My Everlasting Dream and Pursuit

Xiao Hong

In 1911, I was born in a pretty little landlord family in a small county town. The country town was almost in the northeastern tip of china---Heilongjiang Province. We had snow there four months a year.

My father always lost human nature for the seek of avarice. He was mean and cold to the servants, the children and to my grandfather, what’s more, even cruel.

Once upon a time, due to the dispute over house rent, my father took away by force a tenant’s horse-drawn cart and drove it home. The relatives of the tenant went to my grandpa for help, they cried while begging to my grandpa, and even dropping to their knees. Under this situation, my grandpa got two of the chestnut horses free and gave them back to the tenant.

My father quarreled with my grandpa day and night for these two horses. “Two horses are not a big deal to us, but for the poor, it matters a lot.” said my grandpa. But my father was still mad on what grandpa did. My mother died when I was nine. Because of this my father became more disagreeable. He would scold you into trembling even broking a cup. Later, whenever I happened to pass him, he would even have his eyes directed sideways, which made me feel like being pricked all over on thorns. When he looked askance at me, superciliousness gushed from his eyes down the bridge of his nose and then off the corners of his mouth.

Often in the evening of the snowy days, we children sat around the stove and grandpa, listening to grandpa reading poems, watching his busy ruddy lips.

I would stand facing the window in grandpa’s room all long from evening to night when my father had given me a beating. The snowflakes were flying like white cotton outside the window, while the lid of the kettle over the heating stove rattling like a musical instrument playing an accompaniment.

Grandpa would put his two wrinkled hands on my shoulders then on my head saying, “Grow up quick, my child. Everything will be all right then.”

I left the family controlled by my father when I was only, and so far I still live the life as a vagrant.

Truly I have “grown up”, but I’m not “all right” yet.

However, grandpa let me know, apart from cold and hates, there is still warmth and love. As a result, I will hold the dream and pursuit of this “warmth” and “love” forever.