Battle of the Rhine

Michael tugged—"forced" would be more appropriate—and Quincy prayed with him every day.He was so tough on the matter that Quincy finally capitulated.

"I'm better at prayer than you," said Quincy. "I went to mission school."

"Be respectful," Michael said.

Michael thought of a lot of messy rumors.My neighbor Mrs. Michel said that people who are too beautiful are generally not happy. "God gives everyone the same happiness. If you have more here, you need less there." This seems to be true.Michael calculated his own life. He was not handsome enough, rich enough, smart enough, lost his mother when he was born, and grew up under the beating and scolding of Old Michael.But he went to war and hardly got hurt; Mary treated him well; and most of all, he met Quincy...  

Of course, Quincy would not want to be encountered by him.If it wasn't for the goddamn World War, they never would have met.Michael would never leave the small town for the rest of his life, and he and Mary lived a peaceful and stable life, herding the cows every day and selling the cows when the time came.They'll probably have a few kids, mostly just like their father, with plain brown hair and brown eyes, repeating Michael's old ways, getting married at 19, raising cows, having kids... and across a vast ocean Well, after graduating from Quincy University, you might go on to study until you can, and become a respected Ph.D.; or work, and be a great engineer.He will inherit the family business, live happily with Emma, ​​live in a big house like a castle, and his spare time activities are playing the piano, watching symphony orchestra performances, and ballet, opera, dances, Michael never even thought about it high entertainment.They would have a few beautiful blond-haired children, elegant, intelligent, and promising, just like their parents.In short, if Hitler hadn't chosen war, then Michael would not have met Quincy in his next life, and the next life.Quincy's shiny leather shoes wouldn't set foot in the kind of tavern Michael would patronize.

He mentioned this idea.Quincy thought for a moment and said, "No, I don't have a castle."

"It's not about the castle—"

"Buy me a glass of wine, and I'll take you to see the real castle, which is in Bavaria..."

"I can buy you soda, don't even think about wine!"

"You're so stingy, isn't even 0.5% alcohol okay?"

"Give up, even 0.1%!"

Although Michael refused to buy Quincy a drink—"It's not negotiable," Michael emphasized—Quinnessy made a "generous" agreement with him to go together after his birthday in October. Visit Neuschwanstein Castle.Michael is not very interested in European castles, he has seen many old houses with pointed roofs in France.The first time I saw it, I was very excited, the second time, the third time... But Quinnessy said that Neuschwanstein Castle is unparalleled, and it will definitely refresh Michael, a Yankee.

Quincy's birthday was October [-]th, which happened to be a Saturday.Xia Li asked to come to celebrate her brother's birthday as early as a month ago.Early this morning, Michael got up and was busy.Quincy himself was not keen, and he dressed up and went to "drink tea" at the Becker's house down the street. "It's been made an appointment a long time ago," Quincy flipped through the schedule book. "Their eldest son is facing the choice of going to school. Fortunately, I have some experience in this regard."

"Do you want to go to college?"

"No, high school."

Michael was humming, and Quincy told him to pick up Charlie and Franz at 10:30, promising to pay him a mark.At Michael's request, Quincy kissed him twice on the cheek as a "tip."At ten twenty, Michael also put on his coat and drove to the choir.Charlie is busy with Christmas again, and the year goes by so fast.

Something seems to be wrong in the chorus, though.Michael hadn't stopped the car when he heard Charlie scream, "Oh, fuck you—"

Whoa, that's not like cute Charlie.Michael pushed open the door. It was a large wooden room with rows of seats.Franz covered his forehead and stood in front of Xia Li. A strange man waved his arms excitedly, "—that's really amazing. You're quite proud of him for being released without serving a day in prison, aren't you? ?”

"Why am I not proud of my brother?" Xia Li confronted tit-for-tat, "Oh, everyone has to be like you and spend a few years in prison to be worthy of the German motherland, Sir von Seidlitz?"

The man shook his fist at Charlie, which was outrageous.Franz pushed him away, and he fought back, stumbling, apparently drunk.Michael walked over and found that this "sir" was tall and thin, his face was flushed, and he smelled of alcohol. He was indeed an alcoholic.I heard the man say again, "Yeah, yeah, I am worthy of the German motherland, I am fucking worthy of my family. Look at your brother, look at him, indulge his sister to marry the cook's son, oh, what is this , I'm not surprised by this at all. After all, you have long since fallen, and even Carl himself, doesn't he want to marry an unusable woman for money and status? After all, he still took advantage of it!"

"You're fucking too much!" shrieked Charlie, her blue eyes, identical to Quincy's, filled with tears. "How dare you!"

"I dare not, your brother, this coward, coward—"

"Fuck you, you trash," Michael knocked the man to the ground with a punch, "how dare you speak to a noble lady like that!"

This is what he learned in the novels. There are many such sentences in knight novels. He copied them and recited them, and was laughed at by Quincy several times. "Where is this lunatic?" Michael saw that Franz was bleeding, "I'll call the police first, and then go to the hospital—"

Charlie hesitated for a few seconds, "No," she looked from Franz to Michael, "Let's leave him alone, Mike, let's go to the hospital, Foley—"

"She doesn't dare to call the police!" The man lay in the middle of a pile of chairs, with blood coming from his nostrils, struggling to get up, he roared, "Who are you? You—"

"I'm just an anonymous person who has encountered injustice." Michael said, and punched the man hard in the face again, "If you dare to talk nonsense, I will break your teeth."

As Charlie got into the car, Franz took out his handkerchief and wiped her tears. "Isn't it really necessary to call the police?" Michael said. "He just got out of prison? I think he needs to go back and calm down."

"He is Sir Johann von Seidlitz," Charlie bit the word "Sir" heavily, "He used to be Karl's good friend."

"Oh," Michael said, "Feng, he is a nobleman like you, isn't he?"

"No, his family is much stronger than ours." Charlie wiped the corners of her eyes, "His mother is from the Lichtenstein family, a very old noble family. He is right, we have long since fallen. But so what? I won't allow him to humiliate Carl and Emma like that."

"He may be in prison and crazy, many people are like this... Foley, don't sit around stupidly, wipe your face for the beautiful lady."

Xia Li smiled through her tears, "Where did you learn these words?"

"There are several of these novels on Karl's dear bookshelf."

"Carl used to say that chivalry novels were rubbish, not literature."

"It's interesting," Michael drove towards the hospital, "that Feng... what's going on?"

"Johann Henriette von Seidlitz. He was Karl's good friend, probably the only one, before you came." Charlie took out a new handkerchief and covered Franz's forehead wound, " For a while, they could be said to be inseparable. But I observed carefully that he was the one who stuck to Carl. Carl went to a liberal arts high school, and he went too, obviously his mother disagreed. Carl was going to college, and he was going to college. He ran came to my house and begged Karl to go to the military school with him. Later, he asked Karl to go to Humboldt University with him. My brother said he would prefer to stay in Munich. So Johann got angry and had a big fight with my brother —he yelled one-sidedly, just like he did, and then he came to see my brother, but Karl didn't want to see him. But you can't put a note on the gate, 'Sir John Sedlitz not welcome' .So he just sits in the living room, talking to John, very boring, Mike, talking about the weather. You should see how Carl talks about the weather... My mother was stunned."

"Even later, he approached Karl and asked him to join the Youth League. Karl turned him down, saying he had no interest in politics. Then John went to the army, which was inevitable. He joined the SS, luckily he wasn't that talented , just a little boss, otherwise," shrugged Charlie, "I wouldn't have had to argue with him today. Can I have a cigarette, Mike?"

"You know how to smoke?" Michael took out the cigarette case, Charlie took out a lit one, and put it in her mouth, "Who can't? Please don't tell Carl, he is very old-fashioned in this regard, and he thinks that people should not smoke, especially A woman. Emma is a model in this, the perfect woman—oh, Emma . . . "

"Well," Michael was a little concerned about the meaning of "can't be used", but it would be too offensive to ask directly, even if he didn't like Emma, ​​"and then he was arrested?"

"Before that, he heard the news that his brother and Emma were engaged, and he went crazy. His mother wrote, asking us to forgive him, what kind of disease he had in the Soviet Union." Charlie snorted, contemptuously Out of words, "I think he was sick before. He couldn't have been infected with the Soviet virus since he was ten years old, right? I know why he's crazy—he just wants to monopolize Karl."