Chapter 65 Father's three-year illness

As I said before, my father contracted malaria during the provincial examination in Hangzhou. He was treated with quinine, but he fell ill again after returning home. Then Uncle Changshou passed away. My father and mother stayed at my grandmother’s house for nearly a month. My father returned home first. He had a low-grade fever and night sweats. He prescribed a prescription himself and took it a few times, but it didn't work.Then the mother also came home. Seeing the complexion on her father's face, she felt that something was wrong. When she asked what the disease was, the father said that he was still trying to figure it out.In short, it's not a cold or something.This makes the problem complicated.My father prescribed it himself, using warming and tonic medicine.My mother thought that the illness this time was due to the western medicine she took during the exam to curb the malaria, and the remaining symptoms were still there.My mother argued: "I have never studied medicine, but I often heard from my father that malaria should be treated rather than curbed." My father believed that quinine is not a cure for malaria.Seeing that my father didn't listen, my mother wrote several letters, asking my grandfather's disciples (including Yao Ditang) to consult with my father.Seven or eight people came, but most of them had the same opinion as my mother.Dr. Yao's opinion is similar to that of my father.In the end, a compromise was taken, and the original prescription was still used, with one or two superficial medicines added.After taking three or four posts, neither bad nor good.Father still comes every day, but he just feels tired easily.Gradually, my mother became less anxious. She felt that it was not a sudden illness. After a few months, she slowly asked if there was any miracle doctor, and it would probably not be a problem.

Because the mother said that she wanted to inquire about the miracle doctor, but the grandfather and grandmother remembered an incident more than ten years ago.It turned out that my father suffered from a strange disease when he was young (about nine or ten years old), and he often had low-grade fever and night sweats. A rich family entrusted someone to see a doctor), is proficient in Taisu veins, and is good at treating difficult diseases.At that time, I asked someone to invite this monk to come for a consultation, and prescribed a prescription, saying that it can be taken for a long time, and it will be effective after a month, otherwise, there is no need to take it again, and you can go to a certain temple in Hangzhou to see him.After taking the prescription for a month, it was really effective. After taking this prescription for half a year, the illness was completely cured. This prescription was hidden under a large inkstone at that time.The big inkstone is in the study downstairs (that is, the room where the grandfather taught his sons and nephews to read), and the mother went to look for it. Sure enough, Fang Zi was still there, as well as his residence in Hangzhou left by the monk.My mother was very happy, so she discussed with my father how to send someone to Hangzhou to find a monk.My father said, the monk has been traveling in the clouds for more than ten years. To know whether he is still in Hangzhou, it is better to follow the monk's prescription for a few times before talking.But mother wrote a note to Baozhu without telling father, asking her to think about it.Immediately, Axiu came and said that her grandmother was trying to find out if the monk was still there.

My father took that prescription, and it really worked.The night sweats have stopped, and the low-grade fever sometimes disappears.The mother thought that this monk was really capable, and hoped to find him even more. But at this time, my younger brother (who was three years old at the time) suddenly fell ill; my father prescribed a prescription, but it was useless.But my younger brother's illness was so severe that he would not eat or drink for three or five days.My mother informed my grandfather's disciples again.So I came to the consultation again, changed the front, and prepared a new medicine. After two doses, it still didn't work, but the sick child gradually became very weak in breathing.The mother is determined to ask her sixth uncle (Wei Qing) to treat her.Considering that the old man had not been diagnosed for a long time, the mother went to invite him herself, saying that at least she would bring him here, and the mother took the boat to go, hoping that the original boat would take him back to Lao Wei.Those brothers and sisters of my father came to the consultation every day at this time, and when they saw the "junior sister" go to invite Mr. Wei in person, they all sat and waited.While waiting, they talked to their father about their younger brother's illness, and at the same time passed on the monk's prescription. They all said that the prescription only stated the illness without making a judgment, and they also said that they knew it was "Old Carpenter's Hand" just by looking at his handwriting.From noon until the sun was setting, everyone saw Su Xiang coming in, and everyone thought to themselves, "Isn't even the junior sister invited this time?" But then I saw my mother helping Mr. Wei to come in slowly.This time, it suddenly became lively.The refreshments had already been set, and Elder Wei sat up and listened to his father's simple and clear report on his younger brother's illness and the progress of his treatment. He asked, "Today is the eighth day." Father and Su Xiang went upstairs together.After seeing the sick child, Mr. Wei came downstairs to prescribe a prescription immediately. After a few lines of writing, he put down his pen and said to his father and mother: "Be a dead horse as a living horse doctor." When the father saw the prescription, he was shocked. This prescription is completely different from their previous prescriptions. Among them, the two herbs with the heaviest dosage are Dongguazi and Dongguapi (Here, I wrote it down completely according to what my mother told me. My mother told me about it seven or eight years later. When I told me about this incident years later, I couldn’t tell what disease my younger brother was suffering from, and I only remembered that there were these two medicines in the prescription prescribed by Mr. Wei).

After Mr. Wei left, his father's brothers and sisters didn't leave, and there was a lot of discussion, but my mother had already asked someone to grab the medicine, and took it immediately after decocting it.The guests all admired the determination of this "junior sister", and they all left, saying that they would come to hear the good news tomorrow, but they were skeptical in their hearts. That night, my brother actually slept soundly.Woke up in the middle of the night and said I was hungry.After taking three posts in a row, the disease has been cured.Mother hurriedly wrote a letter, joining the name of father, to thank Mr. Wei.Just as she was about to send someone to deliver it, suddenly Axiu came in, followed by Baozhu supporting her grandmother.It turned out that my grandmother went to Hangzhou to burn incense, mainly to find the monk.After many years, I have visited all the temples in Hangzhou, but I don't know that there is such a monk.After the grandmother sat down, she told her father that the monk could not be found.The father said: Sure enough, the monk wandered around without knowing where he was going, so stop fishing for moons in the water.The grandmother held her younger brother who had just recovered from the illness, but said to her father: "The old man (referring to the grandfather) always said that the bark and grass roots can only cure the disease, but not the life. It seems that my uncle—" The voice of the grandmother was choked up, and she couldn't continue.My father smiled wryly and said: "When it comes to fate, maybe another genius doctor will come suddenly. The gentleman is safe, and I am not worried at all." My mother continued: "That's the only way to go. Comfort yourself, life and death are life and death."

When I was about eight years old, my father fell ill. At first, my father still struggled to get out of bed every day, sat in front of the window in the room and read for an hour or two, and then lay down again.He was still most interested in mathematics at that time. He studied small algebra, big algebra, geometry, and calculus (compiled by Xie Honglai, which was newly published at that time), followed by books on sound, light, chemistry, and electricity, and secondly. It is a book on the history and geography of various countries in the world.I also read newspapers advocating revolution run by students studying in Japan at that time.

It's the end of the year again.At this time, it is usually the coldest time in Wuzhen, and it often snows.The houses in the area around Wuzhen are not insulated and have no heating equipment, so they are extremely cold.At this time, my father had to lie on the bed all day, covered with a thick silk quilt; he often stretched his legs and read a book while lying down.Unexpectedly, after the twelfth lunar month, when the weather was getting warmer, my father's two legs could not let go, as if the tendons had shortened because they had been propped up for a long time.If others helped to pull it hard, it could be pulled up, but because the father had a painful expression on his face, my mother couldn't bear it, so she let it be set up like this (until she died, it was still the same. Someone pulled it before giving up, but that Mom would be sad if she saw it).

However, except for the gradual inconvenience of turning (turning over on the bed, and asking his mother to help him), there is no pain.The appetite is still good, and every day my grandmother brings all kinds of nutritious food, and my father can eat it, but he loses weight day by day. In the summer of the second year when my father was bedridden, my grandmother went to the Temple of the City God and made a wish that I would act as a "prisoner" once when I attended the City God's Meeting on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month.This was the superstition in Wuzhen at that time: when there was a sick person at home and the medicine didn't work, the superstitious people would go to make a wish to the God of the City God, and send a child from the family to pretend to be a "prisoner" when the City God attended the meeting, and follow the team to walk around the city for a week as a token of respect. "Atonement"; in this way, God will make the sick get well.

The grandmother is a superstitious god. After her father became bedridden, she repeatedly proposed to go to the Temple of the City God to make a wish, but was stopped by her father and mother.Now that she saw her son getting thinner and thinner, she went to the Town God's Temple to make a wish in spite of my parents' objections. At that time, Wuzhen had a three-day Town God's Fair every year from the 15th to the 17th of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, which was no less grand than the Dragon Lantern Festival during the Lantern Festival.The expenses for attending the meeting are apportioned by the big and small businesses in the town (named "writing books"), and the "programs" are prepared by the neighbors.The so-called "programs" are all kinds of colorful "lifting pavilions" and "local operas". "Carrying the Pavilion" is carried by four strong men on a flat plate, on which boys and girls dress up as various characters in the play, such as the White Lady, Lu Dongbin, Cowherd and Weaver Girl, etc., surrounded by colored glaze beads and lanterns. "Ground opera" is relatively simple. Dozens of men (no longer children) are selected, put on the "outfit" of acting, walk on the ground, and sometimes wield the big knife and flower gun in their hands.Because the neighbors have to compete with each other, "Taige" and "Dixi" come out every year, unless there is a catastrophe in that year.

When leaving the City God's Meeting, as usual, a team of people will beat gongs to clear the way in front, and then the "lifting pavilions" and "dixi operas" of each neighborhood will walk slowly one by one amidst the sound of gongs and drums.In the middle of the team was a large sedan chair carried by sixteen people, inside which sat a wooden statue of the City God, with colored skin on its face and wearing a divine robe. , very majestic.But when the big sedan passed by the Xiuzhen Temple next to my house, there was a sudden sound of gongs and drums, and the people who carried the sedan chair wanted to run together and quickly cross the section of the street in front of the temple.This is a well-known purpose, called "snatching the sedan chair", because the Jade Emperor is enshrined in the Xiuzhen Temple, and the city god is a small official under the Jade Emperor. Of course, you can't pass the Xiuzhen Temple in a big way, you can only run.Behind the city god's sedan chair, there are "lifting the pavilion" and "dixie", and finally the team of "prisoners". "Prisoners" still wear homely clothes, but they all wear a white cloth skirt and a pair of "handcuffs". on the neck of the prisoner.The entire team going out of the meeting had to go around the four gates (south, south, north and west gates) of Wuzhen, and the "prisoners" also had to go around for a circle.Some young "criminals" who cannot walk such a long distance can also be carried by adults to participate in the parade.Even the "prisoners" who can walk are usually followed by family members, because they are afraid that the children will lose the "handcuffs".

The year my grandmother asked me to act as a "prisoner", I was nine years old, the age I love to play most. Naturally, I was very happy to be able to participate in the City God's Meeting in person, and walked more than ten miles around the four fences with the team, I didn't feel tired at all.But after thinking about it, I don't think it counts, because the "prisoner" can only follow at the end of the party, and all I can see along the way is the back of the "lifting pavilion" in front and the crowds on both sides. It is really not on the street of my old house. It is interesting to watch the passing teams below from the window sill, and even the scene of "snatching the sedan chair" can be clearly seen from the window sill.In addition, although I became a "prisoner" once, my father's illness has not improved a bit.

The mother now has to watch over the father day and night.During the day, she often held the open book for her father and stood it up on his chest for him to read, and turned a new page after reading a page.At this time, my father found it difficult to even raise his hand to hold the book.He sighed himself and said, "Why, my muscles and bones are getting stiffer bit by bit." Indeed, when he raised his hand tremblingly, the five fingers seemed to be holding things unsteadily, and he felt "heavy" when he lifted it. Do not let go. At that time, the younger brother lived at his grandmother's house, and Baozhu took care of him.I go to Lizhi Primary School next door to study every day.I leave school at three o'clock every afternoon, and when I come home, my mother will teach me to sit on the edge of the bed, hold on to the book, and erect it on my father's chest for him to read.At this time, my mother went downstairs to wash the clothes, because my father used to urinate and defecate on the bed, and the clothes had to be changed once a day. One day, I was holding a book for my father to read, when my father suddenly said: "I don't want to read it." After a while, he said: "Bring a knife." , rectangular, half a foot long, half an inch wide, with a wooden handle.I took the knife and asked, "What are you doing?" My father said, "The fingernails are too long, give me the knife." At that time, I was also surprised, how could the fingernails be cut with a knife?But he still gave the knife to his father.Father held the knife in his hand, looked at it for a while, and finally put the knife down and told me to take it away.My father stopped reading, and asked me to see if my mother had finished washing.I went downstairs and saw my mother had finished washing, so I said to her, "Daddy wants to cut his nails." Mother went upstairs.Later, when I went into the room again, I saw my mother sitting on the edge of the bed with her head lowered, her eyes were a little red, as if she had been crying.At night, when my father fell asleep, my mother told me quietly that my father told me to give him a knife, and that he wanted to commit suicide.It turned out that my mother had heard me say that my father wanted to cut his nails, and she had to cut my father's nails after entering the room.But the father himself told his mother about the suicide attempt just now. He said, "There must be no hope for the illness. If this drags on, what year will it be? Doesn't it drag you down?" And he himself I am getting impatient day by day, and I have to be helped in every move, which is not good.The father said to the mother that although there is no shortage of money for the time being, but knowing that the disease will not be cured, spending a lot of money every day to buy food, isn't this a waste of money?Might as well save it and leave it to my mother and us.The father also said: Bring up the two children. Without him, the mother will do well. As long as she has money, the mother can do everything well.This is why my father wanted to commit suicide.Mother naturally thinks that these are not reasons.The mother thought that there was still hope that the father's illness could be cured.Even if it can't be cured, as long as it doesn't die, what's the fear of being paralyzed?Everyone is thinking about how to make my father not feel lonely or feel any inconvenience.Besides, apart from not being able to move, my father didn't have any pain at all, so why did he "live impatiently"? According to my mother, my father finally agreed and stopped thinking about suicide.But my mother was still worried, and told me earnestly: From now on, hide the knife and the scissors well, and don't give them to my father anymore. In the past six months, every week, my grandmother sent Axiu to deliver food in the morning, and took me to my grandmother's house for lunch, and Axiu brought me and my brother back to play for a while, and then went back with my brother.It was Sunday again, and Axiu came again, but my mother wouldn't let me go.The father knew what his mother was up to, so he smiled and said, "Let him go, I promised, and I will keep my word." In the afternoon, Axiu came back with me and my younger brother. Axiu gave a bag to her mother.Mother opened it and saw that it was new clothes made for my mother and me, some with clips and some with sheets.Axiu said that it was all made by Baozhu.Guessing that my mother must be too busy, she will make all our clothes from now on, and even asked my mother for the size of my father's clothes.But the mother secretly gave a note written in advance to Axiu to take back. A day later, my grandmother brought Baozhu and Axiu.The grandmother said to the mother: "You said to hide it from my uncle for the time being, but I want to open the skylight to tell the truth." The father was puzzled.The grandmother said again: "It's not good to ask the doctor to hide the patient's knowledge." Hearing this, the father guessed a little bit, and said, "Is there any monk who knows how to heal the doctor?" The grandmother said: "It's not a monk or a Taoist. It's the Japanese devil." So he explained everything in detail.It turned out that my mother heard that there was a western hospital in Nanxun Town (about twenty or thirty miles away from Wuzhen, where many upstarts after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom came from), and the doctor was Japanese, so she asked my grandmother to find out.My grandmother sent Uncle Lu there for a day, and found out that the Japanese doctors in this hospital can make outpatient visits. The consultation fee is 10 yuan per day, plus the food fee is 5 yuan per day, and the medicine fee is calculated separately. Consultation, the total cost is about 50 yuan. My father shook his head and said, "Why waste the money. The Japanese may not be able to cure this strange disease." Grandmother said: "Uncle, it doesn't matter if he can be cured or not, please come and get to know him. I don't think it's a big deal for more than 50 yuan." Mother and Baozhu also helped to speak.Father finally had to agree.So my mother wrote a letter to the hospital, asking to send a doctor to the town in five days, and to pay Dingyang 40 yuan. When it was due, my grandmother and Baozhu brought Axiu to my house early in the morning to wait.Grandpa didn't want to meet foreigners, so he went out to find friends.The grandmother and the eldest aunt also avoided. The three uncles were curious and stayed in the living room, but were driven away by the grandmother. At about ten o'clock, the doctor came, but it was a woman in her thirties with an interpreter in her forties, and a female nurse (Chinese) in her twenties.The grandmother asked the interpreter: "Where is the doctor? Are you still on the ship?" The interpreter pointed to the Japanese woman and said she was the doctor.The grandmother was very upset and was about to have a fit, but fortunately the mother came down and said to the grandmother: "It's the same with the women, please go upstairs." So they all went upstairs, and the whole room was crowded.The female doctor was very generous, she took off her clogs, climbed onto the bed, and began to diagnose patients.At this time, it is early summer, and the temperature is relatively high.The interpreter said that the patient should take off his shirt.Mother, Baozhu, and the female nurse took off Father's shirt together.After listening and knocking as usual, the doctor pressed his father's chest and asked "Does it hurt?"Then I squeezed my father's arm joints hard and asked "Does it hurt?"Father shook his head.The doctor murmured a few words to the interpreter.The translator said: You should take off your pants and have a look.Grandmother laughed.Baozhu was a little shy and stood a little further away.The mother and the female nurse took off the father's trousers.The doctor pressed his father's legs and said a few more words to the interpreter.The translator asked: Can the patient's legs be straightened?Is it always set up like this?The mother sighed and replied: It has been more than a year.The doctor pressed the stethoscope on the patient's stomach again, and listened to this side and that side for a long time, then asked the father to lie on his side again, and listened to the stethoscope from top to bottom.After squatting on the bed for a while, looking at the patient's body without flesh, he shook his head, then got out of bed and said a few words to the translator.The translator said: The diagnosis is over, let's go downstairs.Mother covered Father with a quilt, left Axiu in the room, and they went downstairs together. When we arrived at the living room, my grandmother asked the doctor to wait for tea and asked: Is there a cure for this disease?The interpreter discussed with the doctor for a long time, and then replied: The old lady understands that the patient has lost all his flesh, and I heard that the diet is as usual. Take care of this, and nothing will happen immediately.Grandmother asked again: What kind of disease is this?The interpreter talked to the doctor a few more words, picked up the paper and pen on the table, and wrote two large characters: bone tuberculosis. My mother was a little surprised when she saw it was "tuberculosis", and asked the translator, "What is bone tuberculosis?" Mother stopped asking.Grandma and Baozhu didn't make a sound, their expressions changed. The female nurse opened a large package, and the doctor picked out two or three glass bottles, which contained pills and powder.The doctors each took some, wrapped them into more than 20 packages, and told the translator.The translator said: Take one pack of the pill and the powder each day.At this time, the doctor bowed to the grandmother and led the nurse outside.Baozhu grabbed the translator and asked: What kind of medicine is it, and what is it for?The translation replied: They are all appetizers, and they also have the effect of moistening the intestines.He also said that after the diagnosis, we will return to Nanxun in the afternoon.At this time the nurse came back and said: The price of the medicine is four yuan. Grandmother went upstairs with mother and Baozhu. Grandmother came out and went to father's room together. Mother briefly explained the doctor's diagnosis and asked father, "Do you know what bone consumptiveness is?" Father thought for a long time and answered. Said: "There is no such disease name in Chinese medical books. Consumption and worms are dialects. I have read books on Western medicine, saying that tuberculosis is called tuberculosis in Western medicine. This tuberculosis is a bacterium that can move. Presumably it has moved to the bone marrow. This disease is not The rule of law is over. The medicine given by Dongyang doctor is useless." My father was calm when he spoke.Grandmother and Baozhu both cried.My father laughed and said, "I originally said that I wanted to come and see and find out. Now that I know it's an incurable disease, I'm relieved. But I don't know how many days I can live? I have a lot of things to arrange in advance." From then on, my father no longer read books.But he discussed something with his mother in a low voice.One or two days later, my father spoke and my mother took notes.Although I can hear it, I don't understand its meaning.The mother was writing the notes while shedding tears. After the notes were finished, the mother read it over again, and the father nodded and said: That's it.But my mother thought for a while and said: "I wrote this important matter. People will say that it is not your idea. You should ask your father-in-law to write it." After hearing this, my father smiled bitterly and said, "You are thoughtful." Grandfather is coming.After the grandfather came, the father did not show him the manuscript written by the mother, but read it again himself, and asked the grandfather to write it.But I understood the last two sentences: "Shen Bofan dictated it, and my father Yangeng wrote it down." There are also years, months, and days.Later I found out it was a will.The main points are as follows: the general trend of China, unless there is a second reform and reform, will be divided up by the big powers, and both of them must revitalize industry and need talents in science and technology; can earn a living.In the will, I also asked my brother and I not to misunderstand the meaning of freedom and equality.One day after making the will, my father asked my mother to sort out the books; all the medical books were given to others, and the novels were kept, but he pointed to Tan Sitong's "Ren Xue" and said to me: "This is a great book, you can't read it now. I understand, I will probably be able to understand in the future." From then on, my father stopped reading books on mathematics, but talked about national affairs every day, and often talked about how Japan became a powerful country due to the Meiji Restoration.He also often encourages me: "A man should take the world as his responsibility." He repeatedly explained the meaning of this sentence.My mother wanted me to be an ambitious person. As the saying goes, "the elder brother is the father", and what the younger brother will do in the future depends on what example I set. In the summer of the second year, the climate was very hot.Seeing that the two buildings (known as the new house in the family) that the great-grandfather had previously planned to live in were vacant at this time, the mother found someone to live in the west of the new house on the back of his father's back.My brother and I were arranged to live in a downstairs room on the east side.In the late summer and early autumn of this year, my father passed away.There was no pain when my father died, and he never woke up as if he fell asleep.When my mother told my father not to answer, I thought my father was sleeping soundly, but the blood on his face was gone, and I felt for his pulse, only then did I know that my father had really left his beloved wife and Jiaoer, and went to the second Reformation, Guo Fubing, which he often missed. Strong China has gone. My younger brother and I were writing, when we heard mother yelp like a tearing silk, we rushed to see mother changing clothes for father, my younger brother and I were crying.After a while, all the family members came.At a loss, I want to help my mother.But the mother shook her hand and burst into tears.Mother wiped father's body clean with a hot towel, put on the mortuary clothes, and kept father's legs propped up very carefully. The father's body was moved downstairs to the east, which is usually used as one of the reception rooms.Mother just swallowed and whimpered all the time.It wasn't until the grandmother and Baozhu came in crying that they burst into tears. Because of the hot weather, he died the next day.After the funeral, my mother set up a small mourning hall in the house where my father died, and only provided a pair of vases, which were often replaced with flowers.His father's photo hung outwards.On both sides of the photo frame, mother Gong Kai wrote the pairings: reciting the words of Confucius and Mencius at a young age, learning sound, light, electricity, and electricity for a long time, worrying about the country and family. That is to say, good teachers, who have encouraged and encouraged each other for ten years, have broken the spring red with hail, and cannot redeem a hundred lives. Father is thirty-four years old.