Chapter 25 silver gray death

superior Xuehu's Tokyo is more lively than usual.The breeze blowing down from the top of Mount Fuji can never cool the fiery hearts of men and women in Mandu.The day of the appearance of the star that swam in the sky of Bethlehem 1,920 years ago is approaching again.The shops in the streets and alleys are all decorated like the bride and groom, trying their best to attract a few more customers, so as to add to the profit at the end of the year. This is the busy time when the poor and the rich are just as busy.This is also the time of chasing guests and leaving people, which is infinitely sad.

Near Ueno Shinobi Pond, in the midst of a group of disorderly houses, stood a building standing in the clear winter air.This family, at this busy time of the year, seems to be lifeless. The doors and windows upstairs are still tightly closed.The golden heliosphere has left the jungle of Ueno, and is already hanging high among the sea-blue celestial bodies, laughing leisurely at the troublesome things in the world. When the sun's rays slanted onto his pillow through the crack of the closed door, his walnut-like eyes opened. He was about twenty-four or five years old.In the light of the dark room, his face looked even paler. Judging from the protruding cheekbones on the left and right sides of his face and the deep eye sockets under his eyes, he was actually a thin person.

He opened half an eye, looked at the clock on the table, the long and short hands were overlapping on top of the letter X, opened his mouth, and yawned, he didn't know that he was the protagonist of a great tragedy, and he still hissed He fell asleep, half awake and half asleep for a while, and he jumped out of the quilt after listening to the wall clock on the next wall striking eleven o'clock.He dressed carelessly, ran downstairs, washed his hands, put on a pair of broken leather shoes, and ran outside. His recent living conditions are quite different from those in the past. From the end of October to the present, during the two months, he always turned around day and night to go to various pubs to drink.In Tokyo's taverns, the furnaces are served by young women around the age of sixteen or eighteen.Although he knew they were trying to cheat him out of money, so he was willing to fight and play with him, but when the sun went down, he couldn't live properly at home.Sometimes he wants to get rid of this bad habit, and deliberately goes to the library to get his favorite books to read, but when the lights are on, suddenly there will be various sad little songs singing in his ears hear it.In his nostrils, there will also be a mixture of fragrances of powder, sesame oil, fish meat boiled in oil, cigarettes and alcohol.Between the lines in his book, a red and white face would suddenly appear.A pair of charming eyes widened little by little.Her lips, which were like rosebuds, gradually opened up, and two smiles were also visible.A row of teeth that look like ocean magnets can also be seen.He closed his eyes, and in front of him, there were many young women sitting in the shadow of the red light, smiling slightly.Some squinted at him, some nodded, some took off their top and bottom clothes, and some stretched out their slender hands as tender as snow to him.At that time, he would unknowingly follow that slender hand and walk out like a dreamer.He didn't know that he was no longer in the library until there was a soft body sitting in his arms.

Last night, he also sat in such a tavern until one o'clock after midnight before he came out. At that time, his mind was already unconscious, and he stumbled and walked for a while on the road, looking around and not seeing anything. No one can be seen, thousands of doors are all closed there silently, only a row of jagged door lights, yellow and yellow cast a few hazy black shadows on the street.The two tram lines in the middle of the street were glowing like phosphorescent blue.He stood on his feet, leaned against the iron railing of the university, looked up and saw the bright moon of the thirteenth night, floating in the pale blue sky like a silver basin.He looked around again, only to realize that the quiet tram lines, electric poles, electric wires, and crooked roofs of houses were covered with moonlight like frost.He felt that his family was lonely and cold, like a boatman who had encountered a storm and drifted alone in the snow world of the North Pole.Leaning his back against the iron railing, he stared at the moon.After watching for a while, two tears suddenly rolled down his eyes that were as weak as old dogs.The scene of his wedding last summer, like a revolving lantern, swirled before his eyes.

There are high and low mountains on three sides, and the wide sky on one side seems to have the smell of river water evaporating.Standing on the plain in the middle of the mountain, looking at this empty area, people can have a supernatural feeling, knowing that there is a river under the sky.At the end of the hillside, at the beginning of the plain, there are a few houses scattered among the sparse forest and vines along a green stream that curves like a curve.In the depths of a summer full of passion and dreams, because the weather was very hot, he and his newly married wife slept for a while, then climbed out of bed and went to the window facing the stream to enjoy the cool air.The lights had been blown out, and moonlight streamed in through the window.After sitting down on the rattan chair, he saw the moonlight shining on his wife's face.Taking a closer look, he felt that her complexion was no different from the marble carvings.After watching for a while, he became frightened, and unknowingly stretched out his right hand to touch her face.

"Why is your face so cold?" "Take it easy, it's almost three o'clock, people are already asleep there, don't wake them up." "Let me ask you, oh, why is there no blood on your face?" "That's why I always die early!" Hearing her words, he felt his eyes heat up instantly.For some unknown reason, he suddenly stretched out his hands and hugged her tightly.When his lips were pressed against her face, he felt that two tears were streaming down from her eyes.The two of them wept for a long time, and he felt that his chest gradually became more comfortable. Looking out of the window, the distance and near were covered with bright moonlight.Looking up at the sky, there is a thin cloud shadow floating in the blue sky.

"Look at the river that day..." "The little star by the river is my constellation." "What star?" "Vega." At this point, they stopped talking.The two sat silently for a while, and he looked at the little star as far as he could, and said to her in a low voice: "I may not be able to come back next year, I'm afraid you will suffer more than that Vega." Leaning against the iron railing of the university, I stared blankly at the moonlight and recalled these past episodes.As soon as he thought of the last sentence, his tears flowed down continuously, and a stream of water suddenly appeared in his eyes.The small window facing the stream was also reflected in his eyes, and the lacquered table placed beside the window was also reflected in his eyes.There was a half-bright foreign lamp on the table, under which sat a woman around twenty years old. The woman's pale complexion, a pair of charming big eyes, the curve of her small lips, and her gray lips all reflected her. came into his eyes.He couldn't hold it any longer, shook his head, and said to himself:

"She is dead, she is dead. The telegram on October 28 is always true. The letter on the fourth day of November is always true. Pity her when she vomited blood until she died. Still calling my name there." While weeping, he stood up and walked, his wine had already sobered, so he felt cold.In the middle of the night, he didn't want to go back to his hellish home.He used to live in his friend's house, and the upstairs where he lived had no fire bowl, nor life, only a few old books, waiting for him spread out in the yellow-gray electric light, the more he thought about it, the more he didn't want to Going back, so he walked slowly up to the train station in Ueno.It turned out that people in Japanese train stations stayed up all night, and there was a stove in the waiting room. He went to the train station just to warm himself up.

He walked all the way to the train station, but he met no one on the cold road. When he entered the station, he saw only two rows of electric lights shining yellow in the empty corridor.In the box office, two or three waitresses were sitting, yawning.After entering the second waiting room, he sat half awake and half asleep for two hours. He saw that the fire in the stove was almost finished.There was the sound of locomotive wheels in the distance.A few people in uniform also came to the station and ran around there. After waiting for a while, the train from the northeast arrived.The station suddenly became lively, and the footsteps of passengers disembarking mixed with all kinds of calls, and reached his eardrums. Following a group of passengers, he also walked out of the station.When he got out of the station, he looked up and saw countless stars moving slightly in the blue round sky. A cool breeze came from the north suddenly, and he felt a little unbearably cold.The moon has set.There were a few workers who got up early on the street, pulled their carts and walked slowly there, and the door lights of each store were still shining there as if they were tired.When he walked to the west of Ueno Park, he suddenly let out a long sigh.In the dim light, a few yellow leaves flew down slowly, and the dead trees around seemed to be alive. He shivered and stopped silently.After listening quietly for a while, he felt that there was no movement around him, only the sound of the rumbling wheels, as if in a dream, was still reaching his ears intermittently, and he knew just now It was just the sound of a few falling leaves.When he walked across the Guanyue Bridge, he saw a row of nightless buildings on the other side of the pool, all of which were in a deep sleep.Two rows of lights seemed to be mocking him. By the time he got home and slept, the east had already turned gray.

middle It was another fine day in early winter, at eleven o'clock in the morning, he hurriedly washed his hands and face, put on a pair of broken leather shoes, and ran outside. Under the blue sky, in the soft sunlight, he walked without thinking for an hour before he felt hungry.Feeling around, there is still five yuan left in his purse.Half a month ago, he looked at the things around him, and they were all sold out, so he had to pawn a diamond ring belonging to his late wife.The last souvenir of his late wife was only worth one hundred and sixty yuan, and in less than half a month, only five yuan remained.

"Dead wife, dead wife, please forgive me!" He felt desolate and ashamed for a while, but finally he had to think about the urgent matter at hand.His stomach was rumbling though.He calculated that there was more than five yuan, and he definitely couldn't go to a good tavern to get drunk, so he decided to go to the tavern he used to go to when he had no money. The restaurant was opened near the botanical garden. The owner was a widow in her fifties, and the old widow's daughter named Jing'er was responsible for the stove.Jing'er is already twenty years old this year.Her appearance was just ordinary, but her eyes were like autumn water, and her high nose was like that of a white race. For some reason, people who met her could never forget her.And Jing'er's nature is very kind, she always treats everyone equally and puts on a smiling face.In their place, because there are not many customers, there is no cook.Jing'er's mother used to work as an oven in a western restaurant, so she knows a little bit about the secrets of seasoning.When he used to have no money with him, he would always go to Jing'er's house, one because Jing'er treated him very considerately, and secondly because he was used to going there, and Jing'er's mother trusted him, no matter how much, she would always be willing. Pay for him.When he was drunk, he would tell Jinger how good his late wife was, how good she was, how she was abused by his mother, how she contracted lung disease, how she looked forward to him when she died.When it comes to sad places, every time he sheds tears, Jing'er is sometimes willing to cry with him.Although he has been in and out of Jing'er's house for less than two months, Jing'er treats him as if he was an old friend from a few years ago. Jing'er sometimes tells him about unhappy things.According to Jing'er, no matter a man or a woman, when there are secret matters or sad things, there must always be a friend who can talk to each other to comfort each other.He and Jing'er are probably a pair of friends who can comfort each other. Half a month ago, he didn't know where he heard it from, but he only heard that Jing'er was "going to get married".Because he didn't want to ask Jing'er directly, so he just watched Jing'er's situation silently.Because of this doubt in his heart, he felt that Jing'er's attitude towards him was always different from before.One night, when he was sitting and drinking at Jing'er's house, a man in his thirties suddenly came.When Jing'er saw this man, she left him and went to talk to him.Jing'er walked away, so he could only gossip about insignificant gossip with Jing'er's mother.However, while he was talking, he was paying attention to the actions of Jing'er and the man.After waiting for more than half an hour, Jing'er was still talking and laughing with the man. He became impatient and hurried away like a beast with a wounded bow.It has been half a month since that day, and he hasn't been to Jing'er's house yet.After breaking up with Jing'er, he drank more heavily, and thinking about his dead wife was more painful than before. "A bosom friend who can comfort each other, where can I find such a friend now!" Recently, after mourning his deceased wife, he always thought of this conclusion.Sometimes the appearance of his late wife would be mixed with Jing'er's.After breaking up with Jing'er, he felt even more sad and lonely. He looked around and found that there was only five yuan in the purse.He just wanted to use this as an excuse and ran to Jing'er's house.While thinking this way, he thought of "Wolfran von Eschenbach" (Wolfran von Eschenbach) in "Tannhaeuser" (Tannhaeuser). Thinking of this, he sang two lines from "Frank and Straight": Dortistsie;—nahedichihrungestoert! Soflihtfuerdieses Leben Mir Jeder Hoffnungschein! (Wagnerstannhaeuser) (Go to her skirt and settle your old lovesick debts!) (Poor my lonely life! Look at the famous flower in the mirror, it has disappeared again!) After reading it several times, he said to himself: "I can go, I can go to her house, the ancients can love her lover like this, can't I love Jing'er like this?" From his appearance, it seems that others are justifying his current behavior, but in fact, no one is there to blame him except his own conscience. When they arrived at Jing'er's house late, the two of them, mother and daughter, had just gotten up.Jing'er saw him, gave him a slight smile, and asked him: "Why haven't you come to our house for so long?" He thought to himself: "Just ask yourself to see!" But seeing Jing'er's soft smile, he couldn't say anything, so he just replied: "Because I've been very busy recently." After Jing'er's mother heard his words, she pretended to be angry and asked him: "Extremely busy? Jing'er's man said that you often go to his house to drink recently." After hearing her mother's words, Jing'er seemed a little embarrassed, so she said to her mother: "Mother!" After watching these episodes, he asked Jing'er's mother: "Who is Jing'er's man?" "The owner of the tavern in front of the university, don't you know?" He turned his head and said to Jinger: "When is your wedding date? Congratulations: I hope you will give birth to a son early, and we will have a wedding banquet." Jing'er stared blankly at him for a while, as if she was about to cry.After a pause, Jing'er asked him, "Do you drink?" He listened to her voice as if it was vibrating there.He also suddenly felt desolate, full of sadness, as if the vomiting of a seasick person squeezed his heart from his stomach.He felt that he couldn't say a word, so he could only nod his head a few times, indicating that he wanted to drink.He glanced at Jing'er, and Jing'er also glanced at him, the eyes of the two flashed like lightning, and Jing'er ran out to buy wine and vegetables for him. up. After Jing'er came back, her mother went to the kitchen to cook, but the wine was already hot before the food was ready.Jing'er sat in front of him as usual and poured wine for him, but he never dared to raise his head to look at Jing'er, and Jing'er didn't dare to raise his head to look at him.Jing'er didn't speak, and he just drank there silently.The two sat blankly for a while, and Jing'er's mother called Jing'er from the kitchen and said: "The dish is ready, you can take it!" Jing'er heard this, but she still didn't move.Unknowingly, he peeked at it, and Jing'er seemed to be crying there. He drank a few glasses of wine indiscriminately, ate a few dishes, and then walked out crookedly.In the street outside, people's voices were very noisy.After crossing a street, he came to a clean road, walked a few steps, and when he walked up a long west-facing slope, he saw that the sun had already slanted.Looking back from a distance, the tops of the woods in the botanical garden were all dyed a crimson yellow color. The setting sun on the roof tiles of other people's houses gave off a feeling of nostalgia.After staring blankly for a while, he turned around, carried the afterglow of the setting sun on his back, and walked eastward up the long slope. Just like in the dream, after he stumbled into the main entrance of the university, he suddenly heard someone calling him: "Mr. Y, where are you going! Do you live in Tokyo at the end of the year?" He looked up and saw that it was one of his classmates.With newly cut hair, wearing a new suit, and holding a traveling rattan suitcase, he was probably planning to go home for the New Year.He looked at his classmate, smiled, and hurriedly replied: "Yes, I'm not going anywhere. Are you going home for the New Year?" "By the way, I'm going home." "When you see your lover, please say hello to me." "Yes, she's probably missing you there too." "Don't make fun of me. May you go back safely. See you later." "Goodbye, goodbye, ha..." After his classmates left, he stood alone in the university garden in the dusk for a long time, as if he was crazy.After staying for a while, he walked forward slowly again, while talking to himself: "They all went home. They all have families. Oh! home! sweet home!" He walked home without thinking, went upstairs, and sat under the electric light for a while. With his bewildered brain, he rethought the words he heard at Jing'er's house just now: "Not bad, Jing'er's wedding will be in the first month of the new year." He thought for a while, then stood up, bundled a few old books into a package, and took the package of old books to a second-hand bookstore in front of the school without haste.A huge negotiation was held, and the ideas of several great geniuses were exchanged for only nine yuan, and there was also a collection of poetry and essays in English. Because the owner of the second-hand bookstore bargained too cheaply, he still kept it. Yes, but not sold. After receiving nine yuan, although he felt aggrieved for those geniuses who wrote books, he was very satisfied at the same time.Because with the nine yuan, he can get drunk for a night, and his biggest goal can be achieved - that is, to use a few yuan to buy some gifts for Jing'er matter. When he walked out of the second-hand bookstore, the street was already in the dusk world. In a shop selling accessories for women, he bought some Rhino hairpins from Ribbon and two bottles of violet perfume. He ran all the way back to Jing'er's house. Jing'er was not at home, and her mother was the only one there to warm up the fire. Seeing him coming in again, Jing'er's mother seemed to dislike him, so she asked him: "Why are you here again?" "Where did Jing'er go?" "Going to take a shower." Hearing this, he approached her, took out the Libo perfume hidden in his bosom, and said to her: "Please give these small things to Jing'er for me, and consider it as my wedding gift to her." When Jing'er's mother saw the gifts, she put on a smile and said: "Thank you very much. When Jing'er comes back, I'll ask her to thank you again." He saw that it was getting late, so he asked Jing'er's mother to boil another bottle of wine for him and cook some dishes. When he was drinking the second bottle, Jing'er came back.Seeing him sitting there drinking again, Jing'er was stunned for a while, so she said to him: "Ah, you..." Jing'er went to the kitchen for a while, said a few words with her mother, and then came back to him.He thought she was here to thank him, but she didn't say a word about the gift just now, she just sat in front of him blankly, pouring wine for him.Later, when he desperately asked her to fetch wine, Jing'er blushed and said to him: "Stop drinking, isn't it enough after drinking so much wine?" Hearing this, he drank even more.He didn't know where to start with the sad mood in his heart. He seemed to have revenge on Jing'er, and at the same time, he seemed to be mourning for his own family. He lay drunk on Jing'er's bed for a long time, and at two o'clock after midnight, he staggered out of Jing'er's house.The street was very quiet, the distance was filled with silver-gray moonlight, there was no movement around, except for the faint barking of dogs, this vast world seemed to have died.After stumbling around for a while, he suddenly came across a nightclub selling wine and food.He groped around to see that there were still four or five fifty-cent bills left in his pocket.In the nightclub he had another drink.He felt that the earth, the sky, and the surrounding houses were all spinning there.After walking backwards and forwards for two hours, he saw a large open space in front of him.The cool shadow of the moonlight mixed with the dark shadows of various objects and reflected in his eyes. "This place is probably already a women's medical college." After thinking about it like this, his mind cleared up, his brain convulsed again, he was no longer who he is now.A scene from a few days ago flew before his eyes like a movie. The sky was full of dark gray cold clouds, and the north wind was very strong. In the shadow of fallen leaves, he stood at the gate of Jingyangxuan in Ueno Park, receiving guests there.This day was the date when their fellow villagers held a meeting to welcome Mrs. W. Among the people coming and going, he suddenly saw a seventeen or eighteen-year-old woman, wearing the uniform of a women's medical school, walking to the meeting in a leisurely manner.When he first saw her, he was stunned for a moment.When the woman approached him, he was like a person who woke up from a dream; he hurried forward and said to her: "Take off your hat and coat and give it to me." After two hours, the welcome party broke up.It was almost five o'clock then.At the exit, people who took hats and coats were crowded.When he came downstairs, he saw the woman standing blankly at the door without her coat on, so he went up to her and said: "Did you get your coat?" "not yet." "Give me the bronze medal, and I'll get it for you." "thanks." In the vast night, when he saw her pair of fine white teeth, he felt very refreshed.Having fetched her coat and hat, he ran behind and put it on for her.She turned her head to look at him, then hurried out from the door.He caught up with her a step, zoomed his eyes for a moment, and her slender shadow disappeared in the middle of the darkness. Thinking of this, he felt that her slender body seemed to have just passed in front of him. "Please wait a moment!" With a cry like this, he rushed forward a few steps, and his long, thin body fell to the ground. The moon is tilted.In the open space in front of the Women's Medical School, there was another dark shadow, and the surroundings were very quiet.The silver-gray moonlight filled the open space, purifying all the objects in the world. Down On the morning of December 26th, the sun still rose from the east, and when the sun’s rays hit the display field in front of the Niu (Renqi) District Office, an old servant of the District Office took a notice and was Paste the revealing field board to go.The notice said: walking sick, There is a man in his mid-twenties, five feet five inches in length, thin, withered and yellow in color, with high cheekbones, hair several inches long, messy on his forehead, and has no other features. Dressed in a black serge suit.In the pocket, there is a volume of Emest Dowsons Poems and Prose, a five-cent bill, a white silk handkerchief, and a female figure with S. S．Abbreviations.There is a black soft hat by his side, and yellow light leather shoes on his feet, which have been damaged on the left and right sides. The disease is cerebral hemorrhage.At 9 a.m. on the 26th of this month, he was found in the open space in front of Wakamatsu Women's Medical College in Ushi (Renbo), and it was about four hours before he died.I don't know the name and address of the deceased, so I paid for the cremation. Niu (Renbu) Ward Officials Shown Made in 1920 Originally published July 7th, 1921 - 9th, 11th ——Shanghai "Current Affairs News Xue Deng" on the 13th