Chapter 4 third chapter

After I checked around outside, I went back inside.It was pitch black from every window, and I didn't want to go out and wander in the dark again.It occurred to me that a person sitting in front of a laptop under a desk lamp was the ideal prey.The place I am in is the living room, it should be called the living room.The house is a log cabin, as the name suggests, built in the traditional style from real logs.The first floor is a complete large space. There are three bedrooms upstairs. The stairs lead to the balcony with railings above my head, and then there is a hanging ladder above it, which leads to another place similar to a small attic.Mickey.When the Haas family had servants, the servants slept in the attic.The walls are all pine, there are a few bookcases built in, and there's a great sound system and a rough stone fireplace big enough to roast a whole cow, and I mean calf.There was a fire in the hearth now, and there was a pile of oak, birch, and pine logs outside the kitchen door, which were plentiful and never wanting, and I took some in to light the fire.The bottom of the balcony is decorated with the head of a North American elk, and there are also antlers on the shelf.Mitch told me that the Haas men used to be fierce hunters, and this deer head proved it.The first-floor kitchen has a stone-paved floor and a full set of appliances from the 1950s; there are also two baths on the first floor.Mitch installed a hot tub on the outside patio, but it's now dry.Although he used to come here with his family every summer when he was a kid, it seems he doesn't come here very often anymore.Of course rich people can do this.I've had the pleasure of visiting this chalet a number of times before, and we used to take the girls here for a romantic weekend when we were young lads.

Continuing with my story: Professor Buscher handed over the package, a thick envelope wrapped with duct tape.I asked him what was in it, and he said it was a manuscript from 1642.This is that work?No, not at all, it's called the Brace Godo Manuscript, and it's just there to prove that work exists.But is the Bracegrave manuscript worthless in itself?He said it wasn't that high, and that only academics were interested.Then his tone became more tense, asking me to keep the information in the package completely confidential.I promised him that it would be kept secret and that anyone who wanted to peep would not be able to do so.He seemed relieved to hear the promise, and then I called Miss Macdonald and asked her for a standard commission.

While she was preparing the papers, I tried to chat casually with Professor Bustrow, but that didn't go well.He was staring at the manila envelope like it was a bomb, and it seemed to me that he couldn't wait to distance himself from the threat.In the end I had to ask him if there was a copy of this document, and he said he didn't make a copy for security reasons, and then he asked me in a serious tone to promise that no copy would be made.At this point I was impatient and I told him I was a bit uncomfortable with the atmosphere of secrecy and the whole point of hiring a lawyer is that you can be honest with a person in secrecy, but apparently he doesn't seem used to it Confess it while we keep it a secret.If that's the case, then I don't really want to be his lawyer.I went on to say that, in my experience, a man only deals with lawyers like this when he's engaged in some kind of illegal business; for the sake of the big picture, maybe he should get his check back, and I won't be offended.

Hearing these words, he began to sweat profusely, blushed, and assured me that there was absolutely no mystery and nothing wrong with it, but reservations are not uncommon in the academic world when it comes to this particular manuscript. I apologize for any offense.At this moment, Miss Macdonald suddenly came in and put the appointment receipt and other things on my desk, but I didn't go to get them. Instead, I waited for her to leave before saying, maybe we started too hastily, I hope he can trust I.He replied that he would like to believe me.So I asked him to restate the details of who Bracelet was, what was in the envelope, and which work could be found with this document.

Only now did he tell the truth: he had discovered the Bracegodo manuscript while researching schools of Renaissance philosophy.The manuscript consisted of some twenty-six double-folded sheets, densely handwritten, and dated 1642.Richard.Brace Ward was nothing special, a soldier who died shortly after the Battle of Border Hill in the English Civil War, and most of his letters were unremarkable.There are some indications, however, that Bracewaddle was hired to move goods for a nobleman named Dumbarton; both Bracewaddle and Dumbarton sided with Parliament against the King in the Civil War.Fearing that his treasures and land titles would be confiscated, Dumbarton, seeing that his assets were about to come under the control of the Royalists, ordered Brace Godo to remove everything, including the rarest items in the library, into his house. House in London.However, Royalist troops marched into London and blocked Bracegard's way, so Bracegard buried the valuables and sent a letter to Dumbarton telling him where the treasure was hidden.

I didn't show any thoughts, just said lightly, oh, it turned out to be a buried treasure.I asked him again what this had to do with intellectual property.Libraries, he said, libraries. I asked him if he knew what was in the library. Instead of answering, he asked me if I knew what the Leicester Manuscript was, which I honestly do know.There is a fast-growing area in the field of intellectual property rights, which is the digitization of books, manuscripts, and works of art. Various related rights will be derived during the whole process. The transfer and negotiation of these rights is a big business.Billionaire Billionaire in the software industry.Mr. Gates is a big player in this field, and every intellectual property lawyer pays attention to his actions.I told Bustrat that I knew that the Leicester Manuscript was one of Leonardo's notebooks, which had been taken by Bill F.Gates bought it for $30 million.

At this time, Bustrat blurted out that Dumbarton owns a manuscript of Shakespeare. Can you imagine how much this kind of thing is worth?Now he has no reservations anymore, there is a strange light shining in Wen Wen's eyes, and the eyes are obviously wide open. I nodded kindly and said I thought it must be worth a lot.As I said this, I was struck by a dull, claustrophobic feeling that I get when I meet a madman.Sadly, I often feel that way, because we intellectual property lawyers are all too familiar with lunatics, that every showbiz success, diet book that takes the world by storm, and the product of the human imagination that makes a lot of money is accompanied by a sleazy counterfeit Goods show up, clutching slick folders stuffed with papers proving they were the ones who came up with the idea first.The truth these sleazy imposters don’t want to face is this: No one can copyright an idea or concept; ideas are as freely available as water or air or carbon.The only way to make money from copyright is with a specific set of words, notes, or chemicals.I admit that I haven't touched the category of mysterious files before, but I have encountered it now.Hope this jerk's check will cash.

So I waited to see his madness reach its climax, when he would, in a frenzy of excitement, start babbling about how important this lost manuscript would be, what literary secrets or provenance it would reveal, and he was about to unravel it. Mystery code and so on.To my somewhat surprise he seemed deflated after speaking out, I think he may have regretted sharing so much information and started to put me in his paranoid delusion that I was another thief who might steal his treasure . After we signed the papers he left.I asked Miss Mak to deposit the check in the bank and put the package in our safe.Next, even though my stomach was growling because I didn't eat lunch, I went back to the computer and searched the Internet for Andrew.Bu Sizhuo's information, and found a lot of information about Dr. Bu, obviously he is not an unknown scholar.According to the data, since five years ago, Boothrow has been a professor of English literature at Oxford University and is an expert in Shakespeare's version.Later he was Leonard.Hastings.This man Basco has lied to.Bascow was one of the greatest forgers of our time, a name I recognize, and his specialty was early printing of the earliest manuscripts and those of important authors; Bad quarto of Hamlet.Bad quarto refers to an early form of literary piracy in which printers combined actors' forced lines with fragments of actual plays and printed them without the author's permission.

This is obviously a big discovery, because according to the information searched on the Internet, the publication history of "Hamlet" is extremely complicated. authorized); and the first folio, which was put together posthumously by Shakespeare's friends and company business partners, Hemming and Condel, and is essentially the version we know today.The so-called new bad quarto has many intriguing differences from the authorized play, and it also reveals many clues about the writing process of Shakespeare. The year of writing is 1602, just after the performance of "Hamlet", A year earlier than the first quarto edition.This begs the interesting question: were the differences just copying mistakes, or did the author make changes after the play was performed?Stuff like this can stir a bunch of literati into high excitement.The patriotic Basco even gave the British Museum the chance to reveal it for the first time, if the well-known scholar Andrew.If Buszrow decides it's genuine, the museum will buy it for the price Basco asked.

Booth Zhuo really decided that it was genuine.Using pure seventeenth-century paper, properly formulated and aged iron tannate ink (which he derived from chemical extracts from documents of the time, thus fooling all ink-aging tests), Bascow, And he checked out one of the bad quartos from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., and carefully reproduced the typeface.The museum bought the contraption for £850,000, and Bustrow of course got the sneak peek, and within six months he had written a definitive treatise arguing that the author had substantially revised his script and The so-called Basker quartos show that Shakespeare drew inspiration from many other texts when setting up the characters of Hamlet.This paper was a sensation in the scholar circle!

His essay could have become one of the classics of literary criticism, but unfortunately, this Leonard.Hastings.Buskow loves beauty, especially those young women with gorgeous looks, smoky eyes, and slightly pouty lips.Although he has this habit, he refuses to spend money to take one of the women on a trip, and he originally promised to buy her what she wanted as a gift, but later regretted it.So the young girl came out and broke the news.The police searched an industrial estate in west London and found hand presses and ink on the paper, and the plates of the fake Hamlet had not been removed.This happened about eighteen months after the transaction closed. Apparently more than half of the money Bascow earned from counterfeiting ancient books had already been spent on this extravagant life of indulgence.The tabloids reported extensively, and even viciously criticized the guilty expert Professor Buschrow, and even my old friend Mitch.Haas also waded into this muddy water, defending his colleagues in the public media that this is the mistake any expert in the world would make.Mickey.Haas himself seemed to have made a mistake: he had arranged for Bustrow to be a visiting professor at Columbia University, hoping that after a while British academia would calm down.And now it looks like someone else has sold a document to Bustrow.I thought there was something odd about it, because Buszrow would be the last person to have any significant manuscript presented to the world, and the last person to want to.But I no longer believe in any adage like remembering the past and being the teacher of the future. Take me, if I know how to learn the lesson, I should still be a happy married man now. Perhaps Buszrow could not bear the excessive pressure and collapsed.Professors can also go mad, perhaps more often than others, but because of their profession, few people know that professors can go mad.In order to verify the facts, I also inquired about Lord Dumbarton, a historical figure. To my surprise, he was not a fictional character. His name was Henry.Race (born 1570-1655), the second Baron of Dumbarton, was also a Puritan nobleman.His father, the first Lord Dumbarton, made a name for himself as the favorite of Henry VIII. These people, known as the inspectors, kicked Catholic nuns and priests out of their abbeys and ensured that the Protestant revolution could bring the country to England. The property of the Catholic Church was looted.The first Lord Dumbarton received the title of nobility and a piece of territory in Warwickshire (called Dutton Hall). His son Reese entered the court during the reign of Queen Elizabeth and was deeply loved by Lord Bailey. His line of espionage was responsible for apprehending the Jesuits and exposing their tricks against the Queen and later King James I.Under Charles I, Reiss was a staunch Parliamentarian with his father's penetrating eye for being on the side of the winner, but he also seemed to be a devoted fanatical Puritan.During the brief fighting that became the Battle of Border Hill, Dutton Hull was taken by Royalist troops.There's nothing in it that mentions libraries, Bracegrave fights, lost Shakespeare anthologies, etc.After reading it, I thought I should call Mitch.Haas, find out what the hell that poor Bustrow is doing.I didn't expect to call to find out that Dr. Haas is attending a seminar in Austin, Texas, and won't be back until next week, so I went to have lunch. Recalling this, I checked my notepad.My itinerary is of course arranged by Miss Macdonald, and I get the weekly itinerary every Monday, but I will post these itineraries in a small notebook with a cowhide cover and blue pages, and put it In the breast pocket of my shirt.I'm not the absent-minded type, but sometimes I'm in the study and concentrating on work or talking on the phone, and if I don't check my notepad from time to time, I will miss appointments.The records show that I met Dr. Boothrow on October 11th; I checked the book again and found that the day I met Buschow I left work early to pick up Imogen and Nicholas from school and take them to dinner See a movie.Every Wednesday night is my fixed weekly meeting time with my children, and I can also meet with them every other weekend, and every two weeks during the summer vacation. My thirteen-year-old daughter, Imogen, with straw-blond hair and gray eyes, looks so much like her mother that she seems to have been created directly from the maternal gene pool, rather than through a natural combination.By the way, this situation seems to be unique to our family. The Mishkin gene cannot cooperate smoothly with other genes. It is either fully dominant or annoyed and abandoned, so I look like my dad, typical Jewish Plain-looking, my brother and sister, both blonde, looked like recruiting posters for the Hitler Youth.My son Nicholas is eleven years old, and he looks exactly like me; when I was courting Emma, ​​my sister told me that she looked like a younger version of my mother, I don’t know if I noticed This point, but the appearance and face shape of the two of them are generally very similar, probably German-style.When my brother Paul and my sister Miri took Imogen out, everyone thought she was their daughter, but when I took her, passers-by usually didn't give us a friendly look, as if I was a child abductor Perverted uncle. But when it comes to personality, Imogen is different from her mother.She is a super narcissist, everyone exists to worship her, if you dare not follow, I want you to look good!She is a good athlete, she is a bit talented in swimming, and she wants to be an actress. I support this dream, because I don't think she is suitable for other life.I believe it is inherited from me, when I was in high school in Brooklyn, a teacher said I had a good singing voice and I should try acting.I also auditioned and got the part of Teligin in Chekhov's masterpiece "Uncle Vanya", a small role, but as impressive as all the characters written by Chekhov.Terry King was nicknamed Plaid Muffin in the show because of his pitted face, which I had when I was sixteen.My most important line in the play is that I have lost my joy, but I have my self-esteem.In the play, I also fell in love with the campus beauty Gloria.Gottlieb, she plays Sonia who doesn't know I'm alive, but it's amazing that after three performances in a performance hall that smells like orange juice, I'm off stage feeling like Terrikin is still on me.It was such a beautiful experience for me that this fictional character created by someone who had been dead for many years replaced my own personality to some extent. Speaking of which, I should mention that until I was in this play, I was a miserable character.Being unknown, he doesn't even have the qualifications to be ridiculed by others in school.It's easy to be unknown at a big public high school in a big city, but I'm famous for a few special reasons: I'm a Catholic kid with a Jewish name and a Nazi grandfather; and I go to a school where elite students are smart Extraordinary, and almost all Jewish.My accountant dad, of course, was a bit of a celebrity too, and he was no stranger to the tabloids at the time, and he was often prosecuted but never sentenced.I live in fear that someone (such as schoolgirl Gloria Gottlieb) will find out about my background.The most infamous of all was my brother Paul, two years older than me, a hustler, and he made no secret of it, looking just like the hustlers did back then, with his black leather jacket turned up at the back and his duck-ass haircut.Rather than because it is Paul.Mishkin's brother is famous, I'd rather be unknown.I knew that in some way his aura of savagery protected me from anyone who might bully me, as I would have done had it not been for Paul.Paul insisted that he was the only one who could beat me, but I was beaten quite a lot.The most violent fight I ever saw growing up was when Paul called out guys from two well-known street fighting gangs one day because they were robbing me of my lunch money on my way to school.Paul brought bricks. Those images linger.I don't want to recall that at all, but it's probably important to note that Paul was out of school because of the fight, and I was starting to climb in earnest, and I decided not to rely on him for my back.And I thought that if I kept my peace of mind, I could avoid disputes.Really ignorant. xxxxxx Anyway, after playing Uncle Vanya, I got into it so much that I turned myself into an asshole, wearing an old brocade vest I found in a junk shop, speaking with a slight accent, and pretending that I had suddenly forgotten something. An English word, vaguely pronouncing the Russian pronunciation I imagined.I also became more popular because of it, and started getting invited to fancy parties thrown by popular Jewish girls.The next play we did was Romeo and Juliet, and I played Mercutio, who was a better fit for me than Terrikin because of his innocent demeanor full of witty slapstick, and the play had to be funny. The pose, and the absurd way of dying, seem honorable to a young man.For a teenage boy, the hardest part of playing Mercutio is getting the swearing right, for example, saying all the harsh swearing in Act 1, Scene 5, that's probably harder than playing Romeo .As for the character of Juliet as an intellectual property lawyer, I would say that Shakespeare's famous inventiveness doesn't quite show up in the plot.With the exception of two original works, all of his screenplays have been plagiarized from earlier works, sometimes obviously, but fortunately they did not have copyright issues at the time.We go to his plays for the beauty of the language, as we go to the opera for the music, and the plot is only secondary.But modern people know that Shakespeare is good at extracting the mysteries of life and performing them on the stage.The second scene of the second act is the famous scene of the balcony party. Although everyone prefers to quote the dating segment in the first half, but I think near the end, Shakespeare successfully portrayed a girl who is crazy about love. If it is performed by an adult, it will be It would just be absurd, but a sixteen-year-old kid can bring a character to life, especially since that girl is my crush.I especially remember that moment, when the perfect and noble Miss Gottlieb said her long farewell words, I thought to myself, this is my life, my destiny, I will use my talents and live a crazy life Days, abandoning the miserable self before. This is my life as a freshman in middle school. From that year on, the gangs in New York gradually came to light. One of the mafia members named Mr. Valazi took the lead in violating the law of silence in the gang, and provided the police with criminal information within the gang.Even so, the Law of Silence is very powerful, and members of the gang are afraid to speak.The best way for the public authority to deal with a gangster with a gun is to accuse him of violating the tax laws, and my dad happened to be the target.They accused him of multiple crimes and pressured him to bring charges against his employer.If they'd taken the time to investigate his family, they'd know my dad had a lot of guts.That fall, I was rehearsing for Romeo and Juliet and my dad was on trial in federal court south of New York City, and we were never exactly a happy family, but it was a tough time. Let me mention here again my dramatic family history.My parents, Izzy and Urmanchud, met in the flames of war and fell in love further, but their definition of love was an effort to dominate the will of the other, so the farce that played out in our family stuck with me for a long time.It usually happened in the evening when I was about eight, Paul ten, and my sister, Miri, six, and we finished our homework and brought it to the head of the family, my mother.The air was full of aromas, a strong Germanic smell of cooking, and the house was generally at peace.Then we found out that Dad had a mistress, and that whore caused Mom to give up on herself for a while.We are sometimes watching black and white TV, maybe arguing over which channel to watch, it's almost six o'clock, the atmosphere is getting tense, it's six o'clock, will he show up?Are you in a good mood?At half past six, Mom bangs on the jars, slams the drawer shut, and mumbles to herself in German as we listen to the tinkle of the glass jars.It's seven o'clock, the air smells of burnt protein mixed with the smell of smoked vegetables and we're famished, but no one dares set foot in the kitchen. At 7:15, the door opened, and seeing his face, our hearts sank. The children have no presents to take tonight, boys can’t ride horses, and dads can’t play twirling with their daughters, nothing. .We went straight to the table that night and the overcooked dinner was thrown hard on the floor and my dad said he didn't eat the crap and they got into an argument in English and German we couldn't even understand them dialogue.Violence was evident, with plates and cutlery flying.Mi Rui hid under the dining table, and I followed, holding her trembling little hand close to my chest, while Paul sat upright on the chair.From my position I could see him pale, clutching the knife, his knuckles equally white.The fights got louder, and usually ended up with him calling a damn Nazi and she calling a jewish pig, and then he'd punch her before leaving.boom!We came out as the door closed, and she sat us down, and while she was packing up the poor dinner, she told how poor Germans were starving after the war, so we had to eat all the food in front of us.We didn't eat everything down for that reason, but because it was the only thing we could do for her. But during the days when my father was on trial, those things were gone, and silence reigned.Mom opened the hot canned food on the table and returned to her room to eat, and classic German classical music would sound in the room: Beethoven, Bruckner, Wagner.She drank more and more, and played music very loudly when she was upset.Dad would sometimes kick open doors and smash records, or he would just leave the house and not come back for days.Paul was also rarely home, barely graduating from high school and joining a gang, and he and his gang progressed from stealing to armed robbery. I and my sister are the only ones left at home to take care of the housework.Mi Rui was fourteen years old at the time, her face was very mature, and she already looked like a woman. Her face was sharp and angular, much like a stealth bomber that can evade radar today, and has a way to sneak deep into enemy territory.The enemy here refers to men.I didn't try to dominate her because it wouldn't work, I just made sure she had food to eat and a change of clean clothes, and I think Paul and I have managed to curb her favors from grown men over the age of thirty .Early the morning before Thanksgiving that year, Dad was neither in court nor home, and we naturally expected the worst, fearing that his accomplices would have lost confidence in his silence and preemptively silenced him, because it was pretty clear that unless Dad Make a deal with the prosecution, or you will be prosecuted for several crimes.I remember worrying about him being stuffed into heavy oil drums or buried under the asphalt of the highway, and I wanted to feel sorry for him but couldn't. Dad, however, was not knocked down.A few weeks later, the newspapers reported that someone had seen him in Tel Aviv, Israel, and that he jumped bail and absconded to join his gangster mentor and predecessor, living a comfortable life in exile.We never had a card charged, not even a phone call.I later heard that he changed his name to a more Jewish one with the support of the Israeli government.These are all past events that happened before the media developed, so at that time only a few reporters came to my house for interviews, and Paul and his companions beat them up and smashed their cameras.At that time, teaching journalists would not let you be on the news.In my opinion, this kind of media industry has more style.Because Dad took our house and his real estate for a huge bail bond and took the rest of the cash away, we were essentially left with nothing.After a while, law enforcement officers came to my house and took my dad's car away and gave us an eviction order. Then a small miracle happened.One Saturday morning, I was woken up by the sound of packing goods and the opera Parsifal playing from the speakers.It turned out that it was my mother who regained control of the family and began to give orders, and we children could only follow orders.There were also two guys I had never seen before, speaking German, and probably fugitive war criminals that my mother had dug back from somewhere.The situation in my family is very similar to that of Germany in 1945. Hitler has long gone, the Communist Party has come, and people have to recover from the ruins.Historically, in 1941, many small villages in Ukraine welcomed the arrival of the Nazis very much. I can understand their mentality. At that time, the thoughts of us children were somewhat similar to theirs: everything is better than what we see The encounter was much better.Our mother's fascism had its share of influence: the Germans came and drove us from our cozy brick house in Flatbash to a cramped two-bedroom communal house on the fringes of Queens. . We go on living without a father.Mom worked as a clerk at Kings County Hospital, earning just enough to feed and clothe us.Our lives are likely to make Dad jump in anger: Paul becomes a dumb criminal instead of an intelligent badass; I become a star student, aka a nerd.And Miri, let me just say it, she's a slut.In chronological order, first, Paul was robbed by the police while robbing a hotel with a gun, and fled in a hurry to hide in a remote place; Mi Rui ran away with a playboy; I graduated with honors and took the SAT test High scores, apply to Columbia University.That's where I met Mickey.Haas. Wait, didn't I just want to talk about my son? Why did I say such a long paragraph of meaningless things first, and I haven't told you about my son at all.My son Nicholas is nicknamed Nico, and for a long time we thought, well, at least I thought, that there was something wrong with the kid, maybe autistic, or some other kind of child Symptoms may allow drug companies to develop new markets.He couldn't walk or talk most of the time and I insisted on taking him to specialists everywhere but his mother insisted he was fine.Over time, his mother proved to be right, and at the age of four he finally spoke, and spoke fluently, at the same time that he learned to read on his own.He's gifted in one way or another, but we're not sure exactly which.It's embarrassing to say, but I must admit that I've never been comfortable with his existence.When he was six years old, before I divorced my wife, he used to come and look at me in the small room I used as a study. I asked him what he wanted, but he didn’t say a word. In the end, I had to ignore his existence, or , trying to ignore his presence.I often imagine that he can see into my heart, look directly at those thoughts, desires, and know what a despicable person I am. Nico and Imogen attended Copley College, where he received special training in mathematics and computer science, and is proficient in both.He inherited my father's talent as an accountant Izzy, which is probably passed down from generation to generation, because I can only get 80% in math at most.Nico was a down-to-earth, no-nonsense little guy whose features were already beginning to reveal his grandfather's features: dark eyes, shrewd and inscrutable, a big nose, wide mouth, thin, black, curly hair.As far as I know, I never taught him anything, my last attempt was at a pool where I tried my best to teach him to swim, and in the end I not only failed to teach him, but also caused him to have a hysterical attack. The impact was so profound that he never learned to swim.I guess he's pretty happy on land.Copley was one of those places where you were kicked out if you weren't talented enough, they didn't publish grades, and tuition was $28,500 a year.I am not stingy with the money, after all, I have a good income, and I have no extravagant hobbies, it should be said that I only have one hobby; I hate travel, and my taste is restrained. I bought a real estate in Tribeca, Manhattan, New York attic.My estranged wife, Emmarie, is also austere, with a decent income of her own, except that she would suffer herself by giving our entire fortune to the poor and giving up the brownstone mansion on East Seventy-sixth Street, Go squeeze next to the highway with the kids. I love my kids as much as I love anything else.Actually not really a lot.I just maintain the image of a good father, like I mentioned before, pretending to be a good son, a good brother, a good friend or something.It's easier than you think to fool people.I thought that people just picked a script from a civilized box and played their respective roles. I really think that except for the character of Mecutio who is more prominently written, Jack.Mecutio, played by Mishkin, and Jack.Jack played by Mishkin.Mishkin is no different. That's why I didn't become a professional actor, even though it feels disgusting and self-pitying to say it.I told myself I was giving up theater because I needed a paycheck to support my family, but really it was because once I set foot in a theater, I was unlikely to step out again.In high school, people would say that they were cute and rebellious. As they get older, they will become cute weirdos, and when they get older, they will not even be cute anymore.I pictured myself alone in a locked cell, trapped in a character, playing Macbeth or Etrugon in Waiting for Godot.Also, people who go into theater don't seem to have a good time, well, I don't know, maybe I was just scared and thought so, so I switched to pre-law, and I had no reason to regret it after that, neither did I. Went to see a play. Just now I took a break, had a cup of coffee and ate a donut.I bought two dozen donuts a while ago, and I got by with coffee.There are a lot of canned food and juice stored in the house, some of which have been stored for a long time. Mitch said that I can live here indefinitely, but there is a proviso that if the world nuclear war breaks out, he will choose one of the three wives , two people came to squeeze with me.二十六公里外有個小鎮叫新威瑪，我從沒去過，我想還是不要讓當地人知道我的存在比較好。這棟房子相當孤立，座落於一條很長又沾滿泥塵的車道盡頭，車道外接一條砂石道路，是從湖西邊的三十號公路的附屬道路分岔出來的，孤立狀態純然只是地理形勢造成的。米奇多年前裝了衛星天線，所以可以看得到兩百多個頻道，更重要的是透過衛星天線還可以使用寬頻網路。我喜歡按幾個鍵就可以把這些訊息發送到全世界的感覺，也許以後我會把這段訊息當成籌碼，但還不知道要拿來跟誰討價還價。 說到這裡，我看著電腦上我寫下的東西，發現我把敘事線都弄亂了，根本拉不回來。與其空想一些未來可能發生的暴力場景，最好還是直接把我的故事寫出來，免得像布瑞斯葛斗一樣，臨終前來不及說出口。我想，面對死亡的時刻，只要是神智清楚的人都會變得精神專注。問題是，我接下來要講述的這個故事，非常像廉價的驚悚小說，故事開始於某人嚥下最後一口氣之前交代的遺言，也有點像是石版上謎樣的塗鴉，或是用血寫成的神祕書寫體，有點類似綠寶石就在或是不是哈等等叫人看不懂的東西。 但我的生活似乎也變成這個故事的一部分，布瑞斯葛斗的生活也是這個故事的一部分，如他所寫下的那段話： 雖然上帝沒有把我列在偉人的行列裡，我也還是個人，不是一塊爛泥。希望我的故事能陪伴著兒子長大，他一定要長成一個堂堂男子漢，千萬別像他爸爸這樣。 I thought so too. 要說故事以前，我又查看了記事本。遇見布斯卓之後的兩天沒有什麼重要約會，那週末也很閒，本子上只寫了英格麗三個字，那表示我一定是晚上到泰瑞鎮跟她見面喝一杯，接下來不免就是和她一夜風流，隔天一起吃過早餐之後就可以說再見。 不行，這麼說實在對不起她。英格麗是個好女人，和我在音樂節認識的。她是個編舞家，對我非常欣賞，因為我禮數周到，富同情心、大方、體格壯碩。女人常犯這種錯誤，她不是第一個，也不是最後一個。我實在搞不懂這世代的男人怎麼了，曼哈頓島上多的是有魅力又標緻性感的女人，多半是三、四十歲左右，已婚或未婚，她們卻找不到人上床。我已經竭盡所能付出自己，但她們整體的需求依舊存在。又離題了，我還是先別提這檔子事好了。 那個星期一早上，事務所照例舉行合夥人會議，之後一如往常．我打電話給司機，讓他來接我去健身。我先前提過，我的生活相當單純，沒有什麼花錢的嗜好，但擁有一個隨叫隨到的司機，也許還是算得上挺奢侈的，我的車每年花掉將近五萬美元。換個角度想，倒可以當成是工作上的必要支出，因為我家到公司之間沒有快速道路，一般的計程車我又坐不下，或者是我自己這樣覺得吧。我的車是林肯禮車，顏色是有如午夜般的深藍，而非常見的黑色。司機叫歐馬，是巴勒斯坦人，幫我開車快六年了，跟我一樣也是重量級的舉重選手。我初次見到他時，他是個計程車司機，我們同聲抱怨紐約市的計程車，不管是對司機或乘客來說，都不是為了我們這種大塊頭而設計的。從那時起，我就決定要買一輛林肯車，雇用歐馬當司機。這個司機很棒，開車開得快速又安穩，滴酒不沾，永遠把車子保持得一塵不染；如果硬要說他有什麼缺點的話，就是晚禱時間一到，他會停下車，把小毯子從行李廂拿出來，直接跪在人行道上禱告，就算我坐在車上他還是會這麼做。不過我在車上的時候，其實沒遇過太多次。 我自己不是虔誠的教徒，但也不是無神論者，我更不談那套不可知論的高調，荒謬又沒種。我覺得自己雖然沒有實踐教條，但應該還算是個天主教徒；一提起地獄的惡魔，我深信不移，渾身顫抖。若有人問起，我會說我討厭天主教某些高階職位的掌權者，或者說是討厭教廷，說得一副天主教堂無法容忍傑克．米希金的光榮成就似的。不過事實當然並非如此，事實是我不能信教，否則我要怎麼穿梭在女人堆裡當個風流惡魔？你猜對了，女人就是我唯一的奢侈愛好。 再回到星期一我去的那家健身房在五十一街和第八大道的街口，這家健身房裡有一部分區域就跟普通健身房一樣鋪著地毯，擺放成套的健身器材，提供給本地人使用。但這裡的重量訓練室卻裝潢得特別講究，健身房的老闆是前蘇聯時代的重量級舉重員，如果你請教他，他會給你一些舉重上的建議。他還打造了一間俄羅斯風格的蒸氣室，裡面配有男按摩師，也使得重量訓練室這邊聞起來有混合了冬青油、汗水，和蒸汽的氣味。中午花了一個小時重訓後，我感到出奇輕鬆；舉重後我去做蒸汽浴，幾乎忘掉自己是個律師。 在司機歐馬的監督下，我剛做完一組三百磅的推舉。我正在一般健身區的飲水機裝水時，看到有兩個男人進入健身房，在櫃台前跟老闆的女兒聊天。我看到老闆的女兒指著我的方向，他們便朝我走過來，亮出警徽，說自己是警探。一位叫麥克．莫瑞，另一位則是拉瑞．法蘭德茲。大家都看過刑案影集，早就對警察盤問犯人感到很熟悉，所以一旦發生在真實生活裡，好像一點也不特別。現實生活中警探的長相恐怕沒辦法在電視劇中演警察，這兩人其中一個是猶太人，長相普通，中等身材，典型的紐約人；另一位西班牙老兄也差不多。莫瑞看起來比電視劇裡出現的警探還要胖一點，法蘭德茲的牙齒很醜。他們問我認不認識布斯卓，這種時候我實在很難保持一張冷靜的臉，因為我正在想像我們在演電視劇，而且我感覺到他們也是這麼想，搞不好他們還從紐約重案組、法律與秩序這些影集裡學習舉手投足哩。 我回答說，布斯卓是我的當事人；他們又追問我最後一次見到他的時間，我說只見過他一次。接著他們又詢問我是否知道有人存心想傷害他，我說不知道，不過可能是因為我跟他並不熟識。我反問他們為何要問我這些問題。他們說，他住在哥倫比亞大學訪問學人的宿舍裡，就在上百老匯地區，而警察在他的房間發現我跟他之間的委任契約。這時我插嘴問了，難道有人傷害他嗎？他們說，星期天晚上有人闖入他房間，把他綁在房間的椅子上，將他以酷刑折磨至死。他們又問我星期天晚上的行蹤，我就把英格麗的事情告訴他們。 酷刑折磨至死？他們沒有提細節，我也不想打聽。回想起來，當時我感到非常震驚，但很奇怪的是，我並不驚訝。我刻意忽略了他曾交給我一個包裹的事實，當時我以為這不關警察的事，至少在我花時間親自查看那個包裹之前，我是這麼以為的。 布瑞斯葛斗的第三封信 那就開始說吧。我發現我對數字很在行，拉丁文卻不行。在溫克先生的解釋下，我學會了如何運算二的平方、三的平方，直到十六平方。我也學會怎麼用筆跟紙做加減計算，並牢記在心。還有除法，譬如一個人要把兩千三百個罐子分成十二個一堆裝到盒子裡需要幾個盒子，最後一個盒子有幾個罐子，類似這種問題，全都不用算盤就可以算得出來。除了書本的知識，溫克先生更讓我大開眼界，教我十一法則，也就是十的奥義，這是一個名叫賽門．史蒂文斯的荷蘭人發明的。這東西很深奥，簡單說來，十一法則是算數的一種，由加密的字體構成，藉某些數字來表達，可以用整數（不是分數，也不是不連貫的數字）來記所有的帳。等他確定我已經是箇中好手，他又讓我讀倫敦市長比林斯禮所翻譯的英文版歐幾里得幾何學。我饑渴地閱讀，就像挨餓的人狼吞虎嚥，又像是被腳銬束縛住的人，突然解開鐐銬得到自由一般。除此之外，他也教我象限的運用，還有一些其他的哲學思想，都是我在費許街時未曾聽過的。他也教我用象限儀和測鏈來測量繪製地圖，若要測量太陽和其他星星的緯度，這兩樣工具都是天文學繪圖的基礎要件。我發誓一開始時我根本分不清緯度與起司的差別，學校的人一直都認為我是個呆瓜，所以能夠在這些學問上有所成就，真是太令我興奮了。 那年我十二歲，我父親見到這情況，責備我說自己遊手好閒就算了，還拖他的職員下水。但是溫克先生很有男子氣概，用堅定的語氣告訴他的主人說，你的年輕兒子是我見過的所有人之中對數學最有天份的，幾個月內他就學會所有我教導的內容，很快就會超越我。我的父親問，數學好能讓我賣掉更多鐵器嗎？溫克先生回答他說，我教給你兒子的學問遠遠比記帳更好，接著他要我在父親面前展露算數的能力。 我從火箱裡拿了紙筆，想在父親面前表演連乘七個數字的優異能力，我父親看了便說，我只是在塗鴉。溫克先生堅持他對我的看法是正確的，他說：先生，不是這樣的。我父親說：你怎麼證明？我得花上一小時打算盤才能確定我兒子的答案是對的。於是我們停止了爭辯。父親討厭這種天主教的算術玩意兒，這些都是從義大利或其他受下流羅馬控制的國家傳來的，而且他心裡還有其他打算。 隔天他決定，我不可以繼續跟著溫克先生一起學習了，我應該要成為鑄造師。他說你愛解數學題，那讓我們看看你能不能解開鑄鐵這行的謎題。他笑得很開心，覺得自己說出這話很聰明。親愛的母親跟我都流了許多淚。父親將送我到提區斐爾德表哥家。我要離開的那一晚，溫克先生私下來找我，給我十冊歐幾里德的書，他說那些內容他已經牢牢記住了，如果有需要他也能去博斯購買，希望我能善用這些書，於是我離開了家鄉。 表哥在提克斐爾工作。這裡跟費許街的鄉下房子差很多，煉鐵跟賣鐵器可是完全兩碼子的事，就像宰牛的跟做牛肉派一樣有天壤之別。我的意思是，在這裡工作很辛苦，環境骯髒，同事大多殘忍又暴力。表哥馬修是這個地方的老大，長得像隻熊一樣魁梧，脾氣就跟他冶鍊出來的東西一樣硬。他俯看著我說：多可鄙的小東西！一年以後，我們再來決定要傳你技術或殺了你。說完之後就大笑。以前我雖然像奴象一樣地工作，和其他學徒一起睡在稻草堆上，但日子還不算難過，因為我的家族未曾被詛咒，乃是受到上帝的祝福，況且我也沒有犯過什麼罪。但如今的生活好比與惡魔相處，主人很虛偽，星期日上教堂時神智保持清醒，但其他時間在街上與人吵架、嗜酒、打老婆。我們學徒分到的食物極少，而我發誓，其他學徒不比原野上爭鬥的野獸好多少，他們釀麥酒時會偷竊、喝醉。因為我的生活習慣和其他學徒不同，我又跟主人有親戚關係，他們一開始就看不起我，讓我生活在悲慘中。我極力獨自忍耐，只趁四下無人時才偷偷哭泣，虔誠祈禱能擭自由，無論是死亡或其他什麼方法我都不在意。其中的一個學徒傑克．凱爾，聽名字就知道是一個低下、粗魯的傢伙，他注意到我有歐幾里德的書，便從我的手中搶走，嘲笑我，做勢要把書丟到火堆裡。我凶神惡煞般跳起，拿起一根棍子，狠狠朝他頭敲下去，他才踉蹌跌倒，丟下那本書。要不是他們三人從我眼前逃走，我可能會對他做出更大的惡行，甚至謀殺也有可能。但在那之後，我在他們中的日子就過得順心多了。