Explore Chapter 2 of '呐喊' with the original Chinese text, English translation, detailed Chinese vocabulary explanations, and audio of the Chinese original. Listen and improve your reading skills.
The layout of the taverns in Luzhen is different from most other places. They all have a large L-shaped counter facing the street, with hot water prepared behind it for warming wine at any time. In the past, laborers would finish their work around noon or in the evening and spend four coppers-this was over twenty years ago, now the price has risen to ten coppers per bowl-to buy a bowl of wine. They would stand outside the counter, drinking it hot to rest. If willing to spend one more copper, they could buy a dish of salted bamboo shoots or aniseed beans as a snack. To get a meat dish, one had to pay over a dozen coppers, but most of these customers were short-jacketed laborers, generally not so well off. Only those in long gowns would step unhurriedly into the inner room next to the shopfront, order wine and dishes, and sit down to drink at their leisure.
From the age of twelve, I started working as an assistant at the Xianheng Tavern at the entrance to the town. The proprietor said I seemed a bit simple-minded and might not manage to serve the long-gowned clientele, so I was put to work outside. The short-coated customers, while easier to deal with, were also prone to getting entangled in tedious, nitpicking disputes. They would insist on watching the yellow wine being ladled from the vat, inspecting the bottom of the pot for water, and seeing the pot placed in the hot water themselves before they were satisfied. Under such close scrutiny, it was difficult to adulterate the wine at all. So after a few days, the proprietor decided I was unfit for this job. Fortunately, I couldn’t be dismissed on account of my recommender’s strong connections, so I was given the exclusive and rather tedious task of warming the wine.
From then on, I stood all day behind the counter, attending solely to my duty. Although I performed my duties adequately, I found the work monotonous and dull. The proprietor had a forbidding face, and the customers never seemed amiable, making the atmosphere anything but lively. Only when Kong Yiji came to the tavern could we have a few laughs, which is why I remember him to this day.
Kong Yiji was the only long-gowned customer who drank his wine standing up. He was a large man, with a pale, sallow complexion and scars often visible among the wrinkles on his face. He had an unkempt, grizzled beard. Although he wore a long gown, it was dirty and tattered, appearing not to have been mended or washed in over a decade. When he spoke to others, it was always a mouthful of archaic, bookish jargon that was barely comprehensible. Because his surname was Kong, people took the half-understood phrase "Shangda Kong Yiji" from children's copybooks and gave him the nickname "Kong Yiji." Whenever Kong Yiji came to the tavern, all the drinkers would look at him and laugh. Some would call out, "Kong Yiji! You've got fresh scars on your face again!" Ignoring them, he would address the counter, "Two bowls of warmed wine, and a dish of aniseed beans." Then he would lay out nine coppers on the counter, one by one, in a row. They would deliberately shout even louder, "You must have been stealing again!" At this, Kong Yiji would open his eyes wide. "How can you besmirch my good name like this for no reason..." "What good name? I saw you with my own eyes the day before yesterday, stealing books from the He family, and getting a good thrashing for it!" Kong Yiji would flush all over, the veins on his forehead bulging as he protested, "Taking books can’t be counted as theft... Taking books!... For a scholar, can it be called stealing?" This would be followed by even more obscure phrases, like "A gentleman remains steadfast in poverty," and other classical quotations ending with "zhe" and "hu," which set everyone in the tavern roaring with laughter, filling the air inside and out with merry cheer.
From snippets of conversation overheard, I gathered that Kong Yiji had studied the classics but never even obtained the xiucai degree. With no means of making a proper living, he grew poorer and poorer until he was nearly reduced to beggary. It was his one saving grace that he wrote a beautiful hand, which allowed him to earn a little by copying books for others. Unfortunately, he had his faults: a fondness for drink and a tendency toward indolence. But before many days had passed, he would vanish, books, paper, brushes, inkstones and all. After this happened several times, people stopped employing him to copy. With no other recourse, Kong Yiji resorted occasionally to petty theft. But in our tavern, his conduct was better than most, for he never defaulted on payment. Although occasionally he had no ready cash, he would have his debt recorded on the tally board, and within a month, without fail, he would clear it, and his name would be wiped from the board.
After drinking half a bowl of wine, Kong Yiji's flushed face would gradually return to its normal pallor. Someone would then ask, "Kong Yiji, do you really know how to read?" At such a question, Kong Yiji would look at the speaker with undisguised contempt. They would persist, "How is it you never even managed to become a licentiate?" At this, Kong Yiji would immediately grow despondent and uneasy. A shadow would pass over his pallid face, and he would mutter words that were, this time, all more of those archaic and utterly incomprehensible phrases. At such moments, everyone in the tavern would laugh heartily, and the air would be filled once more with joyful clamor.
During these episodes, I could join in the laughter without fear of reproach from the proprietor. In fact, the proprietor himself would often pose such questions to Kong Yiji to provoke laughter. Knowing he could not engage with them, Kong Yiji would turn instead to us children. Once he asked me, "Have you had any schooling?" I gave a slight nod. He said, "Well then, let me test you. How do you write the character 'hui' as in 'aniseed beans'?" I thought to myself, "Am I to be quizzed by a beggar?" So I turned away and paid him no further attention. Kong Yiji waited a good while, then said with great earnestness, "You can't write it, I suppose?... I'll teach you. Remember it well. These characters are worth remembering. You'll need them when you become a proprietor, for keeping accounts." I thought to myself that I was a long way from becoming a proprietor, and besides, our proprietor never entered aniseed beans into the accounts. Half amused and half annoyed, I answered listlessly, "Who needs you to teach me? Isn't it the character for 'hui' with the grass radical on top?" Kong Yiji's face lit up with pleasure. Tapping the counter with his long fingernails, he nodded. "Correct! Correct!... But do you know there are four variant forms of that character?" Growing even more impatient, I pouted and walked away. Kong Yiji had just dipped his fingernail in wine, ready to trace the characters on the counter, but seeing my utter lack of interest, he sighed deeply, his face full of regret.
Sometimes, children from the neighborhood, drawn by the laughter, would gather around Kong Yiji. He would then give them aniseed beans, one bean to each child. After eating the beans, the children would still linger, their eyes fixed on the dish. Growing flustered, Kong Yiji would cover the dish with his spread hand, bend over, and say, "There aren't many left, I haven't many left." Straightening up, he would glance at the beans again and shake his head. "Not many, not many at all. Are there many? Indeed, not many." At this, the children would scatter amidst a fresh burst of laughter.
One day, two or three days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, the proprietor was slowly making up his accounts. Taking down the tally board, he suddenly said, "Kong Yiji hasn't been here for a long time. He still owes nineteen coppers!" It was only then that I realized how long it had been since we last saw him. A customer who was drinking said, "How could he come?... He's broken his leg." The proprietor said, "Oh!" "He kept on stealing. This time, he was fool enough to steal from the house of Provincial Graduate Ding. Could anyone get away with stealing from his household?" "What happened then?" "What happened? First he wrote a written confession, then he was beaten. They beat him for most of the night, and broke his leg." "And then?" "Then his leg was broken." "Well, what after his leg was broken?" "What?... Who knows? He may be dead by now." The proprietor asked no more questions but went back to slowly making up his accounts.
After the Mid-Autumn Festival, the wind grew colder day by day as winter approached. Even though I spent all day by the stove, I had to wear my padded jacket. One afternoon, with not a single customer in the shop, I was sitting with my eyes closed. Suddenly I heard a voice: "Warm a bowl of wine." It was a very low voice, yet familiar. I looked up, but saw no one. I stood up and looked outside. There, sitting by the threshold directly beneath the counter, was Kong Yiji. His face was dark and gaunt, almost unrecognizable. He wore a tattered lined jacket and sat with his legs crossed, cushioned on a rush mat that was slung from his shoulders by a straw rope. Seeing me, he repeated, "Warm a bowl of wine." The proprietor leaned over the counter as well and said, "Kong Yiji? You still owe nineteen coppers!" Looking up dejectedly, Kong Yiji replied, "That... I'll settle next time. This time, I have cash. Make the wine good." The proprietor smiled at him as usual. "Kong Yiji, you've been stealing again!" But this time, Kong Yiji offered no lengthy defense. He simply said, "Don't mock me." "Mock you? If you hadn't stolen, how did you break your leg?" Kong Yiji murmured in a low voice, "I fell... broke it in a fall..." His expression pleaded with the proprietor not to pursue the matter. By now several people had gathered, and they all laughed along with the proprietor. I warmed the wine, carried it out, and set it on the threshold. He produced four coppers from his ragged pocket and placed them in my hand. I saw that his hand was covered in mud-he must have propelled himself here with them. Presently, he finished the wine and, amid the talk and laughter of the others, slowly made his way off, using his hands once more.
After that, I did not see Kong Yiji again for a long time. At the end of the year, when the proprietor took down the tally board, he said, "Kong Yiji still owes nineteen coppers!" At the Dragon Boat Festival the following year, he said it again. But when the Mid-Autumn Festival came, he said nothing more, and by the end of that year, I still had not seen him.