Dead Fire

Dead Fire

Lu Xun, 4/23/1925

Tr. Huiwen Zhang, 11/21/2010; update Nov. 2014

I dream of myself running across an ice mountain.

It was a huge ice mountain, growing straight upward into the ice sky; frozen clouds spread across the sky, curtain over curtain like fish scales.  At the foot of the mountain there was an ice forest, whose branches and leaves resembled the pine and fir.  All was ice-cold, all was green-pale.

But I suddenly tumbled into an ice valley.

All around, above and below, there was nothing that was not ice-cold and green-pale.  Yet over all the green-pale ice lay countless red shadows, densely interlaced like a web of coral.  As I looked beneath my feet I saw a flame.

It was a dead fire, possessing a fiery shape, yet totally still and frozen like a coral branch.  At the tip there was congealed dark smoke, as if the dead fire had just fled from a blazing house, hence fresh burnt.  So, casting reflections upon the ice walls that reflected them endlessly back and forth, the dead fire had become countless shadows, turning the ice valley into red coral.

Ha-ha!

As a child, I loved to watch the wave flowers stirred up by naval ships or the fierce flames spurted by their furnaces.  Not only did I love to watch them, but I desired to watch them closely.  What a pity that they all kept changing continuously, unable to retain a firm shape.  As hard and often as I gazed, I could never catch a firm image.

Dead flame, now at last I’ve just caught you!

I picked up the dead fire and wanted to watch it closely, yet its iciness already burnt my fingers; I endured the pain nonetheless and thrust it into my pocket.  All at once the entire ice valley turned green-pale, while I was pondering a way out.

A roll of dark smoke sprang out of my body, ascending like an iron thread snake. All at once red flames flew across the ice valley anew, girdling me like a tremendous conflagration.  As I looked down I saw the dead fire already burning through my clothes and flowing upon the ice ground.

“Ah, my friend!  You’ve woken me up with your warmth,” he said.

I immediately responded and asked his name.

“I was abandoned a long time ago in this ice valley,” he said, neglecting my question.  “The one who abandoned me has died and vanished long since.  But I too was frozen by the ice almost to death.  Had you not warmed me and made me burn anew, I would soon have died.”

“Your waking delights me.  I was just pondering the way out of this ice valley; I’d like to take you with me so that you shall never freeze but go on burning forever.”

“Alas!  Then I would burn out!”

“Your burning out would sadden me.  I’d rather leave you here; you’d better stay.”

“Alas!  Then I would freeze to death.”

“Then what to do?”

“But what to do yourself?” he asked back.

“I said it already: I am willing to leave this ice valley…”

“Then I’d better burn out!”

He then abruptly leapt up like a red comet, accompanying me out of the mouth of the ice valley.  However, a huge stone cart suddenly drove up.  After all I was crushed to death under its wheels; nonetheless I was still able to see it careen into the ice valley.

“Ha-ha!  You shall never meet the dead fire again!”  I laughed triumphantly, as if I had wanted it just that way.