A day's waiting for the full text

The Full Text of Hemingway's A Day's Waiting | Appreciation | Reading Comments

Hemingway (USA)

Before the family got up, he came into my room and closed the window. He turned pale and trembled all over, as if every step was very painful.

"What's the matter, Scatz?"

"I have a headache."

"You'd better go back to sleep."

"No, I'm fine."

"Go to sleep. I'll come to see you when I get dressed. "

When I went downstairs, Skyes was dressed and sitting by the fire. The child is only nine years old and seems to be suffering from illness. I touched his forehead with my hand, which was very hot.

I said, "Go to sleep, you are ill."

"I'm not sick." He said.

He finally went upstairs and lay down.

The doctor is here. He took Scatz's temperature.

"How many degrees?" I asked the doctor.

"One hundred and two."

After going downstairs, the doctor left three kinds of capsules and instructions for taking them. One has a fever, one has diarrhea, and the third is seriously ill. He seems to be very good at influenza, explaining that the germs of influenza are life-threatening only when they are seriously ill. If the temperature does not exceed 104 degrees, don't worry. The child's cold is not serious. As long as pneumonia is prevented, there will be no danger.

Back in Scatz's bedroom, I wrote down the child's temperature and the time to take medicine.

"Do you want to hear me read something?"

"All right. If you like. " When Scott spoke, his face was pale and his eyes were printed with a deep black halo. He lay quietly in bed as if he were indifferent to everything around him.

I read aloud the Pirates written by howard pyle, but I found that he didn't listen.

I asked him, "How do you feel, Scatz?"

"still like that."

I stayed by his bed, reading a book and waiting for his medicine. At this time, Scatz had better fall asleep. However, when I looked up, he was staring at the foot of the bed in a strange mental state.

"Don't you want to sleep? I'll ask you to take medicine then. "

"I'd rather be awake."

After a while, Skyes said to me, "Dad, if I bother you, you don't have to stay with me."

"Not at all."

"No, I mean, if I bother you like this, you don't have to be here."

Maybe he's just a little dizzy. At eleven o'clock, I asked him to take the medicine as ordered by the doctor, and then I went out for a while.

A sunny and cold day. The earth was covered with rain and snow, and it was frozen solid. Bare tree trunks, short bushes, cut firewood piles, connected with the bare earth, decorated with ice and snow. I took my beagle, an Irish stuffed dog, along the frozen river to one end of the road. It is difficult to stand or walk on this slippery road. The red-haired hound always slipped and I fell hard twice. Once, I dropped my gun and slipped on the ice for a long time.

When I came to the bottom of the high mud embankment, I held the stick high. Suddenly, a nest of quails flew. When quails flew over the top of the embankment and tried to sneak out of my sight, I shot two of them. Some quail nests are in trees, and most of them are scattered on firewood piles. Before flying out of the nest, they must jump on the firewood pile wrapped in ice. If you find a quail's nest, but you haven't established yourself on the ice, these quails will immediately break away from the soft and elastic firewood and fly away. I only hit two, and five escaped at gunpoint. When I came back from outside, I was glad to find a quail nest next to my house. It will be lucky to find more quail nests one day.

After entering the house, the family said that the children would not be allowed to enter their bedroom.

"You can't come in," he said. "You can't be like me."

I approached him, and Skeeter was still in my previous posture, pale and his cheeks were red. He stared at the foot of the bed.

I took his temperature.

"How many degrees?"

"A hundred or so," I said. The temperature is 102.25 degrees.

"One hundred and two degrees," he said.

"Who said that?"

"Doctor."

"Your temperature is normal," I said. "Don't worry about it."

"I'm not worried," he said. "I can't help thinking."

I said, "Forget it. Peace of mind is good. "

"I am very relieved." He looked straight ahead and said. Obviously, he has something on his mind.

"Drink this with water."

"Do you think it will do any good?"

"Of course."

I sat down and started reading The Pirate, but I could sense that he was absent-minded, so I stopped.

"Do you think I will die at this time?" He asked.

"What?"

"How long before I die?"

"death? What's wrong with you? "

"Well, I'm going to die. Yes, the doctor said it was 102 degrees. "

"When the body temperature 102 degrees, people will not die. This is simply nonsense. "

"I know, this kind of situation will die. When I was studying in France, the children at school told me that people would die if the temperature rose to 44 degrees. And I have 102 degrees. "

Since morning, he has been waiting for death all day.

"Poor Scatz," I said, "poor Scatz, it's the donkey's lip. You can't die. That's another thermometer, 37 degrees above is normal, and 98 degrees on this thermometer is normal. "

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely." I said, "It's like the difference between miles and kilometers. Do you know how many kilometers we have driven 70 miles? "

"Oh." He replied.

Then, Scatz's dull eyes at the foot of the bed slowly became lively and his nervous heart relaxed. The next day, this inexplicable psychological doubt disappeared. He is always clamoring for some useless gadgets. (translated by Li Yi)

Selected from Selected Minifiction 4

Jiangsu People's Publishing House 1989 Edition

Appreciating Hemingway's life is full of twists and turns, which is very legendary. He personally participated in two world wars, worked as a journalist and professional boxer, hunted in the African jungle and fished in Cuban waters. War and sports are the main sources of his creative themes, and loneliness and death are the themes that run through his works.

A Day's Waiting, like many Hemingway's novels, shows the loneliness and death of human beings. There are only two characters in the novel, the sick child Skeeter and me. Scatz is a lonely and introverted child. Although he had a fever before the doctor took his temperature, he didn't feel sick and didn't want to lie down. When the doctor told him that his temperature was 102 degrees, he immediately had a nervous breakdown and lay in bed silently waiting for death, because he heard that people would die if they had a fever of 44 degrees. Later, when I told him that 102 degrees refers to another thermometer, just like the format of kilometers and miles is different, the child's dull eyes came back to life, and the tension of waiting for death was relaxed, and he was fine the next day. Children show the despair of the weak, and the images of children are completely different from those indomitable "tough guys" in Hemingway's works, but they all have intriguing and profound implications.

Hemingway's works have created many "tough guys" images such as boxers, matadors and hunters. They are all strong and unyielding, and no matter how difficult they are, they all safeguard human dignity and courage. Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea is the development and sublimation of this "tough guy" character. The old man showed unparalleled strength and courage in the desperate struggle with the sea, which perfectly embodied such a lofty and great spirit. People can be destroyed, but they cannot be defeated. If we compare San Diego with Schatz, we will find that this just shows the two extremes of human nature, one is the old man and the other is the child. The old man fought tenaciously in the face of death, but the child was frightened by the disease and waited for death. The image of Schatz reflects Hemingway's heroic image from the opposite side, and the absurd story of a child taking his temperature also highlights the resounding theme that people can be destroyed but not defeated from the opposite side. In my works, I show a pitiful and relaxed ridicule for the ridiculous behavior of children. In the struggle between human beings and nature and destiny, spiritual strength is crucial. Even in failure, we still have to lose human dignity and courage, which is the concentrated embodiment of Hemingway's thoughts in his later years.

This novel is cold and reserved, and its words are concise and simple. At first glance, it is a light joke, but it is meaningful to savor it carefully. If Hemingway said, "works are like icebergs in water, only a small part is exposed and most of them are hidden underwater." Then the meaning and symbol of this work are hidden behind the words and need readers to chew and think. (Cui)