It was a hot afternoon, and the elderly beggar sitting on the street corner had fallen asleep on her watermelon. The sun seems to be buzzing in the air, and Vlachy, an aging hunting dog, leans against the shady side of the street, runs along the road he knows, striding towards the market. The whole market is sunny, with awnings, stalls and colorful umbrellas everywhere. Female vendors are sitting beside fruit baskets, pigeons are flapping their wings, bells are ringing, and whips are crackling. Florentine mongrel dogs run around the market, sniffing here and picking there. The whole market is as lively as a hive and as scorching as a stove. Vlachy looked for shade everywhere. He ran to his friend Katrina and lay in the shadow of her big basket. A brown pitcher with red and yellow flowers cast a shadow on the side. On top of it was a statue with its right hand stretched out in front. The shadow of the statue was cast, which deepened the shadow and made it purple. Vlachy lay in the shadow, watching the puppies frolicking. They cried, bit, stretched and rolled, enjoying the joy of youth to the fullest; They chased each other, running around and circling, just as it once chased the West Bannier dog in the alley. For a moment, Vlachy's thoughts returned to Reading. He remembered Mr. Palmer's West Bannier dog, his first lover, his youthful fanaticism and innocence. Yes, it has had its own prosperous days, and it is not jealous of them. It has fully enjoyed the happiness of living in this world, and now it has nothing to complain about. The female dealer reached behind it and scratched it. Vlachy used to steal her grapes or do other bad things, so she slapped her a lot. But now that Vlachy is old, she is not young. When Vlachy looks at watermelons for her, she scratches her ears. Now she is knitting a sweater, while Vlachy is dozing off. The cut-open watermelon showed pink flesh, which caused flies to buzz around the watermelon.

Sunlight shines comfortably through the leaves of lilies and colorful parasols. Marble statues reduce the heat of the sun and make it as cool and fresh as champagne. Vlachy lay there, letting the sun shine through its sparse hair and directly on its skin. People in the market have been haggling. The woman who bought things kept walking past it, and stopped from time to time to touch those vegetables and fruits with her fingers. There is always a noisy sound in the market, which Vlachy likes to listen to. After a while, it fell asleep groggy in the shadow of lilies and sank into sleep. Not long after, his feet suddenly convulsed-did he dream that he was chasing rabbits in Spain: he was running up the scorched hillside, and a group of dark-skinned people beside him were calling, "Rabbit! Rabbit! " Meanwhile, the hare is coming out of the bush, scurry off? But after a while, Vlachy barked quickly and softly in his sleep, and called many times in succession-perhaps it heard the old master urging it to go after the hound in Reading? After a while, its tail shook awkwardly-did it dream that old Miss Teford was standing in the radish field and waving her umbrella angrily, while she was sneaking back to her and listening to her yelling, "Bad dog! Bad dog! " Then, it began to snore and fell into the deep sleep that only a happy old age can have. Suddenly, every muscle in his body twitched, which made him wake up suddenly. It feels as if it is in some dangerous situation-has it fallen into the hands of those villains in White Church again? Did the knife stand on its throat again?

No matter what dream it had, in short, it woke up from the dream in terror and ran away as if it were trying to find a hiding place. When the female vendors saw this situation, they all laughed and threw rotten grapes at it, calling it back. But it ignored them at all. It rampaged in the street, and the wheels of the cart almost pressed against it, making the standing drivers curse and raise their whips to it. It flew past a group of half-naked children, who threw pebbles at it and shouted, "It's crazy! It's crazy! " The mothers rushed to the door and pulled them back. Is flash really crazy? Did the sun faint its head, or did it hear Venus' hunting horn again, or did an American war-promoting elf or an elf hidden in the leg of the table finally capture it again? In short, whatever the reason, it ran straight ahead, from street to street, until it reached the door of its own house. It ran straight up the stairs and rushed straight into the living room.

Mrs. Browning was lying on the sofa reading a book. She was startled when she rushed in. She looked up. Oh, it's not an elf, just Vlachy. She smiled. When she jumped on the sofa and put her face next to hers, the poem she wrote in the past suddenly appeared in her mind:

......

I was lying with my cheeks wet.

Suddenly, a fluffy head stretched out from the pillow,

like a god hunter next to my face.

I was amazed by a pair of clear golden eyes.

A drooping ear put on my face, and

I wanted to dry the pearl of tears.

I was surprised at first, like an Arkady.

Facing the hunting gods in the trees in the twilight, I couldn't help being startled.

However, when this hairy head

wiped away the tears on my cheeks,

I understood: it was Vlachy in front of me.

Sincere gratitude for hunting gods,

is better than sadness and exclamation.

god hunter, you led me to the temple of love through ordinary animals.

This poem was written many years ago when she was in Wimpel Street, when she was very unhappy. Many years have passed, and she is happy now, but she has begun to get old, and so has Vlachy. She leaned over to look at Vlachy. It was strange that her wide mouth, big eyes and thick curly hair still made her face strangely similar to Vlachy's. They are different, but they seem to come from the same model. They may have complemented each other and awakened the sleeping things in each other's bodies. But she is a person, and it is a dog. Mrs Browning went on reading her book. After a while, she looked at Vlachy again, but Vlachy didn't look up at her. An unusual change happened to her. "Vlachy," she cried, but Vlachy said nothing. It used to be a thing of life, but now life has left it. Strangely, the table in the living room still stood there quietly.

(translated by Kong Xiaoji and Huang Mei)

Appreciation

"Vlachy" is the pet dog of the English poetess Lady Browning. Mrs. Browning's early life in Wimpel Street in London was very unhappy. Fortunately, this dog lived with her day and night, and tirelessly stayed at her bedside, giving her infinite comfort. It seems to be the embodiment of love, and walks into the poetess's poems and love letters. Time flies, and it once again appears as an elf in Vlachy, a dog written by the female writer Woolf, a biography specially for it. Therefore, it is destined to be a lovely dog attached to love and literature.

In Vlachy, Woolf depicts the romantic emotional world of the Browning couple through the perspective of Vlachy, the puppy. As Mrs. Browning sang in the poem: "God hunter, you led me to the temple of love through ordinary animals."

If love is an immortal myth, then the incarnation of love will die of old age one day. Vlachy also inevitably came to such a moment. Different from the elegance of the moth's birth and death in the author's Death of a Moth, the death of my dog Vlachy shows more the warmth of life and the serenity of death, which represent different stages of life, just like the difference between a teenager's premature death and a disease-free death.

The time is chosen in a hot afternoon, and the heat of life has faded, and people and animals are sleepy. This half-dream and half-awake state is most suitable for our hero to lay out his memories in a cool place; The location was chosen in a noisy market, where the sounds and sounds of life flowed endlessly, accompanied by all beings, and it was full of excitement, just like impressionist painting, which set up a curtain of memories for our protagonist. As a result, memories become extremely happy and calm. It is packed in the body of a dying year, but it is full of * * * and joy. In that distant past time, there were fanaticism of love, flying of youth, and hunting and fighting. In the switching of dreams, the soul wakes up vigorously and drives it to run like crazy until it returns to its dwelling place. So, beside Mrs. Browning, where the soul awakens the soul, love is integrated again, and the soul can finally sleep peacefully without waking up.

The spirit of life walks once in the world, living in different bodies, which can be a person, a dog or a leg of a table. That's why everything in the world is in love with each other, life is no longer lonely, memories are not blank, and death is no longer terrible.

sentient life is nothing more than life, death and love, which is also Woolf's obsession. Although she projects this rich connotation into a dog's heart, as long as it is a living thing, it will also make "the mind accept thousands of impressions-trivial, strange, fleeting or deeply engraved with a sharp steel knife" in every ordinary day. These impressions, full of color, sound and taste, constitute the dribs and drabs of our life and memory, and are enough to support us to go to the Covenant of death calmly.

Woolf inherited the characteristics of English prose, such as humor, implicature, eloquence, and impressionistic description. At last, with his profound knowledge, astute thinking, noble style and delicate implication of women, she wrote her prose like a flowing stream, relaxed, fresh and lively, and became a family of her own.

(Zhu Shenghui)