Chapter 13 11

【storage place】 I knew it was late, for the stars were so bright from the open door, and since the singing and shouting had ceased long ago, everyone must be asleep. I went through the boxes one by one, sifting through the contents, removing chairs, garden tools, and old appliances to clear a path.All documents and letters here bear the surname Hebari (Sjoberg), which should be Corinne's surname. When I finally got to the stairs, I started to pull the box out.Inside the box were rusty wrenches, tile caulk, paint brushes and scrapers.There was a roll of insulating fiberglass at the top of the stairs, and a heavy case of hardcover books.I moved the fiberglass out of the way and stepped over the box.

Moonlight streamed into the window and shone on the warped and deformed floor. Walking on it felt that the body was skewed.The floor groaned and my feet left marks in the thick dust. I went into the bedroom facing the woods, still full of boxes.After pushing away many boxes, there was an old oak low bed with exquisite carvings on the bedposts.On the opposite wall was an antique writing desk piled with old sheets and bedspreads.I moved the coverlet over to the bed and opened the drawer to find paper clips, undeveloped negatives, a bunch of rusty keys, and a sewing machine spool with thread on it.A heavy walnut chest was tucked under the table.I opened the brass latch, and saw the butterfly specimens in the glass frame, one by one nailed there with their wings outstretched, and there were labels in Latin and Swedish. Danaus plexippus． Monark faril.

I whispered: Monarch butterfly. Inside the lid of the specimen box was a sticker: Pyle.Anderson.11 Shiftman Street, Uppsala. Shaking all over, I sat down on the floor to catch my breath and think.A few minutes later, I walked down the corridor and into the opposite room, facing another pile of boxes and two single beds covered with hand-woven covers.The bedspreads must have been snow white, but now they were dusty with decades of dust.The contents of the box were a bed sheet, a tablecloth, and a china plate wrapped in newspaper.I moved the box and sat on the bed.The red bedside table is painted with ornate Arabic numerals, 1663, the year of manufacture.This bedside table has a big drawer, I hold the handle, but I can't open it, it's stuck.It took a while to pull it away.

There were drawers full of magazines: The Athenaum, Nouvelle Revue Francaise, The Egoist, The Burlington Magazine.I check the date.August 1915.July 1916. I went back and forth between the two rooms, even under the bed and behind the curtains.The air was full of dust, and I couldn't help sneezing.There were coats with lapels, a fur coat, and rubber boots in a cupboard in the hallway.I reached for the label of the fur coat and knocked out some hairs.Weil Fur, 4 rue Sainte-Anne, Paris.I took out all the clothes and piled them in the corridor, making a lot of noise.There seemed to be a sound on the stairs, and I stopped listening, breathing heavily.no one.I went back to the second room and sat down on the bed.

The sisters must have arrived in December.I imagine the two of them crossing the lake by boat on a cold day, Yin Mozhen wrapped in a thick shawl, watching the woods in the town go away and the woods on the island get closer.There must have been snow everywhere, and the cables on the pier were covered with ice.They walked the winding path to this house, and the luggage was helped. Eleanor walked in front, and Yin Mozhen followed slowly, walking towards the home where they would live for the next six months.She has never been here during the snow season.Finally, the red house would appear behind the trees, its chimneys belching black smoke, and the caretakers would come out to greet them and take their luggage from them in the snow-covered yard.

I unpacked the case and opened the newspaper which covered the china plate, dated Tuesday, March 6th, 1919.I took everything out of the box, plates, tablecloths, bed linen, and a dark cardboard folder with a belt that contained various receipts and stuff, both Swedish and British, including train tickets , hotel receipts, grocery bills, dated from 1916 to 1919.One of them is a French one, printed on it: Moas, Canvas, Panels and Paints︱Frame, rue Pigalle 28, along with the order number, the name of the article and the price, but the handwriting is very illegible. Difficult to understand.I can barely make out ocher yellow and ochre, which must be the receipt of the paint.I folded it up and put it in my pocket for later.

Opening another box on the bed, there was a small silver water jug ​​wrapped in cloth, and a pair of tin apostolic spoons packed in a wooden box. Underneath these things was a brown paper package, about the size of a shoebox.I light up the address above: C. T．Grafton Collection, 58 Carlette Gardens, London WC1, England.No postage stamp, no postmark. I tore open the paper packet, and inside was a tin box with stamped on the lid: Brought to you by Green's, Brighton, must be a masterpiece.Open the lid of the box, there is a blue booklet on the top, and two bundles of letters stuffed underneath, all tied tightly with hemp rope.The cover of the booklet reads: "Acta Geographica" Volume 47 Issue 5.May 1916.Astrolabe and radio.North Amazon High White River Notes.Ernest.Positioning of Sir Sheckton's expedition.In the middle of the booklet was a white note card embossed: The Langham Hotel, Portland Street, London W.In brown ink on the card:

□□□ August 24, 1916 to you dear Remember, I don't belong in the mud of Flanders, I don't belong to His Majesty's army, I don't belong to God, I don't belong to myself, I'm safe in someone's hand, like a love letter in the hand of a lovely girl.You have to hold it well, I will definitely come back. A I turned the card over, my hands shaking.I opened a bunch of letters, the envelopes were either plain or YMCA envelopes, the paper was brown and flimsy.Several of the green envelopes had active-duty note printed on the front, all in blunt pencil: □□□ i.Soames︱Miss Anderson

Yarrow Cottage Selsey England The sender of each letter was the same: 1st Battalion, Royal Berkshire Infantry, A. E.Lieutenant Worthingham.I pull out a piece of letter paper. □□□ We marched through the night, the tiredness and coldness cannot be described in words, and everyone had no other consolation but to sing, to the tune of Auld Lang Syne: We are here because we are here, Because we are here, because we are here. It was scary at first, then beautiful, and then scary again.I will never forget it. I skipped to the last page and read to the end of the letter. □□□ You are the source and standard of all good things, and even when I am in this situation, I still feel happy thinking of you.

After eighteen hours of crawling in the frozen mud, back to the trench, drinking a cup of hot tea and eating a delicious canned beef, at this time, I know that my joy comes from you. In the middle of the night the shells came suddenly, in the sky full of beacon fire, I saw the divine signal, but I knew there was no God, the signal came from you. I don't need these cruel reminders, I know how much I love you and how precious our time together is. But I learned one thing.The places of bliss and misery we call heaven and hell, and place them far away, far beyond death.But we were mistaken.They are in this world, and I have seen them in the same place at the same time.

Yinmozhen, I don't care about future redemption, I don't care about success or failure in this rough world.You're wiser than I am, and you figured out what we were when I didn't know myself.You were wiser than I was and wept when I left because you knew how much my ego would cost us.If this war is an unprecedented trial for mankind, then I can only rely on you to survive.I will stand with you again under the vaults of All Saints, the only redemption I long for. Ashley, forever yours My hands were still shaking, and I felt someone was looking at me again.I went to the window, opened the dusty curtains, and looked into the dark woods.No one was outside.The sky on the horizon is starting to turn blue. I rummaged through all the remaining boxes and found nothing else.I went downstairs with the tin box and out into the open space, standing in the twilight with nothing but my thin shirt on.A warm breeze came through the forest.