.But Marianne's calm state of mind was broken by her own words. She looked at Peter intently, trying to meet his eyes, but he looked down at the wine glass, perhaps admiring the extraordinary contrast against the white tablecloth. Bright red wine bar.He had leaned back in his chair, and now the light did not reach his face.

She wondered why a restaurant like this was so dimly lit, perhaps to keep people from seeing each other clearly when they were eating.At the end of the day, she thought, chewing and swallowing food is a pleasure for the eater, but less elegant to watch.And observing one's partner at too close a distance is likely to take away the aura of romance the restaurant is trying to maintain, or create.She carefully inspected the blade of the table knife in her hand. The waiter appeared out of nowhere again, his movements were familiar and light, as silent as a cat on the carpet, and he placed the dishes in front of her. On the wooden plate was a piece of tenderloin surrounded by several slices of meat , Zizi straight out of the oil.They both like it tender, and they can't dispute the cooking time of the beef anyway.Marianne was so hungry that she wished she could eat the steak in one bite.

As she cut and chewed the steak into her grateful stomach, she pondered the conversation again, trying to make sense of what she meant by "justice."She thought that should mean treating people fairly, but when she thought about it carefully, even this concept was not very clear in her mind.Is that an eye for an eye?What's the use of breaking someone else's if you've already lost one?So what about compensation?In an accident such as a wrecked car it seems to be a matter of money, and you can get monetary compensation even when you are emotionally hurt.Once on the tram she saw a mother biting her young child because the child bit her first.Thoughtfully, she chewed on a piece of meat that she couldn't chew, and swallowed it whole.

She decided that Peter's mood today was also a little abnormal.He took on a difficult case that required a lot of complicated research.He consulted many cases and found that they were all against his side.That's why he was so unkind when he said it: he wanted it to be simple because he was distracted by the complexity of his work. However, he should realize that if the law were not so complicated, he would not be making any money. She looked up and reached for her glass.Peter was watching her, he was three-quarters full of wine in his glass, and she was less than half full. "Concentrate on thinking?" he said softly. "It's not really, it's just that my mind was distracted." She smiled at him and focused on the wooden plate again.

He's been looking at her more and more lately. In the summer before, she always felt that he didn't look at her very much, or that he seldom really looked at her.When the bed was over he always lay upright next to her with his face against her shoulder, and sometimes he fell asleep.But recently, he often looked at her face intently, as if he wanted to see through her appearance what was going on in her head.She couldn't figure out what he was looking for when he looked at her like this, and it made her sad. When they lay exhausted side by side on the bed, she would often open her eyes and find him watching her intently, perhaps hoping to catch some secret expression on her face when she was not looking.Then he would touch her skin lightly, without passion, almost like a doctor seeing a patient, as if he could find something that his eyes didn't see.Or try to imprint her in your mind.At this time, she felt as if she was lying there to be examined by a doctor, and she really wanted to grab his hand and tell him not to touch it anymore.

She poked around with a fork in the wooden bowl of lettuce, looking for a tomato.She thought, maybe he got a marriage book or something, maybe that's why.She thought tenderly, Peter has such a temper, whenever he has a new question, he will go out and buy a book about it, and find the answer from the book.She thought of the bookshelves in his room, between the two shelves of law books and detective novels, books and magazines about cameras, and he always kept cars in the little glove box on the dashboard. manual.Therefore, before getting married, it is completely logical for him to buy a book on marriage guidance.She couldn't help but feel a little amused at the thought of something with such an easy-to-understand diagram.

She picked a black olive from the lettuce and ate it.It must be so, he is weighing her, just like buying a new camera, first feel the working principle of the machine, look at the complicated gear combination and small mechanical structure inside, check what it has Where problems are likely to occur, find out its various uses, in short, it is necessary to understand whether its mainspring is good or not.He wanted to find out the true motives in her heart.If he really thinks so... She smiled to herself, she thought, let me make up something to trick him. He is almost done.She watched him holding the knife and fork, cutting the steak neatly, each knife was even and just right.He is really capable, and the cut meat is neat and beautiful.But the act of cutting with a knife itself contained violence, and she couldn't connect the word Peter with violence in her mind.It's like the elk beer ads, which are everywhere these days, on subway cars, on billboards, in magazines.Since she had done some research before the ad came out, she felt a little responsible for it; not that the ad had any ill effects.The man wading in the creek and netting salmon was too neatly dressed: his hair looked freshly combed, except for a few strands neatly plastered across his forehead to signal the wind outside.The fish didn't look real either, it had no mucus, no teeth, and it didn't look like it had a smell; it was just a very delicately made and glazed metal toy.The hunter who had killed the moose stood posing for photographs, a perfect city man, with no twigs in his hair and no blood on his hands.Of course, it is impossible to have some ugly and unpleasant images in the advertisement, for example, the deer's tongue can't be pulled out. She couldn't help thinking of this morning's newspaper, and she had casually glanced at the first page.It reported on a boy who shot and killed nine people in a frenzy before being overpowered by the police.The kid was shot through an upstairs window.Now she remembered the picture of the pale boy held by two dark-clothed policemen, his eyes cold and watchful.Look at him, it doesn't look like he's going to punch someone or stab someone with his fist.When he used violence, he chose the indirect form, that is, with the help of a specific tool, he flicked his fingers lightly without touching the target, while he himself stood in the distance and watched the bloody scene.This is violence of the mind, almost like magic, you just have to think about it and it happens. Watching Peter neatly dice the steak reminded her of the drawing of a cow on the cover of one of her cookbooks, with a grid and a label explaining the meat you used From which part of the cow's body.What they were eating now, she thought, was the back of the ox, the part marked with a dotted line.She seemed to see the scene in the butchering training class in front of her eyes. In a large room, rows of people in snow-white coats learning how to butcher, holding scissors for children in their hands, sitting by the table, picking from stacks of hard Cut out the steak, strips and meat for roasting from the cardboard cow.She remembered that the cow in the book had eyes, horns, and breasts, and it stood naturally, and the lines drawn on its body did not affect it at all.Perhaps, she thought, after years of painstaking research, one could breed a cow that was naturally measured and drawn. She looked down at her half-eaten steak, and suddenly realized that it was a thick piece of muscle. It was blood red and came from a live cow.The cow, which was able to eat and eat, was slaughtered, it stood in line like people waiting for a tram, and then it died with a blow to the head.Naturally everyone knows this kind of thing, but in most cases, it never occurs to you.In supermarkets, meat is wrapped in plastic wrap, labeled with the name and price, and buying meat is like buying peanut butter or canned beans.Even when you go to the butcher shop to buy it, the shopkeeper wraps the meat neatly and neatly.But now the meat was in front of her, unwrapped and raw with blood, and she had been eating it, filling her stomach with it. She put down the knife and fork in her hand, and she felt herself turning pale, and she just hoped that Peter would not notice this. "It's funny," she said to herself, "everyone eats beef. It's completely normal. You have to eat if you want to live. Meat is rich in protein and minerals, and it's good for your body." She picked up the pistol again. , picked up a piece of meat, raised it to his mouth, and put it down again. Peter looked up and smiled. "God, I'm so hungry," he said. "It's so comforting to eat this steak. A good meal always makes life more interesting." She nodded and smiled weakly at him too.His eyes fell on her plate, "Honey, what's the matter? You didn't finish eating." "Yes," she said, "I don't seem to be able to eat more. It must be enough." She put on a tone of resignation to show that her appetite was too small for such a large steak.Peter smiled, still chewing, proud of his appetite. "My God," she thought, "I hope this is only a temporary phenomenon, or I will starve to death." She sat there, twisting her napkin in frustration, watching Peter transfer the last steak to her mouth.