had seen the decapitation of one during his last venture into the city. Somehow he had come by a violent prejudice against them, regarding them as rebels and therefore his natural enemies. But now he could not help regarding them in a more favorable light since they were able to inspire terror in such a personage as His Honor the graduate; and he relished the plight that they had caused the accursed men and women of Wei.
"Revolution may be a good thing after all," Ah Q thought. We'll revolutionize them all, their mothers' , the detestable, loathsome things! I wouldn't mind joining the revolutionaries."
Ah Q had been very hard put to it recently and felt a grudge against the world. Furthermore, he had just drunk two cups of wine on an empty stomach and was feeling its effects. He walked on and thought about the revolutionaries, and was again sailing on airy feet. By some curious process of reasoning he came to feel that he was, indeed, one of the dreaded revolutionaries and that the villagers were his prisoners. In this state of mind he could not help shouting:
"Revolution! Revolution!"
The villagers looked at him with wonder and fear, and Ah Q, not used to the important role that he suddenly found himself in, relished it as one relishes an iced drink on a hot summer day. He shouted more lustily, mixing stray bits from popular theatrical pieces with his revolutionary slogans:
"Yes, Revolution! I'll take what I want and do whatever I like with anyone . . . "
"Da-da-dee-da, tong-tong . . . "
"'I regret having executed my good brother Cheng while I was drunk . . . I much regret, ah, ah, ah!'
"Da-da tong tong, da, tong-ling-tong!
