Chapter 4 night space

(a flat record) The evening tide rises quietly. The surface of the river was covered with a light milk-colored mist.In the center of the river, countless large ships coming from various places along the coast, full of goods and timber, were moored. In the fog, the huge hulls of the ships each drew a long black outline.The red lanterns tied to the mast flicker little by little, as if in a dream.All sounds subsided, only the generator of the electric light factory in the town could be heard humming evenly five miles away. The tide rises, and the seawater flows into the river against the river. In the vicinity of ××, where there are many forked ports, the dirty river water always flows from the river against the river into the port.It takes the same style every day, quietly, gently, and modestly, flowing everywhere, and only when the tide ebbs, it slips away in a hurry, leaving some muddy, rusty A tin box, some wood chips or a bunch of grass.When the river tide is full, the boats are moved more than two miles away from the river. When the tide ebbs, they seem to be put on dry land. At this time, all boats and boats are submerged in the water.

Knowing where the height of the tide ends, there is another story about someone placing the coffin at a slightly higher place by the port.Therefore, in these unattractive places, some unowned coffins that have been rotting in the sun and rain, and some shabby ships that are almost as bad as the coffins, are not more than twenty paces apart.Some coffins and some boats look like a village, and there is no conflict at all. After living the day, when the tide rises, the distance between the coffins and the boats seems to be closer. During the daytime, the dirty women living on the boat, seeing the weather is so good, often take their sickly children to play on the shore beside the boat to keep warm by the sun.Or stand on the head of the coffin and look into the distance to see if the man is back.Or use a coffin as a barrier, and block the other side with wooden boards, bamboo mats, etc., and let the children play between the coffins, while I sit on the big stone strips beside me to mend old clothes and pants.At night, on the straw in the boat, the child fell asleep on the dirty breast with his mother's soft nipple in his mouth. The mothers listened to the gurgling sound of the river entering the harbor when the tide was high beside the boat, and at the same time listened to the sound of the electric lights in the distance. The sound of factory motors and silk factory machinery, drowsily dreaming a little dream that life allows, or picking up a piece of coal worth a dime, or picking up a liter of rice at a rice store at random, why are you surprised when you arrive? Woke up.When he woke up, he touched it with his hand, and the child was still beside him, knowing that it was a good dream, and he sighed softly.In the end, when the child was crying, these women hugged the child to keep warm, or beat the child heavily, insulting the child with extremely rough words, and let the child cry until the voice was hoarse.When the tide rises to three feet from the coffin, it stops flowing. Seeing the ebb and flow of the evening tide, hearing the cries of children, I know that women dream in the cold night. It seems that these are the only ones who sleep in the barren fields for ten or eight years. Several unowned coffins from 2010.

In the town until midnight, everyone fell asleep.All that remains are the sound of a slingshot in a cotton store, the sound of sewing machines in a garment store, and the sound of a black-faced coppersmith hitting a candle holder with a steel hammer in a copperware store.From the gaps in the doors of these houses, there may be a little light, and this light will draw a horizontal line on the street. There is no one on the bustling streets full of fish and meat in the daytime.A quiet cobblestone street, just some dogs chasing and biting each other.The butchers who slept with their quilts spread out on the desks in the shop were all snoring loudly, or dreaming unscrupulous dreams just from the sound of dogs.I dreamed that a knife flew away and cut off a pig's foot. The pig's foot was different than usual, and it became conscious and fled to the bang.Or you dreamed that you were detained by the police in the yamen, and you must be fined five yuan. The reason was that you forgot to remove the shell from the pig's trotters, which hindered public hygiene.Or I dreamed that a soldier bought meat with a ten-yuan bill, only asking for four taels of meat, and took the meat as soon as he got it, without giving change, and not picky about the skin and bones, completely different from soldiers in other seasons.

These people have to re-arrange all the happiness and disasters that cannot be done in the daytime, in their dreams.There are also other business people who use their own convenience to make money and lose money in their dreams, because these people are all people who count on small sums to live! There are also foolish people who work as part-time laborers by the river and exchange their strength for a full meal, whether they are on a broken ship or in other places. As long as these people can sleep in that place and dream, most of them will always be happy. But I dreamed that a five-masted boat caught fire by the river.In the past few days, there were too many large ships moored in the river, and there was no lack of a chance of fire on every ship.Use any reason: the owner is warming up to the fire because of coldness, the man overturned the lamp in a gambling quarrel, and the guest accidentally throws the cigarette butt into the wood flower when smoking, all of which have to realize the desired thing.Without any reason, the ship might as well suddenly catch fire.Fire together, so lively.A very respectable ship, with wide sails, tall masts straight up to the sky, and the stern painted with flowers and algae carvings, and the newly painted cabin canopy, everything is on fire, angry and willful. save.When the light of the fire shines on the river, the water becomes golden waves.The owner of the ship stood on the rudder tower and screamed, sometimes forgetting to put on his upper and lower clothes.Dibao ran along the river, shouting and beating gongs like a madman.The surface of the river is full of goods, and the water is full of all kinds of things, such as bunches of dried fish, large bundles of foreign cloth wrapped in iron sheets, floral yarn with a lion's head on it, new cotton wadding with red threads both horizontally and vertically, hats, coats, leather shoes, Beautiful magnetic basins, soft fur gowns, all these things that are usually seen are floating in the river, and everyone is free to plunder them in a hurry. Ben.The fire brigade came, as did the land security, and the water security, arresting people everywhere.But the more fires were on board, everyone put out the fires, and the government officials also went to grab what they liked according to their own convenience, and no one stopped them from plundering the goods on the river, so everyone satisfies all their desires, and only waits for dawn. It's over.They all dreamed this kind of sweet dream suitable for winter according to their own convenience. Some got a basket of oil or a bundle of cloth, some got a bunch of dried fish, and some got a suit of cloth and cotton clothes that fit very well.The man who is usually too timid, who has suffered from the insurance and the police on the water, dreams of getting what he needs, but at the same time dreaming that he is still holding on to the collar for the patrol and dragged to the river, ready to be hoisted there. He went up the scrap steel chimney by the river and beat the whip to show the public, so he tried to escape with a cunning scheme, but he woke up when he stepped on it.There are also some people who have no lack of experience in prison, and they dream of going to the smelly and wet prison in Baoshan County for the second time to do hard labor, still being beaten in their dreams, still telling lies and swearing, and begging the adults to grant bail and release them.

These people in this place, because they are all so poor, have grown up on this big river, lived in these dirty boats or huts, and all their desires are so ordinary that it is ridiculous.Their longing for a pair of trousers or a pair of soft cotton batting is something they only dare to dream about in December when the snow is about to fall, and they don't usually have the courage to do so.However, there is almost no sustenance for this desire. The name "good man" is just something in a book, and it is very inconvenient to steal it. Therefore, the basis of dreams, everyone is nothing more than this huge ship.But what about this ship?Coming from the sea, the big sail is full of wind and running day and night, the rudder wrapped in iron is turning all the time, the tall mast bears the powerful sail and never lets go, the men on board deal with the big waves In January and February, we eat dried vegetables and stinky fish. When we arrive at the ground, everything should rest, so the boat itself is moored in the river, and it seems to be asleep.

When the tide is low, the boats in the river will sway a little, just like in a dream, fighting with the wind in the ocean, holding the sails and sailing away with the inclined wind. Because of the low tide, some men put on their clothes and got up, touched the chains and defecated beside the boat.This person looks at a small moon in the sky, sticks it high in the sky, and looks at the stars. Here and there are all familiar friends of the navigator. He counts the names of these stars one by one in his heart. Thinking of the family members thousands of miles away, the day has meaning in this kind of rough man's mind. Is it October or November?Want to understand.After unloading the goods, I loaded some goods, bunches, barrels, squares, long, and smelly ones, which could be eaten by stealing, somehow got into the cabin, and sailed when the evening tide fell... But when to that old place?I also estimated it in my heart.For the New Year, should I eat dried fish and rice cooked with bad rice in the tent on the boat, or should I talk and joke with my wife at the other end of the bed at home, and I also remembered.In the end, because of the fascination from afar, I couldn't resist the severe frost close by. From the small cabin door, I got into the fumigated interior cabin, and squeezed to sleep next to a companion who had won a lot of foreign money in a dream.Hearing the absurd nonsense of his companions, talking about amounts that he would not dare to say in normal times, three hundred yuan, five hundred yuan, as if he didn't care, he inserted his frozen thigh on the deck into the The heat goes inside.

The dream can't be fulfilled, with the temper of the people on the boat, scolding the ancestors before speaking, "Hello dog and your mother, lost all my money?" "You said five hundred and three hundred, I know you are busy at Pai Gow, so I'll crush you." "Don't bother me, you bastard, I'm about to win a thousand." "Talking big, dreaming!" "Is it raining?" "It's low tide, and the weather is fine." If the two of them didn't speak, they would hear the sound of the iron chains mooring the boat. In addition, there was really gambling on board, and seven or eight people squatted on the bunks, under a small kerosene lamp, and used a pair of Tianjiu cards to win or lose for different amounts.Outrageous slogans were uttered from some bearded mouths, and all kinds of wild words were uttered in anger from the mouths of another kind of young people.Because it was Ye Jing, the words were very soft at first, but they seemed to be very loud. When one of the accomplices felt that it was too unseemly, he still used insults as an order to make the voice smaller, so as not to make the ship owner and the like angry.There have also been cases of being beaten into a pile because of quarreling over ten or two cents.Because of losing money in a bet, the owner of the dominoes threw the thirty-two dominoes together into the river in a fit of anger, and vowed not to play cards again. While pissing hot urine, seeing Xingyue, I also felt a little bit of my hometown.They also often dream about things related to women, unscrupulous, completely unconcerned with the air of polite people, no beauty, no poetry, only very simple, material, dreaming in Doing everything in front of a fat woman.When I woke up from the dream, I scolded my mother, thinking that women are cunning, even in dreams, they can deceive men.

There are also men who don’t want to dream a little and feel satisfied. When the time comes when they don’t have to pull up the tent and row the oars, they have to spend all their energy and money in one night. A hut by the river and a boat in the harbor are just what they want. to the place.These are the places where fools can sleep peacefully after their waywardness, or create memories for future dreams. Don't dream, don't care about the ebb and flow of the tide, just think of a sum of twenty-six cents, do night work at thirteen o'clock, under the thin yellow light, stand beside the locomotive and tidy up cocoons, these are some girls of different sizes .These anemic and weak girls live in this world without knowing anything.Work at two o'clock and take a five-minute break. During the break, I don't say a word, and just lean against the pile of cocoons and take a nap.When the time came, he still didn't say a word and went to work by the locomotive.

At the end of the river tide, these filthy children counted to rest four times, so they remembered that the world was about to be bright, and they thought that they could rest at dawn, and they worked much more diligently.It was once said that it was a dog or something. He was also a supervisor worker who did not sleep or dream. He walked through the row of locomotives. He usually did not easily smile in front of children. He looked happy. . The children themselves do not know how to dream, but they give the parents the convenience of dreaming in the long night.The life of two yuan a night can only be enjoyed by young women who live in red clothes and paint gouache on a small black awning boat by the river.These parents are fully aware of the "human behavior" that Jiangchuan women know so well, and that the upper classes do not understand at all. Their daughters can already work as night laborers in the factory for twenty-eight cents, and they go back and forth every day. Go, people will grow up, although the winter night is very long, the dream will never be exhausted.

Written in 1929 and revised in August 1930.