鲁迅《故乡》杨宪益、戴乃迭英译本赏析——本科毕业论文选题三
2012-08-13 01:06阅读：1,585
鲁迅《故乡》杨宪益、戴乃迭英译本赏析
一鸣选自《鲁迅小说选》，杨宪益、戴乃迭译，外文出版社，2003年，114页。
MY OLD HOME
Braving the bitter cold, I
travelled more than seven hundred miles back to the old home I had
left over twenty years before.
It was late winter. As we drew
near my former home the day became overcast and a cold wind blew
into the cabin of our boat, while all one could see through the
chinks in our bamboo awning were a few desolate villages, void of
any sign of life,
加载中...
内容加载失败，点击此处重试
scattered far and near under the sombre yellow sky. I could not
help feeling depressed.
Ah! Surely this was not the old
home I had remembered for the past twenty years?
The old home I remembered was
nor in the least like this. My old home was much better. But if you
asked me to recall its peculiar charm or describe its beauties, I
had no clear impression, no words to describe it. And now it seemed
this was all there was to it. Then I rationalized the matter to
myself, saying: Home was always like this, and although it has not
improved, still it is not so depressing as I imagine; it is only my
mood that has changed, because I am coming back to the country this
time with no illusions.
This time I had come with the
sole object of saying goodbye. The old house our clan had lived in
for so many years had already been sold to another family, and was
to change hands before the end of the year. I had to hurry there
before New Year's Day to say goodbye for ever to the familiar old
house, and to move my family to another place where I was working,
far from my old home town.
At dawn on the second day I
reached the gateway of my home. Broken stems of withered grass on
the roof, trembling in the wind, made very clear the reason why
this old house could not avoid changing hands. Several branches of
our clan had probably already moved away, so it was unusually
quiet. By the time I reached the house my mother was already at the
door to welcome me, and my eight-year-old nephew, Hung-erh, rushed
out after her.
Though mother was delighted,
she was also trying to hide a certain feeling of sadness. She told
me to sit down and rest and have some tea, letting the removal wait
for the time being. Hung-erh, who had never seen me before, stood
watching me at a distance.
But finally we had to talk
about the removal. I said that rooms had already been rented
elsewhere, and I had bought a little furniture; in addition it
would be necessary to sell all the furniture in the house in order
to buy more things. Mother agreed, saying that the luggage was
nearly all packed, and about half the furniture that could not
easily be moved had already been sold. Only it was difficult to get
people to pay up.
'You must rest for a day or
two, and call on our relatives, and then we can go,' said
mother.
'Yes.'
'Then there is Jun-tu. Each
time he comes here he always asks after you, and wants very much to
see you again. I told him the probable date of your return home,
and he may be coming any time.'
At this point a strange picture
suddenly flashed into my mind: a golden moon suspended in a deep
blue sky and beneath it the seashore, planted as far as the eye
could see with jade-green watermelons, while in their midst a boy
of eleven or twelve, wearing a silver necklet and grasping a steel
pitchfork in his hand, was thrusting with all his might at a zha
which dodged the blow and escaped between his legs.
This boy was Jun-tu. When I
first met him he was just over ten—that was thirty years ago, and
at that time my father was still alive and the family well off, so
I was really a spoilt child. That year it was our family's turn to
take charge of a big ancestral sacrifice, which came round only
once in thirty years, and hence was an important one. In the first
month the ancestral images were presented and offerings made, and
since the sacrificial vessels were very fine and there was such a
crowd of worshippers, it was necessary to guard against theft. Our
family had only one part-time labourer. (In our district we divide
labourers into three classes: those who work all the year for one
family are called full-timers; those who are hired by the day are
called dailies; and those who farm their own land and only work for
one family at New Year, during festivals or when rents are being
collected are called part-timers.) And since there was so much to
be done, he told my father that he would send for his son Jun-tu to
look after the sacrificial vessels.
When my father gave his consent
I was overjoyed, because I had long since heard of Jun-tu and knew
that he was about my own age, born in the intercalary month, and
when his horoscope was told it was found that of the five elements
that of earth was lacking, so his father called him Jun-tu
(Intercalary Earth). He could set traps and catch small
birds.
I looked forward every day to
New Year, for New Year would bring Jun-tu. At last, when the end of
the year came, one day mother told me that Jun-tu had come, and I
flew to see him. He was standing in the kitchen. He had a round,
crimson face and wore a small felt cap on his head and a gleaming
silver necklet round his neck, showing that his father doted on him
and, fearing he might die, had made a pledge with the gods and
buddhas, using the necklet as a talisman. He was very shy, and I
was the only person he was not afraid of. When there was no one
else there, he would talk with me, so in a few hours we were fast
friends.
I don't know what we talked of
then, but I remember that Jun-tu was in high spirits, saying that
since he had come to town he had seen many new things.
The next day I wanted him to
catch birds.
'Can't be done,' he said. 'It's
only possible after a heavy snowfall. On our sands, after it snows,
I sweep clear a patch of ground, prop up a big threshing basket
with a short stick, and scatter husks of grain beneath. When the
birds come there to eat, I tug a string tied to the stick, and the
birds are caught in the basket. There are all kinds: wild
pheasants,. woodcocks, wood-pigeons, 'blue-backs'. . .
.'
Accordingly I looked forward
very eagerly to snow.
'Just now it is too cold,' said
Jun-tu another time, 'but you must come to our place in summer. In
the daytime we'll go to the seashore to look for shells, there are
green ones and red ones, besides 'scare-devil' shells and 'buddha's
hands.' In the evening when dad and I go to see to the watermelons,
you shall come too.'
'Is it to look out for
thieves?'
'No. If passers-by are thirsty
and pick a watermelon, folk down our way don't consider it as
stealing. What we have to look out for are badgers, hedgehogs and
zha. When under the moonlight you hear the crunching sound made by
the zha when it bites the melons, then you take your pitchfork and
creep stealthily over. . . .'
I had no idea then what this
thing called zha was—and I am not much clearer now for that
matter—but somehow I felt it was something like a small dog, and
very fierce.
'Don't they bite
people?'
'You have a pitchfork. You go
across, and when you see it you strike. It's a very cunning
creature and will rush towards you and get away between your legs.
Its fur is as slippery as oil. . . .'
I had never known that all
these strange things existed: at the seashore there were shells all
colours of the rainbow; watermelons were exposed to such danger,
yet all I had known of them before was that they were sold in the
greengrocer's.
'On our shore, when the tide
comes in, there are lots of jumping fish, each with two legs like a
frog. . . .'
Jun-tu's mind was a
treasure-house of such strange lore, all of it outside the ken of
my former friends. They were ignorant of all these things and,
while Jun-tu lived by the sea, they like me could see only the four
corners of the sky above the high courtyard wall.
Unfortunately, a month after
New Year Jun-tu had to go home. I burst into teats and he took
refuge in the kitchen, crying and refusing to come out, until
finally his father carried him off. Later he sent me by his father
a packet of shells and a few very beautiful feathers, and I sent
him presents once or twice, but we never saw each other
again.
Now that my mother mentioned
him, this childhood memory sprang into life like a flash of
lightning, and I seemed to see my beautiful old home. So I
answered:
'Fine! And he—how is
he?'
He's not at all well off
either,' said mother. And then, looking out of the door: 'Here come
those people again. They say they want to buy our furniture; but
actually they just want to see what they can pick up. I must go and
watch them.'
Mother stood up and went out.
The voices of several women could he heard outside. I called
Hung-erh to me and started talking to him, asking him whether he
could write, and whether he would be glad to leave.
'Shall we be going by
train?'
'Yes, we shall go by
train.'
'And boat?'
'We shall take a boat
first.'
'Oh! Like this! With such a
long moustache!' A strange shrill voice suddenly rang
out.
I looked up with a start, and
saw a woman of about fifty with prominent cheekbones and thin lips.
With her hands on her hips, not wearing a skirt but with her
trousered legs apart, she stood in front of me just like the
compass in a box of geometrical instruments.
I was
flabbergasted.
'Don't you know me? Why, I have
held you in my arms!'
I felt even more flabbergasted.
Fortunately my mother came in just then and said:
'He has been away so long, you
must excuse him for forgetting. You should remember,' she said to
me, 'this is Mrs. Yang from across the road. . . . She has a
beancurd shop.'
Then, to be sure, I remembered.
When I was a child there was a Mrs. Yang who used to sit nearly all
day long in the beancurd shop across the road, and everybody used
to call her Beancurd Beauty. She used to powder herself, and her
cheekbones were not so prominent then nor her lips so thin;
moreover she remained seated all the time, so that I had never
noticed this resemblance to a compass. In those days people said
that, thanks to her, that beancurd shop did very good business.
But, probably on account of my age, she had made no impression on
me, so that later I forgot her entirely. However, the Compass was
extremely indignant and looked at me most contemptuously, just as
one might look at a Frenchman who had never heard of Napoleon or an
American who had never heard of Washington, and smiling
sarcastically she said:
'You had forgotten? Naturally I
am beneath your notice. . . .'
'Certainly not . . . I . . .' I
answered nervously, getting to my feet.
'Then you listen to me, Master
Hsun. You have grown rich, and they are too heavy to move, so you
can't possibly want these old pieces of furniture any more. You had
better let me take them away. Poor people like us can do with
them.'
'I haven't grown rich. I must
sell these in order to buy. . . .'
'Oh, come now, you have been
made the intendant of a circuit, how can you still say you're not
rich? You have three concubines now, and whenever you go out it is
in a big sedan-chair with eight bearers. Do you still say you're
not rich? Hah! You can't hide anything from me.'
Knowing there was nothing I
could say, I remained silent.
'Come now, really, the more
money people have the more miserly they get, and the more miserly
they are the more money they get . . .' remarked the Compass,
turning indignantly away and walking slowly off, casually picking
up a pair of mother's gloves and stuffing them into her pocket as
she went out.
After this a number of
relatives in the neighbourhood came to call. In the intervals
between entertaining them I did some packing, and so three or four
days passed.
One very cold afternoon, I sat
drinking tea after lunch when I was aware of someone coming in, and
turned my head to see who it was. At the first glance I gave an
involuntary start, hastily stood up and went over to welcome
him.
The newcomer was Jun-tu. But
although I knew at a glance that this was Jun-tu, it was not the
Jun-tu I remembered. He had grown to twice his former size. His
round face, once crimson, had become sallow, and acquired deep
lines and wrinkles; his eyes too had become like his father's, the
rims swollen and red, a feature common to most peasants who work by
the sea and are exposed all day to the wind from the ocean. He wore
a shabby felt cap and just one very thin padded jacket, with the
result that he was shivering from head to foot. He carried a paper
package and a long pipe, nor was his hand the plump red hand I
remembered, but coarse and clumsy and chapped, like the bark of a
pine tree.
Delighted as I was, I did not
know how to express myself, and could only say:
'Oh! Jun-tu—so it's you? . .
.'
After this there were so many
things I wanted to talk about, they should have poured out like a
string of beads: woodcocks, jumping fish, shells, zha. . . . But I
was tongue-tied, unable to put all I was thinking into
words.
He stood there, mixed joy and
sadness showing on his face. His lips moved, but not a sound did he
utter. Finally, assuming a respectful attitude, he said
clearly:
'Master! . . .'
I felt a shiver run through me;
for I knew then what a lamentably thick wall had grown up between
us. Yet I could not say anything.
He turned his head to
call:
'Shui-sheng, bow to the
master.' Then he pulled forward a boy who had been hiding behind
his back, and this was just the Jun-tu of twenty years before, only
a little paler and thinner, and he had no silver
necklet.
'This is my fifth,' he said.
'He's not used to company, so he's shy and awkward.'
Mother came downstairs with
Hung-erh, probably after hearing our voices.
'I got your letter some time
ago, madam,' said Jun-tu. 'I was really so pleased to know the
master was coming back. . . .'
'Now, why are you so polite?
Weren't you playmates together in the past?' said mother gaily.
'You had better still call him Brother Hsun as
before.'
'Oh, you are really too. . . .
What bad manners that would be. I was a child then and didn't
understand.' As he was speaking Jun-tu motioned Shui-sheng to come
and bow, but the child was shy, and stood stock-still behind his
father.
'So he is Shui-sheng? Your
fifth?' asked mother. 'We are all strangers, you can't blame him
for feeling shy. Hung-erh had better take him Out to
play.'
When Hung-eth heard this he
went over to Shui-sheng, and Shui-sheng went out with him, entirely
at his ease. Mother asked Jun-tu to sir down, and after a little
hesitation he did so; then leaning his long pipe against the table
he handed over the paper package, saying:
'In winter there is nothing
worth bringing; but these few beans we dried ourselves, if you will
excuse the liberty, sir.'
When I asked him how things
were with him, he just shook his head.
'In a very bad way. Even my
sixth can do a little work, but still we haven't enough to eat . .
. and then there is no security . . . all sorts of people want
money, there is no fixed rule . . . and the harvests are bad. You
grow things, and when you take them to sell you always have to pay
several taxes and lose money, while if you don't try to sell, the
things may go bad. . .'
He kept shaking his head; yet,
although his face was lined with wrinkles, not one of them moved,
just as if he were a stone statue. No doubt he felt intensely
bitter, but could not express himself. After a pause he took up his
pipe and began to smoke in silence.
From her chat with him, mother
learned that he was busy at home and had to go back the next day;
and since he had had no lunch, she told him to go to the kitchen
and fry some rice for himself.
After he had gone out, mother
and I both shook our heads over his hard life: many children,
famines, taxes, soldiers, bandits, officials and landed gentry, all
had squeezed him as dry as a mummy. Mother said that we should
offer him all the things we were not going to take away, letting
him choose for himself.
That afternoon he picked out a
number of things: two long tables, four chairs, an incense burner
and candlesticks, and one balance. He also asked for all the ashes
from the stove (in our part we cook over straw, and the ashes can
be used to fertilize sandy soil), saying that when we left he would
come to take them away by boat.
That night we talked again, but
not of anything serious; and the next morning he went away with
Shui-sheng.
After another nine days it was
time for us to leave. Jun-tu came in the morning. Shui-sheng did
not come with him—he had just brought a little girl of five to
watch the boat. We were very busy all day, and had no time to talk.
We also had quite a number of visitors, some to see us off, some to
fetch things, and some to do both. It was nearly evening when we
left by boat, and by that time everything in the house, however old
or shabby, large or small, fine or coarse, had been cleared
away.
As we set off, in the dusk, the
green mountains on either side of the river became deep blue,
receding towards the stern of the boat.
Hung-erh and I, leaning against
the cabin window, were looking out together at the indistinct scene
outside, when suddenly he asked:
'Uncle, when shall we go
back?'
'Go back? Do you mean that
before you've left you want to go back?'
'Well, Shui-sheng has invited
me to his home. . .'
He opened wide his black eyes
in anxious thought.
Mother and I both felt rather
sad, and so Jun-tu's name came up again. Mother said that ever
since our family started packing up, Mrs. Yang from the beancurd
shop had come over every day, and the day before in the ash-heap
she had unearthed a dozen bowls and plates, which after some
discussion she insisted must have been buried there by Jun-tu, so
that when he came to remove the ashes he could take them home at
the same rime. After making this discovery Mrs. Yang was very
pleased with herself, and flew off raking the dog-teaser with her.
(The dog-teaser is used by poultry keepers in our parts. It is a
wooden cage inside which food is put, so that hens can stretch
their necks in to eat but dogs can only look on furiously.) And it
was a marvel, considering the size of her feet, how fast she could
run.
I was leaving the old house
farther and farther behind, while the hills and rivers of my old
home were also receding gradually ever farther in the distance. But
I felt no regret. I only felt that all round me was an invisible
high wall, cutting me off from my fellows, and this depressed me
thoroughly. The vision of that small hero with the silver necklet
among the watermelons had formerly been as clear as day, but now it
suddenly blurred, adding to my depression.
Mother and Hung-erh fell
asleep.
I lay down, listening to the
water rippling beneath the boat, and knew that I was going my way.
I thought: although there is such a barrier between Jun-tu and
myself, the children still have much in common, for wasn't Hung-erh
thinking of Shui-sheng just now? I hope they will not he like us,
that they will not allow a barrier to grow up between them. But
again I would not like them, because they want to be akin, all to
have a treadmill existence like mine, nor to suffer like Jun-ru
until they become stupefied, nor yet, like others, to devote all
their energies to dissipation. They should have a new life, a life
we have never experienced.
The access of hope made me
suddenly afraid. When Jun-tu asked for the incense burner and
candlesticks I had laughed up my sleeve at him, to think that he
still worshipped idols and could not put them out of his mind. Yet
what I now called hope was no more than an idol I had created
myself. The only difference was that what he desired was close at
hand, while what I desired was less easily realized.
As I dozed, a stretch of
jade-green seashore spread itself before my eyes, and above a round
golden moon hung in a deep blue sky. I thought: hope cannot be said
to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is just like roads
across the earth. For actually the earth had no roads to begin
with, but when many men pass one way, a road is made.
[Note: intercalary] The Chinese
lunar calendar reckons 360 days to a year, and each month comprises
29 or 30 days, never 31. Hence every few years a 13th, or
intercalary, month is inserted in the calendar.
January
1921
给此博文留言吧！
有机会上热评榜！
攒金币兑换礼品！
好的评论会让人崇拜发布评论
