altogether; but from my inability to forget, there was brought into being at this present moment this collection of short stories, entitled 'Ne-han,' [from which the translator has chosen "The True Story of Ah Q"]."
To return to the early part of the tale, the author's father was a scholar; his mother, a village woman, whose maiden name was Lu. Although the forty or fifty mow of farming land owned by the family kept them in comfortable circumstances, there came, when he was thirteen years of age, a bitter reverse, which swept away nearly all that the family possessed. The boy was sent to live with relatives, who often called him a beggar, and it was not long before he decided to return home. He did return, only to find that his father was seriously ill. Three years later his father died.
His mother managed to obtain eight dollars for his most stringent necessities and taught him to seek a "free" school. He himself was stoutly determined not to tread the two well-beaten paths, which the other village youths followed, — namely, that of the merchant or that of the secretary-attendant, who is a member of the retinue of some official. When eighteen, he attended the Naval Academy at Nanking for half
