The True Story of Ah Q (Leung)/Chapter 9
After the looting of the Chao family, the Weichuangites were, on the whole, filled with a mixture of delight and fear; Ah Q also was filled with delight and fear.
But at midnight, four days later, Ah Q was suddenly taken by force to the district seat. In the black night a company of soldiers, a company of militia, a company of police, and five spies quietly made their way to Weichuang and under cover of darkness, surrounded T'uku Temple. They put up a machine gun directly facing the door; but still Ah Q did not rush out. When there was no movement for a long time, the captain, becoming highly excited, offered a reward of twenty dollars, and it was not until then that two of the local militia took the risk, climbed over the wall, and entered. Thus, working from within and from without, the whole mass crowded in and extracted Ah Q, but not until he had been dragged out of T'uku Temple and brought near the machine gun did he become slightly awake.
By the time they reached the city, it was already noon. Ah Q beheld himself hauled to a dilapidated yamen, and, after turning five or six corners, pushed into a small room. He had barely stumbled in when the door, which was made of logs formed into a grating, shut close upon his heels. The other three sides of the room consisted of solid walls.
On looking about closely, he perceived two others in one corner of the room. Although Ah Q's heart was thumping more or less, he did not feel especially depressed, because his own bedroom in T'uku Temple was not so grand as this one. The other two men seemed to be villagers, with whom he gradually picked up a conversation. One of them explained that Chü-jen Lao-yeh was determined to collect the rent, which his grandfather had owed; the other did not know just why he had been imprisoned.
When they asked why he had been put in jail, Ah Q quickly replied, "Because I wanted to be a Revolutionist!"
Late in the day, he was dragged from behind the barred door to the great hall. Above him sat an old man, whose head had been shaved perfectly clean. Ah Q thought that he might be a monk; but when he saw a line of soldiers below and lines of men wearing long coats, standing to either side of him, some shaved perfectly clean like the old man, others with a foot of hair hanging loose over the back of their shoulders like the "False Foreigner," all of them wearing malignant expressions and staring at him with angry eyes, he realized that the person before him was some one of consequence. Naturally, ever so naturally, and immediately, his knee joints loosened and he knelt down.
"Stand up and talk; you don't have to kneel!" cried the men in long coats.
Although Ah Q seemed to understand, still, in the end he perceived that he was unable to stand, and his body bent down of its own accord; so, taking advantage of his position, he continued to kneel.
"Base slave!" sneered the men in long coats, but they did not command him to rise.
Looking steadily at Ah Q's face, the tonsured old man spoke in quiet, clear tones "You had better confess the truth in order to avoid the pain of punishment. I knew all the facts of this case long ago. Confess and you will be given your freedom."
"Confess," the men wearing long coats cried in chorus.
"I wanted to — come join —" muttered Ah Q unintelligibly as, in his bewilderment, he labored under a load of thought. After that he spoke with intermittent breaks.
"Then, why didn't you come?" asked the old man gently.
"The 'False Foreigner' would not let me."
"Prattle! It is too late to talk now. Where are your fellow accomplices by this time?"
"Eh?"
"Those who robbed the Chao family that night."
"They didn't come to call me and moved away all the things themselves," sputtered Ah Q, becoming more and more indignant.
"Where did they go? Tell us and we will give you your freedom," gently persuaded the old man.
"I don't know — they didn't come to call me." Presently the old man made a signal with his eyes and Ah Q was put behind the barred door.
The next time he was taken out of confinement was the morning of the next day. The hall appeared the same as formerly: above him sat the old man with the perfectly shorn head. Ah Q again knelt.
The old man gently questioned him, "Have you anything else to say?"
Ah Q searched his mind once and finding nothing to say, straightway replied, "Nothing."
Consequently, a long-coated man brought a s⟨h⟩eet of paper and a brush, which he placed before Ah Q and insisted upon putting the brush into his hand. At that moment, Ah Q was thoroughly frightened; his spirit almost flew asunder because this was the first time in his life that his hand had had any association with a writing brush. He did not even know how to hold it. The man also pointed to a particular spot where he was to draw the symbol.
"I . . . I don't know how to write," muttered Ah Q, frightened and ashamed, as he held the brush.
"Then, it is all the more to your advantage; draw a circle!"
Ah Q was about to draw the circle, but his hand trembled as he held the brush, so the man spread the paper on the ground for him. Ah Q stooped down and used all the effort of his entire life to draw the circle, fearing that the others would laugh at him. He was stoutly determined to make the circle round; but that obnoxious brush proved not only very heavy but also disobedient, shivering and quivering; and just as the line was about to close, it swerved outward, creating a figure the shape of a melon seed.
While Ah Q felt ashamed of being unable to draw a perfect circle, the man did not so much as notice his plight, but merely took the brush and the paper away. Then, others led him to the barred door for the third time.
On entering the barred door for the third time, he did not feel especially troubled; he believed that people, born between heaven and earth, suffered, as their allotted destiny, occasional arrests when they were taken in and out of prisons and were obliged at times to draw circles on a piece of paper; but if the circle were not drawn round, it would be counted as a defect in his character. However, it was not long before he felt relieved, thinking to himself, "My sons and grandsons will be able to draw round circles."
So he fell asleep.
On the other hand, Chü-jen Lao-yeh could not sleep that night. He had had an argument with the captain. Chü-jen Lao-yeh maintained, as his cardinal point, the recovery of booty of the Chao household, while the captain's cardinal point was the punishment of Ah Q to warn the multitudes against looting. The captain had had, of late, a decidedly low opinion of Chü-jen Lao-yeh, and kept pounding the table and chair as he shouted: "Punish one to subjugate a hundred. Look you, I haven't been a Revolutionist for more than twenty days and there have been more than ten cases of robbery, and none of these cases has been brought to a satisfactory solution. And where will my self-respect go? When this case has been settled, you come along and still maintain your foolish and stubborn point. No! This is under my jurisdiction!"
Chü-jen Lao-yeh, pressed into a tight position, still maintained his point firmly and declared that if recovery of the booty were not made, he would resign at once from his duty of administrating the civil government.
"Have your own way, then," the captain said.
Consequently, on that night Chü-jen Lao-yeh slept not a wink, but it fortunately happened that on the day following he had not resigned.
The fourth occasion of Ah Q's being taken from behind the barred door, was the morning following the night on which Chü-jen Lao-yeh had been unable to sleep. When Ah Q reached the great hall, above him still sat the old man with the clean-shaven head; and Ah Q, as was his habit, knelt down.
Very gently the old man asked, "What more have you to say?"
After thinking for a moment and finding nothing to say, Ah Q straightway replied, "Nothing."
Many men, some wearing long coats and others wearing short ones, put on him a vest of white foreign cloth, on which black characters were written. At this Ah Q felt very much depressed, because it greatly resembled the wearing of mourning and such attire was inauspicious. At the same time, his hands were tied behind his back, and he was at once dragged out of the yamen.
Ah Q was lifted into a wagon without a canopy. A few persons with short coats were sitting with him. The wagon started off without delay. Preceding it were a company of soldiers and local militia, shouldering rifles, while on either side were multitudes of gaping spectators. What was behind, Ah Q did not see; but he suddenly asked himself whether it might not be that he was going to have his head cut off. While in this perplexity, darkness veiled his eyes and a buzzing sound passed through his ears; he seemed to have fainted and yet did not faint altogether. Although he was distraught at times, yet there were other times when he felt composed and reasoned that people, born between heaven and earth, found, as a part of their allotted destiny, times when they could not avoid decapitation.
He still recognized the street and was filled with mild surprise: why didn't they proceed in the direction of the execution grounds? He did not know whether he was on parade or being used as an example to warn the multitudes; but even had he known, matters would not have been altered, because he still believed that people, born between heaven and earth, had, as their destined portion, times when they could not avoid being put on parade or being set up as a warning to the multitudes.
The procession had wound about and had taken the road to the execution grounds when he came to himself; this surely meant "chit!" and off with his head. In his bewilderment, he was staring from left to right and noticing that he was being followed by swarms of people, when he unexpectedly espied Amah Wu among the crowd to one side of the road. They had been separated for a long time; so, she had been working in the city!
Ah Q of a suddenly became ashamed of the fact that he had not the courage to sing a few lines of drama. His thoughts, it seemed, swirled like the mad gyration of a whirlwind: "The Youthful Widow at the Grave" lacked grandeur; the words, "I regret that I should not have . . . ," from "The Struggle Between the Dragon and the Tiger," were too poor; "My hand will seize a steel whip to flog you" would have to do. At the same moment, he wished to raise his hand, but then recalled that his hands were bound; hence, he did not sing, "My hand will seize a steel whip." "After twenty years, there will be born another hero like myself," came the thought to Ah Q's bewildered mind, and "attaining knowledge alone without the help of a teacher," an incomplete sentence which had never been spoken by him before.
"Bravo!" came from the midst of the crowd like the growl of a wolf.
The wagon did not stop, but went on. In the midst of the applause, Ah Q rolled his eyes in search of Amah Wu, who did not appear to have seen him at all, but kept staring fixedly at the foreign rifles on the shoulders of the soldiers.
Ah Q, therefore, looked again at the applauders. His thoughts again swirled like the mad gyration of a whirlpool. Four years ago, he had met at the foothills a famished wolf which kept following him, neither increasing nor decreasing the distance between them, grimly bent on chewing his flesh. At that time, he was well-nigh frightened to the point of death, but, fortunately for him, he then held in his hand a wood cleaver, which gave him enough courage to enable his getting to Weichuang. Thus, forever would he remember the eyes of that wolf: cruel and savage they were, scintillating like two balls of spirit fire, seeming to come as they did from a distance, piercing his very flesh. On this occasion, likewise, he beheld frightful eyes such as he had never seen before, blunt and cuttingly sharp they were; they had not only chewed his words, but were bent on chewing things beyond his flesh. Those eyes kept following at a distance, never coming near nor withdrawing; they seemed to be joined in an unbroken string and were already there on the spot, chewing his very soul.
"Help!"
In reality, Ah Q had not opened his mouth; his eyes had long gone black. The sound of bullets whizzed through his ears; his whole body seemed to fly asunder like so much light dust. Ah Q was no more.
The immediate result of this execution was that Chü-jen Lao-yeh received the hardest blow, because in the end the booty had not been recovered. His whole family wailed loudly. The next to feel misfortune was the Chao family. It was not only that the Hsiu-t'sai, while going to the city to report a case, had had his queue severed by some wicked Revolutionists, but he had also been coerced into giving them twenty dollars as payment for his freedom; so the whole family wailed aloud, and from that day on, they created about themselves an atmosphere suggestive of the surviving adherents of a former dynasty.
As for public opinion, there was no divergence of opinion in Weichuang; they naturally agreed that Ah Q was bad; the fact that he had been shot was proof of his badness, for if he were not bad, how could it come about that he should be shot? But opinion in the city was averse; the majority of the people were dissatisfied, maintaining that execution by rifle was not so interesting to witness as decapitation; besides, what sort of ludicrous prisoner was this to have paraded for so long a time on the streets and not, in the end, sung any lines from a drama? They had followed him all in vain.
Finis