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杨绛 《精彩的表演》
我不爱表演，也不善表演，虽然有一次登上了吉祥大戏院的大舞台，我仍然没有表演。
那次是何其芳同志等“黑帮”挨斗，我们夫妇在陪斗之列。谁是导演，演出什么戏，我全忘了，只记得气氛很紧张，我却困倦异常。我和默存并坐在台下，我低着头只顾瞌睡。台上的检讨和台下的呵骂（只是呵骂，并未动武），我都置若罔闻。忽有人大喝：“杨季康，你再打瞌睡就揪你上台！”我忙睁目抬头，觉得嘴里发苦，知道是心上慌张。可是一会儿我又瞌睡了，反正揪上台是难免的。
我们夫妇先后都给点名叫上舞台。登台就有高帽子戴。我学得诀窍，注意把帽子和地平线的角度尽量缩小，形成自然低头式。如果垂直戴帽，就得把身子弯成九十度的直角才行，否则群众会高喊：“低头！低头！”陪斗的不低头，还会殃及主犯。当然这种诀窍，只有不受注意的小牛鬼蛇神才能应用。我把帽子往额上一按，紧紧扣住，不使掉落，眉眼都罩在帽子里。我就站在舞台边上，学马那样站着睡觉。谁也不知我这个跑龙套的正在学马睡觉。散场前我给人提名叫到麦克风前，自报姓名，自报身份，挨一顿混骂，就算了事。当初坐在台下，唯恐上台；上了台也就不过如此。我站在台上陪斗，不必表演；如果坐在台下，想要充当革命群众，除非我对“犯人”也像他们有同样的愤怒才行，不然我就难了。说老实话，我觉得与其骂人，宁可挨骂。因为骂人是自我表演，挨骂是看人家有意识或无意识的表演——表演他们对我的心意，而无意中流露的真情，往往是很耐人寻味的。
可是我意想不到，有一次竟不由自主，演了一出精彩的闹剧，充当了剧里的主角。
《干校六记》的末一章里，提到这场专为我开的斗争会。
群众审问我：“给钱钟书通风报信的是谁？”
我说：“是我。”
“打着手电贴小字报的是谁？”
我说：“是我——为的是提供线索，让同志们据实调查。”
台下一片怒斥声。有人说：“谁是你的‘同志’！”
我就干脆不称“同志”，改称“你们”。
聪明的夫妇彼此间总留些空隙，以便划清界线，免得互相牵累。我却一口担保，钱钟书的事我都知道。当时群情激愤——包括我自己。有人递来一面铜锣和一个槌子，命我打锣。我正是火气冲天，没个发泄处；当下接过铜锣和槌子，下死劲大敲几下，聊以泄怒。这来可翻了天了。台下闹成一片，要驱我到学部大院去游街。一位中年老干部不知从哪里找来一块被污水浸霉发黑的木板，络上绳子，叫我挂在颈上。木板是滑腻腻的，挂在脖子上很沉。我戴着高帽，举着铜锣，给群众押着先到稠人广众的食堂去绕一周，然后又在院内各条大道上“游街”。他们命我走几步就打两下锣，叫一声“我是资产阶级知识分子！”我想这有何难，就难倒了我？况且知识分子不都是“资产阶级知识分子”吗？叫又何妨！我暂时充当了《小赖子》里“叫喊消息的报子”；不同的是，我既是罪人，又自报消息。当时虽然没人照相摄入镜头，我却能学孙悟空让“元神”跳在半空中，观看自己那副怪模样，背后还跟着七长八短一队戴高帽子的“牛鬼蛇神”。那场闹剧实在是精彩极了，至今回忆，想像中还能见到那个滑稽的队伍，而我是那个队伍的首领！
群众大概也忘不了我出的“洋相”，第二天见了我直想笑。有两人板起脸来训我：谁胆敢抗拒群众，叫他碰个头破血流。我很爽气大度，一口承认抗拒群众是我不好，可是我不能将无作有。他们倒还通情达理，并不再强逼我承认默存那桩“莫须有”的罪名。我心想，你们能逼我“游街”，却不能叫我屈服。我忍不住要模仿桑丘·潘沙的腔吻说：“我虽然‘游街’出丑，我仍然是个有体面的人！”
作品译文
A Spectacular Performance
Yang Jiang
I do not like acting, nor am I good at acting. Though I was once on the grand stage of the Fortune Theatre, I still did not act.
It was on the occasion when Comrade He Qifang and other “Gangsters” were denounced. Mocun and I were among the accessories. Who the director was, what the performance was, etc.—I have entirely forgotten. What I still remember was that the atmosphere was very tense and I was extremely tired. Sitting side by side with Mocun below the stage with my head down, I was just trying to get some sleep, and paid no attention to what was happening on or below the stage no matter whether it was the self-criticism by the accused or the cursing by the audience (only cursing, no beating-up). Suddenly, somebody howled, “Yang Jikang, we’ll put you up on the stage if you go on dozing!” Hurriedly I opened my eyes and jerked up my head. There was a bitter taste in my mouth and I knew that was due to trepidation. But a moment later, I dozed off again. Anyway, it was unavoidable that I would be summoned onto the stage.
The pair of us were called one after another to go onto the stage. Once we were up there, we had to wear tall paper hats. I had learned the trick, that is, I took care to wear that hat in such a way that the angle between the hat and the horizontal was kept as small as possible. In this way we kept as small as possible. In this way an apparent bow of the head was effected. If we wore the hat vertically, we would have to bend at the waist by ninety degrees, otherwise, people would shout, “Lower your head! Lower your head!” Should the accessories not lower their heads, they would cause trouble to the principals. Of course, tricks like this were only applicable to “minor monsters and freaks” who attracted little attention. I pressed the hat down over my forehead, making sure that it would not drop off and it came right down over my eyes. Standing like this at the verge of the stage, I imitated a horse—dozing while standing. Nobody knew that I was imitating a horse—sleeping while playing my bit part. Before the meeting was over, I was summoned to the microphone to declare my name and status, and then to receive a bombardment of abuse, which brought the denunciation session to an end. When I was seated below the stage, my worse fear was that I should be summoned onto the stage; however, having come up on the stage, I felt that the ordeal was nothing special. Standing on the stage as a minor partner in crime, I did not have to act, whereas if I sat below the stage and pretended to be a member of the revolutionary masses, I would find myself in trouble unless I expressed the same indignation as they towards the “criminals”. To tell the truth, I would rather be lashed out at than lash out at others. For to lash out at others was acting by oneself whereas to be lashed out at was watching others act consciously or unconsciously—acting out their feelings towards me; to whiteness an unintended revelation of their true feelings was often intensely interesting.
However, what I would never have expected was that I should, in spite of myself, play the leading role in a most dramatic farce.
In the final chapter of the Six Chapters from My Life “Downunder” I mentioned this denunciation session specially arranged for me.
The masses questioned me: “Who was it that tipped Qian Zhongshu off?”
“It was me,” answered I.
“Who was it that put up a small-character poster with the aid of a flashlight?”
“It was me,” said I, “—the idea was to provide clues to help you comrades investigate the case.”
An uproar of excoriation broke out, with one voice saying, “Who’s your ‘comrade’?”
At that, I simply stopped addressing them as “comrades”, and switched to “you”.
Clever husbands and wives always kept some distance between them so that they could claim to be independent of each other in time of trouble instead of implicating each other. I did the opposite, swearing that I knew everything Qian Zhongshu thought and did. At that time, people—including myself—were seething with indignation. Somebody passed me a brass gong and a padded mallet, ordering me to strike the gong. I was just at that moment fuming with anger, without being able to vent it. So there and then I took over the gong and the mallet, and struck it a couple of times for all I was worth, just to let off stream. That triggered an enormous furore, and a chaotic hubbub ensured among the audience, who cried that I should be taken to the Division compound to be paraded about. A middle-aged veteran cadre dug out a mouldy board—I did not where he got it from—that was black from being long soaked in dirty water. They tied a string to it, and ordered me to hang it around my neck. The board was slippery, and hung heavy around my neck. So, wearing a tall hat, and holding up a brass gong, I was escorted by a throng of people to walk round the crowded canteen first, and then to “parade” round all the major paths in the compound. It was their order that I should, after every few steps, strike the gong twice and shout: “I’m a bourgeois intellectual!” That was not difficult at all! I said to myself. Don’t you think you can cow me! Besides, aren’t all intellectuals “bourgeois intellectuals”? It would do me no harm to shout that. I was temporarily playing the role of the Town Crier in Lazarillo de Tormes. What was different was that I was at once a non-person and a crier who proclaimed news about herself. Although there was nobody who took pictures of me, I, nevertheless, was able to ape the Monkey King and let my soul leave my body so that I could watch the strange sight I from high above in the sky. I could also see that, following me, there was a sorry troop of “monster and freaks” all wearing tall hats. How spectacular that farce was! Even to this day, in retrospect, I can still see in my mind’s eye that funny procession, and at the head of that procession was none other than myself.
Probably the broad masses could not forget how I made an exhibition of myself either, so, the next day, when they saw me, they simply could not help laughing. There were two of them who put on long faces to lecture me: whoever dares to go against the will of the people will have her crown broken. I freely admitted that it was my fault to argue with the masses, but I could not turn black to white. They were after all not altogether unreasonable, for they no longer pressed me to plead guilty to that groundless charge concerning Mocun. I said to myself: you can parade me but you cannot subdue me. I just could not help echoing Sancho Panza: “Although I was disgracefully paraded, I am still a respectable person!”
