You are the april day of the world

Chapter 12 Fiction (7)
Once he was invited to take a photo of a girl who had never left the court. Because this girl went through a little trouble in choosing a husband, her family was often pessimistic about her marriage.It was her cousin elder brother who met Ji Gong. Whether the photo taking was deliberately set up by this elder brother or not, the family members discussed it very enthusiastically afterwards, and we still don't know.The most important thing is that in fact Ji Gong has a good impression of this girl's family, and he has done some duties for this girl's photo; I don't remember if he added color to the photo, at least the girl's lips were smeared. A little rouge.

When this story got to the grandmother's ears, the woman who believed in strict family upbringing was not very happy.

At first, she felt that it would be dishonorable and improper for a woman who has not left the court to have her photos printed in the hands of a man without a family.Moreover, this woman is either from the same province as ours, or belongs to a "Waijiang" family, so we must be especially cautious.In this dispute, I had to hear another tragedy about Ji Gong's life.Many years ago, he had married a wife, a young and beautiful wife, who also gave birth to a child, but within a very short period of time, both mother and child died.Except for Ji Gong alone, there is almost no evidence for the existence of these two people.

Now the girl taking the picture is a new change in Ji Gong's life, opening a way in his monotonous days and months.Not only in terms of human relationships, Jigong also needs the care and comfort of the opposite sex just like everyone else, but also in terms of career ambitions, the girl’s family also gave Jigong a lot of encouragement. At least the dream of going to Shanghai to watch steamships has come true. It is quite guaranteed that the days of long and unresolved days are now suddenly hopeful.Although Jigong was still silent in front of people, he began to take a pleasant walk in the small courtyard; he noticed that the grapefruit tree was blooming again; whether there was a moon at night; he even bought a few goldfish to raise in the tank.Upstairs, he also hummed a little tune, framed the landscape photos into beautiful frames, and took them out neatly and entrusted someone to sell them.Sometimes he tidied up the old boxes; the worn-out things that he hadn't had the heart to rummage through for so many years, are now sometimes taken out and put on the bed or the back of the chair.

Suddenly and abruptly he decided on the marriage, and without my grandmother's consent, he chose the auspicious date and prepared to marry.The grandmother was so angry that she kept silent, and retreated into the woman's tears, sobbing all her disappointment with the brother.When the family saw that my uncle was disrespectful, and went to other provinces to marry into a family with a few belongings, naturally many expressed sympathy with my grandmother.But Ji Gong finally left that romantic building and went to find another life for him.

The small courtyard covered with grapefruit tree shade gradually became a lonelier corner, and no one went up and down the creaky wooden ladder since then, except for children who sometimes got mischievous and hurried down halfway up.Thinking about it now, I can't help but praise Jigong for his struggling vitality at that time, for being unwilling to be content with a flat status quo.That small building can only keep the shadow of Ji Gong's past misfortune in dust, but it can't bury him alive in it.

Since Ji Gong's behavior was a betrayal of his relatives, many people in the old family could not tolerate this kind of lack of self-esteem.His post-marriage actions, other than bringing the bride to pay homage to his grandmother, no one has ever heard of other things being mentioned!It seems that not long after that, he also went to Shanghai, and he had something to do with the steamer.Once I boldly asked my grandfather, he didn't seem to have much interest in whether Ji Gong worked on the steamer, and he completely forgot a very harmonious conversation between them.Before grandma was alive, Ji Gong also had letters, but after her death, they disappeared completely and there was no communication.

Two years ago, I went south and went back to the city where I lived when I was young. I accidentally met a distant relative. He told me that Ji Gong lived in the city and was very wealthy. He has four children who study in various schools and are very knowledgeable about science. Hobbies, especially one of them, is very smart and has won school prizes and so on.So I also expressed my emotions about personnel affairs in an old-fashioned way.

For example, Ji Gong himself was born three or forty years earlier. I said, I hope that his son was born in an era and environment suitable for his intelligence, giving him a chance to develop and not repeating the tragedy of his father.And on the way of life, I wish him early encounter with sympathetic encouragement, and swiftly attain his possible success.This gain and loss is not only Ji Gong's personal, but can be counted as our old country.

As for the fact that I will meet the 60-year-old Ji Gong and hear his history of struggle after leaving our home, there is really no need to go into detail here, because the mechanic who has not been trained after middle age and figured out by himself, his achievements must be finite.Even though he is quite gifted with intelligence, he cannot wrestle with too inappropriate circumstances.Because of his hobby of machines, he went to work on ships, worked in wharf companies, and even started his small-scale silk weaving factory independently. All these, like his photography, were only small businesses that could actually win material success. There can no longer be any subsidy or inspiration for his spiritual and supermaterial interests.In old age, the wisdom of the time disappears day by day, and all that remains is a kindly mediocrity and emptiness.Seriously, he's still a loser.If you are more superstitious, believe that God may have to compensate Ji Gong for his grievances in his life. The following story should be based on his smart boy and our era.But I'm still very skeptical.

published in
September 1935, 8 "Ta Kung Pao Literary Supplement" No. 11

ZERO PAGES＼Wen Zhen

My family moved to another city under complicated circumstances, and I was an extra piece of luggage.I was about seven years old, and seemed to have grown up. Sister Huang discussed with the family to take me to live with her for half a year, and I was sent there.

At first everything was so blurry, a pile of overlapping new impressions in one place; the big old house, I don’t know how many people, old and young, the building, the shadows of people upstairs, the noisy and strange voices, the rockery, the pool around the rockery , very particular about big potted flowers, vegetable garden, big stone well, red, green and green children, many women dressed nicely or rough around a square table playing cards, silkworms raised in empty rooms, and vegetables dried in the sun. It's so messy and complicated.I am always lonely, timid and lonely.Gradually, in the chaotic surroundings, I struggled to find a clue and recognized a solid center. When I was lonely, anxious or timid, I tried to find this center, grasp it, and revolve around it to ask for the protection that a child desperately needs. Warmth, and comfort.

At the center of this solidification is a girl about 17 years old.She has a slender figure, a very black braid, tied with a big red velvet rope; two nimble black crystal-like eyes; and a pair of white, soft and omniscient hands.Her name is Wenzhen.Everyone calls her Wenzhen, whether it's a woman with a slicked head, an old lady with a cane, "Sun Shao" who is just learning to walk, an old lady or a porter!

Wenzhen followed the voice calling her, and sometimes she was playing around at the card table upstairs, and sometimes she disappeared through the corridor downstairs, and sometimes it was a child fishing in the back pond, calling her to find a fishing rod, or another child was forcing her to go to the garden. Climbing to pick unripe mulberries on the partition wall.

This braid tied with red velvet rope can be seen everywhere throughout the day, followed by those flexible eyes.Instinctively, I know I'm looking for the center I need, the same way a camel sees an oasis in the desert.Walking out of the yard lonely in the early morning, watching the silver-red sun shine on the vine leaves, but looking forward to the appearance of the braid tied with red velvet rope.Coincidentally, she came over; calico shirts are flat ironed, there are places for mending, and they are always cut into interesting patterns such as Ruyi or peach, with snow-white socks and blue shoes, walking briskly, holding a Looking at me, she smiled kindly:
"Why don't you go eat porridge?"

Embarrassed, I lower my head.

"Okay, I'll take you there. I'm afraid you won't survive!"

Grateful, I followed her.At the back of the main hall, (there were already many people eating breakfast at the two Eight Immortals tables), she put the things aside, took my hand to the middle table, and called out, "Fifth young lady, you got up really early." When the fifth young lady turned around, she said more softly: "The little guest is still afraid of strangers. He is playing outside by himself, and he doesn't come in to eat porridge!" So he put me on the square stool next to the fifth young lady. , She went to the big pot to fill a bowl of porridge, took out a handful of fried peanuts from the plate in the middle of the table, picked a corner of the salted egg with a red heart and placed it in front of me, smiled and walked a few steps, then turned back, and arrived I whispered softly in my ear:
"Eat well, after eating, go play with A Yuan, they are watching the gardener work by the back pool in the morning, you go too." Or: "Find me on the old lady's back porch, can you see how to pick up the bird's nest? ?”

The red velvet braids disappeared for a while.

The sun was hot, and one day I fell asleep in the water pavilion, and when I opened my eyes, it was Wenzhen who came and pulled me up: "I can't sleep, I can't sleep, it's sunny and windy here, let me go in and have a drink." Hot tea." Scared, I followed her to the small kitchen, watched her make tea with boiling water, and listened to her humming a little tune.Sister Huang walked by and saw us and called out:
"Wenzhen, what did you bring her into the small kitchen in such a hot day?" I was really afraid that Wenzhen would get angry, but Wenzhen smiled and said, "Third Young Mistress, your little sister is really shy and always bored by herself. She fell asleep in the water pavilion, you can find a way to relieve her boredom, it’s hard for her here.”

Sister Huang looked at me and said, "Why don't you go play with those children?" I didn't agree to come out, but Wenzhen winked at me from behind Sister Huang, and I fell silent gratefully.Sister Huang walked over, and Wenzhen took my hand and said, "It's okay, just come to me when you don't want to play with those children, and I will think of something for you. Do you like tearing down old clothes? I'll give you a handful Scissors, I will teach you."

So face to face, the two of us sometimes sat under the shade of a tree and unpacked old clothes. When I couldn't, she asked me to help her pull the cloth. She cut it by herself, and told me stories at the same time.

Pointing to Dashijing, she said: "Wen Huan is two years older than me. She is very good-looking. Good-looking people don't have a good life, it's even more pitiful! My life is also bad, but I look good, and no one will bully me. Me." Wen Huan is the girl who jumped into the well and died, this happened before my future family, I knew that the children would tease each other at night, saying that Wen Huan's ghost often came and went by the well.

"Is Wenhuan's ghost really coming?" I asked Wenzhen.

"You have to ask Master Fang about this."

I was stunned and didn't understand, Wen Zhen smiled: "Do children still believe in ghosts? Let me tell you, Wen Huan's death is all due to Master Fang's fault. If there are ghosts, she still doesn't come to settle accounts with him. In my opinion, there are no ghosts." , Wen Huan died in vain!" I still didn't understand, and Wen Zhen stopped talking, and seemed to be overwhelmed with emotion.

After a while she suddenly said:
"Master Fang's book lectures are very good. Let me give you an idea. You should listen to them when they talk about poetry in the morning. It's very interesting to recite poems. I'll take you to listen to them tomorrow."

On the second day, she really took me to the East Study Room to listen to poetry lectures.When eight or nine children saw Wen Zhen coming in, they all looked at Brother Fang's face.Wenzhen sat down nonchalantly, but Brother Fang's face was a little different, and he pretended to be calm and said to me:

"Little child, don't make trouble if you want to listen." I looked at Wenzhen, who pursed her lips tightly, opened a cloth bag, put two books of Tang poems in front of me, and said softly: "I will give you all the books. You brought it."

Brother Fang selected some poems and asked the older ones to recite them, and the younger ones to follow suit; he also told the story of how Li Taibai could drink.Wen Zhen saw that I was already listening happily, so she walked out quietly.From then on, I learned one or two new poems every day, and at night I went to Wenzhen to recite them to her. She would remind me if I recited them incorrectly, and every time I recited a poem, she would copy it into a notebook for me——so Wenzhen did it. my teacher.

The rice dumplings wrapped in Chinese treasures on the May Festival are good, and the sachets they make are especially excellent. Many people asked her to make them, some gave her satin shoes, and some gave her old cloth clothes. She smiled happily Accepted.One day when I was playing in her room, I saw a strange paper bag on her desk; I asked her what was in it, and she said very strangely that she didn't even know it.

The two of us opened it together curiously.It turned out that the inside was an exquisite folding fan, with two or three chrysanthemums painted on it, and two lines of poem written carefully beside it.

"This is so strange," she shouted, then rolled her eyes, as if remembering something, she cursed softly, "Sent by the ghost!"

When I heard the ghost, I thought of Wenhuan, and suddenly I understood who sent it!I asked her if she was Brother Fang?She looked at me, patted me lightly, and said with a good temper: "You are very sensible, but," she changed her tone, "You are too sensible, that's not good." After a while, he looked at me as if he was sad, and teased me again: "You are so delicate, I can't bear a word! Just saying a word about you is worth pouting for a long time! How can I be someone's daughter-in-law in the future?" I When she blushed, she quarreled with her, and half-understood the poem on the fan aloud.Now she was really in a hurry, she took the fan in her hand and said, "Look, I don't care about men's things! Is it not enough for a girl to die?" While talking, she tore the fan fiercely, and fell on the bed. Cried in bed.

I never thought that Wen Zhen would cry, so I panicked and climbed on her back and shook her until I was crying too, and she turned around and said, "My dear lady, what's going on, hurry up!" Don't be like this." Wiped away my tears for me, and coaxed me for a long time.A total of two sachets were made before I was sent away.

One evening in summer, everyone went out to the pool to enjoy the shade and watch lotus flowers. The children were busy catching fireflies in the back garden. in front of the door.A Yuan said that the family living there was a revolutionary party, and we all asked what the revolutionary party was like.Climb on the rockery and look over there.Wen Zhen went up first, and A Yuan pushed me up next.When my feet were able to stand on their own, I saw a young man with haircut in the courtyard next door, looking up at us and smiling.Wen Zhen was in a hurry to get down, but A Yuan was blocking her way.A Yuan went up to the top of the mountain and asked the man rashly: "Hey, hey, let me ask you, are you a revolutionary party?" Wenzhen got angry and said that A Yuan was too naughty, so she went down first and followed me.

After a while, I found out that this neighbor of the revolutionary party had become a close friend with A Yuan. He often invited A Yuan to play over the wall, and he himself also came over the wall to play with the children once or twice.

He was a foreign student studying abroad, and he came home from summer vacation. Naturally, I noticed that he paid attention to Wenzhen, but everything was blurred to me at the time, and I couldn't understand why.Wenzhen has so many things to do in a day, and sometimes she can't be bothered by the children, and she always hides upstairs to pick flowers and make shoes, and it's not easy to see her coming to play in the garden.

But suddenly the air in the whole family suddenly became tense, and the older children were sent to question by the second young lady; They all insisted that they would not say that Wenzhen was with them.After hanging around in that kind of big family for so long, I have gradually understood how being a girl is different from us, although I have never seen Wenzhen being beaten.

After this incident, Wen Zhen gradually became silent, not as lively as before.

Most of the time, they are in the main hall and ear room, in the old lady's room or on the south building, watching young ladies playing cards.Only when Sister Huang gave birth, she came to play with me at night to cut patterns and write two letters home for me.She looked very unhappy.

A few days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, A Yuan came over and told me that the family wanted to marry Wen Zhen, and it had already been agreed upon. He was a businessman, an account manager in a small bank on Long Street, and he heard that Wen Zhen could read, so he was very willing to marry her. After the Mid-Autumn Festival, I asked her to come over. I was anxious that Wenzhen would marry away, but on the other hand, I was happy that this matter was fresh and exciting.

"Wenzhen is getting married!" Words spread among the children.But when I saw Wen Zhen, I didn't have the courage to ask her.Subconsciously, I also felt that this matter was not good; a gloomy mood hung over the news that Wen Zhen was going to be married away.I remember the day Wen Zhen cried when she tore the fan, and I remembered the story of Wen Huan that she told when I first met her. These memories were intertwined and seemed to make me very uneasy.In the end, I couldn't bear it anymore. When I saw Wenzhen sitting on the stone steps outside our patio two nights before the Mid-Autumn Festival amidst the full moon and the fragrance of sweet-scented osmanthus, I went up and sat next to her, and asked her without time to think:
"Wenzhen, let me tell you. Are you really going to get married?"

Wen Zhen looked up at the moon among the branches:

"They want to marry me!"

"Would you like to?"

"Whoever wants it or not, everyone has to marry when they grow up, right?"

"I said, are you willing to marry such a family?"

"Why not? Anyway, people here are nice, so what's wrong with me? I'm not a girl. I don't dress well. If you say I don't like to be decent, dress neatly, so they gossip about me, say I look good, and want to be a man! Say me ..."

She didn't go on, and I didn't know what to say.

"Anyway," she went on to say, "the girl was pitiful when she was young, but it's so easy to suffer when she grows up! If you don't get married, you'll always struggle there, and if you get married, you don't know what you should suffer!

I deserve my own fate, I was born in an unlucky year... My parents recited it and sold it to others! "

I thought she was crying again, but she didn't, she stood up suddenly, went up a small hill, stood on tiptoe, broke off many sweet-scented osmanthus branches, held them in her hands and smelled them.

"I'll marry!" She said with a smile, "I'll marry whomever they have agreed upon for me! Whatever it is, if a drunkard beats me to death, wouldn't it be easier? Anyway , Wen Huan died in this well, I can no longer hang myself in their house! This and that treat me well, but I can serve enough, I will not do a lot of other things? If you don’t treat me well, do you still want to beat me? "

"Wenzhen, who beat you?" I asked.

(End of this chapter)