The Real Story of Ah-Q by Lu Xun Page A

satin round their heads, red satin, all the way down to the floor it went. The princes wore yellow satin, all the way down to the floor… yellow and red… Seventy-eight – enough for anyone.’
    ‘What are we going to do?’ Mrs Seven-Pounds stood up and muttered, as if to herself. ‘He’s got a family to support. How will we manage without him…’
    ‘Hopeless, quite hopeless,’ Mr Zhao shook his head. ‘Any book’ll tell you what you get for cutting off your queue. The law can’t make allowances for families.’
    As soon as she heard it was written in books, complete despair seized hold of Mrs Seven-Pounds, transforming an instant later into loathing for her husband. ‘Serves you right!’ she screeched, threatening her husband’s nose with her chopsticks. ‘Didn’t I say, don’t take the boat in today, don’t go into town, there’s a revolution going on? But no, off he would go – and now look at him! His lovely, lovely black, shiny queue – off the moment he got into town. Now look at him! Let him dig his own grave – but what about the rest of us?’
    Having witnessed Mr Zhao’s grand entrance, everyone else in the village hastily finished their meals, then gathered around the Seven-Pounds’s table. Conscious that he had a reputation to maintain around the village – a reputation that was somewhat tarnished by submitting to such a public dressing down – Seven-Pounds forced himself to look up.
    ‘With hindsight – ’ he ponderously began.
    ‘Just keep digging!’
    Until this point, Mrs Ba Yi – a widow, and a fairly decent sort – had stood by next to Mrs Seven-Pounds, holding her two-year-old posthumous son in her arms, enjoying the performance. Now, however, she decided that things had gone too far. ‘Calm down, Mrs Seven-Pounds,’ she soothed. ‘No one can read the future. I remember you saying you didn’t think he looked too bad without a queue. Anyway, we haven’t heard anything from the magistrate yet – ’
    ‘What are you trying to say?’ Mrs Seven-Pounds now pointed her chopsticks at Mrs Ba Yi’s nose, flushing red to her ears. ‘Rubbish! The woman’s mad! I cried for three whole days, you all saw me. Even that little wretch Six-Pounds cried…’ Which last individual had just dispatched one large bowl of rice, and was clamouring for a second helping. ‘Who asked you, anyway?’ screamed Mrs Seven-Pounds at the unfortunate Mrs Ba Yi, while jabbing at her daughter between her pigtails. ‘Slut!’
    The empty bowl in Six-Pounds’s hand fell to the ground. By bad luck, it struck against a brick, cracking a great hole in it. Springing to his feet, Seven-Pounds gathered up the pieces and fitted them together. Swearing as he inspected the damage, he dealt his daughter a slap that knocked her to the ground. And there she lay bawling, until her great-grandmother pulled her up by the hand. ‘The youth of today,’ she could still be heard muttering, as they went off together.
    ‘Now, you’re not being fair, Mrs Seven-Pounds,’ Mrs Ba Yi angrily countered.
    Up to now an amused observer of this little fracas, Mr Zhao was eventually prickled to anger by Mrs Ba Yi’s allegation about the magistrate. ‘Let her hit who she likes,’ he intervened, winding his way around the table. ‘But the army’s still coming – and it’ll be Zhang Xun, the emperor’s own general, Zhang Fei’s own descendant, 3 at their head, taking on ten thousand men at a time with his eighteen-foot lance. No one can stop him!’ He bore down on Mrs Ba Yi, clenching his fists in the air, as if wielding an invisible spear: ‘No one!’
    Trembling with emotion as she clutched at her child, Mrs Ba Yi turned and fled without another word at the sight of Mr Zhao charging at her, his eyes bulging, his face running with sweat. Busily blaming her for sticking her nose in where it wasn’t wanted, the assembled company fanned out to let Mr Zhao make his own exit; those who had cut off their queues then left