Almighty painter

Chapter 815: The atmosphere improved during the second meeting between Miss Anna and Gu Weijing (Part )

Auguste rushed through the church's doorways.

Finally, he stopped in front of a closed side door leading to the main hall of the building.

It stretched out its white paw with black markings and knocked on the door twice, then stood up on its hind legs, slapped the door panel, and tried to turn the door lock.

Gu Weijing watched this scene with great interest.

He had heard that dogs could be trained to open doors.

And my own Awang can also open the door.

The tabby cat would jump up at regular intervals every day, use his weight to push the doorknob open, and go to the riverbank outside to majestically patrol his territory, and then sneak back on time when it was time for dinner. When he found that the canned food was gone, he would sneak into the house and beat up Old Man Gu... Anyway, he was so smart!
Gu Weijing was a little worried. He lived in a high-rise hotel. When he was not in the room, Awang played around and opened the window, and fell out of the window of the Mirochor Hotel. Later, he arranged pet care for him at the front desk.

but.

The old-fashioned door handles of the churches here are all circular rotating type, not lever-pressed type.

No matter how smart animals are, the structure of their claws is objectively different from that of human fingers, so it is a little troublesome to open them.

of course.

No matter how complicated the door is, Awang can open it.

The tabby cat squinted its eyes and looked at the dog jumping up and down in front of the door in a hurry. It admired the dog's silly posture enough, then called out "meow", and instead of jumping down to scratch the door, it scratched little Gu Zi's chest.

"I'll come, I'll come."

Xiao Guzi stepped forward and tried to help August open the side door.

Awang looked at the silly big dog next to him who was sticking out his tongue to cool down.

Scientific research proves it.

The difference between higher animals and lower animals is that higher animals can use tools.

Do you understand, silly?

"Tool" Xiao Guzi turned around the door twice, but embarrassingly... he couldn't open it either.

"Eh, is it locked with a key?"

He remembers.

A few hours ago, when he proposed to collect materials here, he saw the identity cards of the painters participating in the Singapore Biennale. The staff was very easy to talk to. They took Gu Weijing for a stroll in the church yard and found a secluded spot with a suitable angle.

At that time, they came out of the main hall through this side door.

Gu Weijing now found that the door handle could not be turned and the spring of the lock core could not be pressed.

Do not know why.

This door was locked on purpose.

"Is it time for the church to close today? Or is there any special ceremony or activity?" Gu Weijing stood in front of the door for a moment. All the lights inside were turned off, and there was no light coming through the crack in the door. However, there were faint sounds coming from the darkness, hazy and echoing, like a ghost humming and singing.

No joke.

The first thing that came to Gu Weijing's mind was classic scenes such as "Midnight Song", "Twilight Ghost Walk", and "The Phantom of the Opera".

He also saw the war memorial over there.

It is said that decades ago.

In the early days of the war, this place was used as an emergency hospital to save the dying and the wounded. After the fall of Singapore, according to rumors on the Internet, it was used as a temporary concentration camp by the Japanese devils, and many people died. Even now, in some places such as the basement, there are still prayers "God save us" or curses against the Japanese army carved by Allied prisoners of war.

According to the common style of horror movies, this is really creepy.

The dog next to him seemed very brave.

It heard the noise in the house and seemed to become even more excited.

The Springer Spaniel licked his nose with his pink tongue, turned in a circle, and wagged his tail rapidly.

Follow Me!

It turned around and ran towards another fork in the road.

Gu Weijing followed August for another minute or two before stopping outside a tall arched stained glass window.

"Is your master here?"

he asked.

The dog sat there again, not saying anything.

Gu Weijing listened carefully.

The wind brought the ghost's plaintive singing out through the gap in the window. The speaker was not far behind the window. The distance between them was not far, so it could be heard more clearly here than behind the door.

The other person's voice is very special.

Delicate yet thick.

Somewhat familiar, but more strange.

Gu Weijing thought seriously about whether he had heard this voice somewhere before, but it didn't match the impression in his mind.

The reason why the young man was listening to the other person's voice in a trance was because, what the woman in the church said... Unfortunately, he was completely confused.

Anna confessed and prayed to her great-grandmother, who naturally spoke her native language. The official language of Austria has always been German.

Gu Weijing can speak French.

When he took a minor language course at Fitz International School, he found German too difficult. He couldn't understand it, couldn't understand it, couldn't understand it!
"At midnight on April 1955, 4, the great scientist who had fallen into a coma suddenly struggled to wake up and uttered a few words with difficulty. The nurses and doctors nearby found paper and pen to record Mr. Einstein's last words. Unfortunately, none of the American nurses and doctors on night duty at Princeton Medical School could understand German. So...humanity just missed out on the secret thoughts confided by Albert Einstein."

——"Princeton Medical School Records"
-
"Hmm? Have you found the master? Or you can just wait here and I'll go back first?"

He bent down and stroked the springer spaniel's huge head.

Gu Weijing had just taken two steps when the dog chased him, opened its mouth wide, bit his trouser leg, and pulled him back.

He took two steps before the springer spaniel took him back.

"What on earth do you want me to do?"

Gu Weijing reached out and scratched the dog's big ears and asked with a wry smile.

August raised his nose, sniffed the air twice, looked toward the colorful arched window above, and hummed softly.

"Wang."

Gu Weijing was helpless.

He had no choice but to stand there with the dog, looking up at the colorful carved arched windows above.

This kind of stained glass windows in old churches mainly serve a decorative function and are created to provide spiritual comfort and meet aesthetic needs.

very beautiful.

At sunset, the warm sunlight shines everywhere, making it bright and beautiful.

Each window taken individually is a good work of art, but not necessarily a good window.

The practice of inlaying translucent colored glass on windows is to enhance its aesthetic function as a work of art and religious work at the expense of weakening its "original function" as a window.

The windows have frames that are high up to the ground.

There was no light on inside.

Due to the limited angle, when Gu Weijing looked into the window from his position, he could not see anything clearly except the swaying shadows cast by the flickering candlelight on the wall.

Fortunately.

He realized that there was indeed a young woman in the church who was telling something to herself, and not a ghost floating in the darkness.

"You're just going to keep me waiting like this?"

Gu Weijing looked at the dog at his feet.

The dog sat beside him like a sculpture, looking as if he could do whatever he wanted as long as he didn't leave.

The young man stood for a moment outside the stained-glass window.

He thought the scene was a bit silly.

This silliness, combined with the artist's romantic imagination, becomes a bit of a strange fairy tale temperament - like the fairy tale of "Rapunzel" written by the German writers the Grimm brothers.

A young woman with magical hair is imprisoned in a Gothic tower by a witch.

Singing wonderful songs every day.

Only when the mysterious code of "connection" is matched, the colorful carved glass window will suddenly open, and the woman will let her hair down to allow the outsider to climb in.

Gu Weijing was in a stalemate with August.

Suddenly.

The voice in the church changed, but it was still the young woman's voice.

She began to recite in English.

The young man listened attentively.

From Goethe's "Marie Spa Elegy".

He had heard Mr. Sloth mention this poem before, and he had just read it over and over again in the hotel yesterday. "What should I do?"

"what should I do?"

"what should I do?"

Gu Weijing heard the mysterious man in the church suddenly ask.

Her tone was hesitant and full of pain that was difficult to express to others and difficult for others to understand.

There is no reason.

The moment he heard the other party's voice, Gu Weijing realized all this.

Some people wail as they struggle.

When some people are in pain, they seem not to feel any pain, as if they are a ghost, talking to themselves in a cold and lonely voice.

The sound was like a dull blade cutting through the scarlet brocade, not a deafening roar, only thin strands of thread floating out from the broken ends.

Floating threads.

A thin stream of blood.

Gu Weijing also went through a painful decision before deciding to go to Xihe Guild Hall.

He knew very well what that feeling was like.

When he burned the check that Uncle Sakai gave him in the alley next to his house.

Gu Weijing appeared calm on the surface.

His heart seemed to be strangled by a python with two heads. It was so tight that he couldn't breathe. In such a big world, he was torn between two choices and felt slowly suffocating.

At that time, Gu Weijing knew that there were many ways to handle this matter.

He could ask the Sakai family for help.

He guessed Hao Ge's identity, but he pretended not to know and asked Chen Shenglin for help, and continued to play the game of good guy and bad guy with him.

Even even.

Gu Weijing could also directly agree to Brother Hao's request without saying what to do in the future. The other party's intention at the time was at most just to buy one of his paintings.

Any choice seemed to allow him to continue living happily and have a good family.

Gu Weijing understood that this would not be the end of the problem, it would only make him get deeper and deeper into the entanglement with Brother Hao.

until one day.

He no longer had the courage to refuse Brother Hao's request.

All the endings and happiness he thought of were just paintings on the sand, and they could only exist for a very short time like bubbles in the sun.

Gu Weijing heard the person in the window continue to recite: "Seeing her - the best among the fairies, dancing gracefully, how joyful. But you also feel the phantom that replaces the real person. All the superficial joy is nothing more than painting on the sand, which is only a brief moment."

He took a deep breath and answered subconsciously.

"If you want to know how to do it, go back to your inner self! There you will find more——"

The sound of hymns in the church suddenly stopped.

After Gu Weijing finished speaking, he secretly regretted his rashness.

I just happened to hear this poem.

But the emotion contained in that voice touched me.

It was as if he had rehearsed the question and answer just now thousands of times in private. He blurted it out without any thought.

Come back to your senses.

Only then did Gu Weijing realize how impulsive he was.

He had no idea of ​​the situation, and he had no idea who the mysterious person beside the candlelight in the church was.

The staff had good intentions in allowing him to collect folk songs here, and his rude intervention might have interrupted the religious ceremony of the church.

Gu Weijing listened carefully.

The church was silent and desolate, as if there were only vague ghosts in the candlelight.
-
There was silence outside the church as well.

Anna listened carefully.

It was silent and lonely, as if the one who had just answered her was really just a vague ghost in the candlelight.

There was silence for half a minute, silence confronting silence.

"Eavesdropping on other people's conversations is not a good and polite habit."

In the end, it was the woman who spoke first, but she did not ask the other party's identity, and she hit Anna on the head.

"You also know Goethe's 'Marie Springs Elegy'?"

Seeing that the other party answered well, Miss Elena did not get angry, but asked the ghost outside the window in English.

"Of course, I know that Zweig devoted a chapter of his When the Stars Shine to it—"

Gu Weijing said what Mr. Sloth had told him. His voice was carried by the wind, passing through the church's powdered exterior wall and into the narrow air gaps between the colorful carved windows, becoming thin and neutral.

"——This is the most important masterpiece in Goethe's life. And when I was most troubled in my life, it was Goethe's poetry that gave me strength."

He answered the ghost in the window in English.

"Oh?"

The young woman beside the candlelight said "Oh" softly, as if she was alert to his words. "Is that so? This is a poem about love. What kind of strength can you find from the failed love between a 74-year-old poet and a 19-year-old girl?"

"Choice and Fire."

Gu Weijing said.

"This is not only a poem about failed love, but also a poem about choice. It is about choice and giving up, love and not love, passion and restraint."

"Goethe loved the use of words and images related to fire, sunlight, and heat in his poems. I initially thought of this poem as a kind of elegy for a failed love affair."

"now what?"

Anna half-knelt beside the candlelight, talking to the mysterious man outside the window behind her.

She had only said it casually.

The other party's words slowly attracted her attention.

"Now—"

Holding Awang is a strenuous job.

Gu Weijing was worried that if he put Awang on the ground, it would start fighting with the big black and white dog again.

He simply turned around, leaned his back against the church wall, and spoke softly.

"Later, I gradually understood more. For Goethe, this poem was a kind of self-sacrificial creation."

"A self-sacrificial creation?"

Anna chewed on the word.

She imagined Carroll's painting "Old Church in a Thunderstorm" in her mind.

"Yes, I think in Goethe's mind, love is a transformation of energy. It can transform passion into a kind of growth instinct—"

The voices of young men and young women echoed back and forth through the carved stained glass windows on the walls.

one person said.

One person listens.

One person listens.

one person said.

Like friends for many years.

They didn't ask each other where they came from, they just talked about Goethe, art and poetry.

The atmosphere is good.

Neither Anna nor Gu Weijing realized that before today, they had met each other countless times through voice in this way.

There are countless people in the world, and we meet countless times every day and every hour.

But this is a special way of meeting that only Detective Cat and Mr. Sloth can have.

Not face to face.

It is voice to voice, without the interference of facial features, one soul meets directly with another soul.

Under the sunset.

Gu Weijing leaned against the wall and said a lot of things, but he only said one spell that knocked on the heart -

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, open sesame!"

(End of this chapter)