Trembling Decay

by Lu Xun, translated from the Chinese into English by Matt Turner

I dreamt I was dreaming. I didn’t know where I was, before my eyes, late night, the confining interior of a small hut—and I could also make out a dense forest of stonecrop on the hut’s roof.

On the rough-hewn table the lampshade had just been wiped clean, and the room was bright. In the glare, on the broken couch, under an unknown yet familiar hairy, fierce chunk of meat—a thin body trembling from hunger pangs, shock, humiliation, and ecstasy. Yet the skin was relaxed, radiant and smooth; the pale cheeks reddened like liquid rouge over lead.

And the lamp flame also shrunk with fear, and the east was already becoming light.

A wave of hunger, suffering, shock, humiliation and ecstasy shook the sky….

A girl, about two years old, wakened by the sound of the door opening and closing, called out from a straw mat on the floor in the corner: “Ma!”

Agitated, she snapped: “It’s still early, go back to sleep!”

“Ma! I’m hungry, my stomach hurts, will we get anything to eat today?”

“Today we’ll have something to eat. Wait for the sesame cake seller to come, and I’ll get you some.” She reassuringly held out a small piece of silver, and with her unsteady and low and sad voice approached the corner to look at her child. She picked her up, pushed the straw mat away, and moved her to the broken bed.

“It’s early, go back to sleep.” She said this, while at the same time raising her eyes to the sky over the old, busted roof.

Another great wave suddenly rippled across the sky, colliding with the first wave, forming a vortex. It drowned everything around me along with myself, mouth and nose, and I couldn’t breathe.

I moaned, and woke up. Outside the window silver moonlight shone, and it seemed that day was still far off.

I didn’t know where I was, before my eyes was, late night, the confining interior of a small hut—and I knew that I was continuing the broken-off dream. But now the dream came after an interval of many years. The hut was in good shape, inside and out. Inside were a young couple, and a bunch of children. They were confronting an old woman with contempt and loathing.

“Because of you we can’t face the world,” the man angrily said. “You still imagine you raised her, but really you ruined her. It would have been better if she’d starved to death when she was small!”

“I’ve suffered injustice after injustice all my life, because of you!” said the woman.

“And you involved me!” said the man.

“Involved them, too!” said the woman, pointing to the children.

The youngest was playing with a dried reed. He brandished it in the air as though it were a knife, and with a loud voice he said:

“Kill!”

The old woman’s lips twitched with spasms. She suddenly seized up, and then calmed down almost instantly. She coolly stood, like a bone-thin statue. She opened the door and walked out into the deep night, leaving the abuse and the cold laughter behind her.

She walked on, into the deep night, and into the endless wilderness. All around were empty wastes, and neither insect nor bird flew in the sky above her head. She stood naked like a stone amidst the wastelands. The past flashed forth in a moment: hunger, suffering, shock, humiliation, ecstasy, and she began to tremble. Trouble, resentment, implication. She began to convulse. “Kill,” and then she calmed down. In a moment it all came together: devotion and estrangement, caring and revenge, rearing and destruction, to bless and to curse…. Then she lifted both hands to the sky, and from her mouth escaped a wordless word: not of the human world, but both human and beast.

When she let out this wordless word, her body became as a great stone. It was already abandoned, degraded yet convulsing. The convulsions were like fish scales, each undulating like boiling water over fire, and immediately the sky trembled like the waves in a sea thrown into tempest.

Then she raised her eyes to the sky, and the wordless word fell utterly silent. But because the trembling radiated outwards, like the sun, the waves in the sky circled around. As if in a hurricane, the waves surged ahead, across the borderless wastelands.

I’d had a nightmare, and I knew this because my hands were pressing down on my chest. In my dream I strained to take those heavy hands away.

June 29, 1925

頹敗線的顫動

魯迅

我夢見自己在做夢。自身不知所在，眼前卻有一間在深夜中禁閉的小屋的內部，但也看見屋上瓦松的茂密的森林。

板桌上的燈罩是新拭的，照得屋子裏分外明亮。在光明中，在破榻上，在初不相識的披毛的強悍的肉塊底下，有瘦弱渺小的身軀，為飢餓，苦痛，驚異，羞辱，歡欣而顫動。弛緩，然而尚且豐腴^⑷的皮膚光潤了；青白的兩頰泛出輕紅，如鉛上塗了胭脂水。

燈火也因驚懼而縮小了，東方已經發白。

然而空中還瀰漫地搖動着飢餓，苦痛，驚異，羞辱，歡欣的波濤……。

“媽！”約略兩歲的女孩被門的開闔聲驚醒，在草蓆圍着的屋角的地上叫起來了。

“還早哩，再睡一會罷！”她驚惶地説。

“媽！我餓，肚子痛。我們今天能有什麼吃的？”

“我們今天有吃的了。等一會有賣燒餅的來，媽就買給你。”她欣慰地更加緊捏着掌中的小銀片，低微的聲音悲涼地發抖，走近屋角去一看她的女兒，移開草蓆，抱起來放在破榻上。

“還早哩，再睡一會罷。”她説着，同時抬起眼睛，無可告訴地一看破舊的屋頂以上的天空。

空中突然另起了一個很大的波濤，和先前的相撞擊，迴旋而成旋渦，將一切並我盡行淹沒，口鼻都不能呼吸。

我呻吟着醒來，窗外滿是如銀的月色，離天明還很遼遠似的。

我自身不知所在，眼前卻有一間在深夜中禁閉的小屋的內部，我自己知道是在續着殘夢。可是夢的年代隔了許多年了。屋的內外已經這樣整齊；裏面是青年的夫妻，一羣小孩子，都怨恨鄙夷地對着一個垂老的女人。

“我們沒有臉見人，就只因為你，”男人氣忿地説。“你還以為養大了她，其實正是害苦了她，倒不如小時候餓死的好！”

“使我委屈一世的就是你！”女的説。

“還要帶累了我！”男的説。

“還要帶累他們哩！”女的説，指着孩子們。

最小的一個正玩着一片幹蘆葉，這時便向空中一揮，彷彿一柄鋼刀，大聲説道：

“殺！”

那垂老的女人口角正在痙攣，登時一怔，接着便都平靜，不多時候，她冷靜地，骨立的石像似的站起來了。她開開板門，邁步在深夜中走出，遺棄了背後一切的冷罵和毒笑。

她在深夜中盡走，一直走到無邊的荒野；四面都是荒野，頭上只有高天，並無一個蟲鳥飛過。她赤身露體地，石像似的站在荒野的中央，於一剎那間照見過往的一切：飢餓，苦痛，驚異，羞辱，歡欣，於是發抖；害苦，委屈，帶累，於是痙攣；殺，於是平靜。……又於一剎那間將一切併合：眷念與決絕，愛撫與復仇，養育與殲除，祝福與咒詛……。她於是舉兩手儘量向天，口唇間漏出人與獸的，非人間所有，所以無詞的言語。

當她説出無詞的言語時，她那偉大如石像，然而已經荒廢的，頹敗的身軀的全面都顫動了。這顫動點點如魚鱗，每一鱗都起伏如沸水在烈火上；空中也即刻一同振顫，彷彿暴風雨中的荒海的波濤。

她於是抬起眼睛向着天空，並無詞的言語也沉默盡絕，惟有顫動，輻射若太陽光，使空中的波濤立刻迴旋，如遭颶風，洶湧奔騰於無邊的荒野。

我夢魘了，自己卻知道是因為將手擱在胸脯上了的緣故；我夢中還用盡平生之力，要將這十分沉重的手移開。

一九二五年六月二十九日

Matt Turner is the author of the full poetry collections Slab Pases (BlazeVox, 2022), Wave 9: Collages (Flying Islands, 2020) and Not Moving (Broken Sleep, 2019), in addition to the prose chapbooks City/Anti-City (Vitamin, 2022) and Be Your Dog (Economy, 2022). He is co-translator, with Weng Haiying, of work by Yan Jun, Ou Ning, Hu Jiujiu and others. He lives in New York City, where he works as a translator and copy editor.