Almighty painter

Chapter 677: Poetic Habitat

"But this applause is not for you."

Anna winked at Lord Brown.

"These are Heidegger's original words at the 1956 European Art Conference. You just borrowed them. It seems that the tombstones of history are still useful. Even Chairman Brown needs to use the 'thoughts of the predecessors' occasionally."

"Oh, quite the contrary."

The old gentleman also gently tapped the base of his palm holding the champagne glass with his left hand, and looked at the woman with a faint smile like a father, "My applause is for you, Anna, you did well in philosophy class."

The crowd laughed kindly again.

Miss Elena was not angry either.

"Yes, my grades in philosophy have always been pretty good. A few years ago, I considered choosing between studying art appreciation in Vienna or studying philosophy at the University of Munich, which is not far from Heidegger's hometown. Art appreciation and philosophy are close to each other."

The woman's eyes were fixed on her own reflection in the glass of the champagne flute placed on the piano cabinet.

She said calmly -

"As a pioneer of existentialist philosophy, Heidegger published many articles on the origin of art. He believed that the world does not really exist in a ready-made space, but is composed, organized and unfolded by emotions, understanding, thinking, language and ways of knowing... Everyone will die, every thought will die, and anything that exists in time and history has its limitations."

"So, only by letting go of the past can we embrace the bright light of future thought and illuminate the way forward. This is Heidegger's point of view. On the grand scale of time and history, everything is a fleeting moment. Mr. Brown is right."

The crowd fell silent again.

In the ballroom, besides Anna's voice, the only sound was the wind blowing the veil of the curtains.

Everyone listened attentively to how the young hostess of the manor would end her speech that was interrupted by someone.

"…The entire history of mankind is made up of flowers that suddenly bloom and suddenly wither. At the banquet a hundred years later, our thoughts and conversations today will become the past that needs to be 'let go'. People will stand together, gather in front of our 'tombstones', and remember us. Just like we remember the people who were born 150 years ago today."

Anna pointed out the window.

The wind just happened to blow up the white curtains, and the moonlight shone into the yard, illuminating the back of the bronze sculpture of the old count.

"By that time, each of us will have disappeared in the grand dimension of history, turning into particles and dust. Of course, except for you, children."

Miss Elena looked at the crowd, and saw several children wearing children's tuxedos and little princess dresses, some of whom were curious, some were confused, and some had faces as 'resolute' as adults.

She waved gently at the boys and girls who were probably brought to the party by some adults, and made an Anna-style dry joke.

"If you exercise more, run faster, run faster than death, maybe then you can tell others what happened to us today," she said calmly.

"You can, too. My mother said that Ms. Françoise Gilot (note) just celebrated her 101st birthday." A little girl who looked very sweet-mouthed mustered up the courage to say to Anna.

(Note: A famous French female painter, she also has another more well-known identity, being Picasso's lover.)
"I may be good at some things, but——" Miss Elena replied with a smile.

"I guess racing isn't one of them."

Everyone laughed again at once.

There was some inexplicable meaning in the laughter.

It was not the kind of laughter that was just found interesting and that wanted to watch the fun and gossip.

It's an indescribable feeling.

It is more genuine than a mere laughter given for fun, less serious than real sadness, and yet it is not a bitter smile.

Miss Elena’s speech was very interesting, but death... death is always an extremely heavy topic.

Anna doesn't look old at all.

On the contrary, if the children were not counted, she was one of the youngest adult guests present.

The guests invited to the banquet by the Irena family today are all a group of people with very high status in Austria or in the field of art. Most of them are middle-aged people, and there are many guests who are contemporaries of Sir Brown and have the same white hair as him.

But Anna is at the brightest age.

Such a heavy and profound topic should have been spoken from the lips of an elder like Sir Brown, which would have been more appropriate.

Such a bright and delicate girl talked about history and death in front of a group of people who were old enough to be her father or grandfather.

It is inevitable that there will be a sense of disconnection and contrast.

Generally speaking.

This kind of contrast often leads to two different results - either people will feel that the speaker is ignorant of the importance of the matter, talking at a high level, exaggerating some great truths that make him sound profound. Otherwise... people will feel an indescribable sense of solemnity.

A fresh, bright rose with its core sipping dew is blooming among the dead grass and yellow leaves on the ground.

She is so pretty, so elegant, and so beautiful.

this moment.

Her appearance seemed to be able to freeze time.

But you also know that one day, she will grow old and die, just like the most beautiful rose will one day wither in the wind.

What about them?
Where are they?
Sir Brown said that past history, past thoughts, and even past friends are nothing but tombstones, but who is not a tombstone?
They are also a group of people who are about to become tombstones.

Miss Elena's words seemed to make them feel that time was ticking away by their ears.

Today's enjoyment, today's feasting, today's raised champagne glasses and the curled hems of women's dancing skirts.

But they are all tombstones to be used for remembrance tomorrow.

No matter how well they take care of themselves or how well they exercise their bodies, no matter whether they can still drink champagne like water like energetic young men, and dance with their partners in the ballroom until midnight.

Wrinkles and age spots began to appear on their faces.

This is the vast and ruthless power of time.

No one can truly keep time... no one ever.

Countess Elena, who is only 22 years old, seems to have a power enough to break through time in her speech. What supports everything in her voice may be her brilliant family background, or her appearance which can also be described with the word brilliant.

Maybe... it's just because her voice is clear and peaceful enough that it can transform the frenzy of time into the ticking of water on piano keys.

therefore.

No wonder the smiles on the faces of the guests and elders when facing Miss Elena were as if they were the honey botrytis cider from Belarus on the table, with a slight bitter taste of gold in the mouth.

But no matter what the meaning of their smiles is.

When Sir Brown interrupted just now, the awkward or playful atmosphere in the ballroom had disappeared.

Miss Elena handled it very well.

Sir Brown said that the history of Irene's family - the founder of Oil Painting magazine, two generations of counts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and successive heads of the family after World War I, for today's magazine, is nothing more than a past that can be forgotten after being reminisced.

Then Anna used this "let-go" past to make everyone in the audience feel empathy.

"Miss, let us raise our glasses to pay tribute to you and all the Earls of Elena! Let us raise our glasses to Her Excellency the Countess."

Guests in the crowd raised their champagne glasses.

In theory.

The family's title of earl ended in 1921, when Charles I announced his relinquishment of the title of king and emperor, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was officially swept into the dust of history.

Elena's family did not go into exile in Germany or Britain. They were the first family to reach an agreement with the Austrian government.

In exchange for giving up the right to use the family's honorific title in any form in public and giving up the surname "Feng" between their names, the new government returned the family's farms, properties and estates.

Today, in the legal sense, her identity is not a noble, but a "farmer".

But.

Places like Europe, especially in recent years, can be described as being in a "Renaissance" if you put it nicely, but to put it bluntly, the feudal remnants are still very strong.

Just like in neighboring Germany, there is often a Prince So-and-so, or a Prince of Hanover, who appears on TV with these titles.

In private occasions or in places like the United Kingdom and Denmark, their identities are still recognized, and they are invited to royal weddings and enjoy the same etiquette and treatment as nobles in other countries that maintain a monarchy.

The "Jazz" suffix in Sir Brown actually has a similar meaning.

According to official Austrian law, the title of "Sir" such as Sir Brown does not exist at all. It's just that in private, people generally call him by the honorific title.

Looking around, everyone raised their glasses.

Sir Brown smiled bitterly and shook his head imperceptibly.

After all, this is the home ground of the Elena family, and it is a social gathering held in someone else's manor.

Among the guests there were many good friends of Anna’s who had known her for many years.

Everyone still gave Anna face and would not let her do anything too embarrassing. She would retreat as long as there was a way out.

"Do not."

Someone shook his head almost at the same time as Lord Brown, interrupting the toast.

But it was Miss Elena herself. "In fact, many of what Chairman Brown said makes sense. Everything in the past is a tombstone. Even beautiful works of art cannot be described by critics, they will speak for themselves. A noble soul cannot be constrained by the world, she will seek freedom on her own."

Miss Elena smiled and said, "To be honest, this sentence was originally written for mourning and remembrance, so it can be said to be an epitaph."

The woman paused. “That really couldn’t be a more apt description.”

"But so what if it's an epitaph? An epitaph isn't just about mourning, and it isn't just about recording the past."

"Heidegger said that time is the limit of everything. On the grand scale of time, all things that people think are immutable and unchanging will go to the grave in an instant, but he also believes that time is nonlinear."

“The past, present and future are not like a flying arrow that never returns. Instead, they are like the cream and cake top in a cake, the base wine and olives in a wine glass, soaking each other, covering each other, and overlapping each other.”

"Twenty centuries ago, shepherds on the frontier of the Roman Empire drove their cattle and sheep past the pasture and found a wild flower under their feet. Six centuries ago, the first earl laid the foundation here. According to the tradition of the time, he bent down and placed the design drawings of the manor, his own portrait, and a silver coin engraved with the portrait of the Habsburg royal family on the cornerstone of the building. One hundred and twenty years ago, my great-great-grandfather walked out of the door with a check. He had just decided to buy a red brick building next to the Gleize City Government to use as the headquarters of the Oil Painting magazine."

"Today, we raise our glasses together to witness his bronze sculpture being moved back to the gate of the manor. One hundred years later, today's children will be leaning on crutches and telling their children and grandchildren about today's story... Five billion years later, the last ray of sunlight fell on this land, and then the sun went out."

"In Heidegger's mind, all this happens not sequentially but simultaneously."

Miss Elena turned her head.

"The sun went out at the moment the shepherd squatted down and picked up the wild flowers on the ground. The old count pushed the door open and walked out at the same moment his sculpture was lifted into the manor by a crane. The child holding his father's hand today and the father holding his child's hand a hundred years later also happened in the same second."

Anna's voice echoed in the banquet ballroom.

people say.

German is an overly masculine and hard language.

Not only are German syllables mostly explosive breathy sounds, they also sound like metallic knocking.

Other languages ​​in the world, regardless of their language family, from Eurasia to Africa, to the traditional languages ​​of the Indians, all have some maternal words, such as Mother Motherland, Mother Nature, and Mother Earth.

In German, these words are replaced by Fatherland, Father Nature, and Father Earth. This subtle difference in rhetoric also proves the character of the German language.

Miss Elena's voice is not soft, but it is very pleasant to hear.

Clear and nice to listen to.

Anna's voice didn't sound like the soft, gentle whispers, nor did it sound like two shovels colliding, sending sparks flying.

Her accent has both the softness of the voice and the masculinity of German, the delicacy of a woman and the masculinity of a boy.

finally.

It sounds almost neutral.

It was like round and smooth pearls slipping from fingertips, hitting the jade plate, and also falling into people's hearts with a tinkling sound, making people wonder - if the androgynous angels could speak, probably, this would be the sound?
"It's not that one flower withers and then the next one blooms. Rather, throughout history, hundreds of billions of ephemeral flowers bloom at the same time, and then wither together. This universe will age at the moment of its birth."

"The life of each of us is condensed in such a blooming and withering."

Elena looked at her face in the dance hall with deep eyes.

"Time itself is meaningless, so what is meaningful?"

"Existence, Heidegger replied, is meaning itself. 'Existence is not only existence, but also its existence in a certain meaning at all times,' he said. 'Life is an exile. Existence becomes real only in action.'"

“Perhaps only when people realize that this world is a huge nothingness can they realize the meaning of existence; perhaps only when people face death can they understand the truth of life.”

Anna smiled: "Death is the destination of everything, even the destination of time. But death does not eliminate the meaning of existence, just as a tombstone does not disintegrate the meaning of life. What has happened will exist forever."

"When my great-great-grandfather put on his coat and went out to buy the magazine. When my great-grandmother was locked in the cellar and fought for her life until the end, their existence defeated the nothingness of time."

"When she was about to die, in the last second of her life, the significance of her existence was magnified to the extreme."

Miss Elena picked up the champagne glass on the piano.

“The beauty of a flower is that it has withered.”

"President Brown just used Heidegger's words to answer the question of the meaning of the existence of artworks. That's a very good point."

"Then I will also end my speech with the words from Heidegger's Being and Time—"

Anna paused.

She chanted: "We should never let fear or other people's arrangements define the boundaries of our destiny. Perhaps we can never change our destiny, but we can always challenge it. If I can live towards death, acknowledge and face death, I can get rid of the anxiety about death and the triviality of life. Only in this way can I be free and brave to be myself."

The woman held onto the piano and slowly stood up from the piano stool.

“Eventually, people will achieve a poetic habitat.”

"So, let's not drink to me, or to Countess Irene. Let's drink to Frau K. Her courage, her freedom, her life, her death, in every second of the past, in this moment, and in every second of the future."

Miss Elena held the champagne glass and the long and narrow part between the base with her thumb and index finger and raised it high.

"Let us both cherish the past and embrace the future."

"Let us pay tribute to Frau K.."

“The poetry of this kind of life is both noble and free in a way that cannot be clearly expressed.”

The entire dance hall was silent for a moment.

Then thunderous applause broke out.

People kept raising their glasses high and chanting in agreement: "A tribute to Ms. K."

Sir Brown looked a little sad.

He didn't even need to look at the reactions of the people around him. When Anna just said, "Remember the past and embrace the future," he had a feeling that even though it wasn't as disastrous as the European Art Conference, he was pinned to the ground and rubbed by this little girl who, in a sense, he had watched grow up.

"Brown, you know what? If I were you, I wouldn't have run over and started talking nonsense just now."

Someone tapped Jazz on the shoulder.

The chairman turned around with a frown and was stunned for a moment.

He discovered it was Ole Kruger's father, Mr. Christian Kruger.

As the largest single shareholder of Oil Painting Magazine Publishing Group, Kruger Brothers Bank certainly received an invitation to today's dinner.

The chairman thought it would be Ole who came.

Unexpectedly, the person who came was the banker himself.

“That’s not smart.”

Mr. Kruger gently sipped the colorless and transparent drink in his hand. "It's really not smart."

"People should learn to learn from their mistakes. If you lose money on a stock once, it doesn't matter. This is how the industry works. Some people always make money and some people lose money. But if you lose money on the same stock five times, the board of directors will think that either you have a mental problem or you have a short position in that stock and you want to cheat everyone out of their money. No matter which one it is, they will plot to overthrow you."

"Excuse me, being a clown is something you only need to do once, right? Unless you have some special hobby."

The vein in Sir Brown's brow twitched.

It's not that he hasn't experienced Miss Anna's sharp words, but the old man always feels a little unwilling in his heart.

At the European Art Annual Conference, he always felt that it was because they were going to have a joint speech, he spoke first and revealed the speech in advance, which was why Anna caught him and slapped him in the face so embarrassingly.

Sir Brown thought he could make a comeback today.

Anna is so young.

In Sir Brown's impression, she was still almost that doll-like little girl. When did she become the powerful and unfamiliar woman she is today?
"By the way, Brown, you don't really think of yourself as a mustache, do you?"

The banker chuckled.

"Speech-speech has never really been your strong point. This is Miss Anna's strong point."

Lord Brown's face turned livid.

This time, it was not Miss Elena who made him feel extremely embarrassed, but his ally, the banker from Germany.

After the previous incident.

The name of the mustache is like a taboo word to Sir Brown.

No one in the magazine dares to gossip.

And this guy simply took out a knife and stabbed him in the chest over and over again.

Even though they are political allies, Kruger Bank is by far the largest shareholder.

Sir Brown didn't want to be humiliated here.

He rolled up his sleeves and prepared to turn around and leave.

"Hey, don't be mad."

"Some things really depend on talent. This is true for personality charm and physical beauty. In these two aspects, the Elena family has always been first-class. They have been foreign ministers and ball stars in the palace four hundred years ago. You have to admit this."

(End of this chapter)