Lu Xun Complete Works/en/Fuqin de bing
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Father's Illness
父亲的病 (Father's Illness)
von Lu Xun (鲁迅, 1881-1936)
Uebersetzt aus dem Chinesischen.
Section 1
Father's Illness
It was perhaps some ten-odd years ago that a story about a famous doctor had been widely circulating in S-City: His standard fee for a house call was one dollar and forty cents; for emergencies, ten dollars; at night, double; outside the city walls, double again. One night, the daughter of a family beyond the city walls fell gravely ill, and they sent for him. Since by then he had grown so rich that wealth bored him, he refused to come for anything less than a hundred dollars. They had no choice but to agree. When he arrived, he merely glanced at the patient and said: "Nothing serious." He wrote out a prescription, took his hundred dollars, and left. The family was apparently wealthy, for the next day they sent for him again. When he arrived at the door, the master of the house greeted him with a smile: "After taking your medicine last night, she is much improved, so we have asked you back for a follow-up." He was led to the room, and an old maidservant drew the patient's hand out from behind the bed curtain. He felt the pulse—ice cold, and no pulse at all. He nodded and said: "Hm, this illness I understand." With perfect composure, he walked to the table, took a prescription form, and wrote: "Pay on presentation of this note: one hundred silver dollars." Below, his signature and seal.
"Doctor, this illness seems rather serious. Perhaps the dosage should be a little stronger," said the master from behind him.
"Certainly." And he wrote another prescription: "Pay on presentation: two hundred silver dollars." Again signature and seal.
Thus the master received the prescriptions and politely saw him out.
I had dealings with this famous doctor for two full years, for he came every other day to treat my father's illness. At the time, though already very well known, he was not yet so wealthy as to be bored by it; but his fee was already one dollar and forty cents. In today's cities, ten dollars per consultation is nothing out of the ordinary, but in those days one dollar and forty cents was already an enormous sum, exceedingly hard to scrape together—and this every other day. He evidently did possess some special qualities; public opinion held that his prescriptions were unlike those of any other doctor. I knew nothing of medicines; what struck me was the difficulty of procuring the "supplementary ingredients." Each time a new prescription was written, a great scramble ensued. First one bought the main medicine, then had to hunt for the supplementary ingredient. "Two slices of fresh ginger, ten bamboo leaves with the tips removed"—such things he never used. The minimum was reed roots, which had to be dug up from the riverbank; when it came to sugarcane that had been through three years of frost, one had to search for at least two or three days. But strange to say, in the end one always found everything. According to public opinion, therein lay the genius. There had once been a patient for whom a hundred medicines had failed; then he happened upon a certain Master Ye Tianshi, who merely added one new supplementary ingredient to the old prescription: a parasol-tree leaf. After just one dose, the patient was miraculously cured. "Medicine is intention." It was autumn, and the parasol tree is the first to sense autumn's breath. Since a hundred medicines had failed, one now stirred the patient with the autumn air—qi moves qi, and therefore… Though I did not fully understand, I was deeply impressed and knew that true wonder-medicines were always hard to obtain. Those who sought immortality even had to risk their lives, venturing deep into the mountains to gather them.
Two years passed this way; gradually we became acquainted, almost friends. My father's edema worsened day by day until he could no longer rise from bed; and my faith in three-year frosted sugarcane and such things gradually faded, and my zeal in procuring supplementary ingredients was no longer what it had been. Just at that time, the doctor came one day for his consultation, inquired about the condition, and said with the utmost sincerity: "I have exhausted all my learning. There is still a certain Chen Lianhe here, whose abilities surpass mine. I recommend calling him in; I can write a letter of introduction. But the illness is nothing to worry about—it's just that under his care, the recovery will proceed even faster…" That day no one seemed quite cheerful. Still, I respectfully escorted him to his sedan chair. When I came back inside, I saw that my father's expression was quite peculiar. He spoke to everyone; the gist was that his illness probably held no more hope. The doctor had treated him for two years without any result, and his face had become too familiar, so he was no doubt somewhat embarrassed; therefore, when the crisis came, he recommended a newcomer to take his place and freed himself entirely of responsibility. But what else could one do? The only other famous doctor in the city, aside from him, was indeed Chen Lianhe. So the next day, Chen Lianhe was sent for.
Chen Lianhe's fee was also one dollar and forty cents. But while the previous famous doctor's face was round and fat, his was long and fat—a rather notable difference. His medications were also different. With the previous doctor, one person could manage everything; this time, one person could barely cope, for each of his prescriptions always included, in addition to the main medicine, a special pill or powder and a peculiar supplementary ingredient. Reed roots and three-year frosted sugarcane he had never used. The most common item was "one pair of crickets," with a marginal note in small characters: "Must be an original pair, that is, from the same nest." It seemed that even insects were required to be chaste; should they have remarried, they lost even the qualification to serve as medicine. But this errand caused me no difficulty: in the Herb Garden, I could easily find ten pairs, tie them with thread, and throw them alive into boiling water. However, there was also "ten stalks of ground-level wood"—and what on earth that was, no one knew. I asked at the pharmacy, asked country folk, asked herb sellers, asked old people, asked scholars, asked carpenters—all shook their heads. Only at the very end did I remember a distant great-uncle, an old man who liked to grow a few flowers and trees. I ran to ask him, and he did indeed know: it was a small shrub that grew in the mountains beneath trees and bore red berries like tiny coral beads, commonly known as "Old Fuddy." "You wear out iron shoes searching in vain, then find it without the slightest effort." The supplementary ingredient was found, but there was still a special pill: the Beaten-Drum-Skin Pill. This "Beaten-Drum-Skin Pill" was made from the hide of broken old drums; edema was also called "drum belly," and a beaten drum skin could naturally subdue it. The Qing official Gangyi, out of hatred for the "foreign devils" and in preparation for fighting them, had trained some troops called the "Tiger Spirit Battalion," on the principle that the tiger could devour the lamb and the spirit could vanquish the devil—the very same logic. Unfortunately, this miracle medicine was sold by only one shop in the entire city, five li from our house. But unlike the ground-level wood, one did not have to grope about in the dark, for after writing the prescription, Mr. Chen Lianhe explained everything to us earnestly and in detail.
"I have an elixir," Mr. Chen Lianhe said on one occasion, "that one applies to the tongue. I am quite sure it will be effective. For the tongue is the magical sprout of the heart… The price is not expensive either, only two dollars a box…" My father pondered a while and shook his head.
"If my current medication does not quite take effect," Mr. Chen Lianhe said on another occasion, "I think perhaps one should bring in someone to look into whether there might not be some sin from a former life—some vengeful ghost demanding payment… Medicine can cure illness, but it cannot cure fate, wouldn't you say? Naturally, this may well be something from a previous life…" My father pondered a while and shook his head.
All true master physicians can raise the dead—walking past a doctor's house, one often sees such plaques. Nowadays there has been some concession, and even the doctors themselves say: "Western medicine excels in surgery; Chinese medicine excels in internal medicine." But in S-City at that time, not only was there no Western medicine—it had not even occurred to anyone that such a thing as Western medicine existed. Therefore, whatever the ailment, it could only be handled by the legitimate heirs of the Yellow Emperor and Qi Bo. In the time of the Yellow Emperor, shamans and doctors were one and the same, and so to this day his heirs still see ghosts and believe that "the tongue is the magical sprout of the heart." This is the "fate" of the Chinese, which even famous doctors cannot cure. If one refused to have the elixir applied to one's tongue and could not identify any "sin from a former life"—what good could it do to swallow nothing but "Beaten-Drum-Skin Pills" for over a hundred days? The edema remained unbroken, and my father finally lay in bed gasping for air. Chen Lianhe was summoned once more, this time as an emergency—ten silver dollars. Unperturbed, he wrote out yet another prescription, but discontinued the Beaten-Drum-Skin Pills, and the supplementary ingredients were no longer so wondrous either, so the medicine was prepared in half a day, poured down—but it flowed back out from the corners of his mouth. From then on, I had no more dealings with Mr. Chen Lianhe; only on the street I sometimes saw him fly past in his fast sedan chair carried by three bearers. I hear he is still in good health, still practicing medicine and also editing some journal of Chinese medicine, valiantly battling against "Western medicine, which excels only in surgery."
The thinking of East and West is indeed somewhat different. It is said that filial sons in China, once their parents are at death's door—when it is "my grievous sins have brought calamity upon my parents"—buy a few pounds of ginseng, boil it into a broth and pour it down their parents' throats, hoping they will gasp on for a few more days, or even just half a day. One of my medical professors, however, taught me the physician's duty thus: "Those who can be cured should be treated; those who cannot should be given a painless death." But this professor was, of course, a Western-trained physician. My father's gasping continued for a very long time, and even I found it exhausting to listen to, yet no one could help him. Sometimes a thought would flash through me like lightning: "Wouldn't it be better if he finished gasping soon…" Instantly I felt that such a thought was wrong, was criminal; but at the same time I felt it was perfectly justified. I loved my father very much. Even now, I still think the same.
In the morning, Auntie Yan, who lived in the same courtyard, came in. She was a woman well versed in all the rituals, and said we should not just wait about idly. So they changed his clothes; then they pressed paper money and some sort of Buddhist sutra, burned to ashes and wrapped in paper, into his fists…
"Call out! Your father is about to die. Call quickly!" said Auntie Yan.
"Father! Father!" I began to call.
"Louder! He can't hear you. Won't you call?!"
"Father!!! Father!!!"
His face, which had already grown peaceful, suddenly tensed. His eyes opened a crack, as if in pain.
"Call! Call quickly!" she urged.
"Father!!!"
"What is it?… Don't shout… Don't…" he said softly, then gasped again more rapidly. After a while, he grew calm once more.
"Father!!!" I went on calling, until he breathed his last.
I can still hear my own voice from that moment, and each time I hear it, I feel that this was my greatest wrong against my father.
October seventh.