萧红/Xiao Hong

1991年，在一个小县城里边，我生在一个小地主的家里。那县城差不多就是中国的最东最北部——黑龙江省——所以一年之中，倒有四个月飘着白雪。

父亲常常为着贪婪而失掉了人性。他对待仆人，对待自己的儿女，以及对待我的祖父都是同样的吝啬而疏远，甚至于无情。

有一次，为着房屋租金的事情，父亲把房客的全套的马车赶了过来。房客的家属们哭着诉说着，向我的祖父跪了下来，于是祖父把两匹棕色的马从车上解下来还了回去。为着这匹马，父亲向祖父起着终夜的争吵。“两匹马，咱们是算不了什么的，穷人，这匹马就是命根。”祖父这样说着，而父亲还是争吵。

In 1911, I was bom into a small landlord family in a small county town in Helongjiang—China’s far northeastern province where it snowed for four months of the year.

Father was almost inhumanly avaricious. To his servants, his children and even his own father, he was just as miserly and indifferent, or heartless for tha matter.

Once because a tenant failed to pay his rent, Father detained his cart and horses. The tenant’s family knelt in front of Grandpa, pleading for mercy with tears in their eyes. Grandpa unharnessed the two brown horses from the cart and gave them back to the tenant. Over this Father wrangled with him far the whole night. “Two horses don’t mean much to us,” said Grandpa, “but they are the life-blood to the poor.” Father bickered on.

九岁时，母亲死去。父亲也就更变了样，偶然打碎了一只杯子，他就要骂到使人发抖的程度。后来就连父亲的眼睛也转了弯，每从他的身边经过，我就象自己的身上生了针刺一样;他斜视着你，他那高傲的眼光从鼻梁经过嘴角而后往下流着。

所以每每在大雪中的黄昏里，围着暖炉，围着祖父，听着祖父读着诗篇，看着祖父读着诗篇时微红的嘴唇。

when I was nine years old Mother died and Father became worse. If you accidentally broke a small thing like a cup, he would keep throwing curses at you until you shivered all over. Later even his eyes could cast crooked glances. Whenever I passed by him, he would eye me sideways with his arrogant look streaming down the bridge of his nose and then off the comer of his laouth, making me feel as if pricked on needles.

ln snowy evenings I would sit with Grandpa by the stove, listening to him leading poems, watching his pink lips while he was reading.