Rimbaud's girl

I haven't seen my sister for a whole year. Although Vitaly takes a lot of photos and sends them to her family wherever she goes, the photos are not real people after all. There are no other colors except black and white, and they can't truly reflect a person at all.Only after meeting her did I realize that she had changed a lot this year. She was no longer a girl from the Rimbaud family, but someone else's wife.

"Arthur!" Vitaly ran down the slope cheerfully, and Gabriel shouted after her in a panic, "Slow down!"

Arthur opened his arms happily and hugged her, "I caught you!"

She laughed happily, "I thought you should have arrived yesterday."

"Don't you want to see me too early?"

"What's the matter? If you don't come, I will send Gabriel to America."

He was surprised, "What? I just came here, and you are going to America again?"

Gabriel came over, "Charles wrote and asked me to go to the United States. Vitaly would like to visit the United States, how about you?"

"I wanted to go to America, but I thought I would live in Greece for a few months."

Vitaly said cheerfully: "We are just waiting for you to come. How about this? We can stay for a few more days, and you can see the ancient sites in Athens. I will ask someone to book the boat ticket first, and I will book it—in 10 days. The boat ticket is ready. Let’s go to the United States together. The United States is a new continent, and there must be interesting places.”

"Are you going back to rest, or are you going to hang out with us?" Gabriel shook hands with him.

"Where are you going?"

"Just walk around." Vitaly held her brother's arm affectionately, "I haven't seen you for a long time, tell me quickly, what did mother say about me again? How is Frederick? Isabel What? Oh, did you stop by to see Father?"

Arthur answered patiently one by one, "Mother didn't say anything, she was just like that, you know. Frederick said he knew a nice girl, oh, I've met her, she's really nice, a kind girl. As for Isabelle, she wanted to go to Paris, but she was worried about her mother. She had just been ill, and was just recovering when I left.

Mr. Flaubert was well, and Mrs. Commanville took him to Paris to take care of him.I think it's nice that he's living in Paris, since all his friends are in or around Paris. "

"Tell me about you, how have you been this year? Have you met any cute girls?" He whispered, "Cute boys are fine too."

Arthur couldn't help laughing, "You are really not ashamed, you dare to say such a thing. Fortunately, I am not your husband." He turned his head and looked at Gabriel, "Poor man!"

"What! Isn't this normal? If you can't tell the truth to your sister, then you can't tell the truth to anyone. "

"You're about to be as annoying as your mother. Why don't I ask you, when are you going to have a baby?"

"Oh! You are so annoying! Gabriel is still young, he can't be a father so early."

Gabriel supported his forehead at the side: Listen!

"Did mother ask you to ask me?"

"Hmm. You know her. If you don't have a baby next year, she will worry about your health."

"Well, does she really have nothing else to do? I must write to Frederick and tell him to propose and marry quickly, so that mother won't be thinking about my belly all the time."

Arthur laughed straight, "I thought you would say, you can have a baby quickly."

"I just turned 20."

"It's true, you are still young." He stopped, stood in front of her, looked at her carefully, and squeezed her chin, "I always feel that you are still that 12-year-old girl. It's going to scare me."

The tickets were quickly booked, two first-class cabins, three second-class cabins, two maids, four male servants, and servants to be hired locally.

During the next few days the servants were busy packing their luggage, putting aside what was to be taken away, and what was to be sent back to London.

Vitaly painted more than 20 oil paintings this year, not too many, but not too few, and more than 30 pastel paintings, all of which were sent back to London.A financial matter was arranged, for Vincent's sponsorship to be sent to Theo; an annuity for his mother, a small pocket money for Isabel, and a wedding money for Frederick to be placed with his mother, In case he gets married soon, but she is still in the United States and cannot come back.

I wrote letters to my relatives and friends, plus letters from Gabriel and Arthur, and sent them to England and France a few days before departure.

In the past few days, Arthur has been watching some ancient ruins inside and outside the city of Athens, and he is very touched.

He wrote travel notes in extremely beautiful prose, but no longer wrote poetry.

"Why don't you write poetry anymore?" Gabriel asked puzzled.

"Poetry—is such an emotion, she only belongs to the romance, impulsiveness, and madness of young people." Arthur said with a serious face: "I am no longer an ignorant and arrogant teenager."

Vitaly looked at him in surprise, "Huh? Have you become an old man?"

He was amused all of a sudden, and scratched her waist, "What did you say?"

"Isn't it?" She kept laughing and hid behind Gabriel, "You don't think you are a young man anymore."

He pretended to sigh, "Yes, you are married, which makes me flustered."

She suddenly understood him a little bit: the arrogant boy originally thought that he would be forever young and never die, but he would always grow old and become mature, a completely different growth from what he originally imagined.He has matured and compromised, and he is no longer so sharp, thinking that the whole world will be against him.

This is a regression in terms of creative passion. He lost the mentality of being resentful about everything, and he is no longer a knight fighting against the windmill.

People are creatures of "seeking common ground". If you obey the social rules, you become a "man in a set" and get smoothed out.

What Arthur is afraid of is not getting old, but not insisting on himself.But he changed after all.

The younger sister's marriage is actually a reminder to him that he has really grown up and entered the youth, and he has to shoulder the responsibilities of his brother, which is a responsibility he can't really get rid of.

"Brother——" She was a little sad, maybe what she had done all along was not helping him become the person he really wanted to be, but just the person she wanted him to be.She wanted a reliable brother, a literary genius, someone who could be her reliance, but she asked him, did he want it?

She lowered her eyes, looking gloomy.

"What's wrong with you?" Gabriel asked softly.

"I was thinking, Arthur..."

Arthur looked at her puzzled.

"You may not want to be who you are now, but I want you to go to Paris, I want you to go to college, I want you to find a stable job in the future, I want you to write novels. Maybe you don't want to, maybe you should do it yourself."

Arthur was surprised, "Silly boy, what are you talking about?! Do you think you can force me to go to college if I don't want to?"

She muttered in a low voice, "I never asked you, do you think? Have you ever thought about staying in college until you graduate?"

Even Gabriel couldn't help laughing now, "I see what you mean."

Arthur also laughed, "You are such a fool!" He said kindly: "Your worry is completely unnecessary. If I don't want to go to college, I can't stay in college for four years."

He smiled a little embarrassedly, "I only learned in college that there are many smart people, and I may not be anything. I have to work hard. I can't waste my talent, and I can't waste your painstaking efforts and persistence. You Maybe I don’t understand, but having a diploma gives me a lot more choices, which is of course very good, I’m not so stupid that I don’t even understand this truth.”

Gabriel touched Vitaly's hair, "I understand that you are worried that Arthur will accommodate you and suppress your own nature. But this is what you often call 'growth'."

"Oh! It's so boring!" She thought for a while, "I want to learn to paint and write novels because I like it and I can do well. If I can go to college, I will go to college because I know that knowledge is a kind of power, I understand what I want, no one can influence me, 'IWant', 'INeed', I can work hard towards my goal, no matter how difficult it is, I have to find a way to achieve it. But I'm not sure if you think so."

Arthur said dissatisfiedly: "Do you think I'm a fool? I didn't understand this before, because after all, I didn't have enough experience, and no one told me, Verlaine... He never said that I should think about my future. You That’s right, maybe I sacrificed my ideals at the expense of them, but ideals can change, and my thoughts are different now than when I was 16.”

"What's the difference?"

"If I say that I used to think that other people were stupid, that was the arrogance of a boy in a small town. There are so many geniuses in this world, and I'm nothing. Well, I'm really smart. I'm very smart about my talent. There is awareness, but talent also needs other things to support, otherwise it is all bullshit and empty talk. For example, first I have to eat, right?"

Vitaly leaned over Gabriel's shoulder and kept laughing, "Yes."

"I can't go hungry and pursue my inspiration, I can't die poor and mediocre. I write poetry, and I write it pretty well, better than most guys in the world who call themselves poets, I have reached the top of my ability to write poetry, so I will stop writing poetry when the time is right.

In this way, my poetry will become a short-lived flower, a most wonderful rose, staying in the garden of 'poetry', everyone will see her, and in the future, the history of French poetry, and even the history of world poetry, will be There is no way around me and my work, this is my value, the wealth I bring to this world.I don't need other poems that are not beautiful enough to tarnish my masterpiece. What I leave to my descendants is a beautiful poem that can't delete a single word. My giving up is not giving up, but a better kind of 'creation', can you Understand? "

Vitaly and Gabriel both nodded.

"I'm rightly aware of my work, but if anyone - other than you - thinks I'm something, I'll laugh at their ignorance!"

Vitaly pursed her lips and smiled: After all, he still has a little inferiority complex, but it is hidden in that arrogance, which makes it hard to see through.Wilde probably didn't have this kind of inferiority complex. Wilde's pride was based on a good family background and a good life, so he would look down on Arthur and most of the world.

But she is Arthur's sister, so she must look down on Wilde!Nor did he care if he "considered" Arthur.