The Real Story of Ah-Q (55 page)
Read The Real Story of Ah-Q Online
Authors: Lu Xun
Tags: #Lu; Xun, #Short Stories (Single Author), #Fiction, #General, #China, #Classics, #Short Stories, #China - Social life and customs
ZHUANGZI: [
gravely
] Are you sure?
MAN: Never been surer of anything in my life!
ZHUANGZI: [
resolutely
] If you insist. It’s your own funeral. Literally. [
He turns eastward once more, raises both hands up to heaven and shouts
]
Great God of Fate! Heartfelt salutation! All hail!
The earth is yellow, the sky black, the universe beyond the pale.
Sun and moon ply within their space,
While the heavenly bodies take their place.
Zhaoqiansunlizhouwuzhengwangfengqinzhuweijiangshenhantum.
This Daoist Master begs you show your face!
Come! Come! Come! Come! Come! Come! Come!
[
They wait a good long time; nothing happens.
]
The earth is yellow, the sky black.
This Daoist Master! Come! Come! Come!… Come!
[
They wait another good long time; nothing happens. Looking all around him, Zhuangzi slowly lowers his hands.
]
MAN: Well – do I look dead?
ZHUANGZI: [
dejectedly
] I really can’t understand it – it worked perfectly well last time –
MAN: [
aggressively
] No more funny business from you – I demand compensation!
ZHUANGZI: [
retreating
] Don’t touch me! You barbarian! You know nothing of philosophy!
MAN: [
grabbing hold of him
] Scoundrel! Robber! Bandit! Give me back my things or I’ll have your gown and your horse!
[
While struggling to fend him off, Zhuangzi pulls out of the sleeve of his gown a whistle, which he blows hard three times. Alarmed, the man pulls back. Soon after, a patrolman approaches at a run.
]
PATROLMAN: [
shouting
] Stop him! Don’t let him go! [
He is, we see as he approaches, a tall, well-built man from north China, clean-shaven, dressed in police uniform including a cap, and holding a truncheon.
] Stop thief!
MAN: [
Reasserting his grip over Zhuangzi
] Stop thief!
[
The patrolman grabs hold of Zhuangzi’s collar and lifts his truncheon. Letting go of the philosopher, the man stoops slightly to cover his groin with his hands.
]
ZHUANGZI: [
trying to fend off the truncheon, twisting his head to one side
] What d’you think you’re doing?
PATROLMAN: Ha! Playing the innocent, I see!
ZHUANGZI: [
angrily
] It was me who called you – what are you doing arresting me?
PATROLMAN: What?
ZHUANGZI: It was me who blew the whistle.
PATROLMAN: You steal another man’s clothes then call for the law – have you no conscience?
ZHUANGZI: Look, I was just passing by, I saw him lying dead here, and I brought him back to life. Then he goes and starts accusing me of having stolen his things. Do I look like a thief?
PATROLMAN: [
lowering the truncheon
] I don’t know – appearances can be deceptive, I always say. I’m taking you down to the station.
ZHUANGZI: Not a chance. I’ve got to be on my way, I’m off to see the King of Chu.
PATROLMAN: [
gives a start, lets go and takes a careful look at Zhuangzi
] Are you by any chance Zhuang –
ZHUANGZI: [
bucking up
] Yes! I’m Zhuangzi, of Qiyuan. How did you know?
PATROLMAN: Our superintendent’s been talking a lot about you these last few days – he said you were off to Chu to make your fortune, and that you might pass by this way. He’s a bit of a philosopher recluse himself, but he still takes on odd jobs for local government – courier work mainly. He loves your essays – especially ‘On the Equality of Things’: ‘Where there’s life, there’s death; where there’s death, there’s life. Where there is possibility, there is impossibility; where there is impossibility, there is possibility.’ First-rate stuff; a real tour de force! Could I persuade you to rest a while at our humble station?
[
Utterly bewildered, the man edges back and squats down in a clump of grass.
]
ZHUANGZI: It’s late, I really must be getting on. But I’ll be sure to call on your superintendent on my way back.
[
Zhuangzi is already remounting his horse. As he raises his whip to set off, the man suddenly leaps out of the undergrowth and runs over to tug on his horse’s bridle. The patrolman also runs up, and tries to pull the man back.
]
ZHUANGZI: Now what?
MAN: What am I supposed to do now? Are you just going, like that? [
He looks at the patrolman.
] Look, constable…
PATROLMAN: [
scratching his ear
] Tricky… Hmmm… Now, as I see it, sir, [
he looks at Zhuangzi
] you’re doing rather better than him on the clothing front – so why don’t you give him something, for decency’s sake.
ZHUANGZI: Of course, in ordinary circumstances, I’d be delighted to – clothes are just an external, I understand that. But today it just so happens I’m off to see the King of Chu – I have to wear a gown. And I can’t very well take off my undershirt and wear only the gown… You see my difficulty.
PATROLMAN: Perfectly. You can’t spare either. [
To the man
] Let him go!
MAN: But I have to visit my relatives.
PATROLMAN: Any more of your nonsense, and I’ll be taking
you
down to the station! [
Raises his truncheon threateningly
.] Get lost!
[
As the man retreats, the patrolman chases him into the undergrowth.
]
ZHUANGZI: Goodbye then – goodbye.
PATROLMAN: Goodbye, goodbye. Mind how you go!
[
With a crack of his whip, Zhuangzi sets off. Hands behind his back, the patrolman watches him slowly recede into a cloud of dust, then turns and heads back in the direction he originally came from. Suddenly jumping out of the undergrowth, the man tugs on the patrolman’s clothes.
]
PATROLMAN: Now what?
MAN: What should I do?
PATROLMAN: How should I know?
MAN: I have to visit my relatives.
PATROLMAN: Go and visit them, then.
MAN: I haven’t got any clothes.
PATROLMAN: Would they mind?
MAN: You let him go, and now you’re about to slip off, too. Who else can I ask? What am I going to do? How can I live like this?
PATROLMAN: Suicide is the coward’s way out.
MAN: Well, tell me what I should do, then.
PATROLMAN: [
detaching his sleeve
] How should I know?
MAN: [
grabbing back hold of the patrolman’s sleeve
] Take me into the station!
PATROLMAN: [
pulling away again
] I can’t do that. You’re stark naked, you can’t go into town. Let go!
MAN: Lend me a pair of trousers, then!
PATROLMAN: These are the only trousers I’ve got. If I lend them to you, I’ll be an affront to public decency myself. [
Extricates himself with some force.
] That’s enough! Let me go!
MAN: [
now seizing him by the neck
] You have to take me with you!
PATROLMAN: [
desperate
] No!
MAN: Then I won’t let you go!
PATROLMAN: What d’you want me to do?
MAN: Take me to the station!
PATROLMAN: Look… what good would that do either of us? I’ve had enough of this. Let me go! Or I’ll… [
He struggles as hard as he can.
]
MAN: [
tightening his grip
] If you don’t help me, I can’t visit my relatives. I can’t live. Two pounds of dates and a pound and a half of white sugar… You let him go, you settle his debts.
PATROLMAN: [
struggling
] Stop that! Let me go! Or I’ll… I’ll… [
He gropes for his whistle and begins frantically blowing on it.
]
December 1935
1
Taipings
: The most serious of the revolts that rocked nineteenth-century China, the Taiping Rebellion left tens of millions of Chinese dead between 1850 and 1864. For further details, see Introduction.
OUTCRY2
The Simplified Outline and Mirror of History
: A 1711 abridgement and extension of two classic survey histories of the early second millennium
AD
, this work offered a chronological account of China’s history as far as the end of the Ming dynasty.
1
the Meiji Restoration
: The restoration in 1868 of the Japanese imperial power that marked the start of the country’s rapid industrialization and modernization.
2
Russo-Japanese War
: 1904–05.
3
Jin Xinyi
: Another name for Qian Xuantong (1887–1939), one of the editors of
New Youth
; see note 3 below and Introduction for further details.
DIARY OF A MADMAN4
New Youth
: The flagship journal of the iconoclastic New Culture Movement and later of the May Fourth enlightenment. See Introduction for further details.
1
Book of… Herbs… Li Shizhen… human flesh is perfectly edible
: Our narrator is garbling the title of a famous herbal compendium by the Ming pharmacologist Li Shizhen (1518–93). The book contains no such observation about the eating of human flesh – a delusion of the madman.
2
‘exchange sons to eat’… ‘his flesh… flayed into a rug’
: These are both historical allusions drawn from a chronicle of the Warring States period (
c.
481–221
BC
).
HAIR3
Xu Xilin… didn’t they eat his heart and liver?
: Xu Xilin was a revolutionary executed for assassinating the governor of Anhui (a province of south-east China) in 1907; after killing him, the governor’s bodyguards tore out his heart and liver and ate them.
1
October Tenth… Revolution Day
: The anniversary of the 1911 Revolution.
2
Zou Rong… The Revolutionary Army?
: Zou Rong (1885– 1905) wrote a rabidly anti-Manchu nationalistic tract,
The Revolutionary Army
(1903).
A PASSING STORM3
Artzybashev… Sheviriof
: A reference to Mikhail Artzybashev’s (1878–1927) novel
Sheviriof
, available in English translation in
Tales of the Revolution
, trans. Percy Pinkerton (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1917).
1
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms… five Tiger Generals of Shu
: Set in the Three Kingdoms period (220–65),
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms
is one of the great popular novels of pre-modern China, completed in the fourteenth century. The ‘five Tiger Generals of Shu’ are famous military figures who feature in the novel.
2
Remember the Taiping Rebellion! If you kept your hair… the head stayed on
: Lu Xun is letting his character rather garble the question of hair politics during the Taiping Rebellion. As described in ‘Hair’, the Qing dynasty forced all Chinese men – on pain of death – to dress their hair in the Manchu style, pulling it back into a single braid and shaving the forehead. The Taiping Rebels of the mid nineteenth century, by contrast, let their hair grow free. It is not entirely clear whether Mr Zhao is attributing his comment to the Qing authorities or to the Taiping Rebels; or whether ‘keeping your hair’ means pulling it into a queue or letting it hang freely
THE REAL STORY OF AH-Q3
Zhang Xun… Zhang Fei’s own descendant
: For details about Zhang Xun (1854–1923), see the introductory note to the story. Zhang Fei was another of the heroes of
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms
.
1
Chen Duxiu… New Youth
: For information on Chen Duxiu (1880–1942) and
New Youth
, see Introduction.
2
which leaves me no choice but to transcribe… to Q: Ah-Q
: At the time of the story’s writing, a national phonetic transliteration system was yet to be adopted.
3
Hundred Surnames
: A rhyming school primer of Chinese surnames and the places from which they were thought to have originated.
4
Mr Hu Shi
: (1891–1962). One of the most famous reforming intellectuals of the May Fourth Movement. See Introduction for further references.
5
abolished the civil service examinations
: As the story begins in the years immediately preceding the 1911 Revolution, Ah-Q is doubtless referring to rumours circulating about the actual abolition of the old-style civil service examinations in 1905.
6
Shang… Zhou… Qin… Later Han
: These are all dynasties that ruled China between the second millennium
BC
and
AD
220.
DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL7
On the fourth stroke of… Emperor Xuantong’s reign
: Midnight on 4 November 1911; the day on which Shaoxing – Lu Xun’s home town, and the loose model for the ‘town’ in this story – was ‘liberated’ by revolutionary forces.
1
1
Dragon Boat Festival
: Falling on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month; traditionally one of the days on which debts were settled.
A COMEDY OF DUCKS2
Publicly demonstrating… in front of the Gate of New China
: This detail is probably based on an actual collision in 1921 between protesting university teachers and government troops in front of the presidential palace in Beijing.
VILLAGE OPERA1
Eroshenko… in Beijing
: The blind Russian poet Vasily Eroshenko (1889–1952) arrived in Beijing in 1922 to teach Esperanto, living with Lu Xun’s brother Zhou Zuoren (1885–1967) until he left China in 1923.
HESITATION1
Mulian’s mother… torments of hell
: One of the most popular of China’s folk stories and operas,
Mulian Saves His Mother
(
Mulian jiu mu
) tells of how a pious Buddhist monk saves his sinning mother from hell, neatly marrying Buddhist teaching with the Chinese tradition of filial piety.
NEW YEAR’S SACRIFICE1
Qu Yuan
:(
c.
340–278
BC
). A high-ranking, loyal minister of the southern state of Chu, banished to the far south through the machinations of jealous rivals, where he drowned himself in protest. Since his lifetime, he has been celebrated as the paradigmatically virtuous servant of the state, and as China’s first great lyric poet. Translation adapted from David Hawkes’s version in Cyril Birch, ed.,
Anthology of Chinese Literature
(Harmonds-worth: Penguin, 1967), p. 56.
1
Imperial College
: The highest institution of education in dynastic China.
2
Kang Youwei
: (1858–1927). One of the most prominent late Qing advocates of political, economic and cultural reform. See Chronology for further details.
UPSTAIRS IN THE TAVERN3
Chen Tuan
: (907–59). A famous mountain recluse who, legend has it, became a Daoist immortal.
1
Jinan
: The capital of Shandong province, in north-east China.
A HAPPY FAMILY2
Taiyuan
: The capital of Shanxi province, in central north China.
SOAP1
After Xu Qinwen
: Lu Xun acknowledged having taken the idea for ‘A Happy Family’ from the short story ‘An Ideal Mate’, published in 1923 by his younger contemporary Xu Qinwen (1897–1984). For further details, see Lu Xun,
Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
, trans. William Lyell (Hawai’i: Hawai’i University Press, 1990), p. 263.
1
paper funeral money
: Money to be burnt at funerals, to provide the dead with currency in the next life.
2
Eight-Trigram Boxing
: A form of traditional Chinese martial arts, based upon the cultivation and application of inner force (
qi
).
THE LAMP OF ETERNITY3
Schoolgirls with bobs… are the limit
: Short, bobbed hair was the mark of a ‘modern’ schoolgirl in 1920s China.
1
Imperial Guide to the Seasons
: An almanac issued annually by the imperial court, setting out the year’s farming seasons.
A PUBLIC EXAMPLE2
Emperor Wu of the Liang
: The Liang dynasty ruled parts of southern China in the first half of the sixth century.
OUR LEARNED FRIEND1
white waistcoat
: Prisoner’s uniform.
1
Yuan Liaofan’s Chronology
: A chronological compendium compiled by the Ming scholar Yuan Liaofan (1573–1620).
2
The Rise and Fall of the Eastern Jin Dynasty
:
AD
317–420.
3
three oaths in the peach orchard… Three Kingdoms
: Lu Xun is alluding to episodes in the popular novel
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms
– not, he is implying, a particularly rigorous historical source. For further details on the novel, see notes to ‘A Passing Storm’ above.
4
Wan Yaopu… Altar Boy to the Jade Emperor
: Wan Yaopu is indulging a traditional literati habit of taking a poetic pseudonym from a classical poem, in this instance alluding to a line by the Tang poet Yuan Zhen (779–831).
THE LONER5
Sacred Writing Sands of Abundant Virtue… Flower-Heart Pearl
: Wan Yaopu’s poetry society engages in a traditional form of automatic writing, in which a stick is suspended from a horizontal wooden bar over a tray of sand. Two ‘poets’ hold on to the wooden bar and, when the name of the mythical Flower-Heart Pearl (a reference to an immortal of Daoist legend) is invoked, she ‘expresses’ herself to the group through characters written by the stick in the sand.
BROTHERS1
local warlord, Divisional Commander Du
: Within a few years of the 1911 Revolution, China’s new Republic had fragmented into the frequently reactionary violence of warlord rule; for Wei Lianshu to serve on the staff of such a figure would be viewed as a betrayal of the national, modernizing ideals current among progressively educated youth of the 1920s.
THE DIVORCE1
huqin
: China’s counterpart to the violin.
1
smashed their stove up
: In Shaoxing, destroying the stove of one’s opponent was a traditional way of asserting victory at the close of a feud.
OLD STORIES RETOLD2
Han dynasty
: 202
BC
–
AD
220.
1
article… attacking Orchid Breeze
:
Orchid Breeze
was published in August 1922, and the critical review (by Hu Menghua) printed in October that year.