Chapter 23 twenty two

22 As they entered the foyer of the apartment building, Marianne took off her gloves first, reached into her coat pocket, and twirled her engagement ring a half turn around her finger.She thought it would be rude to draw their attention to the diamond ring which marked her engagement, as she was touched by the concern of his two companions, though they misunderstood their relationship.She simply took off the ring again, but then she thought: "What am I doing? I'm getting married in a month, so why worry about them knowing?" She put the ring on her finger again.Then she thought again: "But I will never see them again, why bother to do anything at this time?" So she took it off again, and put the ring in the coin purse to prevent it from being lost.

By this time they had gone upstairs and arrived at the door of the residence. Before Duncan could touch the doorknob, Trevor had already opened the door.I saw him wearing an apron, and he smelled like condiments. "I heard someone outside, so I thought you were here," he said, "Come in, please. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes, though. I'm glad you could come, oh..." His pale blue Looking at Marianne with an inquiring look. "This is Marianne," said Duncan. "Smell, yes," Trevor said, "this is our first official meeting." He smiled, dimples forming on each cheek. "You can only eat whatever you want tonight. It's all home-cooked food." He frowned, sniffed, then screamed anxiously, and rushed sideways into the kitchen.

Marianne took off her boots and put them on the newspaper outside the door, and Duncan took her coat and carried it to his room.She went into the hall looking for a place to sit, not on Trevor's purple sofa, nor on Duncan's green one in case Duncan came out of the room to find a place to sit, nor on the ones scattered on the floor. Go in the middle of the manuscript, because that is likely to mess up one of their papers.Fish was sitting on his red sofa, with stone slabs resting on the armrests on both sides, concentrating on writing something on a piece of paper.He had a cup at his elbow, almost empty of drink.Finally, she carefully sat down on the arm of Duncan's sofa, crossing her hands in her arms.

Trevor came out of the kitchen humming softly, holding a tray with crystal sherry glasses on it, and he handed one to Marianne. "Thank you, it's very kind of you," she said, "that's a beautiful glass." "Yeah, very tasteful, isn't it? — it's in my house, and I've had it for years. There are so few tasteful things that survive these days," he said, staring into her right ear as if In her ears, she could see the past that was too long to be remembered, "Especially in this country. I think we should all try to preserve some good things, don't you?"

Seeing that the sherry was served, Fish put down his pen.He was also looking intently at Marianne, but not at her face, but at her belly, about the area above and below the navel.This made her uncomfortable, and to divert his attention she asked, "It's very interesting that Duncan told me you were writing a dissertation on Beatrix Potter." "Huh? Oh, yes. I'm thinking about it, but I've been working on Lewis Carroll, which is really deeper. You know, nineteenth-century stuff is hot right now," he threw his head back. On the back of the chair, he closed his eyes, and from his thick black beard, he spit out a series of monotonous voices, "Naturally, everyone knows that the book "Alice" expresses sexuality. Ontological crisis, this kind of cliché has been going on for a long time, and I plan to dig a little deeper. If you read it carefully, we will see that this little girl came to a meaningful rabbit hole underground, which is actually a reply To the prenatal level, she's trying to determine her role," he licked his lips, "as a woman's role. Yes, that's clear enough. These patterns emerge. Patterns emerge. One after another with Sexual responsibilities were presented to her and she seemed to be unable to accept them all. I mean she was literally blocked. When the babies in her care turned into pigs, she rejected motherhood, and she had a crush on the female role of the queen who ruled everything And her castrated cries of 'Chop off his head!' were not responded to positively either. While the Duchess was cleverly and quietly courting her in a homosexual way (sometimes you wonder how old Lewis knew everything), she was ignorant and uninterested. Right after this, you recall her going to talk to the sneering tortoise, inside his shell, protected by his self-pity, That's totally a pre-teenage character. And then there's those very meaningful scenes, very meaningful, one where she's got a really long neck and she's called a viper and hostile to eggs, and you'd Remember, she angrily rejected the very destructive image of the penis, and she also rejected the domineering caterpillar that was no more than six inches tall and squatted majestic on the mushroom , that round mushroom is definitely a symbol of femininity, but it has a way of making you smaller or bigger than life, which I find particularly interesting. Naturally, there is also a fascination with time, which is obviously cyclical, not Linear. She tries things out anyway, but doesn't put her heart and soul into them, so by the end of the book you can't think she's reached a point where you could call maturity. However, in (In the Mirror World) she Much better, you know, in--"

A low-pitched chuckle could be heard, and Marianne jumped to her feet, and it must have been Duncan standing in the passage: she hadn't noticed him coming in. Fish opened his eyes, blinked his eyelids, and frowned at Duncan. He was about to say something when Trevor rushed in like a gust of wind. "He's talking to you about those terrible symbols again, isn't he? I don't agree with this kind of literary criticism. In my opinion, the style is much more important. Fish is too much influenced by the Vienna School, especially when he drinks alcohol. Even more so. He is full of bad water.Besides, he's completely out of date," he said bitterly, "and the last study of 'Alice' is to see it as a very interesting children's book.Dinner is almost ready, Duncan, will you clear the table for me, please? "

Fish sank deep in his chair, watching them.They set up two small folding tables, carefully placed the legs of the tables in the gaps between piles of papers, and moved the papers as a last resort.After Trevor spread white tablecloths on two tables, Duncan worked on the silverware and crockery.Fish picked up his sherry glass on the slate, gulped down what was left, and seeing that there was another glass at hand, he picked it up and drank it too. "Okay," Trevor yelled, "dinner!" Marianne rose, Trevor's eyes sparkled, and two flushes appeared in the center of his white cheeks with excitement.A lock of blond hair fell loose over his high forehead.He lit the candles on the table, and turned off several floor lamps in the hall.Finally, he removed the board in front of Fish.

"You sit here, O Marianne," he said, and ran into the kitchen again.She followed his instructions and sat on the chair by the small square table.She felt that she was too far away from the table and wanted to move forward, but she couldn't, the table legs blocked it.She took a look at the dishes on the table, and the starter was an appetizer made of shrimp, that's okay.She wondered apprehensively what was in store for her, and he had evidently prepared a great deal, and the table was covered with silverware.She was curious as she looked at the Victorian silver salt-shaker, decorated with ornate wreaths, and between the two candles there were flowers, real chrysanthemums, gracefully placed on rectangular silver saucers. .

Trevor came back, took the chair closest to the kitchen, and everyone ate.Duncan sat opposite, and Fish, on her left, was either at the bottom or at the top.She was glad to have candles for the light, as it made it easier for her to take care of the meals when necessary.If the situation is really bad, she still has no idea how to deal with it. It seems that Duncan can't help.He seemed to have forgotten the existence of other people and just ate mechanically, staring blankly at the candle flame while chewing, which made him a bit cross-eyed. "This silver of yours is beautiful," she said to Trevor.

"Yes, that's right," he smiled. "It's from the family. Porcelain too. I think these things are so beautiful. Nowadays, everyone uses things made in Denmark. There is no pattern at all. Compared with them, they are really inferior." Far." Marianne carefully admired the pattern above, the floral pattern mixed with many ruffles, dimples and scrolls. "It's beautiful," she said, "and it's a real inconvenience to you." Trevor was all smiles, obviously enjoying the words. "Oh, no trouble at all. I think it's very important to eat a good meal. Why do you eat just to survive like most people? I made the sauce myself. Do you like it?" No After she answered, he continued, "Those bottled seasonings are all the same, I can't stand it, I can buy real horseradish at the lakeside vegetable market, but it's not easy to buy fresh shrimp in this city..." He tilted his head to one side, listened, jumped up from his chair, turned the corner of the room, and rushed into the kitchen.

Fish, who had been silent since taking his seat, spoke now.He ate as he talked, swallowing and talking in and out at the same time, creating a rhythm that, Marianne thought, was a little like breathing.He seemed quite capable of making the switch automatically, she thought, and it was a good thing, because if he stopped to think about something, he was likely to choke or choke.Wouldn't it hurt like hell to get shrimp stuck in your windpipe, especially after dipping them in horseradish salsa?She was watching him fascinated, and she had no need to hide it, for his eyes were mostly closed.Seeing his fork automatically sending it into his mouth, she wondered if he had any special functions. She found it hard to imagine, maybe he could sense the ultrasonic waves reflected from the fork like a bat, or it was because he was so different. The whiskers of the beard act like insect antennae.He ate and talked without stopping, not even when Trevor was busy removing the shrimp appetizer and serving a bowl of soup in front of him.However, after scooping the soup with a fork, he found that something was wrong, so he opened his eyes and changed a spoon. "Now come to the topic of my proposed dissertation," he began. "Maybe the instructor won't agree. People here are quite conservative. Even if I don't agree, I have to write it and submit it to a magazine for publication. Human thoughts will never be wasted. Anyway, if you don't have anything to publish now, you will be finished. If it is not allowed here, I will go to the United States to do it. The topic in my mind is called 'Malthus and Creative Metaphor', which is very revolutionary.Naturally, Malthus is only the symbol I intend to explore.In fact, it is to explore a relationship. On the one hand, it is modern. Well, in the past two or three hundred years, especially from the eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, the birth rate has increased rapidly; on the other hand, critics’ views on poetry have also changed. Inevitably there is some relationship between the changes, and consequently the changes in the poet's writing.Oh, and I can extend it to all areas of the creative arts without a problem.It will be interdisciplinary research, breaking down the currently too rigid professional boundaries and bringing together economics, biology and literary criticism.Today people's knowledge is too narrow, too narrow, too specialized, and as a result, you are blinded to many problems.Naturally, I had to gather some statistics and make some diagrams, so up to now I have only been thinking, laying the groundwork, so to speak, preliminary research, the necessary examination of the works of ancient and modern authors..." They ate the soup and drank the sherry, and Fish reached for the glass and nearly knocked it over. Marianne was now under crossfire, for Trevor came and sat down and talked to her across the table, telling her how to make the soup, which looked clear and had a light aroma.He told her that it was simmered slowly over a slow fire, and it took a lot of effort to boil out the essence bit by bit.Since he was the only one present looking at her, she felt that she should look at his face in return.Duncan ate by himself and was indifferent to others. Fish and Trevor were talking at the same time, but it seemed that they didn't care about it. Obviously, they were used to it.But she also found that she could handle it, looking at Trevor, nodding and smiling from time to time, but listening to Fish talking.What Fish said was this: "You see, as infant mortality, and mortality in general, increases, population (especially per square mile) decreases, and birthrate compensates accordingly. Man is a cycle of rhythm with heaven and earth, That is to say, if the way of heaven remains harmonious, the earth will say, let’s give birth, let’s give birth. The more the better, I don’t know if you remember..." Trevor jumped up again, clearing the soup dishes from the table like a gust of wind.His voice and movements became faster and faster, rushing into the kitchen and jumping out, like a cuckoo chiming the time in a chiming clock.Marianne glanced at Fish, he obviously didn't get the soup into his mouth a few times, his beard was sticky and covered with food, he looked like he was eating on a high stool A baby with soup all over his cheeks, Marianne wished someone would come and put a bib on him. Trevor walked in with a clean stack of dishes and went out again.She heard him busy in the kitchen, and Fish was still talking: "As a result, the poet also regards himself as the producer of nature; it may be said that it is the god of poetry, or even the sun god Apollo. , sowing the seed of poetry in his heart, that's how the word 'inspiration' comes from, it means to make one breathe in; thus the poet conceives his work. Poetry also has a process of embryonic development, This process is often very long, and when it matures and is about to come out, the poet is as painful as the mother giving birth. Therefore, the process of artistic creation is actually just an imitation of nature, a replica of what is most important to the continuation of human beings .I mean birth, birth. But what are we seeing now?" There was a flutter, and Trevor appeared dramatically in the hallway, with what looked like a sword burning with blue flames in each hand, and Marianne was the only one looking at him. "Oh my God," she exclaimed. "It's amazing!" "Really? I like to pour wine like this and light it. Of course, this is not a real kebab, just a bit French, not as harsh as Greek food..." He deftly transferred the things on the skewers to her plate, and she saw that most of them were meat.Now she has no way out, she has to find a way.Trevor poured a glass of wine and told her how hard it was to get fresh tarragon leaves in this city. "Look, we're in a society where all kinds of values ​​are anti-birth, and everyone's saying, it's time for birth control, and what we have to pay attention to is not the atomic bomb, but the population explosion. Look, except that there is no more war as a way to massively reduce the population. It is all Malthusian, except for the point of means. Against this background, it is easy to see the rise of Romanticism...” The other dish is rice with some other things in the middle, there is a fragrant sauce like roast meat, and there is an unnamed vegetable.Trevor passed the plate.Marianne took a little of the dark green vegetable and put it in her mouth with apprehension, as if offering to some irascible god.The result is acceptable. "...it is telling that it happened simultaneously with the increase in population, which of course was a little earlier, but which almost reached the point of rapid spread. The poet can no longer indulge himself and confuse himself with the figure of his mother, like Birth is like giving birth to a work. It has to become something else. What is this emphasis on personal expression, attention, expression, that is to be transmitted, emphasis on spontaneous behavior, and emphasis on improvisation? The twentieth century not only had..." Trevor went into the kitchen again, and Marianne looked wistfully at the pieces of meat on her plate.She tried to hide the meat under the tablecloth, but no, it would be discovered.She would rather stuff Xiang into her handbag, but it's on the sofa over there.Maybe she can sneak these things under her blouse or hide them up her sleeves..."... We also have painters who spill paint on canvas in what is really a burst of energies and euphoria. Like-minded writers..." She slipped her foot under the table and gave Duncan a light kick on the shin.Startled, he turned to her.For a moment, he seemed to forget who she was, and then he came back to his senses and looked at her curiously. She scraped the sauce off a piece of meat, took the meat between two fingers, and threw it at him over the candle.After he caught it, he put the meat on his plate and chopped it with a knife.She scraped another piece of meat. "...it is no longer like childbirth; no, long periods of contemplation to conceive a work are a thing of the past. Now the natural act that art chooses to imitate, yes, is compelled to imitate, is the act of copulation..." Marianne threw another piece of meat, and Duncan caught it deftly.She thought it would be easier to just switch plates with him, but then Trevor would see that Duncan had eaten all the meat before he walked away. "What we need today is a catastrophe," Fish continued.His voice grew louder, almost like a chant in church, and he seemed to build up his voice to a climax, "A cataclysm. Another bubonic plague, another big bang, Wipe thousands of people off the face of the earth, forget about what we now call civilization, and then reproduction will become a necessary necessity again, and then we can go back to tribal times, and the ancient gods, including The sooty God and Goddess of the Earth, the Goddess of the Sea, Goddess of Fertility, Growth, and Death. We need a new Venus, a living Venus of warmth, growth of plants, and reproduction of animals, a great Belly, Venus full of vitality and prospects, she will give birth to a colorful new world, a Venus born from the sea..." Fish decided to stand up, perhaps to make the last few words more vivid.He put his hands on the table and tried his best, but the legs of the folding table crooked and close together, and his plate slipped into his arms.Just then Marianne threw a piece of meat at Duncan, which bounced off the side on his face, onto the floor, and landed in the middle of a pile of term papers. Trevor stepped into the aisle with a small salad in each hand, his jaw drooping as he caught sight of the two events. The room suddenly fell silent, and Duncan said, "I finally understand what I want to become." His eyes were peacefully fixed on the ceiling, and there was a hint of gray-and-white sauce in his hair. "I want to be an amoeba." Duncan had said earlier that he was going to see her for a while, and that he needed some fresh air, too. Luckily, Trevor's plate was fine, although some spilled.After setting up the table again, Fish became quiet, he was just talking to himself in a low voice.Trevor graciously kept his mouth shut about what had just happened.But over the course of the next few courses, including salad and peaches and coconut biscuits toasted with wine, with coffee and wine, he was much cooler towards Marianne. Now they were walking down the street with the snow rustling under their feet, and they were talking about how Fish had eaten the little slice of lemon in the little bowl he used to wash his fingers. "Of course Trevor doesn't like it," Duncan said. "I told him if he wasn't happy to see Fish eat it, then he wouldn't put lemon slices in it. But even though he said no one appreciated him much. He still has to follow that set of rules. I usually eat my slice of lemon, but today I have a guest, so I didn’t eat it.” "It's really... interesting," Marianne said.She was wondering why they hadn't even mentioned her or asked her a word all night. She thought they invited her to get acquainted with her.Now, she thought, they probably just wanted someone to listen to. Duncan glanced at her with a sneer. "You know now what it's like for me to be at home." "You can move out," she said. "No, actually I quite like this. What's more, if it's someone else, they can take care of me so well, can they worry about me so much? You know, as long as they don't get into their hobbies or suddenly think of doing something New stuff, and they've been really nice to me. They've spent so much time and fuss worrying that I don't know how to behave that I don't have to think about it myself. In the long run, they should make me Easier to become an amoeba." "Why are you so interested in amoebas?" "Oh, the amoeba never dies," he said, flying without a definite shape, flexible and changeable.Being human is too complicated. " They walked to the top of the asphalt road, with the basketball court below.Duncan sat down on a snowdrift by the side of the road and lit a cigarette. He didn't seem to be afraid of the cold at all.After a while she sat down beside him.Since he didn't mean to hug her, she put her arms around him. "The thing is," he began after a moment, "I hope something is always true. Not all of it, that's impossible, but one or two. I mean, Dr. Johnson retorted. When it comes to the theory that everything is empty, his method is to kick stones with his feet. I can’t kick my two living partners all day long, and I can’t kick the professor who instructs me. Besides, I Maybe your feet aren't real yet." He tossed the butt of his cigarette on the snow and lit another, "I think you might be real. I mean if we go to bed, I'll be counted. God knows if you're real or not, all I can see is You wear one wool after another, coats, pullovers, etc. Sometimes I wonder if you are made of wool all the way down to the inside. If you are not like that, then All right……" Marianne felt that she could not ignore the request, knowing full well that she was not made of wool. "Well, if we do go to bed," she said, thinking, "it won't be where I live." "Not even at my place," Duncan said, and she accepted his request implicitly, but he was neither surprised nor excited. "It seems only to go to the hotel," she said, "to pretend to be a couple." "The people in the hotel wouldn't believe it," he said sullenly. "I don't look like a married man. I go to the bar and they ask me if I'm sixteen or not." "Don't you have a birth certificate?" "Yes, but I lost it." He turned his head and kissed her nose. "It seems that we only go to hotels that don't need to be a couple to go." "You mean... you want me to... pretend to be a whore?" "Huh? What's wrong?" "No," she said, a little exasperated, "I can't do that." "Maybe I can't either," he said dejectedly, "and I can't drive to a motel. Well, that's the only way to go," he lit another cigarette, "oh, it's true that you're going to ruin me, but I have to say it again," he said, with With a hint of bitterness, "It seems that I cannot be corroded. " Marianne looked up over the basketball court.The night air was crisp and crisp, and the stars in the dark sky looked cold.It was already snowing, the kind of fine powdery snow particles, and the basketball court was completely white, with no traces of anyone stepping on it.Suddenly, she felt a rush of desire, she wanted to rush to the basketball court to run, jump, and step on it to make messy footprints.But she knew in her heart that after a while, she still had to walk to the subway station calmly as usual. She stood up and brushed the snow off her body. "Going forward?" she asked. Duncan stood up too, putting his hands in his pockets.There were some shadows on his face, which looked yellow under the faint light of the street lamp. "No," he said, "bye, maybe." He turned away, and the shadow faded almost silently into the indigo night. As Marianne walked into the softly lit rectangular foyer of the subway station, she took out her coin purse and found the engagement ring among a pile of dimes and cents.