La Ronde

He fell from one dream to another.

Conrad, led by Valentino, tumbles from dream to dream.At first, he seemed to have returned to the night when he first went out on the street. Drowsy, he was pushed through the bustling crowd, with violent shouts and high-pitched singing in his ears.Later, he seemed to return to the village where he lived when he was a child: there was a big river there, and beside the river was a grassland softer than a dream, and he liked to roll around on that grassland.But this time he was not on the meadow, but floating along the golden river—when evening fell, the river would glow with mysterious gold.

He was floating on the river, the half of the starlight was twinkling, and the half of the sky with lightning and thunder was pressing towards him.He raised his hand, but he couldn't see his own body, but he could see the fertile valleys and towering mountains in the distance.He could not hear the rumbling of thunder, but the small sound of bees sipping the dew.

He just floated aimlessly along the current, but he didn't worry about getting lost, because a pair of gentle and strong hands always supported him.

Valentino looked at Conrad's expression of pain mixed with joy, and stroked his sweaty temples pitifully.When he faced this simple, powerful, and shy boy, his heart was far less calm than it seemed on the surface, but his contemplative life taught him decency and restraint.

For many years, he has cast all his passions on one career, which is to find the harmonious state of the soul through creation.For this goal, the most important quality or means is temperance, so his passion is also rationally cold.Revolution seemed to him unrestrained ecstasy, but it was the rope that must be walked before establishing a good society, just as irrational creation is the means to achieve harmony.He had to be supportive, but at the same time dismissive of it.

Conrad was completely alien to him, and he knew it the first time he saw him.His world is dominated by a strict binary order, while Conrad carries the innocence and chaos of a child.Although he lived a temperate life, he was an artist after all.No artist is indifferent to true beauty, save the impostors of poor taste.

Conrad is an autumn evening with a light texture, suggesting that the evening star is coming, or maybe the evening star has already fallen in his eyes.Valentino didn't know how he had such a temperament, and he had no time to think.He likes Virgil's "Idylls" and has read it more than once. The idyllic scenery in it has appeared in his dreams countless times, and Conrad is more beautiful than any section in the "Idylls".At this moment, the autumn evening was burning under his skillful and flexible hands.

When Conrad woke up again, it was already the next afternoon.Valentino is fully dressed and is drawing at the table, the outline seems to be the head of a tiger.He noticed Conrad waking up, so he stopped what he was doing, poured a glass of mulled wine into his hand, and put two pillows behind him.

Conrad took a sip of the mulled wine while Valentino stood, looking down at him calmly.He thought that the tiger that hadn't been painted in time might not have a chance to be sent out, and Conrad was about to leave.

He didn't know how long he had been waiting, a second, a minute, or a century.Anyway, long enough for him to remember those blue-gray eyes forever, Conrad finally spoke, his voice rustling: "Last night... was comfortable, but I've never tried to be with a man .”

After hearing this, Valentino didn't make a sound, and the lines on his face were almost severe.So Conrad has been with women?Oh yes, not a lot, I'm afraid.The female student he met that day who knew where Conrad lived gave a ambiguous smile when he mentioned Conrad, and the one Conrad mentioned last night—Ursula?

"So, I want to ask you, are you serious? Or is it just a whim..." I don't know if it's an illusion, but Valentino always feels that Conrad's eyes are a little wet.

"Which one do you want me to be?" Valentino asked sincerely, he didn't know how to answer this question, he was afraid of scaring Conrad.

Conrad didn't speak, he leaned his head on the soft pillow in a daze, and the things in front of him were beyond his ability to think.For him, everything is very simple, do when you feel comfortable, stop when you feel uncomfortable.The reason why he asked Valentino that much was because he knew that the classification of ordinary people is not as simple as his, and it seems that all events must have a definite result.And Valentino is an intellectual with a good background, maybe he thinks more complicated, which might affect their friendship.

Valentino saw his confusion, sighed imperceptibly, and then rubbed his hair: "It doesn't matter which one I am. The key is, you feel comfortable, right?"

Conrad nodded, he likes to be dominated.

Valentino said: "I feel comfortable too, so we can still do it. The fact is that the two of us are happy together. As for the nature of this relationship, it doesn't matter, does it?"

Just like this May, no one can tell what kind of utopia they are fighting for.People simply took to the streets, inspired by the desire to destroy.As for what to build after destroying everything, and how to build it, this is not important at the moment.

Valentino's words were exactly what Conrad wanted. He never liked to think things too complicated, and he laughed without any haze.

After Conrad finished washing, he ate something.When he entered the room, he saw Valentino wearing silver-rimmed glasses, frowning and reading a letter, so he asked, "What's wrong? What are you looking at?"

Valentino hesitated for a while, but still told the truth: "A man named de Ville wrote a letter. He claimed to be a student of the Sorbonne University Law School and said that he would like to visit us in the near future."

"Us?" Conrad was a little surprised.Although he knew some groups had noticed them recently, no one had actually contacted them privately.He suspected that Valentino was wrong.

"Yes, we. He said that he is a loyal French leftist, and he wanted to talk to us about the class and national consciousness in this incident." Valentino was somewhat disapproving, although the owner of the letter was beautifully handwritten, it seemed He also sprayed perfume on the letter, but the flattery and flattery of the whole article made him sick, he had seen too many people like this.

"What's wrong with that? We can get to know one more friend!" Conrad sat beside him and looked at him brightly.

Looking at his appearance, Valentino couldn't say anything disappointing, thinking that it would be no harm to see him, so he wrote a concise reply letter and sent it back.

When he had finished writing the letter, Conrad nudged naturally, his arm against his, his head resting on his shoulder.He is a person who likes physical contact. In the past, after every affair, he would stick to people like this.Valentino put his arms around him and pressed his lips against his heart.Those who are familiar with him will be shocked when they see this scene—it turns out that the always serious and stern prince also has such soft facial lines.

"I wish I could be like the student who wrote the letter." Conrad said in his arms.

Valentino asked, "What? Do you want to go to college?"

"No, you know, I can't learn things well," Conrad buried his face a little deeper, "I mean, like him, a Frenchman, living in France, fighting to improve his country."

Valentino rubbed his shoulders, almost coaxing him: "It doesn't matter if you can't study well, you don't need to learn, because you have many talents that you can learn without learning. Are you homesick? Maybe this time After it's over, I can accompany you back to Bavaria once."

Conrad didn't speak, and Valentino couldn't see his expression. Just as he was about to raise Conrad's face, he heard Conrad singing a chanson in a low voice: "...in fact, children There is no difference, whether in Paris or Göttingen...the hatred that destroys the world, please never come again, because there are people I love here..."*1

Valentino hugged him tighter.The sun is near.

In the early hours of this morning, Conrad had a dream.After waking up, he planned to pour a glass of water for a drink. As soon as he sat up, the movement woke up Valentino, who was not a deep sleeper. He opened his eyes and saw Kang who was sweating profusely by the faint moonlight. Ladd got up to get him some water and turned on the bedside lamp.

Valentino looked at Conrad's face half illuminated by the warm yellow light and half sunk in the darkness: "What's wrong? Have a nightmare?"

Conrad raised his head slightly and took a sip of water, his Adam's apple rolled, and the fragile neck line was exposed to the moonlight.After a while, he replied: "No, it's not a nightmare."

Valentino took the glass and put it on the bedside, waiting for him to continue.Conrad seemed to find the bedside lamp too harsh, so he turned it off.

Conrad's face looked a little hazy under the moonlight, and his blond hair was also covered with a layer of frosty luster. He looked out the window: "When I was a child, I always had a dream. I dreamed that a man came to our house. He always They came here by bicycle when my mother and sister were away, sometimes they brought me candy and milk, sometimes they didn’t take anything, they just told me to study hard.”

He paused for a while before continuing: "I don't know if that is my dad. Dad went to war before I was born and never came back. I have never seen him. My sister has seen him, but she can't remember either." Cleared."

Valentino thought that maybe the child subconsciously wanted a father too much, so he made one for himself in his dream, but he said softly, "Maybe that is your father, he has been watching you."

"I haven't dreamed about him for a while, and I haven't dreamed about him since I came to Paris. But just now, he came into my dream again, still riding a bicycle..." Speaking of this, Conrad seemed Some choked up, "He brought me the kind of candy I liked most when I was a child, watched me finish eating, and then told me that he would never come to see me again."

Then, Conrad turned his face to look at Valentino, his tearful eyes were full of sadness and hope: "He said that I have found my father, my brother. Valentino, I It feels like he's talking about you."

Valentino was a little shocked, but after the shock subsided, he felt inexplicably sad.

He wiped away Conrad's tears.Under the cold moonlight, his smile was gentle and melancholy: "Silly boy, how could it be me? You grew up... Each of us must become our own elder brother and father."

*160s French popular chanson "Göttingen" (Göttingen), originally sung by Barbara, excerpts sung by Conrad in the text:

Maislesenfantscesontlesmêmes

AParisouà Göttingen

Ofaitesquejamaisnerevienne

Lettempsdusangetdelahaine

Carilyades gensque j'aime