Novels: Start reading 《阿Q正传》- The True Story of Ah Q by Lu Xun

The True Story of Ah Q (Excerpt)

Chapter One: Introduction

I’ve wanted to write an authentic biography for Ah Q for a year or two now. But even as I want to write it, I keep hesitating and second-guessing — which just proves I’m not some grand literary master. For it has always been the case that an immortal pen must record an immortal man. Thus the man is immortalized by the writing, and the writing is immortalized by the man — and gradually it becomes quite unclear who exactly is immortalizing who for posterity. In the end, all I care about is writing a biography of Ah Q, as if there were a demon in my thoughts.

However, when I set out to write what is supposed to be a throwaway piece, the moment I put pen to paper, I start to struggle. The first problem is the title of the piece. Confucius said, ‘If names are not correct, then speech will not flow smoothly.’ This is indeed so. There are many kinds of biography: official biographies, autobiographies, inner biographies, outer biographies, unofficial biographies, family biographies, brief biographies… but unfortunately none of them fits this piece. An ‘official biography’? This piece can hardly be considered an official history of an important personage; an ‘autobiography’? But I am certainly not Ah Q myself. I could call it an ‘outer biography’? But if there is an outer biography, then where is the ‘inner biography’? And if I used ‘inner biography,’ Ah Q is by no means an immortal. An ‘alternative biography’? But Ah Q has in fact never had a presidential edict decreeing the establishment of an ‘official biography’ in the National History Museum. Although there is no ‘Biography of a Gambler’ in the official British histories, the literary master Dickens did write a book called ‘A Gambler’s Unofficial Biography,’ but what is permissible for a literary master is not permissible for the likes of me. Next comes ‘family biography,’ but I neither know whether Ah Q and I are of the same clan, nor have I ever been entrusted by his descendants to write about them; or maybe a ‘truncated biography,’ but there’s no longer ‘grand biography’ to truncate. In short, this piece is simply an ‘official biography,’ but considering my writing style. Since the style is lowly, the kind of language used by ‘cart-pushers and soy-sauce peddlers’, I dare not presume to use such a title, so instead I’ll use the term ‘true story’ [literally, “real biography”] from the stock phrase ‘enough idle talk, let us return to the true story’ used by lesser novelists, and use that as my title. The term ‘true story’ does vaguely resemble the words ‘authentic biography’ in the ancient work ‘Authentic Biography of Calligraphy,’ but it cannot be helped.

Second, the usual convention in writing a biography is to open more or less with ‘So-and-so, styled such-and-such, was a person of such-and-such a place,’ but I do not even know what Ah Q’s surname was. On one occasion, it seemed he was surnamed Zhao, but by the next day it had become vague again. That was at the time when Squire Zhao’s son passed the county examination, and the gongs went clanging to report it throughout the village. Ah Q had just drunk two bowls of yellow wine, and he waved his hands and stamped his feet, saying that this was very glorious for him too, because he and Squire Zhao were originally of the same family, and if you traced it out carefully he was actually three generations senior to the graduate. At the time several bystanders were rather solemnly impressed. Who would have known that the next day, the local constable summoned Ah Q to Squire Zhao’s house; the moment the Squire saw him, his face flushed crimson, and he shouted:

‘Ah Q, you muddled brat! You say I’m of your family? ‘

Ah Q said nothing.

Squire Zhao grew angrier the more he looked, and rushing forward a few steps he said: ‘How dare you talk nonsense! How could I have a relative like you? Are you surnamed Zhao?’

Ah Q said nothing and thought to retreat backward; Squire Zhao leaped over and gave him a slap.

‘How could you be surnamed Zhao!—How are you fit to be surnamed Zhao!’

Ah Q made no protest that he was truly surnamed Zhao, only rubbed his left cheek with his hand and withdrew with the constable; outside he was scolded by the constable once more, and thanked the constable with two hundred cash for wine money. Those who knew of it all said Ah Q was too absurd, that he had brought the beating on himself; he probably was not surnamed Zhao after all, and even if he really were surnamed Zhao, with Squire Zhao here, he still should not have talked such nonsense. After this no one ever again brought up his clan, so in the end I do not know what Ah Q’s surname really was.

Third, I also do not know how Ah Q’s given name was written. While he was alive, people all called him Ah Quei, but after he died, not a single person ever said he name again, [so how could the characters he used to write his name be known]? Indeed, this piece must be the first time his name was recorded, so I met this first difficulty right at the start. I once thought carefully: Ah Quei—was it Ah Gui (cassia) or Ah Gui (nobility)? If he had gone by the style-name Yueting (Moon Pavilion), or if he had celebrated his birthday sometime in the eighth month, then it would certainly be Ah Gui (cassia); but he had no style-name—perhaps he did have one, only no one knew it—and moreover he had never sent out invitations for birthday-poem gatherings: to write it as Ah Gui (cassia) would be arbitrary. And if he had an elder brother or younger brother called Ah Fu (wealth), then it would certainly be Ah Gui (nobility); but he was all alone: to write it as Ah Gui (nobility) has no supporting evidence either. As for the other rare characters pronounced ‘Quei,’ they fit even less. Earlier, I had asked Squire Zhao’s son, the learned Mr. Maocai, but who would have thought that so erudite a gentleman would be at a complete loss too; his conclusion, however, was that it was because Chen Duxiu had run ‘New Youth’ and advocated foreign letters, so the national essence had been lost and there was no way to look it up. My final resort was to entrust a fellow townsman to search the case files of Ah Q’s crime, and after eight months a reply came saying there was no one in the files whose name sounded close to Ah Quei. Although I do not know whether there really was no such person, or whether they simply didn’t look, there was no other method available. Afraid that the phonetic alphabet was not yet in wide use, I had no choice but to use ‘foreign letters’ and, following the popular English spelling, write him as Ah Quei, abbreviated to Ah Q. This comes close to blindly following ‘New Youth,’ and I feel quite apologetic about it myself, but since even the learned Mr. Maocai did not know, what better method do I have?

Fourth is Ah Q’s place of origin. If he were surnamed Zhao, then according to the current fashion of citing one’s ancestral prefecture, I could follow the annotations in the ‘Hundred Family Surnames Arranged by Prefecture’ and say he was ‘a person of Tianshui in Longxi’; but unfortunately this surname is not very reliable, and so his place of origin is also somewhat undeterminable. Although he mostly lived in Weizhuang, he also often lodged elsewhere, so he cannot be said to be a person of Weizhuang; and even if I said he was ‘a person of Weizhuang,’ this would still violate the rules of historiography.

What I can comfort myself with is that there is still the word ‘Ah,’ which is absolutely correct, with no defect of forced association or borrowing, and can quite properly be submitted to the learned for correction. As for the rest, it is all beyond the power of a shallow scholar to dig into; I only hope that the disciples of Mr. Hu Shizhi, who has ‘a mania for history and a mania for textual research,’ might in the future be able to trace out many new clues—but by then I fear this ‘True Story of Ah Q’ of mine will already have faded into history long ago.

The above may be taken as the introduction.

Chapter Two: A Brief Record of Victories

Not only were Ah Q’s name and place of origin somewhat obscure, but even his earlier ‘conduct and character’ was obscure. For the people of Weizhuang, in relation to Ah Q, only wanted him when they needed help and only used him for their amusement, and never paid attention to his ‘conduct.’ And Ah Q himself never spoke of it, except that when quarreling with others, he would sometimes glare and say:

‘We were—much better off than you before! Who do you think you are!’

Ah Q had no home; he lived in the Earth-and-Grain Shrine in Weizhuang; he also had no fixed occupation, only doing short-term work for others—if it was cutting wheat he cut wheat, if it was pounding rice he pounded rice, if it was punting a boat he punted a boat. When the work lasted a little longer, he would sometimes stay at the house of his temporary employer, but as soon as it was finished he would leave. So when people were busy they would still remember Ah Q, but what they remembered was the work, not his ‘conduct’; and once things were idle, they forgot even Ah Q himself, let alone his ‘conduct.’ Only once did an old man praise him, saying: ‘Ah Q really can work!’ At this time Ah Q was bare-chested, listless and scrawny, standing right in front of him, and others could not tell whether the words were sincere or mocking, yet Ah Q was very pleased.

Ah Q also had a strong sense of self-esteem; all the residents of Weizhuang were beneath his notice, even to the point that toward the two ‘scholar-boys’ he wore an expression suggesting they were not worth a smile. Now, scholar-boys are those who may in the future become county graduates; Squire Zhao and Squire Qian were greatly respected by the residents, and besides being rich, it was because they were the fathers of scholar-boys—yet Ah Q alone showed no special reverence in his heart, thinking: my son will be much more prominent! Add to this that he had been into town a few times, and Ah Q naturally became even more self-important; yet he also greatly despised townsfolk—for example, a bench made of a board three chi and three cun wide, which Weizhuang people called a ‘long bench,’ he too called a ‘long bench,’ but the townsfolk called it a ‘strip bench,’ and he thought: this is wrong, ridiculous! For fried big-head fish, Weizhuang people all added half-inch-long scallion leaves, but the townsfolk added finely-shredded scallion, and he thought: this too is wrong, ridiculous! Yet the Weizhuang people are truly ridiculous country folk who have never seen the world—they have never seen fried fish in the town!

Ah Q was ‘well-off in the past,’ had lofty insight, and moreover ‘really could work’—by rights he was almost a ‘perfect man,’ but unfortunately he still had a few physical defects. The most vexing was on his scalp, where there were several ringworm scars of unknown origin. Although these were on his own body, judging by Ah Q’s attitude, it seemed he too regarded them as nothing to be proud of, for he tabooed the word ‘ringworm’ (lai) and all sounds close to ‘lai’ (mangy); later he extended this, so ‘bright’ (guang) was also tabooed, and ‘shining’ (liang) was tabooed, and later still even ‘lamp’ and ‘candle’ were tabooed. Whenever a taboo was violated, whether intentionally or not, Ah Q’s whole scar would flush red and he would fly into a rage; sizing up his opponent, if the fellow was slow of tongue he would curse him, and if he was weak in strength he would beat him; yet somehow or other, it was still Ah Q who got the worst of it more often. So he gradually changed his tactics, mostly switching to glaring angrily.

Who would have known that after Ah Q adopted the policy of glaring, the idlers of Weizhuang grew all the more fond of teasing him. The moment they met him, they would pretend to be startled and say:

‘Ha, it’s lighting up.’

Ah Q, as usual, flew into a rage and glared.

‘So there’s a safety-lamp here!’ They were not the least bit afraid.

Ah Q, having no recourse, could only think up other words of retaliation:

‘You’re not even fit to…’ At this moment it seemed that what was on his head was a kind of noble and glorious ringworm scar, not an ordinary ringworm scar; but as was said above, Ah Q was a man of insight, and he immediately realized this had some conflict with ‘violating the taboo,’ so he did not go on to say the rest.

The idlers were not finished; they only pestered him, and so it ended in a beating. Ah Q was formally defeated—grabbed by his yellow queue, his head knocked against the wall four or five times with a thud—and only then did the idlers walk off contented and victorious. Ah Q stood for a moment, thinking in his heart, ‘I’ve been beaten by my son after all; the world these days is really no good…’ and then he too walked off contented and victorious.

What Ah Q thought in his heart, he later tended to say out loud, so that almost all the people who joked with Ah Q knew he had this kind of spiritual victory method; thereafter, whenever they grabbed his yellow queue, they would say to him first:

‘Ah Q, this isn’t a son beating his father, it’s a man beating a beast. Say it yourself: a man beating a beast!’

Ah Q, gripping the root of his own queue with both hands and cocking his head, would say:

‘Beating an insect—how’s that? I’m an insect—now will you let go?’

But even though he was an insect, the idlers still would not let go, and as usual they knocked his head five or six times against whatever was nearby, and only then walked off contented and victorious, thinking Ah Q had really met his misfortune this time. Yet in less than ten seconds Ah Q too walked off contented and victorious, feeling that he was the foremost man capable of self-belittlement and self-contempt, and setting aside the ‘self-belittlement and self-contempt,’ what remained was ‘the foremost.’ Isn’t the top scholar in the imperial examination also ‘the foremost’? ‘And who do you think you are!?’

After conquering his enemies with such and such wonderful methods, Ah Q would happily run to the tavern, drink a few bowls of wine, flirt and banter with others, quarrel with others, win again, and happily return to the Earth-and-Grain Shrine, where he would lay his head down and fall asleep. If he had money, he would go gamble at fantan; a crowd of people would squat on the ground, and Ah Q, his face streaming with sweat, would be squeezed in among them, his voice the loudest of all:

‘Four hundred on the Green Dragon!’

‘Ho~~ it’s open~~!’ The banker, also with sweat streaming down his face, would sing out as he lifted the lid of the box. ‘Heaven’s Gate wins~~ Corner-Return wins~~! The Man-and-Harmony passage is empty~~! Bring over Ah Q’s coins~~!’

‘One hundred on the Passage—one hundred fifty!’

And under such singsong chanting, Ah Q’s money gradually drained into the belts of other sweat-streaming figures. In the end he could only squeeze out of the crowd and stand behind, watching and fretting on others’ behalf, until the game broke up, whereupon he reluctantly returned to the Earth-and-Grain Shrine, and the next day went to work with swollen eyes.

But it was truly a case of ‘when the old man on the frontier lost his horse, how could one know it was not a blessing’—when Ah Q, by ill luck, won once, he almost ended up losing.

This was on the night of Weizhuang’s god-worship festival. On this night there was, as usual, a stage play, and near the stage there were also, as usual, many gambling stalls. The gongs and drums of the play sounded, to Ah Q’s ears, as though they were ten miles away; he heard only the banker’s singing. He won and won again; copper coins turned into silver dimes, silver dimes turned into big silver dollars, and the big dollars piled up into stacks. He was in extraordinarily high spirits:

‘Two dollars on Heaven’s Gate!’

He did not know who had started fighting with whom or why. Amid a chaotic din of cursing, blows, and footsteps, muddle-headed and dizzy, by the time he crawled up, the gambling stalls had vanished, the people had vanished too, several places on his body seemed rather painful, and it seemed he had taken a few punches and kicks; several people looked at him in astonishment. Feeling as if he had lost something, he walked into the Earth-and-Grain Shrine, and after collecting himself, he realized that his pile of silver dollars was gone. Most of those who came to run gambling stalls at the festival were not from the village, so where could he go to trace them?

A pile of very white, very bright silver dollars! And it was his—and now it was gone! To say it counted as being taken by his son still left him vaguely unhappy; to say he himself was an insect also still left him vaguely unhappy: this time he did feel some of the pain of defeat.

But he immediately turned defeat into victory. He raised his right hand and forcefully slapped himself twice across the face; it stung and hurt a little. After finishing the slaps, his mind grew calm and peaceful, as though the one slapping had been himself and the one slapped had been another self, and before long it was as if he had slapped someone else altogether—and although it still stung a little—he lay down contented and victorious.

He fell asleep.