鲁迅祝福英文版
鲁迅祝福英文版
New Year's Eve of the old calendar seems after all more like the real New Year's Eve; for, to say nothing of the villages and towns, even in the air there is a feeling that New Year is ing. From the pale, lowering evening clouds issue frequent flashes of lightning, followed by    a rumbling sound of firecrackers celebrating the departure of the Hearth God; while, nearer by, the firecrackers explode even more violently, and before the deafening report dies away the air is filled with a faint smell of powder. It was on such a night that I returned to Luchen, my native place. Although I call it my native place, I had had no home there for some time, so I had to put up temporarily with a certain Mr. Lu, the fourth son of his family. He is a member of our clan, and belongs to the generation before mine, so I ought to call him “Fourth Uncle." An old student of the imperial college who went in for Neo-Confucianism, I found him very little changed in any way, simply slightly older, but without any moustache as yet. When we met, after exchanging a few polite remarks he said I was fatter, and after saying that immediately started a violent attack
on the revolutionaries. I knew this was not meant personally, because the object of the attack was still Ka
ng Yu-wei. Nevertheless, conversation proved difficult, so that in a short time I found myself alone in the study.
The next day I got up very late, and after lunch went out to see some relatives and friends. The day after I did the same. None of them was greatly changed, simply slightly older; but every family was busy preparing for "the sacrifice." This is the great end-of-year ceremony in Luchen, when people reverently e the God of Fortune and solicit good fortune for the ing year. They kill chickens and geese and buy pork, scouring and scrubbing until all the women's arms turn red in the water. Some of them still wear twisted silver bracelets. After the meat is cooked some chopsticks are thrust into it at random, and this is called the "offering." It is set out at dawn when incense and candles are lit, and they reverently invite the God of Fortune to e and partake of the offering. Only men can be worshippers, and after the sacrifice they naturally continue to let off firecrackers as before. This happens every year, in every family, provided they can afford to buy the offering and firecrackers; and this year they naturally followed the old custom.
The day grew overcast. In the afternoon it actually started to snow, the biggest snow-flakes as large as plum blossom petals fluttered about the sky; and this, bined with the smoke and air of activity, made Luchen appear in a ferment. When I returned to my uncle's study the roof of the house was already wh
ite with snow. The room also appeared brighter, the great red rubbing hanging on the wall showing up very clearly the character for Longevity written by the Taoist saint Chen Tuan. One of a pair of scrolls had fallen down and was lying loosely rolled up on the long table, but the other was still hanging there, bearing the words: "By understanding reason we achieve tranquillity of mind." Idly, I went to turn over the books on the table beneath the window, but all I could find was a pile of what looked like an plete set of Kang Hsi's Dictionary, a volume of Chiang Yung's Notes to Chu Hsi's Philosophical Writings and a volume of Commentaries on the Four Books. At all events, I made up my mind to leave the next day.
Besides, the very thought of my meeting with Hsiang Lin's Wife the day before made me fortable. It happened in the afternoon. I had been visiting a friend in the eastern part of the town. As I came out I met her by the river, and seeing the way she
fastened her eyes on me I knew very well she meant to speak to me. Of all the people I had seen this time at Luchen none had changed as much as she: her hair, which had been streaked with white five years before, was now pletely white, quite unlike someone in her forties. Her face was fearfully thin and dark in its sallowness, and had moreover lost its former expression of sadness, looking as if carved out of wood. Only an occasional flicker of her eyes showed she was still a living creature. In one hand she carried a wicker basket, in which was a broken bowl, empty; in the other she held a bam
boo pole longer than herself, split at the bottom: it was clear she had e a beggar.
I stood still, waiting for her to e and ask for money.
"You have e back?" she asked me first.
"Yes."
"That is very good. You are a scholar, and have travelled too and seen a lot. I just want to ask you something." Her lustreless eyes suddenly gleamed.
I never guessed she would talk to me like this. I stood there taken by surprise.
plum blossom
"It is this." She drew two paces nearer, and whispered very confidentially: "After a person dies, does he turn into a ghost or
not?"
As she fixed her eyes on me I was seized with foreboding. A shiver ran down my spine and I felt more nervous than during an unexpected examination at school, when unfortunately the teacher stands by o
ne's side. Personally, I had never given the least thought to the question of the existence of spirits. In this emergency how should I answer her? Hesitating for a moment, I reflected: "It is the tradition here to believe in spirits, yet she seems to be sceptical―perhaps it w ould be better to say she hopes: hopes that there is immortality and yet hopes that there is not. Why increase the sufferings of the wretched? To give her something to look forward to, it would be better to say there is."
"There may be, I think," I told her hesitantly.
"Then, there must also be a Hell?"
"What, Hell?" Greatly startled, I could only try to evade the question. "Hell? According to reason there should be one too―but not necessarily. Who cares about it anyway? . . ."
"Then will all the people of one family who have died see each other again?"
"Well, as to whether they will see each other again or not. . . ."
I realized now that I was a plete fool; for all my hesitation and