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何悌听了，吓得耳朵里嗡的一声。他骂他的儿子，也骂自己生了这么一个儿子，竟然吃烧过的猪。
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宝宝的嗅觉在这个早晨变得异常敏锐。他迅速又搜出一头小猪，一撕两半儿，把小半个硬塞进何悌的手里，大声说：“吃，吃，吃烧猪吧，爸爸，你尝一口──哦，老天爷！”──他一边这么粗野地喊叫着，一边把那一半往自己嘴里塞，吃得好像都噎住了的样子。
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何悌把这种该死的玩意儿抓在手里，浑身关节都在打战，他心里犹豫着，究竟要不要把儿子当作一个反常的小怪物处死；这时，烧得脆脆的猪皮把他的手指烫了一下，就像他的儿子一样，而他也一样把手指放到了嘴边吹，结果尝到了烧猪的滋味。此时的他虽然嘴上还硬说不好吃，其实心里清楚那味道确实很香。最后（手抄本此处的描述有点冗长乏味），父子二人索性坐下来大快朵颐，最后把剩下的那窝小猪很快就吃了个精光。
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何悌对着宝宝千叮咛万嘱咐，严令禁止他泄露秘密，否则那些街坊邻居肯定要把他们当作一对邪恶的坏人用石头砸死，因为他们竟敢改变上帝赐给他们的美食。尽管这样，千奇百怪的流言还是传开了。有人发现，何悌家的茅屋被火烧的频率比往常要高。从那时起，他们家火灾不断：有时大白天突然起火，有时深夜里起火。常常是母猪一下崽，何悌家的房子就一定会着火；更引人注意的是何悌的做法，他非但没有为此责罚他的儿子，而且看来对他反而更加纵容。后来，他们受到了严密的监视，那个可怕的秘密终于被发现了，于是，父子二人都被传唤到了北京，那时的北京还只是一个无足轻重的巡回裁判城市。提供了证据，那种可憎可恶的食物也被送上了法庭，但在判决之前，陪审团团长请求把据以控告罪犯的烧猪肉拿到陪审席上审查。然后，他摸了摸，陪审员们也都摸了摸；他们的手指都被烫了，就像宝宝和他父亲曾经被烫过一样，不仅如此，他们很自然地一个个也都把手指伸到了嘴边去吹；结果，在所有的证据面前，在法官明明白白的指控面前，——让法庭上所有的人，包括市民、外乡人、记者和一切旁听者全都大吃一惊的是——陪审团既没有离开席位，也没有商议，就一致做出了“无罪”的裁决。
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那位法官是个狡猾的家伙，对于这种明显不合法律程序的决定装聋作哑。刚一退庭，他就鬼鬼祟祟地或卡或要，把那些小猪全都据为己有。还没过几天，有人发现法官老爷的公馆就着了火。不仅如此，这种事就像长了翅膀，四面八方都能看到火光冲天。这一地区的劈柴和生猪价格飞涨，保险公司纷纷关门大吉。一天一天过去，人们盖的房子愈来愈简陋，到后来简直叫人担心：建筑这门学问恐怕不久就要在人间失传。这样，点房子烧猪的习惯就流传下来了，那个手抄本写道，随着时间的推移，某位类似我国的洛克那样的大贤人诞生了，这才发现，猪肉也好，别的什么动物的肉也好，要想烹制为食品（或者，用他们的说法，烧熟），根本不需要把整幢房子都陪着烧掉。于是，原始的烤肉架出现了。把肉串起来或用铁叉烤肉的办法，在一两个世纪以后也出现了，不过在哪朝哪代我可记不清。那部手抄本在结束时写道，人类的那些最有用、最是一目了然的技艺，就是这样一步一步慢慢地发展起来的。
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（张白桦 译）
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[1]此处为音译。兰姆所说的出处不确。
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西南联大英文课（英汉双语版） [:1705033800]
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6 AN OPTIMIST LOOKS AT CHINA
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By Hu Shih
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AN OPTIMIST LOOKS AT CHINA, by Hu Shih, in the Asia Magazine , March 1935.
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Hu Shih，胡适（1891-1962）, China’s best-known scholar and teacher.
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It is in the direction of abolishing the numerous evils of the old tradition that China has achieved the greatest success in the past few decades. She has successfully prohibited the foot-binding which has been a terrible curse to Chinese womanhood for at least a thousand years. The hereditary absolute monarchy has been overthrown, and with it are gone all those institutions which for centuries have been its paraphernalia: the imperial household with its unlimited number of wives and concubines, the institution of eunuchism, the parasitic nobility born to power, and many others. With the revision of Chinese law and the reform of legal procedure, the ancient tortures and inhuman punishments were abolished. The opening of new schools marked the disappearance of the mechanical and exacting form of literary composition, known as the Octopartite, which had been required as the standard form in all state examinations, and for the mastery of which the best years and energies of the whole educated class of the past six centuries had been sacrificed.
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These are a few of the more fundamental departures from the old tradition. They are not merely isolated items of reform; they are indicators of fundamental changes in attitudes toward the most important phases of life. The binding of women’s feet, for example, was not merely an isolated institution of extreme cruelty and brutality, but also the clear and undeniable evidence of a general attitude toward womanhood which ten centuries of native religion and moral philosophy had failed to condemn and rectify. The abolition of foot-binding, therefore, is not merely the passing away of an inhuman institution, but an indication of the coming of an entirely new attitude toward womanhood. In that sense, it is veritably a moral revolution.
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This revolution with regard to womanhood, which began with the agitation of Christian missionaries against foot-binding, has been going on all these years. It includes the opening of schools for girls, the gradual spread of coeducation in practically all universities and colleges, the entrance of women into professional and even official life, the recognition under the new Civil Code of their equal rights to inherit property with their brothers, and the rapid changes in the law and custom concerning marriage and divorce. The revolution is far from completion; but it has already achieved in a few decades what twenty-five centuries of Confucianist humanitarianism and twenty centuries of Buddhist mercy had never dreamed of achieving. May we not call this a great progress?
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Notes
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decades . A decade is a ten-year period.
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prohibited, prevented or forbade the practice of foot-binding.
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curse, a thing whose effects are disastrous.
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a thousand years . When was foot-binding introduced?
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hereditary absolute monarchy, a government where all authority was in the hands of an emperor who, when he died, passed the power over to a successor, most usually his eldest son.
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overthrown, cast out from power; put an end to.
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centuries . One hundred years make a century .
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