【Lou Cheng】 How easy is another day

During the Easter holiday, Minglou took Mingtai to Austria.

Mingtai was playful and refused to take the train, so Minglou drove to Munich via Strasbourg, stopped in Salzburg, and then headed east, arriving in Vienna exactly the day before Good Friday.

After settling in the hotel, it was already afternoon. According to Minglou's plan, after check-in, I cleaned up a little, so I could go downstairs to have a light meal. By the way, I asked the front desk to book the remaining tickets for tonight's performance at the Opera House.But the young master of the Ming family had a sore back and a sore back from sitting in the car, and immediately lay down as soon as he entered the room, rolled around coquettishly, and directly wrapped himself in a quilt into a ball, no matter how much Minglou coaxed him, he would never cooperate.

Minglou never had anything to do with the younger brother's acting like a spoiled child.After persuasion for a while, seeing that it didn't work, I had to remind him not to bore myself, and let him go.

Even though Mingtai just said that he would not go to the opera, Minglou asked the hotel to book three tickets on his behalf, and told the front desk to deliver a Sacher cake to the young master later, with double vanilla ice cream, and then went out .

Vienna is warm and cold in April, and the street trees on both sides of the ring road have just sprouted. At first glance, the entire ring road is shrouded in hazy softness.This is not the first time Ming Lou has visited this city, but even though it is a revisit of the old place, there is no nostalgia for a while.In recent years, Paris seems to be the same, Munich has been very different, and now in Vienna, the splendid buildings are still the same as before, the imperial power is still there, the pedestrians look calm and calm, and the blood of the July riots seems to have completely faded away.

He first went to Victoria University to visit friends he met in Paris.Unexpectedly, it just happened to catch up with the seminar of the Department of Economics, so I simply stayed to attend a session.

Since the Great Depression on the other side of the Atlantic, the economics department of every university in Europe, no matter what language they used or what their previous standpoint, seemed to be unable to get around a person's name, and Vienna was no exception.

The seminar was in English – the guest professor was from the UK, but the post-lecture communication was in a sea of ​​German.Minglou's German was limited to reading and writing, and after listening to it for a while, he became confused, but judging from the expressions of everyone in the classroom, he could guess that this was not an academic discussion with the same views.At this time, his former classmate and friend who is now teaching at Victoria University motioned to him. He nodded and slipped out of the classroom quietly.

They bought coffee, sat down on the steps in the courtyard, and lit cigarettes, as they had done in the Sorbonne.

After taking a big sip of coffee, my friend asked, "Ming, what did you think of the seminar just now?"

Minglou smiled: "I still have an old view. But in your school, it seems that there are great differences. Is Keynes not good?"

This answer did not surprise his friend. He shrugged: "I don't believe in expectations, let alone in general. The government shouldn't make decisions for everyone, and it can't do it. It should be the embodiment of everyone's will, and It’s not one person who embodies the will of all.”

"I don't understand politics." Minglou dusted his cigarette, "If we only talk about economics, Keynes is very effective. He saved the United States. In this era, the Great Depression is conductive. If it doesn't stop, everyone will die. This is true in Europe, and further afield in Asia."

"Not necessarily in the long run. It implies that the government has absolute power."

"You think so?"

"Someone is doing this. Ming, I like Johnny very much, and I think he's a good guy. But a theory is a theory, it shouldn't be an ism. Johnny is like this, and so is what you believe in."

Minglou spread his hands, still smiling: "I respect your opinion."

Having said that, both of them were silent for a moment.Ming Lou opened his mouth again: "I am entering the country from Germany this time."

There was a hint of sarcasm on the friend's lips: "Oh? My compatriots are showing their talents in Germany. What do you think of what you have seen? You know, what they are doing now is actually Johnny's set. Total demand, Aggregate supply, elimination of unemployment . . . "

"Do you have any relatives still there?"

This seemingly abrupt question interrupted his friend's train of thought and made him stunned for a moment: "Distant relatives. My mother's cousin."

"Maybe my hunch is not right - I know you don't like 'anticipation', but that fellow of yours doesn't seem to like you much. So in the long run..."

"Inthelongrun, wearealldead1." My friend suddenly said something in English, and then laughed, "Ming, it doesn't take long, you said your country is at war, maybe my country will go back to war soon. They So hate the East, hate the Russians, but forget any one person, a kind of thought, as long as it becomes an doctrine, disaster may come."

Speaking of this, he saw that Minglou hadn't answered for a long time, and said as if thinking of something, "I didn't intend to offend your belief..."

Minglou laughed: "My belief? I remember that you don't take the Three Principles of the People seriously. Of course, you don't agree with any kind of 'ism'. So there is no need to apologize."

The other party lit another cigarette: "I don't agree with any kind of doctrine. Too many evils are carried out in their name."

Minglou still didn't answer.

Realizing that this topic was slipping into the abyss of "unhappiness", my friend changed the subject: "Okay, let's talk about something else. We have discussed similar discussions more than once in Paris, and there is no need to come here again. How did you think Coming to Vienna? I was really surprised to get your call."

"My brother has always liked it here. Isn't it a holiday, take him here."

"Which one?"

Minglou smiled slightly: "Small."

"Oh? He's here too? His name is Mingtai, right? Then let's have dinner together tonight. I'm going to book a restaurant right now. It's a bit rushed at this point, but I have a good relationship with the boss. It's not difficult to add a table temporarily." .Including my wife, there are four of us, right?"

"Another day. I have tickets for the opera tonight."

"I never knew you were an opera lover."

"It's not bad to do it once in a while."

"That's true. Listen to what?"

"Parsifal."

The friend immediately showed a distressed expression, and said meaningfully: "Oh... Wagner."

"Once upon a time." Ming Lou said the same.

In fact, at this point, there is room for another cup of coffee and a cigarette, but Minglou looked at his watch and said he wanted to leave.

Seeing the anticipation suddenly revealed in Minglou's eyes, my friend was taken aback, and then said with a knowing smile like someone who has been there, "My God, I never knew that Wagner could make people so excited."

Minglou laughed and said frankly, "I want to go to the museum before it gets dark."

After agreeing to get together after Easter, Minglou bid farewell to his friends and left Weida.When I arrived at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the cloudy sky just cleared up. When I went up the steps of Minglou, I suddenly realized that my steps were a bit too fast. If I was in Shanghai or Nanjing, I would instantly suspect that there was some conspiracy. Accompanied by it.

But this is not Shanghai, nor Nanjing. He has been away from his motherland for too long, his motherland, theirs.

He did not slow down, and walked through one exhibition hall after another by memory, through Titian, Rembrandt, and Bruegel the Elder, until he saw the huge "Madonna of the Rosary", and finally stopped .

The setting sun falls in the exhibition room through the high windows, leaving traces of light gold on the dark canvas.Probably because the museum was close to closing, there were almost no other visitors in the exhibition hall, so Minglou went to a bench and sat down.Someone was already sitting on the bench, the only spectator besides him here and now.

Without squinting, he stared at the young man holding the huge head a few meters away for a long time. After a long time, he let out a soft breath: "It's dangerous. I was almost late."

This sentence seemed to fall into the void, without any response.Foreign land, mother tongue, like meeting people by chance.

But just as he was talking, a hand sneaked across the windbreaker between the two of them, and shook his hand without any trace.

Minglou smiled and turned away.

Familiar faces came with greetings:

"Hi, brother."