57. The 1946 edition has additional sentences here: “Humble women tend to be insecure about their bodies and are willing to suffer the indignity of having to asking for help with makeup and clothing. Women interested in culture seem to lack this virtue of modesty, however. They tend not to lack for filial piety, as they respectfully carry forward the exact same physical features of their parents, excepting perhaps the addition of a pair of gold-rimmed or tortoiseshell eyeglasses for nearsightedness.” Cut in the 1983 edition.
58. The 1946 edition has additional sentences here: “Mrs. Li possessed a deep self-awareness, unlike some girls who regret that they don’t have a second body so that they can see how sweet and adorable they look when they’re asleep. She wasn’t willing to put on powder and cold cream to hide a sleep-worn face. What Yigu was now seeing was what was most adorable about her.” Cut in the 1983 edition.
59. The 1946 edition has an additional sentence here: “Not one of them was around his own age.”
60. These scrolls were hung in the middle of the wall of the main room.
61. A collection of works by the Southern school of traditional Chinese painting. Also termed Literati Painting, the school was initiated by the Tang poet and painter Wang Wei (701–761). In depictions of mountains, rivers, flowers, and trees, this school emphasized the expression of the spirit over verisimilitude through freehand brushwork.
62. Dachi (1341–1367) was a Changshou artist .
63. The name Luo Lianfeng puns on that of the artist Luo Pin (1733–1799). In Chinese, the first characters in the words “lychee” (lizhi ) and “profit” (lixi ) are pronounced the same way.
64. Silly Sister, a maid, finds one day a perfumed embroidered purse in the garden, on one side of which is some writing and on the other two intertwined nude figures. Not knowing that it is a lover’s gift, she thinks that they are a pair of fighting demons. In the 1946 edition, the following sentences appear between “the fight of the demons” and “Cold-shouldered in Shanghai . . .”: “That wouldn’t do! As such, rich businessmen with mistresses kept their distance. Xiajun felt so out of step with the times that when he saw a car kill a pedestrian he would vent that he couldn’t even match the popularity of this wronged ghost, who became the center of attention for a crowd for a few minutes.”
65. The 1946 edition has an additional phrase here: “. . . such that women had the sensation of a flirtatious man pinching their cheeks.” Cut in the 1983 edition.
66. In China, the term of pregnancy is counted from conception, with the first partial month counting as a whole month. Thus ten months is considered to be a full term.
67. The “eight trigrams” (bagua ) came from the eight combinations of three whole or broken lines in The Book of Changes. They are used in divination.
68. Glyphomancy is the practice of the art of taking characters apart and telling fortunes by reading meaning into the component parts.
69. The first line is from Lao-tzu’s Tao te ching (Daodejing). See the translation annotated by Fang Juehui, The Way and Its Virtue (Taipei: Zhonghua, 1961), 62. The second and third lines are from Mencius, “Li lou shang.”
70. In traditional Chinese novels, the chapters are headed by rhymed couplets that, in a slightly allusive way, summarize the action to come.
71. This was a practice popular in the Wei (220–266) and Jin (265–420) dynasties. It was started by He Yan (ca. second–third centuries), Xia Houxuan (209–254), and Wang Bi (226–249), who attempted to interpret Confucian classics using Daoist ideas. They were famous for paying no attention to worldly affairs and engaging only in profound theoretical discussions. At their leisurely gatherings, they drank, wrote poetry, and took pleasure in ignoring Confucian etiquette. Many intellectuals admired them and followed their example.
72. Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (1867–1928), Los cuatro jinetes del Apocalipsis (Valencia: Prometeo, 1916). See also Revelation 6:2–8.
73. Eating vinegar is a Chinese euphemism for jealousy, especially between lovers.
74. In Buddhism, acts of charity and compassion for living creatures help one achieve higher levels of spiritual attainment in future reincarnations.
75. In the 1946 edition, Qian explicitly mentions here William T. Preyer’s (1841–1897) Die Seele des Kindes (The Mind of the Child, 1882). Cut in the 1983 edition.
76. This phrase was added in the 1983 edition.
77. Qian specifies the French spelling, Cléopâtre, in the 1946 edition, which follows this sentence with: “Didn’t Old Uncle Lu say that during the Ming dynasty the empress and court ladies all loved having cats as pets?” Cut in the 1983 edition.
78. The 1946 edition has an additional sentence here: “At that moment he felt like a romantic youth committing suicide by swallowing sleeping pills, lacking the energy to save himself from certain death, but with enough lingering consciousness to reproach himself for having left this world too soon, resent everyone else for living on as if nothing had occurred, and anxiously wonder in vain what opinions or criticisms they had about his conduct.” Cut in the 1983 edition.
79. The 1946 edition has additional sentences here: “He had always detested Saturday afternoons and Sundays and envied his lucky classmates who got to spend this time in idle pursuits. Now he felt the loss of this day and a half of leisure even more acutely, like the raw gap left by a tooth that has fallen out.” Cut in the 1983 edition.
80. The 1946 edition reads: “Aimo looked at her husband and said . . .” Changed in the 1983 edition.
81. The two sentences that follow were added in the 1983 edition.
82. As a juedai jiaren (peerless beauty), Aimo is both a beauty “for time immemorial,” or to “end the ages” (juedai ), and an “heirless” (juedai ) beauty.
83. The 1946 edition has additional sentences here: “He knew what all romance led to, but he refused to admit that his love was the same as others’. ‘Maybe that’s all I’d want from other women, but that’d never be the case with her,’ he’d tell himself. This was the stage Yigu was at.” Cut in the 1983 edition.
84. The 1946 edition has an additional sentence here: “In contrast, the freshness of young girls struck him as abrasive.” Cut in the 1983 edition.
85. The 1946 edition has an additional sentence here: “He didn’t care about the future, having entrusted his entire being to an eternal present.” Cut in the 1983 edition.
86. The 1946 edition has three different sentences instead of this one: “When he thought of her his heart beat as if it would burst into blossom. While alone, he would find himself suddenly blushing. Whenever he heard her voice, his face, for no reason, would be covered in red like a World War II map of the world.” Cut in the 1983 edition.
87. The 1946 edition has an additional sentence here: “He became absurdly angry, thinking that Aimo shouldn’t cry—that no beautiful woman should cry.” Cut in the 1983 edition.
88. In the 1946 edition, the following sentences read: “Her wounded pride kept calling out for ‘revenge.’ Yigu saw her face harden with hatred. It was not a pretty sight. He realized that there would be no work today, and it was no fun watching someone else’s domestic dispute, so it would be better if he went home. He got up. ‘Mrs. Li . . . ,’ he began.”
89. The 1946 edition has an additional passage here: “If Yigu had been the type to speak impulsively and honestly, he would have said, ‘I’m deeply in love with you, but what happened just now made you less lovable.’ If Yigu had been of a more opportunistic disposition, he would have responded, ‘Do you love me?’ If Yigu had been too afraid to tell the truth, unwilling to lie, and also an old hand at dealing with women, he wouldn’t have said anything but simply taken Aimo in his arms and kissed her. Worried that lovers would run into problems if they said too much, or even bigger problems if they had no response to such queries, God created the kiss as a type of all-purpose expressive first aid. At times, it meant ‘That goes without saying’; at other times it meant ‘Don’t bring all that up again.’ In short, it meant �
�Actions speak louder than words.’ Unfortunately, Yigu didn’t know any of this and was taken aback . . .” Cut in the 1983 edition.
90. In the 1946 edition, the following sentences read: “Taoqi scurried in with a painful tail, and Yigu ran out to the street, filled with shame and anger. He didn’t even wait for Old Whitey to open the gate. ‘Big fool! Big fool!’ The words resounded in his head like the sound of rice being husked with mortar and pestle. The gentle spring breeze made his cheeks burn where he had been slapped.”
INSPIRATION
Translation adapted from Dennis T. Hu, trans., “The Inspiration, by Ch’ien Chung-shu,” in Modern Chinese Short Stories and Novellas, 1919–1949, ed. Joseph S. M. Lau, C. T. Hsia, and Leo Ou-fan Lee (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 418–34.
1. Fei Ming (literally, “abolished name”) was the pen name of Feng Wenbing (1901–1967), a fiction writer who emerged during the May Fourth period and specialized in pastoral lyricism.
2. Victor Marie Hugo (1802–1885).
3. Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863–1938).
4. In the 1946 edition, this sentence appears in parentheses: “(Regrettably, the ‘Sinologist’ had not yet begun his research on the semantics of Chinese, so this forceful essay had been written for nothing.)”
5. The 1946 edition has an additional sentence here: “There’s no chance that Heaven will be stocked with all these innovations of modern medicine.” Cut in the 1983 edition.
6. The 1946 edition has additional sentences here: “The playboy Don Juan boasted an unprecedented 2,594 mistresses, it’s true, but such an impressive record has got to be the result of unremitting efforts of a lifetime, plucking flowers and accumulating experience in illicit love. Taking seventy-two females all at once is something even Don Juan couldn’t have handled.” Cut in the 1983 edition.
7. In the 1946 edition, the mustache and beard are described as follows: “The growth was so black and thick that his mouth could scarcely be seen even when he spoke. The words that came out through this curly grove seemed somehow dyed with the color of that beard, every one of them dark. They also appeared to have grown hair of their own, brushing the listener’s ears until they itched.”
8. The 1946 edition has additional sentences here: “To get there you’ve got to keep going for quite a while yet. You see, the Eastern Hemisphere is where you’ve fallen from, sir. Despite the weight of your genius, you haven’t made it all the way through the earth, since the western half of the earth’s crust is fortified by those American skyscrapers, structures of steel and reinforced concrete. But your works have had a tremendous impact on the center of the earth, I’m sure, and San Francisco and other places like it may very well have experienced earthquakes of several minutes’ duration.” Cut in the 1983 edition.
9. In the 1946 edition, the paragraph finishes: “. . . came the bearded one’s quiet reply. The chill in his tone cooled the dark gloom of his words to the freezing point.”
10. In isolation, Zhongguo dichan gongsi would be more aptly translated as “China Real Estate Company”; in this story, however, the current rendering helps preserve some of the wordplay that follows.
11. The 1946 edition reads: “This is the only way we can avoid letting down those who make comparisons of Eastern and Western civilization or disrupting their pet theories.”
12. The 1946 edition has additional sentences here: “Anyway, you wanted to make me a roughneck, but I don’t feel myself one at all. Swollen and bloated sounds more like it, and maybe that was what you had in mind. I might as well have been soaked in water, I was so completely lacking in strength.” Cut from the 1983 edition.
13. The 1946 edition has an additional sentence here: “His only problem was that he was unfamiliar with the intricacies of Chinese tones as used in classical poetry; consequently, the verses he was capable of making up were not in quite as archaic a style as he would have liked.”
14. The 1946 edition has four different sentences instead of the following three: “For crying out loud, I should have known better! Having such a murderous pen, I should have used it to produce propaganda for the war against Japan. It could have rivaled the atom bomb! Why an autobiography, of all things?” Changed in the 1983 edition.
15. This term from Hegelian philosophy is used to explain the interaction between thesis and antithesis.
16. The 1946 edition has an additional sentence preceding this sentence: “The Writer had long since tossed all of his thread-bound volumes into the toilet.”
SOUVENIR
Translation adapted from Nathan K. Mao, trans., “Souvenir, by Ch’ien Chung-shu,” in Modern Chinese Short Stories and Novellas, 1919–1949, ed. Joseph S. M. Lau, C. T. Hsia, and Leo Ou-fan Lee (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 435–53.
1. Presumably, the city is Chongqing (Chunking), the Nationalists’ base during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945).
2. The Lantern Festival was held on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.
3. Qipao is a tight-fitting dress with a high mandarin collar and side slits.
4. In the 1946 edition, “modern women” put comfort first.
5. Heroic Sons and Daughters (Ernü yingxiong zhuan ) is a novel by Wen Kang (fl. 1821). Thirteenth Sister is among its major heroines.
6. Biaosao is polite title for an older cousin’s wife.
7. In the 1946 edition, Tianjian adds here: “—That’s right! On days I was off duty and came into town I had a place to stay. It was convenient to have friends by too.”
8. “Flower vase” was a belittling term for any female employee who did not type and who did little work but who looked pretty.
EDITIONS
The translations in this volume either are based on or have been revised to match the editions published in Fujian renmin chubanshe’s Compendium of Shanghai Literature from the War Period in 1983. Annotations in the endnotes call attention to differences between the 1983 editions and (1) the 1939 “Cold Room Jottings” editions of four Margins essays; (2) the 1941 Kaiming shuju edition of Margins; (3) the 1946 Kaiming shuju edition of Human; and (4) the 2001 Sanlian editions of both works. The generic numbered titles of the four “Cold Room Jottings” essays were changed when they were republished in the 1941 Kaiming edition.
WRITTEN IN THE MARGINS OF LIFE
1939. “Lengwu suibi zhi yi” (Cold Room Jottings No. 1). [“Lun wenren” .] Jinri pinglun (Criticism Today) (Kunming) 1, no. 3 (January 15).
1939. “Lengwu suibi zhi er” (Cold Room Jottings No. 2). [“Shi wenmang” .] Jinri pinglun 1, no. 6 (February 5).
1939. “Lengwu suibi zhi san” (Cold Room Jottings No. 3). [“Yige pianjian” .] Jinri pinglun 1, no. 14 (April 2).
1939. “Lengwu suibi zhi si” (Cold Room Jottings No. 4). [“Shuo xiao” .] Jinri pinglun 1, no. 22 (May 24).
1941. Xie zai rensheng bianshang (Written in the Margins of Life). Kaiming wenxue xinkan (Kaiming New Literature Series). Shanghai: Kaiming shudian. Reprinted in 1946, 1947, 1948.
1950. Xie zai rensheng bianshang. Hong Kong: Yixin shudian / Wenchang shuju. Reprinted in 1973.
1982. Xie zai rensheng bianshang. Zhongguo xiandai wenxue congshu (Modern Chinese Literature Compendium). Hong Kong: Wenjiao chubanshe.
1983. Xie zai rensheng bianshang. Shanghai kangzhan shiqi wenxue congshu, di er ji (Compendium of Shanghai Literature from the War Period, no. 2). Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe. Reprinted in the same compendium in a joint volume with Ren, shou, gui , Fuzhou: Haixia wenyi chubanshe, 1991.
1990. Xie zai rensheng bianshang. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe.
1990. Xie zai rensheng bianshang. Vol. 4 of Qian Zhongshu zuopinji (Collected Works of Qian Zhongshu). Taipei: Shulin chuban youxian gongsi.
2000. Xie zai rensheng bianshang. Shenyang: Liaoning renmin chubanshe / Liaohai chubanshe.
2001. Xie zai rensheng bianshang, Rensheng bianshang de bianshang, Shi yu (Written in the Margins of Life; In the Margins of the Margins of Life; Stone’s Words). Vo
l. 6 of Qian Zhongshu ji (The Qian Zhongshu Collection). Beijing: Sanlian shudian. Simplified character edition published in 2002 and reprinted in 2003, 2007.
HUMAN, BEAST, GHOST
1946. Ren, shou, gui (Human, Beast, Ghost). Shanghai: Kaiming shudian. Reprinted in 1947.
1971. Ren, shou, gui. Hong Kong: Wanyou tushu gongsi.
1982. Ren, shou, gui. Zhongguo xiandai wenxue congshu. Hong Kong: Wenjiao chubanshe.
1983. Ren, shou, gui. Shanghai kangzhan shiqi wenxue congshu. Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe.
1987. Ren, shou, gui. Xinzhuang, Taiwan: Fuxin shuju.
1999. Ren, shou, gui. Beijing: Zhongguo huaqiao. Based on the 1983 edition.
2001. Ren, shou, gui. Vol. 5 of Qian Zhongshu ji. Beijing: Sanlian shudian. Simplified character edition published in 2002 and reprinted in 2003, 2007.
JOINT EDITIONS
1987. Ren, shou, gui; fu: Xie zai rensheng bianshang (Human, Beast, Ghost; Addendum: Written in the Margins of Life). Xindian, Taiwan: Gufeng chubanshe.
1989. Xie zai rensheng bianshang. Vol. 3 of Qian Zhongshu zuopinji. Taipei: Shulin chuban gongsi. Includes Human.
1991. Ren, shou, gui; Xie zai rensheng bianshang. Shanghai kangzhan shiqi wenxue congshu. Fuzhou: Haixia wenyi chubanshe.
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