polarraccoon @ PIXNET

Moment in Peking，林語堂以英文創作，中譯為「京華煙雲」，我喜歡張振玉的譯本。

女主角名字叫「姚木蘭」，
小時候華視連續劇，趙雅芝領銜飾演，覺得是經典...

因為是華人的英文創作，文字不會太生澀，又有很多我們熟知的文化內涵＆歷史背景，
覺得很適合我們念啊，

用英文寫出民初大陸的動亂，超強！
以下是八月時候又看，順便練習打字，就打出來了..

木蘭的大女兒（高中吧）跟著學校去參加抗議軍閥政府，結果學生被屠殺了...
看得我目屎滴滴滴..

    After breakfast, Aman went to school, having just finished washing her own handkerchief and put a new one in her pocket, as she did every day. Soon Mulan received a telephone call from her, saying that her school was joining in the demonstration today and that she might be late for lunch.

   “Be careful,” said Aman. “Our principal says that the leaders have arranged with the garrison commander for protection. Good-by.”

   The words rang in Mulan’s ears. Her daughter’s voice was gay and cheerful. At quarter pst twelve, Lifu telephoned to Mulan and asked, “Is Aman taking part in the demonstration today?”

   “Yes, Why? ”

   There was a pause. Them Lifu said, “Well, never mind,” and Mulan heard the telephone click as he hung up the receiver. Lifu had heard at the last moment from a very private source that Tuan meant business today and it would not be well for the demonstrators. Some had seen armed guards going into the cabinet office where the demonstrators were to present their demands.

   Lifu dashed out of his house with Chen San. He took a rickshaw, while Chen San rode his bicycle. He told Chen San to go ahead to look for Aman and get her out of the crowd, while he himself would speak to the leaders. Arriving at Tienanmen, Lifu found that the meeting had already ended, resolutions had been passed, and the procession had passed down Hatamen street toward the cabinet office. He caught up with it at the Pailou, but those at the head had already reached the cabinet office. There were thousands of demonstrators and spectators and the streets were jammed. Lifu forsook the rickshaw and ran ahead along the broad mud sidewalk.

   Reaching the entrance to the cabinet office, he pushed his way in through the thousands of students standing the compound outside. He heard a sharp burst of rifle fire. At the sound of the shots, the students began to scream and surge toward the gates. Then out of corners sprang Tuan’s own guards who had been lying in ambush. Armed with bayonets, broad swords, and knives, they blocked the gates, chopping and cutting at the students trying to escape. More firing was heard. The students had been ambushed, trapped, their retreat cut off. There was pandemonium. Lifu saw pitiful young boys and girls being cut and stabbed and trampled on the ground before him. He saw a tall, muscular guard, his jacket off, roaring with laughter a she swung the ancient weapon called “iron whip,” which was made of a series of jointed blades, each seven or eight inches long, and the whole about seven feet in length. As the iron whip swung, it scraped away noses, foreheads, hands, and the skin of arms. Still the crowd pressed toward the gate of death, pursued by soldiers with bayonets stabbing and thrusting at them from behind. Lifu was carried along on the border of the throng. He saw a guard swinging a heavy chain in front of him. Leaving everything to fate, he rushed on to his own possible destruction. The metal chain struck his right ankle with a stunning blow and he thought that his foot was cut off, but he pressed along, trampling over some prostrate bodies. The guards now seemed to be almost exhausted themselves and were striking at longer intervals and less heavily at that mass of human flesh, all except the swinger of that iron whip, who as the crowd became smaller, had more room for action, and who seemed tireless, shouting rhythmically in harmony with the deathdealing rattle of his “whip,” as he picked his victims one by one.

   Of the crowd of about three hundred who had been able to get into the compound, forty-eight were killed on the spot, and nearly two hundred were wounded. Only a small portion of about fifty who were luckily sandwiched in the middle and protected by the others were able to get out without injury.

   Outside the gate Lifu limped a few yards and fell and got up and limped a few yards more. Wounded boys and girls were lying all about him. Hatamen street was full of awestricken spectators. There was a stream of rickshaws carrying away wounded boys and girls, their bodies and their faces bleeding. The white cloth banners that had floated gloriously in the clear blue sky were now lying on the pavement, trampled and soiled with mud and blood.

   Lifu felt a sharp pain and discovered that he still had his right foot, but a stream of blood was reddening his gown and shoes and socks. He called a rickshaw and went home. Chen San, ahead of Lifu, had reached the gate of the compound and could not get in. He was told that Aman’s school group was in front, and probably inside. When he heard the shots and saw the students being attacked, he leaped on his bicucle again and rushed to inform Mulan of what was happening. It was only a short distance from the cabinet office.

   The lunch table had been laid, waiting for Aman’s return, and Mulan was feeding Amei. When she Chen Sans’s face, the bowl dropped from her hand, before Chen san opened his mouth.

“What is the matter? Are you dumb?” asked Sunya, who was in the room.

   “The guards have fired on the students! I went with brother Lifu to find Aman, but I could not get in.”

   “Where is she?” asked Mulan.

   “I don’t know. It is all in great confusion there. The students are trying to get out. I am not trying to frighten you, you know, but I heard such screaming inside—.”

   “Come with us at once,” Sunya cried. “Where is Lifu?”

   They set out immediately in rickshaws, hoping to see Aman coming on her way home. When they reached the scene of the massacre, it was like a deserted battlefield. Some of the more timid shopkeepers had closed their shops. The guards, having done their noble work, had completely disappeared. A few relatives were now going inside the gate. An American professor whom Sunya recognized, was trying to find his students.

 “A massacre like this,” said the American, “would cause an instant revolution in any city in America.”

   Sunya and Mulan had no time ti listen or speak. They walked among the corpses strewn around them. There were about fifteen female corpses besides the thirty or more boys. They lay or leaned against the wall in the most grotesque positions. Sunya sway one corpse sitting upon another, staring at him, and averted his eyes. Then he was startled by a body moving under two corpses. As Mulan looked at one after another of the girl bodies and saw that Aman was not among them, she began to grow hopeful.

   Then she saw two new coffins lying around a bend in the yard, near a raised terrace. The authorities had been so thoughtful that they had even prepared the coffins! But two was all they were willing to provide! As she approached, she saw Aman’s small body lying in one of the coffins.

   Mulan cried out and fell across the coffin.