Chapter 21 twenty one.I see beautiful images (through that tree)

There was a path that went down to the mill, and after that the path went up again, and at the end of that path Anthony watched it rise far away and recognized a house in his own village lying in front on the hillside.It seems that nothing has changed.There was the old homestead, and beyond that was Elie Davis's workshop.Early tomorrow morning he could go there again to saw and plan and make something.Not tonight though, and even tonight he wasn't going to see his friend Ellie Davis.Where the path fell, the mill was hidden, which he could not see; but where the path rose, he could see the land, where the house and the orchard lay.He could see the tops of the trees in the woods, the same as he saw when he was a child, and among the trees, he could also vaguely see some walls, which were his home.The tops of the trees shook in the evening wind, so somewhere under them his mother must be fanning her.His father was probably in a large pile of books in his study.And Lala was in the kitchen, and Baba was lying somewhere waiting, ready to jump on him and scold him for being so late.But just because he was late, she would let him have some tea and treat him with some special delicious food.

But before all this, the first thing he had to meet was the mill and the cracked willow tree by the gate. Get through, because if you just go in through the gate, you're going to miss something.Going further in is the calm mirror-like water surface, spread out on the overgrown terraces, where there are grouse sticking to the water surface like arrows and darting around, here and there, somewhere, there is also a princess who has been enchanted He never knew what shape she became after being enchanted, whether it was a flower or a bird.Also, the wizard's mill water wheel has black water buckets, and the water dripping down has magic in it.

Anthony went down the path and came to the willow tree.As he entered the cleft in the willow, it seemed much narrower than before. On the night Anthony was born, the wizard turned his waterwheel twice as fast as usual, and while his spells were churning, he took from the bucket of the wheel the loveliest The spell conjures the shape of a child.She was dressed in rags, but her clothes were all gold and silver, and the rags that floated about were silk, all the colors of the rainbow, strands of sky blue, and grass green. , crimson, and ribbons as bright yellow as daffodils and primroses, and strands of gray and brown as beech fibers.She was barefoot, but on her head she wore a gold ring at the level of her eyebrows, and in front of the ring the wizard set a single drop of water from the mill pond, which shone like a jewel on her forehead. , like an eye.

As soon as she was out of the wizard's hands, she went to find Anshone.And she was the first thing Anthony saw in the cradle.Then she cried, "Come on, Anthony, come on." He'd known her before he could remember.He followed her into the night, and she led him through a cleft in the willows to the pond.There she put him on the grassy terrace so he could see the reflection of a baby in the water, and she danced for him until her hair was flying over her head, just She danced so fast, like rays of sunshine, that the jewel shook from her gold ring and fell on Anthony's lap.Because it was so bright, Anthony put it in his mouth and swallowed it.

After a while, the boy stopped dancing, and bent over the pond, dipping his arms in the water.She fished out a handful full of butterflies and tossed them over her head, and they stayed there, shimmering in the air.She dipped her arms in the water again and pulled out an armful full of violets and primroses.She also left them in the grass behind her, where they took root and blossomed.She dipped her arms in the water again and again, taking out one thing after another.There were young birches, with spring leaves quivering; clusters of blackberries in the alluring colors of autumn; birds of all kinds, among them swallows, gulls, chickadees, herons; and rabbits, hedgehogs, and There were little voles; there were tufts of grass and moss; there were fireflies and grasshoppers and glowing bugs and a thousand other things.Whatever she fished out she threw carefully about her, and it always found its place, and the mesa was a little world of them all, for the first day of the year. A season of joy.She even brought out the sun and the moon from her pond, and let them shoot in the celandine and the anemone; she also brought a double rainbow, and made a curving arch over the trees; She also draws out the crooked moon and the round moon at the same time; draws out countless shooting stars; draws out colorful clouds, speckled with golden light, silver light, rose-colored luster, and saffron luster.At last she had conjured all she could, and her little world was full, and everything, from birch leaves to stars, was dancing, when she dipped her arms in the pond again and pulled the baby out. come out.

"Anshone, would you like to be my playmate forever?" she asked. The baby was squealing.While he was yelling, Anthony fell asleep on the grassy terrace.When he woke up, he was in his cradle.But in his first dream he took the crown jewel of the child and put it in his own chest, and he kept there forever and ever his own reflection in the pond water. No wonder, then, when he grew up, he was always so restless, always longing to find what he couldn't find.He started looking for it here and there, and one day he thought it was one thing, another day he thought it was something else.His mother saw him looking so eagerly, day after day, and sometimes she would say to him, "What exactly do you want, my dear?"

On Monday he might reply: "I want the biggest blackberry in the world!" On Tuesday he replied: "I want a brand new little purse!" On Wednesday, it was again: "I want a bull's-eye lamp." Thursday again: "I will ride a horse with golden wings." Friday: "I want toys that never break." Saturday: "I'm going to run faster than a telegram." Sunday: "I want you to love me the most! That's what I want." His mother always gave him everything he wanted, but when it got to him, for a moment he thought it was what he had been looking for, and soon he put it behind him, and the next week He would want six completely different things, although on the seventh day he always wanted his mother to love him the most.And she, as long as she can, is willing to give him all he wants, to be happy with him when he laughs, to be sad with him when he cries, and to know that there is no one but himself No one could help him find what he was looking for.

What he looked for in childhood was a partner to play with, which is why his favorite place to be was his beloved pond.For some vague memory of the night he was born there sometimes comes back to his mind, gold and silver rags, the colors of the rainbow come sometimes from his sleep and his daydreams skimming. The grouse leaped out of the reeds, leaving a trail of light like a silver arrow behind it—wasn't that her!In June, the yellow pansies stood in the water like an iridescent goddess, sending streaks of golden light down into the depths of the water—yes, that was her!Sleepy in the golden mist, he saw the aspens and aspens walking in the valley--she must have walked with the trees.A rainbow casts its curved arc across the sky; a bright blue dragonfly swims in the sun; a silky shaving flies from the carpenter's plane; a candle bursts suddenly from the lamp, Across a field of snow; a rocket pierces into the night sky and explodes into countless colorful stars... Ah, that's her!Or that's... no, that's her!

But later, when Anthony finally left the eyes of the earth, he still hadn't found her. Now, as he tried in vain to get through the cracked old willow, one thing became clear to him: all these years his search for the princess had never ceased.That's when he felt himself caught at last, a captive, the eccentric old wizard taking hold of him, and he looked up again at the paradise of his childhood, and saw the mate he played with was in the pool beside. He called her loudly, but she didn't look at him.She was dancing on the grassy mesas, her face was like a flower, her hair was woven of rays, and as far as he could remember she had danced before.Her rags fluttered with her steps, and the gleams of light changed so quickly that the golden yellow of a pansy he had only glimpsed turned to the silver of a poplar leaf.Changed to the brown of the breast feathers of a grouse, to the gray of rising campfire smoke, to the lightning blue of a kingfisher.He didn't really care if she answered him, as long as she was dancing, he would keep watching.

At last she stopped, bent over the pond, dipped her arms in the water, and began to take out the treasures in the pond: flowers, birds, trees, animals, insects, shooting stars, rainbows and bends. crooked moon.Yes, he remembered, he had seen all these things before.Then, as before, she reached into the water and brought out a baby, the same baby that had sat on the weedy terrace.She reached into the water again and brought out another Anthony, a bigger Anthony with lots of blackberries in his hand, and then she brought out another Anthony who was crying for the moon—she gave He missed his moon, and he crumpled it up like an eggshell or a roll of tinfoil from the neck of a bottle.Faster and faster she pulled out of the enchanted pool the dozen or so little Anthonys and the many other images that had been kept in Anthony's heart, imprinted in his head, and kept coming back to him. Before Shawnee's eyes: there was his father, and there was his mother, and there was Baba and Lara, and there was Mr Pierce with his hands full of toffees; there were the trees, walking through the valley, The noblest of them all was the oak that came out of the old homestead, the great tree that had been struck by lightning before Anthony was born.It split open, and out of the trunk came Eli-Davids with the plane in one hand and a hunk of cheese in the other.Next to him walked little Anthony, touching his plane with his fingers, and behind him were Berti and all his brothers and sisters, and all the little girls who had sat with Anthony in the village elementary school. boy.A magpie flew out from the pond, and the aunt who was jumping around behind it also came. At this time, a piece of white mushrooms suddenly grew on the ground, and Silly Belie was standing in the middle of them. As soon as he touched the mushrooms, They become stars.Next to him stood another Anthony, with a kite in his hand.A golden-winged horse also flew out of the water.From the green terrace a ladder rose up to the sky, and there were many little angels going up and down on the ladder, some on their feet, some on their heads first—this inverted connection between heaven and water makes Anthony couldn't tell which was heaven and which was earth.look!Isn't that Peter Brightfoot?He's making a clock that encompasses the whole universe, and little Anthony is crying beside him; and there's Jim Stokes, dirty, squinting, rags, Put handfuls full of oak and beech stalks to your ears.As soon as they touched his ears, they exploded into trees.A very curious Anthony grabbed his tattered jacket and looked at him.Jim put the fruit of an oak tree on Anthony's ear, and the fruit of the oak tree exploded into a tree.

Those images gathered more and more, and gathered faster.Anthony's heart swelled so much that he thought his heart was bound to explode like an oak tree--exploding his own body, which was the body controlled by the cranky old wizard, causing it to explode. To be free, to free it from his own body and his cage, it must go back to Baba and Lala, to his father who is reading, to his mother who is fanning go there.Even here he could feel the gentle wind from her fan.Let him stay on this grassy platform forever, with such a large group of beloved partners, and always belong to the countless images that live in the eyes of the earth, and he is willing to pay any price. She seemed to hear his wish, and she turned to him—it was a face he had seen before!That was the face of the puppet princess, and the puppet was not even two feet tall—wait a minute, could she be, ah, yes, she was the lovely Miller herself!She was coming towards him, holding a laurel wreath of golden leaves in her hand.But before she was near him, she shrunk into a child with wide-open gray eyes, and the crown of laurel became a golden ring with a hole in it where a jewel had fallen.He suddenly understood like lightning what price he was going to pay. If only he could reach her without making any sacrifices!It would be great if he could get to her and keep the gem!He tried desperately to squeeze his way through the gaping tree hole, but he couldn't, the wizard held him so tightly that he couldn't escape.There's only one way to keep him from getting caught forever. "Take it!" Anthony said. Even as he said those words, it seemed as if the sky had opened and the waters parted—or his breasts had been there with those secret treasures that she could scoop up as soon as they came.Like a flash of lightning, something was ripped from him, and he saw the gleaming gem set back into the golden ring.The ring expanded before his eyes until it became the circumference of the celestial body.That pure gem also spread out, became crystal clear, and at last, instead of a mill pond surrounded by weeds, it was a boundless sea, in which one eye reflected the entire gilt-rimmed celestial body.All the images in his life are immersed in it, including himself-what exactly is he encountering? His heart split in two, and it split in the process—was it a tree, or a kaleidoscope?