Chapter 13 An anecdote about the decline of labor morality

In a certain port on the west coast of Europe, a fishing boat was moored, and a poorly dressed man lay inside.He was half asleep, his eyes dim.A well-dressed tourist walks in, and he immediately loads a new roll of color film into his camera, intending to take this idyllic picture: blue sky, green ocean, and light waves on the sea , with crests like snow, a black boat, and a crimson fisherman's cap.Click!Do it again, click!Good things come in threes, insurance will protect your face, and the third time: Kacha!The monotonous, repulsive clicking sound woke up the half-sleeping fisherman.He sat up sleepily, and dazedly reached for his cigarette case.However, before he could get it, the attentive tourist had already put a pack of cigarettes under his nose. Although he didn't put the cigarette directly into the fisherman's mouth, he handed it to him.The fourth sound, click!The lighter was lit, and he ended his courtesy hastily.Such agility and gallantry was excessive and artificial, and created an unpleasant embarrassment.The tourist, who is fluent in the language of his host country, wanted to strike up a few words to get out of the embarrassment.

"You'll catch a lot of fish today." The fisherman shook his head. "But I am told that the weather is very favorable today," The fisherman nodded. "Aren't you going to sea today?" The fisherman shook his head.Tourists are getting more and more nervous.He was sincerely concerned for the health of this poorly clad man.It would hurt him to miss the opportunity to express concern. "Oh, aren't you feeling well?" The fisherman finally gave up the signal language of shaking his head and nodding, and opened his mouth to speak. "I'm in great shape," he said. "I've never been better." He stood up and stretched, as if to show off his gladiatorial strength. "I feel like I'm amazingly fit."

The expression on the tourist's face became more and more embarrassing, but the doubts grew bigger and bigger, as if his heart was about to burst, so he couldn't help asking: "Then why don't you go out to sea?" The answer came quickly and simply: "Because I went out to sea early this morning." "Have you caught a lot of fish?" "Caught so much fish that I don't need to go out to sea today. I have four lobsters in the creel and maybe thirty or so mackerel." The fisherman finally woke up completely, his attitude eased, and he patted the tourist on the shoulder comfortingly.In his view, the worried look on the tourists' faces, while superfluous, is also touching. "Even tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, I will have enough." He said these words, apparently to relieve the foreigner's mental burden. "Do you smoke my cigarettes?" "Yes, thanks!"

Both had cigarettes in their mouths.Fifth click!The foreigner shook his head, sat on the side of the boat, put down the camera in his hand, and freed his hands, because now he wanted to use gestures to strengthen the weight of his words. "I really don't want to interfere in your personal affairs," he said. "But imagine if you could go out to sea two, three, or four times today, and you'd catch thirty, forty, fifty, maybe a hundred mackerel. Just imagine Such a situation!" The fisherman nodded. "If you," went on the tourist, "not just today, but tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, yes, every good day, two, three, maybe four times - you know, it will What's the result?"

The fisherman shook his head. “You can buy a motorboat in at least a year, a second boat in two years, maybe a sloop in three or four years. If you have two boats or a sloop, of course you can fish more fish—and someday you'll have two sloops and you'll..." For a brief moment, he was speechless with excitement, "you'll build a small Cold storage, maybe a smoker workshop, later a fish food factory, scouting for fish in your own helicopter and commanding your sloop fleet by radio. You can apply to catch spectacles by law Trout, run a seafood restaurant, and export mackerel directly to Paris without brokers. Then..." The foreigner was speechless again with excitement.While shaking his head, he looked at the quietly rolling tide, and saw the fish slipping through the net were still swimming happily in the water, he couldn't help but feel a little sad in his heart, the fun of vacation almost vanished. "And then," he said, but was once again too excited to speak.

The fisherman patted him on the back like a choking child. "Then what?" he asked softly. "And then," said the foreigner with great emotion, "then you can sit safely in this bay, dozing in the sun—and looking out at the majestic beauty of the sea." "However, I have done so now," said the fisherman. "Now I am sitting peacefully by the sea, and I have fallen asleep dimly. It was only your clicking, clicking sound that disturbed me just now." After being enlightened by this, the tourist left the place in deep thought, because he had thought the same way before: he is working now so that one day he can no longer work.The pity which the poorly clad fisherman had aroused in him was long gone, and only a little envy remained.

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