An Autumn Night

◎ Lu Xun

From my backyard, I can see two trees beyond the wall - one is a date tree, and the other, also a date tree.

The night sky above the yard looks alien and high - so alien and so high that I have never seen anything like it．It looks as if it were pulling away from this world so that nobody can see the sky anymore when looking up．But it is very blue at the moment, and flashing in it are dozens of stars that look like eyes - cold eyes．At the corner of its mouth, it wears a smile, which seems to reveal a self-flattering inwardness, as it spreads its heavy frost over the plants and weeds in my yard.

I do not know the official names of the plants in the yard, nor do I know their common names, but I still remember that tiny pink flower, now still in bloom, but tinier．She huddles in the chilly night air, and dreams．She dreams of the arrival of spring, of the arrival of autumn, and of a skinny poet who sheds his tears on the last of her petals, telling her that after autumn and winter, it will be spring again, when the butterflies will dance here and there and the honeybees will sing vernal lyrics．That makes her smile．Although huddling in the freezing cold, she turns pitifully red.

As for the date trees, they have lost all their leaves．Earlier, they saw one or two children come to knock from them the dates left behind by others, but now, none of the dates is left, and none of the leaves is even left．They know about the dream of the tiny pink flower - after autumn, it will be spring; they also know about the dream of the fallen leaves - after spring, it will be autumn．They have simply lost all their leaves, so only their bare branches remain．After recovering from the bending position earlier, when they were laden with dates and leaves, they now enjoy a comfortable stretch．But a few of the branches remain curved downward, to protect the bruises inflicted by the date-knocking rods, while the straightest and longest of the branches, like silent iron, have already pointed themselves directly toward the high and alien sky, making it flash like a ghost, and directly toward the full-orbed moon, making it look embarrassingly pale.

The sky with the ghostly flashing eyes is now far bluer．It looks uneasy and as if it wants to pull away from this world, escaping from the pointing of the date trees, only to leave the moon behind．But the moon has also snuck to the east corner．Only the branches of the date trees that have nothing left on them are still pointing, like silent iron, directly toward the high and alien sky, as if they are determined to prod it to death, ignoring its various wicked, flashing eyes.

“Caw -！”With a screech, an evil nocturnal raven flies past.

Suddenly, in the dead of night, a laugh tickles my ears, in such a tittering voice that it seems reluctant to wake the sleeping people, but the air all around seems to laugh in response．I immediately recognize that the laughter comes from my own mouth, because nobody else is around at such a late hour, and driven by it, I immediately return to my room．Once I am in, I immediately turn up the kerosene burner.

There are tinkling noises on the glass of the rear window, as many tiny flying insects strike against it．Before long, a few of them get in, perhaps through the holes in the window’s paper panel．Once they are in, they begin to go for the chimney of the glass lamp, making more tinkling noises．One of them has gotten into the chimney, and has therefore come into contact with the flame - I believe that it is a real flame．About two or three of them recline on the paper lampshade to catch their breath．That lampshade is a replacement made last night, with snow-white paper folded into a wave-like pattern and a spray of scarlet-colored gardenia painted on one of its corners.

When the scarlet gardenia blooms, the date trees will dream the dream of the tiny pink flower, and will bend down like green onions … I begin to hear the midnight laughter again, but immediately interrupt my thoughts so that I can watch the little green insects, each the size of half a grain of wheat, with big heads and small tails shaped like sunflower seeds, scuffling on the white paper lampshade．Their entire bodies are adorably and pitifully green.

I yawn, light a cigarette, and puff out the smoke．Looking at the burner silently, I begin to pay my respect to these verdant and exquisite heroes and heroines.