The Complete Works of Lu Xun's Novels

Chapter 13

From then on, country folk who sell chickens often come here and buy a few of them every time they come, because chickens are easy to accumulate food and get sick, and it is rare to live a long life; and one of them has become the only novel written by Mr. Ai Luoxianke in Beijing. The protagonist in "Chicken's Tragedy".One morning, the countryman unexpectedly brought ducklings here, squawking; but Mrs. Zhongmi said no.Mr. Ai Luoxianke also ran out, and they put one in his hands, and the duckling squawked in his hands.He thought they were cute too, so he had to buy them. He bought four in total, each at eighty cash.

The ducklings are indeed cute, covered in pine flowers and yellow, and when they are placed on the ground, they waddle and walk, calling each other, and they are always in the same place.Everyone agreed, let's buy loach tomorrow and feed them.Mr. Ai Luoxianke said, "I can also pay for this money."

So he went to teach; everyone also dispersed.After a while, when Mrs. Zhongmi fed them cold rice, she heard the sound of splashing water in the distance. She ran over and saw that the four ducklings had bathed in the lotus pond, somersaulted and ate. something.When they got to the shore, the water in the whole pond was already muddy. After a long time, it cleared up, and there were only a few fine lotus roots protruding from the mud;

"Yi and Xiko first, no more, son of the toad." In the evening, when the children saw him coming back, the youngest one hurriedly said.

"Well, toad?"

Mrs. Zhong Mi also came out and told the story of the duckling eating Ke Dou.

"Alas, alas! . . . " he said.

When the duckling had lost its yellow hair, Mr. Ailosenke suddenly longed for his "Russian mother"②, so he hurried to Chita.

By the time the frogs croaked everywhere, the ducklings had grown into two white ones and two flowery ones, and they stopped squawking, and they all called "ducks and ducks".The lotus pond can no longer hold them lingering. Fortunately, Zhongmi's house is located on a very low terrain. When the summer rains fall, the yard is full of water, and they are happy to swim, drill, and flap their wings. "Duck".

Now it has passed from the end of summer to the beginning of winter, and there is still no news of Mr. Ai Luoxianke, and I don't know where he is.

There are only four ducks, but they are still calling "ducks" in the desert.

October [-].

This article was originally published in No. 12, Volume [-], Shanghai Women's Magazine, December [-].

social drama
In the past 20 years, I have only watched Chinese drama twice. I never watched it in the first ten years, because I didn’t have the intention and opportunity to watch the theater. Those two episodes were all in the next ten years, but I didn’t see anything. and left.

The first time was when I first arrived in Beijing in the first year of the Republic of China. At that time, a friend said to me that Beijing opera is the best. Why don’t you go see the world?I think it's interesting to watch a theater, especially in Beijing.So they all ran to some garden enthusiastically, the play had already begun, and the sound of Dongdong had already been heard outside.We walked in the door, a few red and green lights flashed in front of my eyes, and I saw many heads under the stage again, and then looked around intently, but saw that there were still a few empty seats in the middle. When someone commented on me, my ears were already ringing, and I worked hard to hear him say, "There are people, no!"

We retreated to the back, but a braided man came and led us to the side, pointing out a place.This so-called person was originally a bench, but his seat was three-quarters narrower than my upper legs, and his feet were two-thirds longer than my lower legs.At first I didn't have the courage to climb up, and then I thought of the torture tools of lynching and torture, and I couldn't help but walked out in horror.

After walking for a long time, I suddenly heard my friend's voice saying, "What's the matter?" I turned around, and it turned out that he was also brought out by me.He was very surprised and said, "Why do you always leave and don't agree?" I said, "My friend, I'm sorry, my ears are only ringing, and I didn't hear your words."

Later, every time I thought about it, I felt very strange, as if the play was too bad—otherwise, I was not suitable for living off the stage these days.

For the second time, I forgot the year. In short, it was to raise donations for the flood in Hubei and Tan Jiaotian① was not dead yet.The way to donate is to buy a theater ticket for two yuan, and you can go to the first stage to watch the theater. Most of the actors are famous roles, one of which is Xiao Mingtian.I bought a ticket, originally as a way of blaming the solicitors, but it seemed that someone with good deeds took the opportunity to tell me that I had to read Dafa.So I forgot about the disasters of the winter and winter a few years ago, and went to the first stage, but about half of it was also because of the precious tickets I bought at a high price, so I had to use them to feel comfortable.I inquired that it was too late for the stage, but the first stage was a new structure, and there was no need to fight for seats, so I was relieved and delayed until nine o'clock. Unexpectedly, as usual, it was full of people, and it was difficult to even get a foothold. , I had to squeeze in the crowd in the distance to watch an old Dan sing on stage.The old Dan had two igniting paper sticks sticking out of his mouth, and there was a pawn beside him. After thinking hard, I suspected that he might be Mulian's mother, because a monk came out later.However, I didn't know who the famous character was, so I asked a fat gentleman crowded on my left.He gave me a sideways look with disdain, and said, "Gong Yunfu!" I was deeply ashamed of my shallowness and roughness, my face became hot, and at the same time I made a decision in my mind that I would never ask again, so I watched Xiaodan sing. , watching Huadan singing, watching old students singing, watching some characters singing, watching a large group of people fighting, watching two or three people fighting each other, from nine o'clock to ten o'clock, from ten o'clock to eleven o'clock, from eleven o'clock to eleven o'clock :11, from 30:11 to twelve o'clock——however, Jiaotian has not come yet.

I have never waited so patiently for something, and what's more, the panting of the fat gentleman next to me, the beating of the Dongdong scorpion on this stage, the swaying of red, green and green, plus twelve o'clock, suddenly saved me from mistakes. It's not suitable for living here.At the same time, I mechanically twisted my body and squeezed out, feeling that the back was full, probably the elastic fat gentleman had already opened up his right half of his body in my space.I had no way to go back, so I squeezed and squeezed naturally, and finally got out of the gate.Except for the vehicles waiting for spectators, there were hardly any pedestrians on the street, but there were more than a dozen people watching the show with their heads held up at the gate, and there were a bunch of people standing and not watching anything. I thought: They probably were watching the show. The women who came out after the play ended, but Jiaotian hadn't come yet...

However, the night air is very refreshing, which is really called "refreshing". It seems that this is the first time I have encountered such good air in Beijing.

This night was the night I said goodbye to Chinese opera, and I never thought of him again. Even if I passed by the theater occasionally, we were indifferent, and we were already in the south of the sky and the north of the earth in spirit.

But a few days ago, I came across a book in Japanese by accident. Unfortunately, I forgot the title and author of the book, but it was about Chinese opera.One of them seems to say to the effect that Chinese opera is full of banging, yelling, and jumping, which makes the spectators dizzy. It is not suitable for the theater, but if it is played in a wild place and watched from a distance, it has its own characteristics. style.At that time, I felt that this was exactly what I had in mind but never thought of, because I did remember that I saw a very good play in the field, and after I went to Beijing to go to the theater twice, maybe I still suffered from it at that time. Influence miles.It's a pity that I don't know why, but I forgot the title of the book.

As for the time when I saw a good show, it was really "far away", I'm afraid I was only eleven or twelve years old at that time.It is our custom in Lu Township that all married daughters, if they are not in charge of the family themselves, usually go back to their mother's house to spend the summer in Xia Jian.At that time, although my grandmother was still in Kangjian, my mother had already shared some housework, so I couldn't go home for many days during the summer, so I had to find time to live for a few days after the grave sweeping. At this time, I stayed with me every year. My mother lives in my grandmother's house.That place is called Pingqiao Village, not far from the sea, a very remote small village near a river; there are less than thirty households, all of whom are farming and fishing, and there is only one small grocery store.But here I am a paradise: because here I not only get preferential treatment, but also can avoid reciting "Zhizhisigan Youyou Nanshan" ①.

There are many children playing with me. Because of the distant visitors, they all got permission from their parents to reduce their work and play games with me.In a small village, the guests of a family are almost the public.We are all about the same age, but in terms of seniority, we are at least uncles, and some of us are grandpas, because they all have the same surname in the same village and belong to the same family.However, we are friends, even if we occasionally quarrel and beat the grandpa, none of the people in the village, young or old, will ever think of the word "offender", and 90.00% of them are illiterate.

Our daily work is probably to dig earthworms, put them on small hooks made of copper wire, and lean on the riverside to catch shrimps.Shrimp are idiots in the water world, they will not hesitate to use their own two pincers to hold the tip of the hook and send it to their mouths, so in less than half a day they can catch a big bowlful.The prawns are mine as usual.The second is to herd cattle together, but maybe because of the higher animals, the cattle and buffaloes are bullying and dare to bully me, so I always dare not approach me, so I have to follow from a distance and stand.At this time, the children no longer forgave me for being able to read "Zhizhisigan", but they all laughed.

As for what I was looking forward to first there, I was going to Zhaozhuang to see a theater.Zhaozhuang is a relatively large village five miles away from Pingqiao Village; Pingqiao Village is too small to be able to act by itself, so the total amount paid to Zhaozhuang every year is counted as cooperation.At that time, I didn't think about why they had to act every year.Now that I think about it, it might be a spring competition, a social drama②.

In the year when I was eleven or twelve years old, this date seemed to have arrived.Unexpectedly, it was a pity that this year, the boat could not be called in the morning.In Pingqiao Village, there is only one big ship that leaves early and returns late, and there is absolutely no reason to keep it.The rest are small boats, which are not suitable for use; the Yang people went to the neighboring villages to ask, but there were no ones, and they had already been ordered by others.Grandmother was very annoyed, blaming the family for not making an appointment early, and started rambling.Mother comforted Yi, saying that the operas in our Lu town are much better than those in the small village, and we can see them several times a year, so let’s forget about today.I was the only one who was about to cry, but my mother tried her best to tell me that I must not put on an appearance, lest my grandmother would be angry again, and that I was not allowed to go with others, saying that she was afraid that my grandmother would worry.

Anyway, it's over.In the afternoon, all my friends had gone, and the show had already started. I seemed to hear the sound of gongs and drums, and knew that they were buying soybean milk under the stage.

(End of this chapter)