Chapter 13 Changde

I was planning to go to Beijing, but I couldn't. I wanted to go as far as possible, but I thought that I would have to go to a place where people forget all the mistakes of my existence, and I also forget all the foolishness and stupidity of myself. Only then can I live again. But when I arrived in Changde, a relative left me behind. After arriving in Changde, I couldn't do anything for a while, but lived in a small inn that cost 36 cents a day for food. Therefore, the most places to go were still the same as in the Chenzhou army last year. Most of my life. Chenzhou River Street is only a mile or two long. There are a few small teahouses that trade with people on board, and a few grocery stores that do business with people on board. Changde’s River Street is much different. A river street about three to five miles long, there are inns, flower yarn shops, oil shops, a big shop selling anchors and chains on ships, tax bureaus, various guild halls and shops. This river street is so The length is so complicated, and because people in the city carry water to soak the ground all year round, I walk back and forth once or twice a day, and stop at any place to appreciate the new things happening in front of me at that time, and as usual Everything that exists, the day will soon be night again.

Since the river street is so long, I like the section called Mayang Street the most. There is a city wall on one side, and a row of narrow huts facing the river on the other side. There are smoke shops and noodle shops, and there are rope shops. There is a grocery store, a butcher's shop, a dog butcher's shop with smoked and dried dog meat hung in front of the door, a cast-iron anchor and a hardwood cart, and a small shop selling utensils for boats. There is also a small barber shop, walking When people pass by on the street, they often see some big round heads, let the barber shave their heads with a knife with a three-pointed attitude, or put their heads on one thigh, and take them to the sun. Er. There are a few brothels specially for rowers on boats, and you can often see three or five big-footed women, wearing blue calico dresses, red floral trousers, pink faces and greasy hair, and the bridge of the nose is red, sitting Peeling Chaoyang flower seeds on the bench in front of the door, smiling when seeing someone passing by, and singing softly in a Mayang accent. This street is dirty, but it is always wet and difficult to walk all year round, and There is always a strange smell throughout the year. The river is full of small boats moored by households, as well as large ships from the upper reaches of the Chen River that carry tung oil and cowhide. I saw these sailors walking around with dried fish in their hands, or big pumpkins on their shoulders. Everyone hurriedly gave gifts from their hometown upstream to their relatives and friends. The children who grew up in the house and on the river boat held a big red-crowned rooster in broad daylight, with a fat dog in front of him and behind him, looking for other roosters to fight at the end of the street. When I saw someone When a rooster is caught, the chickens in his arms are thrown far away, and each of them occupies the pile of wood piled up at the foot of the city wall to watch the battle. When his own cock is defeated, he goes to kick other cocks to vent his anger. Or because of other reasons What happened, the two scolded each other, seeing that no one could lose that breath, they fought bravely in the street, tangled up and kneaded into the mud.

Those who sell cakes on the street must knock on bamboo clappers, and those who sell sugar must beat small gongs. As for the way to attract others' attention, these people all know that when crossing the street, they sing a licentious tune, which is similar to certain parts of a woman's body. It is relevant and makes people laugh. On the street, there are often women sitting on the low stool in front of the door crying and cursing, or using a kitchen knife to chop a piece of wood while scolding the person who stole the chicken and killed it. On the street, you can often see the ship owner wearing a blue-feathered satin mandarin jacket and a freshly washed blue cloth gown, bringing many gifts to acquaintances. There are often wooden figures singing in the street. Under a strange arrangement, the gongs and drums sounded loudly, and many idlers watched the puppet show with their mouths wide open, but when it was time to collect the money, they all dispersed.

There are many teahouses on that street, one side faces the street, the other side faces the river, and the side passage leads to the river wharf. Most people who disembark from the small boats go ashore through this passage, so there are a lot of people coming and going. The boats are full of lights at night, There are many small boats in the middle of the river, and the boatmen make a long noise selling soju and pork trotter vermicelli. I imagine that the vermicelli must not be bad, and I would like to have a chance to go to that small boat to eat and drink something, But of course it can't be done.

I go up and down this street and see how these people live, how happy and how sad, and it seems that I also get a little meaning of life. From time to time, I ran to the ship wharf to see the small ships coming from Changsha and Hankou, and stood timidly at a corner of the barge, watching those student-looking young men and decent women get on and off the boat, seeing the appearance of those people, and seeing the behavior of those people. Luggage. Occasionally, I found many signs of hotels in Shanghai and Beijing pasted on a person’s suitcase. I always walked over quietly to study it carefully, and estimated where this person came from. It's a spectacle right now for my country bumpkin.

Occasionally, I climbed up to the city again, and took a circle on the stone city. While taking a walk, I condescendingly admired all the conditions in the courtyards of the houses near the foot of the city wall. As usual, there were quite a few workers in the dyeing workshops who carried blue and white cloth out of the city to dry in the empty field, and there were people from the army to let the horses go, and they could see buried people, and they could also see ducks and geese. Since one person had nothing to do , so when I went to the top of the city and looked at everything outside the city, and still felt a little inadequate, I would go out of the city to those big farms to talk to the workers in the dyeing workshop and the grooms. All spirits are closer to a soldier, and when we come to them, we can talk about more subjects than I can talk to a student. As far as I am concerned, I seem to have the same relationship with any inferior person. There are many things to talk about, and most of their feelings and hopes, like mine, are obtained from real-life evidence. But if you talk to a university professor, he will not only talk about the set of experiences he learned from books. , That is to say, his impressions obtained from the newspaper always seem to lack something for the constitution of a person's life. There are very few opinions to exchange.

I have sometimes followed a procession of burials to the burial site, to see how their burial procedures differed from the customs of my place. The other thing that made me escape from my original environment, of course, I have not forgotten. I wrote some letters full of confession and self-blame to ask my mother for forgiveness. My mother knew that I did not commit suicide, so she sent a letter saying: I have done it. There is no unforgivable reason. If you do things well, we will rest assured. When I received these letters, I quietly went to the city wall and cried. Because I can imagine that these letters were written by my mother. When it was written on paper, the tears of the two must have hung on their faces.

At the same time, I also heard the news that the elder sister of the white-faced boy went down to study, but was snatched by bandits into the mountains on the boat and went to be the wife of the village. Write down two lines of other people's poems in the legendary novels of the Tang Dynasty, and express your own feelings: the beautiful woman belongs to Sha Chili, and the righteous man has no ancient Yaya. She redeemed it with a considerable amount of money, and then married a commander of the Qian army stationed in Hongjiang. But the commander was shot again soon, and the woman went to the local Catholic Church in Yuanzhou to be a foreign nun.

Of course I don't read books, I don't write words, and I don't want to write poems anymore. At that time, the reason why I stayed in Changde was because there was a Qingxiang headquarters in Taoyuan County, ninety miles upstream, which belonged to my local army. This army was also part of the First Army of the Yasukuni Allied Forces. Although I am from Guizhou, most of the senior officials are from my hometown. My friend introduced me to go there, thinking that it would be easy. As the commander of the detachment, I was under the command of Qingxiang, and all the troops were stationed in Taoyuan County. After I got a letter of introduction from a fellow villager with the surname Xiang, I took it to meet He Long, and I got a dispatch with a salary of nine yuan. I did it. I went to pay a visit to other acquaintances and asked for an errand from the Qingxiang headquarters. But although there were acquaintances in the two places, there was no result. I couldn't do things like being sent by the secretary. I would like to be a soldier, but everyone always thought I couldn't. Served as a soldier. But although the matter was fruitless, since there are many acquaintances in Taoyuan, I can often take a small boat across Taoyuan without a ticket. When they arrived in Taoyuan, they stayed with him. When they went out, they still went to the river to look at the boats. Or go up a little to the Taoyuan Women's Teacher's River, and look at the big weir in the middle of the river. When the water is high, the weir It is a spectacle, because it is obliquely across the center of the river, and according to the trend of the water flow, there are a large number of fish jumping on the bamboo frame, and someone uses a long hook to take the boat into the boat without any trouble! I left that Qingxiang The army has been in the army for two years, and looking at this Qingxiang army again, everything has completely changed. The guns and discipline are not as sloppy as before. Every soldier seems to be very self-respecting, and every officer is neatly dressed and stands on the street with his chest out Walking. Soldiers are not allowed to go out when there is nothing to do, and the staff have their own schedules for work and rest. I am very moved by the impression of the army.

Although the commander was born in the army, his elegant demeanor makes people unable to see his true colors. He is extremely agile in writing and rich in experience. I have been very attracted to him when I heard people talk about him for many days. Therefore, I At that time, I just thought that if I could be a servant with him, maybe it would be more interesting than doing other things. But I thought about it for a long time, but I couldn't get a convenient opportunity.