Blade and Poetry

The New Year passed quickly.I finished a thick manuscript in March and then put up an open interview poster in our literature class.A brief plot synopsis is illustrated on the poster, and a long list of characters is listed below.If you come to audition for the main role, you have to memorize a large number of extra lines in advance.

They gathered around the poster to sign after class, and at the same time expressed sympathy for my innocent disaster.

Karajan, who was last in line, asked me, "You didn't give yourself any roles?"

"A lot of roles, actually; I suspect there are quite a few extras that would go unused," I said. "If the circus doesn't have enough extras, I can play a part or two."

We set the interview time for the male and female protagonists on a weekend morning, and rented a well-lit classroom as the interview location.There are mirrors on three sides of the room, and Karajan and I sit against the wall and act as interviewers.I invited a female student from the next class to help the interviewer check the lines, but she had to leave midway, so it was the two of us who sat in the room the longest.

"What do you think of the performance of the previous one?" Karajan asked me during the handover.

"Unqualified for Eugene. Frivolous enough, but overdone and slick and cunning. I think it's more like the Puccini who seduced Eugene into falling."

"Correctly hit." Karajan drew a circle on the list.

The next one who pushed the door and came in was Xiaohuaniao.There are two Eugene selections available for audition: one is when his sponsor is dying of illness, and the warning to Eugene makes him repent; the other is that Eugene assassinates the club owner for Alma first , and fled to her hometown with her, and confide in her.Xiaohuaniao chose the latter, which is not too unexpected.

It's a long monologue, so there's no need for a co-star.Francisco looked at a point in the void, coughed lightly, and spoke slowly.

"If you're going to turn your back on me, I won't say anything. I'm alone now, and I'm nothing. No more 'club member,' no more 'nephew of the Baron,' and even to run away, I can't be the 'Squire's successor'. I cut off their money, they probably want me to die, and they probably don't want me to pursue my sweetheart in peace - I know, this should take a long time. I know , I know." He squeezed out an ugly, but full of joyful smile. "In short, it shouldn't be like it is now, sloppy, and extremely reckless. I am standing here so stupidly, more like that fool who stepped into the capital with his head full of eagerness and vanity. My feet are still covered with mud , my shirt is wrinkled from running around, and I am still talking nonsense when I look at you, too hasty."

He let go of his grip on the hem of his clothes, and the blond hair swayed to our side with the movement of his body.

"But even on the roughest nights, when my half-dreams were most hazy, I never questioned the choices I made; it was very good. It tied me down the same road as you. If I see the shadow of death passing before my eyes, and I'll feel sweet in that moment, for its blade is icing with the icing of old days. If I know you don't need me anymore, I'll stretch my neck in reassurance, Wait for it to strike, sooner or later. Do I have nothing? Maybe almost. I am so ashamed to say: The only thing I can give you right now - come, you can put your hand here and hang down On my chest—can you feel it throbbing in my chest? That's all I have to give you."

His knees hit the ground and he half knelt in that direction.His head was still thrown up, as if the light from there lit up his eyes.

The whole room was silent for a moment, Karajan and I applauded.

"Impressive, Mr. Francisco."

"Emotional, brilliant—er, unexpected." I winked at him. "You can go to the next step. Wait for us to pick a short line for you on the spot."

In fact, this performance of Little Flower and Bird fulfilled all my ideas about Eugene.If nothing else, I've identified him as the protagonist.

Karajan pushed a note over.I glanced over and realized it was something Eugene had said to Alma after spending a few days with her on the way into town.

The Eugene on the note is completely different from the one Xiaohuaniao chose now.He is ignorant of world affairs and vacillating, but he has the high-spirited and shining self-confidence that is unique to young people, which needs to be interpreted in a completely different way.

"Since our assistant left unexpectedly, you unfortunately lost a girl who could play with you." I stood up from my chair, "But to be fair, you still have me, so it's not too bad."

I walked up to him, handed him a note, and briefly explained the background to him.

He stared at the note for a long time, repeatedly flying questioning eyes towards me halfway through.

I waited for a while and said, "Is it okay?"

His cheeks were tightened, and he nodded slowly.I offer him my hand—the scene calls for Eugene to tug on Alma's sleeve.

He stared at me for a long time, wrinkled his face, as if he was struggling to prepare, and finally got on the right track after a long while:

"Say it! Say you love me. Say—"

Before he could finish his lines, he was interrupted by his own laughter.He covered his face with his palm and laughed non-stop, and stumbled back to the side of the mirror.

"I'm sorry, Vicente, can you change your face, I really—"

"Be serious, Mr. Francisco, first meeting." I said to him.

He yelled: "Vicente, you can't hurt me!"

Or Karajan came to the rescue.He pointed to the open window kindly, and said to the little flower and bird: "You can try that curtain."

So the scene changed to the little flower and bird grabbing the curtain to justify their arguments, and the hem of the curtain was just that poor sleeve.Surprisingly though, he did far better when he was facing the curtains than when he was facing me; I couldn't help but reflect on myself.

"Say it! Say you love me. Say you love me—I know it!"

I suddenly understood very well why someone as difficult to define as Francisco could attract girls one after another.His eyes at this time are indeed very "Eugene-style innocent", innocent, proud and eager to try, even if such arrogant words are spoken in his tone at this moment, it will not make people feel bored .

After he finished the only line, he let go, turned his head and looked at us with a smile.I made a "whisper" gesture to him and watched him off.A few more people came later; I communicated with Karajan for a while, and I had a conclusion on Eugene's candidate.

I was relieved that the casting of Eugene was satisfactory; but when I thought about the next audition for the heroine, I felt that the latter would be more troublesome.However, what I didn't expect was that Alma's selection was much faster than Eugene's - because Minnelli was the first to appear.

She chose the section where she confronted the enemy.Here, Alma broke into the mansion of the club owner Geraldius in a panic, and put a knife on his neck.The family that raised her was affected by this person's pursuit of profit many years ago, and was deprived of citizenship and property overnight by the new law. She was forced to rush to the wild snowfield with thousands of people, and has since lost hearing from her.She was the only one who escaped the catastrophe by chance. Since then, she went into exile to study and prepare for revenge.Years of hatred are about to end; her eyes are red now.

I have rarely seen Minnelli's expressions other than "blank face", so I preconceived that she is not suitable to play Elma.Although Alma was indifferent when rescuing Eugene, there is actually still a gentleness that can be revealed in the details.Moreover, the contrast between the front and back of this role is considerable, and what is needed is more intense and flexible acting skills.

I observed Minnelli carefully, and suddenly realized that her eyes were really red before she opened her mouth.

She seemed genuinely angry.His shoulders trembled slightly, but the knife pointed at the enemy in his hand remained motionless.

"Look at you—you high ones." Her voice was as hard as a stone; every word she uttered seemed to burst a gap between the stones, "As long as your fingertips can reach Wherever there is a little bit of oil, you will greed, rob, and smuggle people, and start those despicable smiling businesses; everyone will wear a top hat, and greet each other tacitly in the shadows. You Buying and selling official positions, reforming the law without authorization, stalking dogs, flattering superiors and inferiors, painting black into white, and grinding white into black. The bottom-level people are despised by you—you send them down at will like mosquitoes and flies, so that you even pass by them The door lintels are all fighting to wrinkle their nostrils. But you regard them as numbers worth sitting on, even if it’s just to listen to the sound of money in your pocket, or use them as trophies under the butcher’s knife!"

Her face was contorted in pain, her whole body was gasping for breath, and she took a step closer.

"I have time, Geroldi Etta. You will die with our pain and hatred, and your body will be exposed to the screams of the dead instead of the kisses of the earth-I will kill you now. "

Her performance is beyond reproach and moves smoothly to the next stage.The short lines we picked for her were partly from Eugene and Alma's second meeting at the club, and again, only one line.

The scene should be like this: Alma is sitting under the lights of the club stage, a row of face-down poker is placed on the table in front of her, and each poker corresponds to a different glass of wine. Drink the corresponding wine in one gulp.Half of these wines are highly poisonous, and half of them are mixed with potions with different effects.Some potions seem to only bring about an innocuous prank, such as blowing the drinker's hair up to the sky and standing there for half the night.Others were far more vicious - causing people to itch and blush and writhe on the ground convulsively until they coughed up bile intermittently.

As long as the card drawer can draw the highest card in the column, he can ask the club to grant him a wish.Even if the odds seem somewhat remote, the members of the club still agree that this is a benevolent game; because wine can be drunk glass after glass.

The largest card showed a crowned figure with a large head, which the members jokingly called "their god."It is its infinite power that lures those who have nowhere to go, to sign up as the victims of the night and the corpses of the dawn;

Alma finally made a way that night, covering her identity as an avenger, and stepped onto the bright stage.The card in front of her has not moved for a long time, and the delicate pattern on the back is magnified under her eyes, shaking to and fro, as if impatiently indicating that there is always a wing among them that supports her.From the corner of her eye, those rich boys whistled at her, teased her urgently, and said obscene words in secret.

"At this point, only God can bless you!" They laughed and showed her the badge in their pockets, with the big head portrait on it.Someone shouted at her, "Say it! Say you love it. Say you love it—"

She had already had two glasses of wine by mistake, and she was trying her best to rule out the possibility of those mistakes with the help of her confused memory.The figure farther away was covered in a fog in her eyes; she didn't even know if there would be a certain young man in it, the person she had only met two or three times and who was saved by her inadvertently.She could see the bottom of his heart at a glance.His heart seems a little too honest in front of her...

The collision of cups, dice, and laughter vaguely separated the human voices that kept hitting her, and actually overlapped the ghosts and ghosts under the stage with the person who grabbed her sleeve in her memory.

"Say it! Say you love it—" someone else yelled.

The drooping eyelids blocked the anger pouring out of it, so a dry lip on the stage whispered—but no one heard it.Or maybe she didn't either.

"But," she said in a hoarse voice, "at that moment, I had already given all my love to that young man...how can I have any extra share to love your God?"

I turned my eyes away from the night lights of the club, and there was still Minnelli and the well-lit classroom in front of me.She was sitting near the small table I brought, her hands still hanging precariously above the table, as if there were really a bunch of invisible cards lying there.