Margaret's Secret

Chapter 6 The Mysterious Sheepskin (4)
He felt that he had returned to ten years ago, he was still an ignorant teenager, standing in front of the wooden stairs under the attic of the old house.At this moment, the narrow and steep wooden staircase was in front of him, and the wooden door of the attic was hidden in the shadow under the ceiling.Suddenly, a certain voice seemed to be heard in the ear, was she calling him from the attic?Yes, she has been imprisoned in the attic for ten years, and it is time to rescue her.

Lin Hai raised his legs and stepped up the stairs, carefully grasping the steps above, and came to the attic door.He gently pushed the small wooden door, only to hear a "squeak", and the door slowly opened.After a pause for a few seconds, Lin Hai finally stepped into the small attic—this restricted area that had been separated from him for ten years.It was still pitch black here, except for a gloomy skylight shining overhead, which was the light coming in from the skylight, which Shanghainese called the "Tiger Window".

Lin Hai's hand touched the wall for a while, and finally turned on a dim light.However, he did not see Margaret.

There was indeed a dusty wooden bed in the attic, but there was nothing on the walls, not even the shadow of a picture frame.His expression froze in a blink of an eye, like a prince who went through all kinds of hardships and entered the castle, only to find that Sleeping Beauty had disappeared.

Where has she gone?
Lin Hai shook his head, and carefully looked around the attic, even under the small wooden bed.But this place is only about the size of a palm, no more than five square meters in total, and not even a fly can hide.No, he let out a breath, as if he was exhausted.In order to see her again this night, Lin Hai has been waiting for ten years. Is everything just a vain imagination?Suddenly, he thought of his dead grandfather, that stubborn and weird old man.Lin Hai still remembered the warning his grandfather gave him back then—if anyone sneaked into the attic, then his grandfather would not be far from death.Sure enough, less than half a month after Lin Hai entered the attic of the old house, his grandfather suddenly fell ill and died in the hospital within a few days.At that time, Lin Hai was very scared. He felt that it was because he broke into the attic that his grandfather died suddenly—did he kill his grandfather?This terrible idea has haunted Lin Hai for a long time. In the two years before puberty, he dreamed of his dead grandfather countless times, and also dreamed of that noon in the attic of the old house, including the beautiful woman in the painting.

This was Lin Hai's only dream in his youth, but he didn't know her name—Margaret until now.

It's a pity that Margaret lived more than 400 years ago.

Lin Hai was haunted by inexplicable sadness. He didn't know where these strange imaginations came from, and it seemed that his life was suddenly disrupted.

By the way, Lin Hai almost forgot the real purpose of coming to the old house.He hurriedly climbed down to the small attic and turned on the TV set in the old house. Although it hadn't been used for ten years, the imported color TV was still on, but there was no cable TV signal, and the screen was as blurred as snowflakes.

While borrowing the DVD player, Lin Hai also brought a few wires. He connected the DVD player to the TV, and it seemed that it could play discs.

Lin Hai took out the disc from his bag...God knows which ghost stuffed it in his pocket?
He stuffed the disc of unknown origin into the DVD player.

After waiting for a while, a picture appeared on the TV screen. It was actually a shot shot on film, and it looked like the title of a certain movie.At the same time, melodious music came from the TV, with a classical European style.That's right, this is indeed the beginning of the movie, and there are several rows of subtitles, but all of them are in foreign languages.A poster-like picture appeared at the beginning of the film. A black-haired woman in a long white dress, covered with bright red blood, was crying with her hands covered her face.The title of the film gradually emerged: "La Reine Margot".

Seeing the title of the film, Lin Hai seemed to have been shocked by electricity, because the words were in French, and the literal translation into Chinese was "Queen Margot".Of course he knew the name - Alexandre Dumas had a famous historical novel called La Reine Margot (La Reine Margot), which was about a court story during the Huguenot Wars in France in the sixteenth century. "is another name for Queen Margaret.

Queen Margot = Margaret
At this moment, the movie has already begun. It begins in Paris in 1572 AD. Countless Protestants gathered here to celebrate the wedding of their leader—King Henry of Navarre. Henry’s bride is the sister of King Charles IX of France— Princess Margaret.But what surprised Lin Hai even more was that the one who played Marguerite was actually Isabelle Adjani, she is the most beautiful female star in France. Lin Hai had seen "Rodin's Lover" starring her, and she was indeed astonishingly beautiful .However, the Princess Margaret played by Adjani is an extremely dissolute woman. She left her husband on the wedding night, wore a mask and ran outside to spend time and drink, and fell in love with a man named La Moore. La Moore is the hero of the story.

The bloody "St. Bartholomew's Night" appeared on the screen, La Mole escaped from death, and Marguerite and her husband were under house arrest in Paris.When La Mole reappeared in Paris, Marguerite knew that she could not do without this man, she did not care about her husband at all, and fell deeply in love with her lover.The cruel court struggle was still going on. Queen Catherine wanted to poison Marguerite's husband and poisoned a book with La Moore's name on it, but this book was accidentally published by her. His son, King Charles IX, looked over. Charles IX was poisoned slowly and gradually vomited blood and died.As a result, Lamour was arrested as the murderer who murdered the king. No matter how much Marguerite pleaded, she could not save her lover's life after all, and Lamour went to the guillotine.

At the end of the movie, King Charles IX of France died and his younger brother Henry III came to the throne. Margaret ran to the place where her lover was, but what was waiting for her was only a bloody head.Under the gloomy sky in Paris, Margaret, dressed in white and stained red with blood, held her lover's head in her arms, and left in a carriage indifferently...

The whole movie does not have Chinese subtitles, it is spoken in French, and Lin Hai can basically understand it.Adjani's image is indeed beautiful, with seaweed-like black hair, skin like snow, and a pair of emerald eyes inlaid on her sad face. When she raised her head and laughed profligately, she was simply breathtaking.

Lin Hai stared blankly at the screen, and when the melodious ending song was played halfway, the cast and crew's subtitles were suddenly interrupted, and the originally black ending screen turned into a white light, as if it was not a movie screen, but a mirror reflective.His heart immediately suspended, and his eyes moved closer to the TV. The DVD below continued to play, but the picture completely changed—it became a woman's eyes.

This is a translucent emerald eye, and Lin Hai can even see her pupils clearly.Yes, that eye was on him, and it made him shudder.The camera is slowly receding, the eyebrows and nose are gradually exposed, and now the whole face can be seen, that beautiful face has a certain melancholy expression, and those eyes are always staring at Lin Hai.

In an instant, Lin Hai opened his mouth wide and almost shouted out—Margaret!
It was unbelievable that Margaret appeared on the TV screen, not Queen Margot in the film played by Adjani, but Margaret in a sixteenth-century oil painting.Yes, it is her, Lin Hai will never admit it wrong, ten years ago in the attic of this old house, it is also the woman in this painting, which makes the 11-year-old Chinese boy unforgettable.This was the first time he saw a living Margaret. Although she still had the same beautiful face, the same expression and eyes, they were all under the brush, a static two-dimensional image.As for the Margaret in front of her, she could blink, roll her eyes, and breathe softly. She was a living person.Although she still sits upright and maintains the same posture as in the oil painting, she is still dressed as in the oil painting—a [-]th-century French court dress, with a velvet shawl covering Katsuyuki's skin, and black hair hanging from both sides of her cheeks. A pair of tiny amber earrings hung from the earlobes, framing her perfect face.

Yes, she is the real Margaret.

Although the image of Adjani in the movie "Queen Margot" is very beautiful, compared with the real Margaret in history, Adjani, known as the most beautiful woman in France, is simply ashamed.

Lin Hai approached the TV again, his eyes were only tens of centimeters away from the screen, as if Margaret could grab him with her hand.As a result, Margaret's eyes changed, she was a little excited and a little worried, and a strange aura emanated from her body, as if it was spreading to the whole room through the TV.No, she is not some kind of phantom, but a real person, on this DVD.Suddenly, her lips moved slowly, and a young female voice came from the TV speaker. This was heavenly sixteenth-century French, and the first sentence at the beginning was—LINHAI!

Lin Hai could hear clearly that this was his own name.

Her voice is so sad, it’s like weeping, it’s heartbreaking, these few words translated into Chinese mean: "Lin Hai, you have seen my life, and you already know my pain, hurry up Come and save me, save me, save me!" In the last two sentences, she used the word "Aider moi", which immediately made Lin Hai think of the man in black who fell to the ground.He spread out the palm of his left hand, the red marker ink still stand out, "Aider moi" looks like a scar.

When Margaret said the last word, the DVD stopped playing, and it turned out that the entire disc had come to an end.Looking at the blue screen of the TV, Lin Hai froze like a sculpture, and it took him a long time to recover.He didn't dare to play it again, and quickly pulled the disc out of the DVD player.Under the light of the old house, the front of the disc shone with a metallic luster, reflecting Lin Hai's face like a mirror.

Lin Hai sat down on the ground slowly, thinking about everything he saw just now. Behind the French movie "Queen Margot", the real Marguerite in history actually appeared, and she also Talked to Lin Hai in front of the screen.

"My God, how could she know my name?" He asked himself, scratching his forehead, thinking that his name was actually called out by the queen of France 400 years ago, it was simply a story in "The Arabian Nights".However, all of this is what he saw and heard with his own eyes. Is it really the same as the curse video tape?A certain ghost who had been dead for many years "burned" her resentment into a video tape or CD, and then spread it to everyone who saw her—no, this was simply too terrifying, and Lin Hai didn't have the courage to think about it anymore.

After the two-hour movie was over, it was already midnight.Lin Hai struggled to stand up and put the mysterious disc back in his bag. It seemed that it was too late to go back to school tonight.With so many things happening in one day, Lin Hai was exhausted, so he just spent the night in the old house.

But there is only a bare wire bed here, and it is impossible to sleep at all, but the wooden bed in the small attic can sleep people.Lin Hai immediately ran out and bought a thick blanket in the 24-hour shop.Wrapped in a blanket, he climbed up to the attic. The small wooden bed was fairly solid, and Lin Hai lay on it after cleaning off the dust accumulated over the years.

Lin Hai lay on the bed and looked at the wall. There was once a small painting hanging there, and Margaret was looking at him in the painting.He sighed softly, turned off the light and fell asleep.

There seems to be moonlight tonight, shining through the dormer window above the head, adding a bit of spookiness to the dark attic.Lin Hai was really exhausted. Although Margaret's appearance kept flashing in his mind, he fell asleep soon...

In the early hours of the morning, Lin Hai had a dream.

He dreamed of Margaret. She stood up from the oil painting, revealing her whole body under the dim light. She seemed to be holding something in her hand, which was wrapped in gauze and looked round. of.She came to Lin Hai, stretched out her hand to caress his face, and then untied the bundle in her hand.

Inside the bundle was a bloody human head.

This is the lover's head.

When Lin Hai was about to see the face of this head clearly, he suddenly woke up from his dream, only to find that he was lying in the small attic of the old house, and the dark sky was projected into his eyes through the dormer window.

Lin Hai gasped and got up. It turned out that he had slept here all night wrapped in a blanket. He looked up at the sky outside the dormer window, and remembered that noon ten years ago.Still that strange feeling, as if Margaret 400 years ago was looking at him somewhere in this old house.Lin Hai felt a tightness in his chest. He stood on the plank bed and opened the dormer window that had been closed for many years.

The morning air blows in, and the scene suddenly becomes clear. In front of you are the tiles of the roof of the old house, and a few clumps of green grass are swaying in the wind between the corrugated tiles.On the opposite side is the same tiled roof, one by one, which is magnificent, but the sight in the distance is blocked by dozens of tall buildings, and one can only look up at the sky of Shanghai.The smell of old paint in the old house was suffocating. Lin Hai stuck his head out of the window, greedily breathing the air on the roof.He walked away from the window a few minutes later, hitting his elbow on the wall next to him, and felt a pain in his joints.He rubbed his elbow and noticed that where he was hit just now, a piece of wall skin had come off, revealing the contents inside.

Lin Hai immediately forgot the pain. He carefully looked at the wall under the dormer window, and it seemed to be hollow inside.He peeled off the remaining wall skin with his hands, and there was indeed a drawer-sized interlayer in the wall, which seemed to hold a black box.He cautiously put his hand into the mezzanine, and finally took out the tin box, which felt like digging for treasure.Lin Haiguan closed the window and carried the box onto the small wooden bed. Under the hazy morning light, the dark tin box lay quietly, like a door into another world.

Lin Hai carefully observed the tin box. The box was originally sealed, but it may have been too long, and the lid seal has been broken.He stroked the box gently, and the cold feeling penetrated from his fingertips to his whole body, like an electric current passing through.

What exactly is inside the box?Stimulated by the suspense, Lin Hai couldn't control himself anymore, and finally lifted the lid of the tin box.He saw a scroll of parchment.What surprised him even more was that the parchment was written in French in the Middle Ages, which was something from the thirteenth century.Lin Hai's heartbeat suddenly quickened, as if he was facing a medieval castle, where a bearded Westerner was sitting under the dim light of the fire, writing some unknown secret on a parchment.

Lin Hai really couldn't understand the words on the parchment, so he could only put the parchment back into the tin box.He climbed down the small attic, carefully wrapped the tin box with newspaper, and stuffed it into his bag.Then he took the borrowed DVD player and left this old house full of old paint smell and his childhood memories.

— This is the origin of the mysterious parchment.

He bowed his head and left the alley in the early morning. Although the old people who got up early had already come out for activities, no one noticed him.Lin Hai first returned the DVD player to his friend, and then hurried back to school.

The campus was even quieter on Sunday. He huddled in the dormitory all day, thinking about everything that happened last night. It was really unbelievable. Could it be a nightmare?However, as long as Lin Hai spread out his left hand and saw the red "Aider moi", he believed in everything.

Lin Hai thought that maybe a ghost really haunted him, not only hiding beside him, but even entered his body, his dream, the deepest part of his heart.Just when he was in the dormitory without thinking about food and tea, he suddenly saw the book "Red and Black" beside his bed.His gaze stopped for a moment, staring straight at the three words "Red and Black". After half a minute, he suddenly jumped up, lay down on the bed and opened "Red and Black".

This is the Chinese-French version, which he has read countless times. He turned to page 313 with ease, which is Chapter 10 of "The Red and the Black", and this chapter is called "Queen Marguerite". .

If you have read "The Red and the Black", you will definitely remember the second half of the novel. The protagonist Julien had a passionate love affair with the Marquis's daughter, Miss Mathilde, in the Marquis La Moore's mansion in Paris. On April 4th, Julien saw Mathilde wearing a black dress, which was the filial dress at that time.

In Chapter 10 of "The Red and the Black", the reason why Mathilde wears mourning is explained-on April 1574, 4, Boniface de La Mole, the most handsome young man in France at that time, was in Paris. Place de la Levo was beheaded.And this Boniface de La Mole is the most beloved lover of Queen Marguerite.Lamour was also a close friend of King Henry of Navarre, husband of Margaret and later founder of the Bourbon dynasty, Henry IV.At that time, King Charles IX was about to die, and Queen Catherine imprisoned King Henry of Navarre in the palace. Lamor led two hundred cavalry to rescue him, but was arrested by Queen Mother's men.Soon, La Mole was sentenced to death and decapitated on the guillotine.

(End of this chapter)