魯迅
我從鄉下跑到京城裏，壹轉眼已經六年了。其間耳聞目睹的所謂國家大事，算起來也很不少；但在我心裏，都不留什麽痕跡，倘要我尋出這些事的影響來說，便只是增長了我的壞脾氣，——老實說，便是教我壹天比壹天的看不起人。
但有壹件小事，卻於我有意義，將我從壞脾氣裏拖開，使我至今忘記不得。
這是民國六年的冬天，大北風刮得正猛，我因為生計關系，不得不壹早在路上走。壹路幾乎遇不見人，好容易才雇定了壹輛人力車，教他拉到S門去。不壹會，北風小了，路上浮塵早已刮凈，剩下壹條潔白的大道來，車夫也跑得更快。剛近S門，忽而車把上帶著壹個人，慢慢地倒了。
跌倒的是壹個女人，花白頭發，衣服都很破爛。伊從馬路上突然向車前橫截過來；車夫已經讓開道，但伊的破棉背心沒有上扣，微風吹著，向外展開，所以終於兜著車把。幸而車夫早有點停步，否則伊定要栽壹個大斤鬥，跌到頭破血出了。
伊伏在地上；車夫便也立住腳。我料定這老女人並沒有傷，又沒有別人看見，便很怪他多事，要自己惹出是非，也誤了我的路。
我便對他說，“沒有什麽的。走妳的罷！”
車夫毫不理會，——或者並沒有聽到，——卻放下車子，扶那老女人慢慢起來，攙著臂膊立定，問伊說：
“妳怎麽啦？”
“我摔壞了。”
我想，我眼見妳慢慢倒地，怎麽會摔壞呢，裝腔作勢罷了，這真可憎惡。車夫多事，也正是自討苦吃，現在妳自己想法去。
車夫聽了這老女人的話，卻毫不躊躇，仍然攙著伊的臂膊，便壹步壹步的向前走。我有些詫異，忙看前面，是壹所巡警分駐所，大風之後，外面也不見人。這車夫扶著那老女人，便正是向那大門走去。
我這時突然感到壹種異樣的感覺，覺得他滿身灰塵的後影，剎時高大了，而且愈走愈大，須仰視才見。而且他對於我，漸漸的又幾乎變成壹種威壓，甚而至於要榨出皮袍下面藏著的“小”來。
我的活力這時大約有些凝滯了，坐著沒有動，也沒有想，直到看見分駐所裏走出壹個巡警，才下了車。
巡警走近我說，“妳自己雇車罷，他不能拉妳了。”
我沒有思索的從外套袋裏抓出壹大把銅元，交給巡警，說，“請妳給他……”
風全住了，路上還很靜。我走著，壹面想，幾乎怕敢想到自己。以前的事姑且擱起，這壹大把銅元又是什麽意思？獎他麽？我還能裁判車夫麽？我不能回答自己。
這事到了現在，還是時時記起。我因此也時時煞了苦痛，努力的要想到我自己。幾年來的文治武力，在我早如幼小時候所讀過的“子曰詩雲”⑵壹般，背不上半句了。獨有這壹件小事，卻總是浮在我眼前，有時反更分明，教我慚愧，催我自新，並且增長我的勇氣和希望。
壹九二○年七月。⑶
□註釋
⑴本篇最初發表於壹九壹九年十二月壹日北京《晨報·周年紀念增刊》。
⑵“子曰詩雲”：“子曰”即“夫子說”；“詩雲”即“《詩經》上說”。泛指儒家古籍。這裏指舊時學塾的初級讀物。
⑶據報刊發表的年月及《魯迅日記》，本篇寫作時間當在壹九壹九年十壹月。
[編輯本段]寫作背景及思想感情
魯迅先生的《壹件小事》的寫作背景是：1919年，五四運動爆發。這場運動使得知識分子在勞動人民身上找到了革新中華民族的希望所在，因而提出了“勞工神聖”的口號。學生若不了解這樣的背景，壹般只會把它看作壹曲人力車夫正直無私品德的頌歌，而不會將之上升到贊揚勞動人民，提倡知識分子必須向勞動人民學習的高度。
[編輯本段]英文版
A SMALL INCIDENT
(From the "Call to Arms" collection)
translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang)
Six years have slipped by since I came from the country to the
capital. During that time the number of so-called affairs of state I
have witnessed or heard about is far from small, but none of them made
much impression. If asked to define their influence on me, I can only
say they made my bad temper worse. Frankly speaking, they taught me
to take a poorer view of people every day.
One small incident, however, which struck me as significant and
jolted me out of my irritability, remains fixed even now in my memory.
It was the winter of 1917, a strong north wind was blustering,
but the exigencies of earning my living forced me to be up and out
early. I met scarcely a soul on the road, but eventually managed to
hire a rickshaw to take me to S-Gate. Presently the wind dropped a
little, having blown away the drifts of dust on the road to leave a
clean broad highway, and the rickshaw man quickened his pace. We were
just approaching S-Gate when we knocked into someone who slowly
toppled over.
It was a grey-haired woman in ragged clothes. She had stepped
out abruptly from the roadside in front of us, and although the rick-
shaw man had swerved, her tattered padded waistcoat, unbuttoned and
billowing in the wind, had caught on the shaft. Luckily the rickshaw
man had slowed down, otherwise she would certainly have had a bad fall
and it might have been a serious accident.
She huddled there on the ground, and the rickshaw man stopped.
As I did not believe the old woman was hurt and as no one else had
seen us, I thought this halt of his uncalled for, liable to land him
trouble and hold me up.
"It's all right," I said. "Go on."
He paid no attention - he may not have heard - but set down the
shafts, took the old woman's arm and gently helped her up.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"I hurt myself falling."
I thought: I saw how slowly you fell, how could you be hurt?
Putting on an act like this is simply disgusting. The rickshaw man
asked for trouble, and now he's got it. He'll have to find his own
way out.
But the rickshaw man did not hesitate for a minute after hearing
the old woman's answer. Still holding her arm, he helped her slowly
forward. Rather puzzled by his I looked ahead and saw a police-
station. Because of the high wind, there was no one outside. It was
there that the rickshaw man was taking the old woman.
Suddenly I had the strange sensation that his dusty retreating
figure had in that instant grown larger. Indeed, the further he
walked the larger he loomed, until I had to look up to him. At the
same time he seemed gradually to be exerting a pressure on me which
threatened to overpower the small self hidden under my fur-lined gown.
Almost paralysed at that juncture I sat there motionless, my mind
a blank, until a policeman came out. Then I got down from the rick-
shaw.
The policeman came up to me and said, "Get another rickshaw. He
can't take you any further."
On the spur of the moment I pulled a handful of coppers from my
coat pocket and handed them to the policeman. "Please give him this,"
I said.
The wind had dropped completely, but the road was still quiet.
As I walked along thinking, I hardly dared to think about myself.
Quite apart from what had happened earlier, what had I meant by that
handful of coppers? Was it a reward? Who was I to judge the rickshaw
man? I could give myself no answer.
Even now, this incident keeps coming back to me. It keeps dis-
tressing me and makes me try to think about myself. The politics and
the fighting of those years have slipped my mind as completely as the
classics I read as a child. Yet this small incident keeps coming back
to me, often more vivid than in actual life, teaching me shame, spur-
ring me on to reform, and imbuing me with fresh courage and fresh
hope.
July 1920
《壹件小事》的特點是短小精悍，內容警策深邃。全文僅壹千字左右，作品描寫的是日常生活中的壹件小事。在歌頌下層勞動人民崇高品質的同時，還反映了知識分子的自我反省，表現出真誠向勞動人民學習的新思想。在五四運動時期能有如此認識是很不尋常的，具有深遠的社會意義。本篇的寫作特點，壹是運用對比手法，將車夫和“我”對於同壹件事的不同態度進行對照，顯露出“我”自私自利的渺小，映射出車夫的光明磊落，敢做敢當，關心別人的高大形象。這種對比的妙處在於以間接而含蓄的筆墨突出勞動者的樸實無私。在表現形式上，本篇好似壹篇速寫畫，又近於當代的“小小說”，短小精悍，清新可人而意味深長；情節真實可信，成為現代小說中傳頌最廣的名篇之壹。