Chapter 12 twelve

Everyone behaved calmly.Don't move Phineas, Brinker yelled; the other realized that there was only one night nurse in the school infirmary, and instead of wasting time there, he ran to Dr. Stempel's and called him.Others remembered wrestling coach Phil.Latham, who was a first aid specialist, lived just across the common.It was Phil who laid Finny flat on the wide, gentle step of the stairs and watched over him until Dr. Stempel arrived. The foyer and stairs of the first teaching building were as crowded as noon.Phil.Latham had found the main source, and all the marble shone brightly in the bright lights.But the surroundings were surrounded by the midnight tranquility of a small country town, so the hurried footsteps and low voice had an empty sense of vibration.The blind and dark window maintained its blank, empty expression.

At one point Brinker turned to me and said: Go to the conference room and see if there are blankets on the table.I rushed up the stairs, found a blanket, and gave it to Phil.Latham.He wrapped Phineas carefully in it. I wish I had made this myself, it means a lot to me.But then Phineas would call me all the words he knew, and he'd lose his mind completely, and he'd definitely get worse from it.So I hid aside. He was wide awake, and I glimpsed his face seemed calm.Everyone behaves calmly, including Phineas. There was silence on the stairs when Dr. Stempel arrived.Finny was wrapped tightly in the blanket, the light of the chandelier fell on him, and he lay alone in the center of the face that surrounded him tightly.The people around him stood either above or below the stairs, watching, and I stood on the lower edge of the stairs.The foyer behind me is empty at the moment.

After a brief and silent inspection, Dr. Stample ordered a chair to be brought from the conference room and carefully lifted Finny into it.In New Hampshire chairs are seldom used to lift a man, and when they lifted him he looked strange to me, like some tragic nobleman, a downed bishop.Once again, I feel alone that we have been ignoring the best in him.Maybe I just see the incongruity between his nobility and being knocked down, because he is a natural lifter.I don't think he knew how to do it, or even how to feel, as a recipient.With his eyes closed and his lips pursed, he was carried forward.I knew that under normal circumstances I would be one of the chair lifters, talking into his ear all the way.For him, only my help is by no means a help.The reason, I thought, as the group ambled across the bright foyer toward the door, was that Phineas saw me as an extension of himself.

Dr. Stempel stopped at the door, looking for a power source.For a few seconds, there was no one around him.I ran up and tried to ask my own question, but nothing came out, I couldn't find the words to say it.I was torn between how he was and where he was hurting, when Dr. Stample, apparently oblivious to my confusion, said chattyly: It's that leg again, broken again.But this time it was much more neatly broken, as far as I could see.A simple fracture.He found the power source, and the hallway was plunged into darkness. Outside, the boys surrounded the doctor's car, Phil.Latham carried Finny into the car.Then Phil and Dr. Stempel got into the car and drove away slowly, the car drifting away down the road, the headlights forming a pair of bright parallel lines, and when the car turned into the school nurse's driveway, the headlights turned again. becomes another pair of parallel lines at right angles to the first pair of parallel lines.The crowd began to shrink rapidly, and the teachers finally heard that something had happened in the night, and several terrified and frightening teachers appeared in the dark and ordered the students to return to the dormitories.

Mr. Lutzbury loomed sharply from the background of the bushes.Get back to the dormitory quickly, Forrester.He said it in a tone of absolute certainty that I would obey, which suddenly struck me as ridiculous, very ridiculous.Since it would be indignity for him to wait to see that I actually carried out his orders, it was not difficult for me to get rid of him after a while.I walked into the bushes, skirted the trees in the direction of the chapel, turned back along a building donated by alumni and had never been put into use, crossed the street again, and quietly followed the newly sprouting trees on the side of the driveway of the school infirmary. Grass walk.

Dr. Stempel's car was at the top of the driveway, headlights on, motor idling, empty inside.I thought about stealing the car for no reason, just as people think about many possible crimes for no reason.I was theoretically interested in the idea of ​​stealing a car, though always knowing that it was more senseless than a crime, a crime that amounted to nothing, a getaway that got nowhere.The motor whized and throbbed reluctantly as I passed the car, I remember thinking to myself that prep school doctors don't own very nice cars and then I turned the corner and started sneaking along the back wall of the house.Only one window at the far end was lighted, and I found a sparse bush opposite the lit window, which was sufficient to obscure my view of this window.The windows were too high, and I couldn't see directly into the room, but I knew the ground was soft and the jumping wouldn't make too much noise, so I jumped as high as I could.I caught a glimpse of a door at the far end of the room, opening into a hallway.I jumped again and caught a glimpse of a man's back.Jump again, didn't see anything new.When I jumped again, I saw a head and shoulders, with its back to me, Phil.Latham's back.This is the ward.

The ground was too wet to sit on, so I squatted down and waited.I could hear their indistinct voices humming monotonously through the window.Even if they don't do anything worse, they're going to screw Finny to death, I said to myself.My head seems to be full of punchlines this evening.Squatting motionless on the ground, it was cold.I stood up and jumped a few times, mostly to keep warm, not to look into the house.The only sounds were the occasional hum of the engine of Dr. Stempel's car when it was revving particularly reluctantly, and the faint, solitary whistling of the wind over the still bare tops of the tall trees.When Phil.These voices formed the background for the dull humming of Latham, Dr. Stempel, and the night nurse as they tended to Feeney in Feeney's ward.

What will they talk about?This night shift nurse has always been the most famous big-mouth woman in the school.Ms. Big Mouth, a registered nurse, and on the other hand, Phil.Latham is a boring gourd.One of the few things he said was to be college-minded and he used that phrase in everything and he was always telling his students to be college-minded To solve their academic problems, sports problems, religious wavering problems, sexual disorders problems, physical handicap problems, and countless other problems.I listened carefully to his voice.I was listening so engrossed that I could almost pick out his voice from the others, and his voice seemed to say: Feeney, put your college energy on your bones.

My imagination is really rich tonight. Phil.Latham went to Harvard, though I hear he only lasted a year there.Maybe he let someone do something with his college energy and ruined himself; maybe that's why he got kicked out of Harvard.There's no way there's going to be anything like going to Harvard.Will you have the energy to speak German?German energy?Aging German energy?That's fine, old German vibes.Sometime I'm going to say that in the smoking room.It's really fun.I bet I'm going to get Finny up when I say that. Dr. Stempel was chattering too.What does he always say?nothing.nothing?Ah, there must be something he's been saying all along.Everyone has some words, some words, some phrases, which are always on the lips.Dr. Stempel's problem is that his vocabulary is too large.He speaks in a huge circle of words, his vocabulary is about a million, and he has to use them all before starting again.

That's probably how they talk now.Dr. Stempel was running around his vocabulary as fast as he could, and Miss Big Mouth was panting this and that, Phil.Latham was saying: Get your college hustle, Feeney.Phineas, of course, answered them only in Latin. It made me almost laugh out loud. Gaul was divided into three parts.Regardless of Phil.Whatever Latham said, Feeney would probably answer in this way.Phil.Latham would be bewildered after hearing this. Feeney likes Phil.Latham?Yes, of course he does.But if he suddenly turned to him and said: Phil.Latham, you're an idiot.That would be fun.What if he said: Dr. Stempel, man, you're the most blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.So what?If he interrupted the nurse on night shift and said: Miss Big Mouth Po, you are rotten, rotten to the core.I just remembered I should tell you.That would be even funnier.Though it would never have occurred to Finny to say those words, they flashed through my mind so outrageously that I couldn't help laughing out loud.I put my hands over my mouth and tried to stuff my mouth with my fist.If I can't control my laughter, they'll hear it in the house.I was laughing so hard that my stomach hurt from laughing, and I could feel my face getting redder; I clenched my fists between my teeth, trying to get control, and then I noticed, my hands were full of tears.

The engine of Dr. Stempel's car roared wearily.The headlights turned into erratic arcs and gradually faded away.Then I heard the engine sound getting quieter and the car going off into the distance, and I continued to listen until not only did the engine sound go away, but so did my memory of how it sounded.The lights in the room were turned off, and there was no sound at all.The only sound is the characteristic mournful whistle of the wind blowing through the treetops. Behind the trees behind me was a street lamp, dimly reflected on the window of the school infirmary.I went to the window in Feeney's ward, found a footing on a gutter cover under the window, straightened myself up so that my shoulders were level with the sill, and stretched out my hands, as I thought the window was closed , so give it a hard push.The window slammed open, and there was a startled rustle on the bed in the shadows.I whispered into the dark room: Feeney! who? !As he asked, he leaned out of the bed, and the light shone flickeringly on his face.That's when he recognized me, and at first I thought he was going to get out of bed and help me in through the window.He struggled clumsily for a while, and even my shocked and dull heart could form two interpretations: his legs were bandaged and he couldn't move well; he was struggling to release his hatred for me. I come You want to break me elsewhere!That's why you're here!He thrashed wildly in the dark, the bed groaning under him, the sheets rattled by him.But he couldn't reach me because his unrivaled coordination was gone.He couldn't even get out of bed. I want to fix your leg, I said madly, but my tone was so natural that it made my words seem all the more crazy, even to my own ears. You fix me. He arched his body and threw himself hopelessly into the space between me and him.He arched, then dropped, legs still on the bed, and with a loud thump, his hands hit the floor.Then after a while, all the tension in his body was released, and his head sank slowly between his hands.He didn't hurt himself.But he put his head slowly between his hands, and lay his pillow on the floor without moving or making a sound. Sorry, I said blindly, sorry, sorry. I can still control myself, leave the ward, and let him struggle back to bed.I walked away from the window, and I remember lying on the ground, gazing at the cloudless night sky.I remember walking aimlessly along a road, past the gymnasium, to an old watering hole.I'm struggling with something I could call ghosting.I saw the gymnasium shrouded in two halos of light near it, and of course I knew it was the Devon gymnasium I entered every day.It is and it is not.There was something inherently strange about it, as if the gym had always had a nucleus, a nucleus I had never been aware of before, that was vastly different from its accepted exterior.It seemed to change before my eyes at any moment, and in an instant it became a building I didn't recognize at all, more important, deeper, more real than any building I had noticed before.The same goes for the watering hole, which is where wild hockey is played in the winter.Now that the ice had thawed, only a few smooth islands of thin ice remained in the center of the crater, and a hard edge glistened along the shore.The old trees around the pit are extremely meaningful, with a very urgent and completely indecipherable meaning.Here the road turns left and becomes a dirt road.It stretches along the outer edge of the sports field. Under the gray night light, the slightly frosty sports field undulates and unfolds in the distance in front of me. It shows infinite meaning, layers and layers of reality that I have never doubted before, showing A crowded, epic grandeur that my superficial eyes and cluttered mind had previously been blind to.The playing field stretches endlessly, away from me, as if I were a wandering ghost, not only tonight, but always, as if I had never played on it hundreds of times, as if my feet had never set foot on it Lived on it as if all my life in Devon had been a dream, or rather that everything about Devon, the playing fields, the gymnasium, the watering hole and all the other buildings and people here, was terribly real, Lively and meaningful, Only Me is a dream, an unreal thing that never really touches anything.I feel that the world that surrounds me is strong, solid, and meaningful, and that I myself have never been, and never will be, an integral part of it. I arrived at the arched bridge over the little Devon River, across the river where the dirt road curved to the stadium.The stadium itself, with its two large white concrete seats, seemed to me as mighty and unfamiliar as the ruins of the Aztecs, filled with the ruins of vanished people and rituals of disappearance, full of supreme emotions and supreme emotions. Big tragedy.It occurred to me that old saying: If these walls could talk, I realized more than anyone what it meant, and I felt that not only could this stadium talk, but that what it said would fascinate me.Indeed, the stadium has been speaking forcefully, including now.But I can't hear it because I don't exist. I awoke the next morning on a dry and sheltered stair turn under the stadium.My neck is stiff from sleeping in the wrong position.The sun is high and the air is fresh. I walked back to the school center, finished my breakfast, and went back to my room to get my notebook.Because today is Wednesday, I have a class at nine ten.But at the door of the room, I found a note from Dr. Stempel.Please take some of Feeney's clothes and toiletries to the school infirmary. His box has been in the corner and I take it out and put the things he needs into the box.I didn't know what to say to myself in the school infirmary.I can't shake the feeling of bewilderment after everything that's happened to me. Phineas is in the school infirmary, and I'm to blame.This incident seems to have shocked me less than the incident last August, when the accident was like a bolt from the blue.Now all around us are far worse hints, like a faint stench in the air, caused by strange words like plasma, neurosis, sulfonamide, and endings like Latin nouns.Newsreels and magazines were filled with flame-breathing cannons and bodies half-sinked in the beach sand somewhere.Our 1943 class students are now moving towards the battlefield at such a fast speed that there was attrition before reaching the battlefield, one lost his mind, and one had a broken leg. Maybe these should be considered as the precursors of the acceleration. Inevitable minor accidents.Much worse stuff is in the air that surrounds us. In this way, I walked towards the school infirmary with Finny's suitcase, trying to calm myself down.After all, I thought to myself, people spewed fire into caves and roasted their enemies alive, ships were torpedoed, thousands sank into ice, and entire city blocks were blown up in flames in an instant.My short-lived malice, its outburst lasted only a second, a fraction of a second, when something that I did not know until it came and I did not know until it was gone took hold of me, the What exactly is something? I took Finny's case to the school infirmary and went in.The air was full of the smell of the hospital. It couldn't be said that it didn't smell like the smell of the gymnasium, but the school infirmary lacked the feeling that the vitality of a person was being consumed.This would be the new background of Feeney's life, this purely medical atmosphere, in which physical health was absent. There happened to be no one in the corridor, and I walked along the corridor under the control of a fatal pleasure.All doubts were finally resolved.There was a wartime phrase that was just being popular at the time This is what you're waiting for although it has since taken on other comical meanings 】, but it has a downright accurate, at some point, can only say it.Now is the time: this is what you have been waiting for. I knocked on the door and walked in.He was shirtless, sitting on the bed, flipping through a magazine.I instinctively lowered my head, my courage was at best enough to glance at him briefly, and then whispered: I have something for you. Put the suitcase here on the bed.His tone of voice was completely neutral, neither friendly nor unkind, neither interested nor bored, neither energized nor languid. I put the case next to him and he opened it and started looking at the replacement underwear, shirt and socks I packed him in.I stood anxiously in the middle of the room, trying to find something to see and say, desperate to leave but unable to do so.Phineas inspected his clothes carefully, apparently very calm.But on such a close inspection, it's not like him, not like him at all.It took him a long time to do this, and I noticed afterwards that when he tried to get a comb out of the pocket of his case, his hands shook so badly that he couldn't get it out.Seeing this scene, I immediately got rid of being overwhelmed. Feeney, I tried to tell you before, I tried to tell you when I went to Boston I know, I remember it.He can't control his voice forever after all, what were you doing here last night? I have no idea.I went to the window and put my hands on the sill.Looking at my hands with a detached feeling, as if they had been carved by someone else and put on display here.I have to come.Then I added with great effort: I thought I belonged here. I felt him turn his face to look at me, so I looked up.He has that particular look that he has on his face when he understands something but thinks he shouldn't show it, an expression of calm knowing; this is the first time I've seen him in a long time A thing that comforts me. Suddenly he punched the box.I really hope there is no war. I watched him warily.Why do you say that? With my legs like this, I don't know how I'm going to get through the war.I have no idea. if you What's the use of dragging a broken leg in battle? ah you have a lot of people you can He lowered his head to fiddle with the box again.I wrote to the Army all winter, I wrote to the Navy, I wrote to the Marines, I wrote to the Canadian Forces, I wrote to everyone else.Do you know this?No, you don't know that.I use the post office in town as my return address.They all gave me the same answer after seeing my medical report.The answer is, impossible.We can't use you.I also wrote to the Coast Guard, I wrote to the Merchant Marine School, I wrote to General de Gaulle himself, I wrote to Chiang Kai-shek, and I almost wrote to someone in Russia. I try to grin.You wouldn't like being a soldier in Russia. If it weren't for this war, I'd hate to be a soldier anywhere!Why do you think I kept saying there was no war all winter?I'm going to go on and on until I get a letter from Ottawa or Chongqing or something saying: Well, you can join our army.An expression of joyful achievement flashed across his face for a moment, as if he had really received such a letter.Then, there is war. Phineas, my voice breaks, but I go on, Phineas, you ain't going to be great in war, even if your leg isn't broken. A look of surprise appeared on his face.It scares me, but I know what I'm saying is important, right, and there's that booming timbre in my voice when I express something I've felt for a long time, understood for a long time, and finally spit it out I get this booming tone in my voice when I'm thinking.They'll send you somewhere on the front where there's a brief lull between battles, and the next thing anyone can figure out, you'll run to the Germans or the Japanese and ask them if they want to fight with us. Play a baseball game.You would sit in their position as a commander at one level and teach them English.Yes, you'll mess things up, you'll borrow a uniform from them and lend them your own.Of course, that's just what happens.You'll play around so that no one knows who's going to fight.You'll mess things up and make a mess, Feeney, don't get involved in war. His face had been trying to stay calm when he listened to me, but now he was crying and trying to control himself.In the trees you are just a blind impulse, you don't know what you are doing.Right? Yes, yes, that's it.Ah, that's it, but how can you believe it?How can you believe this?I can't even bring myself to pretend you'd believe it. I believe, I think I can believe.Sometimes I get so crazy that I almost forget what I'm doing.I think I trust you, I think I can trust you.That was the way it was.You're just playing tricks.You don't really hate me, it's not some kind of hatred you've experienced for a long time.That is in no way personal. Yeah, I don't know how to tell you, how can I tell you, Feeney?Tell me how I confess my love to you.It was just some ignorance in me, some madness in me, some blindness, that's all. He was nodding, his teeth were clenched, and there were tears in his eyes.I trust you.It's okay because I believe in you.You have confessed your love to me, and I believe you. The rest of the day flies by quickly.Dr. Stempel had told me in the corridor that he was going to set Feeney's bones in the afternoon.Come back at five, he said then, when Finny's anesthesia would wear off. I left the school infirmary for my ten-ten class, which was a section on American history.Patch.Mr. Withers gave us a five-minute written test on the must and ought clause of the Constitution.At eleven o'clock, I left the teaching building and walked across the central public lawn, where some students are already relaxing, although according to the season, it is still a little too early to do so.I went into Building One, walked up the stairs that Feeney fell down, and had math at 11:10.The teacher gave us ten minutes to solve the triangle problem, and the triangle problem seemed to be solved on my paper by itself. At twelve o'clock, I left the first teaching building, walked across the public lawn again, and walked into Jared.Porter House for lunch.Breaded veal meatballs, spinach, mashed potatoes and creamy prunes were served for lunch.We discussed at the dinner table whether there was potassium nitrate in mashed potatoes.I support the opposition. After lunch, Brinker and I walked back to the dorm.All he asked about last night was how Phineas was doing; I said he seemed in good spirits.I went back to my room and read "The Lover's Lover" left by the teacher [Note: A play by the French playwright Molière in 1670. 】.I left the room at two-thirty and walked along one side of the oval track that Feeney winters trained me on, to the far common and the gymnasium at the other end.I walked through the prize room, went downstairs into the pungent-smelling locker room, changed into gym pants, and wrestled for an hour.I put my opponent on the ground once, and my opponent put me on the ground once.Phil.Latham demonstrates to me a complex escape technique in which the carp flips straight onto the opponent's back.He opened up about Finny's accident, but I was preoccupied with the escape technique, and the subject was shelved.After the fall, I took a shower, put on my clothes, went back to the dormitory, and continued to read "The Lover". At 4:45, I didn't go to the preparatory meeting of the graduation ceremony organizing committee where I had replaced Brinker. Instead, he went to the school infirmary. Dr. Stempel was not prowling the corridors as he was accustomed to when he was not busy, so I sat on a bench and waited amidst the smell of medicine.About ten minutes later, he walked out of his office quickly, with his head down and his hands in the pockets of his white coat.He didn't notice me until he almost walked past me, then he stopped abruptly.His eyes met mine cautiously, and I said: Oh, how is he, sir?My voice was very calm, and it frightened me for no reason when I finished saying this. Dr. Stempel sat down beside me and placed his capable-looking hands on my lap.It's something that I think the lads of your generation are going to see a lot, he said softly, and I have to tell you now.Your friend is dead. His words were inexplicable.I felt a chill on my back and neck, very cold, that's all.Dr. Stempel went on talking inexplicably.It's a very simple and very neat fracture.Anyone can connect.Of course, I didn't send him to Boston.Why send it? He seemed to expect me to answer him a word, so I shook my head, and he repeated: Why did you send it? During the bone setting process, his heart stopped beating suddenly, without any warning.I can't explain this thing.Yes, I can explain.There is only one explanation.When I moved his bones, some marrow must have escaped into his veins and flowed directly into his heart, stopping it from beating.This is the only explanation that makes sense.only.The danger is there, the danger will always be there.The operating room is a more dangerous place than any other.Operating theaters and war.I noticed that his self-control was breaking down.Why does this have to happen so quickly to you lads, right here in Devon? His marrow I repeat aimlessly.The meaning of this sentence finally seeped into my brain.Phineas died from the blood flowing from the bone marrow to the heart. I didn't cry for Finny then or since.I didn't even cry as I stood in his graveyard outside Boston, watching him be lowered into the grave.I can't shake the feeling that this is my own funeral and one cannot cry at one's own funeral.