Margaret's Secret

Chapter 12 From Shanghai to Paris (4)
A piece of news was broadcast on the TV screen, titled "Strange things happened in the art gallery, strange deformation of famous French paintings".Lin Hai's heart was immediately suspended, he held on to the railing and looked at the screen - he saw the Western Art Museum entered the news screen, and the camera followed the reporter into the treasure exhibition room, and a framed picture appeared in this secret room. It is a French oil painting "Marguerite" from the sixteenth century.

But what is unbelievable in the news screen is that the middle of the oil painting should have been Margaret's position, but now it has turned into a mass of black. It can be roughly seen that it is the outline of a human figure, and the outer edge of this mass of black is just right. It is the outline of Marguerite in the original oil painting.It's as if there was a person sitting in the camera, and now that person got up and left, leaving only a shadow in the camera.

That's right, of course it is impossible to have Margaret in the oil painting, because she is in Lin Hai's old house at the moment.

Several people who looked like experts appeared on the TV screen. They were also amazed by the bizarre phenomenon on the oil painting, and there were some disputes. It seemed that no one could explain where Marguerite in the oil painting went.

The news was switched off at this point, but in Lin Hai's mind, the scene just now was still playing back.He suddenly lowered his head and looked at the palm of his left hand, the red "Aider moi" was still there.

At this moment, the bus stopped at the station near the old house, and Lin Hai jumped out of the bus in a hurry, and ran back to the old house with the KFC meal.

The sky was just getting dark, and he looked at the windows of the old house from below. Would Margaret look forward to his return at the window?

Back at the door of the old house, he didn't knock on the door, but took out the key.When he opened the door, he suddenly became afraid, whether Margaret would disappear again and return to the oil painting, or... "Nostradamus" was waiting for him in the house...

However, all this is just his unfounded worry, Margaret is waiting for him at the window.

Lin Hai suddenly became agitated. He approached the beautiful figure in the painting and patted her shoulder lightly.Margaret turned her head nervously, like a frightened deer in the forest, her eyes full of terror.

Lin Hai found a sentence in French in his mind: "What are you afraid of?"

"I'm afraid you'll just leave me and never come back to me again."

Her tone seemed to be wronged, and anyone who heard it would soften their hearts.

"No, since I rescued you from the painting, I will guarantee your safety and never leave you alone."

At this time, Lin Hai looked at the table, and the French bread was gone.He put the KFC set meal on the table and said softly, "I don't know if you will eat these things."

"what is this?"

Of course, the French 400 years ago could not eat KFC. Margaret looked at the hamburger and said, "Is this bread?"

"It's okay, sometimes I will eat this when I'm hungry."

In fact, Lin Hai doesn't like foreign fast food, but if it's Chinese food, I'm afraid Margaret will be even less used to it.

Even though she lived 400 years ago, she was still a foreigner after all. Margaret had already picked up a hamburger and ate it. She didn't seem to know how to use a straw, so she lifted the lid off to drink a drink.Seeing how she was dressed 400 years ago, and how she ate hamburgers and chicken wings, Lin Hai thought it was a good idea for a foreign fast food advertisement.

"Merci!"

Margaret said "thank you", she had already eaten all of it, and she seemed to have a good appetite, Lin Hai wondered if she hadn't eaten in oil paintings for more than 400 years?
"Sorry, I have a small question. When you were in the painting, did you eat and sleep?"

In fact, the question in a nutshell is: Does Marguerite in the oil painting also need to eat and drink?
"Of course, do you think I'm just a portrait? No, I'm a princess of France, the king's sister, I was just bewitched by my queen mother and Nostradamus, who forced me to stay in a In the room, let me face a mirror forever. Year after year, day after day, until I can no longer count the time, at first I can see my mother, but then I see everyone No more, there is only one ghost who is always watching me, and he is Nostradamus."

"It's unbelievable, but you still haven't answered my question."

"You mean eating and sleeping? Whenever I feel hungry, Nostradamus brings me food; when I feel sleepy, I sleep in the big bed behind the mirror."

But Lin Hai thought about Margaret's life that Mr. Wenger told him at school today. It didn't seem like this. He shook his head and said, "Tell me, are you married?"

"Yes, my husband is King Henry of Navarre." Margaret lowered her head and said quietly, "But I never loved him, and he never touched my body, because I don't Allow him to come near me."

"You said you were under house arrest in the Louvre, when did that happen?"

"It is May 1574, 5 years after the birth of Jesus."

"May 1574, 5 AD?"

Lin Hai immediately thought of "The Red and the Black"—just the day before this date, on April 1574, 4, Marguerite's lover de La Mole was beheaded, and that night Marguerite held her lover's The head is buried, so Miss Mathilde in "The Red and the Black" will wear heavy filial piety on April 30 every year.

In other words, Margaret was imprisoned the day after her lover died.

However, the historical Margaret did not disappear after 1574, after which she was still the queen of King Henry of Navarre.More than ten years later, when her husband ascended to the French throne, she was abandoned by her husband and died alone in Notre Dame Cathedral.

So who was that Margaret after 1574?
Lin Hai was dizzy from this complicated history, and sat on the chair in a daze for a long time, until Margaret patted him lightly: "What are you thinking, like a fool?"

"Maybe I'm just a fool." Lin Hai shook his head, looked into her emerald eyes and said, "Don't you know the rest of your life in history?"

Margaret shook her head and said, "No, you're not Nostradamus, you can't predict the future."

"For you, it's your own future, but for people in my world, it's a history of more than 400 years ago."

Then, Lin Hai told her the rest of Margaret's life that she heard from Mr. Wenger today.

Seeing the Chinese young man in front of her talk about her future life, Margaret stared at her eyes in doubt, and finally shook her head and said, "Did I really live that long? But, I have forgotten the time, and I don't know when How many years have passed in that house."

"This year is 2005 AD, and 1574 years have passed since 431."

"I have been imprisoned for 431 years?" But Margaret shook her head immediately, "No, I am just a ghost now, and my body has been destroyed more than 400 years ago. From May 1574, 5 Since that day, my soul has been imprisoned in the Louvre. The me you have seen in history since then is just a shell that has lost its soul. She is not the real Marguerite. The real me can only be Seen by you in paintings."

Although he still hasn't fully figured it out, Lin Hai has vaguely guessed something. Maybe there really are two worlds—the real world and the world in the painting. Everyone may live in the world in the painting, and Margaret's painting The Middle World is a secret room in the Louvre.For Margaret, who was imprisoned in the secret room, the frame of the oil painting was just like a mirror through which she could see the world outside the oil painting, that is, the real world.The reason why Margaret came out of the oil painting was just to jump out of this mirror, or to say out of a window, and outside the window was the Shanghai Western Art Museum in 2005.

But Lin Hai still shook his head, there are too many things in this world that cannot be explained, maybe we will never be able to really figure it out.

For the next few hours, the two of them sat and chatted like this. Margaret was obviously very curious about the world in 2005, and she was full of doubts about all the modern civilizations she saw.Lin Hai could only answer her as best he could. Fortunately, he had quite a large French vocabulary, and he always carried a French dictionary with him.On the contrary, many of the modern French words he uttered were incomprehensible to Margaret from the sixteenth century, and Lin Hai needed to explain them to her.

Margaret seemed to be more and more interested in this world, Lin Hai simply turned on the TV and taught her how to use the remote control.The pictures that appeared on the TV were like another world to Margaret. She was extremely surprised by this magical TV screen, and Lin Hai didn't know how to explain it.Fortunately, Margaret's interest soon turned to TV content, and Lin Hai tuned her to the news channel.There is so much information here that Lin Hai has no time to explain, and she is very interested in everything that appears on TV, just like a countryman coming to a big city for the first time.They chatted like this until late at night, and Lin Hai thought it would be good to use it as oral training.

At midnight, Margaret showed a tired face, and said quietly: "If you come to the art gallery at midnight, you will see me with my eyes closed in the oil painting. At that time, I was resting. It will open its eyes—it seems that for hundreds of years, no one has discovered this secret in oil painting."

Lin Hai said in a daze: "Actually, from the first time I saw that oil painting, I felt that there was an amazing secret hidden in the painting."

Margaret's eyelids twitched suddenly, and she said coldly, "What secret?"

"I don't know either, maybe that secret is you, maybe there is an even bigger secret?" Lin Hai shook his head and said, "Stop talking, you should rest early."

Lin Hai went back to his small attic again, watching the moonlight shining through the dormer window, lying on the bed for a long time unable to fall asleep.

After tossing and turning for a while, he quietly climbed off the wooden bed, opened the door of the small attic and looked down.

Although the lights in the bedroom were turned off, a few rays of light from outside the window still came in, vaguely illuminating the outline of the bed.Margaret was wrapped in the quilt and seemed to be fast asleep. Lin Hai lay blankly at the door of the attic, cursed himself secretly, and climbed back onto the wooden bed.

This is my first morning in Paris. On the top floor of the history department of the University of Voltaire, I open the window of this ancient guest room, and I can only see the gloomy sky outside.

The jet lag has almost come back, recalling everything after arriving in Paris yesterday, it seems that every detail is so clear, and the scenes flash back before my eyes.But I still felt a faint sense of uneasiness, which seemed to have been buried in my heart the moment I set foot on France.

Yu Li came to pick me up in the morning, and he pretended to be mysterious and asked me: "Did you hear the knock on the door last night?"

"I didn't even see a ghost."

"That's a pity. Maupassant wrote an article in his later years, recalling that when he was young, he lived at the University of Voltaire. At night, a beautiful woman would often knock on his door. The woman said she was from the era of Louis XIV. "

"People from the time of Louis XIV went to the nineteenth century? Isn't that a ghost?"

"That's right." Yu Li said with a smirk on his face.

I also laughed, if I really come across it, then I must write another "Ghost in Paris".

Yu Li first took me to the restaurant for breakfast, and saw the female administrator of the building downstairs in the history department. The fat aunt looked at me with gloomy eyes, which made my skin crawl.

After breakfast, I took the parchment and went to the office of the University of Voltaire. I went through the cultural relic identification procedures with the professor, and got the certificate issued by the school. I confirmed that it was only an agency identification, not a donation or collection. The professor also signed Guaranteed return.

After all the formalities were completed, I was relieved and handed the parchment and the tin box to Professor Orleans.Suddenly, I found that the moment the professor took the tin box, there were a few strange lights in his eyes. Could it be that the uneasiness in my heart came from this?

Professor Orleans and Yu Li brought the parchment to the laboratory, which is next door to the professor's office. It is said that there are many archaeological instruments in it.They didn't delay at all, and started working immediately. The professor wore gloves and a mask, pointed at the parchment with a magnifying glass, read out the Middle French on it, and then recorded it down by Yu Li next to him.While they were reading the parchment, they kept whispering to each other, but they turned their heads away when they spoke, so as to avoid breathing and saliva touching the parchment.

Seeing how they were working, I also knew that I was definitely not going to be able to help, so I quietly pulled Yu Li out, saying that I had finally come to France, and naturally I wanted to pay my respects to the cityscape of Paris.Yu Li said that the professor would not let him leave, and then gave me a map, marked a few points on the map, asked me to follow the route he said, and then took care of a few things to pay attention to, and just put me alone. People were sent away.

Only then did I feel the tragedy of "traveling into the world alone", walked out of the University of Voltaire with my chest held high, and found the nearest subway station according to the map instructions.The road signs in France are basically in French, but my English level is terrible, and I can't figure out the difference between French and English. Anyway, I can imagine it according to the Roman alphabet.

Thank God I was right. After ten minutes of subway journey, I successfully arrived at Eiffel, which is the huge iron tower in our memory.However, when I came to the foot of Eiffel, which I have admired for a long time, I began to curse secretly in my heart, because he did not tell me that Eiffel cannot be seen in the daytime. The Eiffel Tower during the day is completely different from the night scene I usually see.But I still went up and turned around like a pilgrimage. Unfortunately, the weather in Paris in April was not good, and the sky was gray under the cold sky.

Stepping off the Eiffel, I immediately got into a taxi and said only: "Musée du Louvre."

You guessed it right, the place I'm going to is the Louvre.

I remember when I was still in elementary school, the TV station showed a long foreign documentary about the Louvre Museum. Maybe my desire to learn painting came from there.

It is not too far from Eiffel to Louvre, and soon I came to this sanctuary on the north bank of the Seine.I breathe the air full of art, and I feel that people have become a part of this place.The Louvre has a history of more than 700 years. In 1204, Philip Augustus built the castle here, and it has been rebuilt and expanded several times by Charles V, Louis XIII, Louis XIV, Napoleon I and Napoleon III. , It was not fully completed until 1857.

Many famous painters during the Renaissance, such as Leonardo da Vinci, had painted for the French royal family.In the seventeenth century, the famous paintings of Fontainebleau were also moved to the Louvre. In 1791, the French National Assembly issued a decree to open the Louvre as a national museum.In the era of Napoleon, when the French were most proud, wherever the French military flag went, local cultural relics and treasures were transported to France. So far, the collection here has exceeded 40 pieces.

I was trapped among tourists speaking various languages, and I heard a few Chinese words around me from time to time. I could only take pictures carefully with a digital camera, but unfortunately I still got a lot of heads.When you arrive in Louvre, there are three things you have to see, that is, the Venus with Broken Arms, the Goddess of Victory and the Mona Lisa.

Venus is a well-deserved treasure of the town hall.It is said that before the damage, Venus held an apple in his left arm and placed it on his left shoulder, while his right hand drooped naturally. Of course, no one can tell if this is the case. Today, people are still accustomed to the beauty with the broken arm.

Then I finally saw the "Mona Lisa" with my own eyes. I won't introduce who painted it. The "Mona Lisa" is probably the only work in the Louvre that occupies an entire wall.The painting is locked in a special small box, which seems to be only the size of A3 copy paper, and is separated by thick glass.Mona Lisa—the woman (or man, another way of saying it) sits upright, watching the dense crowd of tourists like an icon in a shrine.I heard that there are often thieves hiding in the crowd, so I can only desperately cover the position of the wallet with one hand, and hold the camera high with the other hand, which looks quite funny.

When I saw the third treasure, my legs were already weak, and that was the statue of the Goddess of Victory.The goddess of victory (La Victoire de Samothrace) in 190 BC is heroic, spreading angelic wings, and the skirt is carved with fine details.

I came out of the Louvre panting, and it was past two o'clock in the afternoon. I was tired and hungry and rushed to the side of the street. I bought some bread for 9.5 euros to satisfy my hunger.The bread of the French is too long, I only ate one and I was almost full, and the remaining two breads were stuck in my back like Jay’s nunchucks, shuttling among the foreigners, which was a bit of a cologne The style of a swordsman in the pen.

Seeing that it was still early before I went back, I got up in the alleys near the Louvre and looked at the old houses in Paris, which were a bit like the buildings on Jiangxi Middle Road in Shanghai where I lived when I was a child.After wandering around for more than half an hour, I accidentally turned to the edge of the Seine River. Many people have dreamed of rafting the Seine River, but it actually looks like it is not much wider than Suzhou Creek.

(End of this chapter)