Chapter 26 25

25 She went into the kitchen, took off her coat, and took a vitamin pill, only then did she remember that she hadn't had lunch yet, and she should fill her stomach with something. She opened the refrigerator to see what was delicious.A thick layer of frost had formed in the frozen grid, and even the door could not be closed tightly. Inside were two small trays for ice cubes, and three odd-looking cardboard boxes.The other shelves were filled with miscellaneous things, including jars on saucers with a bowl turned upside down, waxed paper bags and brown paper bags.She didn't even bother to think about how long the things in the innermost place had been stored. A few things must have stink.The only thing that interested her was a hunk of yellow cheese, which she took out from the shelf, with a thin layer of green mold growing on the bottom.She put it back where it was and closed the refrigerator door, thinking she wasn't hungry anyway.

"Or just a cup of tea," she said to herself.She looked at the shelf of the cupboard where the dishes were, but it was empty.That meant the cup was all used up, and she had to wash another one, so she went to the sink and took a look in it. The sink was full of unwashed dishes, stacks of plates could be seen, yellow water was accumulated in the wine glass, and the remaining residue in the bowl could not be seen.There were bluish mold spots growing in a saucepan of mac and cheese.There was a puddle of water in the bowl, and in it was a glass dish of sweets, covered with a gray, slippery-looking substance that reminded one of algae in a pond.The teacups are all in the pot, one by one, and there are scars from tea, coffee or milk on the sides.Even the white glaze of the sink was covered with brown grime.She didn't want to touch them, for fear of finding something disgusting and God knows what botulism might be growing down there. "It's outrageous," she said.On a sudden whim, she wanted to turn on the faucet and rinse everything out with cleaning fluid, to give it a thorough sweep inside and out, and she had already reached out, but then stopped.Maybe those molds had the same right to life as she did.The thought is disturbing.

She wandered into the bedroom, it was too early to dress up, but she could think of no other way to pass the time.So she took the dress out of the cardboard box and hung it up, and then she put on her dressing gown, and took all the bath towels and soap and all that stuff, and she was going down to the landlady's estate, probably face to face hit her.But she thought, I'll just deny all involvement in the mess and let her settle the score with Ainsley. When the tub was running, she brushed her teeth first, and she checked her teeth carefully in the mirror above the washbasin to see if there was any problem with the teeth.It's become her habit, even when she's not eating.It's not easy to spend so much time looking down your throat with a toothbrush in one hand and a mouth full of foam, she thought.She noticed a small pimple on the right side of her eyebrow.She figured it must be because I wasn't eating right, interfering with the body's metabolism or chemical balance or something like that.She looked at it and felt that the little red dot seemed to have moved an inch or so.She thought about it, she was a little dazzled, and she had to go to the doctor to have her eyes checked, and she spat the water in her mouth into the sink while thinking.

She took off the engagement ring and put it in the soap bowl.The ring was a bit too big, and Peter said it should be made to actual size, but Clara objected, saying that fingers would gradually get thicker over the years, especially after pregnancy.So when she washed her hands in the bath she was worried that the ring would fall down the drain, and Peter would be furious: he liked the ring.After that she climbed in along the high end of the old-fashioned bathtub and soaked her whole body in the hot water. She soaped herself, and the water made her feel relaxed and comfortable.She doesn't have to be busy at all, she can lie down in the bathtub, soak most of her body in warm water and enjoy it comfortably, with her head resting on the raised end of the bathtub, so that the freshly done hair will not be messed up.Looking down, she could see the sunken white bathtub and the translucent water. Her body was half hidden and half exposed on the water, forming a series of curves and depressions from head to toe, going to The bottom is the legs half submerged in the water, and the last is the toes exposed on the water.

Behind the feet is the soap bowl on a wire shelf, and beyond that is the faucet. There are two faucets, one hot and one cold, each with a silver spherical base, and a third in the middle, which is the spout.She looked at the three silver balls carefully, and found that there was a very strange pink object crouching on each ball.She sat up to see what it was, the water in the tub rippled.It took her a while to realize that it was her own wet body, which was very strange reflected in the ball. When she moved, the image on the ball also moved.The three images are not identical: the two outer ones are slightly inclined towards the one in the middle.Seeing three images of herself at the same time was a little unusual, she thought.She swayed back and forth, watching the different parts of the body on the silver ball shrink and enlarge together.Almost forgetting that she was in the shower, she stretched out a hand towards the faucet to see how big it would get.

Footsteps sounded outside the door.The landlady must want to come in, she'd better get up quickly.She rinsed off the remaining soap suds from her body.She looked down and saw soap and grime floating on the surface, a layer of white blooms in the calcium-hard water, and she saw her own body, which she somehow felt wasn't really herself.She was suddenly afraid that she would vanish into nothingness, peeling away like cardboard in a puddle of dirty water. She hastily pulled the plug to drain the water and climbed out of the tub.She felt much safer standing there in the dry place on the cold tiles.She slipped the engagement ring back on her finger, and for a split second she felt the stiff ring as a talisman, protecting her from falling apart.

But she still felt flustered as she went upstairs.The party frightened her, and Peter's friends, good as they were, didn't really know her well.She will be overwhelmed by so many strange eyes, she is afraid that she will behave inappropriately, that she will behave inappropriately, that she will lose control of her emotions, that she will talk more and more (which is the worst), that she will want to tell others everything, Also afraid that I will cry.She thought sullenly of the bright red dress hanging in the closet.What should I do?She kept thinking and sat down on the bed. She just sat on the bed, chewing lazily the top of a tie on her fringed dressing gown, feeling an inexplicable sense of melancholy. It has been in her mind for a long time, she can't remember exactly how long.She was so preoccupied that she seemed to have no energy left to get out of bed.I don't know what time it is, she said to herself, I have to get ready.

The two dolls she hadn't thrown away were staring blankly at her from the dresser.When she looked over, she felt that their faces were blurred at first, and then they became clear again. Their expressions seemed to be a bit malicious.The thought of these two guys just sitting there by the mirror looking at her, not giving her a single thought, made her angry.But now she took a closer look and saw that only the dark one, the one with the paint peeling off, was actually looking at her, the blonde doll probably wasn't looking at her at all, the blue eyes on her rubber face were wide open , just staring at something behind her body.

She let go of the tie of her dressing gown, put her fingers in her mouth again, and bit her nails.Perhaps at this moment the two of them made an appointment to play a joke with her.She saw herself in the mirror between the two of them. For a moment, she felt as if she was attached to them, and at the same time, she was attached to the two dolls and looked at herself: her wet body was covered with a rumpled Baba's dressing gown was just a vague human figure, the blond doll noticed that she had just had her hair done, and saw that her fingernails were full of tooth marks, while the dark doll saw even more Deeper, it was something she couldn't see herself; the two overlapping images were gradually separating to the two sides, getting farther and farther away, and what brought them together was the shadow in the mirror, no matter what it was. something, it will soon become empty.They wanted to divide her in two with their different perceptions.

She couldn't stay there any longer.She got up from the bed, walked to the doorway, subconsciously picked up the phone and dialed a number.The phone at the other end rang and then clicked.She held her breath. "Hello," came an angry voice. "Duncan?" She wasn't sure. "It's me." "Oh." Then he fell silent again. "Duncan, there's a party tonight. Would you like to come? It's at Peter's. I know it's too late to invite you, but..." "Well, it's just that we're going to an exchange of ideas party for English graduate students," he said, "all three of us will go."

"Oh, maybe you can come later, if you bring them all." Well, maybe..." "Duncan, please do come. I don't know anyone at the party. I need you," she said urgently, which was unusual for her. "No, you'll be fine," he said, "but we might as well come. The other party is boring, it's just defenses and stuff) and see what kind of guy you're going to marry. The characters are pretty interesting, too." "Thank you," she said gratefully, and told him the time and place. After putting down the microphone, she felt more at ease.Therefore, the solution to the problem is to find some acquaintances to attend the party.Then she wouldn't be nervous, and everything would be fine... She dialed another number. It took her half an hour to call and find enough friends to come to the party.Clara and Joe would come, but first they had to find someone to take care of the baby temporarily, and with three others, that made five people, and the three virgins in the office.At first they refused to readily agree, she thought it must be because she was late in inviting them, and they were not happy.So she thought of a way to keep them from being hooked. She told them that she didn't invite them in advance because she thought most of the visitors were married people, but she found that there were also a few bachelors among them, so could you please invite them? Do you want to come together?She added that single men would be bored at a party full of couples.In this way, there are eight people.Then she thought of Ainsley again, and asked her to go with her, but unexpectedly she readily agreed, since she is usually not interested in such parties. Although Marianne also thought of Leonard Slank, she thought it best not to invite him. Her problem solved, now she can dress up.She took a lot of effort to put on the girdle that matched her new clothes. It seemed that she was not very thin, and she ate a lot of noodles recently.She hadn't originally intended to buy a corset, but the saleswoman who sold her clothes (she herself was well-dressed in the corset) insisted that she should get one anyway, and came up with a matching one with a satin and bow on the chest for her. "Honey, you're naturally slim, and you don't really need it, but you've got a very tight dress on the waist, and if you don't wear it, it's always obvious that it's not good, is it?" She held up her arms. Eyebrows drawn with eyebrow pencil.From her tone, it sounded like a question of decency. "Yes, that won't work," she said hastily, "I'd better buy it." When she pulled the red dress on, she found she couldn't reach the zipper at the back.She knocked on Ainsley's door. "Can you zip it up for me, please?" she said. Ainsley was wearing her petticoat, and she was also making up, but only the eyeliner on one eye and the eyebrows hadn't been drawn, which made her face look very uneven.She zipped Marianne up, hooked the little hook at the top, and stepped back to look her over. "It's a beautiful dress," she said, "what do you wear with it?" "Go with it?" "Yes, the color of this dress is very bright, and it needs a pair of thick and good earrings or other jewelry to hold it down. Do you have any suitable ones?" "I don't know either," Marianne said.She ran back to her room and brought a drawer containing some earrings, which were gifts from her relatives, which were nothing more than strings of imitation pearls in various styles, shells in pastel colors, and metal flowers set in glass. and cute animals. Ainsley picked among them for a while. "No," she declared decisively in an expert tone, "these things are not good. Fortunately, I have a pair that can be used." She rummaged through several drawers and emptied them all. On the dresser, at last she found a pair of large, heavy gold earrings, which she slipped on Marianne's ears and screwed. "That's good," she said, "just smile and see." Marianne smiled reluctantly. Ainsley shook her head. "Your hair is well done," she said, "but not your face, so I guess I'll do it for you. You can't do it yourself, you just paint it like you usually do, and the result is Well, it looks like a kid playing in her mother's clothes with makeup on." She took Marianne to the chair, which had accumulated a lot of worn clothes, not even clean, and wrapped a towel around her neck. "I'll paint your nails first, and it'll take a while to dry," she said, frustrating her nails. "You're biting your nails, aren't you?" she added.When the nails were finished with a coat of glossy beige polish, she told Marianne to spread her fingers carefully until it dried.Then she put makeup on Marianne's face, and her beauty tools and materials were so large that they filled the whole dressing table. For the rest of the time, Marian just sat very still as Ainsley applied novelty things to her skin, then fixed her eyes and eyebrows.She couldn't help secretly marveling at how expertly Ainsley played with her face so deftly.It reminded her of those mothers backstage putting on makeup for their precocious daughters when they were acting in private schools. As for whether there would be bacterial cross-infection, this thought just flashed in her mind. Finally, Ainsley applied several layers of glossy lipstick to her lips with a lipstick brush. "Well," she said, holding up a mirror for Marianne to look at, "it's much better, but be careful, the glue isn't quite dry yet." The face in the mirror was so heavily shaded as the ancient Egyptians, with such thick, black eyeliner, so defined, that Marianne could hardly recognize herself.She didn't even dare to blink her eyes, for fear that the artificially drawn face would crack or peel if she moved a little. "Thank you," she said hesitantly. "You smile," Ainsley said. Marianne smiled. Ainsley frowned. "It's not like that," she said. "You should be more involved, and your eyelids should be lowered a little." Marianne was embarrassed: she didn't know what to do.She experimented in front of the mirror to see which muscles on her face could be mobilized to achieve the desired effect. After a few tries, her eyelids finally drooped, but it was still a bit like squinting.At this moment there was a sudden sound of footsteps on the stairs, and a few seconds later the landlady came into the doorway, panting heavily. Marianne pulled the towel off her neck and stood up.She just lowered her eyelids at this moment, but she couldn't recover for a while and opened them to look at people carefully.In such a situation, the usual practical politeness was required in dealing with people, but in this red dress and the smears on her face, it seemed impossible to do so. The landlady was stunned when she saw Marianne's attire--her arms were exposed, her skirt was a little revealing, and her face was heavily made-up, but she was actually here for Ainsley.And Ainsley, barefoot and in a petticoat, with reddish-brown hair hanging over her shoulders, and one eye with eyeshadow. "Miss Dowes," began the landlady, still in her business dress and pearl necklace, trying to look serious, "I didn't tell you until now that I had calmed down, that I was so angry. I don't want to make a fuss.I always try my best not to make everyone unhappy by being noisy, but at this moment I think you have to move out. She was far from cool: her voice trembled as she spoke. Marianne noticed that she was clutching an embroidered handkerchief. Miss Cabin never drank, at least not indiscriminately"--she glanced again at Marianne, as if her confidence was less firm, but she did not change her words--"Naturally, you took care not to let anyone in when you brought the wine in." see.I don't care about the mess in the room, I'm not harsh, and as far as I'm concerned, I don't care about other people's things in my room.I was fully aware that the young man was spending the night here, and you couldn't fool me, but I still pretended not to know, and I deliberately went out the next morning to avoid embarrassment for everyone.At least my daughter doesn't know anything about it.But today in front of so many people," she accused angrily, almost shouting, "dragging out your drunken and ugly friends, so that everyone can see clearly... Yes The child sets such a bad example.... Ainsley glared at her angrily, her black-rimmed eyes nearly bursting with fire. "So," She tossed her hair back, stood with her bare feet far apart, and retorted bluntly, "I've always suspected you were prudish, and now I see it. You're a bourgeois liar, You have no real convictions at all, you worry all the time about what your neighbors will say, and that's your precious reputation. Well, that's immoral in my opinion. I'll tell you, I'm going to have a baby, I Naturally I don't want my child to grow up in your house, lest he learn to be as dishonest as you are. You are a bad example yourself, and I tell you, I have never seen anyone who opposes the forces that create life like you. I I can't wait to move out, the sooner the better, I don't want my baby to be affected by your bad influence before birth." The landlady's face turned white. "Sniff," she said feebly, clutching the pearl necklace, "have a baby! Oh, oh, oh!" she turned around, screaming out of her mouth in anger.While stumbling down the stairs. "Looks like you'll have to move," Marianne said.She felt relieved that this new troublesome situation had nothing to do with her.Anyway, she was going home tomorrow, and now that the landlady had a showdown, she couldn't understand why she was so afraid of her, and it was so easy to kill her prestige. "Of course," Ainsley said calmly, and she sat down to put eyeliner on the other eye. The downstairs doorbell rang. "It must be Peter," said Marianne, "so soon." She did not realize that it was getting late. "I have to go and make preparations with him first. It would be great if you could take a ride together. Unfortunately, we probably won't be able to wait." "It's okay," Ainsley said. She couldn't see any eyebrows at first, but after a few strokes on her forehead, a long, beautiful, and perfectly curved eyebrow appeared. "I'll come later, I still have some eyebrows." Things have to be dealt with. If it's too cold outside and it's not good for the fetus, I'll call a taxi, and it's not very far anyway." Marianne went into the kitchen, where her coat was still there.I really need to eat something, she said to herself, it's not good to drink on an empty stomach.She heard Peter's footsteps upstairs, and took out another vitamin pill. This kind of son was brown, oval, with two pointed ends, like a hard-shelled seed.She didn't know what the medicine powder inside was ground out of, she thought as she swallowed the pill.