love education

Chapter 40 May (4)
With this in mind, he stayed up until the next morning.It was a clear morning with colorful clouds in the sky. The ship arrived in the city of Roserio, which is located on the banks of the Paraná River, where hundreds of ships from various countries were docked in the port, with colorful flags on board. Reflected in the undulating water.Not long after landing, he took his own baggage and went to find a local gentleman introduced to him by the Boca gentleman. He also gave him a business card and asked him to send a few words.When he first arrived in Roserio, the city seemed very familiar to Mark. There were also many straight, endless streets lined with small white houses on both sides. The tangle of telegraph and telephone wires tangled in great tangles looked like a giant spider's web.The street was full of people, horses and vehicles, and his mind began to become confused. At one point, he even thought that he was back in Buenos Aires, and he was going to start looking for his father's cousin again. After wandering the streets for over an hour, round and round every turn, he always seemed to return to the same street.After many inquiries, I finally found the gentleman's residence.The doorbell was rang, and the door was answered by a large, thin-haired man, rude as a farmer, who asked Marco in clumsy, foreign-accented words:
"What do you want to do?" Marco couldn't understand what he said, so he took out the business card.

The man took a look and said, "The master has already left home. He went to Buenos Aires yesterday afternoon, and his whole family went together."

Marco stood at the door blankly, unable to say a word.After being stunned for a while, he stammered, "But, I don't know anyone here, and I'm the only one!"

The man looked at the business card again, and replied rudely to the boy, "I don't know what to do for you. When he comes back, I will give him the business card, but that will be in a month's time." .”

"But I'm all alone here and I need help," the boy said in a tone almost pleading. "Stop doing this," the concierge continued, "it seems that you are the only one who came to Roserio from Italy, continue to do your old job in Italy, and go begging on the street!" He said in front of Marco He closed the door roughly.Marco stood there dumbly, as if turned into a stone.After a while, he slowly picked up his burden from the ground, his heart was tormented by the suffering and pain, and his mind was even more chaotic, and he didn't know how many worrying things came to his mind at the moment. What should he do?Where can he go?It would take a day to travel by train from Roserio to Cordova, and he only had a few lire in total.

After deducting the money he will spend today, he finds that there is not much left on his body, and where will he get money to support himself?He can work, but how can he find a job?To whom should he apply for a job?or begging?Oh, no, he doesn't want to enjoy the feeling of being rejected and humiliated, just like what he suffered just now, no, never, he doesn't want to experience that again, he would rather die than die.Thinking of this, he looked at the long street that stretched all the way to the Great Plains, and felt that courage abandoned him again at this moment.He threw the bundle on the pavement and sat down with his back against the wall, cupping his face in his hands in the gesture of a man who has lost all hope.When people passed by him, they kept bumping into him with their feet, and the vehicles made the whole road noisy. Several children stopped and looked at him curiously, while he just sat like this, letting the time go by slowly. elapsed.Suddenly he raised his head startled by a voice, a mixture of Italian and Lombard, which asked him:

"Son, what's wrong with you?" Hearing this, the child raised his head, almost jumping up in surprise:

"Are you here?!" This is the old man Marco met during the voyage.The astonishment in the old man's heart was not much less than his.However, before the old man asked him, Marco couldn't wait to tell the old man about his situation, "Now I don't even have a copper coin, I have to find a job, give me some work, so I can save a few lire, I can do everything, I can take out the garbage, I can sweep the streets, I can run errands for people, or work in the country, I can just eat black bread. But, It must be as soon as possible, so that I can go to my mother, please help me with kindness, help me find some work, for God's sake, this is all I can do!"

"Okay, okay!" said the old man, while scratching his chin, while looking around him.

"You've been through a lot! Well, let's find something to do! Now that we're talking about it, let's look around. There are so many compatriots here, can't we find thirty lire?"

Marco looked at the old man, and a glimmer of hope emerged in his heart, "Come with me," the old man said, "Where are you going?" The boy asked while packing his luggage.

"Come with me!" The old man led the way, and Marco followed behind him. They walked through a very long street together without speaking a word.Finally, the old man stopped at the door of a small hotel. A star was drawn on the door plate, and five words "Star of Italy" were written below it.The old man put his head through the door, then turned to the boy and said cheerfully:

"It's right for us to come here at this time!" They walked into a hall, where there were a lot of tables, and many people sat around the tables drinking and chatting loudly.The old man walked to the first table, and judging from the way he greeted the six people at that table, it was obvious that he was still sitting with these people just now, and those people's faces were flushed, and they were toasting and drinking. Talking and laughing loudly.

"Guys," said the old man of Lombardy, standing at the table and introducing Marco to the six, "this is a poor boy, an Italian who trekked all the way from Genoa to Buenos Aires He came to see his mother, but he was told that her mother was no longer there, and that she had moved to Cordova. He could not help it, and he came to Roserio in a small wooden boat, and spent three days on the road. For four days and nights, he brought a letter of recommendation from a well-meaning person. Unexpectedly, when he handed someone his business card, the other party insulted him. Now he doesn’t even have a copper coin. He is very miserable and almost desperate. A good hearted kid, I can see that, can we chip in some money so we can buy him a ticket to Cordova to see his mother, we can't just leave him here like this Beg like a dog!"

"Damn it, this will never happen, don't you say that!" they shouted together, banging their fists on the table, "This is our compatriot, come here, little fellow , we immigrated here, oh, look, what a beautiful little bum! Haha, get your coppers out, fellas! You're awesome, all alone in America , how brave you are, come and have a sip of wine, we will send you to your mother right away, don't be afraid!"

Those people touched his little face for a while, patted him on the shoulder for a while, and someone helped him take off the burden, and other Italians also gathered around from the table next to him. Suddenly, the boy's story began Word spread throughout the inn, and three more Argentines came out of the next room.In less than 10 minutes, the Lombard old man collected 42 lire in his hat. "Did you see?" The old man turned to Marco and said, "How efficient are Americans?"

"Drink!" another man called to him, handing him a glass of wine, "For your mother's health, cheers!" Everyone raised their glasses, and Marco also said, "For my mother's... " However, he was so grateful that he couldn't speak, he put the wine glass on the table, and hugged the old man's neck tightly.

At dawn the next day, the boy set off for Cordova, and he was so happy, with a smile on his face, and his heart was filled with a happy premonition.However, no matter how good the mood is in the face of the dangerous environment in nature, it will no longer be so high.Today's weather is dreary and gloomy, and there are almost no people on the train. The car is speeding on the vast plain, and the whole plain is deserted.Marco found himself alone in a long carriage, like a train for wounded and sick soldiers.He looked to the right of the train, and then to the left of the train, and he could see nothing but a boundless desolation, only a few weak, deformed young trees dotted here and there, the trunks and branches of which were all dead Distorted, the tree looks like Ma Ke has never seen before, it seems that those trees are full of resentment and anger.There are also some sparse and decaying plants on the ground, making this great plain look like a deserted cemetery.

He took a nap for half an hour, then continued to observe, the scenery outside still remained unchanged.The train station seems to have been abandoned, like a hermit's residence, and when the train stops, there is no sound at all.From Marco's point of view, he seems to have been abandoned alone on this lost train, and this train is driving aimlessly in this vast wasteland.He seemed to feel that every train station would be the last, and that his destination might be some uncultivated wilderness.The icy cold wind came in gusts, biting his cheek bit by bit.From the moment he came on deck in Genoa, in late April, he hadn't imagined that he would experience a winter in America, and he was still wearing a summer suit.After a few hours, he began to be unable to resist the cold all over his body. In addition to the low temperature, the physical fatigue he experienced these days, coupled with the lack of enough sleep, he could never sleep soundly. Oh, and all this made his mood go up and down.However, he finally fell asleep, and slept for a long time, after all, he was too tired.

When he woke up, his whole body was numb and cold, no different from a dead person.A vague fear seized his heart, he worried that he would fall ill and die on the journey, he even worried that he would be thrown out of the car and thrown on this desolate prairie, If so, his body would soon be torn to pieces by the predatory dogs and birds and beasts, just as he had seen the corpses of horses and cattle now and then on his way.Fear in his heart made him look away from those bleak scenes.Anxiety about the disease and fear of the dead silence around him, his imagination became active, and he easily looked at the things around him pessimistically.There was a fierce struggle in his heart: can I really find my mother in Cordova?What if she doesn't get there?What if that gentleman from the Rue des Arts of Vila de Rose got it wrong?What if the mother has died of illness now?Thinking of this, he fell asleep again, and dreamed that he had reached Cordova, and it was night, and all the people were calling to him from their doors or windows:
"She's not here! She's not here! She's not here!" This made him wake up again, and he looked up to see three bearded men sitting at the end of the car, wearing scarves of various colors .The three men were staring at him, muttering something quietly.Marco suddenly began to suspect that they were robbers, worried that they wanted to kill him and grab his baggage.The disease had made his sanity less clear, and the cold was bothering him all the time, and now with fear, the boy's already restless imagination was now even more distorted and deformed.However, those three people continued to stare at him.At this time, one of the men came towards him, so Marco completely lost his mind, and he rushed to the man, with his arms outstretched, screaming:

"I have nothing, I'm just a poor boy, I came from Italy to find my mother, I just came here alone, please don't hurt me!"

The three people froze for a moment. They understood the fear in the child's eyes and began to sympathize with him.They stroked Marco's head to comfort him, and told him things he had never heard or understood before.They noticed that the boy's teeth were chattering with cold, so one of them took off his scarf and wrapped it around the boy, sat him down again, so that he could sleep peacefully and warmly, and he did sleep again. caught.When the next day dawned, the men shook him awake and told him that he had reached Cordova.Marco breathed a sigh of relief and jumped off the train anxiously. He asked a train station employee where the engineer McGinnie's home was.The man mentioned the name of a church near which the engineer's house lived.Excited, Marco hurried to the city.

It was midnight now, and he went into the city, and the place looked like Roserio again, and he saw those straight streets again, and those little white houses.The houses were divided by long, straight roads.There were few pedestrians on the road, and under the light of those few street lights, he met some strange-looking people with bluish skin.From time to time, he raised his head and looked forward, and a church with a strange shape came into his eyes. The church was tall and majestic, with sharp spires piercing the night sky.The city was dark and silent, yet it looked so alive after traveling across the vast plains.Marco asked a priest for the specific address of McGinnie's house, and rushed to the house from the church without stopping.He rang the doorbell tremblingly with one hand, while pressing the other on his chest to keep his excited heart from beating out, which he had already felt in his throat.An old woman with a lamp opened the door for him.Marco was speechless for a moment.

"Who do you want?" the woman asked in Spanish. "I'm looking for Engineer McKinney," Marco replied.The old woman folded her hands on her chest, shook her head and said to the boy:

"So, you have something to talk to Engineer McGinnie. I think we should stop these nonsense. We have been annoyed for three months. It seems that just relying on newspapers to talk about this is not enough. We It has to be posted and hung on the corner of the street to tell everyone that Mr. McKinney has moved to Turkmenistan."

(End of this chapter)