● 陈晴山 Chen Qing-shan
   陈敏良 陈敏华（译）Trans. by Peter Chen, Michael Tan

　　落花生虽然去了多日了，但是他所留给我的印象，永是不可磨灭
的。我几次想把它撇开了，它总是不住的来复，正和乒乓台上的一粒
球子一样。这两天，似乎渐渐的觉得模糊些；昨天偶然整理书桌，翻
出一个照相机的空匣子，而落花生又站在我跟前了。

　　Although "Peanuts" had left several days ago, the 
impression he left behind is indelibly etched on my mind. I 
tried several times to wipe him off my mind, but he kept 
bouncing back like a ping-pong ball on the table tennis 
table. In the last couple of days, my memory of him began 
gradually to blur; however, as I was tidying up my writing 
desk yesterday, the empty camera case turned up and the 
image of Peanuts again stood right in front of me again.

　　是的，这个照相机的空匣子，算是他所留给我的纪念品了。当他
初来的时候，就带着这个，像一个旅行者佩着水壶般的斜挂在身旁。
那时，我心里便觉得有些奇特，为什么他在这个时候，还有心情玩着
这种东西？只是不便问他，等到我替他介绍给几个在座的朋友，一一
通了姓名，领教，久仰的客气了一番之后，他还是佩着那个东西，但
是看他的样子，又不是寒暄了几句就要走的。他很从容的坐下了，吃
茶了，抽烟了，谈起他自己的英雄史了，只是不想暂时解除那样累赘
的东西。倒是一个先来的朋友，体贴周到，觉得那于他很是不便，请
他解下。我连忙上前去接，才知道那是一个空的匣子，里面的照相机
，不知哪里去了。他很不好意思的笑着说：“带着玩的，照相机早已
丢了。”不知怎样，他这个片刻不离的匣子，后来走的时候，竟不带
去，留到今天，给我重现着。

　　That's right, one can say that this empty camera case is
a memento he left behind for me. When he first came, this 
was the very empty camera case that he was carrying, slung 
diagonally across his shoulder just like how a traveler 
would carry his water bottle. At that time, I thought it 
rather odd. Given the situation he was in, how could he 
still be in a mood to indulge in photography. But I did not 
feel it appropriate to ask him then. After I had introduced 
him to a few friends present and we had exchanged the usual 
courtesies, he still had the camera case slung over his 
body. It did not appear as though he was just going to 
exchange some pleasantries and then depart. Instead, he sat 
down quite purposefully, drank his tea, lighted his 
cigarette and started to recount all the marvelous things he
had done, and he made no effort to at least temporarily rid 
himself of such an inconvenient object. One of the friends, 
who had arrived earlier, noticed how inconvenient it must 
have been for him and thoughtfully invited him to put aside 
the camera case. I quickly stepped forward to receive it 
from him. It was then that we discovered it was an empty 
case, without a camera in it. He felt a little embarrassed 
and said with a smile: "This is only a plaything, I lost the
camera a long time ago." The box was something which he 
would not part with at first. Yet when he departed, he would
leave it behind for me to rediscover today. 

　　说起落花生，我不能不回忆到二十年前去。那时，他和我都只十
一二岁的年纪。我们是同在一个村塾里读书的，我们的老师，是一个
五十余岁的老秀才，许是因为他是秀才的缘故，所以学生特别多。在
我们的村里，同样的学塾，不下五六所。只有我们这一所，达到三十
人以上的学生。学生太多了，管理上自然不能十分周到；加以我们的
老师，是最讲究齐家的，他成天里要在厨下帮师母劈柴、烧火，又要
喂猪，又要抱小孩子，许多家务已够他‘齐’的不得了，哪里顾得我
们许多。因此，我们学生就要实行自治起来。我们三十几个学生，公
推一个领袖。村塾里是没有什么学长、级长的名目的，我们称这个领
袖只做王。起初，王的职务，是统率全属的学生，联结团体，专门去
对待别塾的学生的；厥后别塾的学生，众寡不敌，个个都投降了；我
们对外没有事情，内部就起了纷争，竟至分裂做两个团体，于是王也
就有两个了。我是隶属落花生部下的，落花生是我们的王。他所以取
得这个王位，并不是因为他年纪较长，或智力较强，而是因为他天天
有落花生给我们吃。他家里有一个油木皇，他的父亲常往邻近各乡，
收买落花生回来榨油。因此他家里不时有落花生囤积着。当我们要推
举一个王的时候，他把很多落花生给我们，以为贿选，于是他就当选
了。我们的组织是很完全的，王之下文的有宰相，有御史，武的有提
督，有总兵。这些职官，有一定的俸食，都是代以落花生。宰相每天
食俸十荚；御史五荚；提督是要替王去打仗的，食俸同宰相；总兵食
俸同御史。当时我是被封为宰相，每日都得他十荚的落花生吃。我和
一班同寅的，当面称他做王，背后总是叫他落花生。

　　Talking about Peanuts, I could not help but cast my mind
back twenty years earlier. At that time we were both only 
eleven or twelve. We were both studying in the local private
school in the village. Our teacher was an old mandarin 
scholar of about fifty odd years. It was perhaps because he 
was a mandarin scholar that he had significantly more 
students. In our village there were no less than five or six
similar schools. Only our school had more than 30 students. 
If a school had too many students, it would not be well run.
Moreover, our teacher was very particular about the 
Confucian teaching on the proper management of the home. He 
spent much of the day in the kitchen helping his wife to cut
firewood, light the fire, feed the pigs and carry the baby. 
With so many domestic chores around, he had more than he 
could manage. How much could he care about managing us. So 
we students had to resort to "self government". We had to 
appoint a leader from among the 30 students. The village 
school had no such positions as Principal or Class Monitor; 
so we conferred the title "King" on the leader. At the 
beginning, the position of King was to lead the whole 
student body in the school. As a united body, our school 
could then deal with the students in the other schools in 
the village. Being outnumbered, the students of the other 
schools all capitulated. Without external problems to deal 
with any longer, internal disorder arose; in the end the 
school was split into two factions. As to the position of 
King, there arose two Kings. I was in the camp under 
Peanuts. Peanuts secured the position of King not because he
was older than us or that he was smarter, but for the simple
reason that he fed us with peanuts every day. His family 
owned an oil mill and his father went round the neighbouring
villages buying up all the peanuts for the mill. On account 
of this, his house was always full of peanuts. When we were 
in the process of selecting a King, he brought us lots of 
peanuts, as an inducement for us to elect him. It was not 
surprising that he was elected. Our organizational structure
was very complete. Under the King was a Prime Minister, 
there were Ministers, Generals, Company Commanders. All 
these appointments had their own allotted victuals from 
Peanuts: the Prime Minister received a daily allotment of 
ten pods of peanuts, Ministers each received five pods, 
Generals who had to go to war for the King each received the
same allotment as the Prime Minister, the Company Commanders
each received the same amount as the Ministers. At that time
I had the rank of Prime Minister and I received my daily 
allotment of ten pods of peanuts. Among us, we would always 
address him as King in his presence. Behind him, we 
invariably referred to him as Peanuts.

　　不久，我们便离了这个学塾。落花生的父亲有钱，便把他送到上
海去读书；我也进了县城里的一个小学校。等到我进了中学校的时候
，他已经从上海毕业回来，听说是法进专门学校毕业的。后来，我奔
走外面，十余年没有回过家乡，落花生的消息，我已无从知道，惟有
这个奇特的名字，和儿时可笑的情事，连带着浮沉于脑海中而已。

　　Not long after, we all left the village school. Peanuts'
father was a wealthy man and he was sent to Shanghai for 
further studies. I enrolled in a primary school in the city 
in the county. By the time I entered high school, he had 
already graduated from Shanghai, said to be from a law 
school. I later left the village and did not return for 10 
odd years. I had no more news of Peanuts. Only this rather 
odd nickname stuck in my mind, together with all the amusing
stories surfacing and submerging in my memory.

　　去年十二月中，他忽然来了一封信，是从坤甸寄来的，大意说他
从父亲死后，油木皇生意失败，家中不能存活，不得已带着妻子来这
里当一个教员，已有两年多了。因为不知道我的住址，所以一向没有
通过信。信中又说那边位置动摇，明年要过来这里，别谋枝栖，叫我
替他介绍，我接看这信，也就回了一封信，循例写几句安慰的话。自
是之后，整整一个学期中，没有再来一封信。我以为他那边大概是没
有什么问题了，这次猝然而来，实在出于意料之外。

　　Last December, a letter from him suddenly appeared, 
posted from Burma . The gist of the letter said that his 
father had passed away, and the oil milling business had 
collapsed. His family could no longer maintain a livelihood 
and he had no choice but to take his family to Burma where 
he had been a teacher for more than two years. As he did not
know my address, he had not contacted me earlier. The letter
also said that his current job was no longer secure and he 
would like to return to find another job. He asked me to 
help him find one. After reading his letter, I sent him a 
reply with some words of consolation. After that, for one 
whole semester, I did not hear from him again. I thought 
perhaps he no longer had a problem where his job was 
concerned. His arrival this time was totally out of the 
blue.

　　黧黑的颜色，深凹的眼眶，一望即知其为一个忧患的余生。虽然
彼此别近二十年，我自己也不知变成了什么样子了。但是我想像中的
落花生，总以为还是一个翩翩佳公子。是的，一个人流落在万里外，
还要一肩挑着妻子，任凭是铜筋铁骨的人，到此也要萎靡了，我自己
就是一个例。我一见了他，便联想到他去年十二月的来信，而且揣测
他是失业了，现在一定还不止一个人来这里。但是，他所说的，又出
我意料之外。他并没有提起前次的来信，好像忘记了的。他说他去年
春就回了中国，在中央政府里面办事，这回是中央特派他过来考察教
育的。“呀！你去年不是来了一封信吗？你说……”我很惊异的问，
他向我使了一眼色，我就默然。后来，他忽然说到跟蒋总司令北伐，
忽然又说去莫斯科留学，越说越无条理。一班朋友见他这样没头没脑
的，就陆续散去，只剩着我和他了。我顺便留他在这里吃饭。

　　He had dark complexion and deep eye pockets, obviously a
man weighed down with worries. Although we had been apart 
for near to twenty years, and I did not know how I myself 
may have changed, the image of Peanuts in my mind was always
that of a well groomed young man from a wealthy family. 
That's right; when one has to wander far and wide in search 
of a living and has to carry the burden of a wife and 
children, unless one is strong as steel, one can become 
dispirited. It is the same with me. As soon as I saw him, I 
recalled his letter of last December. I guessed that he must
now be unemployed and I had a hunch that he was not alone 
and must have brought his family along this time. But the 
things he said were not something I had expected. He never 
mentioned his previous letter, as though he had clean 
forgotten it. He said that he had returned to China last 
Spring and had been working in the Central Government 
administration. He had been sent here specially by the 
Central Government to review the state of Education. "Eh? 
Didn't you write last year to say ............" I asked in 
astonishment. He looked in my direction, signaling me with 
his eyes and I then said no more. Later on, he suddenly said
that he had accompanied Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek in his
Northern Expedition and then suddenly changed the story to 
say that he had gone to study in Moscow. The more he said 
the more incoherent he became. When the group of friends 
present saw that he was uttering nonsense, they began to 
leave one after another until there were only him and me 
left. I then invited him to stay for a meal.

　　这时候，他才把实情告诉我：他确是失业几个月了，这几个月中
带着一个妻，四个儿子，东奔西跑，找不到机会。我问他现在要怎样
打算，他也说不出要怎样。我又问他，刚才为什么在朋友面前说那些
无谓的话呢？他没有话答，只是笑，笑到嘴里含的一口饭都喷出来，
撒得满桌上，还是吃吃不休。我觉得这样的情形不对了，心里直有点
怕起来，他似乎知道自己的举动失常，会使人惊骇的，便复力自镇抑
，恢复常态。

　　It was only then that he told me the truth. He had 
actually been unemployed for several months. In these few 
months, he had to take along with him his wife and four 
children moving from place to place and was still unable to 
find employment. I asked him what his plans were now. He 
could not answer. I then asked why he had said all those 
meaningless things in front of our friends. He did not 
answer but broke into laughter, sputtering his mouthful of 
food all over the table; he continued to eat without pause. 
Things did not seem right to me and I began to feel 
apprehensive. He seemed to know that his own behaviour was 
odd and would cause apprehension in others, and he 
immediately straightened up and began to behave normally 
again.

　　最后，他很诚恳的告诉我：他的妻和四个小孩子，都在旅馆里。
房租、伙食，一天得三块钱才够开销，当这失业的时候，如何负担得
起！他问我能否替他找一个随便的职业，暂时维持目前的生活；假如
不能的话，便须替他怎样安顿了妻子。呀！这都是很不易解答的难题
。职业呢，照他现在的情形，是无论什么，都做不来的，因为他的精
神，多少是陷于病态了。妻子呢，在理，他到了这里，这东道主我是
免不了的；但是，老实说，我自己所处的地位，也是和他差不多了，
我很想叫他们暂住在我的寓处，可是一念到自己住的一块豆腐干大的
地方，一个女人，三个小孩子，睡在里面，已经转侧都没有余地了，
再加上一个落花生的夫人和他们的四个小孩子，怎么插得下！旁的有
没有能力支当，那更是不用说的了。然而还有个挽救的法子，就是替
他每天出了三块钱，依旧给他们暂住在旅馆里面，也未始不可以过得
了；无如我自己每天的所入，还不到这个数目哩！唉！落花生，我对
于你，除了一点同情以外，是更没有什么可以给你的了。但得到这一
点同情，于你有什么用呢？

　　Finally, he told me in earnest: his wife and four 
children were all in a hotel. The rent and meals cost 3 
dollars a day. How could he afford this while he was 
unemployed? He asked if I could help him find any job so 
that he could maintain his immediate livelihood. If that was
not possible, could I help him work out how he could take 
care of his wife and children. Heaven! This was not a 
problem with an easy solution. A job? In his condition, he 
was hardly fit for work, any work. Because of the mental 
state he was in, he was actually quite ill. As for his wife 
and children, under normal circumstances I should have the 
obligation to play host to them. But truthfully, my own 
position was not very different from his. I really wanted to
invite them to stay with me temporarily. But just imagine 
the size of my own place, which was about as big as a 
postage stamp; it already accommodated my wife and three 
children with hardly an inch of space left. How could I 
possibly squeeze in Peanuts and his wife and their four 
children? Moreover, there were also the other necessities. 
But if I could not afford even to house them, it would be 
pointless to go into these other requirements. There was of 
course another way to help him, that was by paying the 3 
dollars a day for him and let them continue to stay on at 
the hotel temporarily. This would at least allow them to 
stay on. But my own income was not even 3 dollars a day! 
Hai! Peanuts, all I could give you was some sympathy and 
nothing much else. But what use to you was sympathy?

　　凡是能表同情的，都是处在同一地位的人。处在同一地位的同情
，究竟是无补的。落花生去后，我总是不住的这样想。

　　All those who could sympathise with you were invariably 
in the same hapless situation. Sympathy from those in the 
same hapless situation, in the final analysis, does not 
really help at all. After Peanuts left, I could not help 
thinking about this irony.