周海祺

Neighbors who came across the old colonel lately, on one or several of his many saunters along the banks of the Suzhou river, often described him as drifting in some dreamy trance. Indeed, having devoted his youth to a life, literally, on bullets and knives, it was not in the colonel’s nature to settle down. In the past, neighbors observed, the colonel had an unspoken habit to never sit during his walks, inching a foot in front another as briskly as a man of his age can, with the help of a crimson spruce walking stick that thuds rhythmically against the ground. But just yesterday afternoon, multiple witnesses reported spotting the colonel rest upon a dilapidated wooden bench facing the river, staring at perhaps the monotonous ripples of water, and seemed not to hear greetings from neighbors for the first ten seconds he was spoken to.

最近，老上校多次在苏州河岸边散步，偶然遇到他的邻居们都说他有点恍恍惚惚的样子。事实上，上校把他的青春都奉献给了枪林弹雨，他本来是个不愿意安定下来的人。以往，邻居们都知道，上校有个不动声色的习惯，他散步时从不坐下来歇息，只用一根深红色云杉手杖有节奏地敲打地面，然后颤巍巍地拖着后面的脚，挪到另外一只脚前面来，就像他这样年纪的老年人那样。但就在昨天下午，多名目击者说，他们看见上校躺在一张破旧的木凳上，面对着那条河，眼睛盯着单调的水波纹，在邻居们和他说话的最初十秒钟里，他都似乎没有听到邻居们的问候。

The neighborhood was small, its residents generally rich, which left them few chores to attend to during the day—two prime components for gossip to spread with range and alacrity. By the time the old colonel’s son returned from work,rottenly exhausted, he was the last in the household of four—that is, himself, the colonel, his wife, and his son, Yu—to be in on the discovery of the colonel’s shifting way, save for the colonel himself. Soon as the man trudged over the door, his wife started unleashing all the day’s accumulated chatter, but the man merely nodded along at random times as she spoke,propped his working bag against the wall, and sank into the sofa, eyes closed.

这个社区很小，居民们都很富裕，他们在一天中几乎没有什么家务事可做，这个原因使得八卦总能大范围快速传播。当老上校的儿子下班回来的时候，疲惫不堪的他，成了家里四个人中最后一个发现上校转变的人，当然这不包括上校本人。这个家庭有四个人，他自己、上校、他的妻子和他的儿子小于。当这个男人拖着疲惫的步伐走到家门口时，他的妻子便开始滔滔不绝地讲起了她一整天累积的喋喋不休的话语。当她说话时，这个男人只是随便点了点头，把他的工作包靠在墙上，然后闭上眼睛坐在沙发上。

Son of a prominent colonel, the pervasive hardships of the Republic’s early days were often knowledge derived from lore of less fortunate contemporaries. Like the river that constantly to his four-story mansion, like the vrooming vehicles streaming down the adjacent highway, adversity, in the shape of grievous struggle, had never slowed his life.

作为一个声名显赫的上校的儿子，共和国早期普遍存在的困难往往来自于同时代不那么幸运的人的说法。就像那条不断涌向他四层豪宅的河流，就像呼啸而过的汽车在附近的公路上川流不息，以痛苦挣扎的形式出现的逆境从来没有妨碍过他的生活。……