Chapter 6 Chapter 1 Great Change

I seem to wake up from a restorative sleep. I didn't wake up all at once, but opened my eyes first, lay comfortably, and looked at the rows of extremely unusual bright red hibiscus reds, which were bent like goosenecks against the bright sky. , the hat like a burning sea of ​​fire, and the firm translucent peel all have a kind of luminous instinct, which seems to be caused by some kind of more dense light. Things mixed together and appeared in front of my eyes were dense golden wheat ears.Where am I?The question flew in from far away and indistinct, and then flew away again.There was silence all around.

The surroundings were as silent as death.Delicate little petunias on the ground and those intertwined plants on the ground.It is not clear why everything is strange.The fields of wheat, the beautiful grass, the sky that is gradually lighting up, all of this feels strange.I felt as if I were placed in a very bright tinted glass, as if the dawn had penetrated me.I feel like I am part of a beautiful picture painted with light and joy. A breeze bent the ears of barley and made a rustling sound.This brings me back to what happened before. who am I?This question may be the source of figuring it all out.

I raised my left hand and arm.His hands were dirty and his cuffs were torn.That looks like a beggar.I stared at the beautiful beaded button on the cuff for a moment. I thought of William Leadford.He had this arm and hand.I don't seem to recognize him. certainly!I am reminded of my history.It was a vague history, not all at once flashed across the memory.It was like looking at something through a microscope.It was very small and very bright, but it was difficult to see the whole thing.Clayton and Sway Star also come back to my memory.I thought of those dilapidated houses again, those bleak lives...Through these, I walked into my life again.I sat with my hands on my lap and thought of strange and choppy experiences.In the end, I ended up firing useless bullets into the growing darkness.Thinking of the last shot, double awakened my excitement.

Something in my emotions, something absurd, sadly stupefied me. What an unfair, miserable wretch!What an unfair and painful world! I groan for pity, not only for myself, but for all wrathful hearts, all souls wracked and wretched, all woefully striving with hope and agony.These people at last found their peace under the spewing mist and the suffocating disturbance of the comet, for surely that world was past and over.They used to be so weak and unhappy, but I was so strong and peaceful.Because I affirm that my old self no longer exists, that no one alive can guarantee that all is well, and maintain this powerful, confident serenity, I am now free from the desire to exist.

I am already dead.Everything is back to normal again.I feel a conflict. This is God's Paradise!The fields of God are very quiet, and the hibiscus flowers that do not fade are blooming everywhere.The seeds of flowers contain peace and quiet. It is unexpected to see barley fields in heaven.Of course, there will be many things that will surprise me. Everything is so peaceful!The silence is incomprehensible, at least not to me.There was no sound of any kind, not even the chirping of birds.I am alone in the world.Really, not a single bird cry.Moreover, all sounds in the distance disappeared.The lowing of the cow, the barking of the dog...

The dreaded feeling of being called "ascended" took possession of me.I know, nothing has changed, but, it's just me!I stood up and shouted warmly to the rising sun.The sun seems to be coming towards me, spreading joyful tidings on the ears of barley... I took a careless step, and my foot hit something hard.So, I looked down and found my pistol.The black thing lay frozen at my feet like a dead snake. I feel a little inexpressible. Then, I threw it all away.There was only one thing that occupied my being, and that was miraculous stillness.Dawn, but no birdsong! How wonderful the world is!How beautiful, how quiet!

I walked slowly across the wheat field towards the hedge border of shrubs, saplings, and brambles.As I walked forward, I spotted a dead muskrat in the straw pile, and then, a dead frog.I was surprised to find that Toad didn't jump aside when he heard my footsteps.So I bent down to pick it up. The frog's body was soft and alive, but it didn't struggle.Its bright eyes are covered with a film, and it stays motionless in my hand. I stood there holding the dying little life for a while, then slowly bent down and put it down again.I was trembling, shaken by an indescribable emotion. I glanced quickly and carefully between the barley stalks, and then I watched.I saw beetles, flies, and all kinds of small animals everywhere.When the gas came over, they fell and just lay there.It looked like it was drawn.Some look fancy.I am new to many creatures in nature.

"My God!" I exclaimed, "is it just me?  …" When I moved again, something screamed sharply.I turned around, but didn't see it, only saw something quiver a little in the ditch, and then heard the fading sound of it flying away.At this time, I looked back at the frog again.Its eyes were blinking, its body was shaking, and then it slowly stretched its limbs and crawled away from me. Yet, for some reason, I'm a little scared right now.I saw a maroon butterfly perched on a barley flower not far ahead.At first, I thought it was the breeze that made it shake, but then I saw its wings flapping.So much so that while I was watching it, it began to wake up, flapping its wings and flying into the air.

I watched it fly, up and down, until finally, suddenly, it was gone. Now, one by one, the creatures around me are waking up, slowly stretching, bending, chirping, moving and shaking... Step by step, I walked slowly across the wheat field towards the fence, afraid of stepping on those weak lives that seemed to be slowly waking up after taking anesthesia. The fence was quite well repaired, and it blocked my sight.The tangle of swaying plants on the fence resembled a glorious chapter.There were many white lupines, honeysuckle, cuckoos, and many pigweeds, hops, and so on on the branches.Along the edge of the ditch, rows of gleaming thorny grasses sang in unison with their little childlike faces upturned. I have never seen a symphony of flowers, tendrils, and leaves like musical notes.Suddenly, deep in the bushes, I heard the reverberation of startled wings.Nothing dies, everything is just more beautiful.

I stood for a while, looking with clear, happy eyes at the exquisite beauty before me, and marveled at God for making the world so beautiful. "Squeak, chirp." A skylark broke the silence with its bright and bright singing.First one, and then another, penetrated into the sky beyond the horizon, like weaving a colorful satin with golden threads in the deep blue silence... In just a short time, the earth was regenerated.I wish the dawn was brighter that day.For a while, I was so intoxicated by the beauty in front of me that I completely forgot about my jealousy and uncontrollable pain, as if I were a newly born Adam.I can now tell you in great detail about the glittering flowers I watched open, those tendrils of plants, those blades of grass, that chickadee.I gently picked up the tit. It opened its bright black eyes, stared at me, wobbled and slept on my finger without any fear, and then slowly spread its wings and flew away.The bird's heart hair is so exquisite that I had never noticed it before.There are also those boiling tadpoles in the ditch, like all animals born under water, they have all experienced this great change without changing.

In this change, I passed through the first great moment, at first bewildered, and then admiring every little change in the whole miracle. There was a path between the fence and the wheat field, and I walked along it leisurely, looking here and there, taking a step forward, stopping again, and walking on again.I came to a stile that was used to climb a hedge, and at the foot of the stile was a grassy path. On the old oak of the steps there is a round road sign which reads "Swindells' G90 Pills".I straddled the steps with my feet apart, and I didn't quite understand the meaning of the words on the sign.They puzzle me more than my pistol and dirty cuffs. More and more birds around me were in a good mood and kept singing. I read the sign over and over.Relating it to things like the old clothes I still had on, my pistol lying at my feet, etc., the answer came right off the bat.This is not a new paradise at all, and it is not as beautiful as I guessed.This beautiful and wonderful place is our world, the old world where I was angry and died.But at least, it's like a scruffy woman dressed up and dressed in a queen's robe, looking dignified, respectable, and beautiful... It could be that old world.It's just that everything has a new color.Something that portends prosperity.It could be that old world.The filth and frenzy of past lives did happen.At least, I have no doubts about it. I recalled the last scenes of that past life, the frenzied chase in the dark, the rage, the swirling green gas that was dying.A comet crashes into the earth, and it all ends.Of this, I have no doubts. But what happened? ... Now what? My teenage imagination seemed to predict the future.At that time, I was convinced that the end of the world was bound to come, that there would be great creations in the sky, unbridled noise and fear, the resurrection of Jesus and the final judgment.My wandering imagination tells me that the judgment has come and passed.Somehow it left me out, and I was left alone in a cleansed and refreshed world, starting from scratch.Needless to say, Swindell has gotten the punishment he deserved. For a moment I thought of Swindell, and the savage impulse of the dead man, who uttered nonsense and lied to find the big, mean country house that he was looking for. , a poorly performing car, some unrespectable country appeal.It is impossible for you to imagine a trace of that era.They are loyal, but they are also ridiculed.For the first time in my life I can think of these things without pain, I have seen evil in the past, I have seen tragedy, and now I see the folly of old life.The other side of human wealth and apparent ludicrousness turned to me.A dazzling thing bathed me like a rising sun and ate me with laughter.Swindell!Swindell!damn it!My doomsday has become a laughable irony.I saw the chuckling Angel cover her mouth, and the carnal Swindell was laughing in heaven, "Here's something, a very beautiful thing. What can this beautiful thing be used for?" I To see a man being elongated from a round solid mass, like a snail being pulled from its shell... I laughed out loud for a long time.Please note!Even when I'm laughing, the things I've done still irritate me and keep me from being happy.I was crying, crying loudly.I think, personally, people's mental states tend to be consistent.I have sought to create a miracle, an impression of joy.People still have a common confusion about reason, and they still have a little difficulty in knowing themselves. I distinctly remember sitting on the fenced steps, most suspicious of my identity, often wanting to ask some of the weirdest extrasensory questions. "If it's me," I said, "then why am I not so feverishly looking for Nettie? Nettie is so far away now, I've done everything wrong. Why am I suddenly I lost all my fighting spirit? Why does my pulse stop when I think of Flarr?..." I was just one of millions of people who harbored this question that morning.I think that when a man wakes from sleep or unconsciousness, he knows himself for his own sake by virtue of a keen sense of the familiar.But, that morning, all of our most familiar feelings changed.The chemistry inside life changes.Its metabolism has changed.Those restless dark thoughts and feelings of the past are calming and wholesome.The sense of touch has changed, sight has changed, hearing and all other senses have become more elusive.If it weren't for our minds to have some stability, more abundance, I believe a large number of men would go mad.But, in fact, as we all know, what impressed me most about this upheaval was my relief, and it made me so excited.In fact, I was dizzy even though my mind was clear.There is a qualitative change in the senses, not confusion in the mind.Unlike losing my mind due to mental disorders in the past, I just got a new detachment from my overinflated life passions and disputes. In the story of my painful and depressed adolescence that I have described to you, what I have always wanted to express is the poverty, tension, fear, and invisible pressure of the old world.I was well aware that within the hour of my waking, everything had passed and been completed in a mysterious way, and this is also a common experience for everyone.People stood up and took in the fresh air, took a deep breath, and poured it out of their lungs, so that the past was far away from them. Before the cataclysm, through extraordinary moments in ourselves and others, through history and music and all that is good, through heroic history and shining example, we and the most mediocre of us know how wonderful human beings are How beautiful it is when the opportunity arises.But the toxins in the air, and the lack of noble thought and action, make such moments very rare.The air has changed, and the evil spirits that people once drowsily dreamed of have risen from the dead.People began to open their eyes brightly and start a new life with high spirits. When I wake up, these distant things make me feel bored and lonely, make me want to laugh, and make me want to cry.After a while, I bumped into a person.Before I heard his voice, I felt like I was the only one left in this world.All this has passed, all tension and stress have disappeared.I have stepped out of the abyss of self-interest.There, my hidden egoism worked quietly.I taunt Swindell as much as I can taunt myself.That man's cry seemed to be an unexpected thought in my head. "I'm hurt." A voice came out.I then went down to the path, and found Melmont sitting on the edge of the ditch with his back to me.Everything I came across and felt that morning was firmly etched into my mind.His hat was off; his hair was fine, gold and red, and his round head hung forward; his eyes were fixed on his crooked feet.The backs of his hands are broad.When I first saw this broad body shape, I liked it very much. "What's the matter with you?" I asked. "I said," he said in a very deliberate tone, struggling to turn and look at me.His appearance is very typical, with a high nose bridge and thick lips.It's an image familiar to every cartoonist in the world, "I'm in trouble. I fell and sprained my foot. Where are you?" I went around in front of him, looked into his face, and saw that he had taken off his leggings, socks and boots.Protective gloves were also thrown aside.He gently rubbed the injured part with his thick thumb. "Ah!" I said, "you're Melmont!" "Melmont!" He thought for a while, "That's my name." He said without raising his head... "Fortunately, it didn't hurt my ankle." We looked at each other for a while, only to hear him grunt in pain. "Do you know what the hell happened?" I asked. He seemed to be diagnosing himself all the time, saying: "The leg is not broken." I asked again and said, "Do you know what the hell happened?" "No," he said, and at the same time, started looking at me strangely. "A little change." He smiled, with a certain unexpected joy in his smile, and interest in his eyes. "I've been focusing on my inner emotions. I've noticed unusual lights in various things. Right?" "It's just part of the change. There's also a strange feeling. A clear nerve." He examines me, then muses. "I'm awake," he said, probing his way through memory. "I'm awake too." "I'm lost. I don't know how I got lost. There's a strange green fog around me." He stared at his feet, then added, "It must have something to do with the comet. I tripped over something in the dark , wanting to continue walking... Later, I must have fallen headfirst onto this path. Look!" He pointed with his head, "There's a newly broken wooden railing over there." He verified it carefully, and concluded Conclusion, "That's right..." "It was dark," I said, "and there was a green gas coming out of everything. That's the last thing I remember." "Then, you woke up? I woke up too... Afterwards, I was in a sleepy state. There must be something strange in the air. I was driving a car speeding down a road, and I was very excited , deeply fascinated by it. I stepped out..." He paused, held out a triumphant finger and said, "Armored car!" "Yes, I stepped out of the armored car! From here we go to Texel The warships lined up. I was just across from them, the Elbe was mined. We lost the battleship 'Graft Wodan'. Ah! Yes! It was the 'Graf Wodan'! That battleship was very expensive. Rigg Than that idiot said it didn't matter. Eleven hundred soldiers sank in the water... I remember now. We searched the North Sea like a sieve. Meanwhile, the North Atlantic Fleet was waiting in Pharos, they didn't The coal for a boat is enough to burn for three days. Ah, is that a dream? No! I have spoken to many people to reassure them. Was it at a meeting? They are warlike and very afraid. How unbelievable Who understands! Most of them are big bellyed and naked like monsters. Where? Of course! A good dinner in Colchester, we wiped it all out, with oysters .I've been there just to prove all the fuss about the raids is bullshit. Then I'm coming back here...but it doesn't seem like it's recent. I guess it's recent. Yes, of course That's right! I got out of the armored car and wanted to follow the path up the cliff because everyone said there was a man on board being hunted along the coast. This time it was clear! I heard their gunshots! … ..." He recalled, then added: "That's weird. Can't say anything. Did you hear the gunshot?" "was it last night?" i asked "Late last night. One or two in the morning." He put his hands behind his head and looked at me, smiling frankly.He said: "Even now, I find it weird. The whole thing seems like a muddled dream. Do you think there's going to be a ship called the 'Count of Vodane'? Do you believe we're really going to play a game? Sinking such a big thing underwater? It seems like a dream! But it seems to be real." By the standards of the past, it was impossible for me to have such an easy conversation with such a big man. "Yes," I said, "that's what it is. A man feels he's awake, and he feels that green smoke, and something else. It's as if none of that stuff is real either." He frowned thoughtfully, and said: "I acted in Colchester." I thought he was going to say more, but his usual caution made him pause for a moment. "It's a weird thing," he said. "In general, the pain is less unpleasant and more enjoyable." "Are you in pain?" "My ankle is either broken or sprained...I think it's a sprain! It hurts when I move it. But, on the whole, it's not that serious. The local injury doesn't have much to do with that...." He showed He looked thoughtful, and then added, "I'm speaking in Colchester. I'm talking about the war. I can see very clearly that the reporters are remembering something very fast. Suddenly, there is a commotion , there was a humming of praise for oysters. What's the matter? Is it war? War will be some time. Did you drink too much late?" He frowned.He put his right knee in place, resting his elbow on it, then put his fist on his chin.The deep sunken gray-blue eyes under the bushy brows stared and considered the unknown. "God!" he whispered, "God!" in a disgusting tone.He made a deep look in the sun.The feeling he gave me was: "Not only is he physically magnificent, but he also makes people feel that he must wait for him to finish his thinking. I have never seen this kind of person before, and I didn't know that there would be such a person..." He woke up from his contemplation, but doubts still appeared on his face. "My speech last night," he said, "was all fucking bullshit, you know? Nothing can be changed, no matter what . eat!" It was the most normal thing to happen to that morning's miracle, and it doesn't make me respect him any less for him to speak with such unbelievable candor. "Yes," he said, "that's right. That's a solid fact. I believe it's a dream." Against the backdrop of the world's dark past, the past becomes crystal clear.I remember, the air was full of birdsong.I was also puzzled by the merry uproar of bells ringing in the distance, but I doubted that I might have misheard.However, there is always something new in the senses, which makes cheerful bells ring in people's minds.The big, blond, brooding figure was sitting on the ground in a somewhat clumsy, albeit terrific way, as if he had been created by some powerful and humorous master.To a stranger like me, he talked about everything like a man to a man, and said a lot of things earnestly. Now, it is difficult for me to express all these contents.Before that, we were always short-sighted, with some short-sighted concerns, our own face, objective punishment and the despicability of various people, which made us feel heavy when we described some things to others. "Everything is normal now," he said, and at the same time told me to himself what was on his mind. I wish I could record every word he said to me.His intermittent but terse speech made impression after impression on my new mind.If I remember exactly what happened that morning, I will tell you about it in detail.But apart from the more vivid little things, I have only vague recollections.I have to complete half of his sentences and speeches from beginning to end before I can safely tell you the whole story.But I can still recall his words now: "The dream got worse at the end. This war... a very terrible fizz! Terrible! It was like a bad dream. You There's no way out of it anyway, everyone gets dragged in." His frivolity was gone. As everyone already knows, he brought the war before me.The scene that morning was astonishing.Sitting on the ground, he actually forgot his wounded foot, treated me like the most obedient companion, completely like one of his own, and talked to himself with indelible thoughts. "We can stop wars! Anyone who dares to speak out can stop wars. That sounds a little too hasty. But what's stopping us from being honest? Their Emperor, whose status will undoubtedly evoke Unlimited reverie, but in the final analysis, he is a smart man." In a few simple words, he described the image of the emperor, the German media, the German people and ourselves. "Their goddamned button-down specialists!" he added in passing. "Have they ever been? We have! We could have formed a stronger line of defense and debunked the lies earlier... " His volume dropped, becoming an inaudible soliloquy, and finally he couldn't hear it at all... I stood watching him, understanding him, learning amazing things from him. In fact, on the morning of the catastrophe, I didn't remember Nettie and Ferrer at all.As if they were nothing more than fictional characters in a novel, I'm going to Go read them again.Now, I can talk to this person first. "Ah! yes!" said he, waking from his contemplation, "we are waking up! Things cannot go this way. All this must come to an end. How did it begin? My dear boy, all those things are How did it start? I'm like a newborn Adam... Do you think this has happened? Are we going to find all these devils and these things? ... Who cares about the bandages?" He seemed to stand up when he suddenly remembered his ankle.He offered to help him walk to his house, and I obeyed. I help him wrap his ankle with a strap.us started to go.I'm like his crutch.We walked like quadrupeds along the winding path towards the cliffs and the sea. His house is just over the golf course.It was over a mile from this path to there. We walked down to the waterfront and walked along the smooth, smooth white sand.We walked crookedly and did a three-legged dance until finally I picked him up.As soon as it stopped, we sat down.In fact, his ankle was broken, so whenever he put his foot on the ground, it was very painful. Finally, after nearly two hours, We just got to his door.It would have taken even longer if his butler hadn't come out to help.They've found the wrecked car and dead driver.The location is just around the corner from the road near the house.They've been looking for Melmont over there, or they would have seen us long ago. Most of the time we sat on the grass, or on the boulders, or on the wooden cross arches, talking to each other straightforwardly and with good intentions.Mutual without reservation, without hindrance.This is the most precious and wonderful thing in the world. He was the one talking most of the time.I told him by way of question... as plainly as I could tell him about passions that I couldn't comprehend myself for a while.I hunted down Nettie and her lover until the green gas got in my way.He looked at me sternly and nodded understandingly.After that, he asked me some simple and in-depth questions about my education, growth and work.My demeanor is a little stiff, but never sloppy. "Yes!" he said, yes... of course.How stupid I have been!Then, he stopped talking.We moved on three legs along the waterfront, and at last I failed to see that my story had anything to do with his self-blame. "What if," he gasped, "there's such a thing as a politician! . . . " He turned to me, "can one man bring all this chaos to an end! If one treats it like a sculptor picks up clay, Like a builder who chooses the site and the stone, then," said he, pointing with his broad thumb to the sky and the sea, and taking a deep breath of air, "something will fit into that arrangement." He went on to explain to me, "Then, there would never be a story like yours. You know..." "Tell me a little more," he said, "tell me about you. I feel that everything has passed away and will be changed forever.  …From now on, you will never be the same You, your past don't matter anymore. Anyway, they don't matter to us. We are separated from each other in the dark that has gone behind us, and now, we are connected. Tell me all." "That's it," he said. So I told him my story as honestly as I tell you. "Right there, the village over there. There's grass growing around the little rock. What do you want with a pistol?" "I left it in the wheat field over there." He glanced at me from under his pale eyelashes, and said, "If everyone else was like you and me, then there would be more than one or two pistols left in the barley field today. . . . " We communicated, and I had an unadulterated brotherly love with this tall, strong man.We confide in each other with sincerity.In the past, I was always on guard against outsiders.I can still recall now that he was sitting on the deserted and lonely beach at low tide, leaning on the pile of shells, looking at the poor soldier who had just discovered drowned.It happened that this soldier missed the bright dawn of which we are singing.He lay in a puddle of water, in the tawny grass in the shadows.You cannot overestimate the horrors of the past.At that time, in England, people probably saw no more death than they do now.The deceased was a crew member of the German battleship Rozel Adler.The warship lay within four miles of shore, bombarded and wrecked into a heap of deep water, with nine hundred drowned soldiers in it.Strong and powerful, these soldiers are capable of complex jobs. I vividly remember the poor child who was drowned under the anesthesia of that green gas.His fair and childish face was serene.But his chest was seared and wrinkled from the scalding water.With his right arm bent back strangely, a disheveled proletarian and Melmont in an expensive fur coat leaned against the crude cross arch, bemoaning the poor victim who had not fought in the war. "Poor young man!" he said. "Poor young man! We who are terribly wrong have sent a child to die! Look at that peaceful, beautiful face, that body so abandoned!" (I remember, at the dead man's hand, a stranded starfish writhing its sluggish body, struggling to wriggle into the water, leaving this furrow in the sand.) "It won't happen again," Melmont said with a sigh.He leaned on my shoulder and repeated, "No more." After we talked for a while, I remember Melmont sitting on a chalk boulder, the sun shining on his sweaty face.He made up his mind. "We have to end wars," he said. "This is stupidity. So many thinking people, stop it from happening. My God! What are the rulers doing? Sleepy in the suffocating room, with vile intrigues, no one gets up to open the window. Why can't we?" The image of him sitting there strong and powerful is still in my memory.I am deeply impatient and amazed by him and everything. "We must change our world," he repeated, waving his broad hand powerfully to the sky and sea. "What we have done has been so impotent that only Heaven knows why." He looked at the beach in the glorious morning light, at the seabirds flying around, at the twisted corpse. "It's going to be interesting to see what's going on in the world. ... This green gas ... weird stuff. But I know what happened to me. It's a change. I know. ... But, it's Being a fool. Talk! I'm going to stop it." He was eager to get to his feet with the help of his outstretched, thick hands. "Stop what?" I asked.At the same time, I instinctively took a step forward to help him. "War," he said aloud, putting his big hand on my shoulder.But he didn't want to get up. "I want an end to war, any war! All this kind of thing has to end. The world is good and life is great and magnificent. We can see. Think of the glorious road we have been walking Like a herd of pigs in a garden. What a sight, what a sound, what a life! We have our thoughts, our quarrels, our veiled powers, our invincible prejudices, Our dastardly attempts, our laziness, our lack of self-confidence. We gossip about each other, frame each other, and make a mess of the world. We're like burrowing birds in the temple, filthy birds in paradise. My一生都是愚蠢的，猥琐的，粗俗的，卑劣的。在早晨的阳光中，我是一个贫弱的邪恶的东西，一个忏悔者，一个可耻的人。但是，请上帝宽恕我，我本该今晚就死了……就像那个可怜的年轻人死在我的卑劣的罪恶中！决无好下场！死有余辜……不管这世界变化与否这没有什么关系。我们两人已经看见了世界的末日！……” He stopped. “我要升天，去见我的上帝。”他说，“我要对上帝说！” 他的声音逐渐弱下去，渐渐听不见了。他的手痛苦地抓紧。