Almighty painter

Chapter 814: The atmosphere improved during the second meeting between Miss Anna and Mr. Gu (Part )

All kinds of thoughts, all kinds of choices. She is Miss Anna Elena, she is Miss Anna and Miss Elena, does she want to be the independent Miss Anna or the "glorious" Miss Elena... These disturbing thoughts are like the metallic trembling bells in the church tower, intertwined in the woman's mind.

Ups and downs.

It rises and falls.

She asked the driver to drive the car along the streets of Singapore.

Looking at the towering CBD office buildings and the store names with colorful signs on the streets and alleys, the sun gradually slants and the street lights gradually light up.

In the last hour before sunset.

The lights are bright.

The sunlight changes like a rainbow.

Singapore in colorful neon lights.

The woman's thoughts were also being steamed and roasted in this pot of thousands of colors, until her whole body was covered with a thin layer of sweat.

She felt like she had fallen into a nightmare, surrounded by thick fog, or like she had just woken up from a nightmare, unable to find the way forward.

When Anna was passing Fleish Square, she saw the Gothic spire of St. Andrew's Church from the car window. Suddenly, she had an idea. She saw the orphanage in Gu Weijing's eyes and wanted to see what the building in front of Grandma Kara, which still retained its original appearance, looked like when she stood in front of the easel.

and so.

She asked the driver to turn here.

Anna sat in the church pew for so long.

All the tourists around had left, and St. Andrew's Church closed its outer doors and ended its opening to the public. There was no evening class today, so apart from the staff and the housekeeper, only the woman was sitting alone on the bench.

However, her mood did not become much relieved by this tranquility.

Not to mention those complicated and weighty decisions, she couldn't make up her mind.

She was constantly struggling with even the smallest matter - Anna felt that she should apologize to the young man.

At the very least, for a man who is willing to spend all his money to help others, no matter how torn his shirt is, it is not a reason for her to look down on him and mock him as a down-and-out little painter.

She understands the truth.

But "I'm really sorry" were only a few words on the tip of her tongue, and Miss Elena couldn't open her mouth.

What Anna should do and what Miss Elena won't do are like a snake with two heads and one body.

The two snake heads were biting each other, and the snake bodies were suffocating her soul.

"I'm guilty."

Anna stared at the flickering candlelight on the candlestick and spoke in her heart like a dream.

I thought about it.

"You should leave here and wait outside with Elliot." Anna said to the housekeeper beside her, "I want to be alone for a while."

The woman actually stood up, leaning on her cane.

The butler hesitated to speak and finally walked out.

Because there was no confessional in the Protestant church, Anna slowly walked towards the stained glass windows of the church.

"Welcome, child. You seem to have something on your mind that you want to say. It's okay. The Lord says, I will give you the keys of the earth—"

The middle-aged priest who had just lit the candles came over at the right time.

"I know this request is a little unusual and a little excessive."

The woman shook her head.

She interrupted the other person and spoke directly.

"But, could you please leave for a moment? I don't want anyone to hear what I'm going to say next."

Miss Elena's arrogant personality was revealed again.

She couldn't say an apology.

She didn't want anyone to hear her confession.

Even if it is a confessor.

"Don't be ashamed, child." The middle-aged priest next to him was silent for a while, then said, "I don't know you, and you don't know me. This is a church, only-"

"You obviously know who I am."

Anna said softly.

Now it is time for the church to close.

If they didn’t recognize her, why didn’t anyone tell Anna that if she was a tourist, the visiting hours were over?

“Clergymen aren’t supposed to lie, are they?” the woman asked.

"I know you are a devout believer. The Lord is for..." The priest's answer was very technical.

"First of all, Protestants do not require a sacred connection with the Lord through religious personnel and sacraments. Only Catholics require it. Secondly, I told someone this morning that I never believed in my heart that I could wash away my sins by saying a few words in the confessional or buying some indulgences. Finally, this is a Protestant church, and you should know who I am. If you knew what my family background was like, you would understand - if I were the devout believer you mentioned, then I should never have set foot here, right?"

The daughter of the Elena family in the traditional sense should not appear in such a place.

Just like traditional members of the British royal family, they rarely appear in Catholic churches unless it is necessary.

For the first time, the pastor felt the power of Anna's sharp comments. He was frozen in place by the question and didn't know how to start.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you."

Anna, a skilled debater, turned her head and looked at the poor middle-aged man's embarrassed face, then waved her hand.

"Sorry, nothing personal. I'm just a little confused right now. This isn't a good time for you to preach to me."

The woman forced a smile.

"Would you please leave for a while? It's better to close the door of the church. I do want to talk, but not to the Lord. I think it is difficult for Him to help me in this situation, and I don't need His help."

The pastor continued to stand there in astonishment.

He knows something about the other party's background.

He was very surprised when he saw her appear here. What surprised the pastor even more was that he had never expected that the other party would say such disrespectful words.

He was stunned for a moment.

The middle-aged priest, who had once thought in his mind, "If I can get along well with the other party, and even attract Countess Elena, I might be able to become the local bishop of the Anglican Church in a few years," shook his head in disappointment.

"I am going to speak to the faithful in the Philippines. Can I have 25 minutes? I will lock the door."

He still took the key from the table, turned around and walked away.

After the door closed.

Anna was pacing in the spacious nave of St. Andrew's Cathedral.

The tip of the thin carbon fiber pull-out cane rested on the ground, making a clattering sound, weaving into a melody about entanglement.

Miss Elena stopped in front of the altar, raised her chin, and looked at the lowered head of the man on the cross.

After a few seconds.

She shook her head slightly and turned back.

Anna walked slowly over and turned off the lights in the church, then put her cane aside.

She walked beside the altar, turned her back to the cross, and faced only the candle burning on the candlestick in front of her. The woman slowly knelt on one knee.

She looked up at the candle in the candlestick.

The ten fingers of her left and right hands were intertwined and clasped together, and her long skirt fell to the ground like a blooming daffodil.

She didn't pray to Heavenly Father, she knelt before these candles.

"Miss Carla von Elena."

"I want to make a serious prayer and confession to you." Anna began.

"I have committed the sins of rage, arrogance, greed, and hypocrisy. I consider myself righteous, but I have fallen into a dilemma in pursuit of my own desires. I criticized Sir Brown for his greed, but I myself was obsessed with the wealth inherited from my family. I claim to be sincere and pious to art, but I cannot face my own mistakes and omissions, and I am swayed by fame... Now I am like being caught in a spider web, attacking left and right, but I can't get out..."

She told Brother Hao.

Being honest with yourself is a very painful process. This self-loathing from the soul is enough to destroy a cowardly person from head to toe.

Not only to Chen Shenglin.

The same goes for Anna herself.

The woman's voice was very soft at first.

She spoke to the ghost of one hundred and fifty years ago through the candlelight, and Anna seemed afraid to face the words she said.

It also seemed that if the voice was louder, Grandma Kara would hear it clearly and would turn away out of shame for her behavior.

Later on, Anna's voice became louder and louder.

She talked about Detective Cat, Oil Painting magazine, the intrigue between herself and Sir Brown, and the pain and entanglement that belonged to her, to Miss Anna and Miss Elena, which could not be shared with others and could not be understood by others.

She told everything.

"I don't know what to do. I don't know what I should do so that I won't regret it, and I don't know what to do to be right..."

over a long period of time.

Western churches all serve as small concert halls to a certain extent.

The church not only has a piano, but also an organ that is integrated into the entire building structure.

Children and elderly choirs will sing hymns here, believers who learn violin as a hobby will hold small concerts here on weekends, and even many religious piano pieces by early Bach and Liszt will be performed in the church.

Large churches have undergone quite professional acoustic design since their construction.

Andrew's Church, a church built by the British in the 19th century, has a typical double-centered vaulted and multi-ribbed architectural structure design. Sound-absorbing materials are used on the ceiling of the church to absorb mid- and low-frequency sounds to enhance the long reverberation of the sound.

The various exquisitely carved round sculptures and high reliefs above the main sacrificial area not only decorate the building, but also, to a certain extent, serve the purpose of evenly scattering sound waves.

……

It comes down to it.

All of these designs are made in the hope that the hymns and sermons in the church will sound rich and sacred.

There are also disadvantages.

This kind of early design will inevitably lead to the phenomenon of sound focusing, just like multiple instruments mixed together, with a strong sense of atmosphere, but it will make the sound unclear and lose its original timbre.

At this moment.

The words Anna spoke to Grandma Kara echoed and merged with the echoes under the vaults of St. Andrew's Church, and then fell back into the woman's ears, becoming strange and unfamiliar.

It also sounds like a ghost that has gone out of tune and has changed its voice.

The sound vibrates.

Candlelight flickers.

The ghost of the candlelight hidden in Miss Elena's heart one hundred and fifty years later and the ghost of Miss Elena one hundred and fifty years ago hidden in the candlelight are having a conversation with each other.

Anna talked and talked.

She was a little tired of talking.

She stood up, took the book "Goethe's Poems" that she had always carried with her and had just placed on the bench, opened the book, and read it to Grandma Kara in the flickering candlelight.

"Isn't the boundless sky covering the earth like clouds and mist passing by, changing endlessly? A slender figure floats in the mist of the blue sky. How gentle and clear, how light and graceful, as if a seraph angel pulls away the thick clouds and reveals her fairy figure..."

The woman recited slowly.

Her delicate voice echoed in the huge church, becoming neutral and having the texture of silk blowing in the wind.

The brilliant and glowing verses and Anna's brilliant and glowing profile were brewing and fermenting in the shadows where the candlelight could not reach.

"what should I do?"

"what should I do?"

Anna said painfully.

"It is so joyful to see her, the most beautiful of the fairies, dancing gracefully. But you also feel that it is a phantom that replaces the real person. All the superficial joy is nothing more than painting on the sand, which is only a brief moment."

Anna chanted to Kara's ghost.

"In that case - if you want to find the answer."

There was a sound coming from far away, like an illusion.

“Please go back to the depths of your heart!”

The ghostly spirit answered with the verses from Mary Springs Elegy:

"Go back to your inner heart! There you will find more. She will transform into endless postures in your heart: one body will transform into many images, thousands of poses, and become more and more lovely."

“The earth is vast, the sky is high and vast. Observe, study and summarize, and the secrets of the world will be revealed step by step.”

By candlelight.

Miss Anna was suddenly stunned.
-
Gu Weijing stood in front of the carved French window of the church, carrying a tabby cat in one hand and Awang's disposable lunch box in the other. Next to him was a big black and white dog biting his trouser leg. He looked like both a cat and a dog.

He was painting in the yard behind the church.

Awang started fighting with a beautiful dog that jumped out from nowhere.

Gu Weijing had finally dealt with the extremely beautiful Springer Spaniel. Words like "take the dog to find its owner" were all soothing words to the other party, just like singing a baby song to put a baby to sleep; the content was not important; what was more important was to make it feel the kindness.

Gu Weijing originally planned to ask the church staff what was going on later.

Who knows.

That dog is very smart.

It was as if the springer spaniel actually understood what he was saying.

It crawled out from its hand, ran forward about ten meters, then sat on the ground, shaking its tail, turning its head and staring at Gu Weijing with its black pupils.

Seeing that Gu Weijing did not respond.

The Springer Spaniel came back and gently bit the corner of Gu Weijing's trousers with its teeth, motioning the young man to follow it.

Gu Weijing had just taken two steps forward.

Two "meows" were heard from behind.

He turned back and picked up the tabby cat. Awang scratched little Gu Zi twice, and little Gu Zi ran to take his midnight snack lunch box.

This is how the family came together and followed August back to find its owner.

(End of this chapter)