Chapter 17 on the way alone

After being separated from the woman under the promenade of the East Station, I was left alone again in my family.The couple who are used to wandering for many years, this separation is nothing special, but on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, Long Er had just died, and by this time the autumn wind was already blowing in the city of Beijing. After all, the time of death is only about a hundred days.In the car seat, when I regained my consciousness for a while, I remembered the words on the head of Lu Sao's work in his later years: "The Dream of a Lonely Walker". "I have no brothers, no neighbors, no friends, and no society except myself. My family has become a lonely person in this world..." However, Lu Sao still abandoned Five sons raised in the orphanage, and myself, I can't even catch a son who has been brought up to five years old!

farewell from home.Originally, I just wanted to support my wife and children.Being expelled from a certain university last year was something unexpected.Afterwards, the army was in turmoil and the traffic was blocked. In the cold winter of October, no one would have expected to fall ill in Shanghai.In February of this year, I managed to get to the south with great difficulty, and returned home for a year and a half. Who knew that this newly bred dragon would suffer from such a terrible disease? Long'er's medical report was originally obtained in Guangzhou. He hurriedly flew north and arrived in Shanghai. He connected several telegrams from Beijing and changed ships to Tianjin. It was already the tenth day of the fifth lunar month in the old calendar.On the night when I got home, when I saw the white note on the door, my heart was already beating in a hurry. I rushed to my brother's house from the twilight, and saw her who was sick. Because I barely suppressed my emotions in front of the public, After hastily eating supper, going to bed, and turning off the light, the two of them can only hug each other and cry bitterly, crying bitterly, crying bitterly, just crying bitterly, and they can't get out of breath, and where is there room for a word?

The time of suffering has indeed passed too slowly, and this summer is just a continuation of laments.Go to bed at night, couple, how dare you mention a word?Pitiful for these two lost souls, in the darkness where the electric lights are turned off, the deserted roads they grope for, every time they gather together on a line, at the intersection of this road, there is only a small tombstone, and on the tombstone there is only " The four scarlet letters of "Longer's Tomb". Because my wife and children could not live with their mother in their hometown in Zhejiang, they had no choice but to move to my elder brother’s house in Beijing, where I was sending food. It was the middle of April last year. At that time, Long Er was growing plump and cute. Teach people to rejoice.At the beginning of May, when I returned to Beijing from a certain place, I felt that my brother's house was too small, so I rented a tiny house on the north shore of Shichahai.The husband and wife had fun with Long'er every day, and in their free time they often took Long'er for a walk in the depths of the lotus in Beihai and among the willows in front of the door.This year's summer vacation, I finally had a happy and most leisurely time.

When the autumn wind blows and the leaves fall, I say goodbye to Long Er and the woman, and go to a certain university to help a friend. At that time, the two of them were going to the West Station to see me off!This is what happened in the autumn evening last year, and it is still the same as yesterday when I think about it. , One month later, something happened in a school in a certain place, and I went back to Beijing again. I stayed in Shichahai for two weeks. In the biting dusk, I went to the west station to take advantage of the car.At this time, because I was afraid that Long'er would cry, I and the woman, after dinner, only said that we were going to my brother's house, and only allowed him to walk us to the door.I remember that night he stood alone at the door with his mother, and when we had gone a long way, he yelled "Daddy! Daddy!" a few times.Ahhh, these few calls were the last voices I heard him call me in this world.

After leaving Beijing, I stayed overnight in a certain place, and then hurried to Shanghai.Then he fell ill, encountered bandits fighting for power, and then went to the south to live temporarily, until May of this year, before returning to Beijing. Thinking about it, Long Er is really a debt-filling son, a messenger of depression who came to comfort me and his mother during the years of chaos and distress! Since he landed in Anqingsheng, I myself have not escaped depression for a day, and I have not lived in a place for more than five months.My woman, every night and I share the burden of the cross, just wandering from east to west, north and south.Of course, when the day and night are difficult, when the misery is unbearable, just teach him to smile, and the woman and I can forget all the poverty and sorrow.And when I arrived in Beijing on the tenth day of May this year, his body was already lying underground in the Garden of Friendship in Miaoguang Pavilion.

His illness was said to be meningitis.From the day of illness to the time of death at noon of the Dragon Boat Festival in the old calendar, more than a month passed in between.He is usually spoiled by us, but he is very docile when he heard that he is ill.Ask him to take medicine, and he will take it in big mouthfuls, and ask him to use an ice pillow, and he will lie down very softly.When he was still able to talk after his illness, he only asked his mother, "When will Dad come back?" "Have you finished the little leather shoes that Dad ordered for me in Shanghai?" Ask him: "Dragon! Do you know if you will die from this illness?" He always replied reluctantly, "Where will you die?" According to the woman told me tearfully, his Conversation is by no means like a five-year-old child.

One month before he got sick, he was playing at the door one afternoon when he saw a carriage coming from the west, and a young man with a gray hat was sitting in the carriage.When he saw it from a distance, he left his partner in a hurry, ran into the house and called his mother out, saying, "Daddy is back, daddy is back!" because I had the same white and gray fedora hat with me when I left Beijing last year. .His mother came out with him to the door, and when the carriage had already passed, he held on to his mother, crying and saying, "Why doesn't Dad come home to scare you? Why doesn't Dad come home to scare you?" His mother comforted her for a long time , He was still crying, which is what his mother told me with tears in his eyes.Looking back now, I really shouldn't have abandoned them and wandered outside alone, causing that little soul to often look far away and feel the pain of missing relatives.

Last June, after moving to Shichahai, we were walking on the embankment once, because he saw someone's car and insisted on sitting in it crying, I beat him a ton.Another time, he was severely beaten by me because he wanted to wear a foreign dress.This can only be blamed on my father's inability to make foreign clothes for him to wear.Hiring a car for him, if I had known that he would die so early, I would be a pawn and robbery, and I should go get some money to satisfy his innocent desires. Now that I think about it, I really feel sorry for him. It's too overwhelming. My wife said that five days before her frequent death, she called her father for several nights in the hospital.She asked him, "Why are you calling Dad?" He stopped talking, stopped for a while, and then cried again. By the third day of the fifth lunar month, he had already fallen into a coma. The doctor took out the bone marrow for him, and he would only scream once. "What for?" The trachea in the throat was clucking and sobbing, the eyes were only hanging upwards, some white foam was flowing from the mouth, but the breath would not stop.His mother cried a few times, "Dragon! Dragon!" Tears welled up from the corners of his eyes. Later, when his mother saw how miserable he was, she said to him:

"Long, if you are dead, go well! Do you want to wait for your father to come back, even if your father comes back, it will just treat you like this. Long! What can't you wish for? Long! Rather than sobbing and suffering like this, you might as well go quickly!" Hearing this passage, tears welled up in the corners of his eyes.At noon of the Dragon Boat Festival in the old calendar, he couldn't wait for my return, and finally died. After the funeral, the woman moved to her brother's house for a few days.On the night of May 10th, I got out of the car and rushed to Shichahai's apartment. I knocked on the door for a long time, but there was no answer.When I looked up, I saw a white note telling the postman to deliver the letter.

Ever since Long'er fell ill, she has been tired of taking care of her day and night, how can I take this last blow lightly? After I arrived in Beijing, seeing her fading face and seeing her tears, how could I not cry bitterly? ? I stayed at my elder brother's house for two or three days. Because I wanted to pursue the relics of Longer's life, I decided to move the woman and I back to Shichahai's residence for a month or two. On the day I moved back, as soon as I entered the door of the upper house, I saw a lantern from the first month of this year that he had torn.I heard that this lantern was given to him by his aunt Nancheng, because a hole was burned in his own house, and he came here crying several times.

Secondly, there are several piles of burnt paper money traces on the bricks in the upper room!Burned when he was buried. There is a grape tree and two jujube trees in the yard. Last year, when he harvested grape dates, he stood under the tree, put on his coat, and looked up at me on the tree.I picked one and threw it into his coat bucket. His laughter would last for three to five minutes. This year, these two jujube trees are full of green dates. In the middle of the night when the wind blows, there is always a difference between the two. The jujube resigned, and the woman and I slept on the bed, sometimes weeping and talking, but it was always quieter before we could fall asleep.In the midst of such quiet conversations, the most dreadful thing to hear is the sound of ticking and falling dates. On the second day in Beijing, I went to see his grave with a woman.First, she bought a lot of banknotes from the Underworld at a paper shop in the South, and prepared to burn them as gifts for him. She woke up from her sobs and said, "This is the banknote. How can he use it as a child?" Then he returned to the car and went to Liulichang to buy some paper money with holes.He cried for a while in front of the grave, and when he burned the paper money, he cried out: "This pile is banknotes, you keep it there, and use it when you grow up. If you want to buy something, you can use this pile of money first. On this day, he sat on his grave, and we stayed until seven o'clock in the afternoon. When the sun was flat, he came home. Before leaving, his mother cried and said: "Dragon! Dragon! Aren't you afraid of being calm here alone? Dragon! Dragon! If someone comes to bully you, you can tell mother at night! Why don't you want to come back? Why don't you come and ask someone in your dream?" In the box, there are many small clothes of his scattered around.The weather in Beijing this year, until mid-July, is already very cold.In the cool morning and evening, we both wanted to change into some jackets, but because we were afraid of seeing his old jackets and socks, the two of us stayed next to each other day after day, and neither of us said anything, saying, "I want to wear clothes." Put on a jacket." Once, she was taking a nap with a woman there, and she sat up suddenly from the bed, her shoes on and her socks bare, and ran into the living room in the upper room, and even ran out into the yard.When I followed her outside for no reason, I saw her looking around for something.I couldn't find it, so I stood there for a while, then suddenly he burst into tears, hugged me and asked urgently, "Can you hear me? Can you hear me?" After crying, she told me that in the While half awake and half asleep, she heard "Mother! Mother!" several times. It was indeed the voice of the dragon. He said firmly, "It is indeed the dragon who has returned." My friends and relatives in Beijing, to comfort us, often invite the two of us to dinner and theater this summer. She is always reluctant to go with me, because in June last year, no matter where we went to play, Longer was always with us. in one place. A summer vacation this year, like this, passed away in the midst of laments and dreams. This time, the letter from the south urging me to go to Taoism was too hasty. Before I left, I felt that there was still a big thing to do. I moved to a new house before the Mid-Autumn Festival, and I was busy for a week with repairing the house and arranging miscellaneous tasks. Due to various trivial matters, I couldn't spare time to visit Longer's cemetery again.When the woman came to see me off at the East Station, my heart was full of soreness and pain, reminiscing about this hate incident.I wanted to tell her several times and told her to visit Miaoguang Pavilion in two or three days, but after seeing her haggard look and unbearable misery, I finally couldn't say a word. . Now it's far away from Beijing, and even farther away from Long'er, and I'm alone in my family, just a lonely person.To continue here in this life is probably endless wandering. (October 5, 1926, in a Shanghai hotel) Excerpted from "The Great Series of Chinese New Literature" (a collection of essays)