Chapter 27 Chapter Twenty Seven

They rehearsed for two weeks before Roger returned from Austria.He spent a few weeks on the shore of a lake in Carinthia (note: a region in south-central Europe, in present-day southern Austria and northwestern Yugoslavia.), and after a day or two in London, he was going to Scotland to stay with some friends.As Michael was going to the theater after supper early, Julia went to meet him herself. While she was getting dressed, Evie blew her nose vigorously as usual, saying that she was trying so hard to get dressed that she seemed to be meeting some young boyfriend.She wanted Roger to be proud of her, for she looked very young and beautiful indeed, walking up and down the platform in her summer dress.You'd think she was completely oblivious to the attention she was getting, but that would be a wrong impression.

Roger's skin was dark brown after a month of exposure to the wind and sun, but he still had a lot of acne on his face, and he looked thinner than when he left London in the New Year.She hugged him tightly and passionately.He smiled slightly. They are going to have dinner with the few people in their own family.Julia asked him if he would be happy to go to a play or a movie after dinner, but he said he would rather stay at home. That would be better, she replied, and let's talk. There was one problem that Michael had actually told her to wait to discuss with Roger when she had the chance.Now that Roger was about to go to Cambridge, he had to decide what he wanted to do in the future.Michael was afraid that after a few years in college, he would get into an agent or even go on stage.Thinking that Julia was sweeter than he, and more influential with the boy, he had urged her to preach to him the advantages of the Foreign Office and the bright prospects of the barrister.Julia thought it would be a wonder if she could not manage to bring the conversation to this important subject during the two or three hours of conversation.At dinner she managed to get him to talk about Vienna.But he was silent.

Oh, I just do some general activities, you know.I went sightseeing and studied my German.I went to some places where I drank beer.I went to a lot of opera. She wondered if he had had any affairs, she wondered. You're not engaged to a Viennese girl anyway, she said, hoping to get him to talk. He glanced at her thoughtfully and somewhat amusedly.You almost think he sees what she's talking about.It was strange that even though he was her own son, she always felt uncomfortable with him. No, he answered, I'm too busy to worry about such things. I think you've been to all the theaters.

I've been there two or three times. Do you see anything useful for me? You know, I never thought of that. His answer seemed a little rude, but he said it with a smile on his face, and his smile was sweet.Again Julia could not help wondering how little of Michael's beauty and her charm he had inherited.His red hair was fine, but his gray eyelashes made his face look expressionless.God only knows why, with such a father and such a mother, his figure should be so clumsy.He is eighteen years old now, it should be time to lose some weight.He seemed a little distant, he had none of her mother's radiant vitality; if she had just spent six months in Vienna, she could imagine how vividly she would describe her experience.Didn't she, she once told a story about her life with Aunt Carrie and her mother at St. Malo, and people laughed out loud.Everyone said she gave it as if she were in a theater, and her own impression was that it was far better than most comedies.

She told the story to Roger now.He listened quietly with a lifeless smile; but she felt uncomfortably that he did not find it terribly amusing as she did.She sighed secretly.Poor little boy, he can't possibly have a sense of humor.Then he said something and got her talking about "The Times."She told him the plot, explaining how she would play her part; she told him about the cast and described the sets. At the end of the meal, she suddenly found that she was talking about herself and things about herself.She could not understand why she had done this, and it occurred to her that Roger was directing the conversation in this direction, so that it would not be said of him and about him.But she put the question aside for the time being.He's not smart enough for that.It was not until later, when they were sitting in the living room listening to the radio and smoking, that Julia felt the time had come, and tactfully posed her prepared questions with apparent casualness.

Have you decided what you want to do in the future? No.Need to make a quick decision? You know I don't understand anything.Your father said that if you wanted to be a lawyer, you should study law at Cambridge.On the other hand, if you enjoy working in the Foreign Office, you should learn a few modern foreign languages. He stared at her for so long with his strange, brooding expression that Julia had difficulty maintaining her expression, relaxed, playful, and affectionate. If I believe in God, I'm going to be a priest, he said next. Priest? Julia could hardly believe her ears.She felt extremely uncomfortable.However, his answer was deeply imprinted in her mind, and she saw him for a moment as a cardinal, living in a magnificent mansion in Rome, which was full of exquisite oil paintings, surrounded by A crowd of flattering prelates; and then saw him a saint, wearing a bishop's miter and a surplice embroidered with gold filigree, making gestures of mercy and giving bread to the poor.She saw herself dressed in rich brocade, with a string of pearls around her neck.It is like the mistress of the Borgia family (Note: Spanish hereditary nobles who settled in Italy. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, two popes and many political and religious leaders were born.).

That was all well and good in the sixteenth century, she said, but it was too late now. It is indeed too late. I don't understand how you could come up with such an idea.He didn't answer, so she had to go on.Are you not happy? Very unhappy, he said with a smile. what do you want He looked at her again with eyes that confused her.It's hard to know if he's serious because there's a slight playful look in his eyes. reality. what do you mean? You know, I've lived my whole life in a deceitful environment.I want to open the skylight and speak out.You and Daddy breathed this air and didn't mind it, because that's all you knew, and you thought it was the air of Paradise.It can take my breath away.

Julia listened to him carefully, trying to understand him. We are actors, and we are successful actors.That's why we can let you live a life of extravagance from your birth.You can count on the fingers of one hand how many actors could send their sons to Eton? I am grateful for everything you have done for me. So what do you blame us for? I don't blame you guys.You have done everything you can for me.Unfortunately, you have taken away my faith in everything. We have never interfered with your beliefs.I know we are not religious believers, we are actors, after eight plays a week, we hope to keep Sunday to ourselves.I naturally assumed that the school would take care of these things.

He hesitated before speaking again.You feel like he needs to clear his mind a little bit before he goes on. When I was a kid, at the age of fourteen, I stood on the side of the stage one night watching you play.It must have been a very good scene, and you said the lines that should be said so sincerely and so touchingly, I couldn't help crying.I was thoroughly moved.I don't know how to put it, I was raised spiritually at that time; I feel so sad for you, I feel like a goddamn little hero; I feel like I'm going to never be mean or shameless again people's business.And then you backstage, right where I was standing, with tears still streaming down your cheeks, and you stand with your back to the audience, and you say to the stage manager in your usual voice: How did the goddam electrician turn on the lights?I told him not to play the blue lights.Then, without taking a breath, you turned to face the audience, uttered a howl of grief, and continued the performance.

But baby, that's acting.If an actress felt the emotion she was acting, she would be heartbroken.I still remember this scene very clearly.It always gets rave reviews.I have never heard such warm applause in my life. I thought I was such a fool to fall for it.I took what you said on stage to be true.When I found out it was all a fake, something in me was destroyed.I have never believed you since.I have been taken for a fool; I am determined not to be taken again. She gave him a pleasing, reassuring smile. Baby, I think you're talking nonsense. Of course you would think so.You don't know the difference between the real and the fake.You never stop acting.Acting becomes second nature to you.When guests come to the party here, you put on a show.You play to the servants, you play to Papa, you play to me.In front of me, you play a famous mother who likes and dotes on me.You don't exist, you're just the myriad of roles you play, and I've often wondered if there really is a you, or if you're nothing more than a medium for all these other people you pretend to be.Sometimes when I see you walking into an empty room, I want to open the door suddenly, but I am afraid to do so, because if I find that there is no one in it.

She glanced at him momentarily.She shuddered because what he said gave her a feeling of horror.She listened to him intently, with a sort of anxiety, because he was so earnest, she felt he was pouring out something that had weighed on his heart for so many years.She had never heard him speak so much in all his life. Do you think I'm just fake? Not quite.Because fake is everything to you.False is your true.Just like for those who don’t know what butter is, Margarine (Note: Margarine is also yellow.) is butter. She had a faint feeling of guilt.Like the queen in Hamlet.Let me wring your heart; I'd do it, if it weren't impenetrable stone heart. (Note: Quoted from "Hamlet", Act Three, Scene Four, which Hamlet said to his mother, the Queen.) She wanted to go anyway. (I don't know if I'm too old for playing Hamlet. Siddons and Sarah Bernhardt both played him. My legs are bigger than I've ever seen Those actors who play the part have beautiful legs. I'll ask Charles what he has to say. Of course there's the damned blank verse problem. He's stupid not to use prose pictures. Of course, I It could be played in French at the Comédie Française. God, what a move that would be.) She pictured herself wearing a black bodysuit and long silk leggings.Alas, poor Yorick. (Note: Quoted from "Hamlet", Act V, Scene 1, which is Hamlet's sigh at the skull of Yorick, the court jester of the late king.) She continued to think. You can't say that your father doesn't exist, can you?Isn't he, he has been playing himself for the past twenty years. (Michael could play the king, not in French of course, but if we decide to try it in London.) Poor papa, I think he's pretty good at what he does, but he's not very clever, is he?He was too busy being the prettiest handsome man in England. I don't think it's very kind of you to say that about your father. Did I say something that you didn't know?he asked coldly. Julia wanted to smile, but would not take the somewhat pained dignity off her face. Those who love us like us because of our weaknesses, not our strengths.she replied. Which play did you read this in? She checked an angry gesture.This sentence came to her lips naturally, and it was only after she said it that she remembered that it came from a certain script.Little bastard!But the phrase is very appropriate here. You are mean, she said sadly.She feels more and more like Hamlet's mother.Don't you love me? If I can find you, I will love you.But where are you?If you take away your exhibitionism, take away your acting skills, peel your poses, phoniness and fragments of lines from characters you've played and the remnants of their faded emotions like an onion Layer after layer, can we finally find a soul?He looked at her with serious, pathetic eyes, and then smiled.I like you, that's no problem. Do you believe that I love you? Use your love method. A look of uneasiness appeared on Julia's face. You know how much pain I endured when you were sick!I don't know what I would have done if you had died then! You will poignantly enact the scene of a mother at the bier of her only son. Even after several rehearsals, it was impossible to act so pathetically, Julia answered sharply.You see, you don't understand that acting isn't nature; it's art, and art is something you make.True sorrow is ugly; the actor's business is to make it both true and beautiful.If I were to die like I did in five or six plays, do you think I would care if the gestures are graceful, if the dying voice is clear enough to transmit every word to the last row of the balcony?If this is false, so is Beethoven's sonata, and I am no more false than the pianist who played it.You say I don't like you, really heartless.I love you with all my heart.You have always been the only baby in my life. No.You liked me when I was a kid because you could take pictures of me with you.The photos taken are very good-looking and can be used as a big advertisement.But after that, you don't care much about me.I just bore you.You're always happy to see me, but you're thankful that I'm in charge of myself and don't ask for your time.I don't blame you; you don't have time for others, only yourself. Julia began to grow impatient.What he said was getting closer and closer to the truth, which made her fidget. You forget that teenagers are nasty. It's disgusting in my opinion, he said with a smile, but why do you pretend that you don't want me to leave your side?This is just acting again. You make me very unhappy.You make me feel as if I'm not doing my motherly duty to you. But you did your duty.You have always been a very good mother.You did something to me that I will always be grateful for: you left me alone. I don't know what do you want? I told you.reality. But where are you going to find it? I don't know.Maybe it doesn't exist.I am young; I am ignorant.I used to think that maybe in Cambridge, meeting some people, reading some books, I would find out where to look.If they say it exists only in God, it's screwed. Julia was confused.What he said didn't really reach her, what he said was just a sentence, and what mattered was not what they meant, but whether they were understood, but she was keenly aware of his feelings.Of course, he was only eighteen years old, and it was unreasonable to take him too seriously, and she had to think that he had heard all his ideas from other people, and most of them were mystification.Has anyone ever had a thought of his own, and isn't everyone just a little bit pretentious?But of course it was possible that he did feel what he was saying as he spoke, and it would not be very nice of her to take it lightly. I naturally understand what you mean, she said, my greatest wish is that you can be happy.I'll convince your dad and you can do what you want.You have to seek your own liberation, I understand that.But I think you should be sure that your set of ideas is not just pathological.Perhaps you have been alone in Vienna for too long, I think you have read too much.Of course, your dad and I are of different generations, and I don't think we can help you.Why don't you find someone your age to talk to?For example Tom. Tom?A poor little snob.His only wish in life is to be a gentleman, but he has no brains, and does not know that the more he tries to be a gentleman, the more hopeless he becomes. I always thought you liked him very much.Didn't you, when you were at Taplow last summer, you followed him around. I didn't like him then.I am using him.He can tell me many things I want to know.But I just thought he was a worthless little bastard. Julia remembered how she had been madly jealous of their friendship.She resented the thought of the pain she had suffered in vain. You dumped him, didn't you?he asked suddenly. She was taken aback.I think more or less so. I think you are very smart in doing so.He's not up to your level. He looked at her with calm, meditative eyes, and Julia felt suddenly a prickly terror that he should know that Tom was her lover.It couldn't be, she thought, only from a conscience she knew; It was obvious from his expression that he must have known.She is ashamed. I asked him to come to Taplow just because I thought it would be good for you to have a boy your age to hang out with. Really good. There was a faint light of joy in his eyes.She felt helpless.She wanted to ask him what he was laughing at, but she didn't dare; because she knew exactly what he was laughing at; he wasn't angry with her, which she could bear, but he just thought it was funny.This broke her heart badly.She wanted to cry aloud, but it only made him laugh.So what can she say to him?He didn't believe a word she said.acting!This time, she was at a loss for what to do with the situation in front of her.What she faced was something she didn't understand, something mysterious and terrifying.Could it be true?At this moment, they heard the sound of a car approaching. Here comes your father, she called out. What a savior has arrived!It was an uncomfortable situation, and she thanked God that his presence would surely end the impasse.In a moment Michael burst into the room, chin thrust out, belly in, strangely handsome despite his early fifties, extending his hand manly to welcome his only son, six months away.