"The Dream of the Covered Bridge" is a novella created by American writer Robert James Waller, which mainly tells the story of an unshakable and unforgettable middle-aged middle-aged man who has been cast in 4 days.
It's a story about "love but not", when she was forty-five years old and a housewife who gave up her dreams because of her family; he was fifty-two years old, a photographer who traveled the world and liked freedom, a bland and ordinary encounter that made them spark a different spark.
They spent 4 unforgettable days together, Francesca struggled many times, wanting to abandon human morality to follow him, and finally reason triumphed over emotion, she buried this secret buried in her heart into a diary, and pressed those hidden emotions into the deepest darkness of the drawer.
In her boring and tedious life, in her repressed life, those buried warmth and happiness supported her to keep moving forward. Many people say that Ferenciska fell in love with Robert in one day, but I saw, aside from love, the footsteps of her dream that had been hidden by her.
01
Francesca lives with her husband in a small rural town in Iowa, where the people are kind and simple, the car does not need to be locked outside, and the children can run freely.
The town is not a big place, whoever has a family has something, neighbors and friends will help, if anyone has any scandal, the whole town will spread the boiling, and people will treat the "cheaters" with a repulsive, blank-eyed and indifferent attitude.
Francesca had studied literature, was a teacher of English, she had loved her career and was proud of it, and later, she married and had children, because her husband did not like her to work, so she left the city she loved, moved with him to this peaceful and peaceful town, and wholeheartedly became a housewife at home.
Their lives were ordinary and boring, she got up every day to make breakfast for her husband and children, and then watched them eat quietly, no one asked her if she was tired, no one talked to her about the interesting things that happened, she was like a lonely flying jackdaw, who could only perch on the invisible branches in the dead of night, releasing a few cries of dreams hidden in the depths of her heart.
She likes to listen to romantic songs, likes Yeats's poems, likes the outside world, but all of this is suppressed because of her marriage, no one has talked to her about her ideals in life, no one has asked her what she wants, what she likes, no one has asked what her dreams are.
She took care of her husband and children day after day, but no one ever really understood her, and at breakfast, her husband and children each picked what they liked, and she looked tiredly, and the whole family except the sound of eating was the sound of knives and forks cutting across the plate.
After breakfast, the husband took the two siblings to the exhibition of his daughter's award, to go for four days, after they left, the photographer Robert asked her about the way to Roseman Bridge, she promised to show him the way, this encounter also made them spend four days of their lives unforgettable.
On the car, they chatted casually, and when they talked about the beauty of the place where Francesca grew up, and robertt stopped at the train, Francesca's eyes had a different light, and the distance between the two was also shortened in an instant.
When she saw the flowers he had picked for her, she couldn't help but make jokes, and then bent down to watch him ugly, and they talked speculatively all the way, so she invited Robert to her house for iced tea, and the two talked to each other about their marriages, families, and children.
When asked if she loved The State of Jose the most, Francesca seemed to open her heart for the first time to talk about her dreams as a teenager, she abandoned her hometown and left her hometown to a strange place, just to be with her beloved, before that, she had never even heard of the city where her husband was coming, and with her enthusiasm for love and a vision of the future, she walked into marriage, into her husband's world, and forgot herself, forgot her dreams.
Her husband is considerate and gentle and upright to her, iowa people are also kind and warm, the world here is as calm as always ticking the hour hand that will not change, peaceful and peaceful, but this is not her ideal life.
Francesca is an Italian, she has italian romantic blood in her bones, for her husband, she changed her life, for the sake of children, she suppressed the character, but the soul that was suppressed with time for the good, but the soul that was suppressed with time was always excited in her heart.
Robert's arrival seemed to have found a glimmer of light for the dreams she had longed for, and the passions that had long been buried in her blood had been rekindled, so she wanted to seize every opportunity to release the longing and longing that had been suppressed in her heart for decades.
In her heart, it may not be love for Robert at first sight, what impressed her was his freedom, his experience, his tireless attitude towards the good, and the feelings that others still spare no effort to find the good after middle age.
He can discover beauty, understand beauty, appreciate beauty, he has all the dreams she once wanted but couldn't achieve, and his life has fantasies that she once wanted to pursue but couldn't achieve.
He would help her wash and pick vegetables while she was cooking, and then chat with her about irrelevant topics, and he would tell her his various thrilling experiences and anecdotes at the dinner table, and she would laugh without any image as she listened.
They talked about family and belonging, about how Robert had enjoyed his freedom without being bound by his family, and she was desperate to explore whether he would be alone and afraid of a life of wandering.
It seemed that as long as he said that he regretted the divorce, feared loneliness, and longed for the peace of the family, all the repressed longings she had before and the dreams she had given up for the family were worth it.
But he said he didn't regret the divorce, he never felt lonely, and he felt that the whole world's family ethics were hypnotized.
Francesca seemed to be stung by his words, and she argued that people settled down and started families, not hypnotized, I had never seen a herd of antelopes, nor did it mean that I had been living groggy.
Robert divorced because he did not agree with the family view that most people think: he felt that marriage should bind life, that all marriages were bland, and that married people should not have dreams.
Francesca's heart was deeply stung by Robert's words, and she wanted to tell him that everyone lives like this, that the purpose of everyone's family is to live a peaceful and ordinary life, and that even if she chooses this kind of bondaged marriage, even if she abandons her dreams, it does not mean that she is living a dull and unhappy life.
From this moment on, Robert became Francesca's inner demon, her inner desire was pierced by him, and he guided her to break through the prison, only to break through the cage, let herself go crazy, let freedom completely release and fly.
02
Francesca has lived in this quiet town for more than ten years, she lives in a corner like most country women, for her, marriage and children mean that life has long been out of her control, she acquiesced to the passion of the tedious life gradually swallowed up by the ordinary, think that women's dreams are too far away, think that beautiful love is as unrealistic as the night.
But Robert's words made her rekindle the hope of life, and those passions for life, the beautiful yearning for the world, the passion for life, the enthusiasm of those desperate pursuits when she was young, all rushed to her like a tide.
That night, Francesca lost sleep, and she tossed and turned for a long time, and finally wrote a note inviting him to come to the house for dinner the next day and nailed it to rossman bridge.
Throughout the day, she waited for his response with uneasiness and anticipation, until Robert told her to accept her invitation and asked if she intended to go out with him to shoot, and she agreed with greater excitement than ever before.
After hanging up the phone, she was so excited that she was like a little girl, as if she had found the girlish heart that had been lost, and even went to town to buy an expensive dress that she had never bought before.
They spent a pleasant afternoon at Roseman Bridge, and when they got home, they prepared dinner together, the dining room played her favorite music, she wore a newly purchased low-cut dress, beautiful and elegant, and they danced after the meal.
In that moment, she said, the self she knew had disappeared without a trace and become another woman, but I was more like myself.
Perhaps, this is the fantasy of her girlhood, this is the love she has longed for, a husband who understands her, can chat with her in the sea and the sky, talk about life, can accompany her to a romantic drink in the soaking of chai rice oil and salt, and can appreciate the beauty of life.
On the third day, he took her to a place where no one knew them, and they enjoyed the sun, enjoyed the beauty of life, and enjoyed the passion. Until the sorrow of parting made Francesca collapse frequently, she couldn't help but play tantrums with him, crying and accusing him of loving too many people, but he needed anyone in life, and was not afraid of lonely people.
Many people said she wanted a commitment from him, wanted to confirm her uniqueness in his heart. I think she's just afraid that after he leaves, she'll be the lonely lifeless person again, and she's jealous of his freedom, of his unfettered life and life, because he's so close to the real self she's been suppressing.
She struggles between reason and emotion, on the one hand, she has given up all the family she has worked hard to run, and on the other hand, she has longed for freedom.
As she sat in Richard's car, seeing Robert waiting for her at the intersection through the glass cut off by the rain, she clenched the door, suppressing the urge to rush into the rain a million times, suppressing her inner burning self, and in the end, it was reason that triumphed over emotion.
Robert's car drove to the left through the traffic lights, and Richard drove straight away to take her back to reality, back to her peaceful and peaceful home.
03
Francesca said that for the rest of her life, she relied on the beauty of these four days to complete the loneliness of the second half of her life.
As before, she was a dutiful wife, farming her own land, driving a tractor like a man, walking barefoot in the garden, preparing three meals a day for her husband and children.
Life returned to its former ordinaryness, and the dreams she had once had as a girl overflowed her heart in those four days, fulfilling the dreams of her life.
Perhaps, Francesca did not love Robert as much as everyone said, and what she loved from beginning to end was his unfettered life, a life that she could not achieve in her lifetime, because she was just an ordinary woman.
She sees life too thoroughly, and she understands in her heart that when a woman chooses to get married and have children, on the one hand, it is the beginning of her life, on the other hand, the end.
Life is like this, what you want to get, you have to give up. And her choice of marriage meant giving up the freedom of her girlhood.
She has to take care of the family, to take care of the children, until one day, the children grow up and leave, and the woman is freed from the trivialities of life. I look back and want to look for my dream again, but I can't remember what my motivation was.
Because that dream was so far away from her, no one had ever asked her for a long time, not even herself.
Francesca found in Robert what her husband had not given her, the beautiful yearning for life in her youth, her passion for the world, the impulse of her teenage years, the self she had lost in trivial marriages.
Love is not a luxury thing in this world, every one of us has had it when we entered marriage, we all had a beautiful vision of the future, but time has quietly changed the direction of our lives, so that we forget the beautiful blueprint drawn when we were in love and forget ourselves in the tediousness.
I hope that you, who have long been lost in marriage, can hug each other and ask her if this is your favorite life!