雙語散文|朱 德——母親的回憶
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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(yuǎn)回憶的。我家是佃農(nóng)，祖籍廣東韶關(guān)客籍人，在“湖廣填四川”時遷移四川儀隴縣馬鞍場。世代為地主耕種，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(nóng)民。
母親一共生了十三個兒女，因為家境貧窮，無法全部養(yǎng)活，只留下八個，以后再生下的被迫溺死了。這在母親心里是多么慘痛、悲哀和無可奈何的事啊！母親把八個孩子一手養(yǎng)大成人?？墒撬臅r間大半給家務(wù)和耕種占去了，沒法多照顧孩子，只好讓孩子們在地里爬著。
母親是個“好勞動”。從我能記憶時起，總是天不亮就起床。全家二十口人，婦女們輪班煮飯，輪到就煮一年。母親把飯煮了，還要種田種菜，喂豬養(yǎng)蠶，紡棉花。因為她身材高大結(jié)實，還能挑水挑糞。
母親這樣地整日勞碌著，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(xué)堂回家，母親總在灶上汗流滿面地?zé)垼揖颓那陌褧疽环?，挑水或放牛去了。有的季?jié)里，我上午讀書下午種地，一到農(nóng)忙便整月停在地里跟著母親勞動。這個時期母親教給我許多生產(chǎn)知識。
佃農(nóng)家庭的生活自然是很苦的?？墒怯捎谀赣H的聰明能干，卻很舒服。我們把桐子榨油來點燈。吃的是豌豆飯，菜飯，紅薯飯，雜糧飯，把菜籽榨出的油放在飯里做調(diào)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(chǎn)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。
勞動的家庭是有規(guī)律有組織的。我的祖父是一個中國標(biāo)本式的農(nóng)民，到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里勞動。祖母是家庭的組織者，一切生產(chǎn)事務(wù)由她管理分派。每年除夕，分派好一年的工作以后，天還沒亮，母親就第一個起身燒火做飯去了，接著聽見祖父起來的聲音，接著大家都離開床鋪，喂豬的喂豬，砍柴的砍柴，挑水的挑水。母親在家庭里極能夠任勞任怨，她的和藹的性格使她從沒有打罵過我們一次，而且也沒有和任何人吵過架。因此，雖在這樣的大家庭里，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，還周濟(jì)和照顧比自己更窮的親戚。她自己是很節(jié)省的。父親有時吸點旱煙，喝點酒，母親管束著我們，不允許我們沾染上一點。母親那種勞動簡樸的習(xí)慣，母親那種寬厚仁慈的態(tài)度，至今還在我心中留有深刻的印象。
但是災(zāi)難不因為中國農(nóng)民的和平就不降臨到他們的身上。庚子年（一九○○）前后，四川連年旱災(zāi)，很多農(nóng)民饑餓破產(chǎn)。農(nóng)民不得不成群結(jié)隊去“吃大戶”。我親眼見到六七百著得破破爛爛的農(nóng)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。在這樣的年月里，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○四）那一年，地主欺壓佃戶，要在租種地上加租子，因為辦不到，就趁大年除夕，威脅著我家要退佃，逼著我們搬家。在悲慘的情況下，我們一家人都哭泣著連夜分散。從此我家被迫分兩處住下，人手少了，又遭天災(zāi)，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(nóng)民的同情，和對為富不仁者的反感卻更加強(qiáng)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，啟發(fā)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。
我不久就離開了母親，因為我讀了書。我是一個佃農(nóng)家庭的子弟，本來是沒錢讀書的。那時鄉(xiāng)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(jié)衣縮食培養(yǎng)出一個讀書人來“支撐門戶”。我念過私塾，光緒三十一年（一九○五）考了科舉，以后又到更遠(yuǎn)的順慶和成都去讀書。這個時期的學(xué)費，都是東挪西借來的，總共用了二百多塊錢，直到我后來在當(dāng)護(hù)國軍旅長時才還清。
光緒三十四年（一九○八），我從成都回來，在儀隴縣辦高等小學(xué)，一年回家二三次去看母親。那時新舊思想沖突很厲害，我們抱了科學(xué)民主的思想想在家鄉(xiāng)做點事情，守舊的豪紳們便出來反對我們。我下決心瞞著慈愛的母親脫離家鄉(xiāng)，遠(yuǎn)走云南參加了新軍和同盟會。我到云南后，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。
從宣統(tǒng)元年（一九○九）到現(xiàn)在，我再沒有回過家一次，只在民國十年（一九二一），我曾經(jīng)把父親和母親接出去，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(xù)勞動一直到最后。
中國革命繼續(xù)向前發(fā)展，我的思想也繼續(xù)的向前進(jìn)步。當(dāng)我發(fā)現(xiàn)中國革命的正確道路時，我便加入了中國共產(chǎn)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?？箲?zhàn)以后，我才能和家里通信。母親知道我們所做的事業(yè)，她期望著中國民族解放的成功。她知道我們黨的困難，依然在家里過著勞苦的農(nóng)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(yuǎn)想念著我，如同我永遠(yuǎn)想念著她一樣。去年收到侄兒的來信說“祖母今年已八十有五，精神不如昨年之健康，飲食起居亦不如前，甚望見你一面，聊敘別后情景。……”但我獻(xiàn)身于民族抗戰(zhàn)事業(yè)，竟未能報答母親的希望。
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灶上煮飯。雖到老年，仍然熱愛生產(chǎn)。去年另一封外甥的家信中說：“外祖母大人因年老關(guān)系，近年不比往年健康，但仍不輟勞作，尤喜紡棉。……”
我應(yīng)該感謝母親，她教給我與困難作斗爭的經(jīng)驗，我在家庭生活中已經(jīng)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(qiáng)健的身體和一個勞動的習(xí)慣，使我從來沒有感到過勞累。
我應(yīng)該感謝母親，她教給了我生產(chǎn)的知識和革命的意志，鼓勵我走上以后的革命道路，在這條路上我一天比一天更加認(rèn)識了：只有這種知識，這種意志，才是世界上最可寶貴的財產(chǎn)。
母親現(xiàn)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(bǔ)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(chuàng)造了和創(chuàng)造著中國的歷史。我用什么方法來報答母親的深恩呢？我將繼續(xù)盡忠于我們的民族和人民，盡忠于我們的民族和人民的希望——中國共產(chǎn)黨，使和母親同樣生活著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。
愿母親在地下安息！
Loving Memories of Mother
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.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 landlords only to eke out a bare subsistence. People who associated with them as friends were likewise honest impoverished peasants.
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.
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 spinned cotton into yarn. Tall and of strong build, she could carry two buckets of water or manure on a shoulder pole.
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.
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 a good year, could we afford to have some homemade 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 a 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.
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 when 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 new 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, let 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.
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 herbs and kaoliang. In 1904, especially, when landlords, riding rough shod 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 injustices 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.
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, totalling more than 200 silver dollars. The debt was not repaid until later I became a brigade commander of the Hu Guo Army.
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 Armyand 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.
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 laborers, 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.
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 the 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 no longer as vigorous and healthy as before. She's eager to see you and chat about things that have happened since you left home..." But I never lived up to her expectations because of my dedication to the cause of the War of Resistance Against Japan.
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..."
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.
I owe mother a 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.
Mother is gone and I shall never see her again. This is an everlasting 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.
May mother rest in peace!
《母親的回憶》出自當(dāng)代偉人朱德（1886—1976）之手，1944年4月5日發(fā)表在《解放日報》上。文章就母子之情，侃侃談心，感情真摯，語言平實簡約。
