From the Ashes
By Eileen Chang
Translated by Oliver Stunt

我与香港之间已经隔了相当的距离了——几千里路，两年，新的事，新的人。战时香港 所见所闻，唯其因为它对于我有切身的、剧烈的影响，当时我是无从说起的。现在呢，定下心来了，至少提到的时候不至于语无伦次。然而香港之战予我的印象几乎完全限于一些不相干的事。
A fair distance now lies between myself and Hong Kong: several thousand miles, two years, new things and new people. At the time, my experience of Hong Kong at war was impossible to put into words if only because of the immediacy and the intensity. Now that the mind has calmed, the subject can at least be touched upon with some degree of coherence. However, my impressions of wartime Hong Kong are virtually all confined to irrelevant matters.

我没有写历史的志愿，也没有资格评论史家应持何种态度，可是私下里总希望他们多说点不相干的话。现实这样东西是没有系统的，像七八个话匣子同时开唱，各唱各的，打成一片混沌。在那不可解的喧嚣中偶然也有清澄的，使人心酸眼亮的一剎那，听得出音乐的调子，但立刻又被重重黑暗上拥来，淹没了那点了解。画家、文人、作曲家将零星的、凑巧发现的和谐联系起来，造成艺术上的完整性。历史如果过于注重艺术上的完整性，便成为小说了。像韦尔斯的《历史大纲》，所以不能跻于正史之列，便是因为它太合理化了一点，自始至终记述的是小我与大我的斗争。
I have no intention of writing a history, and nor am I qualified to comment on the attitudes historians should take, but privately I have always wished they might concern themselves a little more with irrelevant matters. This thing we call reality is without structure, a confusion of gramophones playing in chaotic cacophony, each singing its own song. But amid the unintelligible clamour is the unexpected lucid interval that sours the heart and moistens the eye, a discernible melody instantly reclaimed by the weighty gloom, the spark of understanding swamped. Painters, writers, and composers intertwine fragmentary, accidentally discovered harmonies, and no attain artistic wholeness. But if history insisted on her own artistic wholeness, she would become fiction. For instance, H. G. Wells' The Outline of History cannot rank as a proper history for the simple reason that the entire work is based on the conflict between the individual and society, and as such is just a shade over-rationalized.

清坚决绝的宇宙观，不论是政治上的还是哲学上的，总未免使人嫌烦。人生的所谓「生趣」全在那些不相干的事。
Regardless of whether they were political or philosophical, world views which ware too clear-cut are bound to provoke antipathy. Man's joie de vivre is solely to be found in life's irrelevancies.

在香港，我们初得到开战的消息的时候，宿舍里的一个女同学发起急来，道：「怎么办呢？没有适当的衣服穿！」她是有钱的华侨，对于社交上的不同的场合需要不同的行头，从水上跳舞会到隆重的晚餐，都有充分的准备，但是她没想到打仗。后来她借到了一件宽大的黑色棉袍，对于头上营营飞绕的空军大约是没有多少吸引力的。逃难的时候，宿舍的学生「各自奔前程」。战后再度相会她已经剪短了头发，梳了男式的菲律宾头，那在香港是风行一时的，为了可以冒充男性。
Back to Hong Kong. When we first heard that war had broken out, a girl in my dormitory started panicking. "What am I to do? I've nothing to wear!" She was a moneyed overseas Chinese who simply had to have a different wardrobe for every conceivable social occasion. And she was indeed fully prepared for anything from a junk party to a stately dinner. But she hadn't anticipated war. In the end she managed to beg a big black quilted gown that most likely didn't attract the attention of the squadrons circling overheard. When the time came to flee we all went our separate ways. I saw her once more after the war. She had her hair cropped and set in the masculine Filipino style which was all the rage in Hong Kong because you could pass for a man.

战争期中各人不同的心理反应，确与衣服有关。譬如说，苏雷珈。苏雷珈是马来半岛一个偏僻小镇的西施，瘦小，棕黑皮肤，睡沉沉的眼睛与微微外露的白牙。像一般受过修道院教育的女孩子，她是天真得可耻。她选了医科，医科要解剖人体，被解剖的尸体穿衣服不穿？苏雷珈曾经顾虑到这一层，向人打听过。这笑话在学校里早出了名。
During the war, each of our psychological responses had some close association with clothing. Take Sureika for instance. She came from a remote village on the Malay peninsula. A real beauty, she was slender and dark-skinned, dreamy-eyed, and had gently protruding teeth. And as is the case of most girls who have received a convent education, she was disgracefully naive. She opted for medicine, which involved dissecting human bodies - "do the corpses wear anything during dissection?" Sureika was misgiven on this point and asked around. It soon became a standing joke around the university.

一个炸弹掉在我们宿舍的隔壁，舍监不得不督促大家避下山去。在急难中苏雷珈并没忘记把她最显焕的衣服整理起来，虽然许多有见识的人苦口婆心地劝阻，她还是在炮火下将那只累赘的大皮箱设法搬运下山。苏雷珈加入防御工作，在红十字会分所充当临时看护，穿着赤铜地绿寿字的织锦缎棉袍蹲在地上劈柴生火，虽觉可惜，也还是值得的。那一身伶俐的装束给了她空前的自信心，不然，她不会同那些男护士混得那么好。同他们一起吃苦，担风险，开玩笑，她渐渐惯了，话也多了，人也干练了。战争对于她是很难得的教育。
A bomb landed next to the dormitory, and the warden had to insist that we get down the hill and out of the way. Despite our predicament, Sureika had the presence of mind to sort out her brightest clothes and, ignoring the well meant remonstrations of lots of sensible people, she somehow managed to shift her cumbersome leather trunk down the hill in spite of the gunfire. She joined the defence effort as a supply nurse for the Red Cross, only to find herself squatting on the ground kindling firewood in her copper satin gown embroidered with green "longevity" characters. It was a shame but it was worth it. The dash she cut in her outfit gave her a new-found self-confidence without which she would have found it difficult to blend in with her male counterparts. They shared the same hardships together, took the same risks, enjoyed the same jokes, and as she gradually got used to them, she spoke up more and became more capable. The lessons of war would have been hard for her to come by otherwise.

至于我们大多数的学生，我们对于战争所抱的态度，可以打个譬喻，是像一个人走在硬板凳上打瞌盹，虽然不舒服，而且没结没完地抱怨着，到底还是睡着了。
As for the majority of students, our approach to the war, if I may draw an analogy, was like that of someone sitting on a hard bench trying to catch forty winks. He is uncomfortable and grumbles incessantly, but in the end he nods off.

能够不理会的，我们一概不理会，出生入死，沉浮于最富色彩的经验中，我们还是我们，一尘不染，维持着素日的生活典型。有时候彷佛有点反常，然而仔细分析起来，还是一贯作风。
Whatever it was possible to ignore we ignored altogether. Escaping with our lives, we were tossed about on a swell of kaleidoscopic experiences, but we were simply what we were, unsoiled, carrying on with our ordinary routines. There were times when our behaviour seemed abnormal, but on closer scrutiny, it was consistent enough.

像艾芙林，她是从中国内地来的，身经百战，据她自己说是吃苦耐劳，担惊受怕惯了的。可是轰炸我们邻近的军事要塞的时候，艾芙林第一个受不住，歇斯底里起来，大哭大闹，说了许多可怖的战争的故事，把旁的女学生一个个吓得面无人色。艾芙林的悲观主义是一种健康的悲观。宿舍里的存粮看看要完了，但是艾芙林比平时吃得特别多，而且劝我们大家努力地吃，因为不久便没的吃了。我们未尝不想极力撙节，试行配给制度，但是她百般阻挠，她整天吃饱了就坐在一边啜泣，因而得了便秘症。
Take Evelyn, for example. She was from China and had seen a war or two. She said herself that she could stand up to hardship, that she had become used to constant anxiety. But when they bombed the nearest military redoubt, she was the first to crack. She cried and fussed hysterically, and came out with all these horrific wartime anecdotes that turned the other girls pale. Her pessimism was, however, of a healthy kind. When our stocks of grain dwindled, she started eating far more than usual and urged everyone to do the same as there would soon be nothing at all. It had of course occurred to us that we should economize and perhaps start rationing, but Evelyn did all she could to sabotage everything. She would stuff herself and sit to one side and weep all day. It made her constipated.

我们聚集在宿舍的最下层，黑漆漆的箱子间里，只听见机关鎗「忒啦啦拍拍」像荷叶上的雨。因为怕流弹，小大姐不敢走到窗户跟前迎着亮洗菜，所以我们的菜汤里满是蠕蠕的虫。
We would assemble in the pitch-black luggage room in the dormitory basement, and all we could hear was the clatter of machine-gun fire, like rainfall on lotus leaves. So wary was our friend the little cook of stray bullets that she wouldn't go anywhere near the window to wash the vegetables in the light, and our vegetable soup would be full of wriggling insects.

同学里只有炎樱胆大，冒死上城去看电影——看的是五彩卡通——回宿舍后又独自在楼上洗澡，流弹打碎了浴室的玻璃窗，她还在盆里从容地泼水唱歌，舍监听见歌声，大大地发怒了。她的不在乎彷佛是对众人的恐怖的一种讽嘲。
Of all my fellow-students, Fatima was the only one with any guts - she would defy death and go into town to watch cartoon in Technicolor. When we got back, she would go upstairs alone to wash. When a stray bullet shattered the bathroom window she simply carried on with her bath, calmly splashing about and singing, which infuriated the warden. Her indifference seemed to be a mockery of our collective fear.

港大停止办公了，异乡的学生被迫离开 宿舍，无家可归，不参加守城工作，就无法解决膳宿问题。我跟着一大批同学到防空总部去报名，报了名领了证章出来就遇着空袭。我们从电车上跳下来向人行道奔去，缩在门洞子里，心里也略有点怀疑我们是否尽了防空团员的责任。——究竟防空员的责任是什么，我还没来得及弄明白，仗已经打完了。——门洞子里挤满了人，有脑油气味的，棉墩墩的冬天的人。从人头上看出去，是明净的浅蓝的天。一辆空电车停在街心，电车外面，淡淡的太阳，电车里面，也是太阳——单只这电车便有一种原始的荒凉。
The university closed down and overseas students had to leave the dormitory. But there was nowhere to go and no way to come by board and lodging without contributing to the defence effort, so a group of my contemporaries and I went along to the Air Raid Precaution headquarters. Having signed up and been issued with our badges, we left, only to run into the air raid. We leapt off the tram, ran for the pavement, and took shelter in a doorway in some doubt as to whether we had discharged our responsibilities as air raid wardens. (What were they anyway? The war was over before I came up with an answer.) The doorway was crammed with people, well wrapped up wintry people smelling of brilliantine. Looking out over the heads, we could see a clear light blue sky. An empty tramcar had been stopped in the middle of the road, pale sunlight shining on it, shining through it. There was a primeval desolation about this lone tramcar.

我觉得非常难受——竟会死在一群陌生人之间么？可是，与自己家里人死在一起，一家骨肉被炸得稀烂，又有什么好处呢？有人大声发出命令：「摸地！摸地！」哪儿有空隙让人蹲下地来呢？但是我们一个磕在一个的背上，到底是蹲下来了。飞机往下扑，砰的一声，就在头上。我把防空员的铁帽子罩住了脸，黑了好一会，才知道我们并没有死，炸弹落在对街。一个大腿上受了伤的青年店伙被抬进来了，裤子卷上去，少微流了点血。他很愉快，因为他是群众的注意集中点。门洞子外的人起先捶门捶不开，现在更理直气壮了，七嘴八舌嚷：「开门呀，有人受了伤在这里！开门！开门！」
The thought of ending up dead among a crowd of strangers upset me. Still, would dying together with my family, being bombed to bits with my own flesh and blood have been any better? Someone shouted at us to "Get down! Get down!". Not that there was any room for anyone to crouch in. All the same, crammed up against each other though we were, we did manage to crouch down. A plane dived and there was a bang directly above us. I hid my face in my warden's tin hat. Everything went black for a bit before I realized we were still alive, that the bomb had come down across the way. A young shop-boy with a wounded thigh was carried in, trouser leg rolled up, bleeding a little. He was thrilled to be at the centre of attention. We in the doorway pounded on the door, which wouldn't budge; by now, emboldened by our mission, we were clamouring in uproar, "Open up! There's a wounded man out here! Come on, open up!"

不怪里面不敢开，因为我们人太杂了，什么事都做得出。外面气得直骂「没人心。」到底里面开了门，大家一哄而入，几个女太太和女佣木着脸不敢做声，穿堂里的箱笼，过后是否短了几只，不得而知。飞机继续掷弹，可是渐渐远了。警报解除之后，大家又不顾命地轧上电车，唯恐赶不上，牺牲了一张电车票。
It was no wonder those inside wouldn't, because we were a very motley crew, and could have got up to anything. Outside, indignation had given way to straight-out cursing and eventually they opened up. We all trooped in noisily. The ladies and their maidservants inside were shocked speechless. Afterwards there was no way of knowing whether any of the boxes and crates in the passage had gone missing. The planes persisted with their bombing, but the bombs fell farther and farther away. After the all clear sounded, everybody crowded recklessly on to the tram, worried only about being left behind and forfeiting the far.

我们得到了历史教授佛朗士被枪杀的消息——是他们自己人打死的。像其它的英国人一般，他被征入伍。那天他在黄昏后回到军营里去，大约是在思索着一些什么，没听见哨兵的吆喝，哨兵就放了枪。
We found out that our history professor Mr France had been shot - and that it was his own people who had killed him. He had been drafted like most other Britons. Dusk had fallen, and he had returned to the barracks, most probably so lost in thought that he hadn't heard the sentry's challenge, and the sentry opened fire.¹

佛朗士是一个豁达的人，彻底地中国化，中国字写得不错，（就是不大知道笔划的先后），爱喝酒。曾经和中国教授们一同游广州，到一个名声不大好的尼庵里去看小尼姑。他在人烟稀少处造有三幢房屋，一幢专门养猪。家里不装电灯自来水，因为不赞成物质文明。汽车倒有一辆、破旧不堪，是给仆欧买菜赶集用的。
Mr France was a liberal sort. He was thoroughly sinicized - his Chinese characters weren't at all bad (though he was never too clear on stroke order) - and he was a drinker. And he travelled up to Canton with Chinese colleagues to visit young novices in a nunnery of ill repute. He had built himself three bungalows in a sparsely populated spot, one of which was specifically for rearing pigs in. His home had neither electric light nor running water - he didn't subscribe to material comfort. He owned a car, however - an old banger on its last legs that his cook-boy went to market to buy vegetables.²

他有孩子似的肉红脸，瓷蓝眼睛，伸出来的圆下巴，头发已经稀了，颈上系一块暗败的蓝字宁绸作为领带。上课的时候他抽烟抽得像烟囱。尽管说话，嘴唇上永远险伶伶地吊着一支香烟，跷板似的一上一下，可是再也不会落下来。烟蒂子他顺手向窗外一甩，从女学生蓬松的鬈发上飞过，很有着火的危险。
He had the ruddy face of a child, porcelain-blue eyes, and a jutting spherical chin. His chair had begun to thin, and a faded scrap of silk around his neck masqueraded as a tie. He smoked like a chimney during lectures: even as he believed them, a cigarette constantly dangled precariously from his lips, bouncing up and down like a springboard, never dropping out. He would deftly toss his stubs window-wards, skimming the girls' bouffant perms: something of a fire hazard.

他研究历史很有独到的见地。官样文字被他耍着花腔一念，便显得非常滑稽，我们从他那里得到一点历史的亲切感和扼要的世界观，可以从他那里学到的还有很多很多。可是他死了——最无名目的死。第一，算不了为国捐躯。即使是「光荣殉国」，又怎样？他对于英国的殖民地政策没有多大同情，但也看得很随便，也许因为世界上的傻事不止那一件。每逢志愿兵操演，他总是拖长了声音通知我们：「下礼拜一不能同你们见面了，孩子们，我要去练武功。」想不到「练武功」竟送了他的命——一个好先生，一个好人。人类的浪费……
His historical research contained some highly originally insights. And when it came to "establishment" writings he would put on hilarious displays of ornate oratory. He instilled in us his fondness for history and his bird's-eye world views. We could have learned so very much more from him but for his death, and a most inglorious death it was at that. First and foremost, he hadn't laid down his life for king and country. And even if it had been a case of heroic martyrdom, so what? He'd never shown much sympathy for British colonial policy, but then again he'd never been too bothered about it either, possibly because he knew the world's follies wouldn't end there. Every time the volunteers were to be drilled, he'd announce, drawling, "I won't be seeing you on Monday, young ones. I'll be out on martial manoeuvres." We never imagined "martial manoeuvres" seeing this gentleman, this decent man, to his death. It was a real loss to humanity . . . .

围城中种种设施之糟与乱，已经有好些人说在我头里了。政府的冷藏室里，冷气管失修，堆积如山的牛肉，宁可眼看着它腐烂，不肯拿出来，做防御工作的人只分到米与黄豆，没有油，没有燃料。各处的防空机关只忙着争柴争米，设法喂养手下的人员，哪儿有闲工夫去照料炸弹？接连两天我什么都没吃，飘飘然去上工。当然，像我这样不尽职的人，受点委曲也是该当的。在炮火下我看完了《官场现形记》。小时候看过而没能领略它的好处，一直想再看一遍，一面看，一面担心能够不能够容我看完。字印得极小，光线又不充足，但是，一个炸弹下来，还要眼睛做什么呢？——「皮之不存，毛将焉附？」
The public amenities in our beseiged city were a total shambles, as many others have previously said. The cooling ducts of the government cold stores had fallen into disrepair, but they would rather have seen mountains of beef rot than bring the stuff out. Volunteers for the defence effort were allocated nothing but rice and soya bean rations. There was no oil and no fuel. In every air defence unit, the scramble for firewood and rice to keep those under its command nourished was so intense, there wasn't the time to look out for bombs. I had nothing to eat for two days; I floated into work. Of course, it was only fitting that someone as half-hearted about the job as myself should have to put up with a little hardship. Amid the gunfire, I read the late Qing novel The Bureaucracy Exposed. I had read the book as a child, but hadn't appreciated its finer points, and had ever since been wanting to reread it. As I read, I wondered whether I would be allowed to finish it. The print was minuscule, the light was bad, but if a bomb had dropped, what use would eyes have been anyway?

围城的十八天里，谁都有那种清晨四点钟的难挨的感觉——寒噤的黎明，什么都是模糊，瑟缩，靠不住。回不了家，等回去了，也许家已经不存在了。房子可以毁掉，钱转眼可以成废纸，人可以死，自己更是朝不保暮。像唐诗上的「凄凄去亲爱，泛泛入烟雾」，可是那到底不像这里的无牵无挂的虚空与绝望。人们受不了这个，急于攀住一点踏实的东西，因而结婚了。
Throughout the eighteen-day siege, everybody had that horrible four-in-the-morning feeling - the shivering dawn, the confusion, the huddling up, the insecurity. You couldn't go home. If you did, your home might no longer be there, the house could have been demolished, money could have become wastepaper in the blink of an eye, people could have died, and you were even less sure of living the day out. I'm reminded of two lines: "Aggrieved I bid my dear farewell, and drift off into hazy mists." But somehow the lines don't reflect the indifferent emptiness, the hopelessness. It was intolerable and, in a desperate bid to cling to something dependable, people got married.

有一对男女到我们办公室里来向防空处长借汽车去领结婚证书。男的是医生，在平日也许并不是一个「善眉善眼」的人，但是他不时的望着他的新娘子，眼里只有近于悲哀的恋恋的神情。新娘是看护，矮小美丽、红颧骨，喜气洋洋，弄不到结婚礼服，只穿着一件淡绿绸夹袍，镶着墨绿花边。他们来了几次，一等等上几个钟头，默默对坐，对看，熬不住满脸的微笑，招得我们全笑了。实在应当谢谢他们给带来无端的快乐。
One couple came into our office to ask the ARP branch director for permission to borrow a car to go and get their marriage certificate. The groom was a doctor who probably wouldn't have looked too kindly under normal circumstances, but he kept gazing at his bride with an expression of love in his eyes that verged on grief. She was a nurse, petite and attractive, her rosy cheeks brimming with joy. She hadn't managed to get hold of a wedding dress, and she simply wore a light green silk dress with a dark green border. They came in several times and waited several hours, silently sitting face each other, looking into each other's eyes. They couldn't help beaming at each other, and it caused us all to smile too. Indeed, they should be thanked for the unwarranted happiness they brought.

到底仗打完了。乍一停，很有一点弄不惯，和平反而使人心乱，像喝醉酒似的。看见青天上的飞机，知道我们尽管仰着脸欣赏它而不至于有炸弹落在头上，单为这一点便觉得它很可爱，冬天的树，凄迷稀薄像淡黄的云；自来水管子里流出来的清水，电灯光，街头的热闹，这些又是我们的了。第一，时间又是我们的了——白云，黑夜，一年四季——我们暂时可以活下去了，怎不叫人欢喜得发疯呢？就是因为这种特殊的战后精神状态，一九二○年在欧洲号称「发烧的一九二○年」。
Eventually, the fighting ended. To begin with it wasn't easy to get used to. Peacetime played havoc with our minds - it was like being drunk. Whenever we saw an aeroplane against a blue sky, we could be sure it wouldn't drop a bomb on our heads as we gazed up at it in wonder, which was enough to render it perfectly lovable. Thin bleak wintry trees like pale yellow clouds, clear water flowing from the water pipes, electric light, the bustle of the streets, all these were ours once more. Most importantly, time was ours once more - daytime, night-time, the four seasons - for the time being we were able to get on with living and were, understandably, beside ourselves. This unique post war spirit must be why the 1920s came to be referred to as the "roaring twenties" in Europe.

我记得香港陷落后我们怎样满街的找寻冰淇淋和嘴唇膏。我们撞进每一家吃食店去问可有冰淇淋。只有一家答应说明天下午或许有，于是我们第二天步行十来里路去践约，吃到一盘昂贵的冰淇淋，里面吱格吱格全是冰屑子。街上摆满了摊子，卖胭脂，西药、罐头牛羊肉，抢来的西装，绒线衫，素丝窗帘，雕花玻璃器皿，整匹的呢绒。我们天天上城买东西，名为买，其实不过是看看而已。从那时候起我学会了怎样以买东西当作一件消遣。——无怪大多数的女人乐此不疲。
After Hong Kong fell, I remember how we scoured the streets in search of ice cream and lipstick. We burst into every eating-house we came across to ask for ice cream. In only one were they forthcoming. They said there might be some of the following afternoon. The next day, we walked almost four miles to keep the appointment, and ate a whole plate of exorbitantly-priced ice cream full of crunchy ice shavings. And the streets were packed with stalls selling make-up, Western medicines, tins of beef and mutton, stolen suits, knitwear, lace curtains, cut glass, whole rolls of woollen fabrics. Every day we went into town to shop. We called it shopping, but in fact we did no more than look. I learnt then how to turn shopping into a pastime. No wonder most women never tire of it.

香港重新发现了「吃」的喜悦。真奇怪，一件最自然，最基本的功能，突然得到过份的注意，在情感的光强烈的照射下，竟变成了下流的，反常的。在战后的香港，街上每隔五步十步便蹲着个衣冠济楚的洋行职员模样的人，在小风炉上炸一种铁硬的小黄饼。香港城不比上海有作为，新的投机事业发展得极慢。许久许久，街上的吃食仍旧为小黄饼所垄断。渐渐有试验性质的甜面包，三角饼，形迹可疑的椰子蛋糕。所有的学校教员，店伙，律师帮办，全都改行做了饼师。
Hong Kong rediscovered the joy of eating. There was something truly strange about such a natural and basic function suddenly being given excessive attention, becoming vulgar and abnormal under the intense glare of the emotions. On the post-war streets, every five or ten paces immaculately dressed office clerks would be squatting by little burners, deep-frying rock-hard yellow biscuits. Hong Kong isn't as quite as enterprising as Shanghai, and speculative ventures are slow to catch on. For an absolute age, the street food was monopolized by these little yellow biscuits. In time people experimented with buns, samosas, and suspicious-looking coconut cakes. Schoolteachers, shopkeepers, legal clerks - there was a mass career move into the art of confectionery.

我们立在摊头上吃滚油煎的萝卜饼，尺来远脚底下就躺着穷人的青紫的尸首。上海的冬天也是那样的罢？可是至少不是那么尖锐肯定。香港没有上海有涵养。
Once, we were standing at the end of a stall eating sizzling hot turnip cakes and within just feet of us - so close we were virtually stepping on them - lay the purplish corpses of the destitute. Would a Shanghai winter be anything like as cruel? At least that city wouldn't be quite as blatantly approving. Hong Kong hasn't the decency of Shanghai.

因为没有汽油，汽车行全改了吃食店，没有一家绸缎铺或药房不兼卖糕饼。香港从来没有这样馋嘴过。宿舍里的男女学生整天谈讲的无非是吃。
There was no petrol. Garages were converted into eateries and there wasn't a draper or herbalist who wasn't selling cakes on the side. Hong Kong had never been so gluttonous. In the dormitories, the sole subject of conversation was food.

在这狂欢的气氛里，唯有乔纳生孤单单站着，充满了鄙夷和愤恨。乔纳生也是个华侨同学，曾经加入志愿军上阵打过仗。他大衣里只穿着一件翻领衬衫，脸色苍白，一绺头发垂在眉间，有三分像诗人拜伦，就可惜是重伤风。乔纳生知道九龙作战的情形。他最气的便是他们派两个大学生出壕沟去把一个英国兵抬进来——「我们两条命不抵他们一条。招兵的时候他们答应特别优待，让我们归我们自己的教授管辖，答应了全不算话！」他投笔从戎之际大约以为战争是基督教青年会所组织的九龙远足旅行。
In this euphoric atmosphere, Jonathan stood aloof, alone, disdainful and resentful. He was an overseas Chinese who had joined the volunteers and had seen action. He wore an open-necked shirt under his greatcoat, and his wan complexion and the lock of hair dangling between his eyebrows suggested Byron. Sadly, he suffered from a heavy cold. Jonathan knew what fighting on the Kowloon side had been like. What angered him most was the way they had sent two undergraduates out of the trenches to carry a British soldier back - "Two of our lives aren't worth one of theirs. When we were recruited, we were promised special treatment - we were to be under the command of our professors. Well it all amounted to nothing." When he relinquished his pen for the sword, he must have thought fighting would be a bit of a YMCA outing to Kowloon.

休战后我们在「大学堂临时医院」做看护。除了由各大医院搬来的几个普通病人，其余大都是中流弹的苦力与被捕时受伤的乘火打劫者。有一个肺病患者比较有点钱，雇了另一个病人服侍他，派那人出去采办东西，穿着宽袍大袖的病院制服满街跑，院长认为太不成体统了，大发脾气，把二人都撵了出去。另有个病人将一卷绷带，几把手术刀叉，三条病院制服的裤子藏在褥单底下，被发觉了。
After the ceasefire, we worked as nurses in the makeshift hospital in the university. Apart from a few patients from the main hospitals, the rest were either coolies who had been caught in the crossfire, or looters who had been injured during arrest. There was a TB sufferer with a bit of money who got another patient to wait on him. he sent him out on errands, running about the streets in a standard issue floppy-sleeved hospital gown. An incensed hospital chief thought this most improper and expelled the two of them. There was another who was discovered to have concealed a bandage, several surgical instruments, and three pairs of hospital trousers under this mattress.

难得有那么戏剧化的一剎那。病人的日子是修长得不耐烦的。上头派下来叫他们拣米，除去里面的沙石与稗子，因为实在没事做，他们似乎很喜欢这单调的工作。时间一长，跟自己的伤口也发生了感情。在医院里，各个不同的创伤就代表了他们整个的个性。每天敷药换棉花的时候，我看见他们用温柔的眼光注视新生的鲜肉，对之彷佛有一种创造性的爱。
We didn't get much comic relief of that sort. The patients' days were tryingly long. The powers that were ordered that they comb rice for grit and bits of grass. And because there really was nothing else for them to do, they seemed quite content with such monotonous work. Over time, they developed a bond with their wounds. Different wounds came to represent entire personalities. I applied ointment and changed dressings daily, and I was aware of eyes gazing lovingly at the regenerating flesh with an almost creative fondness.

他们住在男生宿舍的餐室里。从前那间房子充满了喧哗——留声机上唱着卡门麦兰达的巴西情歌，学生们动不动就摔碗骂厨子。现在这里躺着三十几个沉默，烦躁，有臭气的人，动不了腿，也动不了脑筋，因为没有思想的习惯。枕头不够用，将他们的床推到柱子跟前，他们头抵在柱子上，颈项与身体成九十度角。就这样眼睁睁躺着，每天两顿红米饭，一顿干，一顿稀。太阳照亮了玻璃门，玻璃上糊的防空纸条经过风吹雨打，已经撕去了一大半了，斑驳的白迹子像巫魔的小纸人，尤其在晚上，深蓝的玻璃上现出奇形怪状的小白魍魉的剪影。
They were put up in the boys' dining-room. The room had always been total bedlam, with the Brazilian love songs of Carmen Miranda on the wireless, and the boys breaking crockery and cursing kitchen hands at every turn. But now the place was home to thirty-odd silent and restless smelly people whose legs were incapacitated, and who were incapable of using their brains because they weren't in the habit of thinking. We hadn't enough pillows, so we pushed their beds up against the pillars for them to prop up their heads, their necks at right angles to their bodies. and there they would lie, wide-eyed, awaiting two daily meals of brown rice, one dry, one gruel. The sun would shine on the glass doors, their pasted-on paper strips of shatter-proofing torn and weather-beaten into irregular white shreds like paper witches. In the evenings these grotesque and ghoulish silhouettes would appear against the dark blue panes.

我们倒也不怕上夜班，虽然时间特别长，有十小时。夜里没有什么事做。病人大小便，我们只消走出去叫一声打杂的：「二十三号要屎乒。（「乒」是广东话，英文Ｐａｎ的音译）」或是「三十号要溺壶。」我们坐在屏风后面看书，还有宵夜吃，是特地给送来的牛奶面包。唯一的遗憾便是：病人的死亡，十有八九是在深夜。
Even though they were extremely long at ten hours, we didn't mind the night-shifts because there was very little to do. If patients had to relieve themselves, we'd just go out and call an orderly. "Bed-pan for number twenty-three." Or "Jerry for number thirty." We'd sit behind the screens reading, and they even gave us bread and milk as a midnight snack. Our only regrets were the deaths. Eight or nine times out of ten, they came during the small hours.

有一个人，尻骨生了奇臭的蚀烂症。痛苦到了极点，面部表情反倒近于狂喜……眼睛半睁半闭，嘴拉开了彷佛痒丝丝抓捞不着地微笑着。整夜他叫唤：「姑娘啊！姑娘啊！」悠长地，颤抖地，有腔有调。我不理。我是一个不负责任的，没良心的看护。我恨这个人，因为他在那里受磨难，终于一房间的病人都醒过来了。他们看不过去，齐声大叫「姑娘」。我不得不走出来，阴沉地站在他床前，问道：「要什么？」他想了一想，呻吟道：「要水。」他只要人家给他点东西，不拘什么都行。我告诉他厨房里没有开水，又走开了。他叹口气，静了一会，又叫起来，叫不动了，还哼哼：「姑娘啊……姑娘啊……哎，姑娘啊……」
One patient had an evil-smelling gangrenous sacrum. When the pain became acute, the expression on his face was almost ecstatic - eyelids slack, his mouth drawn back in a smile suggesting an unscratchable itch. He'd call out all night long "Hey Miss! Hey Miss!" in long drawn out, quivering tones. I'd ignore him. I was an irresponsible and heartless nurse. I hated this man because his suffering eventually woke the whole ward. They couldn't ignore him, and they all called out "Miss!" in unison. I had no choice. I stood sullenly at his bed. "What do you want?" He thought for a moment, then groaned, "Water." All he wanted was to be waited on - literally anything would have done. I told him there was no boiled water left in the kitchen and left him. He sighed and quietened down for a moment before starting up again. His voice wasn't up to him but he still kept moaning. "Hey Miss . . . Hey Miss . . . Hey . . . Hey Miss . . ."

三点钟，我的同伴正在打瞌盹，我去烧牛奶，老着脸抱着肥白的牛奶瓶穿过病房往厨下去。多数的病人全都醒了，眼睁睁望着牛奶瓶，那在他们眼中是比卷心百合花更为美丽的。
It was three o'clock. My colleague was napping. As I went to heat the milk, I steeled myself and threaded my way through the ward and down to the kitchen, carrying the fat white bottle. By then, most of the patients were awake, gazing helplessly at the bottle that was more beautiful in their eyes than an unfurled lily.

香港从来未曾有过这样寒冷的冬天。我用肥皂去洗那没盖子的黄铜锅，手疼得像刀割。锅上腻着油垢，工役们用它煨汤，病人用它洗脸。我把牛奶倒进去，铜锅坐在蓝色的煤气火焰中，像一尊铜佛坐在青莲花上，澄静，光丽。但是那拖长腔的「姑娘啊！姑娘啊！」追踪到厨房里来了。小小的厨房只点一只白蜡烛，我看守着将沸的牛奶，心里发慌，发怒，像被猎的兽。
Hong Kong had never had such a cold winter. I soaped the lidless copper pan down, the pain in my hands slashing like a knife. the pan was caked with grease and grime. Domestic staff simmered soup in it, patients scrubbed faces in it. I poured the milk in. The copper pan was perched over the blue gas flame, a bronze Buddha on a blue lotus, pure and radiant in tranquil resplendence. But the nagging "Hey Miss!" drawl tracked me down to the kitchen. A white candle was the only light in the tiny room. I brought the milk to the boil, flustered and enraged as a hunted beast.

这人死的那天我们大家都欢欣鼓舞。是天快亮的时候，我们将他的后事交给有经验的职业看护。自己缩到厨房里去。我的同伴用椰子油烘了一炉小面包，味道颇像中国酒酿饼。鸡在叫，又是一个冻白的早晨。我们这些自私的人若无其事的活下去了。
The day he died was one of rejoicing for all. Day was about to break. We left the burial matters in the capable hands of experienced professional nurses and retreated to the kitchen. My colleague had baked an ovenful of buns with coconut oil. They tasted similar to Chinese fermented-grain biscuits. Cocks were crowing on another clear and frosty morning. We, the selfish, carried on living as if nothing had happened.

除了工作之外我们还念日文。派来的教师是一个年轻的俄国人，黄头发剃得光光地。上课的时候他每每用日语问女学生的年纪。她一时答不上来，他便猜：「十八岁？十九岁？不会超过廿岁罢？你住在几楼？待会儿我可以来拜访么？」她正在盘算着如何托辞拒绝，他便笑了起来道：「不许说英文。你只会用日文说：『请进来。请坐。请用点心。』你不会说『滚出去！』」说完了笑话，他自己先把脸涨得通红。起初学生黑压压拥满一课堂，渐渐减少了。少得不成样，他终于赌气不来了，另换了先生。
Apart from work, we learned Japanese. A young blond crew-cut Russian had been appointed to teach us. In the classroom he would usually ask one of the girls her age in Japanese. If she didn't answer at once, he'd speculate. "Eighteen? Nineteen? Surely you're not a day over twenty? What floor are you on? Shall I come and visit sometime?" She'd be thinking of how to decline, and he'd grin and say, "No English. The only Japanese you know is 'Come in! Will you sit down and have something to eat?' You don't know the Japanese for 'Get lost'." His little joke over, he'd be the first to blush. His lessons had originally been bursting with students, but attendance had begun to dwindle. Eventually numbers were embarrassingly low. Indignant, he stopped coming, and a new teacher was brought in.

这俄国先生看见我画的图，独独赏识其中的一张，是炎樱单穿着一件衬裙的肖像。他愿意出港币五元购买，看见我们面有难色，连忙解释：「五元，不连画框。」
The Russian had been to see my sketches, and had taken a liking to only one of them, a portrait of Fatima in a slip. He was willing to shell out five Hong Kong dollars for it. When he saw our reluctance he quickly explained. "Five - without the frame, that is."

由于战争期间特殊空气的感应，我画了许多图，由炎樱着色。自己看了自己的作品欢喜赞叹，似乎太不象话，但是我确实知道那些画是好的，完全不像我画的，以后我再也休想画出那样的图来。就可惜看了略略使人发胡涂。即使以一生的精力为那些杂乱重迭的人头写注解式的传记，也是值得的。譬如说，那暴躁的二房东太太，斗鸡眼突出像两只自来水龙头；那少奶奶，整个的头与颈便是理发店的电气吹风管；像狮子又像狗的，蹲踞着的有传染病的妓女，衣裳底下露出红丝袜的尽头与吊袜带。
The peculiar wartime atmosphere inspired a lot of sketches. Fatima coloured them in. I myself looked upon these works in wonder and amazement, and while that might seem immodest, I know for a fact that they were good. They didn't look anything like my drawings, and I later gave up trying to produce anything as good. Regrettably people found them rather puzzling. But even if the energies of a lifetime were to be spent composing biographies by way of annotation for those rows of many and various heads, it would be worth it. The cantankerous landlady whose crossed eyes stuck out like a pair of taps; the young wife whose neck and head could have been the blow dryer at the hairdresser's; the prostitute with her contagious diseases, squatting like a lion or a dog, garter belt and red silk stocking tops showing beneath her clothing.

有一幅，我特别喜欢炎樱用的颜色，全是不同的蓝与绿，使人联想到「沧海月明珠有泪，蓝田日暖玉生烟」那两句诗。
I am particularly fond of the colours Fatima used for one of the pictures, all different blues and greens. They call to mind "mermaids in the green sea shedding pearl tears on a moonlit night, jade in the blue hill exuding mist in the warm sun".

一面在画，一面我就知道不久我会失去那点能力。从那里我得到了教训——老教训：想做什么，立刻去做，都许来不及了。「人」是最拿不准的东西。
Even as I drew, I knew that whatever ability I had would soon be lost. This in itself taught me a lesson that has stood the test of time: if you feel like doing something, do it then and there or it may be too late. "Man" is such an unpredictable creature.

有个安南青年，在同学群中是个有点小小名气的画家。他抱怨说战后他笔下的线条不那么有力了。因为自己动手做菜，累坏了臂膀。因之我们每天看见他炸茄子，（他只会做一样炸茄子）总觉得凄惨万分。
A youth from Vietnam had a minor reputation among the students as something of an artist. He complained of his brushwork being less bold since the war. He'd been cooking his own meals, which had weakened the muscles in his arm. It pained us terribly to see him frying his daily aubergines (he only knew the one aubergine dish).

战争开始的时候，港大的学生大都乐得欢蹦乱跳，因为十二月八日正是大考的第一天，平白地免考是千载难逢的盛事。那一冬天，我们总算吃够了苦，比较知道轻重了。可是「轻重」这两个字，也难讲……去掉了一切的浮文，剩下的彷佛只有饮食男女这两项。人类的文明努力要想跳出单纯的兽性生活的圈子，几千年来的努力竟是枉费精神么？事实是如此。香港的外埠学生困在那里没事做，成天就只买菜，烧菜，调情——不是普通的学生式的调情，温和而带一点感伤气息的。在战后的宿舍里，男学生躺在女朋友的床上玩纸牌一直到夜深。第二天一早，她还没起床，他又来了，坐在床沿上。隔壁便听见她娇滴滴叫喊：「不行！不吗！不，我不！」一直到她穿衣下床为止。这一类的现象给人不同的反应作用——会使人悚然回到孔子跟前去，也说不定。到底相当的束缚是少不得的。原始人天真虽天真，究竟不是一个充分的「人」。
When the war broke out, most Hong Kong University student jumped for joy. Our end of term exams so happened to start on 8th December and the undue exemption was a godsend in a million. But all in all we endured a fair amount that winter and ended up with a better idea of where our priorities lay. But it's difficult to be sure of what "priorities" actually are . . . once you cut through the waffle, two things alone appear to remain: food and sex. Human civilizations have sedulously sought to break the bounds of a simple and brutish existence. But haven't the efforts of recent millennia ultimately been in vain? That is the reality of it. Hong Kong's overseas students were stranded there with nothing to do but shop for food, cook, and flirt all day long. But it wasn't the ordinary flirting of students - none of the mildness laced with sentimentality. After the war, boys would like on their girlfriends' beds playing cards long into the night. Early the next day, before she'd woken, he'd be back, sitting on the edge of her bed. Through the walls you'd hear her squealing coyly "No! Stop it! No, I won't!", and not until she had got out of bed and dressed would it stop. It was a phenomenon which provoked different reactions in different people - whether anyone retreated to Confucius's side in horror is as may be. At the end of the day, a measure of restraint is indispensable. Primitive man is indeed innocent, but "humanly" speaking he is incomplete.

医院院长想到「战争小孩」（战争期间的私生子）的可能性，极其担忧。有一天，他瞥见一个女学生偷偷摸摸抱着一个长形的包裹溜出宿舍，他以为他的噩梦终于实现了。后来才知道她将做工得到的米运出去变钱，因为路上流氓多，恐怕中途被劫，所以将一袋米改扮了婴儿。
The director of the hospital was much concerned by the possibility of "war babies" (illegitimate children conceived during the war). When one day he caught sight of a girl smuggling an elongate bundle out of the dormitory, he was convinced his worst nightmare had come true. Only later did he learn that she had been taking out the rice she received for working to exchange for cash. Because there were so many thugs on the streets she had been scared of being mugged, and had disguised her bag of rice as a baby.

论理，这儿聚集了八十多个死里逃生的年轻人，因为死里逃生，更是充满了生气：有的吃，有的住，没有外界的娱乐使他们分心；没有教授，（其实一般的教授们，没有也罢），可是有许多书，诸子百家，诗经，圣经，莎士比亚——正是大学教育的最理想的环境。然而我们的同学只拿它当做一个沉闷的过渡时期——过去是战争的苦恼，未来是坐在母亲膝上哭诉战争的苦恼，把憋了许久的眼泪出清一下。眼前呢，只能够无聊地在污秽的玻璃窗上涂满了「家，甜蜜的家」的字样。为了无聊而结婚，虽然无聊，比这种态度还要积极一点。
The eighty-odd youngsters assembled there had escaped the jaws of death and, for that very reason, they were all the more spirited: they were fed and housed, and worldly pleasures weren't there to distract; there were no teachers (the truth is that most of the teachers simply weren't missed), but there were lots of books - pre-Han philosophy, The Book of Songs, the Bible, Shakespeare - an ideal environment in which to pursue one's university education. However, my fellow-students saw it all as a tedious time of transition: the traumas of the war were in the past, and the future would see them sitting whimpering on their mothers' laps relating their miseries, releasing tears log pent up. For the time being they had to make do with scrawling the words "Home Sweet Home" all over filthy windows out of boredom. Though getting married out of boredom was pretty pointless, there was still something positive in it.

缺乏工作与消遣的人们不得不提早结婚。但看香港报上挨挨挤挤的结婚广告便知道了。学生中结婚的人也有。一般的学生对于人们的真性情素鲜认识，一旦有机会刮去一点浮皮，看见底下的畏缩，怕痒，可怜又可笑的男人或女人，多半就会爱上他们最初的发现。当然，恋爱与结婚是于他们有益无损，可是自动地限制自己的活动范围，到底是青年的悲剧。
Those without work or other pursuits often resorted to an early marriage - the overcrowded engagement columns of the local papers were proof of that. Some of those tying the knot were students. They would only have had an elementary understanding of human emotions, and as soon as the earliest opportunity to scratch the surface of someone arose to reveal a timid, vulnerable, pitiable, laughable man or woman they would fall in love with discovery. Of course they had everything to gain and nothing to lose by love and marriage, but such a voluntary narrowing of their horizons at an early age was truly a tragedy.

时代的车轰轰地往前开。我们坐在车上，经过的也许不过是几条熟悉的街衢，可是在漫天的火光中也自惊心动魄。就可惜我们只顾忙着在一瞥即逝的店铺的橱窗里找寻我们自己的影子——我们只看见自己的脸，苍白，渺小：我们的自私与空虚，我们恬不知耻的愚蠢—— 谁都像我们一样，然而我们每人都是孤独的。
And the vehicle of life rumbles on. As we travel on it, we may go no further afield than the odd familiar thoroughfare, but the glow of flaming skies will still stir the soul. More's the pity that we preoccupy ourselves with searching for a reflection of ourselves in a passing shop window - only to see faces, our own faces, pallid, paltry. In our self-centre vacuity, in our smug, shameless stupidity, we all resemble each other. And each of us remains alone.

（原刊1944年2月（天地）月刊第5期）

①威尔斯（Herbert GeorgeWells，1866-1946），英国作家。除小说创作外，他也从事社会历史研究。

②安南，越南的旧称。

1 According to the other students at the time, N.H. France suffered from claustrophobia and deliberately brought about his shooting to avoid confinement.

2 France was well-known for riding to work on a donkey.

***

作者简介

Zhang Ailing (Chang, Eileen) 1920-1995

Eileen Chang was born and went to school in Shanghai, and attended Hong Kong University from 1939-1941, but returned to Shanghai when the Japanese occupied Hong Kong. Living in Japanese-occupied Shanghai she wrote many popular pieces published in mass-circulation magazines, but her remarkable use of language meant that she was also taken seriously as a writer. She moved to Hong Kong in 1952, and then to the United States in 1955, where she lived for the rest of her life. Her long story The Golden Cangue was described as "the greatest novelette in the history of Chinese literature" by the critic C.T. Hsia.

Works available in English:

Love in a Fallen City (Karen S. Kingsbury and Eileen Chang), New York: New York Review Books, 2007.
Naked earth. Hong Kong : The Union Press, 1956.
Red rose and white rose (Carolyn Thompson Brown). Ann Arbor, Mich.:
  University Microfilms International, 1991 printing,c1978.
The rice-sprout song. New York : Charles Scribner, 1955.
Traces of love and other stories (Eva Hung). Hong Kong : Renditions Paperbacks,
  2000.

 

慨叹还有没有我门的未来,结束的越快,悲伤的逾浓.