Chapter 17 Chapter Sixteen

Although not explicitly stated, behind all this is actually a militarized model.The Miss Florence Nightingale, who will never be called Florence, had spent so long in the Crimea to understand the importance of discipline, strict orders and well-trained teams.When Briony listened to the snoring of Fiona sleeping on her back all night in the dark, she already felt the peaceful life-when she was young, she visited Leon and Cecilia in Cambridge several times, She could easily imagine that kind of life—that would soon diverge from her life.The life of an intern has already begun, and she has to go on living like this for four years with such a tense and breathless schedule. She doesn't want to leave, and she doesn't have the freedom to leave.She began to completely immerse herself in a step-by-step life: following the rules, submissive, endless work, always in fear of being criticized by others.She is just one of the many interns—a new person will be added every few months, and she is just a few abstract letters on the sign.There will be no extracurricular tutoring on campus, and no one will lose sleep over rigorous courses related to their intellectual development.She had to empty the bedpan, rinse it out, sweep and polish the floor, prepare cocoa and gravy, fetch and carry things back and forth.Most importantly, you can temporarily release yourself from the closed-door reflection.She heard from the interns who enrolled a year earlier that one day in the future, she will slowly gain happiness from being smart and capable.Recently, she has had the first taste of this kind of happiness-she can measure the patient's pulse and temperature under the guidance of a special person, and mark the reading on the treatment card.She had also applied gentian violet to patients' moss spots, applied lotion to wounds, and rubbed lead lotion on bruises.Most of the time, though, she's just a waiter, a lowly maid—and, in her spare time, a not-so-bright student who has to memorize her books for her exams.There was little time for daydreaming, and she felt very happy.But as she stood on the landing in her nightgown—usually the last piece of homework for her—gazing at the dark city across the river each evening, she remembered the streets and The panic in the ward is like the darkness that controls everything.Nothing could tear her out of this thought, not even Sister Drummond could protect her from the swarm of unease.

After drinking cocoa tea every day, there will be half an hour for the girls to control by themselves before the lights are turned off. At this time, they will always visit each other, sit on the bed and write letters to their families or lovers.Some people will cry because of homesickness, and then everyone will put their arms around each other, comfort each other, and say some sweet words.All this seemed exaggerated and absurd to Briony—grown people snotted and cried because they missed their mothers.Another girl kept crying and said it was because she remembered the smell of her father's pipe.funny.But those girls who comfort others seem to enjoy it very much.In such a boring atmosphere, Briony sometimes wrote a few words and sent them home, nothing more than repeating those few sentences-she was not sick, not unhappy, did not need the family's money, and would never I will change my mind as my mother predicted and regret my choice.Other girls put their daily work and study into letters to scare their lovely parents and feel very proud.Briony will only write these things in the diary, but she will not move up all the details.As for her mother, she certainly didn't want her to know about these humble jobs.Part of her reason for being a nurse is that she has to work for her own independent life.It was important to her that her parents, especially her mother, knew as little about her own life as possible.

Aside from a long list of unanswered repeated questions, a large portion of Emily's letters dealt with the group who had been evacuated to her home.Three mothers from Hackney, London, with seven children, were housed in the Tallis home.One of the mothers had been humiliated in a country pub, but she was no longer allowed to go there.Another was a devout Catholic who walked the four miles with her three children to mass at the local church in a small town.But Betty, who is a Catholic, did not know the difference.She hated the three women and their children.They actually said they didn't like her cooking the first morning.She claims she saw the churchgoer spit on the hall floor.And the oldest of the furkids—a boy who didn't look eight years old but was actually thirteen—slid into the fountain, climbed on Triton, and snapped off his horns and the length of his arm up to the elbow down.Jack said it didn't take much to fix, but the stump had been taken into the house and left in the storeroom, and now it's gone.Betty listened to old Hardman's confession and insisted that it was the boy who threw it into the lake, but the boy denied it.Someone proposed draining the lake, but there was concern that this would endanger a mating pair of swans in the lake.The mother stood up for her son, saying the fountain was too dangerous for children to play around.She also said that she would write to the House of Commons.Little did she know that Sir Arthur Ridley was Briony's godfather.

Emily, however, considers it a blessing to be able to host this group of refugees, since there was a time when it seemed like the entire house was going to be requisitioned by the military.Then they changed their minds and finally set up camp at Hugh Van Flyot's house because there was a snooker table there.She also mentioned in the letter that her sister Hermione was still in Paris, but was considering moving to Nice; It would be freed up for corn farming; a mile and a half iron fence built in the 1750s had been dismantled and melted down for Spitfires.Even the workers who came to dismantle it said the metal was not suitable for making a Spitfire.Among the sedges, and at the bends of the stream, shelters of cement and bricks were built on the bank, destroying the nests of the bob-tailed mallard and gray wagtail.At the entrance to the village on the avenue, another bunker is also under construction.They stashed all the perishables in the basement, including the harpsichord.Poor Betty accidentally lost her hand while moving Uncle Clem's vase, and the vase fell on the steps and broke into pieces.She said the fissures had appeared while she was holding them, but that wasn't convincing.Danny Hardman joined the Navy, and other village lads joined the East Surrey Front Regiment.Jack worked very hard.He had come back from a special meeting looking tired and thin, and he had to keep her a secret from her where he was going.He flew into a rage when he heard the vase was broken, and yelled at Betty, which was not at all in his character.On top of that, she lost her ration card, and everyone had to live without sugar for two weeks.The mother who was expelled from the "Red Lion" came without a gas mask, and there was no extra for her.The little head of the air-raid siren, Constable Walkin's brother, hangs around here all the time checking blackouts.He has been here three times, and his autocratic nature has been exposed.No one likes him.

Whenever she reads these letters after a tiring day, Briony will be in a trance, homesick, and she faintly yearns for the long gone life.But she doesn't regret it, because she broke up with her family at the beginning.After the preparatory training, before the internship life began, there was a week's vacation when she lived with her uncle and aunt on Primrose Hill, and she flatly refused to talk to her mother on the other end of the phone.Why? Why is she just not going back when everyone wants to see her and everyone is eager to know what her new life is like? Not even for a day? Why does she write so few letters ? Why? It is too difficult to answer clearly.Right now, it's best to stay away from home.

In a drawer of the bedside table, Briony kept a large notebook bound in marbled cardboard, with a pencil attached to the end of a piece of thread glued to the spine.Pencils and ink are forbidden at bedtime.She's been journaling since the first night of prep training, and manages to squeeze in at least ten minutes each day before lights out.Her notes consisted of "artistic manifestos," trivial complaints, sketches of characters, and some simple descriptions of everyday life—albeit increasingly fanciful by the day.She didn't read what she wrote very much, but she was intoxicated by flipping through the full pages.Here, behind the name tag and uniform, is the real her.Her "true self" is secretly hidden, quietly accumulating strength.When she was a child, she used her own handwriting to cover the empty blank paper, and got great pleasure from it.She never forgot the joy.As for what the content of the writing was, it didn't matter to her.Because the drawers were unlocked, she was careful to keep the Drummond story cryptic.She also changed the names of the patients.Without this layer of realism, it's much easier to smudge details and make things up as you please.She likes to write down the idle thoughts of the parties she imagines.She was under no obligation to write the truth, nor had she promised anyone to write a chronicle.Only in the diary can she run freely and fully stretch her personality.She makes up little stories - not very convincing, and the language is artificial - and the protagonists are also people in the ward.Sometimes, she sees herself as the Chaucer of medicine, the ward is full of people of all kinds: young men, drunkards, old men in office, and the most beautiful beauties with dark secrets.In the later years, she always regretted that her story was too far from the truth, and she did not save herself the raw materials for writing.It would be of great use to her to know exactly what happened, what the situation was, who was there, who said what.At that time, keeping a diary allowed her to maintain her dignity.Yes, she might look, act, live like a trainee nurse, but she was a powerful writer.It's just her own clever disguise.Once she said goodbye to everything she was familiar with—family, homeland, friends—then she only wrote this line, grasping the past and tying the future.That's what she's always been doing.

Every day, her mind seldom wanders freely.Sometimes she was sent to the pharmacy to do odd jobs, so she was free while waiting for the pharmacist.She'd float down the hallway to the stairwell, where the window had a sweeping view of the river.Whenever her eyes were fixed on the parliament building on the other side and her mind wandered away, she would unconsciously put her whole body weight on her right foot.The diary did not occupy her mind; she was thinking of the long story she had finished and sent to the magazine.During the days at Primrose Hill, she borrowed her uncle's typewriter, hid in the dining room, and typed out the last draft with her index finger.Throughout the week, she spent at least eight hours a day on the novel, until her back ached and her neck ached, until her hair flew loose and jagged spirals began to swirl and spin before her eyes.But she never had a happier moment—when she finally smoothed out that stack of manuscripts—a hundred and three pages!—she could feel the share on her sore fingertips. The weight of a heavy work.It's all hers.She's Briony's.No one else could have written such a masterpiece.Keep a copy for yourself, wrap her story (such an imprecise word) in brown paper, take a bus to Bloomsbury, and walk to the magazine in Lansdowne Street She, the newly published Horizon, handed over the manuscript to a pleasing young woman who greeted her at the door.

She is inspired by her own achievement—the conception of the novel, the pure structure, the characteristic uncertainty that she thinks is very modern.The days of having a straightforward answer to everything are over.The characters and plot are also out of date.Although she still makes sketches of characters in her diary, she doesn't really believe in such a thing as "characters."That's just a quaint, nineteenth-century way of doing things.Modern psychology has revealed that the concept of "character" is originally based on fallacies.The plot is also just a rusty machine whose wheels won't turn anymore.Just as a modern composer can no longer write a Mozart symphony, a modern novelist can no longer describe character and plot.Only human intelligence and sensibility interested her.The river of consciousness flows in time, how to express its endless progress, how its tributaries overflow, how obstacles make it turn—this is her interest.If possible, she would really like to rewrite that paragraph——in the clear sunshine of a summer morning, a child's delicate thoughts when standing in front of the window, and a swallow swooping lightly above a pool of water.This is the novel of tomorrow, and it is completely different from all the novels of the past.She has read Virginia Wolfe's "The Waves" three times, and she firmly believes that the depths of human nature are undergoing a major transformation.Only the novel, only a new form of the novel, can capture the essence of this transmutation.Entering into people's hearts, showing its functional form, and showing its posture in a neat and well-proportioned structure-this is the victory of artistic creation.Wandering outside the pharmacy, waiting for the pharmacist to come back, Nurse Tallis was thinking.She gazed across the Thames, oblivious to the danger around her: Drummond would find her standing on one leg.

Three months passed, and Briony hadn't heard anything from Horizon. There was no response to another letter.She had gone to the hospital administration office to ask for Cecilia's address.In early May, she wrote to her sister.Now she gradually felt that this silence was her sister's answer. In the last few days of May, there was a sharp increase in deliveries of pharmaceutical supplies.More non-critical patients were sent home.Some of the wards would have been completely vacated had it not been for forty sailors.A rare disease of jaundice is sweeping through the Royal Navy.Briony no longer had time to attend to these matters.Hospital Nursing and Elementary Anatomy are offered.The first-year students are exhausted between shifts, classes, meals and self-study.After reading three pages, it is very difficult to stay sane.Every chime of Big Ben records the changes of the day.Sometimes the subdued moans of pain were heightened by the solemn tolling of the bell every fifteen minutes, and only then did the girls wake up from their dozes and remember that they were busy elsewhere.

Complete bed rest is considered a step in the medical procedure itself.Most bedridden patients, regardless of their condition, are never allowed to go to the bathroom, which is only a few steps away.So the first thing the nurses do every morning is carry the bedpan.The head nurse would not allow them to carry the potty "like a tennis racket."This was done "for the glory of God" - bedpans had to be emptied, flushed, washed and stacked by 7:30.At half past seven, I started drinking morning tea.Throughout the day, they were busy cleaning bedpans, bathing sick people, and mopping floors.The girls complained a lot: they were so tired from making the bed that their backs ached, and their feet ached from standing all day.Complaining about it all the time.In addition, they had to draw the curtains on the huge windows in the ward.At the end of the day, there are more bedpans to serve, spittoons to empty, cocoa to boil.There was little time between shifts and classes to go back to the dormitory to pick up notebooks and textbooks.Briony had already been caught running down the corridor twice in one day by the matron.Every time the head nurse reprimanded her silently.Nurses have reason to run only when there is hemorrhage and fire.