The Shadow’s Farewell
Lu Xun, 9/24/1924
Tr. Huiwen Zhang, 11/21/2012, updated 11/19/2014
When in sleep the time comes that man
no longer knows the time, there will be a shadow coming to bid farewell,
saying—
If there is that which I do not fancy
in Heaven, I am unwilling to go; if there is that which I do not fancy in Hell,
I am unwilling to go; if there is that which I do not fancy in your future
Golden World, I am unwilling to go.
Yet you are that which I do not fancy.
Friend, I no longer want to follow
you, I am unwilling to stay.
I am unwilling!
Woe World Woe World—I am unwilling, I would rather wander across the free-falling
ground.
I am but a
shadow, wanting to bid you farewell and drown in darkness. Yet darkness again
will engulf me, yet sunlight again will make me fade away.
Yet I am unwilling to wander between
light and dark, I would rather drown in darkness.
Yet I in the end wander between light
and dark; I know not whether it is dusk or dawn. I but raise an
ashen-black hand for now as if to empty a glass of wine. When the time comes
that I no longer know the time, I will venture far alone.
Woe World Woe World—if it were dusk, black night would surely come to drown me, or I
would be faded away by white day, if it were dawn.
Friend, the time is near.
I will dive into darkness and wander across
the free-falling ground.
You are still expecting my farewell
gift. What on earth can I bestow? Nothing, or the usual dark and
void, nothing more. But I want to be only the dark, so I may fade away in
your white day; I want to be only the void, so I shall never occupy the ground
of your heart.
I want it this way, friend—
I am venturing far alone, neither with
you, nor with other shadows in darkness. Only I am drowned in darkness;
the world wholly belongs to me.
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