Chapter 43 42

【Waiting for mail】 Four days later, I returned to the post office on Joachimstaller Strasse to find an English-speaking waiter.I leaned against the counter and watched the people lined up with packages.The same manager strode up to the counter and nodded rudely at me.He waited for me to speak first. I got an email from the post office.But the content is in German. What do you think it will be?You are in Germany! The manager took me back to his office and told me to sit down.He entered the corridor and came back with a blue cardboard filing box.He placed the box on top of the pile of papers on the desk.

Take a look inside. I opened the lid and looked at the five envelopes inside. Found in the Philatelic Archives.He said: "I guess even eighty years ago, someone knew that we didn't get pick-up mail from expeditions very often. The manager leaned back in his chair and looked at me.He said: "These are now the property of the Archives.Even if the recipient comes to pick it up in person, it may be rejected. I'm not the point.I just want to see the content. The manager stood up and shook his head. I do not have permission.This is a privacy issue.You can apply to the archives

The manager squinted at me. How long will you be in Berlin? I have no idea.A few days. The manager nodded, took out a steel ruler from a cup on the table, and patted his hand lightly. Someone had opened the envelope, probably someone from the archives.But I don't think anyone will read these letters.Probably no one will read it.The letters will go back to the shelf where they have sat for fifty years, and will continue to sit for another fifty years He looked up at me. You said you were related to the recipient?Your last name is different from the one above. I am related to the recipient and the sender.

Do you have proof? I rummaged through my bag, took out a card written by Ashley from my notebook, and handed it to the manager.He puts on his glasses and looks at the card.His frames were bent, and one of the hinges was wrapped with electrical tape.The manager opened the file box and took out an envelope to compare the handwriting.Then he took out a high-power magnifying glass from the desk drawer to examine the card.He muttered something in German, and put the magnifying glass on the table. This is very abnormal.He said. The manager looked at me and asked me where this was from.We talked about California, and the manager said he had been to San Francisco a few times for philatelic conventions.He asked about my family and the classes I took in college, watching me carefully as I spoke.

The manager grabbed his steel ruler and turned the chair.He tapped his palm with the end of the ruler. How do you know these letters will be in the archives?There are no such things in the public directory. I have no idea. Then why are you here? I know the mail is coming here, and I doubt that anyone will come to collect it.So I thought it best to come and ask.But it never occurred to me that anyone would keep them. The manager shook his head and dropped the ruler on the table. Neither would I.Was it sent by your grandfather? It was my great-grandfather.Ashley.Edmund.worthingham. Who is that woman in the recipient?

Yin Mozhen.Soames︱Anderson. I hesitated, then added: It was my great-grandmother. She travels to Berlin?Or live here? I have no idea. Why didn't she come to pick up the letter? I have no idea.Maybe I'll know after reading the letter. The manager looked at me across the table.We were silent for a long time.He opened a file drawer and gave me a pair of thin cotton gloves.He nodded towards the filing box. Put on gloves.He said: There is a photocopier next door.Do not use automatic feed, and do not fold the paper.Return the envelope when you're done.Pack the envelopes correctly.

I put the photocopied letter in my shoulder bag and took the subway back to my hotel on Rosenthalplatz.My room was on a tall building at the intersection of three busy streets.As I entered, I was greeted by a group of Canadian backpackers. Do you want to go out? go out? Friday night.Are you not going out? Canadians change their clothes and go out for their night activities.I undress and enter the cramped shower.I turned on the faucet and let the water get hotter and hotter until I was almost invisible to the steam in the bathroom.Wrapped in a towel, I lay on the bed for a long time, dripping wet.It was warm in the room, much warmer than the house in Picardy.Miri must have returned to Paris by now.She was probably going to the same bar where we met two weeks ago.

I got out of bed and put on my clothes.There's a two-story coffee shop on the other corner of Rosenthal Square that closes late.I ordered a cup of coffee at the counter, then went upstairs and sat down at a small wooden table.I took out five letters, arranged them in chronological order, and put the notebook and pen beside them.On the paper was a handwriting I recognized from Ashley in thick pencil, with Everest Expedition printed on the letterhead. I poured some sugar into the coffee from a glass jar and stirred it in the dark foam with a spoon.The spoon made a slight crunch when it hit the porcelain.

□□□ Fidon March 28, 1924 Dear Inmozhen, I was almost clueless when I got your telegram.The timing was right before I was due to sail, which made me flustered; my last few days in London and Liverpool were like a fog.During the long weeks at sea, I kept thinking about you, and I tore up six or seven letters that I didn't know I should write to you.In the end, I knew you didn't want me to write, so I didn't. But with you, I can never control my feelings. This letter will be sent to the main post office in Berlin as a waiting post, and I have also telegraphed to you; if you want, you can pick it up, I hope this will make my life easier.In the gap near dusk, everyone else will take out pen and paper and write to their wives and lovers; you are neither to me, but I still write to you, this place is too far from civilization to care just right.You are right for me.

I crossed the plains of India by train from Bombay, with two other climbers, Price and Sommerwell.The high temperature and dust here are unbearable. In addition to being too hot to sleep, there are ferocious mosquitoes in the car. I have strange dreams in it. I wake up and sleep every now and then, and I will go to the corridor at night.The only consolation is to open the carriage door, hold the railing and stand by the door frame, feel the night breeze, watch the stars on the horizon, and occasionally see the firewood burning in the isolated cabin. We traveled to Darjeeling on the narrow-gauge railway, weaving through lush tropical jungle, the track slowly leading in one direction and then the other.I stuck my head out the window and watched the little blue steam engine whizzing by.The ascent was so steep that they had to put a guy on the engine and sprinkle gravel on the rails to add friction.The expedition's cameraman, Noel, sat on the roof of the car, shooting with his movie camera, occasionally ducking completely to avoid branches and vines thicker than climbing ropes.

When we arrived in Darjeeling, we stayed at Everest Lodge.There I pack, weigh and repack my gear.I wrote you another letter there, but it went in the trash.There I changed into evening dress for the last time to dine with the chief's wife. We set off from Darjeeling, the first few miles were a very steep ride by car and then we started walking, a hot wind carried us through the hills, the air smelled of perfume, and brought large butterflies from the mountains.For the collection of RWG Hingston, we went after the butterflies with a net; he was our medical officer and keen naturalist. We both had ponies to ride, but Price and I both rode them if we could, for peace and solitude.In those times, I often think about how much you would love to walk around here, how much you would appreciate the scenery and the strange and kind people, the strange wild plants, the clear sky.But I was looking vaguely like through a glass.For even in the steaming jungle, I still thought of the windswept plateaus that followed, and the towering snow-capped mountains, one of the harshest and most spectacular.Yinmozhen, I'm not ready to meet that mountain yet.She may not be what I imagined, but if she were, we would never stand a chance; yet I would love to see her, and every time I pass a mountaintop, I will look for the snowy mountains on the horizon, even though I know we are still there. It's several weeks away. I am writing from the comfort of a sturdy desk in a hostel cabin.We shall not enjoy this luxury for long; I save the heavier words until then, because if I finish writing now, I will send them together next time.You can write to me at: ∮ Mount Everest Expedition Forwarded by UK Trade Agent Yadong County, Tibet ∮ But I shouldn't have expected that. We'll be back in the UK in August.Is it crazy to think that your telegram represents some kind of new beginning?I'm so crazy.As crazy as we used to be together. your forever ashley □□□ Yadong County April 2, 1924 My dear Yin Mozhen, We finally crossed the border into Tibet.I walked up the 3,000 feet from Kappa to Jelep La to test my breath.It was hard work, with snow and rocks along the way, but being able to walk from Sikkim to Tibet, standing higher than most of the alpine peaks, even in strong winds, was satisfying.I feel like I'm doing fine, I don't even have a headache.But is my condition really good enough?Is anyone really in good enough shape? We'll find out soon.Don't believe what you read in the paper that we are not climbing that mountain, we are laying siege to her.We sent against Mount Everest an army of several hundred men: one leader, General Bruce, who commanded the expedition, and nine of us Englishmen as officers.The sergeants are loyal Gurkhas; the soldiers have sixty porters and Sherpas, who have just changed into British underwear and waterproof underwear; finally, we recruited a mercenary group composed of two hundred villagers to take us to base camp. The supplies for the attack collected from the far side of the earth are placed on the back of the infinitely long mule train in front of us every day.Crates full of canned goods: Hunter's ham, Heinz pasta, vegetables that can and some that shouldn't; Maggi soups, Horlicks mix; an army of biscuits.And rarer delicacies: ginger candied, truffled quail eggs; foie gras pate from Lyon; four dozen 1915 Montebello champagne.The general knew that we marched to fill our stomachs.Next up are our weapons: the dreaded oxygen apparatus that looks like a Victorian toilet; sharp crampons, steel spikes and pitons; Swiss ice axes, linen rope: Whymper & Meade tents, boxed Primus mountaineering stoves, and Unna cookware; numerous silver oxygen cylinders, plus color-coded gasoline and kerosene cans. The absurdity. The best thing humans can produce, against a tower of rock that has stood for millions of years.And we don't look human at all, you'd laugh if you saw my outfit from up there.Heavy spiked boots, Shetland wool and Japanese silk undergarments; Norwegian socks, woolen coat and gloves, Jager trousers, soft cashmere leggings, a windproof and waterproof suit.And a motorcycle helmet with a fur lining, a six-foot scarf; snow goggles made of Crook Green glass.Not to mention those brutal breathing apparatus.Anyone can say it's not fair to the mountain, it's not a sport, it's not a mountain climb. 6. A glass containing cerium and a small amount of rare metal components, which can absorb ultraviolet rays, so it is mainly used to make goggles. Still, she could easily beat us.This is the symbol of her authority. Over dinner last night, the expedition's photographer, Noel, told a fantastical story, indeed factual, about how Tibet's highest lama was found after his reincarnation.After the death of a lama, the eminent monk will use several methods to find a new reincarnation.They might dream of a lama or some feature about him; they might dream of finding his location; Seek guidance at a holy lake in central Tibet.They would follow these omens, looking for children born around the time of the previous lama's death. When they find a candidate, one of the tests is to mix the old lama's items with other similar items.So they would put out four sets of rosary beads, one of which belonged to the old lama; or three walking sticks, or five pens.The true heir will always choose the item owned by the previous generation. For some reason, this reminds me of you.Maybe it's the feeling of finding the one who's meant to be in the most volatile of circumstances.Every time the lamas are scattered to the remote areas of Tibet, just to find the next generation of him, this is a kind of trust. So I believe that the pious Tibetan messenger or did he not actually believe that he would protect the letter against the impossible through those terrible mountains, from floods and robbers and all kinds of temptations, and bring these few letters to Darjeeling was finally able to be sent to Berlin.And will this letter reach you?Oh, Yin Mozhen, you always have such confidence. You can't imagine how much I miss you. your forever ashley □□□ Tibet (Ts︱tsang) April 8, 1924 My Yin Mozhen, I am writing from a temple where the ground is compact and there is no roof over our heads, only the sky and a white-hot moon hanging above us as a ceiling.Sommerwell and I left Parry town, a day behind the line; we spent the night in this Buddhist version of a convent.We couldn't speak to them, and they couldn't speak to us, but they treated us with great hospitality and treated us like wayward sons. Saying hello beside me, Somawell is a kind and gracious doctor and a first-class mountaineer.We were surrounded by prayer wheels, several of which were being turned by the wind.A desiccated billy goat stares down at us from the altar, a long-forgotten sacrifice from some unknown ages ago.It is very cold in here. Two days ago we saw a frozen waterfall in Dosak, a beautiful silver river still flowing.We stopped in Parry Town for a refresher.The town is 14,000 feet above sea level, with a 10,000-foot peak above it.It's never warm enough here and there's never no wind.All the old hands say Parrytown is the dirtiest place in the whole world.Really are. Trash in the streets can be up to knee height.Crossing these rivers of flowing waste feels like being back in Ypres, except for the laughing children and the muddy, howling dogs.They say that people here are completely unwashed from birth to death; I saw a mother lovingly anointing a naked little girl with ghee to protect against the relentless wind, sun, and snow.Apparently Parry is the highest inhabited place in the world.The summers here are too short for the crops to ripen, so the people live on poor food, eaten raw: mutton jerky, rare flour, and tea mixed with disgusting ghee.Yet they smiled at us sympathetically, knowing to pity us and our strange purpose. General Bruce was forced to retreat because of a relapse of malaria; our doctor Hingston would accompany him to Darjeeling and back to join the expedition, and we were all optimistic that the general would recover.The leadership of the expedition was taken over by Colonel Norton, a good man and a good mountaineer.But the loss of the General was still a great blow, and it did not bode well for our journey to depend upon the superstitious people on the mountain. Rumor has it that bad luck accompanied the expedition when it set out: Bodhiya boys saw stars that should not have appeared in the midday sky, and then saw a flash of daylight in the night sky; a flock of vultures kept chasing us through Tibet , circling around the camp, we couldn't throw stones away; we've all had very strange dreams.Hinston attributed these dreams to the effect of thin air on the brain during deep sleep.But porters regard dreams as images of past and future. Strangest of all, our interpreter revealed to me that Price, who came to Mount Everest in 1921 with eyes as dark as Asians, turned up after the terrible avalanche in 1922. turned blue.Of course it's just fantasy, but I have to confess, I don't remember meeting Hugh with blue eyes.But the porter really believed that Price had been marked and would die within a month, and that if he covered his ears, he would not hear the whirling sound like us normal people, but just a dead silence.I didn't tell Hugh about it. As the spectacle became more and more magnificent, all my faculties of perception expanded in proportion.It is impossible to describe how lonely this place is when one is feeling frustrated.It is one of these dozens of mountains that we are going to summit. It is for King, Country and Empire; for the advancement of knowledge; for the progress of mankind; In fact, everyone has their own reasons for climbing mountains: the colonel is for a sense of duty and honor, and believes that Britain cannot survive the Victorian period, let alone the Battle of Passchendaele; unsolvable scientific mysteries; Mills for the love and sheer joy of sport, as if climbing Mount Everest was like rowing at Eighth Academy: and the most elusive of all, Price, who climbed Not because he wanted to, but because he had to, as if only he knew the deepest secrets of that mountain. But why should I climb?For the sake of future generations, or to win glory for the country, the reasons for all these were buried in Queen's Castle.I can't say it's for the sake of knowledge because I don't see anything on Mount Everest that needs to be studied more than the other unknown places around us.I can't even plead my love of climbing, because there's nothing to climb yet; here we have to trudge and suffer, trudge and freeze, and it's not our skill with rocks and ropes that hinders our progress, but our endurance ability. So we headed in knee-deep snow, surrounded by blizzards and the harsh Himalayan sun overhead.The camaraderie of all, their tenacity and the endless hard work of all, let me pray that we can reach Mount Everest.As for me?Most of the days, I am still the one who wants to reach the summit, the desire for the summit trumps everything else.When I'm down I don't care, I think all conquests and records are human folly, and what I want can't be found on any peak. But I deceive myself.It has nothing to do with Everest or any mountains.Some rare and precious part of me survived Somme, bringing me here whole and vulnerable.I still have all the dreams, and the part about you is even stronger. your forever ashley □□□ Chuba April 26, 1924 My dear Yin Mozhen, I see it now and I must write to you immediately. Last night we stayed in Pang La, just below the pass.This morning we were tearing down the tent in the dark, and within a short distance, Hugh took me ahead of everyone. We moved forward at twice the speed, and then almost ran through the mountain pass, dizzy and panting on the summit. The scenery was spectacular: layer upon layer of dark, barren hills, and then the Himalayan spiky jut of Makalu, Lhotse, Cho Oyu all seemed to bend toward the pink sky, their western flanks transformed by the sunrise. It is dazzling.There reigned a peak, cruel and alluring, and a storm of steam flowed from her summit.That was Mount Everest, sharp as a canine's fangs, seductive as a black unconscious, because though she stood miles above, I felt as if I were looking into an abyss.She seemed to be a relic of another world, a place so raw and unforgiving that all that remained was this mountain, proof of our insignificance in the wild and roaring universe. I waited for Hugh to speak, but he just pulled out his binoculars, and we just looked at the upper half of the mountain like that for hours, trying to find some fairly flat place to set up our high camp, imagine three There would be some obstacle among those rocks fifteen miles away.We should have a good enough view soon. We have been walking from base camp for three days, and seeing Mount Everest is like breathing new life into our tired team, but the strong wind is blowing again. It sold a lot. We camped among the willows at Chuba Monastery.With the damp tent cloth against my head, I had to keep a small jar by my side all night and use it every so often to smear the oil on my face.The Tibetan Plateau made my skin dry and cracked because my skin was never used to such harsh weather.Everyone else grew beards to keep out the strong wind, but I didn't grow enough so I had to give up. On a bench outside, Mills wiggles oxygen equipment next to a hurricane lamp.Inside the marquee, Price and the colonel were arguing about the summit plan and personnel.There should be two groups of two, one with oxygen and one without because oxygen is too heavy at that altitude, and there isn't half a person here who wishes he couldn't make it to the summit.It would be great if it could go up.I want to participate in the natural group 7, but I may not even be able to enter the climbing group, so I can only serve as a support. 7. According to the context, it may refer to the group without oxygen. A messenger is getting ready to go, so I will stop here.We got the mail in Segal, and while I really didn't expect to get anything, I still stood like a boy by the mail bag and thought back to the package I got in Le Sal one day, which was much wetter than here , but no better than here.At that time and now also on the line between civilization and emptiness, I felt that I was exiled to the other side.But I have you; the long walk back to the cellar in the rain, where there are no dry clothes and no enough sleep, I have that package in my hand.It doesn't matter.I was young then and we were together. the letter is now being mailed your forever ashley □□□ flannel base camp April 29, 1924 Yin Mozhen We arrived in flannel today.I wrote a letter at first, describing our journey gently, but just burned it.Because I'm cold and tired and don't even have time to write half the facts. The letter will be mailed tomorrow. How I miss spring in this wasteland of moraines and ice; how I miss primroses and grape hyacinths and the long green grass of England.When I go back, I will know that I still have these good things at least. For seven years, I tried not to look at your pictures, your handwriting, or anything that reminded me of you.It turned out to be completely useless.Even in this place, I still picture you reading this letter, I imagine you leaning somewhere holding these letters, I imagine the necklace around your neck, I imagine everything. It's a bad feeling to send a waiting post to someone who must have their own mailbox; but even if someone knows the address, one never knows whose hand is going into that mailbox.My hands can only touch the mountains, and she only makes my hands red, swollen and dry But isn't suffering the proof of love?The proof is over. no.I'm proud to say that I'm finally healed of these stupid thoughts and won't let myself suffer any more.The Rongbuk Valley is just outside my tent door, and I readily accept her; I hope to accept the East Glacier and the North Col, and I hope to accept you as well. Yinmozhen, I made a mistake.I have squandered what should be well guarded, and I do not expect to be pardoned, for in this world men admire a man's sins, and laugh at true virtue, and call it weakness.I lost faith in everything but you, and yet I lost you.Have I lost you forever?The endless wind waved out the answer.But I didn't listen.I only believe that my steady and unchanging heart is too crazy or excited belongs to you forever Ashley