叶圣陶《饭》

"Food" by Ye Shengtao (Part I)

"It’s time for class! But where’s your teacher?”

The two old houses were bending like a hunchbacked man. In front of them was an earthy dirt path leading to the farmland and the village. It was right in the middle of autumn. White scaly clouds were floating in the pale blue sky. The morning sun shone upon a few willows, turning their leaves light green as seen in spring. In the distance, the ears and leaves of rice plants were bending with the breeze, making waves in the open fields. Farther in the village, trees were growing in a large circle, solemn, quiet, and graceful. And the barks of dogs were faintly heard. This was really the season and place for a poet!

It’s a pity that nobody living here was a poet though. There were only six or seven kids filled with uncertainty and fear in the house. Since the autumn set in, the farmland of their families had been inundated with rainwater, which converged with river water. Now only three or four inches of the paddy stalks were seen above the water. The kids’ parents were terribly distressed and sighed with anxiety day and night. Some of them said, “The day of starvation is just around the corner!”

The kids thought it was strange. Some of them asked, “We grow rice. How come we’ll starve to death?”The parents said, “Can’t you see the plants are all soaked in water and we still don’t have a grain of rice?” Some said, “If we hadn’t sold much rice last year, we would be okay this year.” The parents said, “Who’d like to sell? You kids just don’t know!” Some kids even suggested, “We will quit school. Let’s tread hard on the water wheel and lift water from the fields.” The parents said, “But where can we lift the water to? The river banks are level with the fields!”

Now the kids were convinced that their parents were more knowledgeable than they were, and that absolutely they would starve to death. They said to themselves, “Death is like sleep, dull and dark. Once caught up in it, one will eat no more and have no more fun. He can’t move as if he were bound, and has no clue when he will be untied.”

They were overcome with fear at the thought of starvation. For them, what starvation would be like was really unpredictable, but it was sure to come! Their attitudes changed, though they were not aware of it: playing tag wasn’t fun anymore; and yelling was meaningless. Now they only sat quietly in the house, chatting in a low voice about catching crickets. Their voices were tinged with fear and anxiety.

In the house on the left there was a bed. Beside the bed was a bare table. In the corner there were pots and pans, the oven, firewood, and the like. All things were in darkness and could not be seen clearly. Only through a hole in the wall (less than one square foot) came in an oblique shaft of sunlight, which was cast on the floor and thus revealed its uneven earthy surface. The two houses were made by a wooden partition. It was much brighter in the house to the right. There were plank windows in both walls. They were now left open. There was nothing in the house but a dozen sets of desk and chair and a worn lecture table. And these were not even kept in order.

Now, right in the chairs six or seven kids were sitting face to face. Slouching over the desks, they were talking about catching crickets. At first, they kept a very low voice. But soon they got wound up as