Chapter 8 by the bridge

They sewed up my leg and gave me a seated job: counting people across a new bridge.They take pleasure in the demonstration of their shrewdness by numbers, and intoxicate them with meaningless empty numbers.All day, all day, my silent mouth moves like a timer, adding up one number after another, to give them a good news of numbers in the evening, when I report the results of my work Their faces glow when they are, and the bigger the number, the more radiant they are.They had reason to go to bed contented, for thousands of people crossed their new bridge every day...   But their statistics are inaccurate.I'm sorry, but it's inaccurate, I'm an unreliable person, although I know how to evoke honesty in people.

I am secretly happy with this, and sometimes I deliberately select a few people; when I feel pity, I give them a few.Their happiness is in my hands.When I'm annoyed, when I don't have a cigarette, I give an average; when I'm in a good mood and good spirits, I show my generosity in five figures.How happy they are!Every time they solemnly took the results in my hands, their eyes sparkled, and they patted me on the shoulder.They expected nothing!Then they multiplied, divided, calculated percentages, and other things I didn't know.They calculated how many people cross the bridge every minute today, and how many people will cross the bridge ten years from now.They love the future perfect, the future perfect is their specialty - but, sorry, it's all inaccurate...

When my beloved girl crosses the bridge—she walks across it twice a day—my heart literally stops beating.My tireless heartbeat literally stopped chug until she turned into the avenue and disappeared.I have not counted all the people who have passed by during this time.These two minutes belong to me, completely to me, and I won't let them occupy them.When she came back from the soda shop at night—and during this time, I found out, she worked in a soda shop—when she was on the other side of the sidewalk, in my silent but obliged to count mouth My heart stopped beating again as I walked past, and I only started counting again when I no longer saw her.All the people who have been lucky enough to pass before my bleary eyes in these few minutes will not be immortalized in the statistics, they are all ghosts of men and women, and nothing that does not exist will not be in the future of statistics We crossed the bridge together in the perfect.

It's clear, I love her.But she doesn't know anything, and I don't want to let her know.She shouldn't know with what terrible way she overturns all calculations, she should walk into the soda shop with her long brown hair and gentle steps, carefree and innocent, she deserves Lots of tips.I am loving her.It is very clear that I am in love with her. They checked me out recently.The miner sitting on the other side of the pavement and counting cars gave me a timely warning, and I was extra cautious.I counted like crazy, and a machine that automatically records the kilometers couldn't count better than me.The chief statistician stood on the sidewalk and counted himself, and compared the hourly result with my count.I counted only one person less than him.My beloved girl has come, and I will never convert such a beautiful girl into the future perfect tense in my life; my beloved little girl should not be multiplied, divided, and turned into an empty percentage.My heart is broken because I have to count and can no longer watch her go by, I am so grateful to the miners who are counting cars across the way.This is directly related to my job issue.

The chief statistician patted me on the shoulder and said that I was a good man, faithful and reliable. "Only one miscount in an hour," he said, "doesn't matter much. We're going to add a certain percentage anyway, and I'll propose that you be assigned to count the carriages." Counting horse-drawn carriages is of course a beautiful job.Counting carriages is a luck I have never had.There are only twenty-five carriages a day at most, and the number is recorded in my mind every half hour.This is simply good luck! How beautiful it is to count the carriages!Carriages are not allowed to cross the bridge at all from four to eight o'clock, I can go for a walk or go to the soda shop, I can see her for a long time, and maybe I can see her for a while when she goes home, I That beloved, uncounted little girl...

Translated by Sun Kunrong Xiao Maosao's "Selected Novellas and Short Stories by Burr", published by Foreign Literature Publishing House in 1980