The Four Books (9 page)

During this reform process, the great steel smelting began. The professor faced the furnace and began sobbing for no apparent reason. Everyone thought he was simply exhausted, so they told him to rest, but then he took advantage of this opportunity to escape. He was caught and returned by newly awakened and almost remade comrades. After they brought him back, they realized that not only was he an inveterate reactionary himself, but he even had brothers working as professors in the United States and was carrying letters they had sent him. It turned out that this play was based on a true story, and it ended with the professor appearing to repent for his wrongs, but he nevertheless continued secretly writing to his brothers in America and making false charges against the nation. As for the others, those who had been successfully re-educated, they were aware of his deceitfulness and swore never to forgive him, and instead escorted him to the execution site onstage.

This was the story.

This was the plot.

In the play’s final scene, accompanied by the cheers of the progressive comrades in the audience, the actors dragged the professor up to the execution site and told him to kneel at the front of the stage. The actors pointed guns at the back of his head, and then shouted to the crowd,

“How do you think we should deal with him?”

The crowd shouted back, “Shoot him! Shoot him!”

The actors onstage asked even louder, “Should we really shoot him?!”

The crowd laughed, and waved their fists. “Yes, just shoot him! Just shoot him!”

“Bang!” White smoke emerged from the guns pointed at the back of the professor’s head, and he collapsed like a rag doll. Everyone initially assumed this was merely a performance, but then they saw a pool of blood on the stage. The professor who had attempted to escape had fallen to the stage with a thud.

As the crowd stood there motionless, the play ended.

The area below the stage was so quiet, it seemed as if no one were there.

During the trip back from the performance, not one person from the ninety-ninth uttered a single word throughout the entire thirty-
li
walk. There was smoke coming from a distant building, and they could hear it in the light of the setting sun. There was also the sound of footsteps, as if someone were striking the frozen ground with their hand. The earth was barren. Barren and distant, it sucked all sound into its belly.

The Child said, “They performed very well. When they shot that man, it looked extremely realistic.”

The setting sun was behind them, and they went back and began smelting steel. Those who smelted were awarded a red blossom, and those who didn’t were fined a blossom.

C
HAPTER
4

Light and Shadows

1.
Criminal Records
, p. 53

After the criminals returned from the ninety-first, the revolutionary situation in the district underwent a series of rapid transformations. Beneath a calm veneer, there was a hint of unease. Virtually no one said another word after witnessing the execution of the professor. At dinner, no one chatted while bringing their food to the table, as they had in the past. They seemed to sense that this event heralded something much larger. Why did they all become so silent? It was precisely because the ninety-first’s revolutionary performance stunned them into realizing that they still needed to reform their hearts and souls, which proved they still needed to be re-educated. This was particularly true of the Scholar. After the Scholar agreed to start smelting steel, the Child had awarded him a blossom, but the Scholar’s expression upon accepting it was one not of delight but rather of inscrutable mockery. The Scholar’s strange smile did not escape my gaze. I saw him hold the blossom with his thumb and forefinger, as though holding a worthless piece of paper, and after he had walked a short distance he crumpled it into a ball and threw it to the ground, then crushed it with his foot. He assumed he had done this without anyone noticing, but I had actually seen everything. His action reflected his feelings of unease and dissatisfaction. From the time he threw away the blossom until dinner, he kept his head bowed and didn’t utter a word, appearing to be deep in thought. But could his silence prove that he didn’t feel any sense of rebellion against the revolutionary situation? Consider the following dialogue he had with an old linguist:

“This was truly unbelievable.” The Linguist sighed upon thinking of the day’s performance.

The Scholar snorted, “This is insane! The country has gone completely mad!”

“Someone should write the higher-ups, and have them put a stop to this behavior.”

The Scholar considered for a moment, then replied, “I’ll write the letter, but could you sign it?”

The Linguist was the former director of the National Center for Linguistic Research, and had overseen the editing of dictionaries used throughout the country. But he now found himself at a loss for words. He looked at the Scholar’s inquisitive gaze, then silently bowed his head.

During the entire dinner, the Scholar and the Linguist didn’t exchange another word.

This short interaction began not long after the start of dinner, and took place about fifteen meters from the canteen. At the time, the Scholar and the Linguist were holding their rice bowls while sitting on stones not far from the Technician and several others. What the higher-ups need to bear in mind is that if someone were to write them a letter making false charges against the motherland, that person would almost certainly be either the Scholar or the Linguist.

2.
Criminal Records
, p. 64 (excerpt)

The Technician originally had eleven blossoms, but those eleven blossoms increased to thirteen overnight, despite the fact that the Technician neither performed well nor made a positive speech. Where did the additional two blossoms come from? Did he steal them from someone? The higher-ups needed to investigate this thoroughly. If it turned out that the Technician had stolen the blossoms, then he should be punished and have all his remaining blossoms confiscated, and furthermore he should undergo several days of intense self-examination. In this way, he would be made an example for the community, to help ensure that everyone else remains sincere and positive, convincing them to use their re-education activities to compete for blossoms, and not cheat the higher-ups or the masses.

3.
Criminal Records
, p. 66 (excerpt)

One day in early winter when a doctor was irrigating the wheat fields, everyone else was resting at the edge of the field. Sitting alone, the Physician removed a small pair of medical scissors from her pocket and, after clipping her nails, took an old piece of paper that was lying around and proceeded to cut out a fist-sized pentagonal star. She examined the star, then threw it away.

She was, however, capable of making all sorts of little animals, and therefore cutting out a star would be as easy as turning her hand. If one day she were to produce five stars and thereby earn her freedom, there would inevitably be questions as to their provenance. And where did this pair of medical scissors come from? Given that she herself was a doctor, was there any plausible explanation other than that she had used her position to steal them?

4.
Criminal Records
, pp. 70–71

I must confess that in my last installment of
Criminal Records
, I twice wrote that the Musician has a deep bourgeois sensibility, referring to the relationship between the bourgeois Musician and the Scholar. Perhaps I was making too much out of this. The reason I claimed that the Musician had a bourgeois sensibility is that she has an unquenchable love for
La Dame aux Camélias
and other novels. Once, when no one was around, I peeked at the books hidden under her pillow. Most of them were biographies of foreign composers, including Beethoven, Chopin, and others. She had wrapped each of the volumes in a clear sleeve, which I took to mean that she had bourgeois thoughts, idolized foreigners, respected Westerners, and had serious problems with respect to her ideological position. But now I need to make an honest self-confession to the higher-ups, and recognize that I jumped to conclusions and may have reached a biased judgment.

Today, when everyone else went to dig and build steel-smelting furnaces, I returned from the construction site to retrieve my hammer, at which point I noticed that the women’s dormitory was empty. I went again to the Musician’s room, and discovered that hidden under her pillow and under her bed she had not only many blacklisted titles, but also many acceptable ones, such as
The Fury of the Yellow River
and
Man Can Defeat Heaven
. She had also wrapped these in clear covers. What was particularly noteworthy was that she had torn off the cover of
La Dame aux Camélias
and used it to protect her copy of
Materialism
. This suggested that the proletariat was gradually conquering the bourgeoisie, and that the Musician’s petty bourgeois ideology was in the process of being reformed and transformed. I had passed judgment on her too quickly, and lost my impartiality.

I’m now writing this to the higher-ups because I hope they won’t prematurely include her on the list of those who have been successfully re-educated, given that she is still rectifying her bourgeois ways. The only thing that worries me is that she seems to enjoy the Scholar’s company, and seems completely entranced by him and his learning. This can only slow down the speed of her re-education. In order to determine whether or not this is true, we may continue to observe her while everyone else is smelting steel.

C
HAPTER
5

Liberty

1.
Old Course
, pp. 69–81 (excerpt)

In this way, the ardent steel-smelting campaign shocked the world. The ninety-ninth’s enthusiasm was like kerosene. When the campaign was initially announced, everyone smiled skeptically. But by the time the edict was confirmed and the Child had assigned each brigade to two or three furnaces, everyone stopped smiling. Believing steel smelting to be an extremely solemn matter, they all began working to this end. But first, not only did they need to go to a neighboring district to observe a man being executed during a performance, they also had to go to a village sixty
li
away to watch peasants dig and operate a smelting furnace. The peasants threw in all of their pots, ladles, basins, buckets, and old picks and shovels, together with all the wire and iron implements they were not using. Day and night, they fed wood and coal into the furnace, as flames spit out the top. After the fire had been burning for a day or two, all of those pieces of iron had been smelted. The blade of an ax was reduced to a mass of molten metal, the blade of a shovel had become a wet, red sheet, and even a hard hatchet blade and hammer head became as soft as well-cooked sweet potatoes. The fire burned for three days and three nights, by which point all of the objects in the furnace dissolved into molten ore. On the evening of the third day, the criminals extinguished the fire and lifted the cover on top of the furnace, periodically dousing it with water that produced great plumes of steam. After three to five more days, when the contents of the furnace had finally cooled off, they opened it up and found a chunk of bluish green molten steel as large as a millstone.

A mule cart hauled away this large chunk of steel, while two smaller pieces were sent to a village several dozen
li
away.

The village then sent them to the county seat.

Initially, steel smelting was not a terribly mysterious process. The criminals of the ninety-ninth were divided into brigades and proceeded to build six steel-smelting furnaces. They gathered all of the iron implements they could find, including hoes and shovels, axes and hatchets, together with pickaxes and bundles of metal wire that were stacked in the warehouse. They set aside a handful of essential farming tools, but everything else was sent to the furnaces. Then they lit the fire and, within three to five days, they had smelted several furnaces-worth of steel.

Half a month later, the main headquarters sent over a mule cart to collect the iron, and in return awarded the district fifty
jin
of pork and thirty
jin
of beef and mutton. In this way, life in the district turned a page and between smelting steel and eating meat the cold winter became very lively, as every day felt like New Year’s. The men were divided into three groups, with one being responsible for keeping the furnaces lit, the second scouring the district for metal tools, and the third cutting down trees for fuel. The women, meanwhile, were divided into two groups, one of which stayed behind in the canteen to cook food while the other accompanied the men to search for wood and metal. When they didn’t have anything else to do, the criminals wouldn’t return to their dormitories, but rather hung around the furnaces to chat, and play cards or chess.

It was then that the Technician pulled me aside behind one of the furnaces and whispered, “Author, look at this. The Musician is about to give the Scholar the sweet potato she is holding.”