Morning Glories Plucked at Twilight - (Illustrated Edition)

Author: Lu Xun
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2006-06-01
Features: This is a collection of short recollections by Lu Xun, including ten essays written between 1928 and 1928. It features works such as "The Dog, the Cat, and the Rat," "A Long and a Short Story," "The Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars," "The Ghost of the Inconstant," and "From Baicao Garden to Sanwei Study." This collection gathers Lu Xun's ten recollections written in 1926, with the first five composed in Beijing and the last five in Xiamen. Initially published under the title "Old Stories Retold" in the half-monthly journal "Myriad Origins," Lu Xun revised and expanded it in July 1927, adding a preface and postscript, renaming it "Evening Chrysanthemums," and publishing it in September 1928 by Beijing's Weiming Press as part of his "Weiming New Collection." A second edition followed in February 1929, and a third edition was published in September 1932 by Shanghai's Beishu Press, with a new layout. The cover was illustrated by Tao Yuanying. These ten essays are "memories of past events" (as described in the preface to "Selected Works" in "Three Idle Collections"), providing a relatively complete record of Lu Xun's life and experiences from childhood to youth, vividly depicting the life scenes of the late Qing and early Republican era. They are significant artistic documents for studying Lu Xun's early thought, life, and the society of that time. The prose is profound and enduring, making it a classic of modern Chinese essays.
Regarding the translation of this book, Lu Xun wrote in a letter to Tetsuo Takeda on April 11, 1934: "If there is a publisher interested in translating 'Evening Chrysanthemums,' it would be a good idea. However, there are too many references to Chinese customs and trivial matters in it. Without annotations, it might be difficult to understand, but too many annotations would make it tedious to read." In a letter to Tetsuo Takeda on December 2, 1934, while discussing the joint translation of "Selected Works of Lu Xun" with Tetsuo Takeda and Haruo Sato, Lu Xun mentioned: "Only the essay 'Mr. Fujiwara' should be translated and included. 'Fan A'ong' is poorly written and should be omitted." The essays "From Baicao Garden to Sanwei Study," "Mr. Fujiwara," and "Fan A'ong" in this collection were later included in middle school Chinese textbooks.
The Dog, the Cat, and the Rat
Since last year, I seem to have heard people say that I am an enemy of cats. The basis for this must be my essay "The Rabbit and the Cat." This is an admission of guilt, of course, but I have paid no mind to it. This year, however, I have been quite concerned. I often engage in writing and publishing, and it seems that my words always either scratch the itch or touch the sore of others. If I am not careful, I might even offend famous scholars or professors, or even worse, the "elders who bear the responsibility of guiding the youth." That would be extremely dangerous. Why? Because these big shots are "not easy to provoke." How are they "not easy to provoke"? It is that after getting hot all over, they write a letter and publish it in the newspaper, advertising: "Look! The dog is not an enemy of the cat, yet Lu Xun admits it himself, and he even says he will 'beat the drowned dog'!" The essence of this "logic" is to use my own words to prove that I am the dog, and thus all my statements are fundamentally overturned. Even if I say "two plus two equals four" or "three plus three equals nine," not a single word is correct. Since all this is wrong, then the "gentlemen's" verbal arithmetic of "two plus two equals seven" or "three plus three equals a thousand" must be correct. I then began to pay attention to investigating the "motives" behind their enmity. This is not to say that I am trying to follow the current trend of scholars who judge works by their motives, but rather to clear myself in advance. I believe that in the field of animal psychology, this would not require much effort, but unfortunately, I do not have this knowledge. Later, in Dr. O. Dahmhardt's "Natural History of National Fairy Tales," I finally found the reason. It is said that the story goes like this: The animals held a meeting to discuss important matters, and birds, fish, and beasts were all present, except for the elephant. They decided to send a messenger to invite it, and the lottery fell to the dog. "How do I find the elephant? I have never seen it, and I don’t know it," the dog asked. "That’s easy," the others said, "It’s hunched over." The dog went and met a cat, immediately arched its back, and greeted it, introducing it to everyone as, "Here is the elephant!" But everyone laughed at it. From then on, the dog and the cat became enemies.
The Germans, though they had not been out of the forest for long, had already achieved remarkable achievements in academia and literature, and even the book bindings and toys were all heartwarming. The only exception was this fairy tale, which was indeed not very attractive. The enmity was also meaningless. The cat’s arched back was not an attempt to pretend or deliberately pose; the fault lay with the dog’s poor eyesight. However, the reason could still be considered a reason. My hatred for cats is quite different from this. In fact, the distinction between humans and animals does not have to be so strict. In the animal kingdom, although it is not as comfortable and free as the ancients imagined, there are fewer pretensions and fuss than in human society. They act according to their nature, being right or wrong without needing to justify themselves. Maggots may be dirty, but they do not claim to be pure; birds of prey and fierce beasts may be cruel to weaker animals, but they have never raised the banners of "justice" or "righteousness," making the victims admire and praise them until the very end. Humans, after standing upright, made great progress; after learning to speak, they made great progress; after learning to write and compose, they made great progress. Yet, they also fell, because at that time, they began to speak empty words. It is still acceptable to speak empty words, but even if they do not know that they are speaking insincere arguments, they cannot help but feel a sense of shame and awkwardness toward animals that can only bark. If there were indeed an all-seeing creator, high above, perhaps he would consider human cleverness a nuisance, just as we feel uncomfortable or even sad when we see monkeys doing acrobatics or elephants bowing in the zoo, thinking that these cleverness would be better off not existing. However, once human, one can only "associate with the like-minded and attack the different," learning to speak like others and talk about customs—argue.
When I mention the reasons for my hatred of cats, I feel that they are sufficient and just. First, their temperament is different from other fierce beasts. Whenever they catch sparrows or mice, they never bite them to death but instead play with them, release them, catch them again, and repeat until they get bored before eating them. This is quite similar to people’s malicious enjoyment of slowly torturing the weak. Second, are they not of the same family as lions and tigers? Yet, they have such a coquettish manner! But perhaps this is due to their limited talent. If their bodies were ten times larger than they are now, who knows what attitude they would adopt. However, these excuses seem to have been added when I wrote this now, although they also seemed to arise in my mind at the time. To be more reliable, or rather, to say that they were not just because of the noisy mating calls of cats, which bothered others, especially at night when I wanted to read or sleep. During these times, I would use a long bamboo pole to attack them.
People often beat dogs with sticks on the streets when they mate. I have seen a copper engraving by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, "Allegory of Lust," depicting this scene, showing that such behavior has been consistent throughout history, both in China and abroad. Since the obstinate Austrian scholar Sigmund Freud introduced the theory of psychoanalysis, many of our famous scholars and professors have vaguely applied it, although the translation "heart explanation" is concise, it is indeed very difficult to understand. Since then, these matters have inevitably been traced back to sexual desire. I don’t care about beating dogs, but my beating cats was only because they were noisy, and I had no malice toward them. I believe my jealousy is not that broad, especially in these days when one is "easily blamed," this must be stated in advance. For example, people also have some rituals before mating. The new ones are writing love letters, with the fewest being a bundle and the most being a stack. The old ones are "asking for names" and "accepting gifts," with kowtows and bows, last year, the Jiang family of Haichang held a wedding in Beijing, and the endless kowtows and bows lasted for three full days, and they even printed a red-faced "Wedding Rituals," with a preface full of arguments: "Objectively speaking, if it is called a ritual, it must be elaborate. To seek simplicity is to ask for no ritual at all. Therefore, those who are determined to follow the ritual can rise! They cannot retreat to the commoners who are not subject to the ritual!" However, I was not angry at all, because I did not have to be present. This also shows that my hatred for cats is indeed very simple—just because they kept bothering me.
People’s various rituals can be ignored by outsiders, who can see or hear nothing of them, and I pay no attention to them. But if someone forces me to recite love letters or kowtow when I am about to read or sleep, I must defend myself and use a long bamboo pole to resist. Also, people I do not usually associate with suddenly send me an invitation card with "My Sister’s Marriage," "My Son’s Wedding," "Please Attend," or "All Are Welcome" written on it, which makes me feel a little guilty without spending money, and I am not very happy either. But these are all recent matters. Thinking back further, my hatred for cats dates back to a time before I could even articulate these reasons, perhaps when I was around ten years old. I still clearly remember the reason: it was extremely simple—just because they ate mice, the small, adorable mice I raised. I have heard that Westerners do not like black cats, but I don’t know if that’s true. However, the black cat in Edgar Allan Poe’s novels is indeed quite frightening. Japanese cats are good at becoming spirits, and the legendary "cat witch" is indeed more terrifying in its cruelty. In ancient China, there were "cat ghosts," but recently, cats have rarely been heard to cause trouble, as if the old methods have been lost, and they have become honest. But in my childhood, I always felt they had a bit of a supernatural aura and had no good feelings toward them.
It was a summer night when I was a child, I lay on a small wooden table under a large osmanthus tree to cool off, while my grandmother shook a banana fan and sat beside me, telling me riddles and stories. Suddenly, there was a scratching sound of claws on the osmanthus tree, and a pair of sparkling eyes followed the sound into the darkness, startling me and interrupting my grandmother’s story. She started telling a story about cats: "Do you know? Cats are the teachers of tigers." She said, "How can a child know? Cats are the teachers of tigers. Tigers originally knew nothing, so they came to study under the cat. The cat taught them how to pounce, how to catch, and how to eat, just like their own way of catching mice. After finishing teaching, the tiger thought he had learned all the skills and was stronger than anyone else, but the teacher’s cat was still stronger than him. If he killed the cat, he would be the strongest. He made up his mind and rushed forward to pounce on the cat. The cat, however, knew his intentions and jumped up a tree, while the tiger could only squat helplessly on the ground. It was lucky that the tiger was impatient, otherwise, a tiger might have climbed down from the osmanthus tree. But it was still very frightening, and I wanted to go inside to sleep. The night grew darker; the osmanthus leaves rustled, and the breeze moved them, I thought the mat must have cooled slightly, and lying there, I would not toss and turn. In the dim light of the oil lamp in the old house, it was a world where mice leaped and danced, flickering and squeaking, often more arrogant than "famous scholars and professors." The cat was kept, but it didn’t do any chores. My grandmother and others often hated the mice for gnawing at boxes and cabinets and stealing food, but I thought this was not a big crime and had nothing to do with me, and besides, such bad deeds were probably done by big mice, and it would be impossible to blame them on the small mice I liked. These small mice mostly moved on the ground, no bigger than a thumb, and were not very afraid of people. Where I lived called them "hidden mice," and they were different from the great ones that lived in the house.
There were two flower papers pasted in front of my bed. One was "Beggar’s Marriage," full of long mouths and big ears, which I thought was not very elegant. The other was "Mice Getting Married," which was very cute. From the groom and bride to the attendants, guests, and servants, none of them were not like scholars, but they all wore red shirts and green pants. I thought that only the hidden mice I liked could hold such a grand ceremony. Now, things have become vulgar, and when I see human wedding processions on the street, I just see them as advertisements for sex and pay no attention. But at that time, I was extremely eager to see the ceremony of "mice getting married," even if it was as long as the Jiang family’s wedding, which lasted for three nights, I probably wouldn’t have been bored.
On the night of the fourteenth day of the first lunar month, I was reluctant to sleep easily, waiting for their ceremony to come out from under my bed. However, I only saw a few naked hidden mice wandering on the ground, not like a wedding was being held. Until I couldn’t stand it anymore and fell asleep, I opened my eyes, and it was already morning—the Lantern Festival. Perhaps the wedding ceremony of the mouse race does not send invitations, nor do they collect gifts, even if it is a real "attending the wedding," they are absolutely not welcome, I think. This is their habit, and there is no way to protest.
The real enemy of mice is not cats. In the spring, when you hear them "zhazhaza zhazhaza zhazhaza zhazhaza" calling, it is called "mice counting copper coins," and you know that their terrible butcher has arrived. This sound expresses despair and terror. Although they may not call like this when they meet a cat, they certainly do when they meet this butcher—the snake. The snake’s body is slender, and its diameter is about the same as that of a mouse. Wherever the mouse can go, the snake can also go, and the chase lasts longer, making it almost impossible to escape. When "counting coins," it is probably already too late to take any other action.
Once, I heard this "counting coins" sound in an empty room and pushed the door open. A snake was lying on the beam, looking at the ground, and a hidden mouse lay there, bleeding from the corner of its mouth, but its sides were still rising and falling. I picked it up and put it in a paper box. After half a day, it woke up, gradually able to eat and walk, and by the next day, it seemed to have recovered, but it did not run away. When placed on the ground, it often came to the front of people and even climbed up to my knee. When placed on the dining table, it picked up some food scraps and licked the edge of the bowl; when placed on my desk, it moved around leisurely, seeing the inkstone and licking the ink. This made me very surprised. I had heard from my father that China had a "ink monkey," no bigger than a thumb, with all its fur black and shiny. It slept in the pen holder, and when it heard the ink grinding, it jumped out and waited. After people finished writing and put the pen back, it licked all the remaining ink on the inkstone and jumped back into the pen holder. I really wanted to have such an ink monkey, but I couldn’t get one. I asked where to buy it, but no one knew. "Better than nothing," this hidden mouse could be considered my ink monkey, although it did not necessarily wait for me to finish writing before licking the ink.
I can no longer remember clearly now, but it was like this for about a month. One day, I suddenly felt lonely, truly "what was lost." My hidden mouse was usually wandering in front of me, either on the desk or on the ground. But that day, it was not seen for most of the day. Everyone had lunch, and it did not come out, but it always appeared at that time. I waited again, and waited for another half day, but it was still not seen. Changma, a female worker who had always taken care of me, perhaps thought I had been waiting too hard, so she gently came to tell me something. This immediately made me angry and sad, and I resolved to be an enemy of the cats. She said: "The hidden mouse..."