Chapter 25 twenty four

24 Suddenly came the day when Peter gave his last evening party.Marianne had been in the barber all that afternoon, and Peter said she'd better get her hair done.He also hinted at whether she should go for a brighter dress, since hers were, he said, too "dull"; and she complied.She bought a short red dress with sparkling sequins.She thought it didn't suit her very well, but the saleswoman said it looked very good-looking. "My dear, it's as if it was custom made for you," she insisted, her tone unquestionable. The clothes were to be left in the shop for a little modification, and she picked them up on her way back from the barbershop.Now, with the pink and silver cardboard box in which she held her clothes in her hand, she walked across the road to the house; the road was slippery, and she kept her head balanced like a juggler carefully Like an easy-to-pop golden bubble.It was late in the evening and it was so cold that even in the open air she could smell the sweet, cloying smell of the hairspray that the barber had used to hold every strand of her head in place.She begged him not to use it too much, but a barber won't do what you ask.They treat your head like a cake, and carefully icing and patterning it.

She usually does her own hair, so she went to Lucy to find out which barber shop is better. Lucy must be an expert in this area, but maybe she is not doing it right.Lucy's face and shape are inseparable from artificial grooming and modification. The nail polish, powder, and complicated hairstyles used on her body have become part of her body.Without these things, she would have been skinned or a leg chopped off.And Marianne has always thought that using these things on herself is superfluous, and if she fails, it will be like hanging rags or placards on her body. As soon as she walked into the pink hall of the barber shop, she immediately had a passive feeling, as if she had been sent to the hospital for an operation; everything in the hall was either pink or lavender, which she thought women liked. Decoration is insignificant, and it is unexpected to appear to have such a great function at the same time.She checked her booking with a young woman with lavender hair; despite her false eyelashes and fluorescent nail polish, she was, disturbingly, just like a nurse. Direct her to the staff who are waiting for customers.

The woman who washed her hair was wearing a pink coat, her armpits were stained with sweat, but her well-trained hands were strong. Marianne leaned back on the operating table and closed her eyes.The woman first poured shampoo on her hair, and then rinsed it off after scrubbing.She thought they might as well have drugged the patients and put them to sleep while the necessary procedures were performed on them.She didn't like to feel like a piece of meat sitting on the table at the mercy of others. Then they chained her to a chair—not really a chain, but her hair was soaking wet, and she had a white cloth around her neck, so she couldn't get up and run out into the cold street.The doctor started to work. He was a young man in a white coat, smelling of cologne, with slender and agile fingers, and a pair of pointed leather shoes on his feet.Sitting motionless, she handed him her barrette, her own image draped in white cloth, visible in the oval mirror carved with gold lace, the workbench in front of her filled with shiny tools and a Looking at these medicine bottles, she felt fascinated.She couldn't see what he was doing behind her, she just felt strangely limp and powerless.

By the time all the clips, bobby pins, curls, and pins were all in place, she had all these things hanging around her head, and she looked like a hedgehog.She was brought under the hair dryer again, and the switch was turned on.She turned her head and looked to both sides, and saw a row of women like a conveyor belt, all sitting on identical lavender chairs, with a buzzing identical mushroom-shaped machine on their heads.This is a row of weird creatures with various legs, magazines in their hands, and heads that are just a half-circle metal cover. Lifeless, no vitality at all.Is this what she has to suffer too?This is simply a combination of plants and machinery, an electric mushroom.

She had no choice but to grit her teeth and take a moment, grabbing a movie star pictorial from the stack of magazines at her elbow.On the back cover, a blond woman with huge breasts said to her: "Young girl, the future is bright! If you want to achieve real success, please make your breasts stand out..." After a nurse announced that her hair had been blown dry, she was taken to the doctor's chair to have her stitches removed, and this time she found it odd that she wasn't wheeled onto the operating table.She passed a row of customers whose hair was not yet dried and still baking, and then the hair was taken off her head. After brushing it, the doctor smiled and held up a small mirror behind her head. , let her see the style of her hair.At a glance, she found that her original straight hair had been twisted into many rigid curls, which looked a little weird. Not only that, the barber also made a hair protruding forward on each side of her cheeks. Rolls, like ivory.

"Hmm," she said dubiously, frowning into the mirror, "isn't that... um... a little too much for me." She felt like it made her a bit of a call girl. "Ah, you have such a wonderful haircut," he said, though he still had the enthusiasm of an Italian, but his face was obviously not as smug as before. "You should try a new style. Don't be timid. ,Ok?" He smiled at her cunningly, showing a surprisingly large set of white teeth and two gold teeth; his mouth smelled of peppermint mouthwash. She wondered whether to ask him to smooth out some of his favorites, but she decided against it, partly because she was a little timid; the surroundings, the specialized appliances, and his dentist-like confidence, Scared her a little.He was in the business, he must know how to look good; besides, she felt that she didn't want to do it in her heart.

After all, she had already taken the big step, she had voluntarily stepped into this golden door like a chocolate cake box, and of course it would be so, she had better accept it. "Peter might like it," She thought, "Besides, it goes just fine with the new dress." Still a little dazed, she walked into a large department store nearby, trying to take a shortcut to the subway station from the basement there.She walked briskly through the appliance department, passing woks and griddles on counters, and various models of vacuum cleaners and automatic washing machines.Seeing these things, she recalled with some uneasiness the gifts from her colleagues and the letters from her mother.The day before was her last working day at the company. To her surprise, those colleagues organized a gift-giving party for her, including tea towels, spoons, aprons with bows, and all kinds of ideas.As for my mother, several letters have come in lately, each more urgent than the last, asking her to hurry up and tell her the patterns of china, glass and silver, so that others can prepare presents.She has visited several stores for this, but has not yet made up her mind.Tomorrow she's going home by car, well, she'll have to settle the matter later.

She walked around a counter covered in plastic flowers and down what appeared to be a main passage leading to an exit.I saw a small man standing on a pedestal, vigorously showing a new type of food planer with an apple corer.He kept patting and grinding his hands and feet at the same time. He first lifted a handful of finely chopped carrots, and then he lifted an apple with a hole in the middle.A group of women with shopping bags watched silently, the basement was poorly lit, their thick overcoats and overshoes looked gray, but shrewd and dubious eyes appeared in their eyes. Marianne stood for a moment beside the group.The little man changed parts and made a flower out of a turnip.Several women turned their heads towards her, eyeing her curiously.They must have thought in their minds that a woman with this hairstyle was too superficial to be really interested in food planing.The fur coats on these women have been worn for many years. They have been stained by the sun and wind. Hanging down, everything is calculated carefully in the eyes.What's more, although you can't see them, you can always feel that they have an undertone of old sofas and battered linoleum, which is like a smell, which makes them seem very harmonious with this basement of selling cheap things, and she is here. One of them is obviously out of place.So how long will it take her to become one of these low- and middle-income housewives?In any case, Peter's future income would ensure that she would not have to bother with the food plane.In front of these women, she felt like she was half a bottle of vinegar.

The little man grated another potato into a mash with two or three strokes.Marianne lost interest and turned back to look for the yellow subway sign. When she opened the door of the residence, there was a burst of women's talking and laughing.There were a few sheets of newspapers on the floor in the hall, where people put their boots. She took off her high boots and put them there.There were also some boots in the newspaper, many of them thick-soled, and some of them had black fur rolling around their cuffs.As she passed the living room door, she glimpsed figures in dresses, hats and necklaces.The landlady was having a tea party, must have been a member of the Imperial Women's Mutual Aid Society, or the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and her daughter, in a brown velvet dress with a lace collar, was bringing out refreshments.

Marianne went up the stairs as quietly as possible.For some reason, she hadn't spoken to the landlady about moving out yet.In fact, she should have notified the landlord two or three weeks ago, and this delay may mean that she has to pay an extra month's rent for not returning the rent in time.Maybe Enns wanted to find another companion to live in again, but she doubted it.That was impossible in the months that followed. As she climbed the second staircase she heard Ainsley talking in the hall.She had never heard her speak so harshly, so angry, so aggressively, and it was rare for Embry to lose her temper.Then she heard Ainsley interrupted by another person, Leonard Slank's voice.

"Oh, bad," thought Marianne. Those two upstairs seemed to be arguing, and she didn't want to get involved. She was about to tiptoe back to her room and close the door, but Spelly must have heard her coming upstairs. With a thud, her head popped out of the hall, then a mass of matted red hair, then her whole body, disheveled and tear-stained. "Marian!" she ordered in a tearful voice, "you gotta come in and talk to Len, you gotta make him reason! I like your hairstyle," she added casually at the end. Marianne followed her into the hall, feeling like a wooden child's toy on wheels being dragged all the way through the door on a small rope.But she did not know, whether moral or otherwise, why she could refuse it.Lun stands.In the room, the expression was more excited than Ainsley. Marianne sat down in a chair, her coat on, as if the layer of clothing would also provide some cushioning. They both looked at her in silence, pleading for help on their puffy faces. Then Lun almost cried out, "My God! She's asking me to marry her now that the past isn't over?" "Well, what's the matter with you? You don't want your son to be gay in the future, do you?" Eunbeli demanded. "Damn it, I don't want a son at all! I don't want it, you want it yourself, you should get rid of it, there must be that pill..." "You are talking nonsense, don't talk nonsense, the problem is that of course I want this child, but he should grow up in the best conditions, you have the responsibility to be his father, a father figure," Ainsley said at this moment Try to talk him out of it in a slightly patient and calm way. Len paced the room. "How much will it cost? I'll buy you one, and it'll do anything, but don't try to marry me, hell. Don't talk to me about responsibility, I'm not responsible for anything. You did it all." Good thing, you got me drunk on purpose, you seduced me, you actually pulled me up..." "I don't remember that being the case," Ainsley said. "I was much more sane than you were," she argued mercilessly. , your motive is very important, right? If you seduced me and unintentionally impregnated me with a child, what would you do? Of course you are responsible, aren't you?Therefore, you cannot escape your responsibility. " Lun's face was contorted, and he squeezed out a mocking smile, but he was as weak as an anemic patient. "You're all sophistry, like those other women," he said, shaking with anger. "You're telling the truth, and let's put things to the test, shall we, dear? I didn't actually seduce you, did I?" ..." "It doesn't matter," Ainsley said, raising her voice, "you think in your head that you are..." God, can't you tell the truth? "Leonard yelled again. Marianne sat by and said nothing, but looked at the two in turn, and she thought they had lost all self-control, and were behaving in a very unnatural way.Now she said, "Please keep your voice down, will you? The landlady downstairs will hear you." "Bah, landlady, fuck her!" roared Lun. Unexpectedly, he would swear such an obscene and funny swear word. Ainsley and Marianne were surprised at first, and then they couldn't help laughing.Lun looked at them both in exasperation, and he couldn't bear it any longer.This woman insulted him so much, and after making him suffer all these things, she came to laugh at him face to face!He snatched his coat from the back of the sofa and strode toward the stairs. "To hell with your goddam reproductive cult?" he yelled, rushing downstairs. Seeing that the father image ran away, Ainsley immediately put on a pleading look and chased after him. "Hey, Lun, come back, let's talk again," she pleaded.Marianne followed them down the stairs, not so much because she thought she might be able to help, but out of a vague instinct of conformity.Since everyone was jumping off the cliff, she might as well follow. The spinning wheel on the landing blocked Len's way, and he couldn't get away for a moment, cursing and pulling.By the time he pulled away to go down a flight of stairs, Ainsley had caught up to him and grabbed his sleeve. As soon as there was any sign of immorality, the ladies downstairs were as vigilant as a spider feeling the vibrations on the web. They rushed out of the living room and flocked to the stairs to look up, with panic and gloating on their faces.The girl was also caught in the crowd, holding a plate of cakes in her hand, her mouth was wide open and her eyes were wide open.The landlady, in her black silk dress and pearl necklace, just shrank back from the crowd in order not to lose her status. Lun turned his head to look at Ainsley first, and then looked downstairs.There is no way out.He was surrounded by enemies; he had no choice but to rush forward. Not only that, he now has an audience.His eyeballs rolled around like a crazy corgi. "To hell with you blood-sucking bitches with claws and scales! To hell with all of you! You're the same kind of thing at heart!" he cried, and Marianne felt that his words The words are spoken in a cadence, which is quite level. He wrenched himself free from Ainsley's grip. "Don't try to trap me!" he yelled, rushing down the stairs, his coat billowing like a cape, and a group of ladies in calico and velvets who had gathered at the stairs hurried out of the way. The door, slamming the door shut, rattled the yellowed picture frames of ancestor portraits on the wall. Ainsley and Marianne turned and went upstairs, while the ladies in the drawing room chattered and chattered excitedly.Then the landlady's voice drowned out the commotion, and she said calmly and reassuringly: "The young man is evidently very drunk." When they got back into the hall, Ainsley said, "Okay, that's it, I think." Her tone was concise and matter-of-fact. Marianne wondered whether she meant Leonard or the landlady. "What's the matter?" she asked. Ainsley brushed her hair back behind her shoulders and straightened her shirt. "It seems that he can't be persuaded, but it's okay, I don't think he is an ideal candidate to be a father. It's very simple, I have to find another one." "Yes, that's all I can think of," replied Marianne vaguely. Ainsley went back to her room, closed the door, and her firm footsteps showed that she had made up her mind. The matter seemed to be settled like that. , although the prospect does not look good. It seems that she has a plan for the next move, but Marianne does not want to guess how it will be. There is no use in guessing. Whatever form it may take, she There is no way to stop it.