英语散文:饥饿

 

管账的用着怒眼斜视着小伙计，但因我在旁边，他没有说什么，只是重重地打着算盘。

我充当临时的店员，进来买《从军日记》的青年，我都愿意亲自将书递给他。但对方并不知道我就是那本书的作者，有几个顾客嫌我包的书不好，表示很生气的样子，小伙计正想告诉他我是谁时，我连忙使了个眼色制止了他，弄得那位青年莫名其妙地打量了我很久，然后悻悻然地离去。

快到黄昏的时候，我居然拿到了五元钱。归来，我不再搭三等车了，趾高气扬地跑进了头等车，那位售票员忙指着前面一节车说：”到三等车去吧！”他大概看见我穿的衣服太破旧，以为一定是个坐不起头等车的穷光蛋。我忙把五块钱的钞票拿在手里，故意向他示威：

“喂，找钱来吧!”

他这才低下头不做声了。

意外地遇到一个青年拿了一本《从军日记》坐在我的旁边看，他竟大胆地向我宣传，要我去买一本来看看，我回答他：“我不赞成女人当兵，所以也不喜欢看这本书。”

他听了非常不高兴，竟骂我思想顽固。

“廿世纪时代的女性不应该这样开倒车的！”他气愤愤地说。

[21] I purposely kept up the argument till it attracted the attention of all passengers. After I got off the streetcar at the Carter Road stop, I hurried excitedly to call on Guang Guang. Being hard up, she and Yuan Zhen were immensely pleased to see me, guessing I must have brought some money with me to share with them. I quickly gave them two dollars and spent the remaining two dollars and something treating them to dinner at a small eatery. I returned home with only a few cents left. But I didn't care, because I knew I had had a full meal to last me three days without feeling hungry.

[22] It was also at this time that I started to take to drinking. The poorer one is, the more he looks upon money as dirt. I often wonder why a miser should be so rigid in self-denial, even grudging to spend every single cent for himself. All I seek is inner joy. The material life, however hard it is, will never affect my mind and will. When I have money, I'll share it with friends in need, or go to a restaurant to eat and drink to my heart's content, or buy and bring home many things I like to eat, such as dried shrimps, dried roast beef, salted duck's gizzard and liver, candies. When I'm broke, I'll go strolling around the streets alone on an empty stomach, or shut myself up in my small room with nothing to eat, or lie in bed sleeping for a couple of days or reading an interesting novel, just to while away the terrible long days.

[23] If I'm asked what it is like to go hungry, my answer is prompt and clear-cut, "Keep starving yourself for four days, my dear friend, and you'll know." Honestly, hunger is even more painful than death. It is the greatest of all human sufferings. When you hear your own stomach rumbling with hunger, you'll feel as if a large snake were trying to gnaw its way out of your belly. Sometimes, you feel so giddy that you cannot rise from your bed no matter how hard you try to, and your legs feel like jelly so that you cannot walk. Sometimes, you feel nauseous, but you throw up nothing but the gastric juice. You may even feel like gulping down a piece of flesh bitten off your own arm so as to appease your unbearable hunger. That made me believe as true the tragic story of ancients driven by hunger "to eat the flesh of each other's son" and victims of some calamity-stricken areas cooking corpses as food.

[24] Destitute as I am, I can bear my privation with great fortitude. I never yield, never bow to the rich, never think that a woman's way out is to marry a wealthy man.

[25] Hunger deepens my knowledge of the reality and gives me more courage to live. From now on, I'm going to redouble my efforts to struggle not only for myself, but also for thousands upon thousands of young men and women who, like me, are on the brink of starvation.

我故意和他辩论了很久，惹得全车厢的人都注意起来。车子驶到卡德路，我就下来了。怀着一颗兴奋的心，跑去找光光。她和元真正穷得没法过日子，见我去时很高兴，猜想我一定拿到了钱，连忙向我瓜分。我立刻给了她们两元，其余的两元多，就花在请她们吃饭的小馆子里，等到回去，又只剩几毛钱了。但我并不难受，我觉得吃了一顿饱饭，至少可以挨饿三天。 学会喝酒，也是在这个时候。一个人到了越穷困的时候，对于金钱便越视为粪土，我常常奇怪一钱如命的守财奴，为什么要这样刻苦自己，半文钱也不肯花。我只要精神痛快，物质生活哪怕再苦些，也不能丝毫影响我的思想和意志。有钱时我分些给穷朋友用，或者跑到馆子里大吃大喝一顿，或者买许多我爱吃的虾米、牛肉干、鸭肫肝和糖果回来；穷困时，就一个人跑去马路上喝西北风，躲在亭子间里喝自来水，或者索性蒙在被窝里睡两天，看看有趣的小说，以消磨这可怕的长日。 如果有人问我：“饥饿的滋味怎样？”我立刻干脆地回答他：“朋友，请你四天不吃一点东西，饿一下试试吧。”老实说，饥饿的确比死还要难受，比受了任何巨大深刻的痛苦还要苦。当你听到肠子饿得咕咕地叫时，好像有一条巨蛇要从你的腹内咬破了皮肉钻出来一般；有时你饿得头昏眼花，坐起来又倒下去了，想要走路，一双腿是酸软的，拖也拖不动；有时一口口的酸水从肚子里翻上来，使你呕吐，但又吐不出半点东西；更有时饿得实在不能忍受了，就想在自己的胳膀上咬下一块肉来吞下去，这时我才相信古时“易子而食”和现在有些地方把死人的肉煮来当饭吃的惨事是真的。 虽然这样穷困，但我这副硬骨头始终不屈服，不向有钱的人低头，更不像别人认为女人的出路是找个有钱的丈夫。

饥饿只有加深我对现社会的认识，只有加强我生的勇气，从此我更要奋斗，为了自己，也为了万万千千和我同样在饥饿线上挣扎着的青年男女。