Mao Dun
The sea is deep blue, and cannot be called smooth, for countless rows of small breakers are marching in parade-step as if following the shouted command, "One, two! One!" — towards the trumpet-shaped jetty. Crowded close together, they rush to the sandy beach-splash! The marching ranks scatter and burst into angry spray. The rows immediately behind follow suit.
A few white seagulls flicker across the surface of the sea, quickly and lightly, wings skimming the waves which become, little by little, increasingly restive.
The wind is trumpeting, a bugle calling to charge! Small breakers spring up, each breaker like a large eye casting out golden sparks. The whole sea is full of golden eyes, all leaping. Rumble—rumble... beneath the jetty a battle cry bursts forth.
The sea's golden eyes fall into ranks, each rank pursued by the next, each angrier than the last and deepening to blood-red as they stretch to the golden line of the horizon. There, above, lies the fiery half circle of the setting sun!
Half the sky burns red, pressing heavily down upon the bald head of the sun.
The indignantly struggling sun seems to be saying:
"Oh! Oh! I have completed today's historic duty; I have finished today's journey! Now, now, my time to rest has come; my time to die is here. Oh! Oh! And yet, it is also my rebirth that will soon begin! Tomorrow, from the other end of the sea, I shall bravely hoist myself up, give you light, give you warmth, give you joy!"
Whooo-huuu...
The wind carries the declaration of the never-dying sun to all the world. The highest peaks of the Himalayas; the endless waters of the Pacific; small, old, gloomy villages; cities frozen by silver lights upon each and every one, the setting sun scatters its blood-red flames!
The sky, deepening to ochre, is broken by two or three seagulls.
The wind that carried the countless leaping golden eyes smooth themselves down into a great, dull, green face.
From near, then far, comes the solemn, tragic sound of a flute.
Night's black curtain will be heavily lowered, but has not yet completely fallen.
The wind, having gone no-one-knows-where, suddenly returns, returns as a beating drum: Boom-lum-lum, Boom-lum-lum! No, not the wind alone, but thunder! The wind carries the voice of thunder!
The sea roils again, waves surging high, Crash! Crash!
To the night-bound sea a storm has come!