burning sky

Chapter 5

gray ghost

Dawn is about to break.on this ruined street

He left me with an air of farewell,

Disappeared in the long sound of the siren.

— Eliot, "Little Gidding"

"We have searched all the areas where the association is located, but there is no trace..." Boyle said worriedly.

"He should have left from the main hall of the French Pavilion, but where did he go now?..." Pascal looked into the thick night.

"In the final analysis...it was my fault...after seeing me..." Lagrange sat on the wet grass, covered his face with his hands, and kept blaming himself.

"I think we have new clues!" Suddenly a figure rushed into the anxiously looking crowd.Everyone can't help cheering up.

"But this is also bad news..." Rousseau panted, "Lavoisier has left the area where the association is located. The data shows that he entered the present world through Gate No. [-] in Paris two hours ago. I think we It is estimated that a difficult search will be carried out in the present world..."

"Please take me with you too!" Lagrange stood up, his voice trembling, "I can't just sit around like this...!!"

"Mr. Lagrange, we can understand your eagerness," Voltaire pressed Lagrange's pale hand, "but you are still a newborn memoir entity, and you have only been here for two months. It's still too dangerous...so please wait for our news. We will definitely get your Lavoisier back."

"If you are familiar with Paris now, please come with me and Rousseau." Voltaire turned around and said to everyone, and then disappeared into the endless night.

Standing there silently, Lagrange felt for the first time that he was so powerless, hopeless, and irreparable.If you can't protect yourself, how can you protect the one you love...? !

The night is swallowing everything up.

Paris in 1913 was shrouded in darkness before the outbreak of World War I.

Once entering the present world, the beautiful, the ugly, the noble, the despicable, all the chaos and helplessness rush forward.It was eerily silent on the street near midnight, with occasional quarrels coming from the red/light district, and certain dormant restless sounds, which made people creepy.

The wind whizzed past, kneading the garbage on the street casually.

"Now the scope has become too large...Although I can be sure that Lavoisier, who was born and died here, will not leave Paris now, but where is he in such a big city..." Voltaire scanned the darkness Sky, "Although he has been in the association for 19 years, he has never signed a contract with others, which prevents us from finding his trace through the context of the contract..."

"The contract you are talking about refers to the two types of blood contract and marriage contract with strong ties..." Rousseau said while watching the drunks who were pushing and shoving on the street vigilantly, "but there is another kind of contract that every memoir What materialized individuals possess when they are born is the social contract signed with the common memoirs of human beings... Although its connection is not very strong, we can still find each other's traces through it..."

"I almost forgot, aren't you the manager of the social contract..." Voltaire smiled at Rousseau, "What do we need for you?"

"I'm going to use my ability to search for all memoir entities nearby. It's like a radio search... Bryce, please leave me and Francois, I need to reduce the interference..." Rousseau turned his head and looked Follow Pascal them.

"So I'll take my leave. Good luck to you." Pascal said, then turned around and disappeared into the night with the others.

The streets were deserted.

Rousseau closed his eyes, he could feel some kind of dark roots slowly spreading down the ground, knocking secretly under the cold stone road, and constantly stumbling amidst the clutter... It could feel the luster, it was struggling To reach...in the abyss of endless misery, in the burial place of age-old blood...

Rousseau opened his eyes, his skin looking pearly white in the night.He sighed, cold enough to condense the air. "I found Lavoisier. In the Paris Catacombs."

"That...where is...?"

"That is the burial place of civilians, sinners and countless unknown people since the 18th century...Countless skeletons have been randomly piled up to form an endless corridor...The world 20 meters underground will never have sunlight, nor Honor and favor..." Rousseau said sadly, "People like you who have never been abandoned by history certainly never got there...but it is the last silent destination of many people...including Lavoisier.——below Leave it to me, François, at that time, he hated me the most, Jean-Jacques Rousseau."

The path was so clean that it was almost cruel... He seemed to be walking on the path towards death again, but now this path was so endless that he continued to torture after death.The dim light is not enough to illuminate, but the eerie skeletons around are enough to illuminate this hell.

Rows of lower leg bones form the bracket, dotted with yellowed or cracked heads, dark and empty eye sockets, no one knows what kind of soul once lived inside.This is the catacombs of Paris, the 300-kilometer Wall of Weeping, where people who have died are piled together inexplicably.Ordinary people whose lives were taken away by the plague, the lover of Louis XV who was once magnificent, and of course himself, Antoine Lavoisier.

I don't know where my own skeleton is staring at me... It's ridiculous to think so.Is he really the embodiment of the memoir?He was nothing more than a phantom in agony that could not be ended.

People in the world pointed out to him that the Enlightenment thinkers were responsible for his death, and that he had to ask Voltaire and Rousseau for an explanation, and so on—even if he did have a grudge against them, but this hatred was in his own. So little before sin.He is destroyed for himself.

Lavoisier just sat on a corridor like this, rather than sitting, it was more like a collapse of despair... Isn't everything he did, all the painstaking efforts, all for his sacred science, and now, he All efforts are defiled it... Betrayer of faith, bound by fame and fortune, falling into the abyss of evil.

I don't know how long I've been sitting paralyzed...why hasn't this humble ghost disappeared?Oh, it was frozen in the fiery fires of hell.

A slight disturbance, like a sigh in the cold...His tearful face was cupped in both hands.Lavoisier raised his head mechanically. It was a visitor with a gray hood and a gray cloak.Like a gray ghost, the visitor raised his hood, revealing a young face similar to Lavoisier.

"You and I both have round faces..." Rousseau held Lavoisier's face.pale smile. 17 and 15 years old, the appearance conceals too many cruel truths.Everything is like a fairy tale, once it is dismantled, it will be ruthless.

Lavoisier looked at him with eyes full of tears, half resentment, half sympathy. In 1794... When he and countless civilians were bloody/bloody/massacred/killed, Rousseau was welcomed into the Pantheon...Although his life is long gone, his thoughts are still shrouded in this disaster-ridden land for a long time , the remnants of evil continue...

"We are responsible for your death," Rousseau knelt on the ground, approaching the silent Lavoisier, "but no one is more responsible than me. Not Marat, not Robespierre Take your life...it's me, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. An alibi murder."

Lavoisier raised his head and saw Rousseau's painful face. "You don't need to do this...it's all my fault, M. Rousseau." Lavoisier sighed.

"Hurt! Hurt is not only engraved in your heart..." Rousseau looked at the dense bones surrounding him, "These people... many of them are ordinary people who keep their own lives, and they could have lived their lives happily and peacefully...but they became The burial of my moral republic/country."

"At the end of 1793, the revolution/revolution/government/government paid attention to the differences between me and the encyclopaedia... At that time, Voltaire and I had passed away, and Condorcet, the old man of the encyclopedia, was in his dying years and dying days... Roberts Pierre wants to ask for an explanation for me who has been persecuted..." Rousseau looked at the bones and curled up to one side, "I will know after I die, and reading people rehabilitated me after a hundred years should be celebrated-but now I I would rather not be worshiped by the revolutionaries."

"'Only Rousseau's thought is the absolute morality, and the Encyclopedia is the enemy of him, and it is the evil side'... Jacobin is rehabilitating me, and at the same time drives out the staff of the Encyclopedia... ...The last thinker of the Enlightenment died indirectly at my hands..." Rousseau looked at Lavoisier with pain, his head deeply buried... "But... this is just the beginning."

"What happened in 1794..." Lavoisier's thin voice evoked the darkest memory. "You were just used by Robespierre...he just used your politics/science/ideology as his cover..."

"No, the most painful thing is that what he practiced was my political/scientific thought." Rousseau gently rejected Lavoisier's concession, and insisted on telling the horrible/bloody story, "It was me Propose/violence/force/revolution/revolution, yes, violence/force/revolution/revolution means bloodshed...but so much blood is shed that the Seine is red...the people who die on the guillotine every day There are fifty or so...but...as Robespierre's further admiration for me...the damn people in power are not dead, more are common people..."

"I once wrote that there is either good or evil in this world, and history is the history of the struggle between good and evil...I firmly believe that I am the creed of morality, stubborn, and those who oppose me will eventually be judged/judged by justice...This This kind of self-confidence is too dangerous, and Robespierre undoubtedly wants to be me in the revolutionary era... He confidently shouted 'I am the people', and he thought his will was me. In "Social/Social Contract Theory" The general will stated, against me or against him, is evil and must die... He killed the allies who supported the Encyclopedia... I am too pessimistic about the development of history. On this point, there is no doubt that Voltaire That's right—but for this consciousness, the blood of countless people washed after my death..."

"Robespierre adores me, 'everything different from Rousseau must be destroyed'...he overthrows all civilizations according to my moral/republic/country, and tries to build new ones...all festivals are canceled No, only the so-called Morals Festival... The only programs in the Morals Festival are my books... They play the heroes of "New Heloise", because they alone are the incarnations of the new Morals... How ridiculous, They happened to be wearing the clothes the protagonist wore before committing suicide...ah, didn’t I say, ‘Evil people will deny the law, so you have to trust fair judgment’?! So the Jacobin government There is no law/law, they only believe in morality...morality! The judgment given by morality...Mr. Lavoisier, this is how you were sentenced/punished...I killed you."

"It's useless..." Lavoisier forced a smile, "Isn't everything doomed, Mr. Rousseau. You are still in your comfortable Pantheon, but I... I think it's also very good to stay with these random graves." ah……"

"The Pantheon...!" Rousseau looked solemnly and desperately at the dense bones around him, "The brother of the author of the music that was played when I was buried...has died on the guillotine...the only person who recited my achievements I don’t mention my politics/politics...my morality/republic/country! How stupid! U/Top/Ban-like dream! What kind of horror/terror will it fall into if it is really implemented!'Horror/ Virtue of horror'... Robespierre is seeking the way for my theology-politics... how many victims! This catacombs! You in front of me! All these dry bones... are my fallen morality/morality/ Made by the Republic! The blood that accompanies my adoration washes the last years of the eighteenth century.—I will not die."

"From then on, people attributed all the revolutions and violence in modern times to my thoughts..." Rousseau said, tears welling up, "What mistakes did I make... The redress of the French Revolution brought me The pain that came to me is billions of times more than the pain of being excluded in front of me...Why do you treat me like this?!! On the one hand, you denounce me as the source of disasters, and on the other hand, you praise me as 'belonging to nature and truth You know, Monsieur Lavoisier, that I have come to persuade you to go back...but I cannot rescue you from the abyss of your torment, I can only plunge myself into one deeper than yours. Go into the abyss... I have come to atone for my sins, but I don't expect redemption... Maybe you can understand from my confession that your fault is not very serious..."

"Endless blood and tears cast a burning sky... blood replaced flames and spread across the wasteland of history..." Lavoisier looked at Rousseau, who was in tears, and tears fell silently, "I will not blame you anymore .There was never a murder between us. My pain is too small to bother you."

"No, it's not," said Rousseau softly. "I've learned one thing over the years. I used to think that either good or evil was a big mistake... nothing is pure black and nothing is pure." White... self-righteously thinking that we are good, and then falling to the edge of evil... We are gray, gray ghosts, gray because of the mixture of good and evil, ghosts because of the separation of body and soul - so there is no No one is guilty, no one can judge another. Because of past sins and mutual repentance, we are together. Antoine, we have slipped to two extremes."

Lavoisier looked at Rousseau silently, he closed his eyes, tears fell on the cold stone steps.Just accept the arrangement of fate, I still believe in God's will.

The surrounding bones watched them silently.The secret that sang in those black eye sockets.

Rousseau picked up the exhausted Lavoisier.The black corridor was gradually moving away from them.

The random division of good and evil, the inability to transcend crime and punishment, the gate of the century is already full of victims.There is no pure black and no pure white, gray ghosts wander quietly.Blood poured, violence/force threatened, we hold neither truth nor falsehood.We are just struggling between them, reduced to their eternal playthings. ——In this way, we bid farewell to our past, buried the past, and let the time of the future carefully carve our new appearance.

What we call the beginning is often the end

To announce the end is to begin.

The end is where we started.

— Eliot, "Little Gidding"

In the endless night sky, the stars revolved dimly.The door connecting the current world and the Association suddenly opened.

Lagrange leaned on the stone steps in the grass, looking haggard.A figure floated gently in front of him, lighting up the soul.

Rousseau put the sleeping Lavoisier on Lagrange's lap, smiled silently, and moved away soundlessly.

Lagrange looked at Lavoisier who was curled up in his arms, immersed in the darkest dream in a state of ignorance. It would be great if he could sleep like this forever, but he and he can never be freed , This is the fate of silence.

Lavoisier slowly opened his eyes and saw the white and melancholy face.

"Antoine..." Lagrange's blue eyes were as dim as the starry sky tonight.

"No..." Lavoisier murmured weakly, "The intersection of our lives will end like this..."

"No! I'm already so cowardly, so ungrateful!!" Lagrange said painfully, "I'm so selfish, I do what I like, and I don't know how many people I have hurt! The height I am at today, the next I don't know how many people's blood and tears, how many people's bones! I will not save my savior, and give in countless times, which will only push me to the cliff of collapse! I have to take some kind of responsibility... Otherwise, here is My eternal hell! . . . "

"Antoine..." Lagrange's icy and trembling tone was as brittle as an ice flower in early winter, "I just learned that there are two types of unrepentant contracts between memoir materialized individuals...a marriage contract, two memoirs The most precious page in the memoir of materialized individual exchange constitutes a relationship like a marriage. The two support the connection and share the power of both to protect each other. Once broken, the souls of both will fall into the abyss of eternal doom... The blood contract, by A memoir materialized individual unilaterally provides the most precious page in his memoirs, and transplants it into another memoir materialized individual, forming a relationship like father (mother) and son (daughter). One side is the offspring, and the parent must protect the offspring, and the destruction of the offspring will inevitably lead to the demise of the parent...It is said that after signing the contract, there will be an elusive feeling...I really want to know...what is that feeling like ..."

"No! Joseph! You must not do this!!" Lavoisier suddenly realized everything, but Lagrange's elderberry-like fingers gently pressed his lips.A cold tear fell on Lavoisier's shocked little face.

"I swear by the common memoir of mankind, Joseph-Louis Lagrange, the memoir begins."

"From now on, you are my child... I will protect you with all my strength."

The author has something to say:

The writing date of this chapter is actually much earlier than the writing date of the whole novel. The original intention of writing at that time was completely inspired by "From Rousseau to Robespierre-The Destruction of the Moral Utopia".Many of my novels are the result of splicing together many text fragments written in different periods, so confusion is inevitable... The general content of this chapter can be summarized as follows: About Lavoisier, Lagrange and Rousseau A chapter with ellipses, or a chapter in which Rousseau talks to himself and nobody else sees it.The reference in this chapter, "From Rousseau to Robespierre-The Fall of the Moral Utopia", is so seriously referenced that I am embarrassed.

At the beginning, I really wanted to call this chapter "Rousseau and Lavoisier are both small round faces", but then reason overcame my resentment.and "Lagrangian elderberry fingers" are widely referred to as the Elder Wand.For the specific scene of the conclusion of the contract (such as how the two operate and how it feels after the conclusion), see the second "Portrait in Two Mirrors".