By W. Somerset Maugham
THE BEAST OF BURDEN, from On a Chinese Screen, by William Somerset Maugham, New York, George H. Doran Company, 1922, pp. 77-79.
William Somerset Maugham （1874-1965）, English dramatist and novelist. In 1921, Mr. Maugham traveled through China. His impressions of places and persons he recorded in his book of delightful sketches On a Chinese Screen, from which book THE BEAST OF BURDEN and THE SONG OF THE RIVER were taken.
At first when you see the coolie on the road, bearing his load, it is as a pleasing object that he strikes the eye. In his blue rags, a blue of all colors from indigo to turquoise and then to the paleness of a milky sky, he fits the landscape. He seems exactly right as he trudges along the narrow causeway between the rice fields or climbs a green hill. His clothing consists of no more than a short coat and a pair of trousers; and if he had a suit which was at the beginning all of a piece, he never thinks when it comes to patching to choose a bit of stuff of the same color. He takes anything that comes handy. From sun and rain he protects his head with a straw hat shaped like an extinguisher with a preposterously wide, flat brim.
You see a string of coolies come along, one after the other, each with a pole on his shoulders from the ends of which hang two great bales, and they make an agreeable pattern. It is amusing to watch their hurrying reflections in the padi water. You watch their faces as they pass you. They are good-natured faces and frank, you would have said, if it had not been drilled into you that the oriental is inscrutable; and when you see them lying down with their loads under a banyan tree by a wayside shrine, smoking and chatting gaily, if you have tried to lift the bales they carry for thirty miles or more a day, it seems natural to feel admiration for their endurance and their spirit. But you will be thought somewhat absurd if you mention your admiration to the old residents of China. You will be told with a tolerant shrug of the shoulders that the coolies are animals and for two thousand years from father to son have carried burdens, so it is no wonder if they do it cheerfully. And indeed you can see for yourself that they begin early, for you will encounter little children with a yoke on their shoulders staggering under the weight of vegetable baskets.
The day wears on and it grows warmer. The coolies take off their coats and walk stripped to the waist. Then sometimes in a man resting for an instant, his load on the ground but the pole still on his shoulders so that he has to rest slightly crouched, you see the poor tired heart beating against the ribs: you see it as plainly as in some cases of heart disease in the out-patients\' room of a hospital. It is strangely distressing to watch. Then also you see the coolies\' backs. The pressure of the pole for long years, day after day, has made hard red scars, and sometimes even there are open sores, great sores without bandages or dressing that rub against the wood; but the strangest thing of all is that sometimes, as though nature sought to adapt man for these cruel uses to which he is put, an odd malformation seems to have arisen so that there is a sort of hump, like a camel\'s, against which the pole rests. But beating heart or angry sore, bitter rain or burning sun notwithstanding, they go on eternally, from dawn till dusk, year in year out, from childhood to the extreme of age. You see old men without an ounce of fat on their bodies, their skin loose on their bones, wizened, their little faces wrinkled and apelike, with hair thin and grey; and they totter under their burdens to the edge of the grave in which at last they shall have rest. And still the coolies go, not exactly running, but not walking either, sidling quickly, with their eyes on the ground to choose the spot to place their feet, and on their faces a strained, anxious expression. You can make no longer a pattern of them as they wend their way. Their effort oppresses you. You are filled with a useless compassion.
In China it is man that is the beast of burden.
「To be harassed by the wear and tear of life, and to pass rapidly through it without the possibility of arresting one\'s course, —is not this pitiful indeed? To labor without ceasing, and then, without living to enjoy the fruit, worn out, to depart, suddenly, one knows not whither, —is not that a just cause for grief?」
So wrote the Chinese mystic.
Notes
coolie, an unskilled hired laborer or porter. The word is probably derived from the Hindu word kuli or quli.
pleasing object. The first and the second paragraphs tell what things are pleasing in the coolie.
indigo to turquoise, deep violet-blue to light green-blue.
trudges, walks wearily, with his feet dragging the ground.
causeway, a raised walk or road, across wet and marshy ground.
suit. The short coat and the trousers make a suit of clothes.
all of a piece, all of the same color, because taken from one piece of cloth.
patching, putting a piece of cloth on to mend or repair a hole or rent in the clothing.
extinguisher, a hollow cone for extinguishing, putting out, a candle or other flame.
preposterously, unusually; absurdly; very, very.
string of coolies, line of coolies one following the other.
bales, packages of merchandise usually done up in canvas and corded or metal-hooped.
agreeable picks up the word pleasing in the second line of the first paragraph.
padi.Paddy is the more usual English form of this word, but padi is the correct Malay form.Padi is the Malay for rice, whether growing or cut, whether in the straw or in the husk. By extension, especially in the adjectival use, the word has come to mean rice in general.
good-natured, inclined to please or to be pleased.
frank, undisguised; open; outspoken; sincere; candid.
drilled into you, taught repeatedly to you; told time and again to you; disciplined into you.
oriental, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Koreans, and others of the Far East or the Orient. The Orient is the place where the sun rises, in the east.
inscrutable, wholly mysterious, incapable of being penetrated or searched into or understood; incomprehensible; not given to expressing their emotions frankly or candidly. The Occidentals or foreigners from the West generally regard us Orientals of the East as a race of people who do not show our emotions on our faces and are therefore inscrutable or not easily understood by them.
banyan tree, an East Indian moraceous tree, the branches of which send out numerous aerial roots that grow down to the soil and form props or additional trunks, often until a single tree covers so large an area that it will shelter thousands of men; so called by the British in allusion to the use of the space sheltered by the tree as a market-place by the native merchants, or banians.
wayside shrine, a small place of worship by the side of the road.
absurd, silly; weak-minded; foolish.
old residents, foreigners who have lived in our country for many years. Sometimes they are called Old China Hands, although, strictly speaking, the term ought to apply to business men who have been here for a long time.
with a tolerant shrug of the shoulders, as if you had said something that was absolutely wrong, but that they were making allowances for your being a newcomer to China, and were going through all this bother, really unnecessary bother, of getting you to see the truth of the whole matter.
yoke, a frame fitted to a person\'s shoulders and back for the carrying of heavy packs; also a pole used for the carrying of suspended baskets.
staggering, tottering, swaying, unable to remain steady in walking and standing, because of the heavy loads they were carrying.
wears on, continues on and on; drags on.
stripped to the waist, naked, without any covering, from head to waist.
crouched, bent low or stooped over, with bent legs.
out-patients\' room of a hospital, the room in a hospital where the out-patients （outside patients; sick persons who do not live or remain in the hospital） receive treatment.
distressing, causing severe physical or mental strain to the onlooker.
scars, marks remaining on the body after the wounds or ulcers have been healed.
open sores, places where the skin and flesh are ruptured, broken apart, bruised, or diseased, so as to be open to view.
bandages, flexible strips of cloth used in wrapping up wounds.
dressing, treatment of a wound with remedies, bandages, and other things.
the wood of the pole.
an odd malformation, an unusual, abnormal growth on the body.
hump, an out-swelling protuberance, sometimes swelled or pushed beyond the adjacent or near-by surface. In the case of these coolies, this hump is a deformity, a malformation, caused by using that part of the human body too much for the carrying of excessively heavy burdens; but with camels these humps are regular features. Our Chinese camels have two humps while those of Arabia are one-humped and are called dromedaries.
wizened, of shriveled or dried-up appearance.
wrinkled. A wrinkle is a furrowlike crease or depression or ridge in the skin, generally that in the brow, and especially of the kind produced by age.
apelike, like an ape or monkey. The faces of monkeys are very much wrinkled and wizened.
totter, walk unsteadily because of the heavy burdens; stagger.
to the edge of the grave, until they die.
sidling, moving with one side foremost; moving sidewise.
strained, stretched tight, as if in pain, laboring under hardships.
wend, proceed on; go on.
their effort, the effort that they make; their hard exertion.
useless compassion. Compassion, suffering with another, sorrow or pity for another\'s distress or misfortunes, is useless in the case of this author because there is nothing that he personally can do to relieve or better the existing conditions.
harassed, wearied; made tired.
wear and tear of life, loss or injury to which anything is subjected in the course of use.
arresting, stopping.
to enjoy the fruit, to have satisfaction in the fruits of your labor; to make use of the consequence of your labor; to take delight in what results from your labor.
worn out modifies the person who is departing, who is dying.
This passage is taken from Herbert Giles\'s Chuang Tzu, from the chapter entitled 「The Identity of Contraries,」 to be found on page 15 of the 1889 edition of that book.
莊子，齊物論：「與物相刃相靡其行盡如馳而莫之能止不亦悲乎終身役役而不見其成功薾然疲役而不知所歸可不哀耶．」
mystic, one who believes in the doctrine that the ultimate nature of reality or the pine essence may be known in an immediate insight differing from all ordinary sensation or ratiocination （reasoning, or the mental process of exact thinking）.
Questions
1. Describe the coolie on the road as 「a pleasing object」? Why 「object」?
2. Describe a string of coolies showing how they at first form 「an agreeable pattern」 but later grow 「distressing to watch」?
3. Why is your compassion useless?
4. What is a beast of burden? Name some beasts of burden.
參考譯文
【作品簡介】
《負重的牲口》一文選自毛姆所著《在中國的屏風上》，紐約喬治·H．多蘭公司1922年出版，77—79頁。
【作者簡介】
威廉·薩默塞特·毛姆（1874—1965），英國戲劇家、小說家。1921年，毛姆遊歷中國，將他對中國風土人情的見聞記於文字，並出版風格輕快的散文集《在中國的屏風上》。