雙語故事:朱德《母親的回憶》

朱德《母親的回憶》

得到母親去世的消息，我很悲痛。我愛我母親，特別是她勤勞一生，很多事情是值得我永遠回憶的。

I was deeply grieved to learn of mother’s death. I love my mother. Of her hardworking life, in particular, a great many things will forever be cherished in my memory.

我家是佃農，祖籍廣東韶關籍人，在“湖廣填四川”時遷移四川儀隴縣馬鞍場。世代爲地主耕種，家境是貧苦的，和我們來往的朋友也都是老老實實的貧苦農民。

I come from a tenant farmer’s family. My original family home was Shao Guan, Guangdong Province, into which my ancestors had moved from another province as settlers. During the mass migration of peasants from Huguang to Sichuan Province, my ancestors moved to Ma An Chang, Yi Long County, Sichuan. From generation to generation, they tilled land for landlord only to eke out a bare subsistence. People who associated with them as friends were likewise honest impoverished peasants.

母親一共生了十三個兒女，因爲家境貧窮，無法全部養活，只留下八個，以後再生下的被迫溺死了。這在母親心裏是多麼悲痛、悲哀和無可奈何的事啊！母親把八個孩子一手養大成人。可是她的時間大半給家務和耕種佔去了，沒法多照顧孩子，只好讓孩子們在地裏爬着。

Mother gave birth to thirteen children in all. But only the first eight of them survived while the next five were drowned at birth by my parents against their will because they were too poor to raise them all. How anguished, sad and helpless mother must have felt! She did manage, however, to have the eight children brought up all by herself. But she was too busily occupied with household chores and farming to look after the kids so that they were left alone crawling about in the fields.

母親是個“好勞動”。從我能記憶時起，總是天不亮就起牀。全家二十口人，婦女輪班煮飯，輪到就煮一年。母親把飯煮了，還要種田種菜，餵豬養蠶，紡棉花。因爲她身材高大結實，還能挑水挑糞。

Mother was a hardworking woman. As far as I can remember, she would always get up before daybreak. In our household of more than twenty members, all women would take turns to do cooking for one year. Apart from cooking, mother did farming, planted vegetables, fed pigs, raised silkworms and spun cotton into yarn. Tall and of strong build, she could carry two buckets of water or manure on a shoulder pole.

母親這樣地整日勞碌着，我們到四五歲時就很自然地在旁邊幫她的忙，到八九歲時就不單能挑能背，還會種地了。記得那時我從學堂回家，母親總在竈上汗流滿面地燒飯，我就悄悄把書本一放，挑水或放牛去了。有的季節裏，我上午讀書下午種地，一到農忙便整月停在地裏跟着母親勞動。這個時期母親教給我許多生產知識。

Mother worked hard from dawn till dusk. When we kids were four or five years old, we found ourselves automatically helping her with farm work. At the age of eight or nine, I could not only carry heavy loads on a shoulder pole or on my back, but also knew how to farm the land. I remember whenever I came back from school and saw mother busy cooking in the kitchen with sweat streaming down her face, I would immediately lay down my books and sneak out to carry water on a shoulder pole or graze the cattle. In some seasons, I would study in the morning and work in the fields in the afternoon. During the busy season, I would spend all day working by the side of mother. It was then that she taught me a lot about the knack of farming.

佃農家庭的生活自然是很苦的。可是由於母親的聰明能幹，卻很舒服。我們把桐子榨油來點燈。吃的是豌豆飯，菜花，紅薯飯，雜糧飯，把菜籽榨出的油放在飯裏做調料，這種地主富人家看也不看的飯食，母親卻能做得使一家吃起來有滋味。趕上豐年，才能縫上一些新衣服，衣服也是自己生產出來的。母親親手紡出線，請人織成布，染了顏色，我們叫做“家織布”，有銅錢那樣厚，一套衣服老大穿過了，老二老三接下來穿還穿不爛。

The life of a tenant farmer’s family was of course hard, but we somehow managed to scrape along because mother was a clever and able woman. We used oil squeezed from seeds of tung trees to light our lamps. We ate rice cooked with peas, vegetables, sweet potatoes or coarse grain, and all seasoned with rapeseed oil—food which landlords and rich people would scorn to eat. Nevertheless, mother’s cooking was done so well that everybody ate with gusto. Only in good year, could we afford to have some home-made new clothes to wear. Mother would spin cotton into yarn and then asked somebody to have it woven into fabric and dyed. We called it “home spun fabric”. It was as thick as copper coin and was so durable that after the eldest brother had grown out of the home-spun garment, it could still be used by the second and third brothers in turn without being worn out.

勞動的家庭是有規律有組織的。我的祖父是一箇中國標本式的農民，到了八九十歲還非耕田不可，不耕田就會害病，直到臨死前不久還在地裏勞動。祖母是家庭的組織者，一切生產事務由她管理分派。每年除夕，分派好一年的工作以後，天還沒亮，母親就第一個起牀燒火做飯去了，接着聽見祖父起來的聲音，接着大家都離開牀鋪，餵豬的餵養豬，砍柴的砍柴，挑水的挑水。母親在家庭裏極能夠任勞任怨，她和藹的性格使她從來沒有打罵過我們上次，而且也沒有和任何人炒過架。因此,雖在這樣的大家庭裏，長幼叔伯妯娌相處都很和睦。母親同情貧苦的人——這是她樸素的階級意識——雖然自己不富裕，還賙濟和照顧比自己更窮的親戚。她自己是很節省的。父親有時吸點大煙，喝點酒，母親管束着我們，不允許我們沾染上一點。母親那種勞動簡樸的習慣，母親那種寬厚仁慈的態度，至今還在我心中留有深刻的印象。

It was characteristic of an industrious household to be well-regulated and well- organized. My grandfather was a typical Chinese farmer. He went on doing farm work even he was an octogenarian. He would feel unwell without doing farm labour. He was found still working on the farm even shortly before his death. Grandmother was the organizer of the household. She was in charge of all the farm affairs, assigning tasks to each member of the household. On each New Year’s Eve, she would work out all job assignments for the coming year. Mother would be the first to get up before daybreak. Soon grandfather would be heard to rise from his bed, followed by the rest of the household. Some went about feeding pigs, some cutting firewood, and some carrying water on a shoulder pole. Mother always worked without complaint despite hardships. Amiable by nature, she never beat or scolded us, le alone quarreled with anybody. Consequently, large as it was, the whole household, old and young, uncles and sisters-in-law, lived in perfect harmony. Out of her naive class consciousness, she showed sympathy for the poor. Despite her own straitened circumstances, she often went out of her way to help out those relatives who were even more needy than herself. She lived a very frugal life. Father would occasionally smoke a long-stemmed Chinese pipe or drink some wine. To prevent us from falling into the same habit, mother kept us children under strict control. Her diligence and frugality, her generosity and kindheartedness—all have left a lasting impression on my mind.

但是災難不因爲中國農民的和平就不能降臨到他們的身上。庚子（一九〇九年）前後，四川連年旱災，很多農民飢餓破產。農民不得不成羣結隊去“吃大戶”。我親眼見到六七百著得破破爛爛的農民和他們的妻子兒女，被所謂“官兵”一陣兇殺毒打，血濺四五十里，哭聲動天。在這樣的年月裏，我家也遭受更多的困難，僅僅吃些小菜葉，高粱，通年沒有吃過白米。特別是甲辰（一九〇四）那一年，地主欺壓佃戶，要在租種地上加租子，因爲辦不到，就趁大年除夕，威脅着我家要退佃，逼着我們搬家。在悲慘的情況下，我們一家人都哭泣着連夜分散。從此我家被迫分兩處住下，人手少了，又遭天災，莊稼沒有收成，這是我家最悲慘的一次遭遇。母親沒有灰心，她對窮苦農民的同情，和對爲富不仁者的反感卻更加強烈了。母親沉痛的三言兩語的訴說，以及我親眼看見到的許多不平事實，啓發了我幼年時期反抗壓迫追求光明的思想，使我決心尋找新的生活。

Chinese peasants were honest and peaceable, but disaster befell them just the same. Around 1900, when Sichuan Province was hit by successive years of drought, numerous poverty-stricken peasants went hungry and had to go out in crowds to seize food from the homes of landlords. Thereupon I saw with my own eyes how a group of shabbily-dressed peasants and their families were savagely beaten up or slain by government troops, the road stained with their blood for some 40 li and their cries rending the air. In those days, my family also met with increasing difficulties. All the year round, we went without rice to eat, and simply lived on edible wild hers and kaoliang. In 1904, especially, when land- lords, riding roughshod over tenants, pressed for higher rents on the let-out pieces of land, we, unable to meet their demands, had our tenancy cancelled by them and were forced to move house on New Year’s Eve. On that miserable night, my family tearfully separated and thenceforth had to live in two different places. Shorthandedness and crop failure due to the natural calamity brought misfortune on my family. Mother, however, did not lose heart. Adversity had deepened her sympathy for the poor and needy as well as her aversion to the heartless rich. The painful complaint she had uttered in one or two words and the innumerable injustice I had witnessed aroused in me a spirit of revolt and a desire for a bright future. I made up my mind to seek a new life.

我不久就離開母親，因爲我讀了書。我是一佃農家庭的子弟，本來是沒錢讀書的。那時鄉間豪紳地主的欺壓，衙門差役的橫蠻，逼得母親和父親決心要節衣縮食培養出一個讀書人來“支撐門戶”。我念過私塾，光緒三十一年（一九〇五）考了科舉，以後又到更遠的順慶和成都去讀書。這個時期的學費，都是東挪西借來的，總共用了二百多塊錢，直到我後來在護國軍旅長時才還清。
Not long afterwards, I had to tear myself away from mother when I began my schooling. As the son of a tenant, I of course could not afford to go to school. My parents, however, faced with the bullying and oppression of the local evil gentry, landlords and yamen bailiffs, decided to scrape up enough money by living a very frugal life to pay for my education so that they could make a scholar of me for the family to keep up appearances. At first I was sent to an old-style private school and in 1905 I took the imperial examination. Later, I went farther away from home to study in Shunqing and Chengdu, both in Sichuan Province. All the tuition fees were paid with borrowed money, totaling more than 200 silver dollars. The debt was not repaid until later I became a brigade commander of the Hu Guo Army.

光緒三十四年（一九〇八），我從成都回來，在儀隴縣辦高等小學，一年回家二三次去看母親。那時新舊思想衝突很厲害，我們抱了科學民主的思想想在家鄉做點事情，守舊的豪紳們便出來反對我們。我下決心瞞着慈愛的母親脫離家鄉，遠走雲南參加了新軍和同盟會。我到雲南後，從家信中知道，我母親對我這一舉動不但不反對，還給我許多慰勉。
In 1908, I came back from Chengdu to set up a higher primary school in Yi Long County. While teaching school, I went home to see mother two or three times a year, in those days, there was a sharp conflict between old and new ideologies. Due to our leaning towards science and democracy, we met with opposition from the local conservative influential gentry in whatever we attempted for the benefit of our home town. So I decided to leave, without my mother’s knowledge, for the faraway province of Yunnan, where I joined the New Army and Tongmenhui. On my arrival in Yunnan, I learned from my home letters that mother, instead of frowning upon my new move, gave me a lot of encouragement and comfort.

從宣統元年（一九〇九）到現在，我再沒有回過家一次，只在民國十年（一九二一年），我曾經把父親和母親接出去產，但是他倆勞動慣了，離開土地就不舒服，所以還是回了家，父親就在回家途中死了，母親回家繼續勞動一直到最後。
From 1909 up to now, I have never paid a visit to my home town. In 1921, however, I had my parents come out to live with me. But, as confirmed farm labourers, they felt unwell without land to till and subsequently had to return home. Father died on the way back, and mother continued to do farm work at home to the very last.

中國革命繼續向前發展，我的思想也繼續的向前進步。當我發現中國革命的正確道路時，我便加入了中國共產黨。大革命失敗了，我和家庭完全隔絕了。母親就靠那三十畝地獨立支持一家人生活。抗戰以後，我才能和家裏通信。母親知道我們所做事業，她期望着中國民族解放的成功。她知道我們黨的困難，依然在家裏過着勞苦的農婦生活。七年中間，我曾寄回幾百元錢和幾張自己的照片給母親。母親年老了，但她永遠想念着我，如同我永遠想念着她一樣。去年收到侄兒的來信說：“祖母今年已八十有五，精神不如咋年之健康，飲食起居亦不如前，甚望見你一面，聊敘別後情景。……”但我獻身於民族抗戰事業，竟未能報答母親的希望。
As the Chinese revolution continued to develop, I became more and more politically aware. I joined the Chinese Communist party as soon as I discovered the correct orientation of the Chinese revolution. When the Great Revolution of 1924-1927 failed in China, I completely lost contact with my family. Mother alone supported the whole family by working on the 30 mu of land. I did not hear from her until the outbreak of the War of Resistance to Japan. When she was informed of great cause in which I was engaged, she eagerly looked forward to the success of China’s national liberation. While living the hard life of a peasant woman at home, she was aware of the difficulties and hardships that our Party was then undergoing. During the seven years after the outbreak of the War, I managed to send her several hundred yuan and some photos of myself. Mother was getting old. She was always thinking of me as I was of her. Last year, a letter from my nephew says, “Grandma is 85. She’s eager to see you and chat about things that have happened since you left home…” But I never lived up to her expectation because of my dedication to the cause of the War of Resistance against Japan.

母親最大的特點，是一生不曾脫離過勞動。母親生我前一分鐘還在竈上煮飯。雖到老年，仍然熱愛生產。去年另一封外甥的家信中說：“外祖母大人因年老關係，近年不比往年健康，但仍不綴勞作，尤喜紡棉。……”
The most prominent characteristic of mother was her lifelong participation in physical labour. She did cooking in the kitchen just one minute before giving birth to me. Her ardent love for agricultural production remained undiminished even in her old age. My nephew says in another letter to me last year, “because of old age, grandma is no longer in good health, but she still does manual labour, and is particularly fond of spinning cotton into yarn…”

我應該感謝母親，她教給我與困難作鬥爭的經驗，我在家庭生活中已經飽嘗艱苦，這使我在三十多年的軍事生活和革命生活中，再沒有感到困難和被困難嚇倒。母親又給我一個強健的身體和一個勞動的習慣，使我從來沒有感到過勞累。
I owe mother a debt of gratitude because she taught me how to cope with the numerous difficulties that I ran into at home so that later during my over 30 years of military and revolutionary life I have never bowed down to any difficulty. She also bequeathed me a strong constitution as well as a strong inclination for labour so that I have been able to work untiringly.

我應該感謝母親，她教給我生產的知識和革命的意志，鼓勵我走上以後的革命道路，在這條路上我一天比一天更加認識了：只有這種知識，這種意志，纔是世界上最可寶貴的財產。
I owe mother s debt of gratitude because she imparted to me knowledge of productive labour and a revolutionary will, thus enabling me to take to the revolutionary path. By keeping to this path, I have come to realize more and more clearly that this knowledge of productive labour and this revolutionary will are the most valuable assets in the world.

母親現在離我而去了，我將永不能再見她一面了，這個悲哀是無法補救的。母親是一個“平凡”的人，她只是中國千百萬勞動人民中的一員，但是正是這千百萬人創造了和創造着中國的歷史。我用什麼方法來報答母親的深恩呢？我將繼續盡忠於我們的民族和人民，盡忠於我們的民族和人民的希望——中國共產黨，使和母親同樣生活着的人能夠過一個快樂的生活，這就是我所能做的和我一定做的。
Mother is gone and I shall never see her again. This is an ever-lasting sorrow. Mother is an “ordinary” person and one of the millions of labouring people who have made and are still making Chinese history. What can I do to repay her my debt of deep gratitude? I swear to remain ever loyal to our nation and the people, ever loyal to the Chinese Communist Party—the hope of our nation and the people, so that all those who share the same lot with my mother may live a happier life. That is what I can do and what I am certainly able to do.

願母親在地下安息！
May mother rest in peace!