‘‘Just then, Old Meng grabbed the writer’s other hand and began shouting that the writer ought, in good ‘conscience,’ to make a historical record of the housing issue, and mustn’t ‘forfeit his point of view’ just because of a certain pressure. His foot was already broken: this was the sacrifice he’d made in championing the truth. Pushed and pulled between these two peremptory men, the writer was almost cut in two. They also tickled the writer in the ribs, so he giggled foolishly. In this hopeless state of affairs, the widow landed a fierce blow on his chest, and the writer fainted to the ground. He didn’t know when the crowd dispersed.
‘‘After the writer came to, he massaged his throbbing temples and, despite the pain he felt all over, went on with his work. He found that his chair was gone. He remembered that Old Meng had smashed his chair: maybe he’d only pretended his foot was hurt so that he could throw the chair out and come back later and steal it? Anyhow, there was no chair, so he’d better just sit on the floor. The writer put his notebook on the bed, sat on the floor, and began to write rapidly. He wrote day and night. Most of the righteous people approved of and admired the writer’s work. Every night, they discussed the writer’s drafts at meetings in the large hall, adding detailed explanatory notes, checking the records against their own experiences, broadmindedly weighing all the views in the document, and also making some suggestions, such as including photos on each page. But some did not approve of the writer’s laborious work; instead, they demolished it. They broke in every day with unreasonable requests. They even became arrogant: they took the furniture out of the room and splashed ink over the manuscript. The hooligans’ tricks were beyond imagination.
‘‘The original text of part of the writer’s manuscript read: ‘In the early morning, suffused by fragrance and flower-like clouds, the scent of grass flowing from the faraway sky into the ancient three- mile-long street touched people’s hearts and intoxicated every righteous, virtuous resident with the breath of spring. People’s faces were like peach blossoms and filled with passion. A dark shadow appeared and made straight for the little door to Madam X’s home. The sound of rapid knocking fell on each person’s heart, just like Beethoven’s Fifth…’ Later, this splendid section (exhibiting the writer’s skill with words) had to be deleted, or the writer’s life would have been endangered. Just as he was penning these words, a few ugly shrews charged in and looked on brazenly. They yelled and screamed, and kept brushing against the writer’s face with their coarse, greasy hair, so there was no way the writer could continue with his work. They became even ruder, snatching his notebook and reading it aloud. After that, they glowered and flew into a rage, saying that the writer contradicted fact and toyed with words. If this flashy, false document wasn’t changed, if the true history couldn’t be restored, they wouldn’t have the face to see people again. So they had to struggle to the death with the writer! The most poisonous sentence in the document was ‘made straight for the little door to Madam X’s home.’ Who saw him ‘make straight for’? Where’s the evidence? As to the mystery of Mr. Q’s arrival, they had at least a few hundred views, each with solid evidence, as well as historical proof. The writer, however, disregarded the crowd’s wishes and went his own way. With a ‘made straight for,’ he peremptorily extinguished everyone’s individuality. Who could put up with this? If he was going to persist in taking a cynical approach to historical documents, he’d better stop right now and avert a blood-letting incident. If he kept to one side and did nothing, well, the facts were still the facts, and everyone would remain confident that no one would be so pessimistic or desperate as to doubt the value of his existence. What he had done was no different from placing these women on a tightrope: any slight movement would cause them to fall and break their necks. It was extremely vicious! There was no point in keeping this document that distorted reality. In order to salvage his notebook, the writer could only endure the humiliation, publicly admit his wrongdoing, and delete the most exquisite part of his text. He also guaranteed that nothing like this would happen again and that he would always be honest and respect others.
