reform and revolutionize China that we came to blows. But now I have become like this. I let things pass, let things slide without getting excited about anything. I myself have sometimes thought that my old friends probably would no longer consider me a friend when they see the way I am. But still this is the way I am now."
He took out another cigarette and lit it.
"I see from your attitude that you still seem to have some hope in me—I am, of course, much more insensible than I used to be, but there are still things that I can notice. This makes me feel grateful but at the same time uncomfortable, for I am afraid that I shall eventually disappoint even those old friends that still entertain kindly feelings towards me and wish me well." He stopped abruptly, puffed at his cigarette and then resumed. "And today, just before I came here, I did another senseless and futile thing, but it was again something that I had wanted to do. When I lived here, my neighbor to the east was Chang-fu the boatman. He had a daughter by the name of Ah[1] Shun. You might have seen her when you used to come to our house, but you probably did not notice her as she was still very little then. She was not pretty when she grew up; her face was thin and plain, shaped like a melon seed, and her complexion was yellow. But her eyes were extraordinarily large, with long lashes; the white of her eyes was as clear as the night sky, the clear sky of the North when there is no wind. Her mother died when she was slightly over ten and the care of her younger brother and
- ↑ "Ah" is a prefix to personal names used chiefly in Southern China; it indicates an even greater degree of familiarity than "lao" (old), its counterpart in Northern China. Some such prefix or suffix (as in the case of "ma" in the name of the maid servant Wu-ma in "Our Story of Ah Q") is necessary in names of one syllable because of the disyllabic tendency of the Chinese language.
