At this, everyone began tsk-tsk-ing in unison.
‘‘Why did she become like this?’’ they said. ‘‘Isn’t it too much? She has too high an estimation of her significance. She certainly didn’t need to change. It would have been better if she had stayed the way she was.’’
After Madam X’s third major change occurred, someone intercepted her husband on the road and forced a conversation on him. Now we’ll make the conversation public. (At the time the one who intercepted him had his face covered, and afterwards he still didn’t want to reveal his name for fear of getting entangled in all of this. We’ll call him Mr. X.)
Mr. X: Wait up! Let me ask you something: What do you think about your wife’s third major change?
X’s husband: What’s ‘‘the third major change’’? Sorry, I haven’t taken part in your civic activities for a long time. I’m afraid you’d drag me off to have my picture taken. I think everyone goes through some changes during a lifetime. One can’t be the same day after day, and it’s even possible to change four or five times in a day. It’s best if each person pays attention to whether or not his eyes are diseased or inflamed and doesn’t butt into other people’s business. If a person gets into other people’s business too much and neglects himself, he might go blind. The concern all of you have for us touches us in our hearts, but don’t neglect yourselves for the sake of this and come down with a fatal disease.
Mr. X: Why did she stop carrying on her occult activities?
X’s husband (sternly): She’s observing the stars. (Rhetorical question:) Have you paid attention to your eyeballs? You must be careful! Without your being aware of it, a viral infection can create a nasty crisis for a person. One person was still fine in the morning, but by noon he was completely blind. Now my wife has invented a better method (he was bursting with pride): she can create constellations out of thin air. (At once, he was on guard again:) What am I doing telling you about this? Leave me alone!!!
After this conversation became public, everyone understood what it was about. Containing their inner excitement, they strolled around under the eaves, poking each other and quickly exchanging knowing looks. They were smiling all day long. Ms. B shuttled back and forth under the eaves, exhorting everyone to ‘‘hush,’’ ‘‘stop walking around, and sit up straight against the wall.’’
What was it that they knew?
During this time, Madam X was still going about her routine work in the snack shop with her husband. At dusk every day, they still went walking together. It’s just that they walked for a much longer time-about half the time of her ‘‘dispel boredom’’ activities. Sometimes, they walked without talking at all. Their son, Little Bao, was asleep on his father’s shoulders. Despite following along a number of times, the people on Five Spice Street didn’t learn anything. Those two were just strolling blindly, like two silent souls. This made the people following them stamp their feet in fury.
When they were taking a walk, we frequently heard the woman sigh loudly. She deliberately acted afraid of the cold and leaned close to her husband as she said loudly, ‘‘I feel there’s an evil wind blowing. Aren’t you aware of this? It’s blowing so hard that my bones ache. Should we go back?’’ Her husband was enjoying his moment of glory: all the people on the street were craning their necks to look at them. He kept placating his wife-there isn’t any wind, she could look up and see that even the leaves weren’t moving at all. If there’d been any wind, there wasn’t any now. It felt so good to take a walk at dusk: if it were possible, he would only too happily walk with her for a lifetime. That would be wonderful! That would explain the problem so well! (God only knew what problem it would explain; anyhow, this husband was a little idiotic.-The writer.) Madam X looked at her husband affectionately and said, ‘‘Then let’s walk a little farther. There’s no one here; it’s absolutely deserted.’’ Madam X was good at this kind of show. Whenever everyone was paying more attention to her, she would surprise you by announcing that she didn’t see anyone. She did this to show how special and how important she was to the crowds. But if other people actually weren’t noticing her and each person was simply going about his own business, this was incredibly hard for her to bear. She couldn’t endure loneliness: she would strike up conversations with people everywhere, lest others ignore her. Unfortunately, all of us had a bad habit: sometimes, we couldn’t keep calm. We looked all around, and-in insignificant people and events-we looked forward to finding a little something that was exciting. It was as though we didn’t have anything better to do but be drawn to those people and things. We were flushed and full of desire; it was just like falling in love. This was the worst failing that certain people among us had.
Sure, there were some exceptions to this. For example, the widow and her forty-eight-year-old friend. Their behavior was entirely different. They sat erect, and from beginning to end they looked at the clouds on the horizon. They looked melancholy and refused to listen. That’s to say that they didn’t listen to any of the weird things Madam X said. They could hang on to their mature femininity. If everyone had the same fine character they did, there’d have been no market for Madam X’s schemes. In the midst of boredom, she certainly would also be dejected and would be thinking about ending this show. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the reality, and unfortunately, a lot of us unwittingly catered to her abnormal desires and showed great interest in her baffling pretense at profundity, so she was able to make use of our moods to be so defiant. The more attention people gave her, the more anxious she was to show that she looked down on them. As time went on, this had become a Pavlovian response. And from this she reaped unimaginable joy. Our widow was the first to see through this. She had gone to great lengths to educate these guys who refused to come to their senses. She kept advising them on the basis of her own experience and even impatiently slapped a certain person several times. But these congenitally lazy men kept walking toward the corner: they seemed to be incurable. Anytime Madam X and her family appeared next to the road, they couldn’t help craning their necks to watch and listen attentively. It was as if they were deluded.
The widow and others weren’t strong enough to change reality. All they could do was stay out of this stream of people and sit there with straight faces to show they were different. Clear-sighted people could see the polarization in the ranks and the disagreement in strategy. Although everyone felt the same-that is, they were opposed to X and her family-because of theoretical differences and intellectual disputes, victory became less and less possible. Most of their energy went into the internal struggle. It seemed that this kind of situation wouldn’t change in the near future. Thus, the enemy was able to take advantage of this opening and walk around freely, spouting evil and being very aggressive. Seeing the intrigues that went on day in and day out, the widow was anxious. Every day when it was time for cooling off outside, she was as jittery as an ant on a hot pot as she called together her faction and formed a close charmed circle of these people. They all whispered to one another. The radical faction suggested throwing stones to force those three people ‘‘to go home.’’ The more conservative faction suggested ‘‘temporarily suspending the cooling-off-outside movement’’ so that everyone would be in his or her own home at that time and the street would be deserted. If Madam X and her family still went out walking, fine; if she shouted something like ‘‘there’s not one person here,’’ fine. Anyhow, no one would be able to hear her. After two or three times, they would decide this wasn’t interesting, and they would naturally end their performances.