Lu Xun Complete Works/en/Guxiang
| Hometown | |
|---|---|
| Author | Lu Xun (鲁迅) |
| Title | Hometown |
| Original title | 故乡 |
| Collection | Call to Arms (呐喊) |
| First published | 1921 |
| Translation | Claude / Martin Woesler |
Braving the bitter cold, I traveled more than two thousand li to return to the hometown I had left over twenty years before.
It was already deep winter. As I drew near, the weather turned overcast; a cold wind moaned through the cabin of the boat. Peering out through a gap in the awning, I saw under the pale yellow sky a few desolate, forsaken villages scattered far and near, devoid of any sign of life. My heart could not help but fill with sadness.
Ah! Was this the hometown I had remembered so often during these twenty years?
The hometown I remembered was nothing like this. My hometown had been far more beautiful. But when I tried to recall its beauty, to name its virtues, I could find neither images nor words. It seemed perhaps it had always been this way. So I explained it to myself: the hometown was always like this — though there had been no progress, it was not necessarily as desolate as I felt; it was merely my own change of mood, for I had not returned this time in good spirits.
I had come expressly to bid it farewell. The old house where our clan had lived together for many years had already been sold to another family. The deadline for handing it over fell within this year, so I had to come before the first day of the New Year to say a final goodbye to the familiar old house, to leave the familiar hometown far behind, and move to a distant place where I earned my living.
Early the next morning I arrived at the gate of my home. On the roof tiles, broken stalks of dry grass trembled in the wind, explaining plainly why the old house could not escape a change of owners. The relatives from the other wings had probably already moved away, for it was very quiet. When I reached the front of our quarters, my mother had already come out to greet me, and right behind her flew my eight-year-old nephew Honger.
My mother was very happy, but her face also concealed a great deal of sadness. She told me to sit down, rest, drink some tea, and did not bring up the move for now. Honger had never seen me before and simply stood at a distance, staring.
But at last we came to talk about the move. I said that the lodgings in the city had already been rented and some furniture bought; beyond that, we would need to sell all the wooden furniture in the house and buy replacements. Mother agreed, saying the luggage was mostly packed, and the furniture too heavy to move had been half sold — only the payments were hard to collect.
"Rest for a day or two, pay your respects to our relatives, and then we can leave," Mother said.
"Yes."
"And there's Runtu. Every time he comes to our house, he asks after you. He very much wants to see you. I've already told him roughly when you'd arrive; he'll probably come any day now."
At that moment, a marvelous picture suddenly flashed through my mind: a golden full moon hanging in a deep blue sky, and below it a sandy shore by the sea, planted as far as the eye could see with emerald-green watermelons. Among them stood a boy of eleven or twelve, with a silver ring around his neck and a steel pitchfork in his hands, thrusting with all his might at a badger — but the creature twisted its body and escaped between his legs.
That boy was Runtu. When I first knew him, I was no more than ten myself; nearly thirty years had passed since then. My father was still alive in those days, the family was well off, and I was a young master. That year it was our family's turn to host the great ancestral sacrifice. This ceremony, it was said, came around only once in thirty-odd years, and so it was carried out with great solemnity. In the first month, ancestral portraits were set out, the offerings were abundant, the ritual vessels exquisite, and many came to worship — the vessels also had to be carefully guarded against theft. Our family had only one seasonal laborer (in our parts there were three kinds of hired hands: those who worked year-round for a particular household were called permanent hands; those hired by the day were called day laborers; those who farmed their own land and only came to work for a particular household around festivals and rent-collection time were called seasonal hands). He could not manage alone, so he told my father that he could send his son Runtu to watch over the ritual vessels.
My father agreed, and I too was delighted, for I had heard the name Runtu long before and knew he was about my age, born in a leap month and lacking earth among the five elements — which was why his father had named him Runtu, meaning "Leap-Earth." He knew how to set traps and catch small birds.
From then on I counted the days to the New Year, for with the New Year Runtu would come. At last the end of the year drew near, and one day Mother told me Runtu had arrived. I ran to see him. He was in the kitchen, a round face of a dark purple hue, wearing a small felt cap, with a bright silver neckband — a sign that his father loved him dearly and, fearing he might die, had made a vow before the gods and Buddha to keep him safe by binding him with the ring. He was very shy before strangers, but not before me; when no one else was around, he would talk to me, and within half a day we were fast friends.
What we talked about I no longer remember; I only recall that Runtu was very happy and said that since coming to town, he had seen many things he had never seen before.
The next day, I asked him to catch birds. He said:
"Not now. You need heavy snow first. On our sandy ground, when the snow falls, I sweep a clearing, prop up a big bamboo sieve with a short stick, scatter some chaff, and when the birds come to eat, I pull the rope tied to the stick from a distance — and they're trapped under the sieve. All kinds: rice-hens, horned pheasants, ring-doves, blue-backs…"
So I longed again for snow.
Runtu also told me:
"It's too cold now, but come to our place in summer. During the day we go to the seashore to gather shells — red ones, green ones, demon-scares and Buddha's-hands. At night I go with my dad to guard the watermelons; you come too."
"Guard against thieves?"
"No. If a traveler is thirsty and picks a melon to eat, that doesn't count as stealing around here. What you have to watch out for are badgers, hedgehogs, and cha. On a moonlit night, listen — there's a rustling, a cha is gnawing at a melon. You take your pitchfork and creep up quietly…"
At the time I did not know what this so-called cha was — and to this day I still don't — I merely imagined it vaguely as something like a small dog, but fierce.
"Doesn't it bite?"
"That's what the pitchfork is for. When you get close and see the cha, you thrust. The creature is very clever — it charges toward you, but then darts between your legs. Its fur is smooth as oil…"
I had never known that the world held so many marvels: the seashore with its many-colored shells; and that watermelons had such perilous adventures — I had only ever known them on display in the fruit shop.
"On our sandy ground, when the tide is coming in, swarms of mudskippers jump about, each with two legs like a frog…"
Ah! Runtu's mind held an inexhaustible store of wonders, all unknown to my usual playmates. They knew nothing of such things; while Runtu was by the sea, they — like me — could only see the square of sky above the high walls of the courtyard.
Sadly, the first month passed and Runtu had to go home. I cried bitterly, and he too hid in the kitchen, weeping and refusing to leave, but in the end his father took him away. Later he sent me, through his father, a packet of shells and some beautiful bird feathers; I too sent him things once or twice, but after that we never met again.
Now that my mother had mentioned him, all my childhood memories came flooding back in a flash, and it seemed as though I could see my beautiful hometown before me. I answered at once:
"How wonderful! He — how is he?…"
"He?… Things haven't been going well for him either…" Mother said, glancing toward the door. "There they come again. They say they want to buy furniture, but they help themselves to anything they can lay hands on. I'd better go and see."
Mother stood up and went out. Outside came the sound of women's voices. I beckoned Honger over and chatted with him: could he write, did he want to travel?
"Are we going by train?"
"Yes, by train."
"And by boat?"
"First by boat…"
"Ha! Look at you now! What a long beard!" A shrill, peculiar voice suddenly shrieked out.
I started and quickly looked up, only to see a woman of about fifty standing before me, with prominent cheekbones and thin lips, her hands planted on her hips, wearing no apron, legs splayed apart — looking exactly like a thin-legged compass from a drawing set.
I was dumbfounded.
"Don't you recognize me? I used to hold you in my arms!"
I was more dumbfounded still. Fortunately my mother came in just then and said from the side:
"He's been away so many years, he's forgotten everything. You ought to remember," she said, turning to me. "This is Mrs. Yang from the house diagonally across — she runs the tofu shop."
Ah yes, now I remembered. As a child, I had indeed seen a Mrs. Yang sitting all day in the tofu shop diagonally across the street; everyone called her "Tofu Beauty." But she had worn white powder then, her cheekbones had not been so prominent, her lips not so thin. And since she always sat, I had never seen this compass-like posture. People said then that thanks to her, the tofu shop did excellent business. But probably because of my age, I had been entirely unmoved by her charms and had therefore forgotten her completely. The Compass, however, was most displeased and assumed an expression of contempt, as though ridiculing a Frenchman for not knowing Napoleon or an American for not knowing Washington, and sneered:
"Forgotten? That's what happens when one becomes too grand…"
"No, that's not it… I…" I said in alarm, rising to my feet.
"Well then, let me tell you. Little Xun, you've gotten rich, and this heavy stuff is too cumbersome to move anyway. Why not let me have these broken-down pieces of furniture? For humble folk like us, they're still useful."
"I'm not rich at all. I need to sell these things and then…"
"Oh my! You've been made a circuit intendant, and you say you're not rich? You have three concubines now; when you go out, it's in a sedan chair borne by eight carriers — and you say you're not rich? Ha! Nothing gets past me."
I knew there was nothing more to say, so I shut my mouth and stood there in silence.
"Yes, yes — the richer you are, the less you're willing to part with, and the less you part with, the richer you get…" The Compass turned around indignantly, muttering all the while, slowly made her way out, and casually stuffed a pair of my mother's gloves into her waistband as she went.
After that, more relatives and neighbors came to call. Between receiving them and packing luggage, three or four days passed.
One very cold afternoon, after lunch, I was sitting and drinking tea when I sensed someone coming in and turned to look. When I saw who it was, I could not help but feel a tremendous shock. I leapt to my feet and hurried toward him.
It was Runtu. I recognized him at first glance, yet he was no longer the Runtu of my memory. He had grown to twice his former size; the round, dark-skinned face of old had turned sallow gray and was seamed with deep wrinkles; his eyes, like his father's, were swollen and red all around — I knew that people who farmed by the sea, exposed all day to the coastal wind, generally looked like this. On his head was a tattered felt cap, on his body only a very thin padded jacket, and he was shivering all over. In his hands he carried a paper parcel and a long pipe; those hands were no longer the plump, ruddy, vigorous hands I remembered — they were rough, clumsy, and cracked, like pine bark.
I was deeply moved but did not know what to say; I managed only:
"Ah! Brother Runtu — you've come?…"
Then a thousand things tried to pour out all at once: pheasants, mudskippers, shells, cha… But something seemed to hold everything back. The words whirled inside my head and would not come out.
He stood still. On his face appeared an expression of both joy and sorrow; his lips moved, but no sound came. At last he assumed a respectful posture and called out distinctly:
"Master!…"
A shudder seemed to pass through me; I knew then that a sad, impenetrable barrier had risen between us. I too could not utter a word.
He turned his head and said: "Shuisheng, kowtow to the master." He dragged out the child hiding behind him — the very image of Runtu twenty years earlier, only more sallow and thinner, with no silver ring around his neck. "This is my fifth. He hasn't seen the world, always hiding…"
Mother and Honger came downstairs; they had probably heard the voices.
"Ma'am. I received the letter long ago. I was so terribly happy to hear the master had come home…" Runtu said.
"Oh, why have you become so formal? Didn't you two used to call each other brother? Let's keep the old way: Little Xun." Mother said happily.
"Oh, ma'am, really… that wouldn't be proper. We were children then and didn't know any better…" As Runtu spoke, he called Shuisheng forward to bow, but the child was shy and clung tightly behind his father's back.
"So this is Shuisheng? The fifth? All strangers here, no wonder he's shy. Let Honger take him out for a walk," Mother said.
Honger heard this and beckoned to Shuisheng, who went along with him readily enough. Mother asked Runtu to sit down. He hesitated a moment, then finally sat, leaning his long pipe against the table and handing over the paper parcel:
"There's nothing much in winter. Just these dried green beans we sun-dried ourselves. Please, sir…"
I asked about his circumstances. He merely shook his head.
"It's terribly hard. The sixth child can help out now, but we still never have enough to eat… And there's no peace… Everyone wants money everywhere, no fixed rules… The harvests are bad. You grow something and carry it to market, but they levy charges every time, and you take a loss. If you don't sell, it just rots…"
He only shook his head; though deep wrinkles were carved into his face, not a muscle moved — it was like a stone statue. He probably felt nothing but bitterness, yet could not express it. After a moment's silence, he picked up his pipe and smoked wordlessly.
Mother questioned him and learned he had much to do at home and had to return the next day. Since he had not yet eaten lunch, she told him to go to the kitchen and fry himself some rice.
When he had gone out, Mother and I both sighed over his situation: too many children, famine, crushing taxes, soldiers and bandits, officials and gentry — all these had ground him down into a wooden puppet. Mother told me that anything we didn't need to take with us we could give to him; he should pick out whatever he wanted.
In the afternoon, he selected a few things: two long tables, four chairs, an incense burner and candlestick, and a carrying-pole scale. He also wanted all the straw ash (we cooked with rice straw in our parts, and the ash made good fertilizer for sandy soil). When we set out, he would come with his boat to carry it all away.
That evening we chatted a little more, about nothing of consequence; the next morning he took Shuisheng and went home.
Nine more days passed, and the day of our departure arrived. Runtu came in the morning; Shuisheng had not come along — he had brought only his five-year-old daughter to manage the boat. We were busy all day and had no time for conversation. There were quite a few visitors too: some to see us off, some to take things, and some to do both. By evening, when we boarded the boat, every last piece of old junk in the house, large and small, had been swept clean away.
Our boat moved forward. The green hills on both banks took on a deep indigo hue in the dusk and receded steadily behind the stern.
Honger and I leaned against the boat window, gazing at the blurred landscape outside. Suddenly he asked:
"Uncle! When are we coming back?"
"Coming back? You haven't even left and you already want to come back?"
"But Shuisheng invited me to his house to play…" He stared dreamily with his large black eyes.
Mother and I also felt a certain wistfulness, and so we spoke of Runtu again. Mother said that Tofu Beauty Yang, ever since we had begun packing, had come every day. Two days ago she had dug more than a dozen bowls and plates out of the ash pile, and after some discussion declared that Runtu must have buried them there, so he could take them home along with the ash. Having discovered this scheme, Mrs. Yang took great credit upon herself and ran off with the "dog-tantalize" (a chicken-feeding device in our parts: a wooden tray with a railing over it, filled with feed — the chickens can poke their necks through and peck, but the dog cannot, and can only watch and burst with rage). Despite her high-soled tiny bound feet, she ran astonishingly fast.
The old house receded farther and farther behind me; the mountains and rivers of my hometown were gradually slipping away. But I felt no particular longing. I only felt that invisible high walls surrounded me on every side, cutting me off into solitude, oppressing me greatly. The image of the small hero with the silver neckband in the melon field, which had been so clear a moment before, had suddenly grown blurred — and that filled me with deep sorrow.
Mother and Honger had fallen asleep.
I lay there, listening to the murmur of water beneath the hull, knowing I was on my way. I thought: So it had come to this between Runtu and me! But our descendants were still of one heart — was not Honger thinking of Shuisheng at this very moment? I hoped they would not grow estranged from one another as we had… Yet I did not want them, in order to stay united, to live a life of toil and restlessness like mine; nor did I want them to live a life of toil and numbness like Runtu's; nor a life of toil and brazen willfulness like others'. They should have a new life, one that we had never lived.
As I thought of hope, I was suddenly seized with fear. When Runtu had wanted the incense burner and the candlestick, I had secretly laughed at him, thinking he was always worshipping idols and never forgot about them. But was not what I now called hope also an idol of my own making? The only difference was that his wish was immediate, while mine was remote and vague.
In my drowsiness, a stretch of emerald-green sand by the sea spread out before my eyes, with a deep blue sky above it and a golden full moon. I thought: Hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is just like the roads across the earth. For actually the earth had no roads to begin with, but when many people walk the same way, a road comes into being.
(January 1921.)