Chapter 22 louse

louse Akutagawa Ryunosuke one On November 26th of the first year of Genji ①, a group of California feudal lords who served as guardians of Kyoto, in order to participate in the conquest of Choshu at that time, led the elder of the country ③, Osumi Mamoru, from Osumi. Go to the mouth of Anzhi River and set off by boat. ① The first year of Yuanzhi was 1864. ② At the end of the Edo period, in order to resist the aggression of the Western colonialists, the Choshu Domain implemented some reforms in its domestic policy.The Edo shogunate, which represented the central government at that time, was the general representative of Japan's declining feudal system. In 1864, the shogunate launched the first conquest of the Changzhou domain.

③The country is always the elder of the princes (the leader of the retainers) who lead the country. In the Edo period, when the princes came to Edo to participate in the work, the country always stayed behind and took charge of government affairs.Shenqin is the abbreviation of Shenqin Accountability.It means taking turns to see each other.In the Edo period, in order to strengthen the rule of the vassals, the shogunate implemented a system in which the vassals led their retainers to serve the general in Edo for one year (living in the neighboring country for one year), while their wives lived in Edo for a long time.

Tsukuda Kutao and Sangishi Sanro were the leaders of the pilots. The boats of Lao Dian's team hung white flags, and the boats of Yamagishi's team hung red flags.When the Jinpira boat ④ with a load of 500 shi, hangs red and white flags respectively, flutters with the wind, and enters the sea from the mouth of the river, the scene is really majestic! ④ Jinpira boat is a simple passenger ship in the Edo period. At first, it was specially used to carry pilgrims to Shikoku to pay homage to Jinpira Palace, hence the name.Jinpiluo is the god who protects the sea. However, the group of people on the boat was far from being that powerful.First of all, each boat has thirty-four masters and slaves, and four boatmen, a total of thirty-eight people.So the boat was so crowded that there was not even room to turn around.Secondly, wooden barrels full of yellow radish and pickles are lined up in the cabin, so that there is no place to plug them in.Plus I'm not used to it, once I smell that stench, no matter who it is, I will feel like vomiting.Finally, as it was late November in the old calendar, the wind blowing towards the sea was bitterly cold.Especially in the evening, with the mountain wind blowing from Mount Maya ① and drifting on the ocean, even young warriors from the north, many of them would have their teeth broken from the cold.

① Mount Maya is located near Kobe. Also, there are a lot of lice on board.They are not the easier lice that hide in the crevices of clothing.They are covered with sails, with banners, with masts, with anchors.It is an exaggeration to say that it is simply not clear whether these ships are carrying people or lice.Of course, in this case, there will never be dozens of people crawling under the clothes.As soon as these lice climbed onto human skin, they would immediately bite fiercely with peace of mind.Even if there are five or ten, they will assume a posture of conquest.As I said just now, lice are like sown white sesame seeds, because there are too many of them, and there is no way to deal with them.Therefore, no matter whether it was Lao Tsukuda's team or Yamagishi's team, all the samurai on the boat were covered with lice bite marks all over their bodies, as if they had measles.

However, even if there is no way to do it, you can't just resign yourself to fate.At that time, a group of people in the boat caught lice whenever they had time.Go up to my old man, go down to Ma Bian, all stripped naked, catch lice crawling everywhere, throw one by one into the tea bowl, catch one by one and throw one by one.On the Jinpira boat with tall sails and bathed in the winter sunshine of the inland sea, more than thirty warriors, all wearing only aprons, holding tea bowls, under the sail ropes and behind the anchor, devoted themselves to catching lice.Imagining that scene today, no matter who it is, it will be really funny.However, in the face of "necessity", everything is meticulous, and this is no different before the Meiji Restoration than it is now. ——Here, a boatload of naked warriors, like big lice themselves, enduring the cold, perseveringly looking around every day, earnestly strangling the lice in the cracks.

two But on Lao Tsukuda's boat, there was a strange man.He is an eccentric middle-aged and old man, named Susumu Moriquan, a walking retinue with seventy straw bags of rice and five people's salary.Since he didn't catch him, of course he crawled all over his body, some climbed to the root of his hair, and some climbed to the waist of the skirt pants③.Even so, he didn't mind. ① Zhonglao is one of the titles of the princes and servants, and its status is second to that of the elders. ②The original text is the imperial apprentice, the title of the Edo shogunate in Japan. When the general goes out on foot, he walks in front, hence the name.

③The original text is called trousers, a kind of trousers worn by Japanese people. The trousers are fat, like skirts.Now used for dresses. So is it because the lice don't bite this person?Nor is it.He is exactly the same as the other partners. It is probably the most appropriate to describe him as having a lot of money all over his body. His whole body is full of red spots.Look at the place where he scratched again, and you will know that he is not without itching.However, no matter it was itchy or not, he always didn't mind it and took it calmly. It’s nothing to just deal with it calmly, but whenever he sees other partners who are focused on catching lice, he will come to him and ask, “If you catch lice, please don’t kill them. Put them alive in the tea bowl, give it to me.” !"

"What do you want it for?" one of the companions asked him puzzled. "I want it, I want to raise it!" Shin Mori replied solemnly. "Okay, I'll give you the live ones." A companion thought it was a joke, so he and two or three companions spent half a day catching two or three tea bowl lice alive.The companion thought that if he put the lice there and said "You raise it", no matter how impulsive Mori Gonnosuke might be at that time, he would probably be rendered speechless. As soon as he put down the tea bowl, and before the companion could speak, Shin Gonnosuke said, "I really caught it. If you catch it, give it to me!"

The partners were taken aback. "Then please fall here!" Morigonosuke opened his collar nonchalantly. "Bite the bullet and show off, it will be uncomfortable in the future!" The companion said so, but Morigonosuke himself turned a deaf ear.At this time, the partners one by one took the tea bowls to pour, just like measuring rice with a liter after rice, pouring the densely packed lice into the neckline. Susumu Moriquan solemnly picked up the lice that fell outside and said, "Thank you! I'm going to have a good night's sleep from tonight." He was so happy while muttering to himself. smile.

"Do you want to be hot if you have lice?" The stunned partners all looked at each other and said the same thing. Sen tidied up the collar stuffed with lice carefully, looked at everyone with disdainful eyes, and then explained: "Everyone, in the recent cold weather, didn't you catch a cold? How is it? No sneezing, no runny nose. Not only that, but my body is very hot, and my hands and feet never feel cold. Everyone, if you ask who is responsible for this? ——Everyone, this is exposure Light of lice!" According to Susumu Moriquan, once the lice crawled on the body, they would inevitably bite severely.Once you bite, you have to scratch it.I got bitten everywhere on my body, so I had to scratch everywhere.Humans are omnipotent, they scratch whenever they feel itchy, and the scratched area will naturally become hot and warm.Once warmed up, people will fall asleep.If I fall asleep, I don't know itching anymore. ——In this case, the more lice you have on your body, the more soundly you will sleep, and you will not catch a cold.So no matter what, you should keep lice instead of catching them...

"Oh, so that's what happened!" said the two or three companions with great admiration after hearing Mori Konnosusumu's theory about lice. three After that, some of the crew members on the boat imitated Susumu Mori and started breeding lice.Whenever these people have free time, they take tea bowls and look for lice everywhere.This is no different from other partners, the difference is that they carefully put the caught lice into their arms one by one, and feed them carefully. However, no matter in which country or in which era, it is rare for anyone to accept the doctrine of the pioneers.Even on this ship there were many conservatives who opposed Sen's theory about lice. Among them, the leading conservative element is a foot follower named Inoue Dianzo.This is also a strange man who eats all the lice he catches.Every time after dinner, he would put the tea bowl in front of himself and chew something with relish. When people walked up to him and looked into the bowl, it turned out that they were all caught lice.Someone asked, "What does it smell like?" He replied, "It's delicious! It smells like oil, like fried rice." There are people who kill lice with their mouths everywhere, but this is not the case.He eats lice every day out of the pleasure of eating snacks. ——He was the first to object to Sen's approach. There is no second person who eats lice like Inoue, but there are many people who support Inoue and oppose Sen's theory.According to this group, the presence of lice must never warm the body.Not only that, the "Book of Filial Piety" also says: "The body, hair and skin are the parents who dare not damage them. This is the beginning of filial piety." If you are willing to let your body be eaten by things like lice, it is especially unfilial.So, no matter how you say it, you should catch lice instead of raising lice... During this process, quarrels sometimes occurred between Mori's group and Inoue's group.It's just noisy, but that's not a big deal.However, in the end, the quarrel finally developed to the point of unexpected mutual sword fighting. One day, Sen wanted to raise them carefully again. He got lice from others and put them in bowls. Inoue ate them because he didn't pay attention.Lao Sen came back and saw that there was no one left.So the pioneer lost his temper. "Why did you eat other people's lice!" Sen stretched out his elbows, changed his expression, and pushed forward. "In my opinion, raising lice is the most stupid thing!" Inoue pretended not to care, and did not seem to want to fight at all. "It's stupid to eat lice!" Sen jumped up, knocking on the board of the boat and said, "Hey, in this boat, there is no one who does not get the benefits of lice! Catching lice and eating them is equivalent to revenge!" "I personally don't see the slightest advantage in getting lice." "Okay, even if you didn't get any benefits, it's unreasonable for you to ruin a life indiscriminately!" During the quarrel between you and me, Sen suddenly changed his face, and reached out to grab the handle of the red lacquered waist knife.Inoue did not show any weakness, and immediately picked up the long waist knife and stood up.If the naked lice-catching companions hadn't hurriedly stopped them, one of them might have died. According to those who saw the quarrel with their own eyes, when the two of them were hugged by others, they quarreled until they spit and shouted: "Lice! Lice!" Four Under such circumstances, even if the samurai in the boat were to use their knives for the lice, the Kinpira boat loaded with five hundred stones did not seem to mind this kind of thing, and the red and white flags fluttered in the cold wind, marching far away On the way to conquer Changzhou, under the sky where snowflakes are about to fall, sailing westward. Made in March 1916 Translated by Lu Yuanming