One summer day in the 1960s, in Madison County in the United States, photographer Robert got lost in his self-drawn shooting route. What he was looking for was a covered bridge called the Rossman. He drove the truck around on the gravel road. It was extremely hot, but the gravel road seemed to have no end except for the next stone road.
Finally he noticed a mailbox with the words "Richard Johnson, Rural Mail Delivery Line 2" written on it. He slowed the car and turned into the alley. When the truck slowly drove into the yard, Robert saw a woman sitting under the verandah. It looked very cool. She was drinking something that looked cooler. He got out of the car and looked at her, closer, closer. She was graceful, or she had been so, or she might be so again.
This charming woman in Robert's eyes is Francesca, the wife of farmer Richard. At that moment she also noticed the man walking into her yard. She left the verandah and walked toward Robert.
As soon as you walk there, the story begins.
He asked her the direction of Rossman Bridge, and she volunteered to lead the way. In twenty years of closed life, Francesca has long followed the restrained, reserved, and unsmiling code of conduct required by rural culture. She was surprised at her own initiative to lead the way.
After so many years, Francesca’s girl’s state of mind floated to the surface like a bubble and finally burst. She is not a very shy person, but she is not bold and proactive either. The only way she could explain it was that after meeting him for only a few seconds, there was something about Robert that attracted her to him.
The arrival of love is probably always unreasonable. When she met him, she forgot her identity as farmer Richard's wife, and headed in his direction regardless, heading for the poetic holy land in her heart. And after he met her, his heart was filled with primitive desire.
He was exploring the covered bridge in the near dusk, and she was watching him in the shade of the covered bridge. He gave her wild yellow chrysanthemums to express his gratitude, and she was delighted with his almost natural romance. She invited him to her home for tea, meals, walks, and chats. Francesca, who studied comparative literature, had poetry and distant places hidden in her heart. Her husband Richard was a kind and honest man. After bringing this Italian girl to the United States, he led his wife to live an ordinary life as a country farmer for more than ten years. They have been talking about agricultural products, weather, and children for more than ten years, not about art or dreams.
Robert—the self-proclaimed last western cowboy man, he is a special photographer for National Geographic, a writer, and a poet. He talked about Yeats, art, and dreams, and he talked about all these topics so freely and so normally. These topics reminded Francesca of the poetry and distance hidden in her heart. So when he asked her how Iowa was, she should have responded: It was nice and peaceful. The people here are really kind. In the end, she spoke her mind: This is not the place I dreamed of as a girl. Ropat responded with his own verse: Old dreams were good dreams, they didn’t come true, but I’m glad I had them.
At that moment, Francesca felt understood, and her heart could no longer calm down.
This night, they cooked dinner together, chatted, and enjoyed beautiful feelings, old feelings, poetry and music. Finally parting politely.
Desire is instinct, and love requires restraint.
On the night after Ropat left, Francesca could not suppress her longing for Robert. An hour before dawn, she drove alone to the covered bridge where they had been together during the day. A note was left at the entrance: "When the white moth spreads its wings." If you still want to have dinner, you can come over tonight after your work, any time.
At dawn, Robert, who came to take pictures of the covered bridge, found a note that did not suit the scene while pursuing perfect production. He peeled it off and stuffed it into his pocket. When he finished his seventh roll of film, he reached for the film in his pocket, was pricked by a pin, and instead remembered the note he had peeled off. When he saw her message, he smiled slightly. This was what he was waiting for in his heart, the meeting that he wanted to say but couldn't. Because of this note, it became possible for them to meet again.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly. By daybreak, Robert looked Francesca in the eyes and said: "This is what I came to this planet for at this time, Francesca. Not to travel and take photos, but to love you. I now understand that I have been on this planet from The edge of a wonderful place high up has been falling for a long time, many more years than I have lived, and all these years I have been falling towards you."
Two people. Between desire and love, forget identity and worldliness.
Robert and farmer Richard’s wife, Francesca, were so intimate and inseparable during the four days that Richard took their children to the farm show. She seemed to have returned to her girlhood, with dancing feelings and passions surging in her body. Faced with the reality that their family is about to go home on Friday night, the two of them finally have to face reality while being close.
"What do we do?" he asked.
She remained silent, a silence that was extremely contradictory in her heart, and then said softly: "I don't know."
"Is this okay? If you want, I will stay here Here, in the city, or anywhere.
After your family comes back, I will talk directly to your husband. It will not be easy to explain the current situation to him clearly, but I will do it. "
She shook her head. "Richard will never accept it. That's not how he thinks about the problem. He simply doesn't understand magic passion and everything else we've talked about and experienced, and he never will. This does not necessarily mean that he is a second-rate person. It's just that this is so far away from what he has felt or thought about in his life. He couldn't handle this. "
"So shall we let all this go to waste?" He was very serious and did not smile.
"I don't know that either. Robert wonders, you already have me. I didn't want anyone to have it, and I didn't need it. I know this wasn't your intention, but that's what happened. I am not sitting next to you on the grass now, but I am in your body, belong to you, and am willing to be a prisoner.
He replied: "I'm not sure you're in me, or I'm in you, or that I own you. At least I don't want to own you. I think we both entered the other The body of life, this is what we created, is called us."
He described the distance to her again and promised her a warm home. However, in the face of reality and love, Francesca finally chose to stay on the farm and continue to live an ordinary life despite her entanglement.
He finally let go and let her go. As he started the car, tears fell from his cheeks, as well as from hers. She was lost and her mind went blank. She heard her heart saying: Robert, don't go... However, she did not have the courage and could not hurt the innocent Richard and the children. She could only stay, could only stay...
At dusk that night after Robert left, Francesca's family returned. She didn't dare go into the city because Robert had said that he would wait in the city for a few days and he could take her away at any time if she wanted. She was afraid that after seeing him, she would lose her sense of proportion and follow him regardless. She was afraid that her abandoned husband and children would only have to live in other people's gossip. She was afraid... She was just afraid, not that she didn't want to be with him. He left...
Three days later, Richard took his wife into the city to buy vegetables and repair parts for the corn harvester. On the road to Winterset, their car met Robert's car and followed closely behind the car named Harry. They followed his car through several streets. In heavy rain and fog, the car stopped at the intersection for nearly 20 seconds. Francesca looked at Robert's back through Harry's back window with mixed feelings in her heart. She wanted to push open the door of her husband's car and rush to her love. She definitely felt the separation, the despair and sadness she had never felt before. Her responsibility froze her there, unable to move. In the heavy rain and fog, she watched the car go away and watched the car leave. Weeping openly in her husband's car, she heard Ropat's voice in her heart: In a universe full of chaos and confusion, such a clear thing can only happen once. No matter how many lives you live, you will never be the same again. It will never happen again...
Harry carried her love and the man in her heart away from her life and her world. In the next 22 years, Francesca received only one unsolicited letter from him. She had said against her will that she didn't want to be disturbed, and he could understand the inconvenience of a woman with a family communicating with him outside of marriage. For fourteen of these twenty-four years, Francesca devoted herself to her husband Richard's side. She missed him, so she subscribed to the magazine "National Geographic" and followed all the news about Robert. Every year on her birthday, she allowed herself to reminisce about the four days she would never forget. Ropat tied a small medallion on a close-fitting silver necklace. Francesca's name was engraved on the sign. He couldn't get close and could only watch. From a distance, he could only express his missing for Francesca in this way. He wanted her to know: he had never forgotten her, and after her, there was only her in his life...
Fourteen years after they parted, Richard died. Francesca tried various methods to contact Ropat, but there was no news from him. It wasn't until three years later, seventeen years after their separation, that Francesca received a package. The sender is a law firm. Inside the package were Robert’s relics—a letter written in 1978, a necklace engraved with Francesca’s name, a personal silver bracelet, and three cameras she had used to take pictures of the covered bridge, as well as a photo she left on the covered bridge in 1965. The note below.
In the 1978 letter, Robert wrote: "From 1965 to 1975 I was on the road almost all the time. I accepted all overseas assignments I sought. Just to resist the temptation to call you or come to you, when in fact this temptation exists every moment of my life, I say to myself: “Screw it, I’m here. Just go to Winterset, Iowa, and take Francesca away at all costs. "But I remember your words, and I respect your feelings. Maybe you're right, I don't know. All I know is that driving out of your alley on that hot Friday morning was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. , and will never happen again. In fact, I doubt if any man has ever done such a difficult thing.
But I am a man after all.
All the philosophical reasoning that I can remember cannot stop me from wanting you. Every day, every hour, every moment, in the depths of my mind is the ruthless wail of time, the time that I will never be able to be with you.
I love you, deeply and wholeheartedly, forever..."
Four days of love, an unforgettable life. Robert expressed his love for Frances with his own restraint Ka's love and respect. But as we, the world, just think about these 22 years of bitter love, our hearts are filled with infinite sympathy and fear. Every year on her birthday, she allowed herself to be unrestrained. Missing him, as time passed, she understood more and more how he understood her. 24 years after their separation, Francesca died lying on her stomach at the table where she and Robert had dined. Her ashes were scattered on Rossman Bridge, where her lover Robert slept. They could not be together in life, but they had to stay together in death.
Although it is a foreign love and different national conditions, it still has the passion of human beings. *Some people's persistence in love and desire for beautiful love, although it is an extramarital affair that has not been exposed, still makes the world cry at the end of the story.
Before this book, it was the same as everyone else in the world. , I think extramarital affairs are only about lust, not love. When I first watched the movie "The Bridge of Dreams", there were some plots that I couldn't understand and couldn't follow. For this reason, I deliberately checked the background of the United States in the 1960s. It was discovered that the American economy was developing rapidly at that time. In the rapidly developing economy, men were mostly working, and women were mostly responsible for the family. In the ordinary life day after day, women's love was suppressed by the trivialities of life. The rapid economic development, Let women's consciousness slowly awaken.
This book was released to the world during that special period. People wanted to talk about extramarital affairs but avoided talking about it. The author Waller spent 11 days writing this story. . As soon as the book was released, it became the best-selling novel of the year. It was later made into a movie, which set off a climax of divorce in the United States. The movie was more focused on Francesca's responsibility to the family and her final return, which was somewhat of a warning to the world. .
Movies are always derived from life and are higher than life. As an audience, we are always watching stories that happen to others. Everything about others is good, even if it's not good, it's still a story. Even if the extramarital affair is not blessed and accepted by the world, even if it sounds good, the protagonists in the story probably don't have that good mood all their lives. Spending time in deep longing, not allowed to see each other casually, only missing each other across mountains and seas
What emotion is more painful and more despairing than this...
History. It has always been reincarnation, and emotions have always been similar. The most beautiful emotions can only exist in imagination. The best love has nothing to do with daily necessities. It originates from the heart, and only when love is pure can it be possible. The heart lives for a long time.
Poetry and distance are really in the distance. The beauty in front of you may be rough, but it is the only solidity that people can have. It's life itself.
Without a down-to-earth view, how can we express poetry and the beauty of the distance...