Re-reading the Classics: Lu Xun's New Year's "Hometown"

I braved the bitter cold and returned to my hometown, which was more than 2,000 miles apart and had been separated for more than 20 years.

Since it was the depths of winter; as we approached our hometown, the weather was overcast again, and the cold wind blew into the cabin, whining, looking out from the canopy gap, under the pale yellow sky, there were several desolate villages near and far, and there was no vitality. My heart couldn't help but get sad. pander to! Isn't this the hometown I've remembered for twenty years?

The hometown I remember is not like this at all. My hometown is much better. But I want to remember his beauty and say his best, but there are no images, no words. As if that's it. So I explained to myself: My hometown is also like this,—— although there is no progress, there may not be as sad as I feel, this is just a change in my own mood, because I returned to my hometown this time, I did not have any good mood.

I came this time specifically to say goodbye to him. The old house where we have lived for many years has been sold to another surname by the public, and the deadline for handing over the house is only in this year, so we must bid farewell to the old house we know before the first day of the first month of the first month, and we are far away from the hometown of acquaintance, and move to a different place where I am seeking food.

The next morning I arrived at the door of my house. The broken stems of many dry grasses on the corrugation are trembling in the wind, which explains the reason why this old house inevitably changes owners. The ben family of a few rooms has probably moved away, so it is very quiet. When I got outside my house, my mother had already greeted me, and then she flew out of her eight-year-old nephew Hong'er.

My mother was happy, but she also hid many desolate looks, teaching me to sit down, rest, drink tea, and not talk about moving. Hong'er hadn't seen me, and was just watching from the far opposite side.

But we finally talked about moving. I said that the apartment in the outer room had been rented, and I had bought a few pieces of furniture, and that I had to sell all the wood in the house and add more. The mother also said yes, and the luggage was slightly gathered, and the wooden utensils were inconvenient to carry, and they were also sold in a small half, but they could not afford to collect the money.

"You rest for a day or two, go to visit your relatives, and we can leave." Mother said.

"Yes."

"And The LeapIng Earth, whenever he comes to my house, he always asks about you, and he wants to see you again." I have informed him of the approximate date of your arrival, and he may be coming. ”

At this moment, a strange picture suddenly flashed in my mind: a golden full moon hung in the deep blue sky, and below the sand of the seashore, there was an endless green watermelon, and there was an eleven- or twelve-year-old boy with a silver ring, holding a steel fork in his hand, and stabbed at a horse as hard as he could, but he twisted his body and escaped from his crotch.

This young man is the leaping earth. When I knew him, I was only in my teens, thirty years away from now; at that time my father was still alive, and my family was good, and I was a young master. That year, my family was the year of the great sacrifice. This sacrifice is said to be more than thirty years before it can be turned, so it is very solemn; in the first month, there are many ancestor statues, many offerings, the sacrifice vessels are very exquisite, there are many worshippers, and the sacrificial vessels are also very important to prevent theft. My family only has one busy month (there are three kinds of people we work here: long work for a certain number of people throughout the year; short work for people on a daily basis; and farming for himself, and only during the New Year's festival and rent collection time to work for a certain number of people is called a busy month).

My father allowed it; and I was glad that I had heard the name Leap Earth earlier, and knew that he and I were as old as each other, born in leap months, and lacked earth in the Five Elements, so his father called him Leap Earth. He can pretend to be [Bow Kyo] to catch birds and finches.

So I looked forward to the New Year every day, and when the New Year came, the leap soil also arrived. It was easy to reach the end of the year, and one day, my mother told me that the leap soil was coming, and I flew away to see it. He was in the kitchen, with a round purple face, a small felt hat on his head, and a dangling silver collar around his neck, which showed that his father loved him very much and was afraid of his death, so he made a wish in front of the gods and Buddhas, and used the circle to trap him. He was very shy when he saw people, but he was not afraid of me, and when there was no one else, he talked to me, so in less than half a day, we became acquainted.

We didn't know what to talk about at that time, but we remembered that Yan Tu was very happy, saying that after going to the city, he saw many things that he had never seen before.

The next day, I asked him to catch birds. He said:

"It can't. It must be snowing heavily. We were on the sand, it was snowing, I swept out a clearing, propped up a large bamboo plaque with a short stick, and sprinkled the grain, and when I saw the birds and finches coming to eat, I pulled the rope tied to the sticks from a distance, and the birds and finches covered the bamboo plaques. Everything: rice chickens, horned chickens, partridges, blue-backed..."

So I was looking forward to the snow.

Then he said to me,

"It's too cold now, you come to us in the summer. We went to the beach to collect shells every day, there were red and green ones, there were ghosts and fears, and there were also Guanyin hands. In the evening I went with My Dad pipe watermelon, and you went too. ”

"A thief?"

"No, it's not. The walking people are thirsty to pick a melon to eat, and we don't count stealing here. It's badgers, hedgehogs, and hedgehogs. Under the moon, you listen, the cheering rings, and the melon is biting. Then you squeezed the fork and walked gently..."

I didn't know what this so-called thing was at the time—even now I don't know—but I felt like a puppy and fierce for no reason.

"Doesn't he bite?"

"There's a fork in the coffin." When you go, you see that you are stabbed. This beast is very clever, and he runs towards you, and instead slips from his crotch. His fur is oily and slippery..."

I had never known that there were so many new things in the world: that there were colorful shells on the seashore; that watermelons had such dangerous experiences, that I had known only that he had sold them in the fruit electricity.

"In our sand, when the tide is coming, there are many jumping fish that just jump, and they all have two feet like frogs..."

pander to! There are endless wonders in the heart of the earth, all of which my usual friends do not know. They didn't know something, and when the earth was on the seashore, they all saw only the sky at the four corners of the high wall in the courtyard, just like me.

Unfortunately, the first month passed, and I cried so much that he hid in the kitchen, crying and refusing to go out, but he was finally taken away by his father. He later asked his father to bring me a bag of shells and a few beautiful bird feathers, and I also gave him something once or twice, but never saw each other again.

Now that my mother had mentioned him, my memories of being here were suddenly all lightning-like Su Sheng came over and seemed to see my beautiful hometown. I replied:

"This is superb! How ,—— he was? ......”

"He? ...... He's not doing well either..." said the mother, and looked out of the room, "these people are coming again." I said I bought woodware, so I took it casually, and I had to go and see it. ”

Mother got up and went out. There were several women's voices outside the door. I beckoned Hong'er to come closer and gossip with him: ask him if he could write and if he would like to go out.

"Shall we go by train?"

"Let's go by train."

"What about the ship?"

"Take the boat first,......"

"Ha! That's it! The beard is so long! A sharp strange sound suddenly shouted.

Frightened, I hurriedly raised my head, but I saw a woman with convex cheekbones, thin lips, and about fifty years of age standing in front of me, her hands between her hips, no skirt, and her feet open, just like the thin-footed compass in a drawing instrument.

I was stunned.

"Don't you know?" I've hugged you too! ”

I was even more stunned. Fortunately, my mother also came in and said:

"He went out for years and forgot about it. You should remember," he said to me, "this is the second sister-in-law of Yang who is diagonally opposite the door,...... Opened a tofu shop. ”

Oh, I remember. When I was a child, there was indeed a Yang second sister-in-law sitting in the tofu shop diagonally opposite the door, and everyone was called Yi "Tofu Xishi". But with the white powder, the cheekbones were not so high, the lips were not so thin, and I sat all day, I had never seen this compass posture. At that time, people said: Because of Yi, the business of this tofu shop is very good. But probably because of my age, I was not blinded by any emotion, so I completely forgot about it. However, the compass was very uneven, showing a look of contempt, as if to ridicule the French did not know Napoleon, the Americans did not know Washington, sneered:

"Forgot? This is really a noble eye high..."

"Then there is such a thing... I..." I panicked and stood up and said.

"Well, I say to you. Xun Ge'er, you are wide, moving and bulky, you still want these tattered wood utensils, let me take it. We have a small family and can use it. ”

"I don't have a wide mile. I have to sell these and go..."

"Ah, you let go of the platform, still not wide?" You now have a three-room aunt and wife; when you go out, you can't say that it is not wide? Frightened, nothing can hide from me. ”

I knew I had nothing more to say, so I closed my mouth and stood silently.

"Ah ah, the richer you are, the more you refuse to relax, the more you refuse to relax, the richer you are..." Compass turned back indignantly, said slowly, slowly walked out, and by the way, tucked one of my mother's gloves into the waistband of my pants, and went out.

Since then, I have been visited by my family and relatives from nearby. I socialized, stole some luggage, and so on for three or four days.

One day it was a very cold afternoon, I had lunch, sat down and drank tea, I thought someone outside had come in, so I looked back. When I watched, I couldn't help but be very startled, and I hurriedly stood up and walked towards it.

Here comes the leaping earth. Although I knew it was a leap soil at first sight, it was not the leap soil of my memory. He had doubled in stature; his round purple face had turned grayish-yellow and had added deep wrinkles; his eyes, like his father's, were swollen red all around him, and I knew that the people who farmed by the sea were blowing the sea breeze all day long. On his head was a torn felt hat, and he was covered in a very thin cotton coat; he was carrying a paper bag and a long pipe, and the hand was not the red and round hand I remembered, but it was thick and clumsy and cracked, like pine bark.

I was very excited at this time, but I didn't know how to say it, just said:

"Ah! Brother Yan Tu,—— you're here?" ......”

Then I had a lot of words that I wanted to gush out like beads: horned chickens, jumping fish, shells, ,...... But I always feel as if I am blocked by something, and I am circling in my head alone, and I can't spit it out.

He stood still, a look of joy and desolation on his face; he moved his lips, but did not make a sound. His attitude finally became respectful, and he cried out clearly:

"Lord! ......”

I seemed to give a chill; I knew that there was already a sad thick barrier between us. I couldn't speak either.

He turned back and said, "Aquatic, kowtow to the old man." "Then he dragged out the child hiding behind him, which was a leap of earth from twenty years ago, but it was yellow and thin, and there was no silver ring on the neck." This is the fifth child, has never seen the world, dodging..."

Mother and Hong'er came downstairs, and they probably heard voices.

"Old lady. The letter was received early. I really like it, I know that the old man is back..." said The leap earth.

"Ah, how can you be so polite? Didn't you call brothers before? Or business as usual: Xun Ge'er. Mother said happily.

"Ah, the old lady is... What a rule. At that time, it was a child, and I didn't understand things..." The earth said, and told the aquatic creature to come up and arch, but the child was shy, and only clinged to his back.

"He's aquatic? The fifth? They are all born people, and it is no wonder that they are afraid of being born; or Hong'er and him go for a walk. Mother said.

When Hong'er heard this, he came to summon Aquatic, but Aquatic was loose and cool and went out with him. His mother asked Him to sit down, and he hesitated for a moment, and finally sat down, leaned the long pipe against the table, handed over the paper bag, and said:

"There's nothing left in winter. This point of dried green beans is actually dried there, please sir..."

I asked him about the situation. He just shook his head.

"It was very difficult. The sixth child will also help, but he will always not have enough to eat... It's not peaceful... Money everywhere, no rules... The harvest is bad. To plant things, to pick and sell, to donate money a few times, to fold the book; if you don't sell it, you can only rot..."

He just shook his head; his face, though engraved with many wrinkles, did not move at all, as if it were a stone statue. He probably just felt bitter, but he couldn't describe it, and when he was silent for a while, he picked up the pipe and smoked silently.

His mother asked him, knowing that his family was busy, that he would have to go back tomorrow; and since he had not eaten lunch, she asked him to go to the kitchen to eat fried rice.

He went out; my mother and I both lamented his condition: the multiplicity, the famine, the harsh taxes, the soldiers, the bandits, the officials, the gentry, all suffering him like a puppeteer. My mother told me that anything that did not have to be removed could be given to him, and he could choose it himself.

In the afternoon, he picked out a few things: two long tables, four chairs, an incense burner and a candlestick, and a pole lifting scale. He asked for all the grass ash (we cook here with straw, and the ash can be used as fertilizer for the sand), and when we set out, he used a boat to carry it.

During the night, we talked about idle days, all of which were insignificant; the next morning he took the aquatic back.

Nine more days passed, the date of our departure. Leap earth arrived in the morning, and the aquatic creatures did not come with them, but only took a five-year-old daughter to manage the boat. We were very busy all day and didn't talk about anything more. There are also many visitors, some are sending off, some are taking things, and some are sending off and taking things. By the time we boarded the ship in the evening, all the shabby, large, and thin things in the old house had been swept away.

Our ship moved forward, and the green mountains on both sides of the river, in the twilight, were dressed in dark colors, and retreated to the back of the ship.

Hong'er and I leaned against the boat window, looking at the blurry scenery outside, and he suddenly asked:

"Uncle! When are we coming back? ”

"Come back? How come you want to come back before you're gone. ”

"But the aquatic creature asked me to come to his house to play with grin..." He thought with his big black eyes wide open.

My mother and I were also a little confused, so we brought up the leap soil again. Mother said that the second sister-in-law of Yang, who was giving tofu Xishi, since my family packed her bags, was supposed to arrive every day, the day before yesterday Yi was in the ash pile, took out more than ten dishes, after discussion, it must be said that it was buried in the leap soil, he could move back home together when transporting ashes; Yang Second Sister-in-law saw this matter, she was very meritorious, so she took the dog qi to kill (this is our chicken here, there is a fence on the wooden plate, the food is inside, the chicken can reach into the neck to peck, the dog can't, can only watch the gas die), fei also ran, With such a tall and low foot, Yi Yi ran so fast.

The old house was getting farther away from me, and the landscape of my hometown was gradually moving away from me, but I didn't feel any nostalgia. I only felt that there were invisible walls on all sides of me, which separated me into a lonely body, which made me very depressed; the image of the little hero of the silver collar on the watermelon floor, which I had known very well, was suddenly blurred and made me very sad.

Mother and Hong'er were asleep.

I lay down, listening to the murmur of water at the bottom of the boat, knowing that I was walking my way. I thought: I have been isolated from the earth to this point, but our descendants are still angry, isn't Hong'er missing aquatic life? I hope they are no longer like me, and everyone is separated... However, I don't want them to live like my hard work because they want to be angry, nor do I want them to live like the hard and numbness of the earth, nor do I want them to live like the hardships of others. They deserve a new life, for whom we have not lived before.

I thought of hope, and suddenly I was scared. When The Earth asked for incense burners and candlesticks, I secretly thought that he always worshipped idols and never forgot them. Isn't my so-called hope now also my own handmade idol? It's just that his wish is close, and my wish is far away.

In the haze, I was in front of a turquoise sandy field by the sea, and in the deep blue sky hung a golden full moon. I thought: Hope is nothing, nothing is nothing. This is like the way on the earth; in fact, there is no road on the earth, and the more people who walk, the more it becomes the road.

January 1921.

□ comments

This article was originally published in The New Youth, Vol. 9, No. 1, May 1921.

In a letter to Shu Xincheng on May 4, 1929, the author said: "The word '猹' was created by my voice according to what the countrymen say, and it is pronounced as 'cha'. ...... Now that I think about it, maybe it's a badger. ”

The value year of the great sacrifice: the large family in the feudal society has the activity of sacrificing ancestors every year, and the cost is taken from the income of the "sacrifice property" in the clan, and the houses take turns to preside over it on an annual basis, and the turn is called the "duty year".

Lack of soil in the five elements: the superstitious saying of the so-called "eight characters" in the old society. That is, the use of Tiangan (甲乙丙丁戊己庚辛壬癸) and the earth branch (子 ugly 寅卯辰巳巳午未申酉戌海) to record the year, month, day, and hour of a person's birth, each of which has two words, combined with "eight characters"; it is also believed that they belong to each of the five elements (gold, wood, water, fire, and earth), such as jia yi yin 卯 belongs to wood, propyl ding 巳 noon belongs to fire, and so on, such as eight characters can include five, that is, the five elements are complete. "Lack of soil in the five elements" means that there is no word belonging to the soil in these eight words, and it needs to be compensated by taking the name of the word on the side of the soil or the soil as a side.

Ghost And Kannon Hand are the names of small shells. In the old days, people along the coast of Zhejiang tied this small shell together with thread and put it on the wrist or ankle of the child, thinking that they could "avoid evil spirits". Most of these names are taken according to the meaning of "avoiding evil spirits".

Xi Shi: The beauty of the Yue kingdom in the Spring and Autumn Period, later used to refer to the general beauty.

Napoleon (1769-1821): Napoleon Bonaparte, a french bourgeois revolutionary military and politician. In 1799 he became the ruler of the Republic. In 1804, the First French Empire was established and he called himself Napoleon I.

Washington (1732–1799): George Washington, American politician. He led the American War of Independence against British colonial rule from 1775 to 1783 and became the first president of the United States after victory.

Daotai: The common name of the Qing Dynasty official Daoist, the Daoist who is in charge of a regional administrative position and the Daoist who is in charge of a specific position. The former is the chief executive below the provincial level and above the prefectural state; the latter is in charge of the specific affairs of a province, such as the governor of grain roads, military roads, etc. After the Xinhai Revolution, the Beiyang warlord government also used this system and changed its name to Daoyin.