Chapter 25 Bouquet for Algernon - Quarrel

Bouquet for Algernon - Quarrel "June 6th" Alice and I had an argument today, the first time we had a real argument, and it was my fault because I wanted to see her.Every time I experience annoying dreams and recall some unpleasant past events, I have an urge to talk to her to relieve the distress in my heart-it will make me feel better.However, today I really shouldn't go directly to the center and wait for her to finish class. Since the operation, I haven't been back to the center's adult mentally handicapped class. As long as I think of going back there to see the old scenery, I can't help but feel excited.The center is located on 23rd Street east of Fifth Avenue. It used to be an old school, but it was acquired by the Beekman University Hospital in the past five years as a special education center for mentally handicapped adults.The signboard of the center is inlaid with a copper plate and hung at the entrance of the gate, which reads "Beekman Extended Education Center for Adults with Mental Disabilities".

Alice's class ended at eight o'clock, but because I wanted to see the classroom where I was struggling to learn to read and write simple characters and math conversion not long ago, I got there early and slipped through the door to the classroom without letting Alice Silk sees. Through the classroom window, I saw Alice sitting at the desk, and sitting next to her was a strange woman I had never seen before, with thin cheeks, puzzled and bewildered faces.At that time, I was very interested to see how Alice would teach her to solve doubts. In front of the blackboard, is Mai who comes to class in a wheelchair?Downey.Leicester?Brown, as in the past, chose the first seat in the first row.Alice said before that he was the smartest student in the class, and when I was sweating profusely and rushing to finish my homework, he had already finished it.However, he has a shortcoming, that is, love does not come, and he often skips classes to wax and wash floors to make money.I was thinking that if he had been more focused and worked hard like me, maybe he would have been chosen as the subject of the experiment today.In addition to these few people in the classroom, there are some freshmen I don't know.

After observing for a while, I finally mustered up the courage to walk into the classroom. "Charlie's here!" Mike saw me and happily turned the wheelchair towards me.I wave to him. The blond, empty-eyed Bernice looked up at me when she heard Mike shouting, and said, "Charlie, where have you been? You're wearing a nice suit." Others who recognized me waved to me.I also waved back to them respectively.However, looking back suddenly, I saw Alice's expression seemed very angry and unhappy. "It's almost eight o'clock, everyone put things back in place." She announced to the class.

Everyone followed the original assignment and returned the chalk, eraser, paper, books, pencils, teaching materials, crayons, and notebooks to their original positions one by one, showing a busy and noisy scene.But Bernice was the only one who didn't join in the confusion, still staring at me blankly and asking, "Charlie, why didn't you come to class? What's wrong with you? Will you come back to class again?" After the other students heard it, they also looked up.I looked to Alice, waiting for her to rescue me.Neither of us answered aloud, however, and there was a long silence.I'm hesitating what to say so that they don't get hurt.

"I just came to see you," I said. One of the girls, Francine, giggled when she heard it.Alice was always worried about her.She had three children before she was eighteen, forcing her parents to perform a hysterectomy on her.Francine was not pretty, not as attractive as Bernice, but she was the target of a lot of men.The men often lure her out with cute little things, or by taking her to the movies.She missed class twice because she was tricked by men on her way to school from Warren's foster home.After these incidents, the Warren Foster Home would not let her go out at night, and would send someone to accompany her to class.

"She talks like a big shot!" she kept giggling. "Okay, stop making trouble," Alice suddenly inserted this sentence, her tone seemed not very happy, "get out of class is over, see you at six o'clock tomorrow night." When everyone was gone, Alice forced her things into the cupboard.She is really angry. "I'm sorry," I apologized to her, "I wanted to wait for you downstairs, but I suddenly wanted to see the old classroom, so I came up. At first I just stood outside the window to watch your class, but later I didn't know why Just walked in, why are you unhappy?"

"It's nothing, I'm not unhappy!" she said. "Come on, you're totally mad about what happened, aren't you? What's the matter? Tell me." She put down the book in her hand with a snap. "Well, do you want to know? Let me tell you. You have become very unusual now. I don't mean IQ, but your attitude towards people, as if you are not a mortal..." "Don't say that, I didn't mean that..." "Don't interrupt me!" The anger in her tone made me shudder, and I backed away three feet. "I'm serious, no kidding. You used to be different, how do you say that? It's like...you used to be gentle, cheerful, kind, and everyone loved being close to you, but now you have knowledge and Wisdom, but it has become different from before..."

I couldn't listen anymore, and I told her, "What do you want me to do? Do you want me to be like a puppy, licking and kissing everyone who kicks me, begging for mercy? Of course, after all these things After that, I have changed a lot, and the way of thinking is different from before. I will no longer accept all the garbage that others give me as treasures!" "No one treats you badly!" "How do you know? At most they just think of me as an idiot emphasizing their own superiority. They think they are doing me a great favor. Anyone standing next to an idiot will feel smarter."

Immediately after I finished speaking, I realized that Alice must have misunderstood me. "You think I'm that kind of person too, don't you?" "Stop being unreasonable, you know I'm definitely not that..." "Yes, in a way, I think you're right. I didn't feel smart enough to stand next to you. Now, every time I see you, break up and go home, I feel very humble, as if I'm so slow to react to everything, I can't keep up with you. I'll think back on what I said, and think about how I should have said it just now to be smarter. I feel like I'm shooting myself in the foot because I'm with you I never mentioned this to you."

"This is a very normal phenomenon!" "I found that when I was with you, I more or less wanted to do something unusual to impress you; but when I was really with you, I felt unconfident. Now, I doubt my own Motivation and everything you do." I tried to deflect the subject, but she kept digging into it.Finally, I couldn't help but say it: "I didn't come to fight with you! Let me drive you home, okay? I need to talk to someone!" "I also want to talk to someone, but I haven't been able to talk to you recently. I can only nod and be obedient, pretending to understand the cultural evolution, New Bollinger mathematics, symbolic logic and other knowledge you are talking about. I feel like I'm getting dumber! Every time you leave, I'll stand in front of the mirror and yell, "You haven't aged, your intelligence hasn't declined.The one who changed was Charlie, he developed so fast it made you look like you were going backwards. 'Charlie, I always tell myself that. Even so, as soon as you tell me something, I don't have confidence in myself again, because I know from the impatient look on your face that you must be laugh at me. "

She continued: "Also, you taught me some things, I can't remember, you always think it's because I'm not interested, don't want to spend time learning, but do you know how painful it is for me after you left! I How much time and effort was spent on the book and on the lectures held at the Beekman Center. However, every time I tell you something, you always look impatient, as if what I said is childish. Originally, it was I wanted to make you smarter, I wanted to share things with you, but now? Now, you're blocking me out of your life." Her angry words jolted me awake, and it seemed to me that I saw the dawn.I kept studying hard to absorb knowledge, and slowly changed, but I didn't know the extent of the change, let alone thought that the path Alice is walking now is the path I walked before. Alice was crying softly when she walked out of the school.I couldn't find any words to comfort her for a while.On the bus ride back, it occurred to me that our situations had now been completely reversed for the two of us.She is afraid of me now, and the distance between us has grown farther and farther.She was like an ice floe, left far behind by the torrent of my mind, while I myself was rushing toward the open sea. It's understandable that she was with me and didn't want to torture herself.We have so little in common that even a simple conversation can lead to tension between the two sides, becoming awkward, and finally turning into wordless silence.Now, staying in her room is no longer an easy thing, often surrounded by an atmosphere of dissatisfaction. "You are too serious." She looked up at me, her mood was not as bad as before. "You mean something between us." "You shouldn't be so serious, so serious, as if you are going to court to be judged, it will be very painful for you. I don't want you to be distressed at all." She tried to use a smile to resolve the deadlock between the two. "But, I'm starting to get annoyed, and I don't know what to do at all." On the way back to her apartment from the bus stop, she said to me, "I will not accompany you to the meeting of the society. I called Professor Nima this morning. You are the protagonist in the experiment, and everyone wants to know Everything about you, there will be many people around you by then. I don't want to hinder you." "Alice..." "Whatever you want to say, I've decided to do it. I 'feel' like it should be, so if you don't mind, I've decided to act with my split self. Thank you." "You're exaggerating, Alice! I'm sure you're just..." "Are you sure you know?" Standing on the front steps of her apartment, she turned to stare at me and said, "Oh! You've become unbearable now. How do you know how I feel? You're literally Guessing what other people think. You have no idea how I feel, how or why I feel." She turned to me again before stepping into the apartment, her voice already trembling. "I'll wait here for your return. I'm just a little worried. I think it's good for both of us to separate for a while. We can take this opportunity to think about our relationship." She didn't invite me into the apartment.This is the first time in weeks.I stared at the door panel, my anger rising, wanting to smash her apartment and let my anger disappear with the collapsing building. I left with trembling and chills all over my body, and later, I felt a little relieved.Walking quickly up the street, I felt a cold wind blowing from the back of my neck. It was a cool breeze on a summer night.Suddenly, I was free. I know that my feelings for Alice gradually shrink as the torrent of knowledge increases, from full of admiration, to loving her, liking her, to being grateful to her, and then to a sense of responsibility.My confused emotions about her had pulled me back to the point where I had been forced to depend on her out of fear, and now I decided to cut off the floating emotions. But with freedom comes sentimentality, and I'd love to overcome emotional blocks and fears and truly fall in love with her, build a love nest, and settle down. However, all this is now impossible.Both of us knew very well that the distance between the two of us—as my IQ increased to 185—had become as far away as it used to be when I was only 70 IQ.