Margaret's Secret

Chapter 15 From Shanghai to Paris (7)
It was early morning in Paris, and the rain from last night was pattering on the windows, and it still showed no signs of stopping.In this room on the top floor of the History Department of the University of Voltaire, I am looking at the quiet campus by the window. The whole Paris is like the rainy season in Shanghai, always immersed in the hazy mist.

I originally wanted to go to the Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Elysées today, but the weather in April in France interrupted my plan. I can only stay in the old house that is said to be haunted and survive the great Parisian spring.Yu Li didn't come to see me in the morning, so I went to the restaurant downstairs to have breakfast alone. The French's English level was as terrible as mine, but they could understand each other better by speaking dumb.

Yu Li and Professor Orleans are still studying the parchment together. I am stuck in the room and I have nothing to do. I simply open my laptop and plug in the phone line in the room to go online.

The first thing I do when I go online is of course to open my e-mail. I haven’t been online for a few days and I have received more than a dozen new e-mails, most of which are spam, but one e-mail caught my attention because the sender was Lin Hai.

I immediately opened Lin Hai's e-mail, and he wrote hundreds of words in the text of the e-mail, telling me all his bizarre experiences in the past few days.

After reading this E-mail from China, I was silent for a long time facing the laptop screen—Lin Hai said that he entered the Western Art Museum again, but Margaret in the oil painting actually escaped. He took 400 The French princess from years ago has returned to the old house, and there is also a ghost named Nostradamus who may threaten him at any time.

Is it true that so many "miracles" happened to him within dozens of hours after I left Shanghai?Because I am convinced that this is the story that only the best novelist in the world can make up.

However, Lin Hai believed without a doubt that all of this was true, and that he had witnessed, heard, heard, and experienced it himself.Although he himself is well aware that these experiences are so unbelievable to outsiders that they will regard him as a mental patient or paranoid.

Marguerite escaped from the painting?

The most unbelievable of course is this, if such a major event happened, the news media would definitely report it.Yes, just check the news, don't you know?I quickly entered a domestic news website, searched for news about the Western Art Museum, and soon found several similar news headlines - "Queen Marguerite's mysterious disappearance, famous French painting encounters 'Metamorphosis'".

The text of the news is as follows—

"News from our newspaper: On April 4th, a strange thing happened in the 'Museum Treasures of Saint-Louis, France' held in the Western Art Museum of this city. The protagonist of the original painting is the famous Queen Margaret of France in the 11th century. However, on the morning of the 11th, the staff of the Western Art Museum accidentally discovered that the protagonist in the oil painting "Marguerite" had disappeared. The place where Margaret was supposed to be turned into a mass of black, and the outer edge of this mass of black pattern happened to be the outline of Margaret in the original oil painting. After walking out, there was only a black shadow left on the original place. The curator of the Western Art Museum expressed disbelief at this incident, saying that this is a unique case of "face changing" of a famous painting in the history of world art. Relevant experts are conducting in-depth research on the oil painting , it is still impossible to come up with a reasonable explanation. This newspaper will continue to report in-depth on the famous painting'face-changing incident'."

After reading this unbelievable news, I was stunned for several minutes. Many media have reported this news, and now it has even become a hot topic in academic research.

Could it be that what Lin Hai said in the e-mail is true? 400 years ago, the French princess Marguerite really ran out of the oil painting, and now she is hiding in Lin Hai's old house?
I left the laptop screen and went to the window to look at the gloomy sky in Paris. I wonder what the weather is like in Shanghai now?I opened the window and listened to the sound of rain outside the window. I took a few deep breaths. In my writing experience in recent years, I have encountered several incredible and mysterious incidents, but this one is so incredible that I have never even heard of it. There is a saying of "the ghost in the painting".

Not knowing how to reply to Lin Hai, I paced around the room until Yu Li arrived at noon.

Yu Li took me to the restaurant for lunch. Seeing my preoccupied look, he tentatively asked, "Are you upset? Is it because I didn't go out with you?"

Although I did feel this kind of unhappiness in my heart, it was mainly because of the E-mail I received in the morning. I shook my head and said, "No, this matter has nothing to do with you."

Yu Li was obviously hungry. While eating his steak, he asked, "What's the matter?"

But I didn't answer Yu Li. I didn't want him to know what happened there. This matter is too complicated to involve too many people.

I said that I don't like Western food, but Yu Li has long been used to life in Europe. He skillfully ate undercooked beef with a knife and fork. The more he looked, the more he looked like an ancient Gaul who drank blood.I could only order a pasta to fill my Chinese stomach with the food that is said to be brought back from the Yuan Dynasty by Marco Polo.

After we finished eating, we were all silent for a while, and I suddenly couldn't help asking a question: "Yu Li, do you believe that there are ghosts in the world?"

"Ghost..." Yu Li was obviously startled by my words, "What do you mean?"

"I'm thinking about a question now, can a person travel through 400 years and reach another time and space through a certain medium?"

"Are you talking about time travel?"

"No, I'm just talking about a phenomenon, assuming it really exists."

Yu Li suddenly lit a cigarette, and the light blue smoke wrapped around his bare head, as if the bearings were turning inside. He frowned and said, "I'm sorry, I can't think of it. Why do you ask these questions? Isn't it related to the parchment?"

"I can't tell you that." I turned my head and looked outside the restaurant. The rain in Paris was still falling. From time to time, there were French girls passing through the rain. It's time to talk about the problem. " Yuli, can you do me a favor?"

"Let's talk about what you need, aren't we brothers and sisters?"

"Please find an oil painting for me. It is the work of a French court painter in the sixteenth century. It is called "Marguerite". The character in the painting is Princess Margaret of France at that time."

"Princess Margaret? Is that the Queen Margot described by Alexandre Dumas?"

"Yes, it's her."

"That is a famous figure in French history. She is the daughter of Queen Catherine, the sister of Charles IX and Henry III, and the queen of Henry IV, the founder of the Bourbon dynasty." Yu Li suddenly smiled ambiguously. After a while, "Marguerite is famous for her dissolute life, but the desperate love between her and de La Mole has made countless French girls shed tears in later generations."

"I know all of this. What I want to check now is the oil painting called "Marguerite". The author of this painting is unknown, but I guess it should be the court painter of Henry III. This painting is collected in The Saint-Louis Museum in France is currently exhibiting in China."

But I didn't tell Yu Li about the "Metamorphosis" that this oil painting is currently encountering.

"Since it is a sixteenth-century court oil painting collected by the St. Louis Museum, it must be a famous painting in history. It must be recorded in the art database of the University of Voltaire. I can check it for you."

"That's great! But what about Professor Orleans?"

"Professor Orleans went out to check the information this afternoon, because there are some words in the parchment that are difficult to decipher, and they haven't fully deciphered them yet, so the professor went to a research institute in Lyon. He needs some medieval documents collected there, Come and compare it with the parchment, hoping to decipher the rest of the text."

Then, Yu Li took me to the art database of the University of Voltaire, which was a brand new three-story building with a post-modern style, which seemed extremely inconsistent with the surrounding nineteenth-century buildings.

Here is a collection of detailed information on most of the artworks from ancient Egypt to contemporary times. Looking for an oil painting here is simply looking for a needle in a haystack.Yu Li and I searched from the computer together. In the search system of the database, we changed more than a dozen keywords, and every time hundreds of information popped up.In this way, we spent a full afternoon and finally found the record of the oil painting "Marguerite".

Yu Li translated this passage from French into Chinese and read it to me—

"The oil painting "Marguerite" was completed in about 1574 AD. The author is unknown, and it is suspected to be a court painter in the era of Henry III of France. This painting flowed out of the court very early. According to records, before the French Revolution, this painting has been used by France. Collection of a certain family in the south. When Robespierre was in power, because the family belonged to the royalist party and participated in the royalist rebellion in the south, it was suppressed by the revolutionaries. The oil painting "Marguerite" was confiscated by the government and later became The private collection of Emperor Napoleon is hung in the Palace of Fontainebleau. It is said that this painting is deeply loved by Empress Josephine. In 1815, Napoleon was defeated in Waterloo and exiled to St. Helena in the Atlantic Ocean. The collection of the nearby royal family. In 1830, the July Dynasty replaced the Bourbon Dynasty, and this painting was collected by the new king Louis Philippe. In 1852, the Second French Empire was established, and this painting was collected by Napoleon III. In 1871, the Paris Commune The uprising, the painting flowed out of the court, and is still in the collection of the St. Louis Museum.”

After listening to this passage, I was silent for a long time, then nodded and said, "It turns out that this painting has such a twists and turns in its circulation that even Napoleon's Empress Josephine liked it."

"Well, here's another picture."

It turns out that the computer still stores the information picture of the oil painting "Marguerite". Although the picture in the computer is not very large, it is enough for me to see Margaret in the oil painting clearly—this is the first time I saw her s face.

Both Yu Li and I leaned our heads in front of the computer screen, watching Margaret sitting in the oil painting.After about tens of seconds, I suddenly let out a long breath and said, "It really is a beauty in the world, no wonder three French kings bowed down for her."

At this time, Yu Li's eyes suddenly became strange, and he said coldly, "I think this painting is a bit strange."

"Where is the blame?"

"I can't tell. It's just a sensitive intuition. Maybe it's because I've been with Professor Orleans for too long, facing some ancient documents and artworks all day long, so I have some kind of telepathy." Yu Li said His head reflected the light under the lamp, and he seemed to be thinking about something intensely, "In this painting, there seems to be a secret hidden."

"Secret? How do you know?"

Yu Li didn't answer right away, but stared into my eyes for a while: "Why do you want to check this painting? Could it be related to the parchment?"

This question overwhelmed me all of a sudden, and I really didn't know how to answer it.All I could say was, "No, I don't know."

Fortunately, Yu Li didn't continue to ask, he looked at the computer again and said, "Okay, that's all there is about this painting in the art database, let's go."

Dinner was still in the school restaurant. I was completely disgusted with the western food here. I asked Yu Li if there were any Chinese restaurants nearby, but Yu Li replied that there were several Chinese restaurants nearby, but the dishes in them were better than domestic ones. The box lunch is still low-grade, and the price is equivalent to a three-star hotel in Shanghai.This immediately dispelled my idea of ​​going out to eat Chinese food, so I could only eat undercooked beef with Yu Li.

After eating this dinner like being tortured, I looked outside at the rainy night in Paris, and suddenly thought of a certain name, so I turned around and said hesitantly: "Yu Li, have you heard of this person——Nostradamus S?"

"Nostradamus? Of course, I also wrote a paper about him. Nostradamus was a famous French prophet in the sixteenth century. He wrote a book called "The Centuries". It is said that Accurately predicted many major events in history."

"Do you think it's possible? I mean the ability to predict the future."

Yu Li frowned again: "Your question really makes it difficult for me to answer, because when we evaluate the so-called prophecy, we must first do two things, one is to judge the authenticity of the materials that record the prophecy, and the other is Confirm the era when the prophecy was made. If the so-called prophecy is forged by later generations, it is of course meaningless."

"Is Nostradamus's "The Centuries" a forgery?"

"There must have been an original version of "The Centuries", and the prophecy of this version has been confirmed by later generations. But there have been many forged "The Centuries", or prophecy books in the name of Tonostradamus. Among them There are many very bad people who tamper with the original text according to their own needs, hoping to use Nostradamus' reputation as a prophet to serve the conspiracy of certain groups."

I shook my head: "Why is it involved in conspiracy theory again?"

"For example, Hitler attached great importance to Nostradamus's "The Centuries". It is said that the wife of the notorious Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels read a Nostradamus quatrain , which aroused the great interest of Goebbels and Hitler. During World War II, German planes sowed a large number of prophetic poems that were said to be Nostradamus, telling people that Nostradamus had long predicted the victory of Germany. In fact, these The so-called prophetic poems of Nostradamus were all forged by Nazi Germany in order to carry out psychological warfare against the French.”

"I still don't understand, was Nostradamus a real seer, or a liar, or some wizard with magic, an immortal ghost in the dark?"

"No one can easily deny Nostradamus, and no one can easily affirm Nostradamus."

At this time, almost all the people in the restaurant were gone, only me and Yu Li, two Chinese, were left.

After being silent for a long time, I suddenly asked: "The so-called 'prophecy', is there such a possibility that when Nostradamus predicted that someone would die at a certain time, he was predicting the time when someone died, secret Perform magic to cause that person to die, so that his prophecy will not be 'fulfilled'?"

"I understand. For example, if I predict that you will be unlucky in the next minute, because I am ready to punch you in the next minute." But Yu Li immediately shook his head, "But that's not right, the absolutely unlucky character in "Zhu Century" Most of the prophecies were basically realized after the death of Nostradamus, so could he still intervene in history after his death?"

"Maybe he never died—he wasn't originally a human being like us, but a strange species with magic! He was immortal, ruthless, forever hovering between the human world and hell, intervening for hundreds of years The history of mankind to fulfill his shocking prophecy?"

Speaking of this, I suddenly found myself a little out of control, which made me look very embarrassed, and made us all silent for a while.

Yu Li kept shaking his head, and his head became more and more bright under the lights of the restaurant: "What you said is just a possibility, that is, assuming that ghosts really exist in the world. But if you understand it in a philosophical sense, you will have New discoveries."

"I'm sorry, I was a little excited just now, please express your understanding."

"Eternal present..." Yu Li obviously thought it over, "Do you believe in eternal present? Einstein recognized eternal present. Mystics in the ancient East and West also believed in eternal present."

Although he only reminded me, my brain seemed to be enlightened in an instant: "If 'now' is forever, then we are sitting in this restaurant now, no matter how far forward time goes, it is possible to return to the present. Up to here, because there is an 'eternal present', then for the future, there is also an 'eternal present'. That is to say, the past, present, and future may exist at the same time."

"Yes, the future of multiple possibilities that run parallel to each other and can be selected is the concept of the multiverse."

Suddenly, I thought of Lin Hai, who was thousands of miles away. Was the Margaret he saw 400 years ago also some "eternal present"?If this is the case, then the painting is a multiverse in which Margaret can choose her own future... God, such a hypothesis is so bold that I dare not even say it.

Yu Li didn't notice the fluctuations in my heart. He continued: "Although each of us has our own will and may change our own destiny. But from the perspective of the process of the objective world, there is a mathematical probability problem." , combined with the so-called mysterious prophecy, it is difficult to explain clearly at once."

"But at least it can provide a direction of thinking." I took a long breath, walked to the window and looked at the campus in the night, the rain outside was splashing on the glass, "Thank you, Yu Li, for helping me today. So many questions answered. Let's go."

When parting, Yu Li seemed to have something to say, but he didn't say it after all, so he hurried into the rain.

I ran all the way against the rain and returned to the old history department building. I was the only one left in the whole building.The sound of the rain outside and the sound of the planks under my feet accompanied me back to the attic room, a trick many horror film directors have used.

I wonder what Lin Hai and his Margaret are doing in China thousands of miles away at this moment?
Nostradamus did not come.

In the dim light of early morning, Lin Hai slowly opened his eyes, and he saw the lattice of the dormer window, and a few pigeons flying past the window.

"I'm still alive!" Lin Hai said softly to himself.He took a few deep breaths, feeling as if he had risen from the grave.

He quietly opened the attic door and looked down, only to see that Margaret had changed into a white nightgown and was hugging her knees, curled up on the bed like a shrimp.

(End of this chapter)