"After the Break Up" - 1947
当我从那间屋子出来后，我知道一切都完了。
我走着两个星期来走惯的路径，远离开华埠，走向码头那边静寂的街道。 最使我难明的是她不肯让我再次尝试，我恳求她给我一个机会，把三年相隔的裂缝和合上。 但是她拒绝我，说她大变了，决然的分手对我们两人都有好处。 因为她根本不是我所理想的女子，如果硬拖下去反生反感，到终还是一个别离的结局， 倒不如现在还能够保存友谊的好。 我问她是否现在爱着另一个人，她又那么真纯地否认，使我不得不相信，也使我不明她的秘密。
我机械地推开了一间并非标致的酒巴的门。 来这里饮酒的顾客大都不是心怀高兴的人，个个肚子里闷作一团，有着自己的烦恼。 我来此独自饮酒也非首次。 外间一切和心中的波浪都是平常的事，但是吸引我底眼睛的却是坐在一角有一个和我的面皮同色的青年个子。
不一会，我们已成了谈话的朋友，不独是因为彼此可以交换同样的言语， 而且同是为了女人的事而苦恼。
“天下没有酒不能消解的事。 不要垂头丧气，饮杯——我们的健康。” 他的谈吐和他的容貌举动，一样的乐观，使我不相信这样的人也会失恋起来。
“朋友，我不是失恋。” 我发问后，他爽快地回答，还自豪地继续下去，“我每一次都独自拿酒来送走一个情人。 第二天起我就把她和她的一切忘记。 我又成了一个新的人，一个新的生命，也再来一个新的女人。”
“你的爱情这样不专一？”
“谁说什么爱情？世间根本没有这件东西。 在她寂寞的时候，她需要我就满口说爱我。 当她知道她底原有情人从海外回来之后，就说不要我。 她说：别了，于我们两人都有好处，别了。 这就是她亲口说出来的话，吓，女人。”
我沉默地注视着他，知道他要继续说下去的。 他灌进一点酒，思索片时， 说：“第一次我约她去看电影的时候，在戏院里我伸手过去抱着她，她的身体抖动了一秒钟，也就平静下来。 我知道她的思想，曾经过一段剧烈的斗争，因为在黑暗中，我不曾离开她的闪耀着的眼睛。
回来的时候，在她门前不十分黑暗的阶上，她闭了眼睛和我接吻。 第二天第三天， 她不让我见她。 一个星期后，在电报山上，她披露了自己的秘密。 本来她早已有了一位情人，现还在海外。 他们两人，在外面被认为一对情人，已有多年了，而且双方的家长，也默许他们的婚事。
"但我向她解释爱的真义，爱能超出两人的狭小范围 （虽然我现在不会这样想了）上帝给人类以青春和爱，如果虚耗了就是罪人。 如果她在海外的情人是爱她，断不会希望她关在屋里，饱尝寂寞的滋味。 她聴了就投进我的怀抱， 我们从此相爱了。”
他描画他底爱人的美丽，使我想起刚才和我决裂的人来。 他兴奋地追述他们的情史，他们到过的地方，甚而那个第三者的海外军人的连篇情话也引据出来。 我的感情因之而激荡，我的脑海尽为这个故事所占有，我被他感动得连眼睛都热起来，这到底是不平常的遭遇。
然而他的结局，也和我的一样，可是我对他没有半点同情。 我并不反对他的恋爱方式，也不认为他犯了什么罪过，因为爱根本不能给两个人所限制，也不是一个人能强取的。 最后他说： “我相信她现在和那从海外回来的情人是快乐的。”
“我不这样想。” 我站起来准备走了。
“为什么？” 他倒有点惊奇。
“因为我就是你所说的那个海外情人。” 我一直走出门外没有回头，不过我好像看见他呆了一会，接着拿了手中的那半杯酒，直灌进口中去。
我行过第三间酒巴间，又望见一个男同胞，独自酌杯。 我不敢再上前扳谈，虽然我不相信他也是我的情敌，但今日的事情太凑巧，一切都有可能性。 我不能再受一次打击了。
When I came out of that house, I knew everything was over.
Far away from Chinatown, I walk on the familiar path that I have taken in the last two weeks towards the quiet streets near the waterfront. What perplexed me most is that she won’t let me attempt again. I asked her to give me an opportunity to mend the split from three years of separation. But she refused and said she had substantially changed, and that it is good for both of us to have a decisive break up because she is essentially not my ideal girl. She said if we forced ourselves to endure, we would conversely feel repugnance to each other, and we would still come to separation in the end. So it is better to split up now, while we can still maintain our friendship. I asked her whether she was in love with another person, and she genuinely denied leaving me no choice but to believe her. It also led me to have no understanding of her secret.
Mechanically I push the door of a bar that is not so dazzling. The customers coming to this bar are mostly unhappy people; everybody is feeling depressed inside with their own vexations. This is not the first time I have come here to drink alone. Everything external in the world and the emotional turbulence in my heart are but ordinary matters now. What attracts my eyes is a young man sitting in the corner who has the same colored skin as mine.
Not for long we became conversation friends. Not only do we share the same topic of interest, we also have the same distress related to women.
“There is nothing in the world that alcohol can not resolve. Don’t be so dejected – Let’s drink up – to our health.” His style and manner of speech, like his appearance and gesture, are equally optimistic. He made me doubt this kind of person could become lovelorn.
“My friend, I am not lovelorn.” He responds to my question with alacrity, and he continues speaking proudly, “Every time I would drink alone to send off a lover. And from the next day on I will forget her and everything about her. I am a new man again, with a new life, and I will go for a new woman again.”
“Is your love so unfaithful?”
“Who speaks anything about love? There is no such a thing in this world. When she is lonely and in need of me, she would say she loves me profusely, but when she found her original lover had returned from overseas, she then said she didn't want me. She said: goodbye, it is best for both of us, goodbye. That was what she said with her own mouth. Heck! Women.”
I watch him silently, knowing that he will continue speaking. He takes another sip, thinking for a moment and says, “The first time I asked her out for a movie, in the theater I reached over and embraced her. Her body shook for a second and then calmed down. She had gone through an intense struggle – I knew her thought process because I did not look away from her gleaming eyes in the dark.
“When we returned, she closed her eyes and we kissed on the steps of her front porch, which were not very dim. The next two days she won’t let me see her. A week later on top of Telegraph Hill she revealed her secret. She said she already has a lover, who is now overseas, and that the two are recognized by others as a love couple. It has been many years and their parents from both sides have tacitly consent to their marriage.”
“But I explained the meaning of true love to her, that love can go beyond the confining limit of two people, (although I don’t think that way now.) God gives mankind youth and love. We would become sinners if we waste them. If her lover truly loved her, he would absolutely not want to lock her up in a house and be immersed in the agony of loneliness. She then threw herself in my arms and since then, we have fallen in mutual love for each other.”
How he describes the beauty of his lover makes me think of the person who just broke up with me a while ago. He excitedly recounts the history of their love affair, the places they had been, and even recites the full series of the lover’s talk from that overseas serviceman. My emotions are agitated by these and my mind is completely occupied by his story. I am so moved by him that my eyes heat up. This is not an ordinary encounter after all.
Yet his ending is just like mine, and I don’t have any sympathy for him. I don’t object to his way of love, nor do I find any fault in his doing because love cannot be limited by two people, nor could one seize it with force. At the end he says, “I believe she and that lover returning from abroad are happy now.”
“I don’t think so.” I stand up and ready to leave.
“Why?” He seems a little surprised.
“Because I am that overseas lover you talked about.” I walk straight out of the door without turning back. But I seem to have spotted him stunned for a while and then takes up that half filled glass of drink and pours it straight down his throat.
I walk past the third bar and see another fellow countryman drinking alone. I dare not start up a conversation again, although I don’t believe he is also my rival in love. Yet things are too coincidental today, anything is possible. I cannot bear another strike.