Chapter 16 King of Spades...the "fourth" kind of touch...

In the evening, we finally arrived in Venice, but we had to leave the car in a large parking lot outside the city before being allowed to enter the city, because there is not even a regular road in Venice.But the city has 180 canals, more than 450 bridges and thousands of motorboats and flat-bottomed boats called gondolas. From the parking lot, we took a water bus to our hotel on the banks of the Grand Canal.While staying overnight at the hotel in Como, Baba had booked a room in Venice. Unexpectedly, this room was the narrowest and most rudimentary hotel room we have ever lived in during the entire trip.We threw our bags in the room——and went out to go shopping.The father and son took a short walk along the canal and across several bridges.

: We intend to spend two nights in this city of canals before continuing our journey.I know that Dad will definitely take this opportunity to taste all kinds of famous wines in Venice. After dinner in Piazza San Marco, I begged my dad to take me for a small fee to take me on the "Just Ferry" tour of Venice.Dad spread out the map and pointed to where we wanted to go.Without saying a word, the boatman set up his pole and rowed the boat.The only thing that surprised me was that the boatman didn't sing a few tunes.But I wasn't disappointed either, because I always thought the boatman's singing of "Gangdula" sounded like a meowing cat, which was terrible.

While rafting the canal, an accident occurred and a dispute arose between us, father and son.We were about to pass under a bridge when a familiar face peeked out from the top of the railing and looked at us.I recognized the man at a glance—he was the dwarf we met at the auto repair and gas station down the road.I don't like this kind of "unexpected encounter", because I think this guy is deliberately following us. "The dwarf gave me a loud cry, jumped up from the seat, and pointed his arm at the dwarf on the bridge. Now I finally understand why Dad lost his temper at that time, because the "Gangdula" we were sitting in was almost capsized in the water by me jumping like this.

"Sit down!" Dad yelled.After our boat passed under the bridge, Papa looked back, but the little man had long since disappeared, just like at the Como Fairgrounds. "It's him, that's right, I was so anxious to cry when I saw the corpse with my own eyes. I was really shocked when the boat almost capsized just now, and my father obviously didn't believe what I said, which made me feel even more aggrieved. "Damn you, Hans Thomas!" said Pa. "I saw that dwarf with my own eyes!" . "But this dwarf is not necessarily the same dwarf we met." Dad corrected me, although he hadn't even seen the dwarf just now.

"Father, in your opinion, Europe is full of dwarves?" My question hit my father's heart, he was sitting on the "Gangdula" boat with a smile, looking very proud. "Maybe!" he said. "To put it bluntly, we're all weird gnomes, we're all mysterious dwarfs who jumped out of Venice bridges." Along the way, the expression on the boatman's face did not change at all.He drove us to a place with lots of small restaurants nearby.Dad ordered an ice cream and a soda for me, and he ordered a pot of coffee and a drink called Vecchia Romagna for himself.As I expected, the brown drink, served in a goldfish-bowl glass, was mixed with coffee.

After two or three cups of coffee with kicks, Dad stared at me with narrowed eyes, as if determined to tell me the biggest secret of his life. "You haven't forgotten our garden on Hisoy Island, have you?" he asked me suddenly. What is the question? I am too lazy to answer.Dad didn't expect me to answer either. "Well," he went on, "now listen carefully, Hans Thomas. Let us suppose that you were walking in the garden one morning and suddenly saw a little Martian standing among the apple trees. He was shorter than you, As for whether his skin color is yellow or green, it's up to you to imagine."

I nodded perfunctorily.Dad chose the topic—let him talk about what he likes, there's no point in arguing with him. "That stranger stood in the garden and stared at you like you would see an alien," Dad said. "Now the question is: How will you react?" I wanted to say that I would invite him into the house to have an Earthling's breakfast, but then I thought it would be better to tell the truth.I told Dad that I would most likely scream at the Martian. Dad nodded, obviously satisfied with my answer, but he still had a series of questions on his mind. "Don't you think, you will also be curious, and want to know who this little guy is and where does he live?"

"Of course I want to know," I said. Dad raised his head and looked at the people coming and going in the square. "Has it never occurred to you that you yourself are a Martian?" he asked. I had expected my father to ask this question, but I was taken aback when I heard it at first. I almost fell off the seat, but luckily I grabbed the table in time. "You can call yourself an Earthling," Dad went on. "It doesn't matter what we call the planet we live on. What matters is that you are also a human with two feet, crawling on a planet in the universe."

"Like the Martian," I added. Dad nodded. "In real life, you may not suddenly meet a Martian in the garden, but you may meet yourself. Then you will probably be scared by yourself and scream. It's a natural reaction, because Only once in a long life do we realize that we are a planet-dweller on an island in a vast universe." I understood what he meant, but I didn't know how to answer it for a while.One of his final questions about the Martians was: "Do you remember a movie we saw called 'Close Encounters'?" I nod.It was an absurd movie about a group of people discovering a flying saucer from an alien planet.

Dad explained, "Seeing a spaceship from another planet is called Encounter 1. Seeing a creature with two feet step out of a spaceship is Encounter 2. Remember? You saw the movie Encounters Then, a year later we went to another movie..." “That movie is called Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” I snapped. "Yes! In this movie, those few people have personal contact with human-looking creatures from another solar system. Direct contact with mysterious aliens is called a third kind of contact. Understand?" "clear." Papa was silent for a while, just sat quietly at the table, looking at the cafes by St. Mark's Square.

"Hans Thomas, do you know?" said Pa suddenly. "You've had contact of 'fourth kind'." I was confused and didn't understand what Dad was talking about. "Because you're an alien yourself!" Dad said emphatically.With a bang, he slammed the coffee cup back on the table, barely breaking it.Then he added: "You are such a mysterious creature. You feel it in yourself." "It seems that our government has to pay a lot of money to hire you as a national philosopher." I said sincerely. Other than that, what can I say? We came back to the hotel that night to find a huge cockroach on the floor of the room.Its size is so large that the shell on its back rattles when it walks. "My friend, I'm sorry, but you can't stay here tonight," Dad said, bending over the cockroach. "We booked a double room, and a double room is for two people. To put it bluntly, we are the ones who pay for the room." I think Dad was drunk, that's why he was talking nonsense.Dad looked up at me and said, "Hans Thomas, this cockroach is too fat, we shouldn't kill him. Creatures that big should be called 'individuals', and you can't just step on an individual." Die, though you hate them when you see them." "So, should we just let him walk up and down the floor all night?" I asked Dad. "No! We escorted it out of the room." Dad did what he said.He started coaxing the cockroach out of the room.First, he arranged the suitcases and travel bags on the floor to form a passage, then he took out a match and scratched the cockroach's bottom repeatedly to make it move.After struggling for about half an hour, the cockroach finally crawled to the corridor outside the room.Dad felt that he had done his duty, so he did not follow this uninvited guest to the hall downstairs. "It's time for us to go to bed." Dad closed the door.He lay down on the bed and immediately fell asleep.I turned on the bedside lamp, took out the bun book and continued reading while Dad fell asleep.