Chapter 7 5

【worldly knowledge】 Fluorescent lights illuminate the entire subway car, and a pre-recorded female voice announces the names of the stations.Warren Street.Euston.King's Cross.St Pancras.I get up and get out of the car. The Euston Road was pouring with rain and I ran west with the Guardian under my head.The newspaper after absorbing water hangs down.The black taxis passed by slowly at a speed of twenty miles per hour, moving forward in batches as the signals changed.I pass through a red-brick gatehouse with a sandstone lintel engraved: The British Library.A large bronze statue of Newton sat in the courtyard, holding unknown tools to explore the secrets of the universe.

The building is large and deep, like a cave.I went in and locked my stuff in a locker downstairs.The person at the admission application office gave me a number and asked me to wait a while.When it was my turn, I spent a few minutes explaining my purpose and got a plastic library card with a photo in which my eyes weren't very much looking directly at the camera. This library is much bigger than my school's.I didn't know where to start for a while, so I took a guidebook and sat in front of the glass tower-like King's Library to browse it quickly.The British Library is a legal deposit library, that is to say, every book published in the UK is here, and of course many are published elsewhere.There are about 150 million volumes of books here, and there are eleven reading rooms with specific themes.

I started from the humanities reading room on the two floors.Everything is in order: scholars sitting side by side, dozens of computer terminals, and readers queuing up at the library counter to pick up books.I walked along the edge of the large room, examining the shelf labels.The National Union Catalog is ten bookshelves wide.Large and ancient Latin and French dictionaries in leather covers.I pulled out the appendices of the Dictionary of National Biography from 1922 to 1930 and looked for Worthingham, but found nothing. I walked along the shelves to the geographic reference section and finally found an entry in one of the Encyclopedia of Exploration.

□□□ Ashley.Edmund.Walsingham (1895︱1924), a mountaineer, was born on April 16, 1895 in the village of Sutton︱Courtney in Berkshire, the cloth merchant Henry.Franklin.Walsingham (1865︱1909) and his wife Emily.Simmons.Only son of Fitzgerald (1869︱1933).Walsingham was educated at Abingdon School and Charterhouse College. In 1914, he was admitted to Magdalene College, Cambridge University. After studying for one semester, he joined the army and became Royal Burke Second Lieutenant of the County Infantry Regiment, sent to the Western Front in August 1916, spent two years on the difficult front, participated in the Battle of the Somme and the third Battle of Ypres.On November 5, 1916, the British army launched an attack on Empress Redoubt. Worthingham was so seriously injured that his commander misreported his death.He was awarded the Military Merit Cross for his meritorious service in capturing the German trenches.

Walsingham has loved mountaineering since he was sixteen, honing his skills on the snow and rocks of the Alps.He retired at the age of twenty-three, and the war left indelible marks on his body, which made it difficult for him to readjust to civilized life and made mountaineering even more important to him.In 1913, Walsingham received a large inheritance from relatives and no longer had to work for income.In 1919, Walsingham returned to Cambridge to study, but left before January to go to the Dolomites in the Alps, where he spent the summer climbing.In October, Warsinghan sailed to Mombasa to run a coffee plantation in Kenya. Although he made a lot of money, he thought it was an immoral business.

In May 1921, Walsingham returned to the Alps again, which was a suitable season for mountaineering.But in autumn, he did not return to Kenya, but went to Yemen by boat, and then traveled all over the Arabian Peninsula, often walking on the way, collecting information, and wanted to write a monograph on the lost ancient cities of the Arabian Peninsula.In 1922, Walsingham first assisted Charles.Leonard.Uri excavated antiquities, and then assisted Stephen on Kish Island.Not for long, Langdon.In short, Walsingham stayed in Arabia for two years, and the time was mainly spent looking for the so-called Iram of the Pillars near the Rub Khali Desert. Unfortunately, his Arabic and other Semitic languages ​​were not good. so that it didn't go well.In April 1923, Walsingham sent such a telegram to Hugh.Price: The Pillars are dead See Ashley in June St. Moritz.

In June, Walsingham arrived in Switzerland, making the next three months one of the best climbing seasons of any British mountaineer ever to come here.Walsingham conquered several remote summits and found several new or difficult routes in a series of astonishing ascents, including the first ascent of Bader Peak from the North Ridge on July 9, 1923 (Piz Badile) 6, and the first ascent of Dent d'Herens 7 on August 2, 1923.Famous mountaineer Jeffrey.Winthorpe.Yang made the following evaluation of Worthingham: he is the least talented, least elegant, most energetic, most persistent and strong person I have ever met on the mountain.

6. There are six peaks in the Alps whose north walls are famous for their extremely steep slopes, large height drops, and high difficulty in climbing, and Bader Peak is one of them.Historically, since 1892, some people have explored and tried to climb the north wall, but it was not until August 4, 1923 that Alfred Zurcher and Walter Risch succeeded in reaching the summit. 7. The north wall of Mount Delang is not among the six major north walls, but the drop is as high as 1300 meters, and it is also a famous climbing route with great difficulty.In fact, George Finch, TGB Forster and R.peto climbed to the top from the north wall on August 2, 1923.

Walsingham has always been a staunch supporter of unguided mountaineering. He was very brave in the later stages of climbing, especially in the face of deteriorating weather.He was described as a withdrawn and emotional climber who often followed his instincts over his knowledge.stop.Price wrote about him this way: In other things, Walsingham is always too introspective, but when climbing mountains, he does not think at all.Walsingham has helped teammates avoid falling rocks and avalanches many times, and find a safe way in harsh conditions.On August 20, 1922, he used a rope to trap an ice ax on the Great Cholas Peak, ensuring the safety of his two teammates in time.

The first expedition to Mount Everest in 1921 was only a preliminary investigation, and the expedition team was in Hugh.Under the leadership of Price, it was hard to find a possible way to the summit.Walsingham applied to join the Everest Expedition in 1922, but was unsuccessful even with Price's support, as the committee found him to be an unreliable personality, arrogant and distrustful by nature Authority, even more so after the war.Wassingham's refusal to donate money to sponsor the expedition impressed the committee and probably approved him for the third Everest expedition in 1924.He trained himself strictly from the winter of 1923 to 1924, and even invited professional coaches to train his physical fitness to the best condition.At that time, the British mountaineering group still regarded mountaineering as a hobby of the upper class and was skeptical of this training method.Even so, although Walsingham had no high-altitude experience, he was probably the strongest member of the 1924 expedition.

In 1924, the third expedition team encountered severe weather as soon as they arrived at the Rongbuk Glacier, and the team members paid a high physical price when setting up an alpine camp in the North Col.Worthingham's old military injury to his throat also recurred due to height.On June 4th Walsingham wrote to Jeffrey.Winthorpe.Yang, said he felt weaker than a child, sicker than a handicapped person, and crazier than a pervert who chiseled a ladder in ice.But I am sure, very sure, that I must and will climb to the top.On June 7, Price and Worthingham attempted to summit without oxygen, using a zigzag route from the north face of the mountain.Price had symptoms of snow blindness and had to stop on the spot, but Walsingham insisted on continuing to attack the summit alone. The exact circumstances of Walsingham's death are still unknown.There was a storm that evening, and he may have froze to death from lack of cover, or he may have fallen thousands of feet off the north face of Mount Everest. The expedition erected a cairn for Worthingham next to the base camp in Rongbuk Glacier Valley, and in 1926 a monument was erected at Magdalene College. I turned the encyclopedia to the front to see the date of publication: 1951; I took a pencil from the information desk and copied the information into my notebook.I couldn't find Walsingham's name in the electronic catalog, so I checked out six books on the 1924 expedition.And that's just the beginning, I've been in these dark reading rooms all day.In the morning, I read the materials of the Mount Everest expedition team in the South Asia Room. On the wall are portraits of the emperors of the Mughal Dynasty. They wear headscarves and wear luxurious swords and jewelry.At noon in the microfilm room, looking for information on Worthingham and Thames|Anderson in the pages of the newspaper index.There are many articles in 1924 that mention the expedition and Ashley's death, but the content is similar, and there is no mention of his private life.In the afternoon, I went to the manuscript room and begged the librarian to let me see the painter Eleanor Soames︱AndersonLetters from Grafton. He said: No way, you have to ask your university to apply first, and then wait for the library to approve it. But I'm not a student now. That's impossible. I begged and begged, and said that the person who wrote the letter was my relative.The librarian listened to me coldly. He said: Even if I want to borrow you, I can't, there are rules here. Frustrated, I returned to my seat, staring at the table and turning my pen, feeling very depressed.The pencil was dark purple with the words THE WORLD'S KNOWLEDGE written in large white letters on it.I have before me five books on exploration and two on war.There was also a photocopy of a newspaper clipping, the only one I could find after spending two hours in the microfilm room, from the London Times of October 13, 1924. □□□ Everest Mountaineer's Legacy Suspended whereabouts of heirs unknown * According to this newspaper, Ashley died on Mount Everest in June.Part of Mr. Walsingham's estate was placed in trust due to the disappearance of his heirs. Mr. Walsingham is his uncle George.Risley's heir.Mr. Risley is a giant in the shipping industry and the founder and managing director of Wanship Shipping.The value of Mr Worthingham's estate is unknown, but sources say Mr Risley's estate is considerable. Walsingham lost his life on the summit of Mount Everest, and my King praised the explorer as a good example of a climber, ready to sacrifice himself to save his fellows, and to face danger for the sake of science and exploration. The small screen on my desk lights up, and it reads in green: Please pick up books at the counter. I showed my library pass to the lady at the pick-up desk and she gave me a green cardboard box labeled Illinois SA Grafton, Personal Letters 1915-1931.On the way back to my seat, I passed the information desk, and the librarian was gone. There were seven letters in the box, all addressed to Eleanor's husband, Charles.Charles appears to have been sent to Palestine with the army in 1916, and the letter mentions Eleanor's artistic career and many financial problems, mentions many people, but mostly with surnames or initials, letters, plus scribbles , it is even more difficult to understand. I read the letters and learned that Eleanor had gone to Sweden in 1916, where my grandmother Charlotte was born.The second page of a certain letter in December 1916 caught my attention. I read it over and over again, and finally felt that I understood it.I copied that passage into my notebook. □□□ It seems that we have to send at least two thousand crowns to repair the house in Aiyan Lake in such a short period of time.Mrs. Haslow had asked several carpenters and workmen, but the house hadn't been intended to be used in winter, and it was so cold there that it had to be repaired.There needs to be at least a new toilet upstairs, and a stove.The windows need to be double glazed, the doors need to be replaced, the attic needs to be insulated, and so on.The location of the house was too remote, and the construction cost increased accordingly.Because workers have to live on the island until completion, there is an additional charge. Winter supplies and construction materials have all been delivered, and with any luck most of the work will be done before we arrive.Mrs. Haslow said that the doctors in Leksand have a good reputation. As for the nurses, I think even if you don’t bring them from England, you have to look for them in places like Stockholm to find good candidates.Overall, I feel more comfortable with British nurses.The most sensible thing to do would be to hire someone as soon as possible, so that she can come by the end of January.If you start recruiting people in London now, you should be able to find experienced and capable people, and I hope she will be willing to travel far. It was agreed that we don't have to pay for the repairs, and we don't have to share all the expenses this winter. Dad insisted that he should pay for it all.However, if we want to ensure the progress of construction, we'd better lay it out first. I took a large Swedish atlas from the shelf, turned to the full map page, and found Leksand, a hundred and fifty miles northwest of Stockholm. Then I looked at the detailed map, and I saw a large area of ​​light blue a few miles away from Leksand, with Ayen printed in italics on it. Ayen is a lake, and there is an island in the lake, but the island has no name.I printed this map. I called Pitcherd from the phone booth outside the library and the secretary said he was not available right now and put me on to Kahn, but as soon as he heard about the letter Kahn told me to wait.A few minutes later, Pitcherd's earnest voice came over the phone, and I read him what I had written in my notebook. Pitcherd said: I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you've found. Eleanor said Charles would not go to Sweden with her until we arrived, but he was in Palestine all 1917.Also, she said that her dad would pay all the money without apportionment. i can't see She must have gone there with Yin Mozhen, this is the only reasonable explanation.Why go all the way north to winter in a house that's never been used in winter? Please wait a moment. I heard someone on the phone talking to Pitcherd, and Pitcherd covered the phone to answer, and then the person's voice disappeared. He said: Sorry, there may be other explanations for this letter, maybe someone else accompanied her. But this explanation makes sense.Eleanor told everyone that she was pregnant, which was normal after a few years of marriage.Then the two sisters went to Sweden together, and when Yinmazhen's child was born, Eleanor raised her as her own.Isn't that exactly what unmarried pregnant women would do in those days?Go far away, give birth and come back alone I think it was true that such things happened at the time, but since Yin Mozhen didn't go back to England at all, why bother? I don't know, I haven't figured it out yet. I believe you have seen all of them? Yes, there are seven letters in total, one of which you showed me before.I just found these. So, keep trying to find it.The letters are interesting, but not definitive evidence.Unfortunately, I have to see a client soon, I wish you a successful investigation and keep in touch. I hung up the phone and walked back out into the rain, notebook in hand.