Chapter 24 Chapter Four (9)

The wound on my cheek had never been washed or bandaged, and it was swollen and painful. The dry and cracked skin on my face looked like fat caterpillars.My left leg was just a gash, and my nose was so swollen and convulsive that I could only breathe through my mouth. I lay in my stinking vomit and thirsted for water.Haven't had water for two days. I have no dignity in pain.I understand that the pain is not just pain, but that I have to give in to the most basic needs of the human body: to drink water, to pee, and to lie down in a position that relieves the pain.When Sergeant Medel and his men first brought me back here, lit the lights and shut the door, I wasn't sure how much pain a fat, pampered old fellow could take (Empire for his eccentric ideas And the various means used against him).But my executioners didn't care about the level of pain, what they wanted to prove to me was what it means to have a living body, a living body that can produce righteous thoughts only when it's intact, when the body's When the head is strangled, the tube is put down the throat and a pint of salt water is poured down its throat, it coughs and cannot vomit, and when it is whipped, it soon forgets all thoughts and becomes blank.They didn't press me again about what I said about the savage or what the savage said.So I didn't have a chance to throw the fierce words I had prepared in their faces.They had been in the cell to show me what it means to be human, and they had done enough in that hour.

* * It's not about competing to the end.I thought: "They're sitting in the other room talking about me. They say, 'How much longer is he going to be tough? Check back in an hour.'" However, that doesn't seem to be the case.They didn't bother to program me to torture me, figuring out how to bring me to my knees.For example, I did not eat or drink for two days, but on the third day, food was delivered. "I'm sorry," said the food delivery man, "we forgot." They didn't hate to forget either. My tormentors lived their lives and I wasn't the center of their attention.Mydel's men were presumably busy taking stock at the munitions store or patrolling the construction site, complaining about the heat; as for Medel, I'm sure he'd rather spend his time polishing his belt buckles than paying attention I.On a whim he would come over and teach me a lesson in a humane way.How long can I withstand their arbitrary attacks?What if I succumbed, cried, and lay down under the constant torture?

** They called me into the yard.I covered my nakedness before them, guarding my injured hand carefully, a weary old bear tamed by too much torture. "Run," Medel ordered.I ran around the yard in the bright sun.Once I let go, they would beat me with a stick and make me run.The soldiers stopped taking their naps and stood in the shade, the kitchen maid supported the door frame, and the children looked at me through the bars on the door. "I can't do it!" I gasped. "My heart!" I stopped, holding my head and bending over.Everyone waited patiently for me to recover.The stick came again, and I faltered, unable to run any faster than a normal person could walk.

They also asked me to show them tricks.They pulled up a rope, knee-high off the ground, and told me to jump over and over.They called the cook's grandson, and handed him the end of the rope: "Hold it steady, we don't want him to stumble." The boy held the rope with both hands, absorbed in this great task, and waited for me. Jump.I hesitated.The long stick hit my buttocks one after another. "Jump," Medel whispered.I bounced and ran over, bumped into the rope, and stood there stupidly.I smell shit.They won't let me wash it.The flies are always around me, and they are very interested in biting the wound on my face, and they will come up when I stop for a while.I kept waving my hands like a cow wagging its tail. "Tell him to be better next time," Midell said to the boy.The boy smiled and turned his face away.I sat down in the dust waiting for the next trick. "You know how to jump?" he asked the boy. "Give this man the rope and tell him to show you how to jump." And I jumped.

The humiliating pain of being taken outside for the first time and standing naked in front of the idlers, twisting and jumping for their amusement, is hard to forget.But now I have no shame.Whenever I knelt down to drink water, or my heart gripped me like a crab so that I could only freeze there, all my consciousness was devoted to dealing with such mortal threats.I was also amazed to find that every time I just took a little rest, or put some ointment on the wound to stop the pain a little, I could walk, jump, or crawl and run.Is there ever a moment when you just lay down and say, "Kill me—it's better than dead?" Sometimes I feel like I've reached that point.But it's not always done.

There is no consolation in these things of the sublime.If I awoke from sleep in the middle of the night, it was because I had fallen into a more base depravity in the dream.I can't even die unless I die in a corner like a dog. * * One day, they opened the door, and when I went out, I didn't see the original two guards, but a group of people standing there. "Go on." Midel handed me a woman's calico smock. "Put it on." "why?" "Okay, if you like to be naked then be naked." I put the smock on over my head, the length only reaching the base of my thigh.I caught a glimpse of the two youngest maids burrowing into the kitchen, giggling.

My hands were tied behind my back. "It's time, Chief," Mydel whispered into my ear, "Do your best to be human." I must have caught the alcohol on his breath. They pushed me out of the yard.Under the mulberry tree, maroon mulberries fell to the ground, and a group of people were waiting there.The children were climbing up and down the branches.When my party approached, there was an immediate silence. A soldier took out a brand-new hemp rope and threw one end of the rope up a tree. The children on the tree caught the rope, wrapped it around a branch several times, and hung it down.

I knew it was just another new trick, tired of the old one, and something to amuse a boring afternoon.But now I'm in a hurry. "Where is the Colonel?" I asked softly.No one pays attention to me. "What do you want to say?" Medel asked, "Just say what you want, we will give you this chance." I stared into his blue eyes, so blue that they seemed to have crystal glass on them.He also looked at me.I don't know what he saw.When I think of him, I think of a word: "Execution...the person who tortured me." But these words seem very strange, the more I repeat them silently, the more strange they become, until they are pressed on the tip of my tongue like a stone superior.Maybe it was this man, and the people he brought to help him and the colonel were executioners; maybe they were all security officials from somewhere in the capital.But when I looked at him, I saw only those blue eyes, and a rather rigid, if handsome, feature, with slightly elongated teeth and a slightly concave jaw.He takes care of my soul: he puts a living body in a pen every day, and ravages people's soul in every way.In truth, however, a man's mind does not make as much an impression on his professional life as a man's heart makes on a surgeon on the operating table.

"It's really hard for me to understand what you think of me," I said.I couldn't help saying this sentence in a whisper, my voice was a little trembling, I was very scared, and I couldn't help sweating. "Instead of giving me a chance to confide in those I have nothing to say to, I'd like to say a few words to you, so that I can know why you are working so hard on this matter; so that I can know how you feel about me— You have hurt so badly, and you are planning to kill the person right now—what do you think?" The words came out of my own mouth in a roundabout way, and I was momentarily surprised.Am I crazy to find fault?

"You see the hand?" he said.He raised one hand just an inch from my face. "When I was half a kid"—he curled his finger—"I could use this finger," he held out his forefinger—"to pierce a pumpkin." He pointed that finger at me Forehead, suddenly poked over, I took a few steps back. Instead they provided me with a hat, and a bag of salt, which I put over my head, and tied at the throat with a string.Through the mesh of the bag, I saw that they had brought a ladder and set it on a tree branch.I was led to a ladder, put my feet on the lowest rung, and tied the hemp rope that served as a noose to my neck below my ears. "Climb now," Mydel ordered.

I turned my head and saw two vague figures holding one end of the rope. "My hands are tied and I can't climb," I said.My heart was pounding. "Climb," he said, throwing his arms against me.The rope tightened. "Tighten it up," he ordered. I climbed up, and he followed, urging behind my ass.I climbed ten stalls by count, when a branch got in the way and I stopped.His grip on my arm tightened. "Do you think we're playing with you?" he said viciously through his teeth, and I couldn't understand why he was so angry. "You think I don't mean what I say?" Covered in the bag, the eyes were stung by sweat. "No," I said, "I don't think you're kidding." As long as the rope was tight I knew they were just kidding.But as soon as the rope let go and I slid down, it was over. "So, is there anything else you want to tell me?" "All I will say is that I have nothing to do with the savage wars. I'm just dealing with a private matter and sending the girl home. No other purpose." "Is that what you're going to tell me?" "I'm going to say no one deserves to die," I said in my ridiculous smock and sack, and my mouth was full of cowardly and disgusting words, "I want to live, everyone wants to live. Want to live live live live , no matter what kind of way of living." "That's not enough." He let go of my arm.I wobbled on the tenth rung, and the rope steadied me. "Did you see it?" he asked.He climbed down the ladder. No sweat but tears. The leaves rustled around me.A child's voice came: "Can you see, Uncle?" "I can't see it." "Hey, monkey, get down!" someone shouted from below.From the taut ropes I could feel their movements among the branches. I stood there for a long time, carefully balancing my position on the rung, and tightened the rope as much as possible. The wooden block between the arches of my feet gave me a sense of security. Looking at a person standing on a ladder like this, how long will it take for those idlers to be satisfied?Maybe I'll have to stand here till the flesh peels off my bones and gets swept away by blizzards and hail and floods. But at the moment the rope is still tight, and I can even hear the harsh creaking of the rope against the bark, and I have to stretch my neck to avoid being strangled. This is not a competition of patience. If the audience is not satisfied, you have to change the game.But can this blame the audience?The scapegoat is in place; the festival is scheduled; the law is suspended, who wouldn't want a good show?What can I object to in this drama of meanness, suffering, and death being staged by our new regime?What achievements do I have that will be remembered by people?This achievement also includes moving the slaughterhouse from the market to the suburbs out of rational considerations 20 years ago.I wanted to shout, I shouted out of horror, I screamed out of fear, but the rope was tightened, and I couldn't shout anything from my blocked throat.The pulse flow of the blood vessels in the ear hit the eardrum "bang bang", and the toes could no longer touch the crosspiece.I swayed slightly in the air, kicking the ladder with my feet left and right.The pounding of blood in my ears slowed down, but I heard the popping of my eardrums. I stood in front of an old man, forced my eyelids open against the wind, and waited for him to speak.The old-fashioned gun was still between the horse's ears, but it was not pointed at me.I know that there are vast expanses of sky and desert all around me. I stared at his lips, as soon as he opened his mouth, I would sensitively capture every syllable, and then I could recall it in my mind and talk to myself, so I could find out the problem (like a bird at that moment) The answer to the question that flew out of my memory like a bird. I can see every hair on the horse's mane, every wrinkle on the old man's face, every stone and every gully under the hillside. The girl, with her black braids drawn in the savage fashion that hung over her shoulders, rode behind the old man.She lowered her head, also waiting for him to speak. I sighed. "Sorry," I thought, "it's too late now." I swayed loosely, the breeze blowing my smock around my naked body.I floated loose, in women's clothes. How I want to step on the ground-although my numb feet have lost consciousness.I stretched my body as carefully as possible, fully straightened, like a light leaf, the rope that held my head felt looser, and it was still breathable. I was breathing desperately, and it seemed to be the case. The "hat" on my head fell off, the sun pierced my eyes, and someone pulled me under my feet, and suddenly everything swam in front of me, and I was blank. A word "fly" appeared somewhere on the edge of my consciousness.Yes, that's right, I'm flying. I looked straight into Midel's blue eyes.His lips are moving, but I can't hear anything.I shook my head and found that once it was shaken, it couldn't stop. "Listen," he said, "now you'll try another way of 'flying.'" "He can't hear," someone said. "He can hear it," said Mydel.He undid the noose around my neck and tied it instead to the rope that bound my wrist. "Pull him up." If I could hold my arm steady and bring my foot up to hook the noose like an acrobat, I could hang upside down and avoid injury—that was the last thing I had in mind as they lifted.But I was like a sick child, with my arms tied behind my back, watching my toes slowly leave the ground, my shoulder suddenly felt a terrible tearing pain, and my arm seemed to be twisted off.The first tragic howl came out of my throat, like rolling gravel pouring down, I screamed one after another, unstoppable.It was a cry of grief, fear and despair, the realization that the body had been ravaged beyond repair.Even if all the kids in the town heard me, I wouldn't be able to hold back: we just have to pray that the kids don't copy their parents' tricks, or someday their little bodies will end up dangling from branch to branch.Someone pushed me, and my feet dangled in the air and swung back and forth, like a big moth whose wings were pinched and screamed endlessly. "It's calling for his savage friends," joked the onlookers. "You are hearing the language of barbarians." There was a burst of laughter. ①The albatross is regarded as an auspicious bird by western navigators. In the long poem "The Ballad of the Old Sailor" by the British poet Coleridge in the 19th century, it is written that the protagonist shoots the albatross to death and atones for it after causing bad luck. This allusion is implicitly used here.