Chapter 7 Chapter Six

Shortly after lunch, Emily Tallis fled the scorching heat of the afternoon glare after making sure her sister's children and Briony were well fed and promising not to go to the pool for at least two hours , and hid in the cool, dark bedroom.She wasn't in pain at this point, not yet, but she was withdrawing before the pain hit.She felt some bright spots like the eyes of a needle swaying in front of her eyes, as if the dilapidated world at a glance was reflected in a beam of strong light.She felt a heaviness on the right side of her head, like a sleeping animal curled up lazily there.However, when she patted her head with her hand, it seemed to disappear from the real space coordinates again.Actually, it's right at the top right of the head.In her imagination, she could stand on tiptoe and touch it with her right hand.The important thing now is not to provoke it.Once this lazy guy moved from the edge to the center, the knife-like pain would drive out all her thoughts, and there would be no chance of her having dinner with Leon and the family tonight.The animal had no ill will towards her, it was simply indifferent to her pain.It moves like a trapped jaguar: it wakes up from boredom and moves just for the sake of moving, without reason or awareness.She was lying on her back on the bed, without a pillow, with a glass of water within reach.Next to her, there was a book she knew she couldn't read yet.A long dim ray of sunlight fell on the ceiling above the curtain box, the only light in the darkness.She was so worried that she lay upright on the bed, as if on the point of a knife.She knew she couldn't sleep with fear in her heart.Her only hope was to lie still.

Her imagination wandered, thinking of the boundless heat rising above the house and garden.This hot air enveloped the counties around London like smoke, smothering farms and small towns.She thought again of the hot rails that were carrying Leon and his friend back, and of the roasting black-roofed car where they were sitting by the window.She had ordered a roast for dinner, but it seemed too sweltering for a roast now.She seemed to hear the creaking noise of the house, as if it was expanding.Or are the rafters and pillars of the house drying and shrinking, fighting against the masonry? Yes, shrinking, everything is shrinking.Like Leon's future.At that time, his father helped him find a decent job in the government department, as a civil servant or something.But he turned down the opportunity, preferring to be a little guy in a private bank.He lives only for the weekend, for the rowing of eight people.She would have been even more irritated with him had he not been naturally agreeable, easily contented, and surrounded by successful friends.He is handsome, cute, has no worries, no ambitions.Perhaps one day he would bring a friend home and marry him to Cecilia, if the three years at Girton Ladies' College gave her some leverage in the marriage.She likes to be alone, to smoke in the bedroom, to be inexplicably nostalgic for the fat New Zealand girl with glasses she once shared the room with, or is this a hoax? Cecilia often describes what she has in mind in endearing jargon Cambridge: Schools, teenage dances, BA exams, self-worshipping slum visits, roasting pinballs in front of an electric fire, sharing a comb, etc.This didn't make Emily very jealous, but it made her a little annoyed.She was home-schooled until she was sixteen, and then sent to Switzerland.Due to financial constraints, the original two years of study were reduced to one year.She knows that all the behaviors of women in college are very naive, and female college students can only be regarded as innocent skylarks at best.As on a social parade, the girls' eight-man rowboats are just posing next to the well-dressed boys.They don't even give proper degrees to girls.When Cecilia came home in July with disappointing final grades, she had no job, no skills, a husband, and then a mother.And what advice could her pedantic teachers—all with ludicrous nicknames and “dreadful” reputations—have to offer her? Possessed women, famous locally for their mildest, most timid eccentricities Baishi: They lead the dog in the front and the cat in the back, they ride around on men's bicycles, they eat sandwiches while walking on the street.A generation later, these ignorant ladies are long gone, but they are still admired and whispered at the table of honor.

Emily felt the black fur animal begin to stir, and she turned her thoughts away from her older daughter and turned her sprawling worries to her younger daughter.Adorable Briony, the sweetest elf, does her best to amuse her hard-working cousins ​​with her carefully written script.Doting on her is also a great comfort to myself.But how can we protect her from failure and Lola? Lola is the embodiment of Emily's youngest sister. Lola is as precocious and scheming as she was back then.She also recently managed to escape from a marriage with a notorious nervous breakdown.Emily could not think of Hermione.She breathed quietly in the dark, pricked up her ears, tried her best to listen, and "seeed" the home by the sound coming from her.In her current condition, it was the only thing she could do.She put her palm to her forehead and heard another sound of the house tightening.Then there was a clanging of metal from downstairs, maybe the pot lid fell to the ground.The initial preparations for this uninteresting barbecue dinner are well under way.There were heavy footsteps and children's voices upstairs.At least two or three children were talking at the same time, their voices rising and falling, and they might be fighting with each other, or they might be excitedly agreeing.The baby room is one floor upstairs and there is only one room next to it. The Ordeal of Arabella.If she hadn't been so ill, she would have gone upstairs to take care or help by now.She knew that they had too much to do, and it was really difficult for them.She was ill and unable to fulfill her responsibilities as a mother.Realizing this, they always called her by her first name.Cecilia should have helped them, but she only cared about her own affairs all day long, she was too bookish to care about the children at all... Emily managed to stop herself from thinking like this.She looked a little dazed, but she wasn't asleep, her mind was empty and she couldn't think about anything.After several minutes, she heard footsteps on the stairs in the corridor outside the bedroom.The footsteps sounded muffled, and she figured they must be bare feet, so it must have been Briony.The girl doesn't want to wear shoes in hot weather.A few minutes later, the sound of violent scuffling and the creaking of hard objects across the floor was heard again in the nursery.Rehearsals had been interrupted, Briony had left in a huff, the twins had nothing to do, and Laura—if she was really a copy of her mother, as Emily thought—was calm and self-satisfied.

Habitual worrying about children, husband, sister, and servants had honed her keen senses.Periodic migraines, maternal love, and hours of lying down every day for many years have made her temper her sixth sense from sensitivity.It stretched out like tentacles from the obscurity and across the house, a consciousness that is invisible but keen.Only the truth comes back to her, because she knows what she knows.The indistinct murmur of voices across the carpeted floor surpassed the clarity of a typed document.It is a conversation that penetrates one wall—two, to be exact—and has almost lost its twists and differences.The buzzing sound in other people's ears was Huang Zhong Dalu to her ears.Her vigilant senses were like an old radio, with whiskers and fine-tuning, amplified almost intolerably.She lies in the dark, but knows everything.She moves little, but knows a lot.While there were times when she felt tempted to get up and do something—especially when she thought Briony needed her—the fear of pain kept her from moving.At worst, she would involuntarily feel a pair of razor-sharp kitchen knives across her optic nerves, and then hit again with even greater downward pressure, and she would be completely imprisoned in the bedroom, alone. All over the body, even moaning can only increase the pain.

And so she lay there, and the afternoon slipped away.The front door opens and closes on and off.Briony may have gone out on a whim, she may have been to the water, the pool, or the lake, perhaps even to the distant river.Emily heard cautious footsteps on the stairs... Cecilia finally carried the flowers into the guest's room.This simple errand had asked her to do it many times that day.After a while she heard Betty calling Danny and the sound of a buggy rolling over gravel.Cecilia went downstairs to greet the guests, and soon, a faint smell of smoke drifted in.She'd been told countless times not to smoke in the hallways, but she just wanted to get the attention of Leon's friends, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing in itself.The sound echoed in the hall.Danny lugged his luggage up the stairs, then down again, and then there was silence—Cecilia had probably taken Leon and Mr. Marshall to the pool for the drink Emily had made herself that morning.Then she heard a quadruped running down the stairs—it must have been the twins.They wanted to use the swimming pool but would be disappointed to find it was pre-empted again.

She dozed off in a daze, only to be awakened suddenly by the whispers of a man in the nursery and the sound of children answering.That man must not be Leon, because now that he is reunited with his sister, he must be inseparable from her.That could be Mr. Marshall, whose room is next to the nursery.She decided at this moment that he was speaking to the twins and not to Laura.Emily wondered if the two children were being rude, because they thought they were twins and behaved as if they could share social obligations equally.At this time, Betty came upstairs and called them as they walked, her tone seemed a little too harsh-but no, Jackson had suffered a lot in the morning.Shower, drink tea, sleep - this is the highlight of the day.The childhood sacraments of water, food and sleep have all but disappeared from everyday life.What a relief, how comforting, when Emily was in her forties, when Briony's unexpected arrival brought life to the family.The lanolin soap, the thick white bath towel, the baby girl's babbling echoed with the sound of water in the steaming bathroom; wrapped her in a big towel, took her by the arms, put her on her knees— Not so long ago Briony was basking in baby-like helplessness, but now both the baby and the bathwater have disappeared behind a locked door, a rare occurrence, as her daughter seems to need a bath so often and change clothes.She has retreated into a completely closed inner world.In that world, writing is merely a visible surface, a protective shell that not even—or even—a loving mother can penetrate.Her daughter was always in a trance, wallowing in her own thoughts, entangled in some wordless, self-inflicted problem, as if this tiresome, self-evident world could be recreated by a child.It was no use asking what Briony was thinking.In the past, she would always get a witty, subtle answer, and then her daughter would ask her some silly big questions, and Emily would always give the most satisfactory response.Although she can't remember the details of these hypotheses now, she knows that she can no longer treat her eleven-year-old daughter like before.Whether it's at the dinner table or by the shaded tennis court, it's not easy to hear her words.Today, self-awareness and natural abilities make the little girl obsessed with silence.And while Briony is still lovely—she sneaked up to play finger hook with her at breakfast this morning—Emily bemoans the passing of the eloquent age.She will never talk to anyone like that again.That's what it means to want another child, because she's going to be forty-seven soon.

The plumb fell away--she hadn't noticed when it started--and finally stopped after a deafening vibration.Now Hermione's sons have gone to the bathroom.The two of them were skinny, lying on both sides of the bathtub.Folded white towels were placed on the faded blue wicker chair, and on the floor was a large soft mat, a corner of which had been bitten off by a dog, which had long since died.The children didn't speak, just washed quietly.There is no mother around, only Betty.No child would have discovered Betty's kind heart.How could Hermione have a nervous breakdown—that's the word her friends who work in the radio station like to use—how could she want the children to be quiet, frightened, and sad? Emily thought she should To supervise the kids bathing.But she knew that even if there were no knives on the optic nerve, she would only care for her nephew out of duty.They are not their own children, it's as simple as that.Besides, they were children, they didn't know the basics of communication, they couldn't get close to people, and what was worse, they had downplayed their identities, because she never found this missing kinship.The understanding of them can only be so rough.

She put her arms up, brought the glass of water to her lips.The animal that had been tormenting her was gradually gone.Now she had the strength to push two pillows against the head of the bed and sit up.Because of her fear of strenuous exercise, her movements were slow and clumsy.The springs under the mattress creaked for a long time, almost drowning out a man's voice.She turned sideways, grabbed a corner of the pillow with one hand, and watched the whole room motionlessly.There was no unusual sound at first, and then there was a soft, shrill laugh, which stopped quickly and abruptly, like a flickering lamp in the dark.That's Laura.She is with Marshall in the nursery.She continued to adjust her position, finally leaning her back against the headboard and taking a sip of lukewarm water.It would be nice if the wealthy young entrepreneur really wanted to play with the kids.After a while, she will be able to switch on the bedside lamp with difficulty.In twenty minutes she might be able to reintegrate into the family and worry about everything.The most important thing is to go to the kitchen to see if there is still time to cut up the roast and turn it into a cold salad, and then she has to meet her son and treat his friends.When these two things are done, she's going to see if the twins are getting the care they need, and maybe she'll give them something to make up for.Then call Jack, who may have forgotten to tell her he won't be home today.She had to go first through the crisp female switchboard operator, then through the flamboyant young man in the outer office, and then to reassure her husband that he should not feel guilty.She would also find Cecilia to see if she had arranged the flowers as ordered, to tell her to do some hostess duties for the evening, to dress nicely, and to stop smoking in every room. .The next most important thing is to go to Briony, because the failure of the play is a heavy blow to her.How much she needs her mother's comfort at this time.But going out to find her meant exposing herself to strong sunlight, and now even the afterglow of dusk could trigger the onset of illness.It seems that I have to find the sunglasses first, and I can put things in the kitchen aside for a while.The sunglasses are somewhere in this room, maybe in a drawer, or tucked in a book, or in a pocket.It would be too troublesome to go upstairs to look for it later.She'd have to wear flats, too, in case Briony went to the far river...

Thinking of this, Emily lay on the pillow for a few more minutes, and the devil in her heart had slipped away.She planned patiently, revised over and over again, and arranged the order.She will take good care of the house.She was in a dark, sickly bedroom, and the whole home seemed to be a chaotic and sparsely populated continent.In the vast jungle, all kinds of competing forces constantly make demands and counter-demands to her, constantly disturbing her attention.She had no illusions in her mind: the old plans (if anyone could remember them)--plans long overtaken by time--were often a little fanatical and overly optimistic about events.She can send tendrils into every room of the house, but not into the future.She also understands that what she is ultimately striving for is her own peace of mind, and that it is best not to separate self-interest from good nature.She sat up slowly, unsteadily stretched her feet to the floor, and put on her slippers.Instead of risking the curtains, she turned on the lamp and started looking for sunglasses.She had already figured out where to look first.