Thephong by Thephong:;the writer, the work & the life - autobiography by Thephong - 5

autobiography by Thephong


                           Thephong by Thephong :;
                                                     the writer, the work & the life
                                                       autobiography



                                                      CHAPITRE FOUR


    Another painful by Tết Festivalt came.  At the beginning of 1961, journalist Uyên Thao moved elsewhere, but I still stayed with Trâm's mother.    Unfortunately, while I could bear my financial strain.   I coud not endure the days when her eldest daughter-in-law would ply me with arch questions about my work, punctuated by sly, knowing smiles that made me mad. So, I came to see at about four in the afernoona day before tết Festival.  Ngọc formely served in the French Army and was not a private firm clerk.  On my arrival, he and I got out for a haicut, then, we drank and talked in a small coffee shop near the airfield.
  He handed me one hundred piasters.  Judge Đào minh Lượng also came to see Ngọc with a friend.
  His wife was Minh ,a slender, white-skinned daughter of a village-chief named Chánh Thóc.  Although she had two children, she was still attractive, and very keen on expensive dresses.   Ngọc told me to come and live with him.   His wife agreed  to this .  A group of intellectuals and writers used to meet in his house on holidays.  They would gamble, go to the pictures, sit in La Pagode Café or just loiter in the streets.  It happened that  judge Đào Minh Lượng fell in love with Minh who traded on his position.  I told my much-loved  mother this.  But I added that we needed no counseling on sentimental matters, so I let Đào minh Lượng do as he pleased .  This was my stay at Ngọc's house was not so pleasant.  There was no more
 thing : penniless, I felt ill-at-ease all the time.

    I returned to my adoptive mother's house.  But I found her eldest daughter-in-law unbearable.  I came to Ngọc's house again with a heavy heart.   Ngoc appreciated my literary gift and like me personally too.
 I wrote the introduction to the book of poetry Immesnsity * for judge Đào Minh Lượng.   Ngọc was delighted to see so many VIP's coming to see him.   Among them, a judge, a lawyer, teachers, and writers.  He was like Thái  girls who are fond of receiving smart boy-friends.
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* Vô cùng, thơ Đào minh Lượng,   Saigon 1961. (TR) 

   Later, judge  Đào minh Lượng  and Minh only uttered a perfunctory hello when they met.  A  platonic lover, he had touched even the hands of his sweetheart .  This was rather disspointing to girls and they often put hsi sincerity into question.  One night - is  still remains in my mind - Ngọc and his wife quarelled with each other.  After a little while, Ngọc came to my bed, in the outer room when his wife poured cold water on him, and chased him out.  I got out and seek refuge in a friend 's home.   I later discovered that Ngọc had married a rich wife; the house was bought with her money.

    Never previously had I found life so disgusting.   I felt pity for myself and my beloved Cao Mỵ Nhân.  When my friends were bursting with joy.  I usually kept a somber silence as if remembering somebody.
 In fact, I felt only self-pity, being then a tramp.  There was no way of denying that.  Then, I had to come back to my adoptive mother' s.

    Later on, I heard that Minh had left Ngọc and become  a dancer at Baccara.  This was only midly surprising to me until the day of an incident.  One night, I saw her entering Brodard  restaurant with another  woman.  Minh had changed completely, from dress to adornment.  A young foreigner - an American, I thought - came to sit at her table upon the invitation of her friend.  The American talked to Minh with the other woman serving as an interpreter.   No sooner did they enter the talk than the American put his arms aroung her.  I slid out the restaurant.

    The memory of this painful incident haunted me.  Minh was lucky not to notice my being there.  Good Lord, I thought, to what a state can a human being be reduced, and the wife of my friend, at that !  Whenever I heard of money marriage, I thought of my pitiful friend.  His two innocent children no longer  had parents.  Their father got a new wife and their mother, though always dressed in white as a sign of purity, had broken this virtus many, many times.

     My former editor Paulus Hiếu  ( or Ngô trọng Hiếu), became a minister and trusted man of Ngô  brothers.  He was the first man to visit them in the Palace after the abortive coup in 1960.  I sincerely admitted only he could perform that feat.  He had the courage to change even his family name.  Now he would enjoy great prestige as he had Mr Nguyễn đức Quỳnh as his counselor, and enlisted the cooperation of stiff-necked men like journalidt Uyên Thao and myself.   One day, I met Lê văn Thái in La Pagode Café. He  was the only chief of bureau who dared to address cabinets Ministers as tu et  toi.   According to  Lê văn Thái, Paulus Hiếu  had reported to his superiors that he had won the trust of the bitterest critics of the régime.  As I maintened a somber silence, Lê văn Thái added he did not know the reason I was associated with such writers as journalistsThanh Hữu, Trần dạ Từ, Viên Linh, Mai Sử Giương,  Trần tuấn Kiệt, Uyên Thao,  artists painters Vị Ý and Nguyễn Trung  - all working for the Ministry of Civic Affairs * and writing for the Life Mgazine **. Every times  I met Lê văn Thái in La Pagode Café, I heard the secret agents murmuring to another : ' It' s Thế Phong '.  I only cast a hasty glance at them.
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*  bộ Công dân Vụ   **  bán nguyệt san Sống . (TR)

   Mr  Paulus Hiếu paid journalist Duy Sinh eight thousand piasters per month as he did to Duy Sinh' s mother.  Artist painter Vị Ý and I got five thousand.  In daytime I stay in the office; at dusk, I returned to rest at my adoptive mother' s  house.  ( By that time, Trâm had been working for the  Americans and was about to get married to an American officer . Economically, her family was much better ).  I was the trainee's superintendant, painter Vị Ý, a lecturer, and journalists Duy Sinh, Trần dạ Từ, and Viên Linh were in charge of special matters regarding the broadcasting service.  Journalisst Uyên Thao, Mai Sử Giương were sent to Ban Mê Thuột, artist  painter  Nguyễn Trung, poet Trần tuấn Kiệt to Ba Xuyên to run the provincial radio station.  I managed to help  Kiều Thệ Thủy, Nguyễn văn Ngơi to be enrolled as cadres on probation.

     A though I worked for the government, I disagreed with the Minister and his counselor Nguyễn đức Quỳnh on many things.  I often condemned Nguyễn đức Quỳnh on many things. I often condemned Nguyễn đức Quỳnh in presence of others, and rarely came to the meeting hall.   After three working three months I had not received my salary, but was authorized to borrow two thousand piasters each  month instead
. I complained on bureaucratic delay, Đoàn Thêm disclosed that the President's  Office had not received any papers concerning my case.  I felt pity for journalist Duy Sinh who boasted of being Minister's representative in his absence.  He was hated by even the bobbies in the Ministry,  and Paulus Hiếu was forced to transfer him to the Directorate General of Information to be charged with confidential matters.   I only met artist painter Vị Ý these days.  We had lunch  in the club nad worked together whenever possible though he took care of trainees of Chinese descent and I one hundred eighty Vietnamese nas Cambodians.   All the trainees like us.  After two months, I moved to  Tân sa Châu settlement, the district of Father Mai ngọc Khuê.
  I planned to marry Cao Mỵ Nhân as her graduation would take in a few months.  This explained why I refused to head the civic affairs team in the East.   I did not face the peril of such a trip as the monthly salary of  $ 5000 was too little for a  mercenary and too much for a genuine combattant. Artist painter Vị Ý assigned to the West.  We were being got rid of by Paulus Hiếu and his counselor Nguyễn đức Quỳnh.

      On Saturday noone I always came to bring Cao Mỵ Nhân  to her home.  But because in these days I was too busy with the about-to-graduate trainees, she came to see me instead.   We would have lunch together.  She knew well that I had refused to ask for favours, particularly for my friends.  So she came to beg Nguyễn đức Quỳnh 's wife to seek  to send her to the  Ministry of Civic Affairs so that we might got married.

     I would have been compelled to serve the régime, my career destroyed and nobody would  bother to mention my name as the most stiff necked writer of the period, had Cao Mỵ Nhân been transferred to the
Ministry.  My books would be printed at the National Printing Office instead of being mimeographed without any permit.  I remember the Minister's saying in a dinner in honor of four hundred men-of-letters and intellectuals at Đồng Khánh Restaurant, ' We have a national printing office; so, I don' t understand why some of you have to mimeograph the manuscripts...' . I kept silence but felt unconvinced later on the Minister happened to past my room, he heard my typing and felt much ill-at-ease.

    Upon my arrival at Tân sa Châu, Cao Mỵ Nhân bought a mat for my bed and I a brand new pink blanket for our future wedding night.   But as late as the end of 1961 I had not been authorized to get  $ 5000 a month.  Knowing I had been cheated, I submitted my resignation without delay.  I protested against the Minister' s treating me as a cadre by scolding his chief-of-cabinet in the hope he would repeat it to the Minister, ' Salaud, vous êtes perfides !' *. I also quoted this in a letter addressed to the Minister' s counselor Nguyễn đức Quỳnh . At the time Paulus Hiếu Director of Cabinet Phan văn Tạo published his book  The Pig's  Bladder **.  One day,  he came to our room.  All-with the exception of myself- rose to great him.  In reply to writer Thanh Hữu' s saying that it was the direcor of cabinet.   I said that I only knew the Minister who recruited me, the chief of cabinet who lent me money, and my direct hierachical chief
 Lưu Hùng and I had a good right to consisderd him  as a stranger simply because he had not been introduced to me.  Another added that the director of cabinet was also a writer.   I angrily retorded that as a writer Phan văn Tạo was inferior to me and I was not interested in talking to him even I did not like to, but for the moment I really couldn' t as I  was busy correcting the trainees 's papers.   Artist painter Vị Ý shook his head and looked at me a little confusedly.   When Phan văn Tạo asked lieutenant Dưỡng to bring his book The Pigs ' Bladder to me and invited me to talk with him I felt compelled to come to his office.  In this period the Minister intended to set up and finance the Associations of Journalists and  Writers to watch the growth of the members' s thinking.  I guessed it was Mr Nguyễn đức Quỳnh' s opinion as he saw that
PEN VIETNAM could not recruit first rate writers and poets.  Old journalist Mai Lâm-Nguyễn đắc Lộc was chosen as President of the Journalists Association; Old poet Đông Hồ as  chairman of the Writers Association, but he who really ran it was Vice-chairman Đào đăng Vỹ  ***.   Diệm ' s government  had been strong enough but there arose bitter conflicts among various ministries.  My literary reportage published on Nguyễn đắc Lộc' s Tân dân Weekly was censored and long paragraphs were omitted by the Directorate General of Information.  Paulus Hiếu phoned its director Trần văn Thọ ( his brother-in- law), talking he had better hear me clarify the controversial points in my articles.  When I met Dr Trần văn Thọ, he refused to follow the instruction of Paulus Hiếu.  It seemed to me the Directorate was not an agency under the jurisdiction of the Ministry.   Following this, the Minister consoled me in these words, ' Dont worry, my dear.  In a few years nobody will mention the names of Ngô trọng Hiếu ( Paulus Hiếu) and Trần văn Thọ, but you' ll be well remembered in ten years more at least '.  Now felt convinced he was no less cunning than a Communist boss.  Nguyễn đức Quỳnh dreamed of becoming the advisor of the second President because the heir apparent of Ngô đình Diệm was Ngô trọng Hiếu.   It was he who proposed to eliminate to the Communist Victims Association * as he sensed it would soon become a thorn on the government side .
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*    In French in the text.   ** Cái bong bóng lợn .   *** A French trained scholar, author of many dictionaries .   
****  Hội nạn nhân Cộng sản Việtnam  . (TR)

     I knew  that the government wanted a tigher control over men of letters and first steps were already taken in view of the formation of the writers ' association.  We got to react if  we were to survive.   I did  my utmost to annoy them while waiting to get the salary.  I once fought with another instructor reporter of
 Life Magazine and was sure they would blame me but two long weeks passed without an incident.  In defiance of the Minister' s prohibition to frequent the club in working hours, I invited a clerk to drink coffee and happened to meet Captain Khâm, assistant to the training director.   He was a bad man who told an  orderly to post up a circular saying that officials had to be on time according to  revolutionary ethics.  I tore it and told him not to do this again as the spirit of revolution had nothing to do with Government officials.
 I continued drinking coffee while the clerk rose to invite him to sit down.   Looking at him. I said, ' Don't bother ! Captain Khâm doesn' t like coffee. Leave him alone '.   Turning on me,  Captain Khâm then inquired about the cook' s failure to supply two hundred loaves of bread to the trainees in operation.   The cook said he could only carry out the order of the director.   I replied Captain Khâm was assistant to the director. He then said, ' Do you know for sure I will be paid if I do not  comply with the regualtions ?'.  Captain Khâm felt much humiliated  and in the same afternoon I had to ask the director to sign an official not to be forwarded to the catering division.   Here is another story about him.

     On the closing ceremony of the training course Captain Khâm reserved a big armchair t Captain Khâm was blamed and his hope to be promoted Major had practically gone.

     The government' s representative for the East also came to give some training practice.   The director sent a person to tell me to wear a tie and go with the trainees to greet him.  I smiled as I knew who he was.  The editor and secretary general of the Nation' s Journal * in 1955.  I recalled the days of particular interest in ly life as a journalist with a revolver.  Once, the secretary general shot a Frenchman on Phan đình Phùng St. after the latter beat a helpless Vietnamese woman, thne he and I continued bicycling to the club of  Writers at 75 Phan  đình Phùng St.  In those days  we had plain-clothes guards.  Once, a jeep full of cops pursued a member in our staff to the editorial office after he quarreled with a police officer.  Our headquarters were immediately cordoned off, but an agreement between Nhị Lang ( then a member of Trình minh Thế Caodaist sect  and an assimilated major of ARVN)  was concluded.  We laughed at one another and the following morning our wounded friend departed for Tây Ninh province very easily.   One morning I came back to see if my resignation was accepted and asked for salary.  The Director of cabinet handed me a check of $ 9000. I saw that they paid me four thousand piasters a month.  He expressed the hope that I would cooperate again.  I shook my head and said we would better part.
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*  nhật báo Quốc gia . (TR)

    The following day, after getting money from the Treasury I went to Brodard Café to drink coffee, casting a backward glance on the just travelled road.  That afternoon I paid all the debts at the boarding house and informed Cao Mỵ Nhân of the unhappy developments of our love.  When night fell I went to the
 prostitutes' hamlet  with the hope of finding a woman to sleep and share the Minister-given sum with her.

    I enjoyed the priviledge of putting my savings in the wardrobe though for one day only.  I had brought it when intending to form a family, but now I was forced to give it to the landlady as compensation for two months' debts, and naturally Cao Mỵ Nhân and I could never use it again.  The following morning  I felt like a thinker after a tiring night.   It broke my heart to see the blanket originally reserve for my future wife covering two naked bodies.  I had told  my one night friend not to awake me and to get out smoothly.  My book of poetry Myself for hire * written at the beginning of that year reflected my state of mind then.
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*   Cho thuê bản thân . (TR)

   When then it was published , journalist Nguyễn Ngu Í wrote in  Book News * a very interesting review :
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*  nguyệt san Tin Sách.  (TR)

    '... Indecent, compassionate and brutal, we find in Thế Phong ' s poetry all these.  But its sincerely cannot be questioned.  Maybe it is the peculiar mark of this so-called self- exile :   ' I have written to be a self-exile. Out at the streets I was a perfect stranger to others '.  A self-exile character of Jean- Paul Sartre,  Frantz in The Condemned of Altona - used to defend himself in front of crabs when sitting in a closed room.  That personality is a liar to himself on exile.  Frearing his contemporaries  cannot understand him., he turn his back on life when expressing his refusals, his quarrels and his dreams.  Of course, we knew that it is extremely sad to be forced to choose this attitude ...' 
     ( Book News,  October 1962 )

     I read this article towards the end of 1962, two months later than its publications.  He who praised me highly was an ex. patient of Biên Hòa Asylum.  In fact, I alone knew I was a self-exile and this only became known to others long after it happened and Mr Nguyễn Ngu Í was not an exception.  When I handed in my resignation, of course, Mr Paulus Hiếu would not  let me in peace.  The bastards would use every means within their power to harm me.  As for me, I had had a good reason not to fear death as I told a brother of mine turned bobby for the Minister that I would go down into history much sooner if they put me in jail ot killed me .  The government was not so silly as I thought.  After that, I stayed home, cooked rice for myself, continued writing  Reappraisal of Nguyễn đức Quỳnh * and Jacques Perry and What Id Absurdity ** reread L' Amour de Rien, translated an article on the miserable of Essenin , written by Victor Serge.  Had he not lived with the leader and translated his books,  the world would not have Léon Trotsky work to read.  Thank you also for you  Carnets, Victor Serge .
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* Nhận diện vóc dáng Nguyễn đức Quỳnh      **  Jacques Perry & thế nào là phi lý ? (TR)

    One Sunday morning at the approach of Tết Festival ,  Cao Mỵ Nhân came to see me.  Seeing I was cooking she felt pity for me and hastened to do it for me.  Our lunch comptised omelet prepared by her own hands.  Looking at her through the window I knew it was the very last time we could be happy together.  A few days later, she joined her great family in Ban mê Thuột forTết Festival and sent me three hundred piasters along with a letter. It was the first time I received a gift from a woman and I thought I would have to send her a more expensive gift.   I could do nothing as my stomach was empty.  I bought a sunflower plant with a single bloom, a pair of bánh chưng * and enough incense to burn in three  Tết Festival days.  I remembered my mother, my father and my whole family long ago.  It still remains in my mind, I saw her off at the bus sattion at five in the morning.  I met journalist Phan Nghị who smiled as if to ask where we would go to celebrate the Tết Festival. She wore jeans and looked like Audrey  Hepburn.  Some lines in the poem :
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*   bánh chưng  is served regularly at Tết Festival, the Vietnamese New  Year' s  festival,  which occurs during the             first three days of the first month of the lunar calendar .   (TR)

           '...   The wall painted in blue are pleasing to the eyes today
                  The landlord is still busy to deck the floor in the color of hope
                  As for me I close the door, burn the incense and sit by myself
                  I look at your picture and call your name many, many times

                 You' re still looking at me like a sunflower
                  I have nice dreams, but I know they will never come true
                  So sadness pervades my soul and the world.

                  The misty morning I saw you off it was very cold indeed
                  But I felt happy seeing you bright eyes and rosy lips
                  I was sure to be able to go through the tortures of life
                  Even when I was scalped, so that gooseflesh rose on my back 
                  All I need is to see your frail silhouette on the boulevard
                  Your ivory hands have always induced me to write
                  When you look at me affectionately I live in faith in life
                  I want to reaffirm I have the courage to undergo all sufferings, 
                                                                                    no matter how great
                  The more thought of having you is enough to make me happy ...'

      After Tết Festival Cao Mỵ Nhân came to see me only once or twice on Sundays.  My poem ANGER you' ll read depicts our very last encounter, as I never met her again after that.  In previous visits we used to walk through a kitchen garden.  Looking at it she uttered her complaints about life and urged we walked from Tân sa Châu  hamlet to the corner Trương minh Giảng and Yên Đổ Sts.,   then rode a taxi to the Ascending Dragon Inn *  at Dakao.   While eating we saw a girl friend of Cao Mỵ Nhân' s with her husband.   After introducing her husband to Cao Mỵ Nhân, she reproached her for not attending her wedding. Cao Mỵ Nhân said, '  My wedding will take place very  far from Saigon to save money  for my husband; he is now still very poor '. I felt  horribly sat at these words.  It was our last meal in public. And here was our last at home that memorable Sunday.   As she cooked rice and fried eggs I looked to follow the silhouette of my very nice would be wife and felt most happy.  After the lunch Cao Mỵ Nhân took a siesta on my bed and I on a bench.  Her hair floated on two pillows, one blue and the other red.   We spent the afternoon talking.  At eight in the evening when Cao Mỵ Nhân  was about to leave for her school,
 I felt compelled to tell her what I should.  She would graduate in the near future and would be deployed to a place we could not tell ahead of time and my path of life would be much, much somber.  I could not get married while I had no real profession.  My attempt to become  a taxi driver had failed.  Mind you, I did not regret having pursue literature, but I felt I was no victor in all fields.   There was one thing I had to admit
 I could not live without writing.  In the last ten years, I had fought hypocrisy wholeheartedly.  Western readers easily forgave the faults of writers like Rimbaud, Verlaine , J. J. Rousseau, and more recently,
Jean-Paul Sartre; but my people would never leave me alone, though my presence did charge a lot of things in the literary world here.   The plagiarists, the bobbies should think of me before carrying out a dirty plan.  They hated me but they should pay me respect.  In only urged them to recognize their faults and correct themselves.  Poet Đông Hồ hailed me as here, Mai Lâm-Nguyễn đắc Lộc claimed that everybody knew me, journalist Thái Lân admitted  I had gone far  in my search for sainthood,  essayist Nguyễn đình Tuyến considered me as here a typical of the world today, Le Journal d' Extrême Orient called me le critique éminent **  and  journalist Nguyễn Ngu Í held me I was a self-exiled writer of great talent.  Do accept this expression of gratitude to your sincere appraisals of myself although I do not agreee with  you always, because of many obvious reasons.
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*    quán chả cá Thăng Long  **  In French in the text. (TR) 

                                                               
   At dusk I explained to Cao Mỵ Nhân that our love had entered its fifth years, and she should not wait for my any longer, we had better not meet again as this would cause her all sorts of troubles.  When a girl loves passionately it is your duty to tell her to refrain  from giving you the gift of herself.   So I told Cao Mỵ Nhân we had better part.  Moreover I could not afford to marry a girl and feed my  future children when I got only two empty hands.  She retorted that I  had given up any hope of becoming a VIP.  And I related a story concerning myself not long ago.  After many months of working, artist painter Vị Ý and I went downtown and ordered two pairs of best quality UNIC  shoes at  Lê thánh Tôn St.  Some days later, the trainees looked at us, hinting that we had used shoes of a cabinet Minister.  How the hell should they feel  that way ?  I had not slightest idea but I replied , ' Do you really  think I cannot assure responsibilities as a
Minister ?  I assure you I may become a Minister in two or three years, and it's not difficult to be a  Minister ? '.  Some reported on it and I was blamed As time passed, I felt more and more convinced it was not difficult to be a Minister,  but it was really difficult to eradicate bribery, fraud, and theft of foreign  aid.  We were in need of people like Indian Minister of Defense Krishna Menon who rode a bicycle to his office and received a nominal salary.    I was only willing to be a  Minister in a cabinet of good-willed people who think of serving more than enjoyment.  As of now, I was satisfield to choose the most modest job which would enable me to earn my living and to know the genuine longings of a simple Vietnamese citizen.

    Because  I had lost two precious things in my life as a man : love and earnestness .

     
                                                                   ***

    Now she wept.  She was weeping profusely. I refrained from handing her a handkerchief as tears would be most effective in relating her.  Suddenly she put her arms round my neck and her head settled for a moment against me.  I told her to wait for some months, but I knew it was a lie and so did she.   I dared not kiss her as I felt unworthy of her.  Alas, she did not understand this attitude ; she later thought I did not love her.  I still received some letters while she was in Đà Nẵng .

     When I was about to move, I wrote to Mr Cao văn Phương, her father, saying that I would enlist in the army  and consequently, I could not marry  Cao Mỵ Nhân.   He would  rejoice as he had never been fond of me , and  now, I gave his daughter back to him, untouched.

    A year later the news of her marriage reached me.   I was grieved in two years.  Dear me, I had to admit my utter helplessness this time.  Let me read the poem  ANGER again, my very last love-token to Cao Mỵ Nhân. ( I  want to give here a footnote to facilitate the work of future literary critic.  I wrote the line 
' I turned my back on the bourgeois flowery step to depart '   after  leaving the residence of Mr Đoàn Thêm, Vice director of the President' s cabinet and poet who professed to bind the old nad the new, the East and the West into harmony in ptose and poetry.  Mr Đoàn Thêm , thank you for lending me one thousand piasters.  I still cannot pay this debt, but I have written one line of poetry for you. So you see well that every line of my poetry has a history of its own ).

    There were nights I met Cao Mỵ Nhân in dreams.  At the  awakening, I felt deeply sad.  I saw her in dreams in two morw years.  After Nusch of Paul Éluard died, the poet suffered horribly and lost his source of inspiration.   At least,  he had a happy time before loosing it.   In my case, it seemed that  we had never had even a single happy minute.  My readers, please let me lay this wreath for my lost love.

                                                                ANGER

                   I close  the door to avoid the strange sunlight of the afternoon of defeat
                   When you were leaving I dared not turn my eyes to follow you
                   From morning till noon till evening and then another night
                   Nothing happened in my boardinghouse except for one thing :
                                         inanimate things, my close friends, were beaten by me
                   Holding my pen I wrote incessantly
                   Three pillows, blue and red, scattered here and there
                   The pink handkerchief lay beside the blanket full of the past
                   The handkerchief I ' ve never used to wash my face with
                   I only put it on my eyes and lips on nights .

                   I don' t want to see daylight which makes my eyes ache
                   How about your eyes, my love
                   I stop reading the fourth page of newspaper
                   Wedding  annoucements would remind me of you too much
                   Mai A * why don' t you spit on my face
                   I who do not honour my pledge
                   Don' t unfurl your head of hair in front of my mirror
                   Don' t mention your family lest I become angry 

                   After I saw you off darkness beset me
                   I put my two hands on my head
                   Then tortured myself untill I seemed to be scalped
                   Pains induced me to tears 

                   Mai A ,  why do you still feel pity, anger and love for me
                   Is there anyone in this country who seriously pays attention to others ?

                   I pretended to have two sightless eyes
                   And condemned myself as a coward
                    I dared not see my face in the mirror
                    Whenever I am I feel contempt for myself at all times
                    I cannot live undisturbed
                    The heap of rubbish and flies have journeyed to the suburb
                    I am  now living in an ill - smelling atmosphere 
                    After turning my back on the bourgeois flowery step to depart

                     After your departure I locked the door
                     Lamps have been lighted but I perceive only darkness
                     Your lovely hair fell on this pillow in the afternoon
                     You lay on this bed.  Alas , it no longer warm .
                                               MYSELF FOR HIRE

                     ------
                       *  Mai A  is another name of Cao Mỵ Nhân . (TR)

                       Thephong