Chronology of Foreign Short Stories in the 20th Century: British Volume (Volume 1 and 2)

Author: Zou Hailun Compiler / Country:
Publisher:
Publishing Time: 2002-03-01
Features: Cortick's fur is now almost pure white, and he is very proud of it. But he only said, "Swim quickly! I miss the land so much my bones ache." So they all returned to their birth beach. They heard their elders, the old seals, fighting in the rolling mist. That night, Cortick and the one-year-old seals danced the fire dance together. On summer nights, from Novastina to Lucanlong, the sea was filled with glowing flames. Behind every seal, a bright trail was left, like burning oil, and whenever they leaped, a flash of light was emitted, the waves broke into countless phosphorescent stripes and whirlpools. Later, they entered the inland and came to the territory of Holusky. They rolled around in the green wild wheat fields, talking about what they had done in the sea. They talked about the Pacific as boys talked about the woods where they went to gather dry fruits. If someone could understand their language, they would surely be able to draw a great ocean map that no one had ever drawn before. A group of Holusky, three or four years old, jumped down from Hutchinson Hill, shouting, "Clear the way, little ones! The water is deep! There are many things in the sea that you don't know. Wait until you have rounded Cape Horn." "Hey, you, one-year-old little one, where did you get that white coat?" "I didn't get it," Cortick said, "it grew on me." He was about to tip the guy over when two people with black hair and flat red faces came out from behind the sand dunes. Cortick had never seen humans before and coughed, lowering his head. The Holusky just hurriedly moved a few yards to the side and then sat there staring blankly. These two were not others but the leader of the seal hunters, Captain Creek Butterin, and his son Patramon. They came from a small village not far from the seal cove. They were considering which seals to drive to the slaughterhouse (because seals were driven like sheep) and turn into seal skin coats afterward. "Hah!" Patramon said, "Look, there's a white seal!" The captain couldn't control himself anymore and couldn't maintain his indifferent attitude toward the soldier. He couldn't ignore the boy either. He couldn't help but observe him, giving him sharp commands, trying to keep him busy. Sometimes he flew into a rage at the young soldier, showing off his authority. At this point, the soldier would be as silent as a mute, with a flushed face, waiting for the reprimands to end. In fact, the insults didn't penetrate his reason, and he had to suppress his feelings for his master, adopting a self-protective attitude. There was a scar on the thumb of his left hand, a deep, sunken wound that went through the joint. The captain had long been annoyed by it and wanted to make something of it. Yet this ugly and annoying scar still remained on the young brown hand. The captain couldn't hold it in anymore. One day, while the soldier was smoothing the tablecloth, the officer pressed his thumb with a pencil and asked, "How did you get this scar?" The young man flinched and stood at attention. "It was cut by an axe when I was logging," he replied. The officer waited for him to continue explaining, but the soldier didn't say anything more and went back to working. The older man frowned and grew angry. His servant had avoided him. The next day, he tried his best to control himself and didn't look at the scarred thumb. He really wanted to grab it, and then a hot flame rose in his blood. And so he lived on. I wrote these words, seriously and beautifully. For some reason, I wanted to sign my name or write below it—try a new pen. But seriously, does it not surprise one to ponder the meaning of an apparently innocent sentence? I wanted to try, very much.
Scene: At the dinner table. My wife just handed me a cup of tea. I stirred it, raised the spoon, and unconsciously chased it. Then I scooped up a small piece of tea, placed it to the side, and murmured softly, "How long will we continue—like this?" Then came a famous "blinding lightning and deafening roar. Huge fragments (one must admit, I do like fragments) were thrown into the air, drifting away as rolling black smoke." But this never happened, and I never tasted that. I would be "intact," as they say. "Open my heart, and you will understand." Generally, Millicent's passion for any particular young man could last up to four months. It depended on how long he could maintain his influence over her at the right time, whether the process would end abruptly or linger. As for Hector, her feelings began to gradually fade around the time she got engaged to him. When he was desperately searching for a job in England with an emotional passion, this feeling was already in an unnatural state of delay. His departure from here to Kenya abruptly ended this feeling. Therefore, the little dog Hector began to fulfill its mission in Millicent's house. It was too small and inexperienced to be able to carry out this mission, so when it came to Mike Poswell, it couldn't be blamed for its mistakes. Mike was a young man who had been keeping a purely platonic friendship with Millicent since her first appearance at a social event. He had seen her golden hair in various lights, both indoors and outdoors, seen her wear various fashionable hats, tied with ribbons or decorated with combs, or proudly inserting flowers into her hair. He had also seen her nose upturned in various weather, and sometimes even twisting her nose with her index and thumb, but he had never once felt the slightest attraction from her. But one couldn't expect the little dog Hector to understand any of this. It only knew that two days after accepting this mission, it saw a handsome, tall man of marriageable age treating its mistress in an intimate way, and this attitude, in the eyes of its mother dog who raised it, meant only one thing. The two young people were drinking tea together, and Hector watched from its position on the sofa for a long time, almost unable to bark. During their low conversation, Mike leaned over and patted Millicent's knee. This was the climax. In fact, the bite wasn't serious, it was just a nibble; but Hector's small teeth were sharp like pins. Mike suddenly withdrew his hand at an extraordinary speed, cursed, and wrapped his hand in a handkerchief. At Millicent's request, he showed her the wound for three or four minutes. Millicent harshly scolded Hector while treating Mike gently, quickly rushing to her mother's medicine cabinet and taking out a bottle of iodine. Now, no Englishman could fail to fall in love immediately when his hand was gently wiped with iodine, no matter how dull he was. Mike had seen this nose countless times before, but that afternoon, when this nose lowered and came close to his bitten thumb, when Millicent asked, "Is it serious?" when the nose lifted again and faced him, and when Millicent said, "Okay, now it's all better," Mike suddenly looked at this nose as if he were a fan. From that moment on, until she gave him her favor for three months, he became Millicent's obsessed pursuer. The little dog Hector watched all of this, realizing its mistake, and decided that it would never give Millicent another reason to rush to the iodine bottle again. He surfaced and searched among the small stones scattered around the rocks until he found a large stone, wrapped his arms around it, and then dived into the water beside the rock. The weight of the stone made him fall straight to the bottom. He held the stone tightly as an anchor, lay on his side, and looked into the hole from which his feet had once been. He could see the cave. It was a dark hole that didn't go straight through, but he couldn't see very far. He threw the stone he was using as an anchor, grabbed the edge of the cave with both hands, and tried to push himself into it. His head went in, his shoulders got stuck, and he couldn't straighten up, so he moved sideways and managed to go as far as his waist. But there was nothing ahead. Something soft and slippery touched his lips, and he saw dark-colored seaweed moving toward the grayish-black rocks, which terrified him. He thought of an octopus or seaweed stuck to meat. He backed out, and as he did, he glimpsed the harmless tentacles of a seaweed drifting at the entrance of the tunnel, but that was enough for him. He surfaced into the sunlight and swam ashore, lying down on the rock where he had dived in. He looked down at the green depths. He knew he would find a way to break through that cave or tunnel and come out the other end. They spent their lives chatting endlessly on long chairs. Cigarettes, bodies, and shopping baskets built a solid wall between them and wealth. They openly discussed the eccentricities of their teachers and the furry secrets in other girls' desks. Sometimes, just as they were about to touch upon desperate male-female behavior, the Whitton car repair shop's car came up to their bus and shouted, and they forgot to continue. But somehow, they never exchanged this information elsewhere. So at school, no one pointed out that the girls who took the 269 bus home always had excellent homework and similar themes in their essays. Maybe in the teaching office, the teachers attributed this to a good lunch and fresh country air. They gradually mastered the sweets shop owner. They deliberately waited a long time when buying tea and bought more sweets. In senior grades, city girls started dating earlier because they could go to movies and attend rock and roll dances on weekends, so country girls had to make up with a richer fantasy life. They used their full-of-yearning journey home, through charming villages and damp fields, to turn emptiness into mysterious and unsolvable mysteries. They squirmed in their long chairs (the ones in the front all had high backs), almost madly, and skillfully peeled the wrappers off chocolate candies with their sharp tongues. They didn't mind touching and feeling, which was extremely repulsive at school. They liked (unconsciously) the windows misted with steam and the dizzying feeling, as well as the tight red sweaters and the scent of their bodies. They created their hobbies in an atmosphere of conspiracy. They were convinced that he was lost in his past life. As for how he had again developed this interesting expression and strange personality in some place, they could let their imaginations run wild. The strong cry always leaned toward saying it was caused by crime, and specifically by a sex crime. But they had other equally reasonable explanations, saying he was avoiding someone strong, who had forced him to become a miser, he was involved in drug dealing, and was an underground agent. What was he doing all day before they came in? A man with a radio waiting alone in a cabin? The customers at the car station were few and far between. They imagined him fumbling for a teacup and white, waxy biscuits in dim light.