On the plot prose of lu xin.

In 1918, Lu Xun's story "Notes of a Madman" appeared in print. The author was no longer young, he was in his thirty-seventh year, but before that he was known only from scientific and journalistic articles.

"Notes of a Madman" surprised and even excited readers, who saw a lot of new and unusual things here. Of course, some of them remembered that a story with such a title was already in world literature, and none other than Lu Xun wrote at one time about the Russian writer Gogol.

The Notes of a Madman was published at a time when workers were unresting in China, torn apart by clashes between militarists, and the revolution in Russia inspired hopes for national liberation in the progressive intelligentsia. It is necessary to imagine all the significance that in China has traditionally been attached to the written word in order to understand the weight and power of an ideologically directed literary work.

... "The madman" has long been cured, and even appointed to a position, and, of course, will no longer express what is written in his crazy notebooks, kindly provided to us by the author. He made a terrible discovery - people eat people. They eat them everywhere, and not just in that village called Lanzitsun - Wolf's. It turns out that they always ate them, and, opening the pages of history, he sees how, between the lines about humanity, justice and other Confucian virtues, they are everywhere dotted with the word “cannibalism”. This pernicious passion deprives people of faith in each other, endows them with eternal suspicion, a shameful curiosity about everything that is connected with blood. A criminal is executed, and some consumptive dunks bread in the blood of the executed - a truthful detail taken from life in fantastic delirium - we will later find it in Lu Xun's story "The Drug". And is this nonsense really so fantastic?

The “madman” knows the legends about respectful sons and thinks about the words of his brother that in order to save sick parents, the son should not hesitate to cut out a piece of meat from himself and feed them. And the “madman” warns his devoted sons against conciliation, from comforting himself with its temporality: “If you can eat a piece, then, of course, you can eat a whole person.” That's how "crazy" thinks. He warns those who feed on human flesh. Let them not hope that this will always be the case and that cannibalism will pass with impunity for them: the time will finally come when "cannibals will not be tolerated on the globe." What will they say then?

He is seized with fear at the mere thought that among cannibals it is impossible to protect oneself from not noticing to eat human flesh. Maybe there are still children who have not had time to become cannibals? And he screams: "Save the children!"

But allow me, an attentive reader versed in literature will say, didn’t some other work already end with a similar appeal? Yes Yes. "Help me! Save!" - shouts the hero of L. Andreev's story "Lie". It is worth thinking about the fact that the creation of Lu Xun, which so struck contemporaries, begins with a Gogol title and ends with a similar appeal to Andreev. It is also worth pondering why the words of rebuke necessary to save a vicious society are put by Lu Xun into the mouth of a madman. And we will try to talk about it. In the meantime, let us note that, being in an advantageous position in comparison with Lu Xun's contemporaries, to whose judgment the first story of an artist unknown to them was presented, we already know that a great writer entered the world literature of the 20th century with the Notes of a Madman.

Lu Xun's name was Chou Shu-jen. The pseudonym Lu is the surname of his mother, to whose country origin the writer owes his connections with the Chinese countryside. A boy from an urban bureaucratic family would otherwise only know the provincial Shaoxing where he was born. True, the city also endowed him with considerable life experience from childhood. Family misfortunes, father's illness, severe poverty and, as a consequence of all this, the pawnshop and pharmacy are constant places for him to visit. And then already thoughts about the joyless life of the people and thoughts about those who ever sought to help them. And who most often failed. This Chinese boy was told about the events of antiquity in historical books. It was common to have an interest in history and poetry for young men who grew up in old China. But the exploits of the Tainins, the peasants who rose up against the Manchu dynasty and founded the “Heavenly State of Great Prosperity”, have not yet completely become history, and the anti-imperialist uprising of the Yihetuan, brutally suppressed in 1900 by the troops of eight powers, was taking place right before the eyes of the eighteen-year-old Lu Xun.

Lu Xun was haunted by bleak memories of childhood, when the entire life of the family was focused on the fatal illness of her only breadwinner. And in Japan, where he was sent in 1902 to receive a technical education, he entered the medical school to save those like his father, "who suffered more from ignorant treatment than from the disease itself." The tragedy of his father and the tragedy of China for Lu Xun merged into one, and it seemed to him that he had found the enemy that all the heroes of antiquity and modernity had so unsuccessfully tried to defeat. But the enemy eluded also because the future healer, who painfully pondered what an ideal person should be and what were the shortcomings of the national character of the Chinese, was increasingly moving away from medicine, carried away by philosophy; literature, natural sciences. He firmly knew that it was necessary to overthrow the Manchu dynasty, and in this he was no different from most Chinese students studying in Japan. It would seem that there are so many examples of valor in the history of China so well known to him, but, according to his habit, turning to antiquity, he still looks for a model of the heroic spirit in the ancestors of those who have already achieved a different existence. The first article published by Lu Xun, The Spirit of Sparta, is about the defenders of the Thermopylae Gorge.

Nineteen years later, in 1922, in the preface to the collection "Cry" Lu Xun justifies his disappointment in the omnipotence of medicine: it heals the body, but not the spirit. The spirit of the people is in a daze. Lu Xun thinks that such people are not able to rebel, they can only be either an object or an indifferently curious spectator of executions. Lu Xun, who has departed from the all-powerful medicine that seemed to him before, is easiest to convince himself of the omnipotence of literature close to his aspirations. He realized the greatness of literature and will serve it undividedly. An understanding of the tasks that literature must face in the struggle for the national and social liberation of the people will still come to him. This will be the main thing for him.

Lu Xun's article "The Power of Satanic Poetry" dates back to 1907. In fact, for the first time, the Chinese reader learned from it about Byron, Shelley, Pushkin, Lermontov, Mickiewicz, Petofi, poets "uncompromising", "not flattering the crowd", leading to a new life. This is how Lu Xun perceived them. In them he saw the ideal of poetry, the ruler of thoughts. In this remarkable work for its time, we should also be attracted by a few lines about Gogol, who "shook his compatriots with the sadness of invisible tears." About what will be the most important for the writer, it is said, as we see, in passing. The beginning of the 20th century was also the beginning of the translation of Russian literature for China - the prose of Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Chekhov. In 1909, Lu Xun translated from german stories Andreev "Lies" and "Silence" and Garshin's story "Four Days". Was it just an episode for his further writing activity?

In the same 1909, Lu Xun returned from Japan to his homeland. The overthrow of the monarchy in 1911, which pleased him, did not bring relief to the people: the reactionaries again came to power. Lu Xun's disappointment in the revolution that had taken place soon plunged him into despondency. His active nature could not reconcile himself with forced subordination to circumstances: “I realized that I was far from a hero who only waved his hand and called a cry to convene crowds of comrades-in-arms.”

The years from 1914 to 1917 were the time of silence and immersion in work on Chinese classics. True, in January 1914, Lu Xun, under the pseudonym Zhou Cho, published the story "The Past", which is interesting for a researcher of the writer's work. The story was written in the old literary language wenyan, and Lu Xun did not include it in any of his collections.

The Great October Socialist Revolution again revived in the advanced Chinese intelligentsia the fading hope for the liberation of the country. The craving for Russian literature, which had previously attracted by intercession for a person offended by fate, increased. They are already trying to find an answer to the question of how this happened in Russia, even to read how to do it for their country. The year 1919 is approaching. A cultural revolution is being prepared that will become part of the May 4th Movement. And it was then, on the outskirts of this movement, and, who knows, perhaps as one of the strongest impetus to it, in May 1918, the story "Notes of a Madman" appeared. This is Lu Xun's awakening time. In the preface to the collection "Cry", he subsequently presents to us "Notes of a Madman" as the fruit of his hopes, hopes that the writer's word is able to awaken at least part of the people sleeping deep sleep in a closed iron chamber. And these will raise the rest, and together they will destroy the cell and go free.

The author of many educational and topical articles, a well-known teacher, translator and publicist in the country. Lu Xun came out with the first significant work of art, which would be followed by others. We know, of course, cases when one or another rather serious life reasons turned a publicist into an artist. This should not be surprising. What is important is that the later beginning brought with it the maturity of thought and feeling and deprived Lu Xun of the so-called early, that is, marked by imperfection, period of creativity.

"Notes of a Madman" stirred up the Chinese society. They heard a sharp and uncompromising response, a response that came from within to the alarm of those who were thinking more and more about the troubles of their homeland. But why Diary of a Madman? Yes, Lu Xun himself claimed that he took the name from Gogol. Why did he need this unambiguous imitation? And then there is a doubt - is it an imitation? What kind of obvious imitator will advertise his addiction. We will not be naive and we will look into the sources of the work available to us. "Notes of a madman" with seeming artificiality - a thing deeply realistic in its very essence. Only such, insane, could be the hero of the story, rebelling directly and openly against millennia-old state institutions.

Let us imagine a country with despotic power, which is based on these institutions, leveling the personality, penetrating the whole society from top to bottom and, moreover, occupying a significant place in the education of the national character. Who is capable of climbing such a thing without seeing support around, without hoping for sympathy and without any reason to doubt his death?

In the history of China, grandees decided on a single protest: a dignitary could object to the sovereign and not necessarily pay for it with his head. The greatest historian of China, Sima Qian, who lived in the II-I centuries BC. e., instead of execution, he was brutally mutilated only because he dared to intercede for the commander convicted by the sovereign, who was defeated. In the old days, tsars carried accusatory speeches from an actor who was at the lowest rung of the social ladder, who, in the words of Academician V. M. Alekseev, "was a court gaer, a grimacer, a jester, a clown." Sima Qian tells about the dwarf Yu Meng, who, despite the death threat, dared to object to the sacrilegiously magnificent funeral of the royal war horse. In order to be able to say a harsh word, in the 10th century, Li Chia-ming went into the despicable circle of jesters-actors and spoke this word. The kings preferred that it be uttered by a jester guarded by condescension, and not by anyone else.

He knew all this, Lu Xun grew up on all these legends and true stories, looking for a hero for his story. The Chinese hero was prompted by Gogol. A madman, only a madman, free from the sense of self-preservation, could become that real figure, in the existence of which a Chinese reader would believe, not perceiving Lu Xun's story as some kind of fantasy. "God forbid I go crazy." So the poet wrote, fearing only the dungeon in which the madman would be locked up. If not to deprive of freedom, then "I would be strong, free, // Like a whirlwind digging fields, // Breaking forests." The unrestrained will of the madman always trembled the kings, who patiently endured the witticisms of the jesters. "Notes of a Madman" seduced Lu Xun and the possibility of borrowing a type of hero. We will meet with more than one insane subverter in his other, later works.

Gogol with his "Overcoat" and "Notes of a Madman" opened the tragic world of the "little man". Three quarters of a century later, it turned out that this discovery, and even this world itself, are close and necessary for China. Without delving into the quite natural comparison of Gogol with Lu Xun, and in particular, with Lu Xun of his first story, we note that, along with history, the Chinese writer also made a step forward. His “crazy man”, in accordance with the requirements of the time, takes care of all those offended. And instead of the complaint: “Mother, save your poor son,” the call is heard: “Save the children!”

Lu Xun is a very national writer who has absorbed the Chinese tradition and is inconceivable without it, as, of course, without Chinese reality. But this same Chinese reality could no longer do without a glance to the West, when he burst into it both with his violence and with his sympathy. In December 1932, Lu Xun, in the article "I salute the literary ties between China and Russia," wrote about Chinese youth, who "suffered and tossed about" and "found Russian literature." Then comes an amazing confession: “Russian literature has revealed to us the beautiful soul of the oppressed, his suffering, his struggle…” That's it. And reading about the most important, according to Lu Xun, understood from Russian literature - “that there are two classes in the world - the oppressors and the oppressed”, reading that “then it was the greatest discovery, equal to the opening of fire”, - we should not humbly trust only literal sense these amazing lines. Is it really true that the Chinese, who was born and lived in a country where everything was kept on the basis of respect and subordination in the family and in the state, did not notice the division into oppressors and the oppressed, which the poets of antiquity almost guessed about. Let us ponder these words, keep them in mind while reading Lu Xun, and understand that what is meant here is the discovery of the soul of an oppressed person, his soul, which belongs to him alone, and to no one else in the world. How it was necessary for the advanced Chinese intelligentsia, who dreamed of the spiritual emancipation of the people, of the destruction of the accursed and humiliating privilege of the few to be individuals. That is why it turned out to be especially significant for China, as well as for Russia in its time, that Akaky Akakievich, a creature that lived unnoticed, "then just as unbearably misfortune fell upon him, as fell upon the kings and rulers of the world."

In the struggle for the development and affirmation of the personality - still insulted, oppressed, suppressed, first of all, it is necessary to say about the unique value of each person. He himself must understand that he was not born in order to replenish the crowd of obedient once and for all established customs. But even seemingly obvious truths require proof. And the artist Lu Xun took it upon himself to prove that individuality exists in China, that China has many faces both in life and in death. Thus, the hope for the awakening of the people was justified. In light of this, Lu Xun's appeal to Leonid Andreev, a writer of close, and sometimes even excessive attention to spiritual experiences, conveying the sensitivity of a naked soul, is natural. Personality was emphasized here, something that was lacking in Chinese life and literature. Lu Xun's faith in literature, which had arisen in his youth, as a tool for remaking life, turned out to be correct. Only then he still could not imagine the whole volume of literature, its fruitfulness, when good aspirations are based on a deep study of the state of society. He did not then know what place her own works would take. I am very sorry that our reader cannot fully enjoy the heavy elegance of Lusinev's prose, that the translation, no matter how good it is, always stands on its own, devoid of that long line of shadows of the distant and near past that Lu Xun's Chinese word casts behind it. . However, in great works this is still not the main thing, and they sound contrary to any translation.

Lu Xun devoted his talent as an artist to the upbringing of a person, the creation of a personality. He wanted to make visible to everyone what he alone managed to see in the human anthill, where life seems impersonal to an ordinary look, death always shocks with its only tragedy, reminding us of the inevitable. And, therefore, on the example of death, faith in the uniqueness of human individuality is more easily affirmed. There are no (and cannot be) prosperous lives in Lu Xun's works. The deaths in them are violent even when the hero dies in bed: they are prepared by an unhappy life. For Lu Xun, there are no unnoticeable lives and, moreover, there are no insignificant deaths. With all his creativity, he rejects the wisdom of the ancient Sima Qian, who divided death into significant and insignificant: “As everyone knows, every person has only one death, but death is harder than the mountain giant Taishan; it is also light, well, like a goose feather. The absurd end of the crazy teacher Chen Shih-cheng from the story "Shine" or the deliberate death of the avenging boy from the legend "The Sword" - any death of a victim of social disorder or despotism for Lu Xun is always harder than the mountain giant Taishan. The life of the unfortunate heroine of the story "Prayer for Happiness", who died "from poverty", passes in thoughts about death. Does a soul remain after a person, is there hell in the next world? She knew hell, she did not receive forgiveness of the sins imposed on her by society in this world, and she hopes for mercy there. And her hope is unsteady, timidly and gropingly found in the darkness of her consciousness. Each death of Lu Xun is a murder committed by a heartless society, devoid of pity and morality.

Morality is at the core of Lu Xun's writings. We may be told that this is quite natural, and that there is no literature without morality, for it is "in the nature of things," and we are ready for this remark. But you must admit that there are “fatal moments” in this world when the moral word of a writer is essential, and the one who pronounces it must himself possess extraordinary moral strength and faith in his own rightness. Lu Xun was such a writer, and he wanted to raise the moral level of society. This desire is almost didactically directly expressed in the story "A Little Incident", in the ordinary noble act of a rickshaw, involuntarily forcing the hero to be ashamed of his own spiritual callousness.

The moral foundations of Chinese society have been shaken by the centuries-old efforts of generations of its oppressors. Morality has long been an unattainable ideal of golden antiquity, or rather, a set of hypocritical incantations. Does this need further explanation? But morality has long been part of the tradition of Chinese literature, and the embodiment of this tradition, say, in the most ancient "Book of Songs" even then aroused the hatred of despots. It is easy to say that Lu Xun, seeing literature as a means to correct morals, continues the moral tradition of the history of Chinese literature. But for the first time in Chinese history, literature through the works of Lu Xun served as a profound study of society, irrefutably proved the need for a revolutionary reorganization of it on a fair basis as the only way to create a highly moral society.

After each work of Lu Xun is the date of its writing. The task of the researcher is to go from event to event in the life of the country and the writer, comparing them with the content and nature of his creations. In our country, the reader will find quite a lot of interesting information about Lu Xing and serious observations in the works of scientists and translators V. M. Alekseev, B. A. Vasiliev, V. S. Kolokolov, V. V. Petrov, L. D. Pozdneeva, V. N. Rogova, V. I. Semanova, V. F. Sorokina, N. T. Fedorenko, A. G. Shprintsina, A. A. Shtukina. The first collection of the writer "Cry", which included works of art from 1918-1922, was published in 1923. It was followed by "Wanderings" (1926), "Wild Herbs" (1927) and, finally, in 1936, the last year of Lu Xun's life, "Old Legends in a new edition."

The "Notes of a Madman" were, as it were, an introduction to Lu Xun's first book: in them the hero talks about a cannibalistic society, in the rest of the works - a picture of this society. "Cry" and "Wanderings" - like the rural and urban homeland of Lu Xun, if a characterization is allowed, based on most of the stories of both collections. Lu Xun is not too diverse in choosing a place for the events described. Luzhen, where they take place, becomes, as it were, a symbol of the old Chinese province. These events are also in an invisible, and sometimes mentioned connection: one of the heroes of the "Unrest", the boatman Chi-jin, who after the revolution of 1911 in the city was forcibly cut off his scythe, we meet on the same occasion in the "True History of Ah Q ".

“Kung Yi-chi”, “Drug”, “Tomorrow” are stories of open tragedy that immediately followed the “Diary of a Madman”. This is no longer a declaration of cannibalism, but an image of an all-Chinese meal in which the old man Kung Yi-chi, the young man Xiao-shuan and the three-year-old child of the weaver, widow Shan, are eaten. A strange and typical for old China figure of a drunken half-educated Kung Yi-chi is shown surrounded by full-fledged visitors of a wine shop mockingly watching him. All of them, and those in long robes, and even the poor in jackets, are proud of their higher place in the world than Kong Yi-chi. Pride replaces normal human pity. They have no sympathy for the misfortunes of Kung Yiji, who is said to have had his legs broken for "contemplating to rob Juren Ding's house." In the wine shop last time he crawled on his hands. He left her "to an explosion of merry laughter."

In "Drug" in the foreground is the salvation of Xiao-shuan from consumption. The best remedy is the blood of the executed. It is mined by the owner of the tea shop Lao-shuan, the father of Xiao-shuan. Not far from the place of execution, he receives from the executioner a bloody donut, to which his attention is riveted, "as if to a baby - the only heir of ten generations." Xiao-shuan was not helped by the miraculous drug, he died. Shortly before his death, a significant conversation took place in the tearoom of Lao-shuang. The executioner talks about the criminal whose blood will save Xiao-shuan. It turns out that he went against the authorities and declared that the Celestial Empire does not belong to the dynasty sitting on the throne, but to the whole people. This outrages the visitors of the tea shop, who are completely calm about the information about the robbery of the “criminal” by the jailer and about the reward received by Xia the Third for betraying his nephew. Here no one cares about cruelty or even betrayal. All of them have been brought up for centuries to be on the side of their oppressors. It seems natural to them that the cannibals devour the sick Xiao-shuan and the full-bodied Xia Yu, who dared to rebel against despotism. The graves of Xiao-shuan and Xia Yu are nearby. There is a wreath of fresh flowers on Xia Yu's grave. This wreath Lu Xun in the preface to the collection "Cry" called the improvement of reality. Or maybe Lu Xun is wrong? It's just that he was the first, before anyone else, to see a wreath on the grave of a dead revolutionary: in providence is the power of a writer.

In the story “Tomorrow”, in Luzhen, which we already know, a little boy dies at the widow Shan. Shan's journey with a child in her arms from home to a doctor (the same one treated Lu Xun's father), then to a pharmacy and home is painful. They seem to help her, but this is a human duty that further emphasizes her loneliness in a world limited by the small space of Luzhen. At the risk of appearing importunate in the associations that again lead to Andreev, I cannot help but recall the story of his "Giant" of the early 900s, almost certainly, like many of Andreev's works of that time, known to Lu Xun. It has the same atmosphere of hopeless maternal grief - a poor mother, in anticipation of the death of a child, invents a fairy tale about a giant for him. Lu Xun's "Tomorrow" is more widespread, more specific, and deeper than Andreev's sketch, and leaves us not only with a feeling of soul-rending grief, but also with an unsatisfied thought about tomorrow, not planned by the writer. So what is tomorrow and why is the night in such a hurry to “turn into tomorrow sooner”?

In these first stories, Lu Xun's writer's position is clearly visible, even if it were not emphasized by the author's remarks ("I have already said that she was a dark woman ..."). This is an attitude of sympathy, which forces the writer to be ruthless in the name of saving those whom he loves and whose humility and indifference he resents. The author makes us understand that indifference is a product of the cruel inexorability of the despotic government of society, that indifference is only akin to selfishness: it develops in a person a disdain not only for others, but also for himself, complete disinterest in the environment. In the story “Shine”, already mentioned above, a drowned man was caught. “There were people who recognized him as Chen Shih-cheng, but the neighbors were too lazy to go look, and there were no relatives.” Terrible in its calmness is a laconic confirmation of the fact. What kind of public morality can we talk about when there is no condemnation of betrayal, no pity for the one who is going to die for you, and there is no understanding of the meanness of the first and the nobility of the second, and respect for a person remains only a Confucian fiction, the performance of "ceremonies". And yet, what about tomorrow? The writer does not yet answer this question with his works. But he put it on.

The tragedy of the story "Motherland" is more subdued. In it, Lu Xun does not try to hide behind the hero-narrator: "Brother Xin" is called him. We can assume that by this he wanted to emphasize the authenticity of the homeland he describes, “the beautiful homeland!” There is no irony in these words, they contain childhood memories. The beautiful homeland of Lu Xun's childhood was personified by the friend of his games, the peasant boy Jun-tu. The children were equal among themselves, and the adult Jun-tu calls the author master and is shy, as he is shy in front of all the bosses standing above him, soldiers and bandits.

The author's nephew Hong-er is friends with Shui-sheng, the fifth child of Jun-tu. But everything will repeat itself: Hong-er will become “master”, and Shui-sheng, crushed by worries and hunger, will be respectful and timid with him. If nothing changes. When Lu Xun wants to digress a little from these heavy thoughts, almost two years after "Motherland" he will write a charming story "Village Performance" illuminated by the intermittent light of the sun and moon about the "beautiful homeland" of his childhood and about little Jun-tu and Shui- shengs, who still do not think about the troubles awaiting them adult life. But we, the readers, have already learned all this from Lu Xun, and the serene pages of the "Village Performance" sadden us all the more. Has anything changed in Lu Xing in the six months that have passed from "Tomorrow" to "Motherland"? Does he still look inquiringly at the night that is in a hurry to “turn into tomorrow sooner”? No, he's talking about hope. And even though she seems to him an idol created by him, and even though his dreams, in contrast to the practical calculations of Jun-tu, in a foggy future, he believes in the realization of his hope. So is the road: "Now it is not there, but people will pass - and trample on." This is very important for understanding Ah Q's True History, completed in December 1921.

The psychological stories of Lu Xun were new to Chinese literature, accustomed to expressing the character of heroes through the external manifestations of their actions. The Western European, and especially the Russian tradition surprisingly easily and organically entered Chinese artistic prose, which did not reject it, did not feel anything foreign in it. This happened also because psychologism, in this case and above all Lu Xun's psychologism, is so firmly intertwined with the Chinese literary tradition proper that it is already impossible to separate it from it. Psychologism is not a privilege of Western literature; it simply appeared in the history of its development earlier than in the literatures of the East. But should we consider one of possible causes This is Lu Xun's remark when he says in the preface to the Russian translation of his True History of Ah Q that “it is very difficult to draw the deeply silent soul of the Chinese people. And I feel it, because, despite all my efforts to penetrate it, I constantly feel some kind of barrier. "The True History of Ah Q", a story about the soul of the Chinese people, should be attributed to the highest achievements of world literature of the 20th century. Lu Xun prepared himself for this story: “It's been more than a year or two since I'm going to write the true story of Ah Q…” He dressed his story in heroic and ironic clothes. He permeated it with topical polemical allusions and reproaches. At first he did everything to show, as it were, an incomplete seriousness, a kind of witty lightness, a kind of accident of this work. But from chapter to chapter (he published it in chapters), his voice of accuser sounded more and more decisively and sternly. And when the story became visible in its entirety, no one (including the haters of Lu Xun) could doubt the greatness of the discovery made by the writer, the revolutionary significance artistic research Chinese society.

Ah Q lives in the village. He occupies the lowest place in her, but plays an important role in her life. We know the old Chinese village and the mechanism of exploitation in it - it seems simple and clear, but someone must have laid it bare for us for the first time. Can we find among the authors of scholarly treatises such an outstanding and courageous researcher of Chinese society as the author of The True History of Ah Q?

Lu Xun ironically used the traditional form of official biographies in Chinese histories to tell the story. He is at a loss at the impossibility of establishing the genealogy of his hero, who is trying to brazenly assert that he has the same last name as the venerable Zhao himself, for which he receives a slap in the face from the aforementioned Zhao. The author does not search for the name of the hero, he cannot even establish the true hieroglyph of his name. There is nothing surprising, however, in the possibility for Ah Q to be related to Zhao: that is the peculiarity of the oppression of the peasant in the old Chinese village, that the landowner was not separated from him by a blank class wall, and all the more terrible and ruthless character acquired landlord oppression. In the play by Ostrovsky and Solovyov “It shines, but does not warm”, the fist Deryugin, intending to buy the estate from the young lady Reneva, utters the following monologue: “Then Denis Ivanovich will go on the run, they will recognize him! .. Well, I’ll twist you, dear friends, Orthodox laity. It's enough for you guys to indulge; I’ll tie up your tails, it’s not like the masters have you! .. ”Here, everything except Orthodoxy, which is only a formal external sign, corresponds to the state of the village of Lu Xun, and therefore Ah Q, pushed around by all, communicates so often and closely with his employers .

We despise Ah Q, but we need him, and behind the insignificance of Ah Q one can see a hard worker, a jack of all trades, without whom one cannot do without. As about chivalrous exploits, the author tells us about the misadventures of the hero in an elevated style. And now it turns out that there are no misadventures, but there are “victories”, and Ah Q is shrouded in their pacifying fog. The self-will of the landowner, the extortion of the headman are so in the order of things that this is purposely mentioned by the way. No one is interested in the offensiveness of such an attitude towards a person, because no one is offended. The villagers are surrounded by a palisade of written and unwritten moral rules, but this does not prevent the most zealous guardians of morality from buying stolen goods from Ah Q. In an atmosphere of unbridled arbitrariness and lack of morality, the transformation of Ah Q's life defeats into "victories" looks harmless at first glance: after all, it does not harm anyone. Is it so?

Illusory "victories" follow one after another. They begin already with Ah Q's assertion that his son could be more knowledgeable than the sons of the most respectable citizens of the village. And when Ah Q is beaten, he consoles himself with a momentary fiction that it was his unworthy son who beat him. Ah Q considered himself the first, even if in the depths of his soul he admitted that he was the first among the humiliated. But in this case, he immediately lowered last words and remained simply the first. Ah Q won the final moral victory before his execution. Instead of a signature, due to illiteracy, he put a circle. The circle turned out to be ugly, oblong, and Ah Q reassured himself: "Only fools draw circles completely round."

The execution, which gave Ah Q the opportunity to win his last "victory", befell Ah Q as unfairly as everything that was done to him in the world. He did not rob the most honest house of "venerable Zhao", and the suspicion that fell on him could also be based on the fresh impressions of the inhabitants of Weizhuang about another theft in which Ah Q really participated and the details of which he proudly shared. That other theft is not significant for us in itself: some of its details suddenly make us recall similar events described two and a half centuries before Ah Q's adventures in the story of the famous Pu Sung-ling "A certain Yi, a lucky thief." Recall both the accident of these two thefts, and the identical to the smallest detail the role of both heroes in them, who fled home after the first prey. Recall as one more of a series of evidence of the close interweaving of the tradition of the old national narrative into the fabric of Lusinev's prose, which was unexpectedly new for contemporaries. (Perhaps Lu Xun himself would have been surprised if he had been told about this coincidence, which came imperceptibly to him from the depths of Chinese memory, which has preserved the layers of centuries).

Ah Q's True Story has two plans. One of them is a Chinese village, the second (we will use popular terminology) is the same as a model of modern Chinese society for Lu Xun, in which the spirit of arbitrariness, disregard for the individual, and abuse of human morality reigns. This society is characterized by the consolation of "moral victories" that fetter the will to fight for liberation. This society has centuries of "moral victories" that help to forget about grievances and generally moderate the ability to perceive grievances. Not without reason, after the blows of the lacquered stick of the eldest son of the venerable Qian, our hero "felt relief, and then oblivion - a precious heritage bequeathed to us by our ancestors." The consolation of "moral victory" invented by Ah Q after the publication of Lu Xun's story became known as Aquiism. Akyuism is hypocrisy elevated to the rank of sincerity: seeking solace in " moral victory”, a person begins to believe in its reality and already forgets that it was invented by him, and the initially hypocritical faith then acquires a distorted semblance of sincerity, and there are no ends to be found. All that remains is satisfaction with the slave state. "Slavish soul!" - Judges exclaim Ah Q, not realizing that these words are fully applicable to them, for the sad and funny hero Lu Xun, at the behest of the author, bears on his shoulders the entire moral burden of Chinese society.

The story takes place in 1911. The overthrow of the Qing monarchy did not free Chinese people from feudal and imperialist oppression, which means that it did not bring him spiritual freedom either. Thanks to Lu Xun, we see a caricature reflection of the revolution in the village of Weizhuang, where everything remains the same. Except that Ah Q was shot. But what do his words mean before the execution: “Twenty years will pass, and the same one will appear again!”? Isn’t this what Lu Xun is afraid of, isn’t it from this, isn’t Lu Xun warning against repetition. And the already familiar cry “Save ...”, which this time did not have time to escape from the lips of the “criminal” ...

It is customary to say that Ah Q's True Story is grotesque. But it's not. There is nothing in it that would exaggerate the grotesqueness of reality seen by the artist, in which a dark night is needed, “a detachment of soldiers, a self-defense detachment, a police detachment and five more detectives” with a machine gun in order to capture one “dangerous criminal” - Ah Q. The irony of the author, his impeccable humor, the discrepancy between the sublime tone of the narration and the insignificant essence of what is happening produces a comic and terrible effect. On the whole appearance of Ah Q lies a reflection of the sadness of Lu Xun himself.

The release of a work of art into the world does not separate it from its creator: once observed, it will certainly live in the artist and influence the further fate of his work. So the image of Ah Q also influenced Lu Xun, but we, enlightened by Lu Xun, reading what he wrote, are already looking for familiar features in his other heroes. And we understand that some part of Ah Q is contained in the teacher and official Fang Xuan-cho from the "Summer Festival" with his persuading himself that "the difference is small", with his reflections on the inevitability of the unjust, with his complete satisfaction with his own way life. But poor Aunt Xiang-lin from Prayer for Happiness, with her naive humility, with her readiness for any blows of fate, is completely different and still the same as our old acquaintance Ah Q! And when, in a small sketch “Showcased to the Crowd,” the nanny shows the child to a white sleeveless jacket with black hieroglyphs of a person sentenced to death (“How beautiful!”), does not the resilient Ah Q appear before us again: “Have you seen how they chop off their heads ?. . It is beautiful! I saw how revolutionaries were executed in the city ... What a sight! No, no, just don't think that these people are bloodthirsty. The hot, tossing, curious street drawn by Lu Xun in the story “Showcasing the Crowd” is cold and indifferent, and the fallen rickshaw distracted her already indifferent, thoughtless attention from the condemned man. This is Ah Q in many of its most complex manifestations, captured by Lu Xun.

"A Prayer for Happiness" and "For Show to the Crowd" belong to the collection "Wanderings", mostly "urban", with stories about the intelligentsia. It is even embarrassing to assure that Lu Xun imagined the special significance of the role of the intelligentsia in China's movement forward: his works, which we will discuss, testify to concern about the state of mind and the capabilities of the Chinese intelligentsia. But he began to write about her a little later than about the village. One gets the impression that the writer hastened to speak about the most important thing in order to then turn to a detailed examination of all the parts and elements of this main thing available to him.

True, even in the collection "Cry" Lu Xun does not leave the intelligentsia without his, albeit short-term, attention. It is she who, briefly appearing in the story “Excitement”, poetically exclaims: “O joy free from thoughts and worries village life!" We are alarmed by this fleeting meeting. Our acquaintance with the relatively young generation of Lu Xun's peers, who have come into life, begins "in a tavern." It's not very reassuring. “In the tavern” is a monologue by Lu Wei-fu, who once argued with the author about the future of China, and now is indifferent to everything in the world. He teaches, returned to what he rejected - he teaches children the old Confucian science and no longer expects anything from life. He gave up without a fight, and that's for good. There is a sad allusion here to failed love, perhaps not realized by Lü Wei-fu himself, who talks about a girl who died from consumption. And against this sad background of complete hopelessness, for some reason, a bush of bright red flowers blazes among the southern soft snow, more than once attracting the eyes of both interlocutors. What does Lu Xun mean by this?

There is a lot of sadness in the "funny" story "Happy Family", the hero of which also did not find himself. He tries to write, but his head is as empty as his stomach. The trouble is that he is not adapted to anything, that the petty-bourgeois ideals of this handsome man are vague and unclear to him. So what to write about? “A work that tells only about the rainy days of life, they may, perhaps, not be accepted ...” Lu Xun tells about the black days of life (when firewood and cabbage are bought with the last money), but about bright days suddenly reminiscent of the smile of a little daughter, so similar to the smile of the hero's wife five years ago (when "she listened to him tell her that she would overcome all obstacles ..."). The sinless smile of a little girl thickened the tragedy of the story and added to the uncertainty of the present the threat of the future.

Worried about the state of public morals, "venerable teacher Gao" in contrast to the hero " happy family"- a frank ignoramus and a slacker and, in addition, a player. But he, too, belongs to the "intelligentsia" category, as he lectures at a girls' school and holds "advanced" views, as evidenced by his article on Correction. national history how about the debt of Chinese citizens. This scum, this caricature reflection of the noble aspirations of the advanced Chinese intelligentsia, is diversified by Lu Xun with another family. Its head Si-min, the hero of the story "Soap", is also concerned about the decline in morals. He saw two beggars - an old woman and a girl, her granddaughter, who gave all the alms she received to her grandmother, which speaks of her upbringing in the spirit of reverence for her elders. Si-min is upset only by the fact that for all the long time while he watched the beggars, they were served only once. Si-min did not give anything, because the girl, apparently, was “not a simple beggar” and it seemed inconvenient for him to serve a change. Before us is again the same immortal Ah Q, who does not leave the soul of the Chinese "enlightened" citizen. The whole family is brought to civilization by one piece of fragrant soap, which is enough for six months.

Lonely in this evil world is he who still hopes for the realization of his ideals. That's why the story is called "Lonely". His hero is not like everyone else, he interferes in other people's affairs, and they do not want to endure him and are fired from the school where he, a zoologist by education, teaches history. A man of harsh judgments, he becomes soft and gentle when he talks about children. Children are Lu Xun's own faith in China's future. That is why the shy-evil Kung Yi-chi changes in such a way in his affectionate conversations with children, that is why children are so attractive wherever they appear in the works of Lu Xun. Lonely could not stand the hungry loneliness, but he did not join the gray ranks of the inhabitants, having suffered a defeat of a different kind. He did sharp turn and became an adviser to the divisional general ... Salvation for him was death.

The next death is in "Sorrow for the Departed". "Mourning for the Departed" is Lu Xun's own mourning for yet another victim of cruel indifference. He and she are representatives of the younger generation who embarked on an independent path. This story is the confession and repentance of the hero... At the beginning there were lofty dreams, talk about women's equality, about Ibsen, Tagore and Shelley and fearlessness in the decision to go against the ban of her relatives. Eternal plot unruly love, but, alas, in the new conditions and already with irreparable death, because under the pressure of human condemnation and “endless like a stream” worries about food, the feeling turned out to be too fragile. He tells her that he no longer loves her, and his love was the only force that supported her in the abandonment to which they condemned themselves by their decision. He is not adapted to protracted, exhausting battles, and it seems to him that he would become stronger if she were a person of more daring judgments, if she were not mired in household chores. “If you only know what to cling to the floors of a walking person and hang on it, then even the most courageous fighter will find it difficult to fight, and the death of both is inevitable.” So he persuades himself, sincerely pretending that "it takes great courage to tell the truth." How this unscrupulous philosophy, born of despair, returns us immediately to the source that feeds it - Ah Q's naive-sly reasoning. He killed her with his truth. So the hostile society, which itself dealt with the "lonely", this time strikes its victim with a hand loved one for whom there is no salvation. He remains alone, already broken forever... The dying Xiang-lin from "Prayer for Happiness" is afraid of hell, if it exists; redemption will bring her a gift made for the temple - a threshold along which, like her body, thousands of people will pass. The heroes of "Sorrow for the Departed" want a hell that would be even worse than the mental anguish he experienced and where he could beg for forgiveness ...

Along with this, seven years after the Notes of a Madman, the reader of Lu Xun, amazed and excited by everything that the genius of the writer revealed to the world, this reader again hears the fearless voice of a madman raised against injustice. "Extinguish it!" - shouts the hero of the "Lamp". He will put out the lamp of the temple, and there will be no more locusts and no more diseases. Is not this method of getting rid of disasters too easy, however? And will they disappear? Does the madman limit himself only to putting out the lamp? We are left to think for ourselves about his answer to the keepers of the fire: as long as this is the only thing he is able to do, he must extinguish the lamp - and he himself will extinguish it! But the lamp, according to legend, lit by the Liang sovereign Wudi, burns inextinguishably for one thousand four hundred years, and all those whose darkness, whose thousand and four hundred years of misfortunes and misfortunes this lamp symbolizes, all of them, they themselves will not let the madman touch him. "I'll set it on fire!" - he threatens from behind the bars, to the fear and amusement of the children.

Comparing the two stories of Lu Xun - "Notes of a Madman" and "The Lamp", we also notice the difference between their two heroes. The hero of "Notes of a Madman" is a discoverer of truth and a exposer of evil, while the hero of "Lamp" is already a fighter against evil, which is all concentrated for him in an unquenchable lamp. If we talk about utilitarian benefits, then the denunciation of genuine evil, even in the allegorical form that it takes in the Notes of a Madman, is of course more important than an encroachment on a harmless fire burning in a lamp. But we are not dealing with a single fact of life, but with fiction, its generalizations and symbols. And in this case, the hero of The Lamp, with his passionate desire to destroy the evil of the world, is far ahead of his predecessor, who pointed out the evil of the world. The hero of the Notes of a Madman returned to his original state of a timid, respectable Chinese man in the street. This same madman is incurable, and he is dangerous, because he is afraid of nothing and no one. Will he convince others that he is right?

Lu Xun's lunatics are of later birth years than the lunatics of Russian literature well known to him. Soviet researchers pointed to the proximity of the "Lamp" to the Garshin "Red Flower". But the hero of the "Lamp" is ahead and tragic hero Russian writer Garshin. The hero of Garshin felt himself the master of his spirit. He betrays the body into the hands of the Holy Great Martyr George - “But the spirit - no, oh no! ..” He sees his task in the destruction of evil on earth. And because he managed to complete the task, his dead face was so calm and bright; "emaciated features with thin lips and deeply sunken closed eyes expressed some kind of proud happiness." And here comes the turn to put the hero of the "Lamp" next to him. The madman Garshin died for the people, but he alone knows this, because the symbol of evil was arbitrarily invented by him, while the hero Lu Xun in his madness found an unmistakable symbol of the misfortunes and backwardness of the people. And in The Red Flower, people are struggling with the disease of a madman who is left alone with a great and, alas, useless feat, while in The Lamp, there is a struggle with the madman himself, who is a noticeable danger to the old institutions of the old, bequeathed by the ancestors of the world. Garshin's gaze is focused on the madman, yet those around him - both the doctor and the guards - serve only as a caring background against which the hero's ghostly, but also deadly fight with evil unfolds. The enemies of Lusinev's madman are almost more important for Lu Xun than the madman himself: in them is the writer's thought and the writer's suffering about the thousand-year darkness (the fire of the lamp as a symbol of darkness) into which the people were plunged, in them the writer's horror before Aquiism, which sacredly guards its own misfortunes.

Okay, they'll tell us. Here are the "Cry" and "Wanderings" read. Where, among the multitude of people inhabiting these collections by the will of the artist, where are they, young enthusiasts, cheerful in spirit and determined to rebuild an unjust world? Is it enough to have Xia Yu, never brought to the forefront, and a wreath on his grave?

Lu Xun, like any great artist, does not need excuses. Maybe in the explanation. Lu Xun belongs to the writers whose artistic imagination is inseparable from direct life experience. Everything that Lu Xun writes about happened to him or was seen by him. The hero of his stories in the first person is often not even covered by a fictitious name. In other works, the author sometimes intrudes into the text, and does it not in the classical manner familiar to us (“And now, reader ...”, etc.), but emphasizing his own intervention, as we observe, for example, in "The True History of Ah Q". In this sense, Lu Xun is much more autobiographical than even Gorky or London. Convincing comments on the literary works of Lu Xun - as if parallel texts - can serve as his articles of approximately the same years. "Father's illness" hints to us that the boy in the liquor store from "Kung Yi-chi" is very close to the writer, and the doctor from the story "Tomorrow" is any of those who treated his father. Memories of Fan Ai-nung turn us to Lu Xun's friends - the characters in his works of art. People who knew the writer find in his works many signs of the life they know. Lu Xun writes about his generation. Therefore, the reality he painted is sad: it lives in his memory and in his heart. Such is the nature of Lu Xun's work, a character undoubtedly born of the writer's time, which demanded the direct disclosure and denunciation of social vices that grew on the millennia-old soil of various oppression of the Chinese people. And this was the main thing, because without it those enthusiasts, about whom Lu Xun did not write in his works of art, could not act. His own practical activity was revolutionary, and his artistic works called him to a decisive struggle. They caused pain and generated anger. As, however, at the present time, because they are related to all of humanity. In April 1926, Lu Xun wrote the articles "In Memory of Liu He-zhen." There are words that can express the feelings we experience when reading his works, in which there is no image, but over which the spirit of a revolutionary hero hovers: “A true hero boldly meets face to face with cruel and indifferent life, boldly looks at the pouring streams of blood. How much suffering and how much happiness! The layman is always indulged by the very natural course of things: time flies and washes away the past, leaving only a pink trace of blood and a slight sadness. In this pink color of blood and in a slight sadness, it is given to a person to drag out existence, to preserve this seemingly human, but rather inhuman world. I don’t know when it will end!.. If the living in the pink traces of blood see at least a glimmer of hope, then the true heroes will go forward with even greater courage.

Wanderings were followed by Wild Herbs, prose poems that captured Lu Xun's moods during 1924-1926. The years of strengthening the national liberation movement and the struggle against imperialism were also turbulent for the personal fate of Lu Xun, who was persecuted by the reactionaries. After the article "In Memory of Liu He-chen" and other articles, also caused by the shooting of a student demonstration on March 18, 1926, he was threatened with imprisonment. One has only to wonder at the intense inner life writer, which allowed him to find time and strength for creativity in this difficult time for him, which gave us both "Wanderings" and "Wild Herbs". “Wild Herbs” is the writer’s diary, which is precious to him (“I love my wild herbs, but I hate the land they decorate”), where instead of events, emotional anxieties and pain, and, less often, joys, are indicated and testimonies of an eyewitness and participant in the events of those years, and let the thoughtful reader compare them with the events: “On the verge of light and darkness, life and death, past and future, I bring these wild herbs as a gift to friend and enemy, man and beast, loved and unloved as my testimony.

There are twenty-four prose poems in The Wild Herbs. This genre is far from new to Chinese literature: Lu Xun had such predecessors as the Tang Liu Zong-yuan (773–819), the Sung Su Shi (1036–1101) or Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072). But they were also in Western, in particular in Russian literature. For now, let's turn to the Wild Herbs themselves. There are several poems that primarily attract our attention. Of these, perhaps the most remarkable is "Clever, fool and slave." The existence of a slave is unbearable. And he complains to the smart one, who is ready to cry with him and instills in the slave the hope that he will someday get better. And the slave is full of gratitude and already understands that there is justice in the world. But his life does not get better from this, and in his despair he turns to a fool. The fool calls the master of the slave a scoundrel and immediately begins to break through the window in the dark and stuffy closet of the slave. Frightened by arbitrariness, the slave calls people: “The robber breaks our house!” The fool was driven away, and the delighted slave received the praise of the master. So it became better for the slave, so the smart man turned out to be right. Didn't the cover of the parable help Lu Xun in order to, under the name of a fool, give more effectiveness to the already familiar madman who wants to put out the lamp. Crazy and stupid. How else can smart and slaves call them. "The Lamp" was written by Lu Xun on March 1, 1925, "Clever, Fool and Slave" on December 26 of the same year. The writer did not leave the thought of the fight against tyranny and of those who should bring to an end "this seemingly human, but rather inhuman world." In less than a year, he will write the story "The Sword" about the same.

Before Lu Xun, there were "Poems in Prose" by Turgenev in world literature. The Chinese writer read them and, moreover, was impressed by them. His several poems about dreams are structured in the same way as Turgenev’s “End of the World” (“It seemed to me ...” and “... Barely taking my breath, I woke up”), “Insect” (“I dreamed ...”), “Nature” (“I dreamed…” and “…and I woke up”). Let us recall Turgenev's poem "The Laborer and the White Hand" in comparison with "Clever, Fool and Slave". The hands of the white hand smell of iron: for six years he wore shackles on them. “And what is it for?” the laborer asks. “And for the fact that I cared about your own good, I wanted to free you, gray ones, dark people, rebelled against your oppressors, rebelled ... Well, they planted me. And the laborer replies to this: “Have you planted? You were free to rebel!” And two years later, the white-handed woman, who "rebelled everything," was executed. “Well, here’s the thing, brother Mitriy,” says one of the laborers, “is it possible for us to get the very rope on which they will hang him? they say, great happiness comes from this in the house! Everything is very similar to "Clever, Fool and Slave" and "Drug". It is very tempting to define influence here. But this is hindered by the striking similarity to Turgenev’s poem, namely “Drugs”, national feature which, at the same time, is unconditional, is also hindered by the proximity of "Clever, Fool and Slave" to Lu Xun's long-term, stubborn and independent thoughts. And I would like to say here not about influence - this word, in this case, as we see, is too inaccurate - but rather about the trend of Turgenev in Lusinev's prose poems.

Anxiety about morality breathe "Wild Herbs". And in the light of this anxiety, the unexpected appeal of the Chinese Lu Xun in the poem "Revenge" to the theme of the crucifixion of Christ, which attracted such artists as Andreev, France, Bulgakov in world literature, is understandable. Andreev's "Ben-Tobit" Lu Xun read, as he probably read "The Procurator of Judea" Frans. In Frans, the madman who drives the merchants out of the temple (Pontius Pilate says so - “some kind of madman”) is not so far from the madmen and fools of the Chinese writer. The indifference and cruelty of the procurator, who completely forgot about Jesus sent to his execution, come to life again in modern China Lu Xun. Like the indifference of Ben-Tobit. On that terrible day when Christ is crucified, the merchant Ben-Tobit has a toothache, and this spoils his joy from the successful exchange of an old donkey for a young and strong one so much that he is hardly entertained by the spectacle of criminals carrying crosses. “They say that he healed the blind,” said the wife, who did not leave the parapet, and threw a pebble at the place where Jesus, lifted by whips, slowly moved. From Lu Xun: “Passers-by slander him, high priests and scribes mock him, two robbers crucified with him, and they revile him ...” In the deaths and executions of Lusinev’s heroes, the old cruelty of the unsettled, indifferent world in which Christ was, there were "seven hanged men", there was a "little hand". Isn't Lu Xun thinking about this in his hope to arouse anger in people, which will lead to a revolutionary reshaping of society.

The genre of "Wild Herbs" - either parables or essays - allows Lu Xun to be publicistically direct. In his poem, the hero of the poem “Such a Fighter” fights with a lie, acting in the form of rows of incorporeal creatures. They cover themselves with banners and mantles embroidered with beautiful words - purity national spirit, the will of the people, morality ... He fights with them, they pretend to fall, and he becomes a criminal who raised his hand against morality, the spirit of the nation, the will of the people, the murderer of these holy words. Habitual play with fictitious feelings, words that have lost their noble meaning - that benefit of lies, against which "such a fighter" opposes. He raises the spear again and again. Lu Xun raises a spear against a lie in any of its forms - sublime and everyday. He does not want the cowardly philosophies of the so-called worldly wisdom of "Judgment", he does not want salvation by a facilitating lie " kite(“Forgive, not knowing why, would mean lying, and nothing more!”). He wants to be seen that the hypocrisy that has established itself in society feeds on lies. The spear does not lift easily. "Wild Herbs" told us about confidence, and doubts, and hope, and despair. A terrible dream in which there is no strength to move hands that have become terribly heavy from the chest (“Trembling in anticipation of death”), a sad dream about death on the road (“After death”). And yet the traveler goes forward ("Traveler"). What's ahead? “Ahead is a grave,” says the old man. The girl sees there "a lot of wild lilies and wild roses." Most likely - there are roses and a grave. Like his traveler, the writer will not return back to "where landowners are everywhere, where persecution and prisons are everywhere, where grinning faces and eyes full of tears are everywhere."

"Wild Herbs" is true poetry. In "Autumn Night", "Snow", " beautiful fairy tale The lyrical and philosophical tradition of the prose and poetic works of the Chinese classics that preceded them is concealed, and along with this, they contain the freshness of a momentary experience that excites us too. The European reader will not find in them anything that would seem important and noble, but nationally alien to him. Everything is so simple and everything is so close. How, by the way, is the Chinese antiquity, which served as a distant source of Lu Xun's actual poetry, simple and close. And when we read “The Dried Leaf”, a poem “about the late autumn of last year”, and we reach the writer’s lament about this year (“... it’s only a pity that this year I didn’t have time to admire autumn trees”), we are willingly reminded of the same mood by Bo Ju-yi: “I have grown old, but I am still addicted to wine. // Spring will come, I can't sit at home. // And that year I went out too late // And I didn’t see the Luoyang bloom.” Not autumn, but spring, and the year is not the current one, but “that one”. And yet, what a coincidence of coincidences - the one that Bo Juyi had such a mood, the one that Bo Juyi - a Chinese. And you won’t get away from such coincidences if you want to understand the literature of the Chinese.

The very name "Old Legends in a New Edition" suggests the presence of an old plot basis, thoroughly known to the Chinese reader since childhood. But what does "new edition" mean? The "new edition" is the writer's view of these legends, bringing to light their moral essence. The legends were written by Lu Xun intermittently for thirteen years. If we turn to Lu Xun's journalism or even confine ourselves to the notes to the last collection of his works, it will not be difficult for us to notice how topical these legends are, how Lu Xun argues with his opponents in them, making situations similar to contemporary ones or quoting famous polemical works through the lips of heroes . Apparently, careful analysis can lead to further refinement of all allegories and deliberate borrowings. But is that the point? That time has passed, and for us it is important what a work of art is serving now, how relevant it is and beyond the sensational topicality.

Lu Xun tries to free the legends from ritual pomp. Everything is everyday in the life that he describes, everything is close to the philistine everyday life. How can the reader of miracles expect in the ordinary everyday arrival home of the tired Strelok I ("Escape to the Moon") after an unsuccessful hunt that brought him three crows and one sparrow. The famous hero who once saved the world is now unknown to anyone, his former student stole his glory and is trying to kill him, and, finally, his wife leaves him. She (Lu Xun is true to the legend) flies to the moon, having stolen the medicine of immortality, and the more absurd this archaic modern situation, in the absurdity of which the nobility of the Strelok is preserved.

romantic story revenge for the father in the legend "Sword" is also surrounded by everyday details. But in it they fade into the background, giving way to the great idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe fight against tyranny. From even one scene of the departure of the king, we can get an impression of the moral state of a society in which, “according to general opinion who bowed below all before the king should be declared a model for the people. And among these slaves rises an avenger, a boy, ready to kill the king. In another legend, Lu Xun puts into the mouth of the philosopher Mo-tzu the words that one should benefit the people by one's death. The boy is alone, and the world is hostile to him - he will be killed before he has time to take revenge. And to help him, Lu Xun (not for the first time) chooses a strange, insane person for this world with burning eyes and incomprehensible songs. He chooses this deliberately, as evidenced by the writer himself. This black man does not want to be called the protector of widows and orphans: these words have been spoken hypocritically too many times. He separates himself from high-flown chatter: "People, and myself, so wounded my soul that I hated myself." He killed the king and died himself, but above him for us is a boy who, without hesitation, sacrificed his life, without which revenge would not have succeeded. The legend was written by Lu Xun in October 1926, the same year in March of which student Liu He-zhen was shot. The legend ends with the burial of three skulls: since it was impossible to guess which of them was royal, the highest honors had to be given to the murdered, the victim and the murderer. “Some loyal subjects held back tears of righteous anger, thinking that the souls of two terrible criminals at this moment, together with the king, are eating sacrifices. But nothing could be done." What has changed over the decades? the Chinese reader asked himself. And is it not time for everyone to understand what turned out to be clear at this funeral? That is, what, as we remember, Gogol said about the equality of the personality of Akaky Akakievich with any of the highest others in misfortune, which just as intolerably fell upon him, "as fell upon the kings and rulers of the world." Moreover, in this case, the will of the subjects itself brought down misfortune on the king.

The legends “Conquest of the Flood” and “Behind the Fern” written one after another are connected in different ways with modernity. In the first of them, the mythical conqueror of the elements, saving people from the flood, is a tireless worker, with his habits unexpectedly reminiscent of Peter the Great. The whole legend is bizarrely overturned in modern Chinese society by Lu Xun. The scientists torn off from life, fleeing on Mount Culture, are engaged in chatter familiar to the Chinese reader, regularly receiving provisions, and if it weren’t delivered from above on flying chariots, one could suspect Lu Xun of borrowing the first of Sasha Cherny’s “Two Wishes”: “To live on the bare top // Write simple sonnets… // And take from people from the valley // Bread, wine and meatballs.” Scientists are trying to blame the “common people” for the flood: “Before the flood, they were too lazy to strengthen the dams, but now they are too lazy to draw water.” The dignitaries who arrived for the examination are sure that the people are illiterate solely because they do not strive for development. Yuyu - the conqueror of the elements - one of the dignitaries reports: “Our people are meek, accustomed to everything. He, Your Grace, is famous all over the world for his ability to endure hardships.” And he came at the head of rude peasants, barefoot and tanned, forgetting even to look home for a minute (according to legend, he does not respond to the crying of his little son). He beats the routine. They want to prevent him from diverting waters to the sea only because his father arranged dams, and a respectful son should follow the example of his father in everything, and besides (here we hear the most popular argument, hardly related only to antiquity), “the device of dams is a method , recognized by the whole world ... ”The winner of the elements, finally, aged, with a gray beard returns. He won, he did everything for the people, but there is something that worries us in the excessive peacefulness of his return, in the fact that he "began to behave a little differently." Lu Xun, although he does not speak about this, makes it clear that the conqueror of the elements from the people has returned to the court, thus arousing the reader's desire to see those who themselves belong to the people and are already inseparable from it.

As it is said in the book of judgments of Confucius “Lunyu”: “Qi gong owned a thousand four horses; on the day he died, the people did not see a single virtue for which they could give him praise. Bo-i and Shu-qi died of starvation at the foot of Mount Shouyan, but the people still glorify them.” Touching the legend about the heirs to the throne of the Guzhu country, who refused to eat the usurper's bread (“For the Fern”). Lu Xun removed the high romance of the feat, translating all the events into a deliberately belittled everyday plan and posing before the reader all the same moral questions requiring resolution. They come from the very beginning. It is unusual for us to know that the high-ranking brothers, it turns out, are just poor old people living in an almshouse. They, therefore, have a different, unexpected for us, psychology of a dependent person, not protected from many troubles, never passing by the sons of the people. They were taken in out of mercy, and whatever happens, says one of them, you should keep quiet. “So we live only for food?” - answers the other. Funny, naive old people proved that they do not want to live just for the sake of food. The Zhou king went to war against the Shang, finding the reason for this in the latter's unseemly behavior ("... he renounced his ancestors, upset the sacrifices, blindly abandoned family and state affairs"). The old people are trying to dissuade the Zhou king from the war and can hardly carry their legs, but they don’t want to eat his bread anymore and go to a distant mountain. They go on for so long, and in such ordeals, and with such sometimes funny adventures, that with each step they take, the brilliance of the feat predetermined by legend fades. The fantasticness of the previous legend "Conquest of the Flood" here gives way to everyday thoroughness. The difficult life on the mountain in the gathering of ferns, cooking, annoying visits by the villagers, including a certain poet who was disappointed in the old people because of their "tendentiousness", and, finally, starvation presented us with a feat in a different, painfully laboring form, and heirs to the throne of the Guzhu country as not often seen funny eccentrics, whose naivety is the nobility of a simple soul, causing admiration and tears in their eyes. We forgive hungry old people (if only these rumors are true) even if they tried to kill a female deer who fed them milk. Lu Xun introduced one episode, optional for the legend, but far from accidental for the writer himself. The old people die of starvation, not simply because it was impossible to maintain existence with a fern, but because they were forced to give up both the fern and anything else: they were reminded that the Zhou sovereign owns everything on his land and his mercy is not in just bread. And hidden in this reminder is the fear that the behavior of old people in Eventually will seem normal, will come into use and will cease to be inaccessible to other people as an encroachment on forever established. Who knows if these old people had lived longer, whether others would not have been carried away by their example, and whether this eccentricity, harmless at first glance, would not have served as the beginning of a general denial of the sovereign’s heavenly power? But the old people died, leaving a strange feeling of bewilderment in those around them.

"Old legends in a new edition" - and those mentioned by us, I and the rest - turned out to be not so far from the first decades of the Chinese XX century, and only Chinese! Lu Xun, in the preface to them, hoped that something alive was still preserved in them. Maybe that's what all the legends are like? But let's not forget that these Lu Xun chose himself. “The tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it! Good fellows lesson".

With the "Old Legends in the new edition" in general, the path of Lu Xun also comes to an end. He died on October 19, 1936. Chinese and world literature have lost a great writer of our time.

In the history of Chinese literature, in the succession of generations of its most remarkable masters, Lu Xun's place seems to us the most outstanding. And not because or not only because he is better than his other greatest predecessors. But if they became known to the rest of the world only many centuries after their poetry made noise and excited the hearts and minds, that is, having already lost some part of the life-giving forces, then Lu Xun, like his China, with all his revolutionary creativity - and plot prose, and journalism - almost immediately entered the life of mankind.

And Lu Xun's literature itself, if we were able to show it to some extent, is close and accessible to all people: having absorbed world tradition, combining national and Western achievements, it has risen to the heights of realism in terms of the power of thought and means of depiction.

This is due, of course, to the personality of the writer - its traditional character and breadth. Lu Xun inherited the sincerity and uncompromising nature of Chinese poets, "poor scholars" who preferred the hungry truth to any well-fed lie. The only difference is that the truth in Lu Xun's time was immeasurably harder to get than in ancient times. Having accepted this beautiful tradition and developed its effectiveness, Lu Xun draws closer in it to similar fighters for truth in all world literature.

The last in time in the traditional line of Chinese poets and thinkers, Lu Xun revealed to his country and the world the moral state of Chinese society at a critical time in its existence, thereby rendering an invaluable service to the revolutionary movement of all mankind. Such is the greatness of Lu Xun.

Lu Xun was born into a noble, intelligent family, his father was an educated person but died early. The family lived thanks to his grandfather, who held a major government position in the capital. The mother was uneducated, from the village, but she learned everything on her own and after the death of her father tried to give her son an education.

From the age of 5 Lu Xun began to memorize classical lyrics, at the age of 8-10 began to read classic novels. He disliked classical Confucian literature. Grandfather went bankrupt when Lu Xun was 15 years old, and the whole family moved to Nanjing. There, Lu Xun enters the Nanjing Naval School, then to the Mining School - there he studies natural Sciences. At the age of 21, he leaves for Japan. There he enters the Medical Institute, but then he realizes that he wants to treat not the body of a person, but his soul (with the help of literature). The first work is “The Soul of Sparta”, 1903, then the article “On the demonic power of poetry” (about the poetry of A.S. Pushkin, Lermontov, Byron, etc.), 1907. During the Russo-Japanese War he gets acquainted with the works of L. N. Tolstoy. He is fond of Russian literature, calls to follow the Russian path, struggling with the old. Tries to show the cultural backwardness of China.

Lu Xun returned to China already known. He was invited to teach in Beijing and began to combine teaching with literature, write poetry.

In 1911, the Xinhai Revolution took place in China. In 1911-1912, he wrote the story "The Past", in which the beginnings of realism appear. From 1912 to 1918, Lu Xun did not write or publish anything.

In 1918, a movement for a new culture and a new language was brewing. Lu Xun wanted to create his own special literary style - colloquial style. He is the founder of modern Chinese literature - he combined elements of Wenyan with a lively, colloquial language, depicted real people, advocated the transition to Baihua.

The most famous books are collections: "Cry" (1918 - 1922), "Wanderings" (1924 - 1926), "Wild Herbs" (1924 - 1926), "Notes of a Madman".

Lu Xin present. the name is Chou Shu-jen. 1881, Shaoxing - 1936, Shanghai. Born into an impoverished bureaucratic family. Got a classic. and modern education, in 1902-1909 he studied medicine in Japan, where he turned to literature. Published a number of popular science works promoting the app. culture; among them stands out the article “The Power of Satanic Poetry” (“Satanic” here means “rebellious”), in which he first introduced the whale. readers of Byron, Pushkin, Lermontov, Mickiewicz and other European classics. liters. In 1909 he published (with his brother Chou Tso-jen) two collections. translations of writers, where a prominent place was occupied by Russian. authors. Popularization of Russian Literature continued until the end of his life, translating the works of Gogol, Chekhov, Artsybashev, Lunacharsky, Fadeev and others.

After the revolution of 1911, he worked in the Ministry of Education of the republican government and taught at Peking universities. With the beginning of "lit. revolution" (wenxue geming) in 1918 published "Kuan ren zhiji" ("Notes of a madman") - the first story in the modern. colloquial language, denouncing the inhumanity of the feud. about-va. Together with later realistic, humanistic. stories and ingenious satirical. with the story “A-kyu zheng zhuan” (“The true story of A-kyu”), he compiled a collection of books. "Nahan" ("Cry"), followed by "Panhuan" ("Wanderings", 1926) and Sat. poems in prose "Ye Cao" ("Wild Herbs", 1927). These works had a decisive influence on the formation of realistic. directions in the latest Chinese. literature, the founder of which was recognized as Lu Xun.

In the same year, 1918, Lu Xun's activity as a publicist began. His works in various forms of journalism - from political. articles and feuilletons to lit.-critical. notes and poems in prose (the author himself called them "variegated works" - za wen) - amounted to 10 collections, the first of which was "Zhe Feng" ("Hot Wind", 1925). In the works of 1918-1924, themes of criticism of the old societies predominate. devices and old morality, collectively referred to as "Confucian", polemics with the defenders of the old culture, support for the struggle of students. young people for the emancipation of the individual, for their rights and protest against the suppression of this struggle by the reactionary government. Lu Xun's journalism is distinguished by genre and stylistic. diversity, masterful use of satire and irony, lexic. wealth.

After the failure of the revolution of 1925-1927, the writer settled in Shanghai and immediately found himself in the center of literature. discussions. He stood for truthful, serious literature, helping to free. struggle, against leftist ultra-revolutionary slogans. At the same time, he waged a struggle with the preachers of the "middle way", in his opinion, leading literature away from reality. In 1930 he became one of the organizers and informal leaders of the League of Leftist Writers of China (Zhongguo zui zuojia lianmeng). He actively participated in the democratic org-tions, in the worldwide anti-fascist movement, spoke in support of the USSR.

In 1928, a book of memoirs Zhao hua xi she (Morning Flowers Gathered in the Evening) was published, where in poetic. The form tells about the native places of the writer, his friends. In 1936, Gu shi xin bian (Old Legends in a New Edition) appeared, a book that sometimes combines parodic and sometimes heroic-romantic in a peculiar way. interpretations of ancient myths and legends with clear allusions to the topic of the day. But the main the genre of the Shanghai period was journalism.

At the turn of the 20-30s, Lu Xun got acquainted with the ideas of Marxism and translations of a number of Marxist works, began to communicate with prominent representatives of the communist. intelligentsia, such as Qu Qu-bo. He began to propagate the father. and world revolutionary culture, opposed the policy of the Kuomintang and its supporters in literature. In the last months of his life, he joined the organization to repulse the impending Japanese danger. aggression.

Being an irreconcilable opponent of the former ideology, he considered it to be “feudal” and reflecting its traditions. culture, Lu Xun advocated the succession of the positive aspects of the classic. heritage and folk creativity, to which a number of works are devoted, in particular Zhongguo xiaosho shilyue (Outline of the history of Chinese prose, 1924).

The funeral of Lu Xun turned into an unprecedented bunk. manifestation. Writer, thinker, patriot and internationalist, Lu Xun is recognized as one of the largest figures in the history of China in the 20th century. Collections of his Op., as well as Dep. the works were repeatedly published in Russian, Japanese, English. and other languages.

Sources:
Lu Xin. Collected works. T. 1-4. M., 1954-1956; he is. Chosen. M., 1989; he is. “Oh, this great and damned wall”: (From the journalism of the 20s) / Intro. V. Sorokin // PDV. 1993, no. 2, p. 158-168.

Literature:
Glagoleva I.K. Lu Xun: Bio-Bibliographic Index. M., 1977; Zhelokhovtsev A.N. Falsifications continue: Through the pages of Chinese press publications about Lu Xing // PDV. 1973, no. 2, p. 143-148; Significance of the creative heritage of Lu Xun for the actualization of the sphere of China's culture and the establishment of world and national spiritual values ​​// Problems of literature of the Far East: Sat. materials II Intern. scientific conference... T 1, sec. I. SPb., 2006, p. 9-229; Lebedeva N.A. Lu Xun and writers of Northeast China // PDV. 2006, no. 5, p. 156-164; Petrov V.V. Lu Xin. M., 1960; Pozdneeva L.D. Lu Xin. M., 1957; she is. Lu Xun: Life and work. M., 1959; Semanov V.I. Lu Xun and his predecessors. M., 1967; Sorokin V.F. Formation of Lu Xun's Worldview: Early Publicism and the Cry Collection. M., 1958; Toroptsev S. Lu Xun and the struggle for realism in Chinese cinema // PDV. 1982, no. 4, p. 164-176; Fedorenko N.T. Lu Xun // Fedorenko N.T. Essays on Modern Chinese Literature. M., 1953, p. 38-84; he is. Writer's skill and its interpretation: To the 90th anniversary of the birth of Lu Xun // Fedorenko N.T. Selected works. T. 2. M., 1987, p. 274-289; Bao Zhong-wen. Lu Xundi sisyan he ishu xinlong (Socio-political and aesthetic views of Lu Xun). Nanjing, 1989; Wang Jun-hua. Lu Xun xiaoshuo xin lun (A new study of Lu Xun's prose). Shanghai, 1993; Lin Chih-hao. Lu Xun Zhuan (Life of Lu Xun). Beijing, 1981; Fang Xiang-tung. Lu Xun yu ta "ma" years of jen (To the creative biography of Lu Xun). Shanghai, 1996; Zhongxue Lu Xun tszoping zhu du (Articles on the work of Lu Xun). Beijing, 1990; Lu Xun and His Legacy / Ed. Lee Ou-fan. Berk., 1987.

Art. publ.: Spiritual culture of China: encyclopedia: in 5 volumes / Ch. ed. M.L. Titarenko; Institute of the Far East. - M.: Vost. lit., 2006 - . T. 3. Literature. Language and writing / ed. M.L.Titarenko and others - 2008. - 855 p. pp. 335-337.

Lu Xun

The True Story of A-Q

Text source: Lu Xun - The True Story of Ah Kay Priboy Publishing House, Leningrad, 1929 Translator: Boris Alexandrovich Vasiliev OCR and spell check: Oscar Wilde.

FOREWORD TO THE RUSSIAN EDITION

Strange as it may seem, the fact that we know very little about the richest literature ancient China, created over the centuries in the process of its continuous historical life, even stranger is the fact that we are completely unfamiliar with the literature of modern China. Meanwhile, there is no better way to understand the life of our neighbors, who are experiencing a renaissance and breaking old cultural foundations to build new ones, like the fiction of the post-revolutionary period, the flesh of the flesh of young China. Modern Chinese literature was the result of the language reform that was carried out in 1917 and consisted in the rejection of the further use of the classical language, a relic language that no longer coincided with the forms of the living language of the people. (By analogy, this corresponds at least to the Latin language in modern Italy or Sanskrit in India.) This transition to the language of modernity gave impetus to the creation of a new literature written in a living language and, at the same time, reflecting everything new in way of life and ideology of modern China, which was the result of its familiarization with the circle of Western civilization. At the same time, in the process of creating this literature, two lines of development, two main schools, were outlined, of which one, which united romantics, put the idea of ​​"art for art's sake" as a slogan, and the other, which united realists, proclaimed the principle "art for life". Romantic school, with a bias in imitation of European and Japanese literature, has its roots among the Europeanized intelligentsia and, despite its merits in the field of language enrichment, is less popular in China than the realist school, with its pronounced nationalism and naturalistic bias, closer to the rationalistic mind of the Chinese. The leader of the realistic school of writers is Lu Xun. Lu Xin -- pseudonym famous professor national literature and prominent publicist Chou Shu-jen. Literary fame two art collections were delivered to him: one appeared in 1922, entitled "Na-han" ("Cry") and the other, "Fan-huang" ("Wanderings"), printed in 1925. Chinese literary criticism unanimously noted the new writer, and, after some time, part of his works appeared in translation in English, French and Japanese, and the story "The True History of A-Key" received a flattering review from Roman Rolland. By the nature of his work, Lu Xun is a writer of everyday life, and one of the first began to take, as a theme, the Chinese village, which until then had not found a place for itself in classical literature China. Lu Xun is an observer, and his main quality is cold calm, combined with the intuition of a true psychologist. For Lu Xun literary creativity is a big deal educational value: in his attitude to art, he stands on a utilitarian point of view, and if this art serves the benefit of humanity, he fully accepts it, arguing, at the same time, that pure art has never been and cannot be anywhere, because the artist is always - son of his country and era. In the works of Lu Xun there is no tension of action, sometimes they are not prominent enough in the sense of the plot, but on the other hand, he has no equal among modern Chinese writers in the ability to grasp household parts and describe them truthfully. By their own political views Lu Xun is an individualist anarchist, and his mockingly skeptical attitude towards the old forms of social life as an unnecessary and harmful relic found support among the young radical Chinese intelligentsia. In his story Ah Q's True Story, Lu Xun directs his satire not only against the Chinese pseudo-revolution of 1911, but mainly against the old Chinese culture and old Chinese society. And if sometimes, drawing types of ordinary people from the people, he laughs at their helplessness, then this is only laughter through tears, for the writer's sympathy is always on the side of the downtrodden and destitute. Not belonging to a particular political party, Lu Xun at first sympathized with the Kuomintang, but after moving to Canton in 1927, he broke up with him and, having a negative attitude towards his policies, returned to the North, where he continues his literary activities. When translating the novels and stories of Lu Xun into Russian, the translators had to overcome great difficulties, mainly in the field of stylistic features associated with Chinese hieroglyphics - this specific phenomenon, which sometimes speaks much more eye than consciousness. Therefore, something, and sometimes a lot, is lost in the Russian translation, the principle of which is to use as little footnotes as possible.

I experienced deep joy when I learned that my story "A-Key's True Story" would be published in Russian. And on this occasion, I would like to say a few words. Have I reflected in my book the soul of the modern Chinese people? I don’t know how others will do it, but as for me personally, I generally have the feeling that there are high walls between us, people, separating us from each other and hindering our mutual communication. In ancient times, our smart people, the so-called "wise men", divided humanity into ten categories, arguing that they are not the same. Although we do not use this division now, it still exists in China and, moreover, in an even more unpleasant form. And, besides, our sages invented a still difficult to digest and unusually complex writing system. However, I do not particularly scold them for this, because I feel that they did it without intent, without thinking that very, very many they, by their invention, deprived them of the opportunity to read and write. Thus, all that writing that has come down to us represents the thoughts and laws of the followers of several sages, written by them for themselves. As for the people, it grew for 4,000 years in silence, withering and withering, like grass crushed down by a huge stone... And therefore, to draw a deeply silent soul of the Chinese people is a difficult task. And I feel it, because, despite all my efforts to penetrate it, I constantly feel some kind of barrier. In the near future, still surrounded by high walls, the Chinese people will wake up, break free and speak, but now this is still hardly noticeable, and therefore I can also write about Chinese life, based only on my own observations, lonely and lonely. After the publication of my story, the first thing I received was a censure from a young critic. Then there were those who declared it insane nonsense. Then it was called a mockery, and some saw satire in it. Finally, there were people who said that my story was a cold mockery, after which I myself doubted: is it possible that I have a piece of ice instead of a heart? But then I thought that human life seems different to every writer, and that the works of these writers seem different to each of their readers ... Thus, it is very possible that in the eyes of Russian readers who do not have a preconceived opinion about me, my story will appear in a different light. And if this is so, I will experience deep joy.

Lu Xun.

I. INTRODUCTION

It's been a year or two since I've been going to write the true story of Ah Q. On the one hand I wanted to do it, on the other I hesitated, from which it is quite obvious that I am not a celebrity. For in the old days, the brushes of immortal artists passed on to posterity the images of immortal people, these people left behind works, and the works, in turn, preserved their names to posterity, but what depended on what gradually ceased to be clear. As for my previous desire to write about Ah-Q, it is as if some supernatural force compels me to do so. However, wanting to write this very "mortal" essay, I did not have time to take up the brush, as I immediately ran into innumerable difficulties. The first was the title of the piece. Even Confucius said: "If the name does not match, then the words are not obedient." Special attention should be paid to this. There are a lot of titles for historical works: biography, autobiography, esoteric biography, exoteric biography, special biography, family chronicle, abridged biography... "Biography"? But this work of mine is not suitable to be placed, along with the biographies of celebrities, in the main story. "Autobiography"? But, after all, I'm not A-K. If we say that this is an "exoteric biography", then where is the esoteric one? Beli, nevertheless, to designate it as esoteric, then after all, A-Key is not at all a saint for whom they are written. "Special biography"? But A-K never received a government award in the form of an order from the Historiographic Commission to compile his biography. Although it is said that there are no biographies of players in the historical annals of England, the famous writer Dickens did write such a story. However, what is allowed for such a famous writer is by no means permissible for such as I. The next is the "family chronicle". But I don't know if I have common ancestors with A-Q, especially since I never received respectful treatment from his sons and grandsons. Perhaps a "short biography"? But, after all, A-Q did not have another, complete one. In the end, it will be more of a "personal biography", a life story. But in view of the peculiarities of the presentation, because of the rudeness of my style and language, which is the case with carters and street vendors, I do not dare to call my work even so. And so I decided to take two words: "true history" - from the favorite phrase of those writers who do not belong to either the three religious schools or the nine philosophical currents, [Three religious schools, i.e. Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, and nine philosophical currents, that is, a number of philosophical schools feudal period , which included all the literature and science of the court type.] and usually write: "Enough idle words, let's move on to true history!" --and made them the title. If it looks like the title that was given in ancient times to works of other genres, for example: "The True History of Calligraphic Art", then what can you do! .. My second difficulty was that, according to tradition, each biography begins usually in the words: "So-and-so, nicknamed some, come from somewhere..." But I didn't even know A-Key's last name. Once it seemed to me that his surname was Zhao, but the next day it again became doubtful. The fact is that when the son of the venerable Zhao achieved the degree of a candidate and, to the sound of gongs, this news reached the village, A-Kei, who had just poured two cups of yellow wine into himself, declared, gesturing and stamping that this event was very honorable and for him, since he is, in fact, the namesake of the venerable Zhao, and that, if you look at the relationship in more detail, he is three degrees older than the candidate. With such a statement, those present felt some respect. Who could have known that the next day the sergeant-major would summon Ah-Kei to the house of venerable Zhao? As soon as he saw him, the venerable Zhao flushed all over and, gasping for breath, shouted: - A-K, you kind of rubbish! .. You say I'm your namesake? Ah-K didn't open his mouth. The more venerable Zhao looked at him, the more irritated he became, and, jumping a few steps, continued: “How dare you talk such nonsense? How can I be of the same genus as someone like you? Is your name Zhao? A-Kei was silent, thinking about how to turn back, but the venerable Zhao, jumping even closer, gave him a slap in the face. “How dare you be called Zhao!?” How can you be worthy of such a surname? .. A-K, not trying to prove that his surname is really Zhao, only rubbed his left cheek and, finally, went out with the foreman. There he received a proper "suggestion" from him and thanked him for this with two hundred chokhs [Chokh - about 1/8 kopeck.] for wine. Upon learning of this, everyone decided that A-K was completely stupid and asked for a slap in the face. It is unlikely that his last name is Zhao; but even if this is so, then since there is already one venerable Zhao, you still shouldn’t talk nonsense. After this incident, no one took the trouble to find out his real name, so in the end I still don’t know what kind of surname Ah-Q was. The third difficulty was that I did not know how to spell his name. During his life, everyone called him A-K, and after his death they stopped calling him that. Where is there to be "ancient records on bamboo and linen." [T. e. direct evidence of ancient origin.] If, nevertheless, to raise the question of this, then after all this essay appears for the first time, and, therefore, the indicated difficulty immediately arises. I have already considered in detail how this same A-Key is written: through the hieroglyph "key", meaning "moon tree", or through "key", meaning "nobility". If his nickname was "Yue-ting" "moon pavilion", or if he was born in August, I would certainly write his name with the character "kei" meaning "moon tree". But after all, he did not have a nickname (maybe he did, but no one knew him), and besides, notifications on the occasion of his birth were never sent out, as is customary, so write his name through "key" in the meaning of "moon tree "It would be completely arbitrary. Now, if he had an older brother or younger, nicknamed A-fu - "wealth", in this case, by analogy, one could write his name with the hieroglyph "kei", meaning "nobility". But he was alone, and, therefore, to write like that is also unfounded. Other signs for the sound "kei" are even less justified. [With the monosyllabicity of the Chinese language and hieroglyphic writing, for the same word, pronounced the same way, but with a different meaning, there are several hieroglyphic inscriptions, due to which the richest play on words is possible, based on different inscriptions of signs as applied to an equally pronounced complex.] When I asked a talented candidate of sciences, the son of the venerable Zhao, about this. But who could have expected that such an excellently learned person as he would also be ignorant? True, he added that it was impossible to investigate the question I needed because Chen Tu-hsiu, having founded the journal New Youth, introduced foreign words into use, and because of this, the national culture perished. Then I instructed one of my countrymen to examine the court documents related to the A-Key case. It wasn't until eight months later that I received a letter that there was no person with a name that sounded like "A-K" in those documents. I don't know if the name really wasn't there, or if he couldn't figure it out, at least I don't have any other way. I am very ashamed, but if even a scientific candidate does not know, then what can be demanded of me? The fourth difficulty is the question of Ah Q's homeland. If his surname was Zhao, then on the basis of the custom of coordinating names with the names of provinces, it would be possible to consult family records in the provinces, which say, for example, "Long-si, originally from Tien-shui." The only pity is that his surname is not quite definite; therefore it is impossible to decide where his homeland is. Although he lived most of all in Weizhuang Village, he often traveled to other places, so it cannot be said that he is Weizhuang. If, on the other hand, one writes "originally from Wei-chuang", then this will contradict the exact historical method. I take comfort in the fact that at least the prefix "A" is quite reliable. There is no error in it, and it can be recommended to everyone. [The prefix "A" to names, practiced mainly in villages, sometimes corresponds to our suffix "ka" in names, for example - Grishka, Vanka ...] As for the rest, with such shallow erudition as mine, it is impossible to find out . One hope remains that future explorers who are obsessed with history and archeology may perhaps discover a lot of new data, but by then my True History of Ah Qay will, I fear, be consigned to oblivion. All of the above can be considered a preface.

II. BRILLIANT VICTORIES IN A BRIEF

Not only was Ah-Kei's name and place of birth unknown, but even his past. The reason lay in the fact that the inhabitants of Wei-chuang demanded only work from him, made fun of him, but never took an interest in his past. A-Kei himself did not talk about him either, and only when he cursed with others, he goggled his eyes and said: - My ancestors are much more important than yours. And what kind of bird are you?.. A-K had no family and lived in the local Temple of Agriculture. He had no fixed occupation and did day labor for others. It was necessary to mow wheat, he mowed; it was necessary to crush rice - grind; he had to row - rowing ... If the work dragged on, he temporarily lived in the employer's house, but as soon as he finished it, he immediately left. Therefore, when people needed it, they remembered Ah Q, or rather, they remembered his work, but certainly not about his past. When the work was over, he was quickly forgotten. What kind of talk about the past and merits can there be? Only once did an old man remark approvingly: "A-K is a master at work." All the while, Ah-K, stripped to the waist, lazy and skinny, stood in front of him. No one could guess whether it was sincere or mocking, but Ah Q was quite pleased. He had a very high opinion of himself, and all the inhabitants of Wei-chuang meant nothing in his eyes. In particular, this concerned two literate people; in his opinion, for them it was not even worth lifting a finger. Both of these scholars in the future could, perhaps, turn into scientific candidates. Venerable Zhao and Venerable Qian enjoyed the respect of their fellow villagers not only because they were rich, but also because they were the fathers of these literate people. One Ah-K did not show much respect in his heart, thinking: "My son could be more important." In addition, Ah Q had been in the city several times, and this added to his conceit even more, although at the same time he greatly despised the townspeople. For example, a wooden seat, three arshins long and three inches wide, was simply called "bench" by the Weizhuang people, and he also called it that, but in the city they called it a "shop", and he thought: "It's not like that ... that's funny !" To the big-headed fish fried in butter, all the Weizhuang people added onion feathers half an inch long, and the townspeople seasoned the fish with finely chopped onions, and he thought: "This is also wrong ... that's ridiculous!" But after all, the Weizhuang people were real peasants who had not seen the world. They didn't even see fried fish in the city. A-Key with his famous ancestors, high knowledge and, moreover, a real ability to work, in fact, was almost a perfect person. The only pity is that he had some external flaws. Most repulsive was the fact that he had bald patches on his head from an unknown scab that had appeared. Although they were his own, they did not, in his opinion, add anything to his dignity. Therefore, he forbade pronouncing the word "bald" in his presence, as well as all other words similar in sound; later he expanded this sphere, and the word "brilliance" also became taboo. As soon as this prohibition was violated, whether intentionally or not, A-Kei would blush in all his baldness and become furious, and then, looking at the opponent, either scold him or beat him if he was weaker ... However, much more often in such cases, for some unknown reason, A-Q himself always suffered. So he gradually changed tactics, which generally amounted to angry looks. Who would have expected that after Ah-Ke adopted the wrathful gaze system, the Weizhuang slackers took even more pleasure in mocking him? As soon as they used to see him, they would immediately make a look of astonishment: “Hey? Has it brightened up?.. Ah-Key became furious and measured them with an angry look. “There must be a lamp here,” they went on fearlessly. Ah-Q had no choice but to retort: ​​“What do you care about such a ...” as if at that time on his head there was not a simple, but some unusually beautiful bald patch. It has already been mentioned above that AhK was extremely knowledgeable; he instantly realized that this would be a violation of his prohibition, and therefore did not finish the sentence. But the idlers did not let up, continued to persecute him and, in the end, brought the matter to a fight. Outwardly, A-Key suffered defeat: his opponents grabbed him by the red braid, banged his head against the wall five times, and then, satisfied with their victory, left. A-K stood for a minute thinking: "But in general, I'm beaten by a boy ... The current century is no good ... ", and also retired with the consciousness of complete victory. [Under the patriarchal system in the family, insulting the elder by the younger or the father by the son brought disgrace on the head of the son and exalted the offended.] Everything that Ah-Key thought, he eventually blurted out. Therefore, those who bullied him very soon learned his opinion about spiritual victories. After it! about each time, twisting his red braid, they first inspired him: - A-K, it's not a boy who beats his father, but a man beats cattle. Say it yourself: a man beats cattle. Ah Q, grasping his own braid at the base with both hands and bowing his head, said: “Do you think it’s good to beat a midge?” And I am a moth. Well, will you let go? But, despite the "midge", the idlers did not let him go, trying to knock his head on the nearest object six times, and only after that, having had plenty of fun, they left, believing that this time A-K was put to shame. But less than ten seconds passed, when A-K was again already filled with the consciousness of a victory. He felt that he was alone in his humiliation; the rest of the words did not count, and only the word "only" remained. Wasn't the winner of the state exams - "yuan zhuang" - also "the only one"? What are they imagining?! After such glorious victories over his enemies, A-Key joyfully hurried to the tavern, swallowed several cups of wine, joked with others, cursed and, having won a victory again, returned drunk to the temple of Agriculture and fell into a dream. When he had money, he immediately went to play. A bunch of people were squatting on the ground, and Ah Q was squeezing his way into the middle with a sweaty face. His voice was especially shrill when he shouted: - On the "Green Dragon" four hundred chokhs! - Hey!.. Well, open it! "Heaven's Gate!" "Corners"! - On the "middle" - a hundred! .. One hundred and fifty! And under these exclamations, Ah Q's money gradually passed into the belts of other people with sweaty faces. In the end he squeezed back and watched, standing behind, worried about the others, until they all dispersed; then he too reluctantly returned to the temple, and the next day, with sleepy eyes, he went to work. After all, it is correctly said: "The old man lost his horse, but who knows - maybe it's fortunately." [An old Chinese proverb based on the story of how an old man living near the Chinese border lost his horse. When the neighbors began to express their regret to him, he replied: "Who knows, maybe it's fortunate." Indeed, soon the horse came running back, bringing with him another horse. But when the neighbors began to congratulate the old man on his luck, he replied: "Who knows, maybe it's unfortunate." Soon the old man's son, driving around a new horse, fell from it and broke his leg. Again the neighbors came to express their regret, but the old man again declared: "Who knows, maybe it's fortunate." A year later, the barbarians attacked China, all the youth were taken as soldiers, and most died in the war. The old man's son survived because of his broken leg.] Ah Kay, having won by misfortune once, failed in the end. It happened in the evening, on the feast of the local deity. According to custom, theater stages were arranged that evening, and next to them, also according to custom, many playing tables were placed. The gongs and drums of the theater reached Ah Kay's ears as if from afar. He heard only the cries of the banker. He won and won. Coppers turned into silver coins, silver turned into da-yans, [Da-yan - 1 ruble] then they formed a whole bunch. His joy was extraordinary: - Two da-yans for the "Heaven's Gate"! He did not understand who was with whom and because of what he was torn apart. Scolding, blows, trampling - everything was mixed up in a darkened head, and when he got up, there were no tables, no people, and only pain was felt on his body, as if from someone's legs or fists. Several people looked at him in surprise. As if having lost something, he moved towards the temple, and when he calmed down, he realized that his heaps of money were gone. Most of the players who came to the party were from outside the area. Where was there to look for them! .. A bright, shiny pile of money, moreover, his own - it was not there! To say that she had been carried away by the boys was no consolation; to say that he himself is a midge was just as little consolation... This time he felt the bitterness of defeat. But in the same moment it turned into a victory. With his right hand, A-K slapped himself with force, and a dull pain restored his mental balance, as if he was the one who had beaten him, and he was the other. In a moment this "other him" became just another person; and, though still in pain, he, perfectly relieved and contented, lay down and fell asleep.

III. MORE ABOUT BRILLIANT VICTORIES

Although A-Kei was constantly victorious, it was only clearly revealed after he received a slap in the face from the venerable Zhao. Having counted out two hundred chokhs for wine for the foreman, he lay down, angry, but then he thought: "The current century is absolutely no good - boys beat their fathers! .." Here his thoughts turned to the venerable Zhao, who now found himself in the role of a boy, and little little by little his good mood returned. He got up and, singing "The Young Widow on the Grave," went to the tavern. At that moment, he felt on an equal footing with people like Venerable Zhao. Strange to say, but from that moment on, everyone seemed to treat him with great respect. Ah Kay may have thought that this was due to the fact that he became, as it were, the father of the venerable Zhao, but in fact this was not so. According to Wei-chuang custom, if A-Seventh beat A-Eighth or Li-Fourth beat Zhang-Third, it was never considered a special event, and a clash with a celebrity like the venerable Zhao was needed to make it talk. And since it fell on people's tongues, then the one who beat him gained fame, but the beaten one, in turn, also joined in fame. Of course, it's not worth talking about the fact that A-K was to blame. Why is that? Yes, simply because the venerable Zhao could not be to blame. But if it was A.K.'s fault, then why did everyone seem to start showing him special respect? This is difficult to explain. Presumably, perhaps, because A-Kei spoke out about his attitude to the Zhao clan, and although he was beaten for this, everyone was afraid that there might be some truth in it and that, just in case, it would be better to show him respect. Or maybe because the sacrificial animals in the temple of Confucius, being the same pigs and rams as all other representatives of their breed, were made inviolable for Confucians as soon as they were touched by the dinner sticks of the "sacred wise" ... A-Key after This case remained satisfied for many years. One spring day, tipsy, he walked down the street and sunlight, near the wall, I saw the Bearded Van, sitting naked to the waist and catching fleas. At that very moment, Ah-K felt that his body itched too. This Van the Bearded was both lousy and hairy, and everyone called him Van the Lousy and the Bearded. AhK, skipping the word "lousy", at the same time deeply despised Wang. From Ah Q's point of view, scab was not surprising, but hairiness was a thing amazing and intolerable to the human eye. Ah-K sat next to him. If it had been anyone else, AH would not have dared to position himself so freely. But next to Van the Bearded, what was he to fear? To tell the truth, the fact that he sat next to him even did honor to Wang. Ah Q also took off his shirt and began examining it. But whether it was because it was freshly washed, or because he was inattentive, in any case, for a long period of time he caught only three or four, and Van the Bearded one followed the other, and clicked on his teeth. At first Ah-K was surprised, and then worried. Some Van has, and suddenly there are so many fleas, and he has so few! What an indecent position! He really wanted to find a big one, but there was no such one, there was only one medium size. He angrily put it in his mouth, gnashed his teeth - and yet he was far from Van! All his bald spots turned red. He threw his shirt on the ground and, spitting, said, "Damned worm!" - A lousy dog! Who are you scolding? - Wang asked slightly raising his eyes. Although lately Ah-K had received relatively respectful treatment, and therefore felt a certain arrogance, he was still a coward in front of the idlers who constantly beat him. But this time he was very brave. That hairy thing dares to talk!? - Whoever responds, I scold him! He got up and leaned over. "What, are your bones itching?" asked Van the Bearded, also getting up and throwing on his shirt. A-K, deciding that he wanted to run, swung his fist, but before he had time to lower his fist, he was intercepted ... A push ... A-K poked forward, and at the same moment Bearded Wang, grabbing him by the scythe, dragged him through the routine of banging him against the wall. “A noble man speaks with his mouth, not with his hands,” said Ah Q, bowing his head. But Bearded Wang, apparently, was not a "noble man": wasting no time, he hit A-Q five times, then pushed him so that he flew off chi [ Chi - about half an arshin ] for six, and then, satisfied, left. In Ah Q's memory, this was perhaps the first embarrassment in his life, because Van the Bearded with his hairiness was always the subject of ridicule from Ah Q, and not vice versa, and, of course, there is nothing to say about him dared to touch him. And now he took it and touched it ... It's incredible! Perhaps it is true what they say in the market, that "the emperor has stopped exams and does not want to have either scientists or candidates"? Is that why the importance of the Zhao family has diminished, and is it not why they began to look at him, Ah Qi, with disdain? Ah-K stood, not knowing what to do. A man appeared in the distance. Another enemy was approaching. This was the despised eldest son of the venerable Qian. Once he ran away to the city, to a foreign school, and then, no one knows how, to Japan. Six months later, when he returned home, his legs straightened out, and the braid was gone. His mother wept ten times, and his wife jumped into the well three times. Then his mother, coming somewhere, began to say: "The scoundrels cut off his braid while drunk. After all, he could be a big man, but now it's better to wait until it grows back, and then we'll talk." But A-K could not believe this and behind his eyes called him a "false overseas devil", as well as a "foreign spy" and, as soon as he saw him, he already began to swear in an undertone. But most importantly, what A-K in him "deeply despised and hated" was a fake scythe. After all, even if the scythe is fake, then, therefore, there is nothing human in a person; and that his wife did not jump into the well for the fourth time only proves that she is not a good woman. The False Overseas Devil stepped closer. - Bald! Donkey! The curse that Ah-K always said to himself, this time, on the occasion of being upset and thirsting for revenge, escaped him quite loudly. Unexpectedly, this bald man, holding up a yellow lacquer stick, the same one that A-K called the "funeral staff", [At the funeral, the next of kin go behind the coffin, leaning on a special stick, as it is supposed. that relatives are physically weakened by grief. In general, it was not customary to carry a stick in pre-reform China] walked towards him with large steps. At that moment, Ah-K, realizing that they wanted to beat him, drew in his shoulders and neck and began to expect an attack. Indeed, blows rained down on his head. - I said about him! Ah-K protested, pointing to a child [Guys usually have their heads shaved clean.] standing at a distance. - Here's to you, here's to you, here's to you! .. In Ah-Q's memory, this was, perhaps, the second disgrace in his life. Fortunately, these blows seemed to complete something in him. He felt relieved, and then oblivion - this precious ability, inherited from his ancestors, showed its effect, and he slowly went on his way. When he reached the door of the tavern, he was already quite cheerful. But then a small nun from the Temple of Tranquility and Purification appeared before him. IN regular time, seeing her, Ah-Key swore and spat; but what was left for him to do now, after being put to shame? Memories rose up in him, hostility was born. "But I didn't know why I was so unlucky today! It turns out I saw you!" he thought. He walked towards her and spat loudly. - Hai!.. Pei!.. The little nun continued walking without raising her eyes and lowering her head. Ah Kay came up to her and suddenly, holding out his hand, rubbed her freshly shaved head and laughed: - Bald! Hurry, the monk is waiting for you! - Why are you giving free rein to your hands, what are you touching? ' snapped the nun, blushing all over, quickening her steps. The people in the tavern burst out laughing. Ah Kay, seeing that his work was approved, completely dispersed. - The monk touches, but I can't? and he pinched her cheek. The people in the tavern laughed. Ah-K was completely delighted and, in order to please the public, he pinched the nun even harder and let go. In this tournament, he completely forgot both Van the Bearded and the "false overseas devil", as if all his sorrows were avenged at once. And strangely, his whole body, after the beatings, seemed to be relieved, as if it was ready to fly somewhere ... - Oh, you ... childless A-K! - the cry of a little nun was heard from afar. -- Ha-ha-ha! - laughed quite pleased A-K. -- Ha-ha-ha! laughed almost equally pleased people in the tavern.

IV. TRAGEDY OF LOVE

Someone said that there are winners who want their opponents to be tigers or falcons, because only then do they feel the joy of victory; on the contrary, if the opponents turn out to be like a ram or a chicken, they feel the meaninglessness of such a victory. And there are those who, having won and seeing that those who were dying have died, and those who have surrendered, and everyone around them tremble and repeat: “Your servant is truly trembling, truly terrified ... His guilt is worthy of death,” - such understand that for they have no enemies, no rivals, no friends, that they are alone above everything, alone, in the cold, in silence ... And then they feel the bitterness of victory. But our A-K did not have such shortcomings. He was quite pleased with himself. This, perhaps, is one of the proofs why the spiritual culture of China is ahead of everyone on the globe! Look! In rapture, he seemed to want to take off ... But this time the victory turned out to be somewhat strange. After wandering in ecstasy for half a day, he found himself in the temple of Agriculture and, according to custom, had to lie down and snore. Who would have thought that this evening it was very difficult for him to close his eyes? He felt something strange in his forefinger and thumb, as if they had become more resilient than ever. It is not known if the fat from the little nun's face stuck to them when he touched her, or if it was because he pinched her and rubbed her fat into his fingers... "Childless AQ!" Her words echoed in his ears. And he thought: "That's right ... You must have a woman. After death, no one will sacrifice a cup of food to a childless person. You must have a woman! In addition, it is said that "of the three human vices, the greatest is not to have offspring." It is also known that "the spirit of Jo-ao was starving. Yes, childlessness is a great disadvantage in human life." Thus, his thoughts coincided with the precepts of the sages and saints. It is a pity, as it turned out later, that he could not restrain himself. "Woman... Woman..." he thought. But, in general, after this incident, he still felt elasticity on his fingers, in rapture dreaming of a woman. This example shows that women are harmful creatures. In China, a good half of the men could become saints if they were not spoiled by women. The Shang Dynasty died because of Ta-ji, the Chou dynasty collapsed because of Bao-si, the Qin dynasty... although there are no indisputable facts in history, but if we assume that she died because of a woman, then this is unlikely to be completely wrong. In any case, Dong-Zhuo was killed by the mercy of Diao-Chan. A-K was a very moral person, and although we do not know what enlightened mentor he studied with, but regarding the principle of "separation of the sexes", he was always unusually strict and always had firmness in condemning various abnormalities, such as a small nun or a "false overseas trait". His theory was this: every nun is, of course, in connection with a monk, every woman who has left the house, of course, dreams of debauchery with her lover, and if anywhere a woman talks to a man, then, of course, between them the matter is not clean. To express his condemnation, he cast angry glances at women, or loudly uttered a few caustic remarks, or from a secluded place hurled stones at their backs. And who would have thought that at (the age of 30, when a person is "established", [In the classic book "The Sayings of Confucius", the great Chinese philosopher, speaking of the development of his personality in connection with age, said: "I have passed 30, and I Afterwards, in response to a question about age, well-read people answered with the words of Confucius without indicating the number, i.e. a thirty-year-old person, when asked how old he is, says: “I am established,” which means that he is 30 years old.] as Confucius said, because of a little nun he would lose his peace of mind? From the point of view of decent tone, this spirit of lust should not exist, and, of course, women should truly be hated for this. "Key, of course, would not fall into sin, and if her face were covered with matter, then he would be all the more far from temptation. "A woman!" about whom he believed that they "of course dream of debauchery with a lover," but they did not even smile back at him. He began to listen attentively to those who spoke with men, but there was nothing lecherous in their conversations. ABOUT! Here's another thing to hate in women: they all masquerade as "false virtue." On that day, A-Kei was grinding rice in the house of the venerable Zhao and, having finished supper, sat smoking his pipe in the kitchen. If this happened in some other house, then after dinner, in fact, it would be possible to leave, but in the Zhao family they dined early, and although according to the established rule it was not allowed to light lamps (dine - and sleep!), but there were still exceptions for some cases: firstly, when the son of the venerable Zhao had not yet received the degree of candidate, he was allowed to light a lamp and study; secondly, when A.K. came to do his daily work, he was allowed to light a lamp to crush the rice. In accordance with this exception, before starting work, Ah Q sat in the kitchen and smoked a pipe. U-Ma was the only maid in Venerable Zhao's household. After washing the dishes, she also sat down on the bench to chat with Ah Q. “The hostess hasn’t eaten anything for two days because our master wants to buy a young one…” A woman… U-Ma… that little widow, Ah-Q thought. “... and our young mistress is eight months old and is about to give birth…” A-K released his chibouk and got up. “Our young mistress. , . - U-Ma continued to crackle. -- Let's sleep together! Ah Kay suddenly rushed to her and knelt down. For a moment it was completely quiet. Ai-ya!--" U-Ma suffocated in amazement and, jumping up, ran out screaming ... She ran, screamed, and then even seemed to cry. Ah-Kei, too, kneeled in amazement in front of the wall, hugging an empty bench with his hands , then slowly got up, realizing that something was wrong here. His heart was beating violently. In embarrassment, he put the pipe in his belt and was about to start pounding rice, when suddenly a rough blow fell on his head. He quickly turned around. In front of him stood with candidate with a bamboo stick. "Did you dare?.. Ah, you! The long bamboo fell on his head again. Ah-Q grabbed it with his hands, and the blow fell on his fingers. It was very painful. When he jumped out the door, he felt like as if hit on the back as well. - Oh, you forget the eight rules of the egg! Confucians substituted the same meaning under the same words with other hieroglyphs, pronounced in the same way, but meaning “an egg that forgot eight rules,” that is, a person without Confucian morality.] the candidate swore after him in classical language. Ah-Q ran into the barn and stopped, still feeling the pain in his fingers and remembering "the egg that forgot eight rules." Peasants from Wei-chuang never spoke such a language, but only important persons familiar with officials spoke it. Therefore, A-K was completely frightened - he experienced an extraordinary impression. At that moment, all his dreams of a woman disappeared. After swearing and beatings, this issue was over. Ah Kay felt carefree again and returned to pound the rice. After working for a while, he began to sweat, stopped and began to take off his shirt. Taking it off, he heard a loud noise outside and, being a lover of all kinds of scandals all his life, hurried to courtyard Zhao's house. Although it was twilight, he distinguished a lot of people there: there was a hostess who had not eaten for two days, there was also a neighbor, Aunt Tsu-Seventh, and close relatives - Zhao: Bai-yen and Zhao Sy-chen. The hostess was just persuading U-Ma to leave the servants' room, repeating: "Well, come out!" There is nothing to hide in your room ... - Who doesn't know that you are honest ... And suicide is no good at all! said Aunt Tsu-Seventh, from the side. U-Ma only cried and mumbled something, but it was hard to hear. "Hm," thought Ah Q, "I wonder what the widow made a fuss about?" He decided to find out and went to Zhao Si-chen. At that moment, he suddenly noticed Venerable Zhao's son running towards him with a long bamboo stick in his hand. Seeing her, Ah Kay instantly realized that the recent beatings had some connection with all this noise and, turning around, ran, thinking to run away to the barn, but a bamboo stick blocked his path. Then he turned in the other direction, ran out through the back gate, and after a while found himself in the temple. After sitting for a while, he felt cold, and goosebumps ran over his skin, because, despite the beginning of spring, the nights were still cold and it was impossible to go undressed. He remembered that his shirt was left at Zhao's house, he wanted to go and take it, but he was afraid of the candidate's stick. Here came the foreman. “A-K, so-and-so... Have you even started pestering Zhao’s servants?” This is a disgrace, this is a riot! You harm me too, don't let me sleep in the evenings, such and such... In the same spirit, the foreman continued his instruction, to which A-K, of course, did not mind. In the end, in view of the late time, I had to promise the foreman for wine twice as much as usual, that is, as many as four hundred chokhs; and since A-Q had no money, his felt hat was pledged. In addition, Ah Kay had to agree to the following five conditions: first, to go to Zhao's house tomorrow with an apology, with a pair of red candles of one jing each weighing th with a pack of incense; secondly, the Zhao family invites Taoists at the expense of A-Kei to exorcise the demon of misfortune; thirdly, from now on, A-Kei is forbidden to approach the gates of Zhao's house; fourthly, if anything unexpected happens to U-Ma henceforth, Ah-K will be responsible for it, and fifth, Ah-K is not allowed to demand money for work or his shirt. A-K, of course, agreed to these conditions. The only pity is that there was no money. Luckily, spring came and the quilt, which he sold for two thousand chokhs, could be dispensed with in order to fulfill his obligations. After all these expenses, he still had a few coins left, but he did not even think of redeeming the felt hat, but drank the money away. The Zhao family did not burn any candles or incense, leaving them in reserve, because they could be used when the hostess went on a pilgrimage. As for Ah Kay's shirt, the larger half was used to make diapers for the baby born to the young lady in the eighth month, and the smaller, torn half was used to make soles for U-Ma's shoes.

v.THE QUESTION OF FOOD

Having finished the prescribed ceremony, Ah-Kei returned to the temple as before. The sun was already beginning to set when he felt that something strange was happening in the world, and, thinking more seriously, he finally came to the conclusion that the reason lay in his naked body. Remembering that he still had a robe, he threw it on and lay down, and when he opened his eyes, it turned out that the sun was already illuminating the edge of the western wall. Rising, he went on roaming the streets as before, and although no longer with such force as the physical pain of a naked body, he nevertheless gradually again began to feel that something strange was happening in the world. It seemed as if from that day on all the women in Wei-chuang became timid: upon seeing Ah Q, they immediately left and hid behind the gate one after another. It got to the point that even Aunt Tsu-Seventh, who was under fifty, also hurried after the others to hide, and even taking her eleven-year-old daughter with her. Ah-Key was extremely amazed and thought: "Why did all these creatures suddenly learn the manners of well-bred girls? .. Such sluts!" But he felt even more that things had become strange in the world after the events that happened a few days later. Firstly, in the tavern they stopped letting him go on credit, secondly, the old man, who was in charge of the temple of Agriculture, made several hints, as if suggesting that he leave the temple, and thirdly, although he did not remember exactly how many days , but in any case, not a little! Nobody called him to work. That the tavern closed the credit - that could still be tolerated; that the old man was urging him to leave - let him talk to himself, but sit without work and starve? No, that would really be outrageous! Ah-Ki couldn't bear it and decided to go on reconnaissance to his old employers, since he did not dare to show himself only at Zhao's house. But strange thing! Only men came out to him and with an irritated look, as if refusing a beggar, waved their hand: - No! No! Leave! Ah-K was surprised more and more. “Before, everyone vied with each other for help, and now suddenly no one has a job. There is something wrong here,” he mused. After inquiring carefully, he learned that little Den was now invited to any job. This little Den was the son of a poor man, thin and weak, and in Ah Q's eyes he was even lower than Van the Bearded. Who would have thought that this scoundrel would interrupt him, A-Key, for a piece of bread? Ah-K was angry this time much more than usual; walking furiously along the road, he suddenly waved his hand and sang: “I hold a steel whip in my hand, I want to slay you. .." A few days later, he finally met little Den at the "wall from evil spirits." a straight line and are not able, having rounded this wall, to fly into the gate from the side.] their eyes sparkle. And so A-K rushed forward, and little Den stopped. - Cattle! Ah-Q grunted, giving him an angry look and spitting out of the corner of his mouth. - I'm a midge ... Right? said little Dan. This humility, on the contrary, inflamed Ah Q's anger, but since he did not have a steel whip in his hand, he simply rushed forward and grabbed Den by the scythe. Little Den, protecting the base of his own scythe with one hand, with the other, in turn, grabbed A-Q's scythe, and the latter had to protect its base with his free hand. Previously, from the point of view of A-Q, little Den would not have been suitable for his opponents, but now, when due to a hunger strike, he himself was emaciated and weak, he could not cope with him, and it turned out that Den turned into a rival equal to him by strength. Grabbing two braids with four hands, they stood like that for half an hour, bending over and reflecting a blue rainbow on the white adobe wall of Qian's house. -- So-so! - said the inhabitants, as if persuading them to disperse. -- Great! Great! said the others, half persuading them, half blaming them, half encouraging them. But the opponents did not listen. First A-K advanced three steps, and little Den retreated and then both stopped, then vice versa - Den advanced and A-K retreated, and again both froze in place. Steam rose from their hair, sweat rolled down their foreheads... Ah-Q's hands unclenched, and at the same moment little Dan's hands unclenched. They straightened up at the same time, retreated at the same time and climbed out of the crowd of spectators. “Remember, this-and-such…” A-K said, turning his head. - So-and-so ..., remember! - also turning his head, said little Dan. In this "battle of the tiger with the dragon" there seemed to be neither victory nor defeat; it is also unknown whether the audience was satisfied (they did not express their opinion on this matter!) but, in any case, still no one called Ah-Key to work. One day, on a warm, quiet day, when summer was already in the air of a light breeze, A-K felt a chill ... It could still be endured, but now - there was hunger in his stomach. The wadded blanket, felt hat and sweater are long gone. In the second place, a wadded bathrobe was sold. All that remained were his trousers, which could no longer be taken off, and a tattered shirt, which could only be presented to someone for the soles of shoes, but for which nothing could be obtained. He had long dreamed of finding a handful of money on the road, but still could not find it. He also dreamed of suddenly finding money in his miserable room, looked around, but the room was empty ... Then he decided to go out and look for food. Walking along the road in search of food, he saw a familiar tavern, saw familiar cakes, but passed by, and not only did not stop, but did not even think about them. What he was looking for was of a different kind, but what these things were, he himself did not yet know. Wei-chuang was a small village and soon ended ... Behind it, rice fields began; the eye rested on the green of fresh ears of corn, among which one could see several moving round dots—they were peasants working in the field. But A-Key, who did not share these agricultural joys, continued on his way, as he clearly realized that all this was not like his way of obtaining food. Finally, he approached the fence of the monastery of Tranquility and Purification. Around were the same rice fields, and the white fence stood out clearly among the fresh greenery. Behind, behind the adobe wall, there was a vegetable garden. Ah Kay hesitated and looked around - there was no one! - and began to climb over the wall, clutching at some kind of creeping plant; but the clay crumbled under his feet, and he slid down, until at last he grabbed the bough of a mulberry tree and jumped into the garden. It was green, green, but there was no wine, no cakes, or other edible things. A bamboo grove adjoined the western wall, in which there were many shoots, but, alas, not boiled ones. There was a lot of different vegetables - the mustard blossomed, the cabbage was rounded ... A-K, in despondency, as if he had failed in the exam, slowly walked back to the gate and suddenly cried out with joy. Well, yes, of course: there is a turnip in front of him! He was already bending down after her, but a round head suddenly poked its way through the gate and immediately disappeared. It was a little nun. Ah Q looked at the nuns like they were weeds. But prudence is required in the world, and therefore, as quickly as possible, he pulled out four turnips, unscrewed the leaves with them and put them in his bosom. At that moment, the old nun came out. -- Oh Gods! A-K, why did you climb into the garden to steal turnips? Ay-ya! Shame! Ay-ya! Oh Gods! “When did I break into your garden to steal?” - backing to the exit, asked A-K. "Now... isn't it?" The old woman pointed to his shirt. - Are these yours? You ask them if they will answer you? Eh, you ... A-K, without finishing, ran in big jumps. A big, fat black dog pounced on him. In fact, he was always in the front yard, but here it is not known how he ended up in the garden. The dog, barking, chased him and was already preparing to grab him by the leg, but fortunately one of the turnips fell out of his bosom. The dog stopped in fright ... At that time, Ah Kay managed to climb a mulberry tree, jumped onto the fence, and then both the man and the turnips rolled down ... Only the black dog remained, barking at the tree, and the old nun, muttering A -Key, fearing that the old woman would set the dog on him again, gathered the turnips and set off, picking up a few stones from the ground. But the dog did not show up. Then A-K threw away the stones and went, eating turnips as he went and thinking that there was nothing for him to do here and that it would be better to move to the city. When the third turnip was eaten, he finally settled on this decision.

VI. FROM GREATTOFALL

The Weizhuang people saw A-Kei again only at the end of the middle autumn of the same year. Everyone was amazed when they learned about his return, and began to remember when he left. Previously, when A-K was in the city, he joyfully and animatedly informed everyone about it in advance, but this time it was not so, and therefore no one at the time paid attention to his departure. Maybe he told the old man in charge of the temple about this, but in the village of Wei-zhuang, according to the old custom, only trips to the city by such persons as Venerable Zhao, Venerable Qian or Mr. Candidate were considered an event. The "False Overseas Devil" was no longer one of them - then what to say about Ah Q? Of course, the old man did not spread the news. This latest return of Ah Kay was quite different from the previous ones and truly worthy of attention. The sky was already beginning to darken when he casually appeared in front of the door of the tavern, went up to the counter and, pulling out a handful of silver and copper from his belt, threw the money on the counter with the words: - Here is the money! Give me some wine! He was dressed in a new jacket, and it was clear that he had a large purse hanging from his belt, which, with its weight, pulled the belt so that a very deep bend was obtained. In Wei-chung's custom, the extraordinary guest was always treated with reverence rather than suspicion. Although now everyone knew that it was A-Key, but since he did not look like A-Key in a torn shirt, and the ancient sages said: "When a scientist leaves his native village for at least three days, he must be met with special honor ", then the servants, and the master, and visitors, and passers-by showed him all the signs of respect - however, mixed with doubt. The owner was the first to nod his head and then spoke: - Ah, you're back, A-K? -- Returned. - Get rich, get rich! [Form of greeting, equal in meaning to: Congratulations on your luck"] You... - Was in the city. The news went around the village the next day, and everyone wanted to know the story of Ah Q's luck with his money and his new jacket. "And so rumors began to gather in the tavern, in the tea-house and in the temple. According to A-Kei, he worked in the house of Mr. Scientist. This part of the story plunged those who heard it into awe. The name of this Mr. one scientist, there was nothing to add a surname to, for to say "scientist" meant to call him exactly. And this was true not only for Wei-chuang, but also for a hundred in a circle. Many even believed that "Mr. Scientist" - - this is his name and surname.To serve in the family of such a person! For this, A-Q was really respectable. However, according to the same A-Key, he did not want to serve longer, because this Mr. scientist was too big a scoundrel. At such a statement, the listeners both sighed and rejoiced, because, on the one hand, A-K, of course, was not fit to work in the house of the venerable gentleman scientist, on the other, it was worth regretting. A-K also said that he also returned because of his dissatisfaction with the city dwellers. In addition to their old faults, such as calling a "bench" a "shop" and not adding onion feathers to fried fish, he also found that women did not know how to hobble gracefully enough in the street. [ It's about about the gait of women on crippled legs.] However, at the same time, the townspeople have many advantages. Take, for example, the fact that the Weizhuang only know how to play with thirty-two bamboo cards and only the "false foreign devil" plays "ma-chiang". But in the city, even the boys are experts in this matter. Where is the "false devil"! If only he falls into the hands of such ten-year-old boys, in one second he will become "an insignificant sinner in the face of the prince of hell"! Everyone blushed at this story. “Have you seen how heads are chopped off?” asked A.K. - Oh, it's beautiful! Revolutionaries were executed... Wonderful! He shook his head and spat straight into the face of Zhao Si-chen standing in front of him. The audience trembled at these words. Ah Kay looked around and suddenly, waving his right hand, hit the back of the head of Van the Bearded, who was listening with his neck stretched forward. - R-time! .. That's it! Van the Bearded jumped back in fright, pulling his head in, and everyone was directly shocked. After that, Bearded Wang had a headache for many days, and he no longer dared to approach A-K. Others, too. At that time, the position of A-Kei in the eyes of the Weizhuang was not exactly superior to that of the venerable Zhao, but to say that it was the same would probably not be an exaggeration. In the future, the great fame of A-Kei quickly penetrated into the women's quarters [The female half is a harem, where, in addition to the main wife, concubines live with rich Chinese.] Wei-zhuang. Although, in fact, in the village of Wei-chuang, only two, Zhao and Qian, had large chambers, and nine-tenths of the rest of the inhabitants had very modest ones, nevertheless, the women's chambers remain women's chambers, and this case can be considered amazing. When they met, the women said that Aunt Tsu-Seventh bought from A-Kei a blue silk skirt, second-hand, of course, but paid only ninety chokhs for it. In addition, Zhao Baiyan's mother (according to others, Zhao Si-chen's mother, but this needs to be verified!) bought a children's shirt made of red overseas silk, seven-tenths new, for only three hundred chokhs. Therefore, they all dreamed of seeing A-K, and those who lacked a silk skirt expected to buy this thing from him, and those who wanted a blouse made of overseas silk dreamed of buying such a blouse. Now they not only did not run away when they saw him, but it even happened that A-K would pass by, and they would run after him and ask: - A-K, do you have any more silk skirts? No? Do you have silk sweatshirts? The news spread from the modest quarters to the rich, because Aunt Tsu-Seventh, who was satisfied with her purchase, asked the wife of the venerable Zhao to evaluate the silk skirt, and she informed her husband about this and praised her very much. Venerable Zhao at dinner, in a conversation with the candidate, decided that something was wrong with A-Q and that he should pay attention to his own doors and windows. As for his goods, perhaps something can be bought if his goods are good. In addition, the wife of the venerable Zhao wished to purchase a cheap but good shower jacket. Then, at the family council, they decided to instruct Aunt Tsu-Seventh to immediately find A-Kei, and on this occasion they violated the tradition for the third time, allowing themselves to light the lamp that evening. A lot of oil burned out already, but A-K did not appear. All the members of the Zhao family were impatient, yawning, scolding Ah-Kei for his flightiness, and scolding Auntie Cu for cheating. Venerable Zhao's wife was afraid that A-Kei would not dare to come because of the spring story, but her husband saw no reason for this, because he himself called him. Indeed, the venerable Zhao, in the end, turned out to be right, and Ah-Kei appeared, accompanied by Aunt Tsu-Seventh. He kept saying no, no, but I said: “You have to go and say it yourself,” and he still wanted to say, and I said ... - Aunt Tsu chattered, barely appearing at the door. - Sir! - said Ah-Key, half smiling, half not, and stopped at the entrance. “A-K, I hear you got rich somewhere,” said the venerable Zhao, coming up to him and measuring him with his eyes. -- Well, that's good... It's very good... Yes... I hear you have some of the old things... You can bring everything to show... Not for anything else, but just me I would like to... - I already told Aunt Tsu. It's all over... - Is it over? said the venerable Zhao with involuntary disappointment. How could it end so soon? - Yes, it was all my friend. There wasn't much... sold out... - Or maybe something left? “Now there is only a door curtain. "Bring the door curtain... Let's see..." the wife of the venerable Zhao said sadly. - All right, bring it tomorrow, - the venerable Zhao remarked not very persistently. - A-K, when you have things, first bring them to us. “We will give a price no less than others,” added the candidate. The candidate's wife glanced at Ah Q to see if this statement had an effect on him or not. “I need a fur jacket,” said the wife of the venerable Zhao. Ah Kay, although he promised, came out so lazily and indifferently that it was impossible to decide whether he was serious or not. Seeing this, Venerable Zhao's wife lost all hope and became so upset and angry that she even stopped yawning. The candidate, also annoyed by Ah Q's behavior, declared that he should beware of this "eight-forgotten egg", and even better ask the foreman to forbid him to live in Wei-chuang. However, the venerable Zhao was of a different opinion and said that such a measure would probably cause criticism, and, moreover, people of this profession are known to be like "an old eagle that does not seek food near its nest", and that the village has nothing to fear, it is only necessary to wake up sometimes at night. After listening to this "home teaching", the candidate fully agreed with him and, immediately leaving his plan of persecution of A-Kei, asked Aunt Tsu not to pass on this conversation to strangers in any case. But the very next day, Aunt Tsu-Seventh dyed her blue skirt and conveyed her suspicions about Ah-Kei, though without mentioning that the candidate wanted to expel him. But this was already a misfortune for A-Q. The sergeant-major came to him first and took away the door curtain, and although Ah-Kei declared that the wife of the venerable Zhao wanted to see it, the sergeant-major still did not return it, demanding a monthly fee as a sign of respect for his own person. Then followed a sudden change in the respectful attitude of the inhabitants towards him: although they did not dare to show him obvious disdain, they nevertheless tried to keep away from him. However, there were also those in Wei-chuang who wanted to find out everything about A-Kei in detail, and since he himself did not know how to keep his mouth shut, but liked to boast, they soon found out that he was a petty thief who did not dare to climb himself through the walls or climb into the gap, but only standing on the lookout and taking things. One night he had just received a bag, and his comrade climbed for the second, when suddenly he heard a noise and hurried to get away. That same night, he got out of the city and returned to Wei-chhua:n. This story hurt A-K even more. After all, the attitude of the inhabitants towards A-Q, built on the principle of "respect, but stay away", was based on fear of the possibility of hostility on his part. But who would have thought that he was just a thief who did not dare to steal a second time! Truly, as the ancient books say, "it is not enough for fear"!

VII. REVOLUTION

On the fourth day of the ninth month, in the third year of the reign of Xuan-tong, [Xuan-tong is the name of the years of the reign of the last Emperor Pu Yi, in 1911.] - on the same day that Ah-Kei sold his purse to Zhao Bai-yang, - a boat under a black canopy landed at the third watch at the pier near Zhao's house. This boat appeared out of the black darkness, when everyone in the village was fast asleep, and no one knew about it. She left before dawn, and then someone noticed her. As a result of long reconnaissance, it turned out that this was Mr. Scientist's boat. She caused much trouble in the village, and by noon the hearts of all were troubled. The purpose of the arrival of the boat was carefully concealed by the Zhao family, but: in the tea room and in the tavern, they started talking about the fact that the revolutionaries were already approaching the city and that Mr. Scholar had come to save our village. Only Aunt Tsu did not think so, but said that it was just a few old chests with a dress, which Mr. Scientist decided to send for storage and which had already been sent back by the venerable Zhao. Indeed, Mr. Scientist and Mr. Candidate were not on good terms with each other before and, in essence, could not have sympathy for each other in trouble. Besides, Auntie Cu was Zhao's neighbor and saw and heard more than others, so she was probably right. However, the rumors kept spreading. It was rumored that Mr. Scientist, although he personally did not come, sent a long letter with the aim of establishing friendly relations, and that the venerable Zhao, after thinking it over and deciding that nothing bad would come of it, left the baskets with him and placed them under the bed his wife. As for the revolutionaries, they claimed that they had already descended into the city that night and that each was wearing a white armor and a white helmet as a sign of mourning for Emperor Chung-cheng. [The last emperor of the dynasty; Mingov, who was overthrown in 1644.] This phrase about the arrival of the revolutionaries had long sounded in Ah Q's ears, especially since last year he saw their execution with his own eyes. For some unknown reason, he believed that revolutionaries were the same as rebels, and rebels were not to his liking. That is why he felt a deep disgust for them. But he didn't expect that famous candidate so frightened of them, and the panic that gripped all the inhabitants of Wei-chuang even gave him pleasure. "It's good to make a revolution, to turn everything over!" he thought. Ah Q's position had deteriorated in recent days, and in general he was dissatisfied. And then two more cups of wine, drunk on an empty stomach at noon ... And so, thinking about this, he became strangely excited. It is not known how this happened, but he himself seemed to have turned into a revolutionary, and the village of Wei-chuang into his prisoner. And, pleased beyond measure, he could not restrain himself from a loud cry: "Rebellion!" Mutiny! The inhabitants looked at him with frightened eyes. He had never seen such a pitiful look. In a kind of frenzy, he walked and shouted: - All right ... What I want, then it will be! Whom I love, so be it! Then he sang: Trra-ta-ta! I hold a steel whip in my hand: I want to slay you! .. Both men from the Zhao family, with two of their relatives, also stood at the gate, talking about the revolution. A-K, not noticing them, passed, singing at the top of his voice: - Tra-ta-ta ... - Venerable A-K! Mr. Zhao called quietly and nervously. - Tra-ta ... - Venerable A-Kay! "Tra-tam-tam..." Ah-K didn't expect that his name could be combined with the word "venerable" and decided that these words did not apply to him. "There... tram... tara-ram, there!..." he sang. - Oh, venerable one! I'm sorry... "A-K," the candidate addressed him directly by name. Ah-Kei immediately stopped and, bowing his head, asked: “What? “Venerable Kei, now…” Mr. Zhao was at a loss for words, “now how?” Everything is fine? -- Fine? Certainly. Whatever I want, it will be ... - Ah ... brother Kei ... like us, poor friends, it doesn’t matter if ... - said Zhao-Baiyan, as if trying to find out about the plans of the revolutionary party . - Poor friends? You're probably richer than me," Ah Q replied as he left. Everyone was at a loss for words. The venerable Zhao father and his son went into the house and conferred all evening. Zhao Bai-yan, returning home, took out a purse from his bosom and ordered his wife to hide it in a chest. Ah Q, flying on the wings of excitement, finally returned to his temple, already sober. That evening the old man in charge of the temple was unusually friendly and invited him to tea. Then A-Key asked him for two cakes and, having eaten them, demanded a burnt candle weighing four liangs and in a candlestick, lit it and lay down in his closet. The novelty of the situation inspired him with inexpressible joy. The fire of the candle, as if on New Year's Eve, jumped flickering, and his thoughts jumped in the same way ... Rebellion? Interesting ... Revolutionaries will come in white helmets and armor, all in the hands of knives, whips, bombs, overseas cannons, three-pointed, two-edged swords and pikes with a hook. They will pass by the temple and call: "A-Kay, let's go together! .. Let's go together!" And he will go with them. Then he will laugh at all the men and women of Weizhuang... On their knees, they will shout "A-K, have mercy!" But who will listen to them? The first to die is little Deng, along with the venerable Zhao, then the candidate, and then the "fake overseas devil" ... Maybe leave someone? Perhaps Bearded Van can be left alone. And yet, there is nothing to pity him! Things?.. Go straight ahead and open the chests!.. Jewels, money, overseas fabrics... First, drag a Ningpos-style bed from the candidate's wife to the temple, then tables and chairs from the Qian family... Or maybe from the same Zhao! .. Don’t move your finger yourself, but shout to Den to drag more quickly and, if he doesn’t work properly, give him a slap in the face ... Zhao Si-chen’s sister is ugly ... Aunt Tsu-Seventh’s daughter, when she grows up ... Then and let's talk! The wife of the "fake overseas devil" can sleep with a cross-eyed man. Ah Kay snored, the four liang candle burned only half an inch, and a flashing red light illuminated Ah Kay's open mouth. bewildered, but, noticing the candle, again dropped his head and fell asleep. The next day he got up very late and, going out into the street, saw that everything around him was the same as before, and his stomach was still hungry ... He thought, but he could not think of anything. Finally, as if he had decided something, he slowly walked, and either with intent or without intent reached the monastery of Tranquility and Purification. The monastery, with its white shutters and black lacquered gates, rested in silence like a spring day. After some thought, Ah Q went up and knocked on the gate. A dog called from within. He hurriedly picked up a few pieces of brick and began to knock them again, more and more forcefully, until many marks appeared on the black door. Only then did someone come to open it. Ah Q hurriedly grabbed a whole brick and, spreading his legs, prepared to fight with the dog. However, the gates of the monastery opened only a gap, no black dog jumped out of there, and he saw only an old nun. - Why did you come again? she asked fearfully. "Revolution... coup... you know?" Ah-Q mumbled indistinctly. Revolution, revolution! Here they turned it upside down ... You have a coup, but what should we do? asked the old nun with reddened eyes. -- What? said A-K. Don't you know that they have already come and turned over? -- Who? - A-K was even more amazed. "Yes, a candidate with a 'false devil'!" It was completely unexpected, and Ah-K was completely taken aback. The old nun, seeing that he had lost his fighting spirit, quickly slammed the gate. A-K pushed them, but could not open them, and began to knock again. Nobody responded. All this happened before noon. Candidate Zhao, who was adept at getting all sorts of news, as soon as he learned that the revolutionaries had entered the city at night, immediately twisted the scythe on the back of his head and went early in the morning to visit Qian, the "false devil", whom he still did not recognize. But since the time has come for all sorts of updates, they instantly agreed, became bosom friends and, having decided to act, joined the revolution. They thought for a long time and finally came up with an idea. In the temple of Tranquility and Purification, an imperial tablet was kept with the inscription: "Ten thousand years to the emperor!" It had to be removed immediately ... And so, both of them immediately went to the monastery to carry out a coup. Since the old nun took it into her head to resist and object, they immediately "turned her into a Manchurian government" and beat her on the head with a stick and a mallet. When they left and she somewhat came to her senses, it turned out that the imperial table was lying on the floor, and in addition, the bronze censer of Xuan-de times, which stood in front of the altar of the goddess Kuan-yin, disappeared. [Xuan-de is the name of the years of reign under the national Ming dynasty, 1426-35. Kwan-yin is the Buddhist goddess of mercy.] Ah-Kei found out about all this later. He was very annoyed that he overslept, and at the same time he was very surprised that they did not call him. Taking a step back, he thought, "Don't they know yet that I've already defected to the revolutionaries?"

VIII.NOT ALLOWED TO BECOME A REVOLUTIONARY

The hearts of the inhabitants of Wei-chuang calmed down every day. From the information they received, they knew that although the revolutionaries had entered the city, no significant changes had taken place. The same official remained the chief of the county, changing only his title. Mr. Scientist also received some kind of appointment - the inhabitants of Wei-chuang did not understand any of these names! - and the soldiers were commanded by the former chief. And there was only one problem. The fact is that several bad revolutionaries began to behave outrageously and the very next day they forcibly cut braids. According to rumors, the boatman Qi-ching from a neighboring village fell into their hands and lost his human form. In general, this was not such a big danger, because the inhabitants of Wei-zhuang rarely went to the city, and if they were going to go, they immediately changed their minds so as not to take unnecessary risks. It cannot be said that Wei Zhuang has not changed. A few days later, the number of crown curlers gradually increased, with a brilliant candidate being said to be the very first, followed by Zhao Si-chen, Zhao Baiyan, and then A-Kei. In the summer, when everyone twisted their braids on the backs of their heads or tied them in a knot, this was not considered shameful. But now it was the end of autumn. That is why such an untimely fulfillment of the summer rule cannot but be assessed as a great feat, and it cannot be hidden that for Wei-chuang it was not connected with the revolution. And when Zhao Sichen walked in this form, the audience said loudly: - Hey! The revolutionary is coming!.. Ah-K, hearing this, felt envy. Although he had long known the news about the candidate's twisted braid, he did not even imagine that he, too, could follow his example. Now, seeing Zhao Si-chen in this form, he immediately decided to imitate him in everything. With the help of a bamboo chopstick, he twisted his braid on the top of his head and, after hesitating, gathered his courage and left the house. As he walked down the street, people looked at him but said nothing. Kei was very dissatisfied at first, and then got angry. Of late, he was easily upset, although in reality his life was not as difficult as before the coup. People, at the sight of him, showed courtesy, in the shops did not demand cash, but Ah-Q generally felt disappointed. Once there was a revolution, everything should have been somehow different ... In addition, one day he saw a little Den, and this aroused in him even more indignation. Little Den also twisted his braid at the back of his head, also with the help of a bamboo chopstick. Ah-K had no idea that he would dare to do this, and decided not to let it happen for anything. Little Dan? What kind of bird is this? Ah Q thought strongly of immediately seizing him, breaking his bamboo stick, unraveling his scythe, and slapping him in punishment for forgetting the insignificance of his birth and daring to become a revolutionary. But, in the end, he did not touch him, but only measured him with an angry look, spat and said: - Pah! During these few days, only one "false foreign devil" traveled to the city. Candidate Zhao also wanted, remembering the chests left for storage, to personally go on a visit to Mr. Scientist, but for fear of losing the scythe, he did not dare. He wrote an official letter to the scientist and instructed the "false devil" to take him to the city, and besides, he asked to petition and vouch for him in order to enroll in the revolutionaries. When the "false devil" returned, he took four da-yan from the candidate, and in return the candidate received a silver peach badge and put it on his upper dress. All the Weizhuang people were filled with trepidation and said that this was nothing more than a sign of an academic degree, no lower, perhaps, than an academician. Therefore, Venerable Zhao received much more respect than when his son received his Ph.D. In his own eyes, everyone around him turned into nothing, and when he met Ah-Q, the latter did not even enter his field of vision. A-K was very dissatisfied and felt lonely all the time. When he heard the story of the "silver peach", he instantly understood the reason for his loneliness. After all, in order to be a revolutionary, it is not enough just to declare one's accession, and it is also not enough to twist the scythe. The most important thing is to get to know the revolutionaries. In his entire life he had only met two people: the one who was in the city - r-time! - cut off the head, but now another one. This is a "false overseas devil". He had no other way but to immediately go and consult with the "false port". The gates to Qian's house were thrown open, and Ah-Kei cautiously entered them. As soon as he got inside, he was immediately frightened when he saw the "false devil" who was standing in the middle of the yard, all in a black, probably foreign dress. It had a silver peach attached to it, and in its hand was a stick that Ah-Q had once tried. The plait, which had grown out, was spread over his back and shoulders, and with his disheveled, shaggy head, he looked like the holy Lu-Hai. [Liu-hai is a folk deity from the retinue of the God of Wealth. ] Against him stood Zhao-Bai-yan with three outsiders, respectfully and attentively listening to him. A-Kei slowly approached and stopped behind Zhao Bai-yan, thinking to call out to the owner, but did not know how to say it better. Calling him a "false devil" is, of course, inappropriate, "foreigner" is also inappropriate, and "revolutionary" too. Or maybe you should call him "Mr. Foreigner?" Meanwhile, "Mr. Foreigner" did not notice him at all and, rolling his eyes, continued to say with inspiration: "... I am an impatient person." So when we met, I directly said, "Brother Hun! We must begin!" But he always answered: "No!" (This -- foreign word , you don’t understand!), and if it weren’t for him, we would have won a long time ago ... And besides, he was too careful in his work. . He asked me three or four times to go to Hu Bei, [the province of central China where the revolution of 1911 began.] but I didn't want to. Who wants to work in a small county town? -- Hm! This is…” Ah-K began with determination, waiting for him to stop. The four who were listening turned to him in fear. "Mr. foreigner" only noticed him here. -- What do you want? - I... - Get out! - I want to become ... - Get out! .. - And the "Mr. Foreigner" waved his funeral staff at him. Zhao Bai-yan and the others shouted, "The master orders you to get out, but you don't obey!" Ah-Kay, covering his head with his hands, rushed out of the gate as fast as he could. "Mr. foreigner" did not pursue him. Only after running sixty paces, he finally went more slowly. Anguish rose in my heart. "Mr. foreigner" did not allow him to become a revolutionary, but there was no other way. From now on, you don’t have to hope that people in white helmets and armor will call him, and all proud aspirations, aspirations, hopes, plans for the future - everything disappeared in one moment. The fact that idlers would spread the news and let people like little Den or Van the Bearded make fun of him was, after all, a secondary matter. It seemed like he had never experienced such hopelessness before. He seemed to have lost interest in his own braid, twisted at the back of his head, he even felt contempt and, out of a desire for revenge, decided to immediately dissolve it; but still he didn't. Having wandered until night, he drank two cups of wine on credit, gradually came into a good mood and in his thoughts again appeared vague images of white armor and helmets. Once, as usual, chatting until night, until the tavern began to close, he wandered home to the temple of Agriculture. Fuck-banging! - he suddenly heard strange sounds, unlike the crackling of firecrackers. Ah Q, who was fond of noise and incident, immediately rushed into the darkness. He seemed to hear the sound of footsteps ahead, and at last he distinctly heard someone running past him. As soon as Ah-kay noticed him, he immediately turned and rushed after him. The man turned to the side, A-K - too. The man stopped, Ah-Q too. When the man looked back, it turned out that it was none other than little Den. -- What's the matter? ' Ah Q asked anxiously. “Zhao… Zhao’s house is being robbed!” Den answered breathlessly. Ah Q's heart began to beat violently. Having said this, little Dan left. A-K tried to run several times, but immediately stopped. However, as a man of extraordinary courage, he reached the corner of the street and, listening carefully, caught some noise, and looking just as carefully, he noticed a crowd of people carrying away chests, utensils and a bed of Ninposa type - and all these were people in white helmets and armor. However, he could not see everything exactly. He thought about coming closer, but his legs did not obey... That night there was no moon, and in the village of Wei Zhuang it was so quiet in the darkness that this silence resembled the great peace of ancient times under the sage Fu-si. [The legendary emperor of antiquity, under whom peace reigned in the state.] A-Kei stood until he had enough strength, and there, in front, people all entered and left, carrying chests, utensils, junk .... He could hardly believe his own eyes. However, he decided not to interfere in the matter and finally returned to the Temple of Agriculture. The temple was completely dark, like ink... Ah Kay carefully locked the gate and groped his way into his closet. After lying down for a while, he calmed down, and then thoughts about himself appeared. So, people in white helmets and armor came, but did not invite him with them, dragged out a lot of good things, but he had no share in this ... - It's all the damned "false devil" that did not allow me to become a revolutionary, otherwise this time it didn't happen that I don't have my share in this business, - exclaimed Ah-Q. The more Ah-K thought, the more angry he became, and in the end his whole soul was overwhelmed with bitterness. Shaking his head in anger, he said: You did not allow me to be a revolutionary, but you can? Okay, "fake devil"! You are a revolutionary, and their heads are cut off for this... So I'll tell you... Let's see how they take you away and cut off your head... They'll cut off all of yours... R-time!.. r-time! ..

IX. GREAT END

After the attack on Zhao's house, all the inhabitants of Wei-zhuang felt both satisfaction and fear at the same time. Ah-kay, too. And four days later, at midnight, he was suddenly seized and sent to the city. On that dark night, a detachment of soldiers, militia and five detectives imperceptibly approached Wei-chhuang and, taking advantage of the darkness, surrounded the temple, placing a machine gun right in front of the gate. A-K did not show up. For quite a long time there was no movement imperceptible ... Then the head of the detachment, losing his patience, appointed a reward of twenty da-yans, and only then two policemen, neglecting the danger, climbed over the wall. With the combined efforts from inside and outside, the detachment entered the temple with its whole mass and arrested Ah-Kei, who finally woke up only when he had already been pulled out of the temple. A-Q was brought into town at noon. In a dilapidated "pit", the soldiers, circling through the narrow passages, pushed him into some kind of closet. He had scarcely managed to get in when the wooden door slammed shut behind him, pinching his heel. There were solid walls on the other three sides, and when he looked around more closely, it turned out that there were two more people in the corner. Although Ah Q's heart was beating anxiously, he did not lose heart, because his closet there, in the temple of Agriculture, was not as spacious and bright as this one. The other two people looked like peasants, and little by little he began to talk to them. One of them said that Mr. Scientist was looking for dues from him, which his grandfather owed, while the other did not know why he had come here. When they in turn asked Ah Q, he immediately declared, "Because I wanted to be a revolutionary!" On the same day, later, he was taken to a large hall, at the end of which sat an old man with a clean-shaven shiny head. Ah-Q thought it was a monk, but immediately noticed a row of soldiers standing in front of him. On either side were about ten people in long robes, some with shaved heads, like the old man, and some with long hair , loose at the back, like a "false overseas devil." All of them, with angry faces, strictly looked at him. He immediately realized that the man sitting in front of him was an important bird. His legs gave way of their own accord, and he sank to his knees. - Speak while standing! You don't have to kneel! shouted the people in the long robes. A-K seemed to understand, but he felt that he could not stand. The body bowed involuntarily, and eventually he sank again. - Slave soul! the people in the robes said contemptuously, but no longer forced him to get up. - Tell the whole truth, as it was! This will make your lot easier. I already know everything. Confess - let you go! said an old man with a shiny head, quietly and distinctly, staring into Ah Q's face. -- Confess! - loudly, in one voice, shouted people in dressing gowns. “I actually wanted to… go join…” Ah-K stammered, bewildered. "Well, why didn't you join?" asked the old man kindly. - "False devil" did not allow ... - You're lying! Now it's too late to get out... Where are your accomplices? -- What? "Those who robbed Zhao's house that evening?" “They didn't come for me. They took everything away themselves,” Ah-K said angrily. - Where did they go? Tell me, and we'll let you go, - the old man said even more affectionately. “I don’t know… They didn’t come for me…” Then the old man gave a signal with his eyes, and Ah Q found himself back in his closet. When they took him out for the second time, it was noon on the other day. The Great Hall was in the same form as the day before. Sitting on the dais was the same old man with a shiny head. Ah Q was still on his knees. - Can you say anything else? asked the old man kindly. Ah-Q thought, but there was nothing to say, and he answered: - No. Here a man in a long dressing gown brought paper and wanted to stick a brush into his hand. A-K was so frightened that his "soul flew out": after all, this happened for the first time that his hand and hand came into contact. He just didn't know how to hold her. Then the man showed him the place and ordered him to draw a circle. [The illiterate people make a circle in China, just like we have a cross.] "I... I... can't write," said A-K, frightened and embarrassed, clutching his brush. - And do not ... Draw a circle, and okay! Ah-K tried to do it, but his hand with the brush trembled, and then the man spread the paper on the ground, Ah-K crouched down and strained all his strength to draw a circle properly. Fearing that he would be laughed at, he tried to draw it round, but this damned brush turned out to be not only heavy, but also naughty. Tensing and trembling, he was almost finishing the circle, but then the brush poked to the side, and the circle came out like a melon ... A-Ky felt ashamed for his inability, but the man, not paying attention, immediately took the paper and brush, and then he was pushed into the closet again. The third time he got behind the partition, he was not very worried. He considered it natural that a person born in this world is constantly pushed somewhere, then pushed out from somewhere, then he is required to draw some circles on paper ... But the fact that the circle did not come out round is, perhaps it will be a stain on his whole life. However, he soon calmed down, thinking: "But my grandchildren will draw completely round ..." With this, he fell asleep. On the contrary, on the same night, the scientist could not sleep at all: he quarreled with the head of the detachment. Mr. Scientist considered it most important to find what was stolen, and the head of the detachment considered the most important punishment, so that others would be disrespectful, and he did not put Mr. Scientist at all, banged his fist on the table and bench, and finally declared: - Deal with one, it means to frighten a hundred! Look, I've only been twenty days since I became a revolutionary, and more than ten robberies have already happened, and not a single one of them has been solved!.. Where is my reputation? ., We are doing business here, and you come and interfere. Leave me alone! Mr. Scientist found himself in a difficult situation, but nevertheless held firm and declared that if the stolen goods were not found, he would immediately resign his position in civil administration, to which the head of the detachment replied: "Do me a favor!" Thanks to this, Mr. scientist could not sleep that night. Fortunately, the next day he did not resign his position. A-Q was dragged out of his closet for the third time, the next morning after the sleepless night of Mr. Scientist. Again he found himself in a large hall, the same old man with a shiny head was sitting on a dais, and Ah-Q again knelt down. -- Do you have anything else to say? asked the old man very kindly. Ah Q thought there was nothing to say, and he answered: - No. Some people, some in a long, some in a short dress, suddenly put on him a white vest made of foreign material, with black signs on it. Ah Q was very upset, because it looked a lot like mourning, and mourning is a bad omen. Immediately they twisted his hands on his back, immediately took him out of the "yamen", put him on a cart without a top, and several people in a short dress sat down with him. The cart immediately moved off. A detachment of soldiers with foreign rifles on their shoulders and militia walked in front, spectators stood on both sides with their mouths open, and what was behind A-K did not see. And suddenly he realized: do they want to cut off his head? Instantly, his eyes darkened, his ears rang, and he seemed to have lost consciousness, but not completely. And when at times it cleared up, he thought that for a person born in this world, there are such moments when he cannot escape execution ... Although he recognized the way, but at the same time it seemed strange to him why they did not go to place of execution. He did not know that he was being taken through the streets to a show, to intimidate others. But even if he knew, he would still think that for a person born in this world, there are moments when this cannot be avoided ... He already knew now that this winding path leads to the square where executions take place, and what does it mean - p-time! .. - and off with your head. He looked blankly to the right, to the left. Everywhere, like ants, people fussed, and suddenly, in the crowd of them, on the edge of the road, he noticed U-Ma. They haven't met for a long time... So she worked in the city? And suddenly A-Q felt ashamed that he had no valor: after all, he had not yet sung a single song. [According to tradition, those going to the execution prove their firmness by singing heroic songs.] Thoughts, like a whirlwind, swirled in his brain. "Young widow on the grave" - ​​lacks majesty, "I'm sorry" - from "The Battle of the Tiger with the Dragon", also weak, perhaps) "I hold a steel whip in my hand" is good ... He already wanted to wave his hand, but. remembered that his hands were tied, and did not sing ... - In twenty years another will come, just like me ... anyone's help. -- Right!!! - came from the crowd, like a wolf's howl ... The cart, without stopping, moved forward, and under the thunder of applause, A-Key looked for U-Ma; but she did not notice him, staring with enthusiasm at the foreign rifles on the shoulders of the soldiers. Then Ah Q looked again at the clapping people. At the same moment, thoughts began to swirl in his head again. Four years ago, at the foot of the mountains, he met a hungry wolf, who all the time, not lagging behind, followed him, intending to devour him. Then he was scared to death, but, fortunately, he had a knife in his hand, and this gave him the courage to get to the village. But he always remembered the wolf's eyes, cruel and evil, sparkling like two devilish lights and as if clinging to his body ... And this time he saw never seen, terrible eyes, piercing ... drilling ... They are not only devoured his words, they wanted to devour also what lay outside his body, and all the time relentlessly followed him. Those eyes seemed to join into one and devoured his soul. -- Save! But Ah-Q did not shout the word. His eyes darkened, a blow rang in his ears, and he felt as if his whole body had scattered into fine dust .. As for the consequences of this event, the greatest trouble fell on Mr. Scientist, since the stolen remained undiscovered, and the whole family was grief and sorrow. The next was the Zhao family, not only because during the candidate’s trip to the city to complain to the authorities, the godless revolutionaries cut off his braid, but also because they had to pay another twenty da-yang fine, so that the whole house was also in grief and sorrow. Starting from that day, the victims began to gradually show an inclination towards conservatism. As for public opinion, there were no two opinions in Wei-chuang, and, of course, everyone said that A-K was bad, as evidenced by his execution. If he wasn't bad, would they shoot him? Public opinion in the city was also not on the side of A-Q. The majority remained dissatisfied, believing that the execution was not as interesting as the beheading. And then, what a funny criminal! So long traveled the streets and did not sing a single song! They followed him in vain, they were wasting time ...

Chinese writer, founder of modern Chinese literature. In 1899 he graduated from the Jiangnan Naval Academy, then was transferred to the School of Mining and Railways, where he first became acquainted with Western education and science. In 1902-1906. studied medicine in Japan (Sendai), where he wrote his first essay in classical Chinese. He interrupted his studies at the medical academy and moved to Tokyo, where he fell under the influence of a philologist Zhang Taiyan. Published a number of popular science works promoting Western culture, among which the article "The Power of Satanic Poetry" stands out, in which he first introduced Chinese readers J. Byron , A. Pushkin , M. Lermontova , A. Mitskevich and other classics of European literature. In 1909 he published (with his brother Zhou Zuozhen) two collections of translations of Western writers. The popularization of Russian literature continued until the end of his life, translated works N. Gogol , A. Chekhov , M. Artsybasheva , A. Fadeeva and etc.

After the revolution of 1911, he worked in the Ministry of Education of the republican government and taught at Peking universities. With the beginning literary revolution” in 1918 published “Notes of a Madman” - the first story in modern spoken language exposing the inhumanity of feudal society. Together with the realistic, humanistic stories written later and the satirical story The True History of Ah Q, he compiled the collection Cry, followed by Wanderings (1926) and a collection of prose poems Wild Herbs (1927). The collections of short stories "Cry" and "Wanderings" are marked by the influence of A. Chekhov and M. Gorky. These works had a decisive influence on the formation realistic direction in the latest Chinese literature, the founder of which was recognized as a writer.

In 1918 he made his debut as a publicist: 10 collections on various topics, from political articles and feuilletons to literary criticism and prose poems. After the failure of the revolution of 1925-1927. He stood for truthful, serious literature, helping the liberation struggle, against ultra-revolutionary slogans. At the same time, he fought against the preachers of the "middle way", in his opinion, leading literature away from reality. In 1930 he became one of the organizers and informal leaders of the League of Leftist Writers of China. Actively participated in democratic organizations, in the worldwide anti-fascist movement, spoke in support of the USSR. In the 1920s and 30s got acquainted with the ideas of Marxism and translations of a number of Marxist works, began to communicate with prominent representatives of the communist intelligentsia, since. Qu Qiubo. He began to promote domestic and world revolutionary culture, opposed the policy of the Kuomintang and its supporters in literature. In the last months of his life, he joined in organizing a rebuff to the impending danger of Japanese aggression.