After reading the novel The Bridges of Madison County. I could not help my tears back. It was a very touching story which described the beautiful love between the middle-aged Robert Kincaid and Francesca Johnson, who only stayed with each other for four days but loved each other for their rest years of their life.
Robert Kincaid, a writer-photographer working for the National Geography, divorced because of his long absence for photographing stories from home. After divorcing he had never been married again. He was alone all the years, sometimes lonely, though with a dog called Highway keeping company with him. As a man, he thought of meeting women once in a while, and actually he did. However, he never thought of going steadily with a certain woman before he met Francesca.
For his work, Robert left his home on the morning of August 1965, heading for Madison County. He arrived there on a Monday morning, and easily found the first six covered bridges of seven ones he was about to find with the directions of the man in the Texaco Station. The seventh, a place called Roseman Bridge, eluded him. When he was looking for guidance, Francesca, lovely or he thought she had been at one time or could be again lovely a lady caught his sight. He asked her for directions to the Roseman Bridge and knew immediately that he fell in love with her at first sight. As for Francesca, a farmer’s wife living in Madison County, who had two children and living a peaceful life, felt the first time when her husband Richard and her children all went to another city and would be back a week later that there was in Robert something very different from Richard which happened to be what she had been longing for for a long time. When Robert asked for guidance to Roseman Bridge, she offered to go with him for herself, quite surprisingly, even to herself. After that, she invited him to have a drink and even supper in her kitchen. Naturally, as if they were friends for a long time, they talked about their own life. She would love to be with him, “there was something something about him. Something very old, something slightly battered by the years, not in his appearance, but in his eyes.” And, for Robert, “there was something in Francesca Johnson that did interest him.”
After supper and the walk together, Robert left, promising to go to Roseman Bridge for shooting the next day. Francesca couldn’t help hanging a note of invitation saying, “if you’d like supper again when “when moths are on the wing”, come by tonight after you finished. Anytime is fine.” The piece of paper, which Robert had kept for 17years after they were apart for his memories, was the only thing that he had of hers.
Robert read her note and called her telling her that he was glad to accept her invitation. When Francesca received his call, her inside jumped again, just as they had the day before. “A little stab of something that started in her chest and plunged to her stomach.”
That night in her kitchen, they danced, kissed and went to her bedroom. They stayed with each other for the next two days before Richard and the children came back home on Friday. During the two days, he gave up his photographing and she her farm life. The two of them spent all their time together, either talking or making love. Francesca hoped this to run forever. With Robert, she said that she had become a woman again. In a slow, unremitting way, she was turning for home, towarding a place she’d never been. And, Robert, whispered to her, “around the ancient tower…I have circling for a thousand years.” He said, “His long search came to an end.”
However, they had to be apart. She had her own life, her husband, her children and her responsibility to the family. She knew that if Robert took her in his arm and carried her to his truck and forced her to go with him, she wouldn’t murmur a complaint He would not, however. He was so sensitive, too aware of her feeling of responsibility. Though they didn’t want to separate, they had to.
After Robert left, Francesca subscribed to National Geographic and clipped all his works. Before Richard died, she had never tried to call Robert or write to him, either, though she balanced on the knife-edge of it every day for years. She knew that if she talked to him one more time, she would go to him. If she wrote to him, she knew he would come for her. At the same time, Robert didn’t call or write to her either, for he knew that would bring trouble to her. He loved her so much that he would never want her to get hurt, even a little.
In January 1982, she heard about the death of Robert, and received his cameras, bracelet, chain and the exact piece of paper she tacked on the bridge 17years ago he had delivered to her. All the contents had become part of her annual birthday ritual. In 1989 she passed away. In a letter of 1982, when Robert died, she had requested that her remains be cremated and her ashes scattered at Roseman Bridge, just as Robert did 7years ago. Her son and her daughter were very moved by her mother’s love story and her responsibility to the family. They sympathized and understood their mother, and, from then on, they started to treasure their families, giving up the hustle decisions of divorcing.
I have never read a whole novel before, but The Bridges of Madison is an exception. I can’t express clearly how I felt after reading it, I don’t think just saying that I was very moved is enough. For a short time, I doubted that there was true love exited. I have ever been in love with a boy studying in Beijing now, who loved me more than I him. However, we broke up last year, for some unreasonable reasons. I just couldn’t understand why such so-called true love between us could be so vulnerable that it changed one day before I realized. Looking at his smiles in the photos, I doubted. Was it the guy who always murmured to me that he would love me forever? Was it the same guy who had promised to take care of me all his life and take me around the world? It took me a long time but failed to find out why love would change so abruptly, was there some kind of love which never changed? For the first time, I found sleeping very hard for me. I had been awake at midnight till early morning for a whole week. Every time I saw lovers passing by hand in hand, I could feel the stab of pain in my heart. And I always recalled the time we spent together unconsciously. Fortunately, that hard time has already gone, I, at last, returned to what I had been used to be, laughing loudly, crying vividly and incisively. Sometimes looking at lovers makes me warm. Seeing other lovers laughing happily makes me happy. Others` love stories, such as the one in The Bridges of Madison, the kind of love that never changed, easily move me.
If you’ve ever experienced the one true love of your life, a love that for some reason could never be, you will understand why I, even the readers all over the world were so moved by novel. The story of Robert and Francesca gives voice to the longings of men and women everywhere and shows us what it is to love and be loved so intensely that life is never be the same again. Love is an eternal topic. Sometimes I will ask myself what is love. If someone asked you to define love, how would you answer him or her? Well, different people may have different views on what love really is. People often use love as a way to express their emotion, something they like and became emotionally attached to. Or could love be that sensational feeling you’ve lingered for all your life? There was a famous poet in the Sung dynasty who married his childhood sweetheart. They loved each other very much and treasured their relationship till the end. The marriage was like one only made possible in heaven. You can also find plenty of love and romance in stories like Romeo and Juliet, but the love in The Bridges of Madison County is quite different. They just stayed with each other for four days, which meant a lifetime for them. Just as they had said: “though we never spoke again to one another, we remained bound together as tightly as it’s possible for two people to be bound. It seems that it is the true love that linked them tightly during the years they were out of contact.
Are you searching for that kind of true love? I don’t know how many people can find it, but I hope that every pair of lovers will treasure each other and the love between them, and, the most important, love each other deeply as they do when they are in love for their all life.
I believe everyone who believes in love can always find the true love that only belongs to him or her.
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