[Count of Monte Cristo] Love and hatred

r034

Plum Tess felt someone undo the ropes that bound her wrists, and then shoved her violently onto the cold floor.She struggled to get up, and the clang of the iron door closing was deafening.

Where did they take me?

She still remembered that after the boat docked, she was dragged into a carriage before she recovered from the dizziness of the bumps.Along the way, Plum Tess had countless guesses in her mind, but when she really took off the hood, she realized that she was locked inside the prison bars.

It wasn't the worst idea in her mind, but it wasn't much better.

For a moment, she felt that those people must have locked herself in the Chateau d'If. "Perhaps I'm going to see Edmund," thought Mei Tess bitterly.

However, she soon discovered that this was not Chateau d'If.She remembered how the Château d'If looked like, dark and damp, with a sense of despair and despair in the air, and the only light came from the torch held by the cell leader when he came to deliver the meals.

And here...if it weren't for the bars that trapped her, it wouldn't even be a prison cell.

The room is covered with richly patterned Middle Eastern rugs, a row of quaint walnut bookshelves, a wardrobe of the same material, a stone table with an astrolabe and a soft feather bed, and there is even a Not a bad toilet.It's just that all these furniture are firmly fixed to the ground with iron nails and cannot be moved.

Tess Plum stroked the delicate velvet quilt on the bed, a little lost in thought.This is undoubtedly a place dedicated to the house arrest of nobles, but this idea aroused even more doubts in Mei Tess, she is not a noble, more like a canary in a cage.

When she was finally freed from her thoughts, the light outside the iron window caught her gaze.

On the ledge opposite the iron window, thirty blazing torches formed a semicircle, like a newborn sun.And in the center of the semicircle is a lifelike Greek relief.

It was a handsome man wearing a sun crown and driving a chariot drawn by four horses.He has only a fig leaf as a cover, and his strong body is fully exposed, exuding an impatient beauty.This is Apollo, the sun god, thought Mei Tess.

In a place like this, light is always reassuring.But she soon began to crave the darkness, and the blinding light shone through the rusted iron bars, making the entire cell look extraordinarily bright.Her eyes were stinging, and she had to hide under the velvet comforter.

A little less torches, Plum Tess thought to herself, and maybe a little less so I can concentrate on my thoughts.

It didn't take long for her wish to come true, and when she woke up, the torch had lost one.After a while, a second torch was drawn away, leaving only the empty black iron ledge.This might be the prison's unique way of keeping time, but Mei Tess always felt that it was more than that.

Every corner of this place is eerie.Meiser Tess knew well that Villefort sent her here, but everything here obviously had nothing to do with him.Villefort is just a new aristocrat who has risen from the influence of his wife's family. He has not even established a firm foothold in Paris. He cannot have such a secret fortress.

But whose territory is this?What's the point of imprisoning yourself here?Plum Tess couldn't figure it out.She needed an answer, and the guard in the cell—presumably the only living person here—never gave her one.

The guard was tall and strong, with a high nose and deep eyes like a Middle Easterner, but he didn't have a beard on his lips.He came to deliver meals to Plum Tess every day, milk and eggs in the morning, bread and fresh fruits and vegetables at noon, salted ham in the evening, and occasionally fresh meat, which tasted like some kind of wild fowl.

In fact, even the time was guessed by Plum Tess from the things he sent.Whether this is the real moment, Mei Tess has no way of knowing, she has long since lost control of time.From being locked here, everything has become chaotic and disorderly, and time seems to be no longer important.

And important information can only be obtained by prying open the prison head's mouth.

Although the cell boss didn't look very vicious, Mei Tess was a little afraid of him at first.But slowly, she began to tentatively ask him questions.

"Can you tell me your name?"

"Are you the owner here? Or is it someone else?"

But the guard turned a deaf ear every time, as if he didn't hear her words.This situation continued until one day, when the guard came over and yawned, Maisy Tess keenly noticed that he had no tongue.Could it have been cut off by the owner of the castle?Then she fell into what kind of perverted hands.

As time passed, more and more torches on the opposite side were extinguished.Plum Tess felt an inexplicable panic in her heart.She didn't know what that meant, but she had a feeling it was never a good thing.

It's not that she didn't think about running away.In fact, Mei Tess started planning to escape after finding out the time when the prison boss came to deliver food to the prison.But all the furniture in the cell was nailed to the floor, and she couldn't use any of it as a weapon.What can be taken off is not the cowhide books on the bookshelf, or the clothes in the cabinet, and even the food is hard stale bread, which cannot pose any threat.

She had tried unsuccessfully to snatch the key from the man's neck while he was delivering food, and a long time followed without any food being delivered.He is punishing her!

Plum Tess is not afraid of punishment, but she is afraid of being alone.Perhaps it was because of sympathy, she began to miss Edmund who was also locked in the dungeon.From the beginning of this era, the fates of the two of them have been tightly bound together. Now one is imprisoned in the darkest dungeon, and the other is also imprisoned, but it is so bright that it is unbearable. This makes Mei Se Tess didn't know whether to cry or laugh.

Probably because she thought of Edmund too many times during the day, Edmund's face began to appear in her dreams.

She saw him in the cell, calling "Maise Tess" over and over again, but she couldn't answer him because there was always an invisible wall between them.

After waking up, Mei Tess will start to pray, until there is a burst of ghostly crying and wolf howling from the end of the cell.It was a woman's voice, and Mei Tess could not hear what she was shouting, because it was not a language she was familiar with.Immediately afterwards, the sound stopped abruptly, followed by the roar of a beast.

At that moment, all the torches on the other side of the barred window became flickering, and Mei Tess even felt that she really saw the beast.Loneliness, fear and helplessness occupied her heart.She buried her head in the pillow, trying to forget her situation.

The guard did not bring the dinner that day on time.But when the guard reappeared, Mei Tess found that he was a little limping, and there was an extra girl beside him as a helper.The girl's expression was full of fear, and she was probably forced to come here too.

Maybe this is an opportunity she has to win the girl over.

Mei Tess knew that the owner of the castle must not allow the girl to talk to him, but no one would allow her to.Sometimes when the girl came alone, she just smiled and chatted with the girl without asking for any response, no matter words or nods.

At first the girl never met Plum Tess's eyes, and just pretended she didn't hear anything.But at last, she couldn't help but warn, "You have to keep your voice down!" not in French, but in pure English.

In other words, the girl didn't understand a word of all the hard work she had done before.But Mei Tess grasped this information keenly, and guessed her situation based on it.She has been drifting on the ship for so long, it is very likely that this place is England on the other side of the channel.

She immediately switched to the language she was more familiar with.The girl glanced at her hesitantly, opened her mouth slightly, but never made a sound.

Afterwards, they returned to their previous state, the girl was always on high alert, but Mei Tess was not discouraged.

Whenever a girl comes over, Mei Tess starts to talk about everything she knows about Britain, the beautiful palaces in London, the beautiful castles in Edinburgh, the bustling docks in Bristol... When she casually mentioned When she saw the place name Highbury in a certain novel, she obviously noticed that the girl's expression was a little loose.

Is there the girl's hometown?

Mei Tess searched her mind for everything she knew about Highbury and embellished it artfully.Although she doesn't like lies, lying can save her life at this time.

She told the girl how much she loved that place, and how sorry she was for not getting to know her... Even Mei Tess herself almost believed that she had a good time there.

The girl seemed to be fascinated by what Plum Tess had said, as the time she paused became noticeably longer and longer.But it took Mei Tess several times to deliver meals before she was able to win over the girl completely.

This time, the girl took the initiative to walk to the prison door, "My lover is a wandering poet. He once told me that his hometown is Highbury. I love it and yearn for everything there... Seeing that you are staying there too For the sake of a long time, tell me, what do you want to know?" She paused and added, "But I have to decide what to tell you and what not to tell you."

"Of course," Mei Tess suppressed the ecstasy in her heart, and started with a simple question, "Is this England?"

The girl nodded.

It seems she guessed right. "Is this a prison?"

The girl shook her head.

Such conversations are meaningless, she desperately needs the girl's trust, if...

"Can you tell me your name?"

"r..."

"Your name is Mitty?"

"No, that's not my name", the girl shook her head again, "No girl who comes here has a name...it means shooting star..."