The Real Story of Ah-Q by Lu Xun Page B

local children would scurry over to watch the fun, gathering around Kong Yiji. He would present each with a single aniseed bean, which they would gulp down; they would then remain implacably rooted to the spot, eyes fixed on the dish. ‘Hardly any left,’ an unnerved Kong would stoop to tell them, his fingers sheltering the dish. Straightening up, he would glance back at the beans, shaking his head: ‘Hardly any! Are the beans multitudinous in abundance? Multitudinous in abundance they are not.’ At which his young audience would scatter hilariously.
    And so it was that Kong Yiji spread joy wherever he went; though when he wasn’t around, we barely missed him.
    ‘I haven’t seen Kong Yiji for ages,’ the manager pronounced one day, probably a little before the Mid-Autumn Festival, as he took down the slate to work slowly through the accounts. ‘He still owes me nineteen coppers!’ It now dawned on me, too, that we had long been deprived of the pleasure of Kong Yiji’s company. ‘How d’you expect him to drag himself over here?’ one customer said. ‘He’s had his legs broken.’ ‘Oh?’ ‘He was stealing, as usual. But he must have been out of his mind to try it on with Mr Ding, the magistrate. Just asking for trouble.’ ‘So what happened?’ ‘First they got a confession out of him, then they beat the hell out of him and broke his legs. Past midnight it went on.’ ‘Then what happened?’ ‘Well, his legs were broken.’ ‘I mean after that.’ ‘Oh… Who knows? Maybe he’s dead.’ No further questions; the manager went slowly back to his accounts.
    Mid-Autumn Festival went by, and the wind grew colder with every day that passed; winter, it seemed, was not far off. Every day I spent huddled up next to the fire, wrapped in my padded jacket. And there I was one afternoon, with no other customers about, all ready to doze off, when a muffled but familiar voice interrupted: ‘Warm me a bowl of wine.’ I looked up: no one in sight. But when I hauled myself to my feet, I spotted Kong Yiji sitting at the foot of the bar, facing the door. He looked terrible: his face grey, gaunt, a thin, ragged cotton jacket over his shoulders, his legs crossed beneath him, sitting on a rush sack that he kept in place with a straw rope. ‘Warm me a bowl of wine,’ he repeated when he caught sight of me. ‘Is that Kong Yiji?’ the manager craned forward. ‘You still owe me nineteen coppers!’ Kong Yiji looked despondently up at him. ‘I… I’ll bring it next time. I can pay cash today, so make it a drop of the good stuff.’ ‘Stealing again, Kong Yiji?’ the manager grinned, going through the usual motions. This time, however, Kong was capable of nothing but weak protest: ‘Don’t make fun of me!’ ‘It was your stealing that got your legs broken in the first place!’ ‘I had a bad fall… just a fall…’ Kong Yiji muttered, his eyes beseeching the manager to close the subject. But by this point, he had already acquired an audience. I warmed the wine, carried it out and placed it on the doorsill. Drawing four coppers out of a pocket in his tattered jacket, he placed them in my hand. His own hand, I saw, was filthy from dragging himself along the ground. Soon enough, he finished his wine and then, amid further laughter from the assembled company, dragged himself off again.
    After this, we were again bereft of Kong Yiji for an extended period of time. ‘Kong Yiji still owes me those nineteen coppers!’ the manager said, as the year neared its end, taking the slate down again. ‘Kong Yiji
still
owes me nineteen coppers!’ he repeated at the Dragon Boat Festival, in early summer the following year. At the Mid-Autumn Festival, he said nothing more about it; nor at the end of the year.
    I never saw him again – I suppose Kong Yiji really must have died.
    March 1919

MEDICINE
     

I
     
    The dark hours before an autumn dawn: the moon had sunk, but the sun had not yet risen, leaving an empty expanse of