[Gone with the Wind] Back to the beginning

Scarlett followed Grandma Fontaine all the way out the back door.

They stood in front of the open red land, and the autumn wind was chilling.The land here has not been sorted out, and there is a faint sense of barrenness and decay.Grandma Fontaine frowned as she looked at the weeds that hadn't been pulled out on the ground, looking distressed.

"Sooner or later, this place must be cleaned up," she said, "otherwise...weeds and shrubs grow very fast, and once they invade, it's not easy to get rid of them."

Scarlett remained silent, but felt pessimistic about it in her heart.The huge manor, the work of hundreds of black slaves, three women can't do it anyway, this is not a matter of willingness to work hard.Shrub invasion is inevitable.They encroached on every southern manor and every piece of red land that lost their labor force from all directions, causing the cotton kingdom that the southerners are proud of to sink, and it will be difficult to recover for a long time.

"The war between man and the land is long and never-ending." The old woman glanced at the place where the cotton used to grow, "The land is the most honest thing, it will give you back...you have to use your hands to fight against nature , take the land back bit by bit, and plant things like cotton and beans. This is especially true in difficult times. Because if you can’t fight resolutely, this land will no longer belong to you... This is Our own war, but that's not what I intend to talk to you about today."

"What happened, let's tell it all now." The old woman said slowly.

Scarlett was a little surprised, but she quickly adjusted herself.She said:

"Actually, that's all in the past, and it's nothing to me anymore."

Grandma Fontaine stared at her keenly: "But that's not what I see, Scarlett."

Scarlett bowed her head in silence.In fact, she knew she couldn't take everyone else for a fool.This is not the first person to point out the changes that rebirth brought to her in this life.First Rhett Butler, then Mom.The former sees her soul through her expression, while the latter accepts her changes because of love.They are all about caring.Scarlett also tried to confide part of her heart, but she finally found that although those cares and loves could warm and motivate her, they were not enough to completely change her.

Scarlett felt her eyes water a little.She never expected to feel the same care and love from the third person, Grandma Fontaine.Because this kind of love does not come from relatives or lovers, it is even more moving.But how could the old lady understand Scarlett's inner dilemma?

Maybe she began to try to accept the insistence of the southerners, but Scarlett was already in a position of moral corruption and conscience.Her acceptance was initially out of family tolerance and tolerance, and later she gained more understanding and insight.But in the process of dealing with things, utilitarianism often has the upper hand, and it is difficult for Scarlett to prevent herself from slipping into the abyss of the past—the mother’s tenderness and piety are like a dense and flexible net, and she has betrayed God’s will even more. Like steel poured into iron.When the two are together, no one knows that they will win in the end.All Scarlett can do is to keep reminding herself of her failures.

At last Grandma Fontaine spoke, in a very gentle tone that Scarlett had never heard her speak to anyone.

"Son, it would be unfortunate for a woman to face the worst, because after dealing with the worst, a woman is not afraid of anything." She said slowly, "But if a woman is really afraid of nothing, Then it will happen."

When Scarlett was in a daze, a smile appeared on the corners of Grandma Fontaine's lips.Her wrinkled eyelids cover her yellow eyes:

"Scarlett, do you think I don't understand how you're feeling, what you've been through? Well, I can't understand. When I was your age, I was caught up in the Indian Creek riots, and then Massacre at Fort Mims. That's right."

She was immersed in the memory of the past.

"It was more than 50 years ago, when you were your age. I managed to hide under the bushes and lay there watching my family's house burn down, and the Indians stripped my brothers and sisters. Scalp. I can only pray to God that the flames don't illuminate my hiding place--they dragged my mom out again and killed her within twenty feet of me, and scalped her too, and after a while And one of the Indians gave her an ax in the head. I—I'm my mother's sweetheart, but I lay there and saw it all. The next morning, I set off for the nearest white colony Well, it was thirty miles from my house, and it took three days to get there. I had to go through the swamp, and I had to go through Indian tribes. Then people thought I was crazy. . . . That's where I met Dr. Fontaine .He took good care of me... Well, come on, this was 50 years ago. Since then, I've been afraid of nothing and nobody, because I've been through the worst. This This kind of temperament that is not afraid of nothing has caused me a lot of trouble and lost a lot of joy. God's will is for women to be timid and cowardly. If a woman is not afraid of anything, it is against God's will... Scarlett, be careful at all times Be afraid—just like always have love in your heart.”

Her voice gradually lowered, and she stood there, silently recalling the days when she was still afraid half a century ago.

Scarlett also stood there unable to move—in fact, she was out of breath, and her hands were shaking at the old woman's words.

"You're right." She said with difficulty.

But I think you live too hard, Scarlett.You are surrounded by hard and cold armor.Rhett Butler said so.

Why do you regard me and the South as enemies?Even if you can kill people, it doesn't mean you can bear that thing better than me.Ellen O'Hara said so.

……

This is not accidental, but inevitable.

Scarlett clearly remembered several turning points of her own fate—from the vegetable patch of twelve oaks, to the stairway where the Yankees lay dead, and then to the orchard in the bleak winter wind.How did she watch what she thought was already a bad thing get worse step by step, step by step throw away the fear in her heart and grit her teeth to face it, and then bit by bit she became not like her original self.The hardness in her heart was getting thicker and thicker.

What she won't forget is the orchard—she's been rejected again by Ashley Wilkes.At that time, Scarlett just felt that everything was terrible, she had no hope anymore, she had lost Ashley, she had lost her love, she had lost everything, and she could not care about anything.Then Scarlett made her final decision in the darkened study with drawn curtains.She wanted to sell her body to Rhett Butler, and she wanted to keep Tara even as a prostitute.At that time, Scarlett was the most desperate, so that Ritter commented on her, saying that "the eyes are like looking at the opponent in a duel, which makes people feel uncomfortable."Scarlett had lost her tenderness, her love and her fear, and she was desperate.But I don't know whether it was luck or misfortune, Rhett Butler was in jail at the time and couldn't help her.So Scarlett resolutely switched to the arms of her prospective brother-in-law Frank Kennedy.

It is worth mentioning that Rhett came to her in a hurry after he was released from prison.Scarlett clearly remembers Rhett gnashing her teeth in anger when she confirmed that it was Ashley's powerlessness that forced her to sell her body.He didn't know whether he was questioning Ashley or himself, saying that if the woman he loved was forced to do such a thing (forced to beg a bastard like him), he would kill himself.Perhaps, Scarlett thought, this was the difference between Rhett and Ashley.If Rhett had been by her side at that time, she would not have lost her last love and fear and made such a crazy decision.Unfortunately, there was never a possibility.

She was no longer afraid of anything.She disregards morality in pursuit of money and hires prisoners.She doesn't care about what she lost, but she can't enjoy real happiness anymore.When Scarlett recalled her past following Grandma Fontaine's words, she couldn't help shivering.

She silently stared at the short but still tall figure of Grandma Fontaine, as if seeing her last self in her previous life.Shrewd, capable, fearless, and devoid of tenderness, except that her own moral apostasy is more complete—but being fearless is the same as being unloving.She seemed to see the road she had walked on—very clear.

"I will never become like her." Scarlett closed her eyes, and when she opened them again she was extremely determined.

Today she has much more than her previous life - a surviving mother, an healthy father, and a lost lover.These will become her fear, her tenderness.As determined not to lose these, Scarlett was equally unwilling to lose that inner tenderness which she could vaguely recover.It is enough to make a mistake once, and she will never follow the footsteps of her previous life.

"I feel from the bottom of my heart that I will get better." She said with a smile on Fang Dan's grandmother.