He felt like he was back ten years ago, a naive and ignorant teenager standing in front of the wooden stairs of the old attic. At this moment, the narrow and steep wooden stairs were right in front of him, and the wooden door of the attic was hidden in the shadow of the ceiling. Suddenly, he seemed to hear a voice, was it her calling him from the attic? Yes, she had been imprisoned in the attic for ten years, and it was time to rescue her.
Lin Hai stepped on the stairs, carefully grasping the steps above, and came to the door of the attic. He gently pushed the small wooden door, and only heard a creaking sound as the door slowly opened. After a few seconds of hesitation, Lin Hai finally stepped into the small attic - the forbidden zone he had been away from for ten years. It was still pitch black here, with only a faint line of light from the skylight above, which Shanghai people called the "tiger window".
Lin Hai's hand groped the wall for a while and finally turned on a dim yellow light. However, he did not see Margaret.
There was indeed a small wooden bed covered in dust in the attic, but there was nothing on the walls, not even the shadow of a picture frame. His expression froze instantly, as if the prince had gone through hardships to enter the castle, only to find that Sleeping Beauty had disappeared.
Where did she go?
Lin Hai shook his head and carefully scanned the attic again, not even sparing the space under the small wooden bed. But this place was no larger than a palm, with a total area of no more than five square meters, not even big enough for a fly to hide. No, he sighed as if he was completely exhausted. Lin Hai had waited for this night to see her again for a full ten years. Was everything just an illusion? Suddenly, he remembered his grandfather, the stubborn and eccentric old man. Lin Hai remembered the warning his grandfather gave him years ago - if anyone secretly entered the attic, then his grandfather's death was not far away. 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 a few days later. At that time, Lin Hai was very scared. He felt that it was because he had trespassed into the attic that his grandfather had died suddenly - had he killed his grandfather? This terrifying thought haunted Lin Hai for a long time. In the two years before puberty, he had countless dreams about his dead grandfather, as well as the noon in the attic of the old house, including the beautiful woman in the painting.
This was the only dream of Lin Hai's youth, but he only knew her name now - Marguerite.
Unfortunately, Marguerite was a person from more than four hundred years ago.
A inexplicable sadness enveloped Lin Hai. He didn't know where these strange imaginations came from, as if they had suddenly disrupted his life.
Oh yes, Lin Hai almost forgot the real purpose of coming to the old house. He quickly climbed down from the small attic and turned on the TV in the room. Although it hadn't been used for ten years, this imported color TV still lit up, but there was no cable TV signal and the screen was fuzzy like snowflakes.
While borrowing the DVD player, Lin Hai also brought a few cables. He connected the DVD player and the TV with the cables and it looked like he could play the disc.
Lin Hai took out the disc from his bag...who knew which ghost had put it in his pocket?
He inserted the mysterious disc into the DVD player.
After waiting for a moment, the TV screen showed a scene, which was actually a film's opening shot taken on film. The music that came out of the TV had a classical European style. Yes, this was indeed the opening of a movie, and several rows of subtitles appeared, but all were in foreign languages. The poster-style image appeared in the opening shot, a black-haired woman wearing a white dress, covered in bloodstains and crying with her hands covering her face. The title of the film gradually emerged: "La Reine Margot".
Upon seeing the title of the movie, Lin Hai felt as if he had been electrocuted, because the words were in French and when translated directly to Chinese, it meant "Queen Margot". He certainly knew this name - Alexandre Dumas wrote a famous historical novel titled "Queen Margot" (la reine margot) which tells a story of court life during the Huguenot Wars in 16th century France. The so-called "Queen Margot" was an alternative name for Margaret of Valois.
At this moment, the movie had already begun. It started in Paris in the year 1572, where countless Protestants had gathered to celebrate the wedding of their leader, King Henry of Navarre, to the bride, Margaret Princess of France and sister of King Charles IX. However, what surprised Lin Hai even more was that the role of Margaret was played by Isabelle Adjani, who was the most beautiful female star in France. Lin Hai had seen her in the lead role in "The Story of Adele H" and was indeed amazed by her beauty. However, the Margaret princess portrayed by Adjani was an extremely promiscuous woman who, on her wedding night, left her husband and ran off with a man named La Mole, who happened to be the male protagonist of the story.
The bloody "Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre" appeared on the screen, and La Mole managed to escape, while Margaret and her husband were placed under house arrest in Paris. When La Mole appeared again in Paris, Margaret knew she could not live without him, and disregarded her husband completely, throwing herself completely into her love affair with her lover. The cruel court struggle continued, with Queen Mother Catherine de' Medici trying to poison Margaret's husband. She placed the poison in a book with La Mole's name on it, but by a stroke of bad luck, her son, King Charles IX, read the book and was slowly poisoned to death. La Mole was then arrested on suspicion of killing the king, and despite Margaret's pleas, she was unable to save her lover's life. La Mole was sentenced to death by beheading.
As the movie approached its end, King Charles IX of France died, and his brother Henry III ascended to the throne. Margaret rushed to the place where her lover was, but what awaited her was only a bloody head. Under the gloomy sky of Paris, Margaret, dressed in white, was stained with blood. She held her lover's head in her arms, sat in a carriage and left indifferently...
The entire movie had no Chinese subtitles, and featured French dialogue that Lin Hai could understand for the most part. Adeline's image was indeed beautiful, with seaweed-like black hair, snow-white skin, and a pair of emerald eyes embedded in her sad face. When she looked up and laughed wildly, it was truly breathtaking.
Lin Hai stared blankly at the screen. When the melodic closing credits were about halfway through, the cast and crew subtitles suddenly stopped, and the black end screen turned into a white light, as if it were not a movie screen, but a reflection of a mirror. His heart immediately hung in the balance, and his eyes also leaned close to the TV. The DVD continued to play below, but the picture had completely changed — it turned into a woman's eyes.
These were translucent emerald eyes, and Lin Hai could even see her pupils clearly. Yes, those eyes were staring at him, making him shiver. The camera slowly backed away, revealing the eyebrows and nose, and now a whole face could be seen. That beautiful face carried a certain melancholy expression, and those eyes continued to stare at Lin Hai.
In an instant, Lin Hai's mouth dropped open, almost yelling out — Marguerite!
It was unbelievable. Marguerite appeared on the TV screen, not the Queen Margot played by Adeline in the movie, but the Marguerite from the 16th-century oil painting. Yes, it was her. Lin Hai would never mistake her. Ten years ago, in the attic of this old house, it was the same woman in the painting that made an 11-year-old Chinese boy unforgettable. This was his first time seeing a living Marguerite, although she still had the same beautiful face and expression, and the same gaze, it was all just the appearance of the brush, a still image. And in front of him, this Marguerite, she could blink her eyes, move her eyeballs, and breathe softly. She was a living person. Although she still sat upright, maintaining the same posture as in the oil painting, she was still dressed in the 16th-century French court attire, with a velvet shawl covering her snow-white skin, black hair falling down from both cheeks, and a pair of small amber earrings hanging from her earlobes, creating her perfect face.
Yes, she was the real Marguerite.
Although Adeline's image in the movie "Queen Margot" was beautiful, compared to the real Marguerite, who was known as France's number one beauty, Adeline was simply outdone.
Lin Hai once again approached the television, his eyes only a few centimeters away from the screen, as if Marguerite could reach out and grab him. Marguerite's gaze changed, with a mixture of excitement and concern, emitting a strange aura that seemed to spread throughout the entire room through the television. No, she was not a figment of his imagination, but a real person, inside this DVD disc. Suddenly, her lips moved slowly and a young female voice came out of the TV speaker, singing a sweet 16th-century French language, and the first sentence was actually "Lin Hai!".
Lin Hai heard it clearly. It was his own name.
Her voice was so sad, almost crying, that it tore at one's heartstrings. The meaning of the few sentences in Chinese was: "Lin Hai, you have seen my life, and you already know my pain. Please come and save me, save me!" The last two sentences she used the word "aider moi", which immediately made Lin Hai think of the black-clad man lying on the ground. He opened his left palm, and the red ink mark was still conspicuous. "Aider moi" looked like a scar.
When Marguerite finished the last word, the DVD stopped playing. It turned out that the entire disc was over. Looking at the blue screen of the TV, Lin Hai was as frozen as a statue, and it took him a long time to come back to his senses. He dared not play it again and quickly removed the disc from the DVD player. In the light of the old house, the front of the disc flashed with a metallic sheen, reflecting Lin Hai's face like a mirror.
Lin Hai slowly sat down on the ground, repeatedly recalling everything he had just seen. Behind the French movie called "Queen Margot," the real historical figure Marguerite actually appeared, and she even spoke to Lin Hai in front of the screen.
"Oh my god, how does she know my name?" He touched his forehead and asked himself. The fact that his name was called out by the French queen four hundred years ago was like a story from "Arabian Nights". However, all of this was witnessed and heard by himself. Was it really like the cursed videotape? Did some ghost who had died many years ago "record" her resentment in the videotape or disc and spread it to everyone who saw her? No, this was too scary. Lin Hai did not have the courage to think any further.
The two-hour movie was over, and it was already one o'clock in the morning. Lin Hai struggled to stand up and put the mysterious disc back in his bag. It seemed that he wouldn't be able to return to school tonight. So much had happened in one day that Lin Hai was exhausted. He would just have to spend the night in the old house.
Here is the English translation with the same number of paragraphs:
But there was only a bare steel wire bed here, which was impossible to sleep on. The wooden bed in the small loft was still usable. Lin Hai immediately ran out and bought a thick blanket from the 24-hour store. He wrapped himself in the blanket and climbed up to the loft. The small wooden bed was sturdy enough. After cleaning up the accumulated dust, Lin Hai lay down on it.
Lin Hai lay on the bed and looked at the wall, where there used to be a small painting hanging, with Margaret looking at him in the painting. He sighed softly and turned off the light to go to sleep.
There seemed to be moonlight tonight, shining down through the old tiger window on the roof, adding a touch of ghostly atmosphere to this dark attic. Lin Hai was exhausted. Although Margaret's appearance kept flashing through his mind, he quickly fell asleep...
In the early hours of the morning, Lin Hai had a dream.
He dreamed of Margaret. She stood up from the oil painting and revealed her whole body in the dim light. She seemed to be holding something wrapped in gauze in her hand, which looked round. She came to Lin Hai, reached out and gently stroked his face, and then opened the package in her hand.
Inside the package was a blood-stained human head. It was the head of his lover.
Just as Lin Hai was about to see the face of the head clearly, he suddenly woke up from the dream. He realized that he was lying in the attic of the old house, wrapped in a blanket. The dim light from the sky outside the tiger window shone into his eyes.
Lin Hai gasped and got up. He had slept here all night wrapped in a blanket. He looked up at the sky outside the tiger window and remembered the noon ten years ago. It was still a strange feeling, as if Margaret from four hundred years ago was watching him somewhere in this old house. Lin Hai felt a tightness in his chest. He stood on the wooden bed, opened the tiger window that had been closed for many years.
The morning air rushed in, and the view suddenly became clear. The tiles on the roof of the old house and a few clumps of green grass swayed in the wind. The opposite side was also covered with tiles, and it was magnificent. However, the distant view was blocked by dozens of tall buildings, and he could only look up at the sky of Shanghai. The smell of the old paint in the old house was suffocating. Lin Hai leaned out the window and greedily breathed in the air on the roof. A few minutes later, he left the window and accidentally bumped his elbow against the wall next to it, feeling a soreness in his joint. He rubbed his elbow and noticed that a piece of wall had come off where he had just hit it, revealing something inside.
Lin Hai immediately forgot the pain and carefully examined the piece of wall under the tiger window. It seemed to be hollow inside. He peeled off the remaining wall and found a drawer-sized compartment inside the wall, which seemed to contain a black box. He cautiously reached into the compartment and finally took out the iron box, feeling like he was treasure hunting. Lin Hai closed the window tightly, carried the box to the small wooden bed, and under the hazy morning light, the dark iron box lay quietly, like a gateway to another world.
Lin Hai carefully observed the iron box, which was originally sealed, but perhaps due to the passage of time, the seal on the box had been broken. He gently touched the box, and the icy feeling permeated his body like an electric current.
What was inside the box? With the strong suspense, Lin Hai could no longer control himself and finally opened the iron box. He saw a scroll of parchment. What surprised him even more was that the parchment was written in medieval French, something from the 13th century. Lin Hai's heart beat faster, as if he was facing a medieval castle, with a bearded Westerner sitting in the dim firelight, writing down some unknown secret on the parchment.
Lin Hai couldn't read the writing on the parchment, so he put it back into the iron box. He climbed down from the attic, carefully wrapped the iron box in newspaper, and put it in his bag. Then he took the borrowed DVD player and left the old house full of old paint and his childhood memories.
This is the story behind the mysterious parchment.
Lowering his head and leaving the alley at dawn, although the early elderly people had already come out to exercise, no one noticed him. Lin Hai returned the DVD player to his friend and hurried back to school.
The campus was even quieter on Sunday, and he spent the whole day in his dormitory, thinking back to everything that happened last night. It was really unbelievable. Could it all have been a nightmare? However, as long as Lin Hai spread out his left hand and saw the red "aider moi," he believed it all without a doubt.
Lin Hai thought that maybe a ghost had really attached itself to him, not only hiding beside him, but even entering his body, his dreams, and his deepest thoughts. Just as he was not thinking about anything in his dormitory, he suddenly saw the "Red and Black" on his bedside. His gaze stopped abruptly, staring straight at the words "Red and Black" for half a minute before he suddenly jumped up and flipped through "Red and Black" on his bed.
This was the Chinese-French version, which he had already read countless times. He turned to the 313th page, which was Chapter 10 of "Red and Black," called "Queen Margot."
If you have read "Red and Black," you will surely remember the latter part of the novel. The protagonist, Julien Sorel, fell passionately in love with the Marquise de Rênal's daughter, Mathilde, at the Marquis de la Mole's mansion in Paris. On April 30th, he saw Mathilde wearing a black dress, which was the heaviest mourning attire of that time.
Chapter 10 of "Red and Black" explains why Mathilde was in mourning - on April 30, 1574, the most handsome young man in all of France, Boniface de La Môle, was beheaded on the Place de Grève in Paris. And this Boniface de La Môle was the beloved of Queen Margot. La Môle was also a close friend of Henry of Navarre, who was both Margot's husband and later the founder of the Bourbon dynasty. At the time, King Charles IX was about to die, and Queen Catherine de' Medici imprisoned Henry in the palace. La Môle led two hundred knights to rescue him, but was arrested by the queen's men. Soon after, La Môle was sentenced to death and executed by beheading.