Chapter 5 emptiness

When this article was first published, it was titled "Wind Chimes".When it was included in Duff's Short Stories, it was titled "The Emptiness" "I don't know how to write about my recent mental state. Ambitious people often have all kinds of great illusions in front of them. Following these illusions step by step is his life. Hope for the future There is a star on his head to guide the way. Although he walks in the dark desert, there is always a Jewish Lord in his heart, so his life is finally meaningful. In the past A person who lives in remembrance, the past is surrounded by amazing and joyful scenes, so although he feels that the present life is very lonely, but his life is also comfortable. People who dream there every day , his hunger for beauty can be filled with the passion in his dreams. He is a person who lives on the wings of angels, so he doesn’t feel the emptiness of this life. Needless to say, there is no hope for the future. The past half of my life is a ruined history. In retrospect, there are only tears and lamentations. A few years ago, I still had a spare time to enjoy this sorrow. There are also some dreams of self-deception and masturbation. Up to now, not only have the desire to enjoy this sweetbitterness gone, but the last weapon of a fool—opening eyes to dream—has been taken away by cruel fate Ah, young Werther, I admire your bravery, I admire your resolute tenderness!"

The quality man picked up his pen, pointed at his small glass window beside the mahogany, wrote these few lines, and then stopped writing.Outside the window is a small garden with several sycamore trees and sweet-scented osmanthus trees, and some weeds are blooming on the flowerbed under the trees.When the rainy season is sunny, the sun's rays sprinkle on the tender green leaves, reflecting a layer of bright brilliance. It seems that the season of cicadas is not far away. Under the shade of the trees in the garden, there are a few half-sized roosters and hens, clucking and looking for food in the rain-washed garden. Without the leisurely guttural sounds of these chickens, this garden in the afternoon would be very quiet. It is no different from the magic-sealed city in Grimm's fairy tale.

The quality man put down his pen, stared blankly out of the window for a long time, then stood up like a sleepwalker.After walking around the room for a few times, he suddenly felt that the human beings who existed in this world at the same time became intimate with him. A month ago, he contracted insomnia, lost his appetite, and lost weight day by day.No matter where he went, he always felt that someone was following him, urging him there.He thought that the bad air in Tokyo made him nervous, so he went to the wilderness of East Nakano, rented a small house and moved there.The four sides of this Xiaokangzi are barren fields and weeds.His small house has two bungalows.One is a rectangular reading room facing south.There is a small window on the south side, and the small garden is outside the window.One is a two-foot-wide guest room facing the door. On the side of the guest room, there is a cooking place three feet long and two feet wide.After going out the door, along a ditch, if you can't walk more than fifty steps to the north, you will find a country road.To the east of the avenue, there is a small hill overgrown with green grass. On this hill, there are several small villas with red roofs, hidden among the green leaves of honeysuckle. When he was bored, he took a thick branch of Ying Zhang circled the hill and tried his leisurely walk on the criss-crossed wild roads.

When he first moved here, he felt that this monastery-like life suited his state of mind.After a few days, he found the tomb-like silence around him a bit unbearable, so he invited an old woman in her sixties to live with him.The old woman had no men, and no relatives. She was originally helping out at the house of a friend of the hostess. His friend had returned to China a week ago, so the hostess made a favor and invited her over.The old lady has no other hobbies, but just likes to keep some domestic animals around her. Since she lived with the porter, there has been a small white cat and a few hens and male chickens in the porter's small room; Because the husband was embarrassed by loneliness, he didn't object to the old woman's youthful heart.Sometimes the porter poked his head out of the small glass window of his study to see the little domestic animal taking a nap in the shade of the flowers, and felt that a peaceful scene was added to the surroundings of his hut.

The pledgee walked around the study room a few times like a sleepwalker, and suddenly felt that the human beings in the world became intimate with him.After changing into a suit of western clothes, he went out and walked slowly up to the station of the Higashi Nakano Suburban Tram. He took the suburban tram and didn't get off until Yurakucho, not far from the busiest city street.After walking up and down the dusty and noisy streets under the sun for a while, he felt hot.When he entered a Bingqilin fruit shop and sat down on the first floor, he stared blankly at the bustling city street outside the window.He felt that this messy bustle, the entanglement of people, prosperity, depravity, men and women, objects, and everything else had nothing to do with him at all.After eating a cup of ice unicorn and a cup of black tea, he asked the maid to come over and pay.When he handed the banknotes to the maid, he saw the five red fingers of the maid, and a momentary association brought him to the center of a tragicomedy five years ago.

It was also the season after Huang Meiyu in June, and he was still studying in a high school in N City at that time.After the summer vacation, all his classmates went back to China.Because of his neurasthenia, he couldn't bear long-distance treks, so he went to Tangshan Hot Spring not far from N City for his summer vacation alone.In this hot spring in the deep mountains, only a few sick and weak children from rich families near N City went to escape the summer heat.That day, under the scorching sun after the rainy season, he walked along a clear stream in the rocky (jun) rocks, from the clean uphill road made of silica and silt, to the Hongye Pavilion, a hotel in the hot spring. At that time, it was already more than five o'clock in the afternoon. After taking a bath, having dinner, and drinking a few glasses of beer, the tiredness of the day made him fall asleep.After sleeping for an unknown number of hours, he slept soundly as if sinking into the bottom of the ocean, when he was suddenly startled by the sound of a door opening on a paper wall.He opened two dark eyes, looked towards the place where the paper wall door opened, and saw a girl of sixteen or seventeen years old, with a thin and rectangular face, with a look of horror, draped in pitch black. long hair standing on the half-opened paper wall threshold.The pale yellow electric light that filled the room and her loose black hair reflected her pale complexion even more.Her pair of pupils were very black, and her eyes were very big, and they were staring at Zhifu with their eyes open.Her gray lips were bloodless and trembling slightly, as if she was too anxious to speak. The sound of thunder and rain outside the window, the roar of old trees in the mountains, and the vibration of doors, windows and buildings filled the room. The quality husband felt as if the ship had been broken by a storm in the sea.

In the middle of the night in the middle of the mountain, he woke up suddenly in the guest room alone, and of course he was taken aback when he saw this scene.The pledgee and the girl stared blankly for a while, then the girl approached the pledgee's bed, made a trembling voice, and said to the pledgee: "...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...was up very much...to wake you up...in this...in the middle of the night....but...but my voice is not good today, but tonight when my mother went back, Just start such a big storm... I'm so scared, I'm so scared, I'm so sorry... But I ask you to let me stay here tonight, I will not do anything in such a big thunderstorm How dare you live alone in a room as big as the next wall.”

After she finished these few sentences, she seemed to have calmed down.Half of the terrified expression on his face disappeared, and two blushes suddenly appeared on his fair cheeks.Probably because the stockman was too dazed to see, so the corners of her eyes showed a little shyness, she moved her slender neck, which looked like it was made of rice flour, and lowered her head. .At that time, the twenty-one-year-old hostess had never been in contact with such a young girl, and he was so anxious that a vein swelled on his forehead, and he couldn't answer a word.After hearing her finished speaking, the quality man asked her not to be polite, and asked her not to kneel on the mat, and asked her to sit down on the blue silk quilt quickly.When he hesitated to say these words, the quality husband was too shy, and wanted to make some moves to confuse his shy and unnatural appearance, so he stood up from the quilt while speaking. , ran to the corner of the room and got some cushions to place beside his bed.The hostess bowed his head, and when he sat down on the cushion, the girl had already sat down on the hostess' quilt.After seeing the hostess sat down, she continued to say to the hostess:

"Our family lives in N City. Because I contracted neurasthenia, I didn't take the summer exam in school. I have been here for more than a month to recuperate. My mother originally accompanied me here, but today because of her I wanted to go home to see what was going on at home, so I went down the mountain in the afternoon. Did you encounter any on the way?" After listening to her words, the hostess remembered the very beautiful middle-aged woman he met at the train station during the day. "Is it a woman in her mid-thirties? Wearing a purple crepe dress with a black gauze coat?"

"Yes yes, that must be the mother. Where did you see her?" "I met her at the station. She had just arrived at the station when I got off." "Then you came by the one-twenty bus?" "yes!" "Are you from City N?" "no." "Tokyo?" "no." "What about the school?" When the hostess heard her ask about his hometown, his face suddenly turned red, because the Chinese in Japan are the same as the Jews in Europe, and the Japanese everywhere look down on them; Feeling a little proud, he pointed to the hat with two white lines hanging on the hanger with a smile and said:

"Look, that's my hat." "Oh, so you are also in the Xth grade? I have a cousin, do you know him? His surname is N, he graduated from English and French last year. He entered the Imperial University in Tokyo this year, and I am afraid he will come back soon! " "I don't know him because I'm DeFalco." The roar of the wind and thunderstorm outside the window was suppressed by the faint voice of the two of them.But as soon as their conversation stopped, the sound of rain and wind blowing outside the window would immediately reach their eardrums.But it was strange, the two of them sat in the middle facing each other like that, they felt that the shaking of the building and the shaking of the old tree were not scary at all.Hearing her soft voice and looking at her lovely face, the quality man was afraid that the thunderstorm would clear up in his heart.After talking with her for forty or fifty minutes, the quality husband seemed to have known her since childhood.The two talked about the dawn.The thunderstorm cleared.The gossip is over.The girl seemed to be tired, she fell down on the quilt of the quality husband, and fell asleep hissingly.After she fell asleep, the quality husband's spirit became more and more excited. He was afraid of waking up her sweet dream, so he didn't dare to move his body, but he really wanted to reach out his hand to touch her soft waist back and forth. .The backward curve of her prostrate neck was fully described by Zhifu in his mind. "From this side down is the shoulder peak, excluding the curve of the hands, the front is the chest, alas, the curve of the chest, the curve of the chest, going down is the abdomen and waist..." Seeing the young girl's pink and white neck, hearing her slight snoring, but in his mind he was unbuttoning her clothes.When he thought of her abdomen and waist, he couldn't breathe out.A marble nude statue of a virgin with blood flowing and a slightly warm fragrance is now lying in front of him.Zhifu wanted to cry but couldn't cry, wanted to scream but couldn't, his face was as red as oleander.He couldn't hold back anymore, so he gently touched her hair with his right hand.Her snoring stopped suddenly, and Zhifu suddenly felt his eyes turn black, as if he had been thrown into a deep pit from the top of a high mountain.Sure enough, she raised her head, opened half of her sleepy eyes, smiled slightly and said to the porter: "Are you still awake? Why don't you take a nap, I just fell asleep! Sorry, I'm going to be presumptuous." After saying a few vague words, she simply turned her body sideways and fell asleep on the quilt.Seeing the curve of her waist and buttocks, Shifu felt more and more that his eyes were about to burst into flames. He had no choice but to sleep on her back.It turned out that she was sleeping on her side with her back to the husband. When the husband fell asleep, he wanted to sleep on both sides, but because he was afraid that his feet would kick her head, he could only sleep on her head.He turned his back first, but in his heart, because he couldn't see her body, he was suffering like a caterpillar in a fire.He thought about it for a long time, and finally turned his body gently, turning his face to her back, and turned over, he felt depressed and embarrassed again.Unknowingly, little by little, he pushed his body over again.When his own belly was only two inches away from her protruding back, he felt that he couldn't get any closer, so he had to close his eyes.But bursts of fragrance emanating from her body were cutting right into his heart like a sword.After he closed his eyes, he felt that she was sleeping naked on his chest.His depression reached the extreme, he let out a long sigh of "ah", and turned his body around when he got bolder, and became back to back with her again.Because of his unattractive appearance, he bent his waist and drew his feet together. The same torturer was tortured for a long time like being tortured. After dawn, the hostess fell asleep dimly.Just as he was about to fall asleep, the girl woke up.She turned over, half sat up, and said to her husband: "I'm very sorry, I made you noisy all night. The sky is clear, and the thunderstorm is clear. I won't be afraid anymore. I'm going back to Jianbi's room to sleep." The hostess was awakened by her, and after listening to these few words in a drowsy state, he said in succession: "What did you say, what are you sorry for?" After she walked into the next door to the house, the hostess woke up completely, glanced at her paper wall, and immediately laid his body down on the place where she had slept just now.The hostess put his hands under his body to form a tight embrace, but his four bodies felt a kind of residual warmth from her left by the quilt.Shuhukou took a deep breath of her fragrance on the quilt with his nose, and he felt his limbs softened. When the stockman woke up, it was already ten o'clock in the morning. Last night's storm left no trace, and the sunlight reflected on the latticed window seemed to say to him: "The weather is fine today, you should get up." Shifu got up and opened the lattice window to have a look, and felt that the green leaves of the four mountains were very fresh.The blue sky revealed from the green leaves is the same as the autumn sky, which makes people feel strong.With the toothbrush in his hands, Shifu went to the hot spring pool to take a bath.After going out of the latticed window door and walking through the latticed door next door in the corridor, the quality man's peripheral nerves felt that she was still sleeping there.After brushing his teeth, washing his face, and soaking in the hot spring water, he looked at the blue sky outside through the glass window, and felt very refreshed physically and mentally. The depression of last night was like a nightmare, and thinking about it made him smile .When he was thinking about it, he suddenly heard a delicate guttural voice saying: "How are you today! I was sorry for you yesterday, and made trouble with you all night." The stockman turned his head to look, and saw her slender body, without any clothes on, and covered it with a towel in both hands; her figure was not the slightest difference from what he had described in his mind yesterday. .He took one look, blushed, as if he had committed some crime, then turned his head immediately, and said to her: "Are you awake too? Are you tired today?" Step by step, she dipped into the hot spring water and approached him. He wanted not to look at her, but he couldn't help but look at her. Like a hungry wolf seeing a fat sheep, he stared at her curves from the waist up for a while. , Gradually he felt that his lower part was working.After soaking in the hot spring for a long time, she never came out of the water. The husband became impatient and wanted to calmly think about other things, so as to teach his body to return to its normal state, but before this forbidden fruit, his Policy never works.As a last resort, he didn't come out of the water until after she went back to the room. After finishing the meal that was served in court, the hostess went to her room next door. They chatted and chatted, and the sky darkened before he knew it. Normally, he always felt that the sun did not set, but today he only felt that it was too late. It was too early. The next day the hostess played with her again, just like in a dream, he just felt that time passed too fast. On the morning of the third day, when the stockman woke up, he suddenly heard a man's voice in the room next door asking her: "Have you read novels recently?" (male voice) "I've been very lazy lately and don't watch anything." (She) "My aunt said that you like reading novels too much. She asked me to dissuade you from coming this time?" "Ah, what are you talking about? I didn't really read novels very much." The quality man listened for a while with pointed ears, thinking that this man must be her cousin.When he thought of his lonely life experience and compared it with her cousin, he shed two sad tears.For some unknown reason, he felt in his heart that this love affair was over. A person thought of many sad and angry plots in the quilt, and cried for a while.Laughing self-deprecatingly for a while, the stockman fell asleep again. On this day, it started to rain again suddenly, and the stockman was looking outside from inside the quilt.He felt that the weather, like his state of mind, was also gray.He didn't get up until twelve o'clock, washed his face, brushed his teeth, and when he returned to his room, the girl and a very fashionable college student in his late twenties also walked into his room.The quality husband was not sociable at first, but he was also full of ghosts in his heart, and the appearance and age of the college student were all above him, so he had to feel a kind of sadness of being inferior, so when he saw her and the college student coming in, Zhifu was so anxious that he was almost on the verge of tears, he gave way in a very respectful manner, and said many polite words that were at odds with his inner thoughts, only then did Zhifu feel a little more at ease in his chest.After the girl introduced them, the hostess knew that this was really her cousin N.The stockman peeked at the girl's face.I feel that her appearance is particularly happy today.The three gossiped, and the girl and the college student stood up at the same time, took their leave and went out.The stockman hates it very much, but if you ask him who he hates, he can't tell.He just wanted to smash the doors, windows, tables and chairs around him to pieces to vent his anger.When the maid at the inn brought food, he ordered her to bring a lot of wine to drink.After lunch, he sat in the room for a while, feeling sleepy. After falling asleep on the mat, he heard the girl open the door of the paper wall and enter his room.Because the hostess couldn't hate it, he didn't turn around to talk to her.She approached him step by step, sat down on the mat, put a soft hand on his waist, smiled charmingly, and asked him: "Do you hate me here?" After hearing what she said, the quality man turned his body over and looked at her, only to see her cousin sitting there with her.The hostess was very angry, so he took a knife on the mat and hacked at him.When he chopped off with the knife, just touching her arm, with a sound of "brake", one of her slender hands was cut off by him, and she lay on the mat dripping with blood.He screamed desperately, and the door of the paper wall next door opened, and through the five-inch wide slit, a red and white girl's face was revealed, and she asked with a slight smile: "Have you seen a nightmare?" The stockman wiped his eyes, looked at her red and white face with a smile, and couldn't believe that what he saw just now was a nightmare.The stockman took another careful look at her, and felt that her face was extraordinarily bright, and the two bloods on her cheeks were not usually there, so he asked: "Have you been drinking?" "Ah, what, I never drink." "Where's your cousin?" "He's still in the bathtub. I came out a step ahead of him. As soon as I got back to the room, I heard you yell loudly." The stockman wiped his eyes again, noticing her drooping slender hands.After looking around for a while, he felt that her two hands were still there, and he believed that what he saw just now was a nightmare. At three o'clock in the afternoon that day, the hostess braved the light rain, took a small rattan basket, and walked down the mountain to catch the last train back to City N. The girl and her cousin even gave him a mile. Multiple ways.When Zhifu got on the train at the train station outside the entrance of Tangshan Hot Spring, he was still staring at the peak of Tangshan in a daze; A few drops of salt from his tears were there. When the stockman took the money to pay the maid in the ice shop, he saw her five tender red fingers, and immediately he thought of the slender hands of the girl he met in the hot spring five years ago.When he entered the store, the stockman didn't notice anyone in the store.All he knew was that he ordered the people in the shop to bring a cup of iced kirin; There are several maids in the shop.It wasn't until he saw the maid's fingers that he realized that she brought the things just now.Looking up at the maid's face, the hostess felt that her face was very familiar, so she also smiled sweetly at the hostess and asked: "Don't you know me?" Although her appearance is not very beautiful, it is rare among ordinary women.A pair of eyes often have a charming smile, an oval face, and fair skin.The blood color was also very good, the quality husband only felt that his face was familiar, but he couldn't think of where he had seen it before.Seeing that the hostess was full of doubts, she said to him: "Have you forgotten? Do you still forget the things in Cafesanssouci (French: Cafe Wuyou.—Editor's Note)?" After she said this, the quality husband remembered. Csfesanssouci opened a coffee shop near the university. At that time, he was wandering, so he often went in and out.This maid is the young woman who worked in the coffee shop a year or two ago.The stockman nodded, smiled slightly, and handed her a five-yuan bill.When she got the change, the stockman was taking out a cigarette to smoke, so she immediately lit the match on the table to set him on fire.The stockman thanked her, put the change in her hand, and walked slowly downstairs.After walking down the street for a while, he took out his watch to have a look. Before it was too late, he went to the Maruzen Bookstore to look at the newly arrived books; many newly arrived English, German and French books, he decided to order them when he was going. He bought it with all his money, but after reading it for many times, none of the books could arouse his interest.He looked at Verlaine by Harold Nicolson (English: Harold Nicolson's "Verland Biography". - Editor's Note) and Gourmont (Gormont, French Symbolist poet. - Editor's Note) His collection of essays, On the Decadent School, also finds them all uninteresting.When he was about to go back out, he saw a DreamsBook (English: "Dream Book" - Editor's Note) on yellow paper, Fortune teller (English: Fortune Teller. - Editor's Note) on the corner of the bookshelf on his right hand. Note), when he wanted to go home, there was no book to read on the tram, so he bought this book.Walking on the street for a while, he wanted to see a classmate he hadn't seen for a long time, but when the city tram came to him, he didn't want to go again.So go to the station of the suburban tram in Shimbashi.I bought a ticket for Higashi Nakano and returned home, the sun was already going down. Another few boring days passed.The more than three hundred yuan that the pledgee brought from home this time is almost gone. He graduated from the Economics Department of Tokyo Imperial University in March this year with relatively good grades and returned to China immediately.At that time, his spirit was not as depressed as it is now.He thought that with knowledge, he could always make ends meet, so when he arrived in Shanghai, he didn't feel pessimistic about his future. At the beginning of April in the Gregorian calendar, it was the season of warm spring and sunny days. After swimming in Shanghai for a few days in the sea-like complex society, he felt that the men and women in Shanghai were dressed several times better than him.When he returned to China, he thought that there were not many Chinese who graduated from Imperial University, so when he came back this time, the position of social snakes must not be small.It wasn't until he lived in Shanghai for a few days that he felt that his home was the same grain of sand mixed in the diamond vault.Chinese society not only doesn't know what learning is, it simply regards people born in schools as small as wild horse dust.Seeing these situations, he was angry and funny, and wanted to return to Japan right away, but thought about it for a while. "I'm Chinese after all, and I can't spend my whole life in Japan. Now that I'm back, I'll find something to do for a while." He has four or five friends in Shanghai, all of whom he went to school with or shared a hotel with when he was in Tokyo.A man surnamed M was Shifu's co-resident when he first entered a college. When Shifu was there studying geometry and chemistry and preparing for college homework, M was already in the third grade of a certain university. M didn't want to take the test at home, so he didn't learn Japanese, and he went to the movies and ate big dishes every day.One night when I came back drunk from eating, the quality man was still chanting tangent, cotangent, sine, cosine (English: tangent, cotangent, sine, cosine.——Editor’s note), M had a cigar in his mouth, Said to the hostess: "Qing Fu, why bother, I am very happy today. When I was having dinner in Yueyanglou (a Chinese restaurant in Tokyo), I met a Chinese embassy staff. I paid for the food for him, and he invited I went to a whore's house in Nihonbashi once. Well, I had a good time, I never had such a good time in my life." M fell asleep on the mat before finishing his sentence; from then on, M went to the legation every day, sometimes around twelve o'clock in the evening, he even came back by car. M said that the envoy treated him well, and he asked the envoy and his concubine to go to a theater and have dinner somewhere.Like this, I said it every day. A year later, Shifu transferred to a higher school in N City, but M returned to China early.One day, Shifu saw M's name on a poster in Shanghai, saying that he was the manager of a foreign firm. M is a rich man who is very prominent in Shanghai.Because M is his old friend, Zhifu went to visit after living in Shanghai for two or three days.When I went there for the first time, it was around eleven o'clock in the morning, and the concierge replied to him: "Not up yet." The next day the porter went to visit again in the afternoon. The porter took his business card and went in. The porter waited for a long time, and the porter came out and said: "The master is out, please tell me if you have something to say." The stockman opened his eyes, bit his lip, swallowed a few breaths, and said to the porter: "I have nothing else to do." The quality husband has two close friends who are in C. P．The editor in the library was originally his old classmate.After arriving in Shanghai, Zhifu also paid a visit as usual.These two classmates, because they have studied for a few more years, do not seem to be very powerful in society, and they each wear a vine green serge suit, with a hopeless smile on their faces, gentle and gentle. in C． P．He was received in the reception room of the editorial office of the library.The pledgee said a few insignificant words and left.At five o'clock in the evening, two of his classmates came to the hotel to see the hostess, and they went to a Beijing restaurant near the hotel to have dinner with the hostess.The two of them asked the quality man to order, but the quality man insisted not to order because he didn't know what kind of food was good.The two of them ordered a side dish and half a catty of rice wine.The hostess asked them what they called Japanese dishes.They laughed and said: "Don't you know Japanese dishes?" Zhifu also has a friend who is an elective student of the N City Medical College where he lived with him when he was in N High School.When this friend was in N City, he was famous for smoking cigarettes and snoring. His room was full of black and short cigarette butts. The "Xiaodongren" of the plywood is his daily class.After he returned to China four or five years ago, the stockman saw that only his advertisements were published in the newspapers every day.This time the hostess came back to Shanghai and asked the waiters in the hotel, all the waiters scrambled to say: "This gentleman, there is no one in Shanghai who doesn't know! He is someone's son-in-law, and his business is doing very well now!" Since the quality husband had already visited M and met with M's concierge for the second time, he no longer visited his friend. Zhifu lived in a hotel in Shanghai for more than a month, ate Japanese dishes a few times, and watched a few plays in the New World Great World, and spent a lot of money.He saw that there was nothing else to do in China after all, so he ran home and asked his mother to borrow three hundred yuan from various places, and then returned to Japan to live in an apartment. When Shifu returned to Japan, it was the first ten days of May when jackets were exchanged for unlined clothes.After living in a hotel in noisy and unclean Kanda for half a month, his neurasthenia, which would occur every summer, sprouted again.Insomnia, loss of appetite, feeling drowsy, lazy, and irritable during the day, these symptoms all broke out temporarily.He thought the air in Kanda was not good, so he moved to live in the wilderness of East Nakano.After he moved to East Nakano, he just felt depressed day by day.Usually, he cherishes the clear scenery of the countryside very much. Whenever the sun rises and the sun sets, he actually shed tears for the nature several times, but now this beautiful natural scenery can't move his heart. One afternoon in late June, there was a light rain in the morning, so when the sun came out in the afternoon, I felt very refreshed.He sat in the study blankly for a while, and because July 7 was coming soon, he took a copy of "The Romance of the Milky Way" (The Romance of the Milky Way) came out to read, turned a few pages, and felt lazy to read on; when he was sitting impatiently, a visitor suddenly came to the door.He went out to take a look, but it was a classmate he hadn't seen for a long time.This classmate used to be the deputy secretary of the army. When he went to study abroad, there were also articles in it.After the host asked him to come up and sit down, he said to the host: "I want to go back to China the day after tomorrow. Now that Mr. L is the new president, there is some hope for the reunification issue. When the situation is unfolding, I have received many letters from my colleagues in Beijing, urging me to go back, so I want to go back to China once." After hearing what his classmate said, Zhi Fu thought to himself: "The reunification of the North and the South, the abolition of the governor and the reduction of the army are very promising times; but are these names really made by people who are planning for China's future? No, no, they just want to use these names. , to borrow hundreds of millions of foreign debts, and everyone just divides them up. Unification, disarmament, and abolition of governors, the name is very good! But after the foreign debts are borrowed and everyone divides them up, try to see who else will bring up these things. After a while In a few years, another group of people will come out and advocate some better names to try to borrow foreign debts. The revolution, the republic, are over, and the constitution and local self-government are also obsolete. Now we can only use unification, resolution Soldiers and abolished governors, to deceive the people and borrow a few foreign debts. You see, in the future, someone will come out and use the name of anarchism to make a name for themselves. Smart Chinese, those good names you think about A countryman came to implement it. I advise you to be honest and say, 'You want fame! You want profit! Prepare to be a slave'!" Although Zhifu thought this way in his heart, he didn't say a word; after thinking for a while, he felt that his own boring patriotism was meaningless, so he smiled and asked his classmate softly: "Then what time do you take the bus to Kobe?" "It's about 3:50 in the afternoon the day after tomorrow by car." Much gossip was made, and his friends went.The stockman took the cherry stick and walked on various wild roads again.After dinner, he drew a bucket of well water, washed his body, and then took two doses of hypnotic powder and fell asleep. The afternoon of June 28 was also sunny.After lunch, Shio left his hut in Higashi Nakano and went to Tokyo Chuo Station to send his classmate back home.It was already 2:50 when he arrived at Tokyo Station.There was a layer of greasy sweat on his classmate's face, they were hurriedly packing their luggage and saluting to those who came to deliver them.Among the people who came to deliver, Shifu knew many people.There were also several female students in white clothes and straw hats standing on the platform talking to their classmates.The pledgee was afraid that he would be overwhelmed, so after nodding with him, he stood alone alone.Among the people who came to send it off was a college student surnamed W who was also Zhifu's best friend. W saw the hostel standing there far away, with a smile on his small mouth, and he slowly approached the hostel. W closed his eyes a few times, and gently asked the interrogator: "Martial husband. The heroine you admired desperately two years ago, I heard that she is also seeing you off here today. Which one is it?" The stockman only showed a smile when he heard this, and replied slowly: “在这里么？我看见的时候指给你看就对了。” 二年前头，质夫的殉情热意正涨到最高度的时候，在爱情上碰跌了几次。有一天正是懊恼伤心，苦得不能生存的时候，偶然在同乡会席上遇见了一位他的同乡K女士。当时K女士正是十六岁。脸上带有一种纯洁的处女的娇美，并且因为她穿的是女子医学专门学校的黑色制服，所以质夫一见，便联想到文艺复兴时代的圣画上去，质夫自从那一天见她之后，便同中了催眠术的人一般，到夜半风雪凛冽的时候，每一个人喝醉了酒，走上她的学校的附近去探望。后来他知道她不住在那学校的寄宿舍里，便天天跑上她住的地方附近去守候。那时候质夫寄住在上野不忍池边的他的朋友家里。从质夫寓处走上她住的地方，坐郊外电车，足足要三十几分钟。质夫不怨辛苦，不怕风霜雨雪，只管天天的跑上她住的地方去徘徊顾望。事不凑巧，质夫守候了两个多月，终没有遇着她一次；并且又因为恶性感冒流行的缘故，有一天晚上他从那地方回来，路上冒了些风寒，竟病了一个多月。后未因为学校的考试和种种另外的关系，质夫就把她忘记了。质夫病倒在病院里的时候，他的这一段癞虾蟆想吃天鹅肉的故事，竟传遍了东京的留学生界。从那时候起直到现在，质夫从没有见过她一面。前二月质夫在中国的时候，听说她在故乡湖畔遇见了一个歹人，淘了许多气。到如今有二个多月了，质夫并不知道她在中国呢或在东京。 质夫远远的站着，用了批评的态度在那里看那些将离和送别的人。听见发车的铃响了，质夫就慢慢的走上他同学的车窗边上去。在送行的人丛里，他不意中竟看见了一位带金丝平光眼镜的中国女子。质夫看了一眼，便想起刚才他同学w对他说的话来。 “原来就是她么？长得多了。大得多了。面色也好像黑了些。穿在那里的白色中国服也还漂亮，但是那文艺复兴式的处女美却不见了。” 这样的静静儿的想了一遍，质夫听见他的朋友从车窗里伸出头来向他话别： “质夫，你也早一点回中国去吧，我一到北京就写信来给你。” 火车开后，质夫认识的那些送行的人，男男女女，还在那里对了车上的他的同学挥帽子手帕，质夫一个人却早慢慢的走了。 东中野质夫的小屋里又是几天无聊的夏日过去了。那天午后他接到了一封北京来的他同学的信，说： “你的位置已经为你说定了，此信一到，马上就请你回到北京来。” 质夫看了一遍，心里只是淡淡的。想写回信，却是难以措辞。以目下的心境而论，他却不想回中国去，但又不能孤负他同学的好意。质夫拿了一枝纸烟吸了几口，对了桌上的镜子看了一忽，就想去洗澡去。洗了澡回来，喝了一杯啤酒，他就在书斋的席上睡着了。 又过了几天，质夫呆呆的在书斋里睡了一日。吃完了晚饭出去散步回来，已经九点钟了。他把抽斗抽开来想拿催眠药服了就寝，却又看见了几日前到的他同学的信。他直到今朝，还没有写回信给他同学。搁下了催眠药，他就把信笺拿出来想作口信。把信笺包一打开来，半个月前头他写的一张小说不像小说，信不像信的东西还在那里。他从第一句“我近来的心理状态，正不晓得怎么才写得出来。……”看起，静静的看了一遍，看到了末句的“……啊啊年轻的维特呀，我佩服你的勇敢，我佩服你的有果断的柔心。”他的嘴角上却露了一痕冷笑。静静的想了一想，他又不愿意写信了。把催眠药服下，灭去了电灯，他就躺上他的褥上去就睡，不多一忽，微微的鼾声，便从这灰黑的书室里传了出来。书斋的外面，便是东中野的旷野，一幅夏夜的野景横在星光微明的天盖下，大约秋风也快吹到这岛国里来了。 一九—二年七月改作 （原载一九二二年八月二十五日《创造季刊》第一卷第二期，据《达夫短篇小说集》上册）