Almighty painter

Chapter 787 Rebellious Elena

“The reason why Miss Irena was written about in Oil Painting Magazine and remembered by future generations is not because she became the honorable Miss Irena, but because she chose to refuse to become the honorable Miss Irena. In giving up the past, she won a new life.”

——Anna Elena.
-
"Madam Editor, do you know?"

The young man opposite him looked at him with his calm black eyes. "You said that Van Gogh's paintings express a certain correction to the comfortable life. Then I think Carroll's works, her "Old Church in a Thunderstorm", express a certain struggle against the predetermined fate."

“It is a rebellion and contempt for fate.”

Anna's pen left a streak of ink across the paper.

The surrounding noise faded away.

When she is fully immersed in thinking, the voice in her mind that best suits her current mood will gradually become clearer.

She recalled what the young man across the table from her had said to her in the cafe more than a dozen hours earlier.

"She was trapped by a vulgar, mediocre, and boring fate. She was trapped by a predetermined life. She was trapped by the shadow of herself in her mind twenty years later."

“The world is like a giant cage. Maybe it’s a fancy jeweled cage for a canary… but a cage is just a cage.”

“Whether it is a cage or not does not depend on how big it is, or how beautifully it is decorated, but on whether one has the power to choose one’s life. It depends on whether one has the power to walk out of this world.”

"She probably knew that if she didn't do something, she would always be on the path of life that had been set for her."

"If she had compromised with fate, her life would have been forever frozen at this second. She would have died at this second, and the rest of her life would have been a reappearance of her yesterday. Ms. Carroll lived only one day in her life, and she repeated this day thousands of times. Her future self, gray-haired and old, would be waiting for her in the distance."

The young man across the table held up the bone china teacup with both hands.

His brows were downcast.

At this moment, Miss Elena could not see the other person's eyes clearly. The woman could only see him pulling the silk thread of the Lipton black tea bag beside the white teacup with his fingers, and the hot steam caressed his face.

Water vapor is evaporating.

Slightly damp.

Slightly poetic.

Even in her memories, Anna felt that this scene was a bit extravagant.

In the cafe of the most luxurious, historic and Victorian hotel in Singapore and even in Southeast Asia, it is a luxury to be served by waiters in tuxedos and slowly drink a cup of fresh, silky and smooth hand-ground coffee flown in.

And ignore all of this.

In the most luxurious, historic and Victorian-style hotel cafe in Singapore and even in Southeast Asia, it is another luxury to be served by waiters in tuxedos and drink a cup of Lipton black tea bag that costs less than 10 cents.

The former kind of luxury was commonplace in the circle in which Miss Irena lived.

The latter luxury was especially cherished on occasions such as Anna witnessed.

"So - she decided not to compromise." The young man took a sip of tea and said slowly: "I think, based on my personal romantic speculation. She decided to give up her own destiny, she decided to give up this logical life -"

“She decided to give up something in exchange for something else. This painting, “Old Church in a Thunderstorm,” is Ms. Carroll’s answer to the world. The flickering candlelight is her confession to herself and her mockery of fate.”

What he said is really good.

At that time, Miss Anna couldn't help but think in her heart.

Just a few simple sentences completely summarize Grandma Kara's life and describe the struggles, choices and courage she faced vividly.

Perhaps Miss Elena could write something similar when she writes a review article.

No.

She can write in a more technical style.

Anna would write more delicately, more gorgeously, and more exquisitely, just like a skillful craftsman meticulously carving a golden phoenix on an enameled snuff bottle.

But Miss Elena couldn't write so lightly and make it seem like a piece of cake.

She probably couldn't have written... something that fits Ms. K's mood so well.

Anna couldn't help thinking that if the former Ms. K were to choose a sentence to summarize her inner thoughts, she might prefer what the young man said rather than the words that sounded like the golden phoenix.

after all.

The trajectory of Ms. K's life, after all, can be summed up in one sentence: "She actively chose not to be a golden phoenix."

Anna once thought that this sentence was definitely not something Gu Weijing could say.

Some things belong to him once he wears them.

Some things, even if he said them word by word and syllable by syllable, still had nothing to do with him.

So-and-so can just hold a copy of "Conversations with Goethe" in his hand to pretend.

That young man could also wear a shiny gold Rolex watch on his wrist, which was as shiny as a huge weight, just to show off.

but.

But he couldn't say these words lightly.

He doesn't deserve it at all.

In the interview with the middle-aged man, many of Hao Ge's words were obviously malicious, and many of his words were obviously excuses for his own responsibility and to whitewash himself. This is one thing.

But no matter what the starting point is——

Many of the middle-aged man's words are still unquestionable and irrefutable truths, and Anna cannot whitewash the past history of Elena's family.

That's another matter.

They are also two completely separate things.

Hao Ge's starting point is wrong, he is vicious, he is a ghost, but it does not mean that Elena's family is so correct and noble.

It does not mean that she can use flowery words to whitewash her family's past.

Like Anna said… at the end of the day.

None of them was the Virgin Mary. Not her, not Grandma Carla, not her “glorious” Earl ancestor.

This conversation, as well as the reflections during this period, made Miss Elena realize that her attitude towards Gu Weijing yesterday might have been a little too indulgent and frivolous.

Not everyone has to take the initiative to please the Elena family.

Not only that, no one can refuse the price offered by fate.

Goethe, Kara, Gu Weijing, Cao Xuan, Mr. G, Ms. K, "Good Luck Orphanage in the Sun", "Old Church in the Thunderstorm"...

Shining down with the proud glow of the sun.

These names, these stories, these works, their shadows are hazy, blurred, and vague, all intertwined and entangled together, just like willow branches entangled in the wind, falling from the sky in clumps. They seem soft, but they are not boneless wool that can be arranged into various shapes.

Each of their branches and leaves has its own unique vitality.

This made Anna a little confused about who was who and who was who.

Even so.

Miss Elena still had a deep hesitation in her heart.

It doesn't matter if Gu Weijing and Mr. G have some relationship, their shadows are intertwined, or even if they are the same person. He may understand part of Ms. K's life, but can he really understand her completely? Can he really understand what it means to be trapped by fate?

but.

Even so.

But it is enough.

Regardless of whether those were the words Gu Weijing said personally or not, they were very well said and completely hit Anna's heart, making the woman in the wheelchair convinced.

"Ms. Editor, if you only understand Carol as an ordinary rich lady, then you have grasped the part of her life that was given to her, but forgotten the part she fought for. She is not remembered as an ordinary rich lady, and she did not paint this picture as an ordinary rich lady."

In the cafe that night, the young man put the teacup aside and said firmly.
-
At the desk by the river, Miss Anna picked up the teacup and said in a long tone -

"Sir, you have always made a mistake. If you only understand Ms. K as Miss Irena, then you have grasped the part of her life that was given to her, but have forgotten the other part that she had worked hard to gain."

She said quietly: "Ms. K is not remembered as the daughter of an earl. On the contrary, she is forgotten because she is the daughter of an earl."

"Carla, oh, that's Ms. K's name, Carla von Irene. She could have lived a life of luxury, surrounded by wealth, dancing endlessly, holding endless tea parties, and spending money that ordinary people could not earn in their lifetime in every Parisian social season. She could have held a salon banquet at random, and all the famous poets, great painters and playwrights in a city would flock to it."

"But she didn't. She rejected all of that. She didn't compromise with wealth and family."

Anna's tone was smooth and gentle, like the slowly flowing river in the distance outside the window.

Miss Elena did not continue to cite the glorious life stories of artists, philosophers, scholars or emperors throughout history as powerful arguments in the debate.

For her.

This is no longer a heated debate about moral law with the godfather of counterfeiting on the other end of the phone, using words like a sword to poke his head.

She was just telling the story slowly, as if she was answering the words of the young man across the coffee table from her last night, or as if she was following the topic of that person, finishing what the other person had not said because he did not understand Ms. K's life trajectory well enough.

Or maybe.

These two are actually one and the same thing.

Anna's tone softened, not as strong and sharp as she was used to, but by no means weak, but firm in warmth.

Without realizing it, the woman's tone subconsciously became more like Gu Weijing's yesterday.

"Even if Ms. K really likes art, as you said, she wants to "play" with art. She also has almost unlimited choices -"

Anna said slowly: "She can become someone like Madame Pompadour and become the darling of the social world."

"But she didn't."

"She resisted everything fiercely. She walked into the cellar. At that moment, she was no longer Miss Irena. She became Kara, she became Ms. K. She went from being a slave to fate to becoming herself."

"She was forgotten as Miss Irena. She was remembered as Frau K."

“That’s the difference.”

"Carla Eleanor, Nightingale, Mary Xatt, they are not remembered because their last names are Eleanor, Nightingale or Xatt. On the contrary, there are a thousand European noble ladies, girls from the upper world of England or daughters of wealthy American stockbrokers in the world."

“They have all been forgotten.”

"Carla was locked up in the cellar by her family until she died. Nightingale's parents knew that their 'high-ranking' daughter wanted to be a caregiver for the lower class, so she was locked up at home, asked to reflect on her mistakes, and was slapped by her mother. Mary Xart's parents knew that their daughter wanted to be a painter, so they announced that they would sever ties with her."

"She rejected the mediocre life of a rich girl."

“That’s exactly why they are remembered.”

Anna's tone became more and more fluent.

"If you were my great-great-grandfather, the last generation of Count Elena, you would be like him, enjoying the empire's tribute, the ancestral land and estates, the returns from investing in factories and renting family land in the UK to American businessmen, and not caring about it. But you would definitely not denounce Adolf."

"You would not have bravely walked into a concentration camp on March 1938, 3, when Germany annexed Austria. You would have stood on the Imperial Square on the north side of the new Hofburg that day, next to the sculpture of Prince Eugen, who built the Schönbrunn Palace, with your fingers together and your right arm raised 12 degrees, saluting with tens of thousands of crazy Viennese citizens around you and shouting - Hi Hitler."

"You don't have the courage to walk into a concentration camp, and you don't have the determination to fight the devil to the death."

"You will say you have no choice, the whole city is crazy, this is the path that fate has arranged for you. You just made the same choice that many people made."

"Yes, many people did so. Countless former German and Austrian nobles, a full one hundred of whom I can name, took the initiative to move closer to Germany. They hoped to rebuild the old empire with the help of the other side, and make a fortune from the war, accumulating an astonishing amount of blood-stained gold coins. Some of them even fled to South America with huge amounts of wealth after being defeated. This is a huge shame."

"This is the 'normal' choice that a dissolute, ostentatious Earl who knows nothing about the world should make. They have some crazy fantasy and want to take over the world."

"But my grandfather didn't. He stood up at that moment. That was his courage. I'm proud of him for that."

Anna smiled.

"So the old earls were all forgotten. A few of them were not, but that was worse. They were forever nailed to the pillar of shame in history and became the focus of war crimes."

"But my great-great-grandfather didn't. He would rather die than compromise with Adolf for a moment. He was a count for half his life, but at that moment in history, he refused to be a 'count'. He decided to do something and he betrayed the meaning of the name Elena."

“That’s why he is still remembered today.”

"If you were Mr. G, sir, you wouldn't refuse a check for millions of dollars. If you were me, you wouldn't stand in front of Sir Brown. You are now making a fortune with Brown Levinson with peace of mind..."

"No choice, no choice, you always say you have no choice."

Anna raised her head and stared at the telephone receiver on the desk, as if she could see through the timid heart beneath the gentle and smiling face of the middle-aged man on the other end of the phone in an instant.

"You don't have no choice, you're just greedy. I think you're about to die?"

Miss Elena asked.

Chen Shenglin remained silent.

This was the second time in the past month that someone had easily exposed his physical condition.

"People like you always want more and are never satisfied. You can never get enough money, wealth, and women. But only in the face of death can you, an old gangster, suddenly realize what you have given up."

"Life is like a balance. If you want something, you have to give it something in exchange—"

"You don't have the courage to exchange. You think you can get benefits for nothing. You think you can evade responsibility. Then, maybe, you have already sold the most precious thing. Just like in Goethe's "Faust"..."

"The devil Mephistopheles will take whatever he wants from the mortal who signs the contract. He will satisfy some of the other party's ambitions and desires, but all this is not without price. Sir, you will never clear yourself, and you will always know what you have done. You will be terrified about the end of your life."

"It is just like Mephistopheles will arrive at the last moment of the contractor's life as promised, taking away their entire soul from head to toe."

"And for the truly brave, those beasts who can truly laugh at the chips that buy souls and roar at fate with a deafening roar—"

Anna was writing furiously in her notebook.

The golden pen reflects the sunlight outside the window.

The woman's mood is as exciting as the words that flow from her pen.

[Do you want to live a long life? Then you should be pure in heart and desire few things. This way you can avoid all pain, sorrow, all the painstaking struggles and the anguish of failure. However, your life will have no joy, no happiness. Do you want to be happy? Do you have desires? Then fight for it at the cost of your life——]

she asked with a smile.

"A man of true talent is always kind, frank, straightforward, never reserved, and unwavering. For those brave beasts, adversity is not the touchstone of fate."

"I would like to keep such a beast in my heart forever."

Anna asked herself and answered her own questions.

(End of this chapter)