The 128 most classic philosophical essays in the world

Chapter 64 The Genius Dream

[China] Eileen Chang

Life is a gorgeous robe, covered with fleas.

I was an eccentric girl who was regarded as a genius from an early age and had no purpose in life other than to develop my genius.However, when the childhood fantasies gradually faded, I found that I had nothing but the dream of a genius—all but the eccentric shortcomings of a genius.The world forgives Wagner for his madness, but they will not forgive me.

With a little American publicity, maybe I'll be hailed as a child prodigy.When I was three years old, I could recite Tang poetry.I still remember standing unsteadily in front of the rattan chair of a Manchu Qing old man, reciting "The merchant girl doesn't know the hatred of subjugation, she still sings flowers in the backyard across the river", watching his tears roll down.I wrote my first novel, A Family Tragedy, when I was seven.When encountering characters with complex strokes, I often go to ask the cook how to write them.The second novel is about a girl who breaks up in love and commits suicide.My mother criticized: If she wanted to commit suicide, she would never take the train from Shanghai to West Lake to drown herself, but because of the poetic background of West Lake, I finally stubbornly kept this point.

The only extracurricular readings I have are "Journey to the West" and a few fairy tales, but my mind is not bound by them.When I was eight years old, I tried a utopian novel titled "Happy Village".The people of Happy Village are a militant plateau nation. Because of their meritorious service in overcoming the Miao people, they were granted tax exemption and autonomy by the Chinese emperor.Therefore, Happy Village is a big family isolated from the outside world, farming and weaving by itself, preserving the lively culture of the tribal era.

I purposely sewed together half a dozen exercise-books in anticipation of a masterpiece, but I soon lost interest in this great subject.Now I still keep many frames of illustrations I drew, introducing the services, architecture, and interior decoration of this ideal society, including libraries, "martial arts halls", chocolate shops, and roof gardens.The public dining room is a pavilion in the lotus pond.I don't remember if there were cinemas or socialism there - they seemed to be doing fine even though they lacked both.

At the age of nine, I hesitated whether to choose music or art as my life's career.After watching a video about a poor painter, I cried a lot and decided to become a pianist and play in magnificent concert halls.

I am extremely sensitive to colors, notes, and words.When I play the piano, I imagine that the eight notes have different personalities, wearing bright clothes and dancing hand in hand.I learn to write articles, and I like to use words with strong colors and sonorous rhymes, such as "pearl gray", "twilight", "wanmiao", "splendour" splendid, brilliant, magnificent, "melancholy" melancholy, melancholy, so I often make mistakes. Stacking problems.Until now, I still love to read "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" and tacky Parisian fashion reports, just because of this attractive word.

In school I get free development.My self-confidence grew stronger and stronger, until when I was 16, my mother returned from France to study her long-lost daughter.

"I repent of having carefully nursed your typhoid," she told me. "I'd rather see you dead than live and make yourself miserable everywhere."

I found out that I can't peel apples.I learned how to mend socks after hard work.I dreaded going to the barbershop, dreading meeting customers, dreading trying on clothes for a tailor.Many people have tried to teach me how to knit, but none of them succeeded.I have lived in one room for two years, and I am still at a loss when asked where the electric bell is.I took a rickshaw to the hospital every day to get an injection. For three consecutive months, I still didn't know the way.All in all, in the real society, I am equal to a waste.

My mother gave me two years to learn to adapt.She taught me how to cook; use soap powder to do laundry; practice walking posture; look at people's eyes; remember to draw the curtains after lighting; study facial expressions in the mirror;

I am astonishingly stupid when it comes to common sense in dealing with people.My two-year plan was a failed experiment.Apart from throwing my mind off balance, my mother's sombre warnings did nothing to me.

There is a part of the art of living that I am not incapable of understanding.I know how to watch "Beautiful Clouds in July", listen to the Scottish soldiers playing bagpipebagpipe, enjoy the wicker chairs in the breeze, eat salted peanuts, appreciate the neon lights on rainy nights, and reach out from the double-decker bus to pick the green leaves on the top of the trees.I am filled with the joy of life when there is no human interaction.But I can't overcome this gnawing little trouble for a day, life is a gorgeous robe, full of fleas.

Heart mark notes
Zhang Ailing's pen is like a golden needle, seemingly casually depicting dragons and embroidered phoenixes, but actually pierces every word in the hearts of readers.Using "robe" and "lice" as metaphors, she declared prophetically that she has literary talent but is a failure in real life.Because genius put on a gorgeous robe for her, but life mischievously covered the seams and lining of the robe, full of lice, which disgusted and annoyed her.

In this seemingly casual description, Zhang Ailing revealed the true meaning of life.Suffering and joy, beauty and sorrow coexist forever in life, and what cannot be rejected is the pain of life, but perhaps because of this, the joy of life appears so rich and profound.Everyone will have their own dreams, but there is often a certain gap between dreams and reality, not afraid of pain, not afraid of depression, with a kind of pursuit of dreams and perseverance in life, everyone can still live a good life.

(End of this chapter)