先讀課文﹕
The Good Earth 大地
by Pearl S. Buck
Chapter One
It was Wang Lung's marriage day. At first, opening his eyes in the blackness
of the curtains about his bed, he could not think why the dawn seemed different
from any other. The house was still except for the faint, gasping cough
of his old father, whose room was opposite to his own across the middle
room. Every morning the old man's cough was the first sound to be heard.
Wang Lung usually lay listening to it and moved only when he heard it approaching
nearer and when he heard the door of his father's room squeak upon its wooden
hinges.
But this morning he did not wait. He sprang up and pushed aside the curtains
of his bed. It was a dark, ruddy dawn, and through a small square hole of
a window, where the tattered paper fluttered, a glimpse of bronze sky gleamed.
He went to the hole and tore the paper away.
"It is spring and I do not need this," he muttered. He was ashamed to say
aloud that he wished the house to look neat on this day. The hole was barely
large enough to admit his hand and he thrust it out to feel of the air.
A small soft wind blew gently from the east, a wind mild and murmurous and
full of rain. It was a good omen. The fields needed rain for fruition. There
would be no rain this day, but within a few days, if this wind continued,
there would be water. It was good.
Yesterday he had said to his father that if this brazen, glittering sunshine
continued, the wheat could not fill in the ear. Now it was as if Heaven
had chosen this day to wish him well. Earth would bear fruit. He hurried
out into the middle room, drawing on his blue outer trousers as he went,
and knotting about the fullness at his waist his girdle of blue cotton cloth.
He left his upper body bare until he had heated water to bathe himself.
He went into the shed which was the kitchen, leaning against the house,
and out of its dusk an ox twisted its head from behind the corner next the
door and lowed at him deeply.
The kitchen was made of earthen bricks as the house was, great squares of
earth dug from their own fields, and thatched with straw from their own
wheat. Out of their own earth had his grandfather in his youth fashioned
also the oven, baked and black with many years of meal preparing. On top
of this earthen structure stood a deep round iron cauldron.
This cauldron he filled partly full of water, dipping it with a half gourd
from an earthen jar that stood near, but he dipped cautiously, for water
was precious. Then, after a hesitation, he suddenly lifted the jar and emptied
all the water into the cauldron. This day he would bathe his whole body.
Not since he was a child upon his mother's knee had anyone looked upon his
body. Today one would, and he would have it clean.
He went around the oven to the rear and, selecting a handful of the dry
grass and stalks standing in the corner of the kitchen, he arranged it delicately
in the mouth of the oven, making the most of every leaf.
Then from an old flint and iron he caught a flame and thrust it into the
straw and there was a blaze.
This was the last morning he would have to light the fire. He had lit it
every morning since his mother died six years before. He had lit the fire,
boiled water, and poured the water into a bowl and taken it into the room
where his father sat upon his bed, coughing and fumbling for his shoes upon
the floor. Every morning for these six years the old man had waited for his
son to bring in hot water to ease him of his morning coughing. Now father
and son could rest. There was a woman coming to the house. Never again would
Wang Lung have to rise summer and winter at dawn to light the fire. He could
lie in his bed and wait, and he also would have a bowl of water brought
to him, and if the earth were fruitful there would be tea leaves in the water.
Once in some years it was so.
And if the woman wearied, there would be her children to light the fire,
the many children she would bear to Wang Lung. Wang Lung stopped, struck
by the thought of children running in and out of their three rooms. Three
rooms had always seemed much to them, a house half empty since his mother
died. They were always having to resist relatives who were more crowded--his
uncle, with his endless brood of children, coaxing,
"Now, how can two lone men need so much room? Cannot father and son sleep
together? The warmth of the young one's body will comfort the old one's
cough."
But the father always replied, "I am saving my bed for my grandson. He will
warm my bones in my age."
Now the grandsons were coming, grandsons upon grandsons! They would have
to put beds along the walls and in the middle room. The house would be full
of beds. The blaze in the oven died down while Wang Lung thought of all
the beds there would be in the half-empty house, and the water began to
chill in the cauldron. The shadowy figure of the old man appeared in the
doorway, holding his unbuttoned garments about him. He was coughing and spitting
and he gasped, "How is it that there is not water yet to heat my lungs?"
Wang Lung stared and recalled himself and was ashamed.
"This fuel is damp," he muttered from behind the stove.
"The damp wind--"
The old man continued to cough perseveringly and would not cease until the
water boiled. Wang Lung dipped some into a bowl, and then, after a moment,
he opened a glazed jar that stood upon a ledge of the stove and took from
it a dozen or so of the curled dried leaves and sprinkled them upon the
surface of the water. The old man's eyes opened greedily and immediately
he began to complain.
"Why are you wasteful? Tea is like eating silver."
"It is the day," replied Wang Lung with a short laugh.
"Eat and be comforted."
The old man grasped the bowl in his shriveled, knotty fingers, muttering,
uttering little grunts. He watched the leaves uncurl and spread upon the
surface of the water, unable to bear drinking the precious stuff.
"It will be cold," said Wang Lung.
"True--true..." said the old man in alarm, and he began to take great gulps
of the hot tea. He passed into an animal satisfaction, like a child fixed
upon its feeding. But he was not too forgetful to see Wang Lung dipping
the water recklessly from the cauldron into a deep wooden tub. He lifted
his head and stared at his son.
"Now there is water enough to bring a crop to fruit," he said suddenly.
Wang Lung continued to dip the water to the last drop. He did not answer.
"Now then!" cried his father loudly.
"I have not washed my body all at once since the New Year," said Wang Lung
in a low voice.
He was ashamed to say to his father that he wished his body to be clean
for a woman to see. He hurried out, carrying the tub to his own room. The
door was hung loosely upon a warped wooden frame and it did not shut closely,
and the old man tottered into the middle room and put his mouth to the
opening and bawled, "It will be ill if we start the woman like this--tea
in the morning water and all this washing!"
"It is only one day," shouted Wang Lung. And then he added, "I will throw
the water on the earth when I am finished and it is not all waste." The
old man was silent at this, and Wang Lung unfastened his girdle and stepped
out of his clothing. In the light that streamed in a square block from the
hole he wrung a small towel from the steaming water and he scrubbed his
dark slender body vigorously. Warm though he had thought the air, when his
flesh was wet he was cold, and he moved quickly, passing the towel in and
out of the water until from his whole body there went up a delicate cloud
of steam. Then he went to a box that had been his mother's and drew from
it a fresh suit of blue cotton cloth. He might be a little cold this day
without the wadding of the winter garments, but he suddenly could not bear
to put them on against his clean flesh. The covering of them was torn and
filthy and the wadding stuck out of the holes, grey and sodden. He did not
want this woman to see him for the first time with the wadding sticking
out of his clothes. Later she would have to wash and mend, but not the first
day. He drew over the blue cotton coat and trousers, a long robe made of
the same material--his one long robe, which he wore on feast days only,
ten days or so in the year, all told. Then with swift fingers he unplaited
the long braid of hair that hung down his back, and taking a wooden comb
from the drawer of the small, unsteady table, he began to comb out his hair.
His father drew near again and put his mouth to the crack of the door.
"Am I to have nothing to eat this day?" he complained.
"At my age the bones are water in the morning until food is given them."
"I am coming," said Wang Lung, braiding his hair quickly and smoothly and
weaving into the strands a tasseled black silk cord.
Then after a moment he removed his long gown and wound his braid about his
head and went out, carrying the tub of water. He had quite forgotten the
breakfast. He would stir a little water into cornmeal and give it to his
father. For himself he could not eat. He staggered with the tub to the threshold
and poured the water upon the earth nearest the door, and as he did so he
remembered he had used all the water in the cauldron for his bathing and
he would have to start the fire again. A wave of anger passed over him at
his father.
"That old head thinks of nothing except his eating and his drinking," he
muttered into the mouth of the oven; but aloud he said nothing. It was the
last morning he would have to prepare food for the old man. He put a very
little water into the cauldron, drawing it in a bucket from the well near
the door, and it boiled quickly and he stirred meal together and took it
to the old man.
"We will have rice this night, my father," he said.
"Meanwhile, here is corn."
"There is only a little rice left in the basket," said the old man, seating
himself at the table in the middle room and stirring with his chopsticks
the thick yellow gruel.
"We will eat a little less then at the spring festival," said Wang Lung.
But the old man did not hear. He was supping loudly at his bowl.
Wang Lung went into his own room then, and drew about him again the long
blue robe and let down the braid of his hair. He passed his hand over his
shaven brow and over his cheeks. Perhaps he had better be newly shaven?
It was scarcely sunrise yet. He could pass through the Street of the Barbers
and be shaved before he went to the house where the woman waited for him.
If he had the money he would do it. He took from his girdle a small greasy
pouch of grey cloth and counted the money in it. There were six silver dollars
and a double handful of copper coins. He had not yet told his father he
had asked friends to sup that night. He had asked his male cousin, the young
son of his uncle, and his uncle for his father's sake, and three neighboring
farmers who lived in the village with him. He had planned to bring back from
the town that morning pork, a small pond fish, and a handful of chestnuts.
He might even buy a few of the bamboo sprouts from the south and a little
beef to stew with the cabbage he had raised in his own garden. But this
only if there were any money left after the bean oil and the soybean sauce
had been bought. If he shaved his head he could not, perhaps, buy the beef.
Well, he would shave his head, he decided suddenly.
He left the old man without speech and went out into the early morning.
In spite of the dark red dawn the sun was mounting the horizon clouds and
sparkled upon the dew on the rising wheat and barley. The farmer in Wang
Lung was diverted for an instant and he stooped to examine the budding heads.
They were empty as yet and waiting for the rain. He smelled the air and
looked anxiously at the sky. Rain was there, dark in the clouds, heavy upon
the wind. He would buy a stick of incense and place it in the little temple
to the Earth God. On a day like this he would do it. He wound his way in
among the fields upon the narrow path. In the near distance the grey city
wall arose. Within that gate in the wall through which he would pass stood
the great house where the woman had been a slave girl since her childhood,
the House of Hwang. There were those who said, "It is better to live alone
than to marry a woman who has been a slave in a great house." But when he
had said to his father, "Am I never to have a woman?" his father replied,
"With weddings costing as they do in these evil days and every woman wanting
gold rings and silk clothes before she will take a man, there remain only
slaves to be had for the poor."
His father had stirred himself, then, and gone to the House of Hwang and
asked if there were a slave to spare.
"Not a slave too young, and above all, not a pretty one," he had said. Wang
Lung had suffered that she must not be pretty. It would be something to
have a pretty wife that other men would congratulate him upon having. His
father, seeing his mutinous face, had cried out at him, "And what will we
do with a pretty woman? We must have a woman who will tend the house and
bear children as she works in the fields, and will a pretty woman do these
things? She will be forever thinking about clothes to go with her face!
No, not a pretty woman in our house. We are farmers. Moreover, who has heard
of a pretty slave who was virgin in a wealthy house? All the young lords
have had their fill of her. It is better to be first with an ugly woman than
the hundredth with a beauty. Do you imagine a pretty woman will think your
farmer's hands as pleasing as the soft hands of a rich man's son, and your
sun-black face as beautiful as the golden skin of the others who have had
her for their pleasure?"
Wang Lung knew his father spoke well. Nevertheless, he had to struggle with
his flesh before he could answer. And then he said violently, "At least,
I will not have a woman who is pockmarked, or who has a split upper lip."
"We will have to see what is to be had," his father replied. Well, the woman
was not pockmarked nor had she a split upper lip. This much he knew, but
nothing more. He and his father had bought two silver rings, washed with
gold, and silver earrings, and these his father had taken to the woman's
owner in acknowledgment of betrothal.
Beyond this, he knew nothing of the woman who was to be his, except that
on this day he could go and get her.
He walked into the cool darkness of the city gate. Water carriers, just
outside, their barrows laden with great tubs of water, passed to and fro
all day, the water splashing out of the tubs upon the stones.
It was always wet and cool in the tunnel of the gate under the thick wall
of earth and brick; cool even upon a summer's day, so that the melon vendors
spread their fruits upon the stones, melons split open to drink in the moist
coolness. There were none yet, for the season was too early, but baskets
of small hard green peaches stood along the walls, and the vendor cried out,
"The first peaches of spring--the first peaches! Buy, eat, purge your bowels
of the poisons of winter!"
Wang Lung said to himself, "If she likes them, I will buy her a handful
when we return." He could not realize that when he walked back through the
gate there would be a woman walking behind him.
He turned to the right within the gate and after a moment was in the Street
of Barbers. There were few before him so early, only some farmers who had
carried their produce into the town the night before in order that they
might sell their vegetables at the dawn markets and return for the day's
work in the fields. They had slept shivering and crouching over their baskets,
the baskets now empty at their feet. Wang Lung avoided them lest some recognize
him, for he wanted none of their joking on this day. All down the street
in a long line the barbers stood behind their small stalls, and Wang Lung
went to the furthest one and sat down upon the stool and motioned to the
barber who stood chattering to his neighbor. The barber came at once and
began quickly to pour hot water from a kettle on his pot of charcoal into
his brass basin.
"Shave everything?" he said in a professional tone.
"My head and my face," replied Wang Lung.
"Ears and nostrils cleaned?" asked the barber.
"How much will that cost extra?" asked Wang Lung cautiously.
"Four pence," said the barber, beginning to pass a black cloth in and out
of the hot water.
"I will give you two," said Wang Lung.
"Then I will clean one ear and one nostril," rejoined the barber promptly.
"On which side of the face do you wish it done?" He grimaced at the next
barber as he spoke and the other burst into a guffaw. Wang Lung perceived
that he had fallen into the hands of a joker, and feeling inferior in some
unaccountable way, as he always did, to these town dwellers, even though
they were only barbers and the lowest of persons, he said quickly, "As you
will--as you will..." Then he submitted himself to the barber's soaping and
rubbing and shaving, and being after all a generous fellow enough, the barber
gave him without extra charge a series of skilful poundings upon his shoulders
and back to loosen his muscles. He commented upon Wang Lung as he shaved
his upper forehead, "This would not be a badlooking farmer if he would cut
off his hair. The new fashion is to take off the braid." His razor hovered
so near the circle of hair upon Wang Lung's crown that Wang Lung cried out,
"I cannot cut it off without asking my father!" And the barber laughed and
skirted the round spot of hair.
When it was finished and the money counted into the barber's wrinkled, watersoaked
hand, Wang Lung had a moment of horror. So much money!
But walking down the street again with the wind fresh upon his shaven skin,
he said to himself, "It is only once."
He went to the market, then, and bought two pounds of pork and watched the
butcher as he wrapped it in a dried lotus leaf, and then, hesitating, he
bought also six ounces of beef. When all had been bought, even to fresh
squares of bean curd, shivering in a jelly upon its leaf, he went to a candle
maker shop and there he bought a pair of incense sticks. Then he turned his
steps with great shyness toward the House of Hwang. Once at the gate of
the house he was seized with terror. How had he come alone?
He should have asked his father--his uncle--even his nearest neighbor, Ching-
-anyone to come with him. He had never been in a great house before. How
could he go in with his wedding feast on his arm, and say, "I have come
for a woman"?
He stood at the gate for a long time, looking at it. It was closed fast,
two great wooden gates, painted black and bound and studded with iron, closed
upon each other. Two lions made of stone stood on guard, one at either side.
There was no one else. He turned away. It was impossible.
He felt suddenly faint. He would go first and buy a little food. He had
eaten nothing--had forgotten food. He went into a small street restaurant,
and putting two pence upon the table, he sat down. A dirty waiting boy with
a shiny black apron came near and he called out to him, "Two bowls of noodles!
" And when they were come, he ate them down greedily, pushing them into
his month with his bamboo chopsticks, while the boy stood and spun the coppers
between his black thumb and forefinger.
"Will you have more?" asked the boy indifferently. Wang Lung shook his head.
He sat up and looked about. There was no one he knew in the small, dark,
crowded room full of tables. Only a few men sat eating or drinking tea.
It was a place for poor men, and among them he looked neat and clean and
almost well-to-do, so that a beggar, passing, whined at him, "Have a good
heart, teacher, and give me a small cash--I starve!"
Wang Lung had never had a beggar ask of him before, nor had any ever called
him teacher. He was pleased and he threw into the beggar's bowl two small
cash, which are one-fifth of a penny, and the beggar pulled back with swiftness
his black claw of a hand, and grasping the cash, fumbled them within his
rags.
Wang Lung sat and the sun climbed upwards. The waiting boy lounged about
impatiently.
"If you are buying nothing more," he said at last with much impudence, "you
will have to pay rent for the stool."
Wang Lung was incensed at such impudence and he would have risen except
that when he thought of going into the great House of Hwang and of asking
there for a woman, sweat broke out over his whole body as though he were
working in a field.
"Bring me tea," he said weakly to the boy. Before he could turn it was there
and the small boy demanded sharply, "Where is the penny?" And Wang Lung,
to his horror, found there was nothing to do but to produce from his girdle
yet another penny.
"It is robbery," he muttered, unwilling. Then he saw entering the shop his
neighbor whom he had invited to the feast, and he put the penny hastily
upon the table and drank the tea at a gulp and went out quickly by the side
door and was once more upon the street.
"It is to be done," he said to himself desperately, and slowly he turned
his way to the great gates.
This time, since it was after high noon, the gates were ajar and the keeper
of the gate idled upon the threshold, picking his teeth with a bamboo sliver
after his meal. He was a tall fellow with a large mole upon his left cheek,
and from the mole hung three long black hairs which had never been cut.
When Wang Lung appeared he shouted roughly, thinking from the basket that
he had come to sell something.
"Now then, what?"
With great difficulty Wang Lung replied, "I am Wang Lung, the farmer."
"Well, and Wang Lung, the farmer, what?" retorted the gate man who was polite
to none except the rich friends of his master and mistress.
"I am come--I am come..." faltered Wang Lung.
"That I see," said the gate man with elaborate patience, twisting the long
hairs of his mole.
"There is a woman," said Wang Lung, his voice sinking helplessly to a whisper.
In the sunshine his face was wet.
The gate man gave a great laugh.
"So you are he!" he roared.
"I was told to expect a bridegroom today.
But I did not recognize you with a basket on your arm."
"It is only a few meats," said Wang Lung apologetically, waiting for the
gate man to lead him within. But the gate man did not move. At last Wang
Lung said with anxiety,
"Shall I go alone?"
The gate man affected a start of horror.
"The Old Lord would kill you!"
Then, seeing that Wang Lung was too innocent, he said, "A little silver
is a good key."
Wang Lung saw at last that the man wanted money of him.
"I am a poor man," he said pleadingly.
"Let me see what you have in your girdle," said the gate man. And he grinned
when Wang Lung in his simplicity actually put his basket upon the stones
and lifting his robe took out the small bag from his girdle and shook into
his left hand what money was left after his purchases. There was one silver
piece and fourteen copper pence.
"I will take the silver," said the gate man coolly, and before Wang Lung
could protest the man had the silver in his sleeve and was striding through
the gate, bawling loudly, "The bridegroom, the bridegroom!"
Wang Lung, in spite of anger at what had just happened and horror at this
loud announcing of his coming, could do nothing but follow, and this he
did, picking up his basket and looking neither to the right nor left.
Afterwards, although it was the first time he had ever been in a great family'
s house, he could remember nothing. With his face burning and his head bowed,
he walked through court after court, hearing that voice roaring ahead of
him, hearing tinkles of laughter on every side. Then suddenly when it seemed
to him he had gone through a hundred courts, the gate man fell silent and
pushed him into a small waiting room. There he stood alone while the gate
man went into some inner place, returning in a moment to say, "The Old Mistress
says you are to appear before her." Wang Lung started forward, but the gate
man stopped him, crying in disgust,
"You cannot appear before a great lady with a basket on your arm--a basket
of pork and bean curd! How will you bow?"
"True--true..." said Wang Lung in agitation. But he did not dare to put
the basket down because he was afraid something might be stolen from it.
It did not occur to him that all the world might not desire such delicacies
as two pounds of pork and six ounces of beef and a small pond fish. The
gate man saw his fear and cried out in great contempt,
"In a house like this we feed these meats to the dogs!" and seizing the
basket he thrust it behind the door and pushed Wang Lung ahead of him.
Down a long narrow veranda they went, the roofs supported by delicate carven
posts, and into a hall the like of which Wang Lung had never seen. A score
of houses such as his whole house could have been put into it and have disappeared,
so wide were the spaces, so high the roofs. Lifting his head in wonder
to see the great carven and painted beams above him he stumbled upon the
high threshold of the door and would have fallen except that the gate man
caught his arm and cried out, "Now will you be so polite as to fall on your
face like this before the Old Mistress?" And, collecting himself in great
shame, Wang Lung looked ahead of him, and upon a dais in the center of the
room he saw a very old lady, her small fine body clothed in lustrous, pearly
grey satin, and upon the low bench beside her a pipe of opium stood, burning
over its little lamp. She looked at him out of small, sharp, black eyes,
as sunken and sharp as a monkey's eyes in her thin and wrinkled face. The
skin of her hand that held the pipe's end was stretched over her little
bones as smooth and as yellow as the gilt upon an idol. Wang Lung fell to
his knees and knocked his head on the tiled floor.
"Raise him," said the old lady gravely to the gate man "these obeisances
are not necessary. Has he come for the woman?"
"Yes, Ancient One," replied the gate man.
"Why does he not speak for himself?" asked the old lady.
"Because he is a fool, Ancient One," said the gate man twirling the hairs
of his mole.
This roused Wang Lung and he looked with indignation at the gate man "I
am only a coarse person, Great and Ancient Lady," he said.
"I do not know what words to use in such a presence." The old lady looked
at him carefully and with perfect gravity and made as though she would have
spoken, except that her hand closed upon the pipe which a slave had been
tending for her and at once she seemed to forget him. She bent and sucked
greedily at the pipe for a moment and the sharpness passed from her eyes
and a film of forgetfulness came over them. Wang Lung remained standing before
her until in passing her eyes caught his figure.
"What is this man doing here?" she asked with sudden anger. It was as though
she had forgotten everything. The gate man face was immovable.
He said nothing.
"I am waiting for the woman, Great Lady," said Wang Lung in much astonishment.
"The woman? What woman? ..." the old lady began, but the slave girl at her
side stooped and whispered and the lady recovered herself.
"Ah, yes, I forgot for the moment--a small affair--you have come for the
slave called O-lan. I remember we promised her to some farmer in marriage.
You are that farmer?"
"I am he," replied Wang Lung.
"Call O-lan quickly," said the old lady to her slave. It was as though she
was suddenly impatient to be done with all this and to be left alone in
the stillness of the great room with her opium pipe.
And in an instant the slave appeared leading by the hand a square, rather
tall figure, clothed in clean blue cotton coat and trousers.
Wang Lung glanced once and then away, his heart beating. This was his woman.
"Come here, slave," said the old lady carelessly.
"This man has come for you."
The woman went before the lady and stood with bowed head and hands clasped.
"Are you ready?" asked the lady.
The woman answered slowly as an echo, "Ready."
Wang Lung, hearing her voice for the first time, looked at her back as she
stood before him. It was a good enough voice, not loud, not soft, plain,
and not ill-tempered. The woman's hair was neat and smooth and her coat
clean. He saw with an instant's disappointment that her feet were not bound.
But this he could not dwell upon, for the old lady was saying to the gate
man "Carry her box out to the gate and let them begone." And then she called
Wang Lung and said, "Stand beside her while I speak." And when Wang had
come forward she said to him, "This woman came into our house when she was
a child of ten and here she has lived until now, when she is twenty years
old. I bought her in a year of famine when her parents came south because
they had nothing to eat. They were from the north in Shantung and there they
returned, and I know nothing further of them. You see she has the strong
body and the square cheeks of her kind. She will work well for you in the
field and drawing water and all else that you wish. She is not beautiful
but that you do not need. Only men of leisure have the need for beautiful
women to divert them. Neither is she clever. But she does well what she is
told to do and she has a good temper. So far as I know she is virgin. She
has not beauty enough to tempt my sons and grandsons even if she had not
been in the kitchen. If there has been anything it has been only a serving
man. But with the innumerable and pretty slaves running freely about the
courts, I doubt if there has been anyone. Take her and use her well. She
is a good slave, although somewhat slow and stupid, and had not wished to
acquire merit at the temple for my future existence by bringing more life
into the world I should have kept her, for she is good enough for the kitchen.
But I marry my slaves off if any will have them and the lords do not want
them."
And to the woman she said, "Obey him and bear him sons and yet more sons.
Bring the first child to me to see."
"Yes, Ancient Mistress," said the woman submissively. They stood hesitating,
and Wang Lung was greatly embarrassed, not knowing whether he should speak
or what.
"Well, go, will you!" said the old lady in irritation, and Wang Lung, bowing
hastily, turned and went out, the woman after him, and after her the gate
man carrying on his shoulder the box. This box he dropped down in the room
where Wang Lung returned to find his basket and would carry it no further,
and indeed he disappeared without another word.
Then Wang Lung turned to the woman and looked at her for the first time.
She had a square, honest face, a short, broad nose with large black nostrils,
and her mouth was wide as a gash in her face. Her eyes were small and of
a dull black in color, and were filled with some sadness that was not clearly
expressed. It was a face that seemed habitually silent and unspeaking, as
though it could not speak if it would. She bore patiently Wang Lung's look,
without embarrassment or response, simply waiting until he had seen her.
He saw that it was true there was not beauty of any kind in her face--a
brown, common, patient face. But there were no pockmarks on her dark skin,
nor was her lip split. In her ears he saw his rings hanging, the gold-washed
rings he had bought, and on her hands were the rings he had given her.
He turned away with secret exultation. Well, he had his woman!
"Here is this box and this basket," he said gruffly. Without a word she
bent over and picking up one end of the box she placed it upon her shoulder
and, staggering under its weight, tried to rise. He watched her at this
and suddenly he said, "I will take the box. Here is the basket." And he
shifted the box to his own back, regardless of the best robe he wore, and
she, still speechless, took the handle of the basket. He thought of the
hundred courts he had come through and of his figure, absurd under its burden.
"If there were a side gate..." he muttered, and she nodded after a little
thought, as though she did not understand too quickly what he said. Then
she led the way through a small unused court that was grown up with weed,
its pool choked, and there under a bent pine tree was an old round gate
that she pulled loose from its bar, and they went through and into the street.
Once or twice he looked back at her. She plodded along steadily on her big
feet as though she had walked there all her life, her wide face expressionless.
In the gate of the wall he stopped uncertainly and fumbled in his girdle
with one hand for the pennies he had left, holding the box steady on his
shoulder with the other hand. He took out two pence and with these he bought
six small green peaches.
"Take these and eat them for yourself," he said gruffly. She clutched them
greedily as a child might and held them in her hand without speech. When
next he looked at her as they walked along the margin of the wheat fields
she was nibbling one cautiously, but when she saw him looking at her she
covered it again with her hand and kept her jaws motionless.
And thus they went until they reached the western field where stood the
temple to the earth. This temple was a small structure, not higher in all
than a man's shoulder and made of grey bricks and roofed with tile.
Wang Lung's grandfather, who had farmed the very fields upon which Wang
Lung now spent his life, had built it, hauling the bricks from the town
upon his wheelbarrow. The walls were covered with plaster on the outside
and a village artist had been hired in a good year once to paint upon the
white plaster a scene of hills and bamboo. But the rain of generations had
poured upon this painting until now there was only a faint feathery shadow
of bamboos left, and the hills were almost wholly gone. Within the temple
snugly under the roof sat two small, solemn figures, earthen, for they were
formed from the earth of the fields about the temple. These were the god
himself and his lady. They wore robes of red and gilt paper, and the god
had a scant, drooping moustache of real hair. Each year at the New Year
Wang Lung's father bought sheets of red paper and carefully cut and pasted
new robes for the pair. And each year rain and snow beat in and the sun
of summer shone in and spoiled their robes. At this moment, however, the
robes were still new, since the year was but well begun, and Wang Lung was
proud of their spruce appearance. He took the basket from the woman's arm
and carefully he looked about under the pork for the sticks of incense he
had bought. He was anxious lest they were broken and thus make an evil omen,
but they were whole, and when he had found them he stuck them side by side
in the ashes of other sticks of incense that were heaped before the gods,
for the whole neighborhood worshipped these two small figures. Then fumbling
for his flint and iron he caught, with a dried leaf for tinder, a flame
to light the incense.
Together this man and this woman stood before the gods of their fields.
The woman watched the ends of the incense redden and turn grey. When the
ash grew heavy she leaned over and with her forefinger she pushed the head
of ash away. Then as though fearful for what she had done, she looked quickly
at Wang Lung, her eyes dumb. But there was something he liked in her movement.
It was as though she felt that the incense belonged to them both; it was
a moment of marriage. They stood there in complete silence, side by side,
while the incense smouldered into ashes; and then because the sun was sinking,
Wang Lung shouldered the box and they went home. At the door of the house
the old man stood to catch the last rays of the sun upon him. He made no
movement as Wang Lung approached with the woman. It would have been beneath
him to notice her. Instead he feigned great interest in the clouds and he
cried, "That cloud which hangs upon the left horn of the new moon speaks
of rain. It will come not later than tomorrow night." And then as he saw
Wang Lung take the basket from the woman he cried again, "And have you spent
money?" Wang Lung set the basket on the table.
"There will be guests tonight," he said briefly, and he carried the box
into the room where he slept and set it down beside the box where his own
clothes were. He looked at it strangely. But the old man came to the door
and said volubly, "There is no end to the money spent in this house!"
1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973),
also known by her Chinese name 賽珍珠, was an American writer who spent
most of her time until 1934 in China. Her novel The Good Earth was the best-selling
fiction book in the U.S. in 1931 and 1932, and won the Pulitzer Prize in
1932. In 1938, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for her rich
and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical
masterpieces."
3) 該書介紹﹕The Good Earth is a novel by Pearl S. Buck published in 1931
and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1932. The best-selling novel
in the United States in both 1931 and 1932, it was an influential factor
in Buck's winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. It is the first
book in a trilogy that includes Sons (1932) and A House Divided (1935).
The novel of family life in a Chinese village before World War II has been
a steady favorite ever since. In 2004, the book was returned to the bestseller
list when chosen by the television host Oprah Winfrey for Oprah's Book Club.
The novel helped prepare Americans of the 1930s to consider Chinese as allies
in the coming war with Japan. A Broadway stage adaptation was produced by
the Theatre Guild in 1932, written by the father and son playwriting team
of Owen and Donald Davis, but it was poorly received by the critics, and
ran only 56 performances. However, the 1937 film, The Good Earth, which
was based on the stage version, was more successful.
4) 賽珍珠對中國讀者應該是不陌生的。“大地”是她的名著。這裡介紹給大家看看
外國人是怎樣描寫上世紀三十年代中國農民生活的。其實這家農民不貧困﹐至少是
中農吧。
[will travel for two months. see you guys when back.]
选择“Disable on www.wenxuecity.com”
选择“don't run on pages on this domain”
