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A Comedy of Ducks

鸭的喜剧 von/by/par Lu Xun (鲁迅)

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A Comedy of Ducks

The blind Russian poet Eroshenko came to Beijing and complained: 'Lonely, like in a desert!' He thought of Burma, where insects sing everywhere at night. 'In Beijing there isn't even frog-croaking,' he sighed. 'Frogs do croak!' I said. 'In summer after rain, in the ditches.'

He bought tadpoles for the lotus pool. He preached self-sufficiency: plant cabbages, raise bees. Soon there were chicks. One morning a peddler brought ducklings. Eroshenko bought four -- eighty wen each.

The ducklings swam in the lotus pool, ate everything -- including all the tadpoles. 'They're gone, the frog babies,' said the children. 'Oh dear!...' he said.

When the ducks grew up, Eroshenko left for Russia. In summer frogs croaked everywhere; the ducks -- two white, two speckled -- quacked in the flooded yard.

Now it was winter again, with no word from Eroshenko. Only the four ducks still quacked in the desert.

(October 1922.)

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