Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987) was born in Brussels as Marguerite de Cleancourt. In 1921, her father regrouped her name as "Yourcenar" (missing a C) as her pen name and published her long poem "Paradise of Illusions" at his own expense. She later published poetry collections, essays, and reviews, but her main accomplishments were novels.
Yourcenar's first novel, Alexie or the Struggle in Vain, broke the taboo of the depiction of homosexuality at the time. Her second novel, New Eurydic, depicts the complex psychology of a man after marriage. His representative works are the historical novels "Hadrian's Memoirs" and "Smelting". Later in life, she published a trilogy of reminiscences of her family, "Devotional Memories" as a reminiscence of her mother, and "Northland Archives" as a recollection of her grandfather and father's lives. The unfinished novel "What is Eternity" is also about the father.
Yourcenar is adept at writing about subjects that are far from himself. In 1980, she was elected a member of the Académie de France, the first female member of the Académie in its three-and-a-half-century history.
Margo's smile
Marguerite Yourcenard
The ship floats like a jellyfish drifting on the calm sea. An airplane circled in a narrow sky between the mountains, like an angry swarm of bees, emitting a piercing hum. It was a windy afternoon in the middle of summer, and the sun had disappeared behind the bare, barren Alps of Negorona in Men, and the winding shores of the Balkan Peninsula, where the river was turquoise in the morning and now dark gray. Although the simple and low houses and the clear and tranquil scenery are Slavic, the gray tones and cloudless clear skies cannot but remind people of the East and Islam. Most of the passengers had already disembarked, talking to customs officers in white uniforms and formidable soldiers armed with triangular swords. Only Greek archaeologists, Egyptian Pashas, and French engineers remained above deck. The engineer asks for a bottle of beer, the Pasha is drinking whiskey, and the archaeologist prefers lemonade.
"It's a fascinating country. The engineer said: "The two seaports of Kodor and Laphonse are probably the only outlet from the Balkans to the Ural from the Great Slavic Kingdom to the Mediterranean." The country was unaffected by the changes in national borders on the map of Europe and always expanded inland. To get to the interior by sea, you have to pass through the Caspian Sea, Finland, the Black Sea and other terrain straits and the Dalmatian coast. The diversity of races in this vast land does not destroy its unity, just as the waves of all sizes do not detract from the magnificence of the sea. Now, however, I am not interested in geography or history, but in the Kodor, which they call the mouth of the Capello. As we could see from the deck of the Italian liner, the port of Codor was well concealed, with rough waves in the bay and a winding road leading to Cetine. In Slavic legends and epics, Kodor is nothing more than a very common place name. Kodor, who did not believe in Christianity, had a difficult time under the yoke of Albanian Muslims. Pasha, you know, these Muslims have never been correctly evaluated in the Serbian epic. And you, Lucardy, you know history like your master knows every nook and cranny of his estate, and you won't tell me that you haven't heard of Margo Klarevich, have you?"
"I'm an archaeologist," said the Greek, putting down the lemonade glass, "I only know the stones that have been polished, and your Serbian hero is a sculpture made of flesh and blood." However, this Margo once piqued my interest. Although Serbian believers had established some spectacular monasteries in his homeland, I found him in Greece, far from where his legend was widespread. ”
"It was in Athos," the engineer chimed in, "and the bones of the giant ship Margor Krarevich are buried on that holy mountain." Since the Middle Ages, apart from the identity of the deceased who was buried there, the mountain has remained the same. Six thousand monks with their hair coiled and long beards pray every day for their devout benefactor to ascend to heaven. The Trebidsson under this king had perished centuries earlier. It's reassuring to know that people aren't forgetting everything about the past anytime soon. Some elders often refer to a certain part of the world or a family in the Crusader era when they pray. If I'm not mistaken, Margo died in the course of a battle against the Turks in Ottoman in Bosnia or Croatia. But his last wish was to sleep in Orthodox Sinai. At that time, a small boat managed to transport his body to Sinai, despite the reefs in the eastern sea and the ambush of the Turkish fleet. It's a moving story, and for some reason it reminds me of Aaltur's last voyage across the sea.
"There are heroes in the West, but like the knights of the Middle Ages who were bound by armor, the rules of the Qing Dynasty bound their hands and feet. And this rugged Serb is indeed a veritable hero. Each of his killings was like a tall ancient pine rolling down from the top of a mountain in the eyes of the Turks. As I told you, Negora was under Islamic rule at that time. The population of the Serbian State is too small to openly compete with Muslims for ownership of Montenegro. Margo Klarevich established secret contacts with false Christians in Islamic countries, disgruntled officials, and Pasha, whose lives were threatened by his fall from grace. He has a growing need for direct contact with them. However, despite his woman-like beauty, he was too tall to disguise himself as a beggar, a blind musician, or a woman. When people saw his excessively tall body, they immediately recognized him. It is also impossible for the ship to find a secluded bay to dock, because there are countless sentry posts on the cliffs, ready to deal with the lone Margot, who comes and goes without a trace. However, a small boat could be seen right there. On the boat, there is a swimmer hidden, and only the fish can keep up with him underwater. Margo's swimming skills rival that of Ulriches in neighboring Ithac. He was also adept at seducing women, often reaching the foot of a wooden house in Kodor through the complicated waterways of the sea. The wood of the house had been eaten away by insects and was constantly swaying in the waves. Sgutari Pasha's widow, who missed him day and night, came out early to greet him. Concealing from her servants in the house, she rubbed the oil and warmed her body on the bed with her own body, which had been frozen by the sea, and in the evening made it easy for him to meet with her agents and accomplices. As soon as it was dawn, she went to the clear kitchen to prepare the most delicious food for Margo. Margo, on the other hand, had to force a smile on her soft and collapsed breasts, thick thighs, and connected eyebrows, and accept the passionate and suspicious love of this half-aged MILF. When he knelt down to pray, he saw the widow spitting on the ground and her lungs exploded. The night before Margo was to swim back to Ragus, the widow went down to the kitchen to cook. Tears blurred her eyes, preventing her from concentrating as much as she usually did, and as a result, the lamb was burned old. When the hapless woman brought the dish to the table, Margo had just finished drinking, and could not help but be furious, and grabbed her hair with her juicy hands, and shouted:
"Damn bitch don't want me to eat 100-year-old lamb?!"
"It's a fat sheep," replied the widow, "the most tender of the flock." ”
"The meat can't be bitten at all, just like the meat of you, an old witch, and it smells nasty. The drunken young Christian said, "Your roasted meat is worse than the meat in Hell!"
With that, he kicked the meat through the open window into the sea.
The widow silently wiped the grease from the floor and tears from her face, appearing as gentle and welcoming as the night before. At dawn, a north wind blew, followed by huge waves. The widow gently persuaded him to leave another day, and he agreed. At noon, in the scorching sun, Margo lay down and fell asleep. When he awoke and stood in front of the shutters and stretched out, he suddenly saw a flash of swords outside: a group of Turkish soldiers had surrounded the wooden house, blocking all exits. Margo hurried to the balcony reaching out to the sea, the waves crashing against the rocks with a thunderous roar. In the stormy bay, there is not a single shadow of a small boat in sight. Malgo tore off his shirt and swooped down. The hill sped behind his feet, and he plunged towards the foothills. The soldiers searched inside and outside the house, led by the widow, but found no young giant. When they finally saw the broken balcony railing and the torn shirts thrown on the ground, they suddenly realized that they rushed to the beach with a cry, and they hated and feared it. Whenever the evil wave swells at their feet, they involuntarily fall backwards. To them, the howling of the north wind was like the laughter of Margot, and the waves around them were like Malgo's spit on their faces. Margo swam for two hours and couldn't make a single move. The arrows fired by the enemy at his head were blown away by the wind. He disappears in and out of the green waves. Finally the widow tied her shawl firmly to a long Albanian belt, and let an old fisherman who specialized in tuna catch use it to trap Margo. Margo was strangled half to death and dragged to the shore. When he was hunting in the mountains of his hometown, he often saw his prey fleeing by pretending to be dead. Now he instinctively follows suit.
The young man was dragged to the beach by the Turks, and he was bruised all over, as if he had died three days earlier. His body was cold and stiff, and his hair was covered in foam and clung to his sunken temples. He closed his eyes and did not look at the vast evening sky. His lips were purple, and his arms hung weakly, and he couldn't hear his heart beating even when he lay down on his broad chest. The women of the village bent down to take in his face, their long beards gently pricking his cheeks. After they looked at it for a while, they straightened up and said in unison:
"Allah! He died, like a rotten mouse, like a dead dog. Cast him into the sea of filth, lest his corpse stain our land. ”
But the wicked widow wept for a while and laughed maniacally.
"No amount of wind or waves can drown Margo. She said, "A silk sleeve can't strangle him." You see, he is not dead. If you throw him into the sea, the waves will send him back to his homeland. To him, the sea was as weak as me, a poor woman. Go get nails and hammers! Now Jesus can't help him. You crucify this dog as Jesus crucified, and see if his knees will tremble with pain, and if his mouth will cry out if he will not confess. ”
The executioners took nails and hammers from the case of the ship repairer. They wedged nails into the palms of the young Serbs and pierced the soles of his feet with sharp stones. However, Margo endured, his body was motionless, his face was still expressionless, not even his muscles twitched, only a few faint drops of blood slowly seeped out of the wound, because he could control not only his heart, but also the blood flow. So the elders threw their hammers far away and cried out in dismay:
"Forgive Allah, we tortured a dead man! Tie a big stone around his neck, let the sea take him away, and bury our faults in the abyss!"
"It took a thousand nails and a hundred hammers to kill Margo Krarevich. The sinister mother-in-law said, "Put the red-hot charcoal on his chest and see if he will curl up like a molting worm." ”
The executioner plucked charcoal from the twister's stove and drew a large circle on the chest of the swimmer, who had been frozen by the sea. The burning charcoal, like a withered red rose, went out and turned black. The burns on Margo's chest resemble footprints on the grass when a wizard dances. But the young man did not snort, and did not even frown.
"Allah, we have created iniquity. The executioners cried out: "Only God has the right to torture the dead, and if we insult him like this, his brothers and nephews will not give up." Therefore, it is better to put him in a sack and fall on a stone, so that the sea does not reveal who we threw down. ”
The widow said, "Damn it!" he would poke the sack with his elbow and remove the stone. I said it would be better to let the girl from the village dance on the beach and see if he could move. ”
The people ran to spread the word to the village, and the girls hurriedly changed into festive costumes, took drums and piccolos to the beach, and danced hand in hand around the corpse. The leading girl waved a red handkerchief in her hand, and her dance steps were light, like an antelope dancing joyfully, like a mountain eagle soaring. She is very beautiful, and her brown hair and white neck make her particularly attractive. Let the girl's bare feet gently kick her body, and Margo did not move. But his heart was beating faster and faster because of the excitement, and it became more and more chaotic. Despite the fear of being recognized, the corners of his mouth still struggled to bloom a happy smile. His lips were quivering softly, as if they were kissing. As it was nearly dusk, neither the executioners nor the widows were aware of this sign of life. Ash was the only one who was attracted by the young man's handsomeness, and his bright eyes kept on his face. Suddenly, her red handkerchief fell onto Margo's head, obscuring his smile. The girl said confidently:
"I didn't think it was good to dance to a dead Christian's unveiled body, so I covered his face. Otherwise, it's weird. ”
With that, she continued to dance again to distract the executioners. She was waiting for the hour of vespers. At that point, people have to leave the beach. Finally, from the top of the mosque came the shout: "Worship God!"
Men flocked to the small mosque, and weary girls pulled drag chains and walked down the town. Ash walked as he walked and looked back from time to time. Only the suspicious widow was left alone to guard the fake corpse. Suddenly Margo sat up, grabbed the widow's reddish-brown hair, pulled out the nail from his left hand with his right hand, and plunged it into her throat, then removed the nail from his right hand with his left hand and stabbed her forehead, and then Malgo pulled out the sharp stone through the soles of his feet, and gouged out the widow's eyes with it. When the executioners return to the beach, they find that the naked male corpse is gone, leaving a bloody female corpse. The storm on the sea had subsided, but the overweight boat had never been able to catch up with the fugitives who had been hidden in the waves. Margo finally returned to his country, and with the beautiful girl who had once drawn his smile. However, it was not his honor, nor the happiness of both of them, that struck me, but his clever disguise and the smile on his lips as he endured the torture. To him, lust is both sweet and painful. You see, it's getting dark, and on the beaches of this Kodor one can almost imagine the executioner using the scorching coals as an instrument of torture, the dancing girl, and the young man who can't resist the temptation of a woman. ”
"What a bizarre story. The archaeologist said, "However, your account may be relatively new, and there must be some old legends, so I would like to inquire about it." ”
"That's not right," said the engineer, "and I told this story from a farmer in a village last winter when tunneling the Orient Express line." I don't want to speak ill of your Greek heroes, Lucadi, who in a fit of rage went into their tents and never came out, who wept bitterly for their dead friends, and who dragged the corpses of their enemies around the conquered city. But take my word for it: the Iliad is missing Achilles' smile. ”
(Translated by Liao Liandi)
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