Chapter 63 Part Four (2) - My Teenagers

1. Master Guan's "Qinglong Yanyue Knife" was no match for the influence of my grandfather's poetry on the snow, and the initial literary dream melted in my young heart like snow.So, the engineer's son scored zero in the mathematics test, and the widowed mother sighed, "You are not as good as your father's little fingernail..." There is a song full of poetry and associative space, its name is "About Winter".I like autumn, and also like winter, because in winter, silver and snow are flying, like reed flowers turning white, the silence and solemnity of the snow country, making people feel the freshness of the air, the purity of the fields and mountains, when I was young, I like listening to the Russian folk song that Lenin liked :

snow covered volga river Three sets of cars running on the glacier who is singing the melancholy song the driver The singing voice is deep, thick, sad and reserved.It seems that the carriage ruts left on the snowfield are an endlessly distant, endlessly deep, and endlessly melancholy story.Sometimes the ruts are straight like a string, and sometimes they are bent like a bow. I often regard the "string" and "bow" as the straight lines and curves of life; and it is the crystal clear winter that can leave these distinctive marks on the world. Snow. I like the goose feather snow in winter very much.I have forgotten many articles in the Mandarin books I learned when I was a child, but a nursery rhyme about falling snow in winter is still fresh in my memory after 50 years:

north wind call heavy snow silver flower on the ground three feet high an old man bow to sweep the snow clear the path sweep the avenue again Looking back suddenly, the song here is not only kind, but also found its romance.Just imagine, how can an old man sweep the three-foot-thick snow with a broom!However, no one paid attention to the exaggeration of Meng Lang in his nursery rhymes, but relied on literature to imagine the picture of the old man in the snow country: the snow field is very beautiful, and the old man was dyed white by the snow with white eyebrows and white beard, he was as beautiful as a fairy.

The reason why I can keep this vivid memory is that I am not unrelated to my grandfather.Grandpa was a high-ranking scholar in the late Qing Dynasty. He knew everything about Tang poetry and Song Ci. I am the eldest grandson of the Cong family, so I was naturally regarded by my grandfather as the apple of his eye.One of the ways he loves me is to force me to hang my wrist to imitate Liu Gongquan's inscription to write brush calligraphy, and the other is to make me recite Tang poems.Yutian, Hebei belongs to the northern country, and it is snowy in winter. The snowier the day, the more my grandfather would take me out to "seek plums".In fact, there were no plums to be found at Chengguan in the county seat; he took me to a place about two miles south of the city, a place called Nuanquanhe (that is, hot spring), for a snow tour.Snowballs were flying in the sky with white catkins, and the warm spring on the ground was rolling with heat waves. At this time, the grandfather with white beard and white eyebrows in the snow shook his head and recited the poem "Jiang Xue" written by Liu Zongyuan in the Tang Dynasty:

A Thousand Mountains Are Flying Absolutely Thousands of people disappear The Lonely Boat Fishing alone in the cold river and snow At that time, I was only about 10 years old, and I could neither know the content of the poem nor decipher the fun of my grandfather; but he reminded me of that nursery rhyme, I am afraid it was still the memory left by my grandfather singing poems in the snow. .Because people's memory chains are intertwined, from one point to the other, the nursery rhymes of the snow-sweeping old man are clearly left in my cerebral cortex. Grandfather Xiwen, of course, attaches great importance to culture.In the small mountain village of more than 30 households in Daiguantun where I was born, there were two students from prestigious universities in my family: one was my father, Cong Yintan, who graduated from Beiyang University in Tianjin, and he majored in science and engineering; It is my uncle Cong Yinfen, who graduated from the Chinese Department of Fu Jen Catholic University in Beiping.Both aunts went to Peking to study and were educated in secondary normal schools.What is out of balance is that my mother and aunt are both illiterate and illiterate. This is a deformed marriage brought about by the abnormal development of feudal society.The combination of my father and my mother was first of all a combination of relatives.According to the memories of my 86-year-old mother: At that time, my father came back from studying in Tianjin, and the Town God’s Temple in the county was singing a big opera (Peking Opera). Root blind date.When my mother was young, she was the fairest of the five sisters, but she was the only one with bound feet.My father is an open-minded and progressive student. Why did he fall in love with my mother? I can’t find out the source. Anyway, they were married and gave birth to me on March 13, 1933 in the lunar calendar.Because after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War in 1937, Beiyang University moved westward to Chongqing with the Kuomintang.After graduation, my father worked as an engineer at the airport. Later, my father and a few classmates were dissatisfied with the Kuomintang’s passive resistance to Japan. They were arrested when they left Chaotianmen, Chongqing, and wanted to take a boat to Wuhan and go to Yan’an. ) relapsed and died.Therefore, the marriage between my parents is a mystery to me.According to what my uncle told me: When my father was applying for Beiyang University, he won the "No. 1 Scholar" out of thousands of candidates. He is a very smart person. When the land reform was carried out in my hometown in 1947, the poor and lower-middle peasants found out the forbidden books my father hid on the roof from the roof where I was born. One of them was Lenin's book "State and Revolution" printed on rough-edged paper.These can help me understand my father's talents and wisdom, but they don't help me understand the reason for the union between my father and my mother—I was only 4 years old when my father died in Chongqing, and I can't even remember what my father looked like.

When I was 22 years old, I was admitted as a member of the Chinese Writers Association, and attended the first youth writing conference in New China, and became a writer who published a collection of short stories. It seems difficult to find the genetic effect of artistic genes from my parents.Because my grandfather was a "martial arts practitioner" in the late Qing Dynasty, I remember most clearly the "Qinglong Yanyue Knife" that weighed several tens of catties that was used at the top of the gate. When I was a child, I saw him dance with a spear, stick a stick, and shoot geese with a bow. Although I thought it was quite interesting , but when he twisted one of my ears and asked me to get up in the morning to practice exercises with him, I still failed.So my grandpa said that I would become a worthless bookworm, and I would not be able to become a great talent-he despised Wen Xiucai-my grandfather very much.That kind of energy is a bit like watching the Peking Opera "Heroes of the General" in which Lian Po despises Lin Xiangru, but there is no reconciliation in the ending of the Peking Opera.

Therefore, looking for the source of blood, I have three sources: one article, two weapons and three science and technology.What puzzles me all the time is that I have no science and engineering skills since I was a child. Although my father is a top scientist in science and engineering, if he does not suffer from bad luck and die prematurely in the South at the age of 28, he will definitely become a famous inventor. But I can't find his shadow in me; on the contrary, I have often failed in arithmetic since I was in elementary school in Chengguan. Grandpa often used my father as an example to teach, but it didn't work.I hid behind the pile of firewood and in the crevice of the big vat, and read only half-understood novels, such as "Nineteen Legends of Qingcheng", "Twelve Golden Darts", " Yongzheng Swordsman Picture" and the like. In 1991, my sister-in-law returned home from Taiwan to visit her relatives, and asked me about a detail she witnessed: One time when it was time for lunch, I couldn’t be found anywhere, and finally I took a copy of "Three Heroes Sword" from the My mother spanked my ass with a broom for this.I don't remember the details, but I do remember being obsessed with miscellaneous books and reading them in places where no one was around.This is echoed by my grandfather's words: I am a useless little bookworm.

There is a theory of atavistic inheritance in contemporary medicine. The formation of my natural disposition can be attributed to the subtle influence of my grandfather.Grandpa is generous and open-minded by nature, he doesn't stick to trifles, and he goes crazy after drinking too much, shaking around like a drunken fist.I am also a small horse. When I came to Peking to study, I was transferred to the sixth grade of Xisibei Primary School (now called "Dahong Luochang Primary School").At that time, before each class, the students had to line up to enter the church. Once I was standing in the front row, and the male and female students in the back row suddenly burst into laughter, and then covered their faces and laughed.Afterwards, I found out that when I went to school with my schoolbag in the aisle of Yuhuang Pavilion in the morning, I didn’t wear underwear in my outer pants. I didn’t know when the outer pants were cut through a triangular hole, so my butt was exposed. Students can see clearly.Originally, I, a country kid with a gourd head, was regarded as a little bumpkin when I entered the Peking school. The hole in the back of my trousers caused this comedy.I touched it with my hand and found my flaw, and immediately blushed. At this time, a female classmate named Liu Huiyun suddenly shouted at the classmate who laughed at me:

"Be serious, don't laugh at Cong Weixi, a student from the countryside, you think you look good because you are greasy-haired and pink-faced? Bah—" If there is any deep impression on me when I went to Peking Primary School, it is the only impression; if there is anyone in my class who makes me unforgettable, it is this Liu Huiyun.Her family lived in Dahongluochang, with a pink face, a wide forehead, fair complexion, and a wealthy family. It is said that her father was an important member of the KMT's financial circle.It was a very coincidental coincidence that when I went to the Summer Palace to go to the Summer Palace for my junior high school, I happened to meet Liu Huiyun at the No. 3 Women's Middle School on the same day.I wore the badge of the No. 2 Middle School, and she wore the badge of the No. 3 Women's Middle School. Because of her behavior of complaining about the holes in my trousers, she and I were both young and young.She gave me her home phone number, but I was too timid to make a call (there was an old-fashioned rocker phone in the reception room of Beiping No. 2 Middle School at that time).Instead, she sent me a short letter first, asking me to go to the Toad Palace Cinema in Xidan to watch an American movie "Peerless Beauty" as my first date with her.

Is it cowardice?has this ingredient.Is it lack of strict order?This is exactly the defect of young Werther.On this first date, I brought my classmate Tan Peisheng (a famous drama critic after liberation, and once served as the director of the Department of Drama and Literature of the Central Academy of Drama) with me. Self-esteem led to the ending of the first appointment and the closure of the curtain.But I always remember her act of righteousness in elementary school, and I have been looking for her news, and the news I got back is: she and her whole family flew to Taiwan on the eve of the liberation of Peking.Therefore, on the eve of the Spring Festival in 1988, when the supplement of Taiwan's "United Daily News" asked me to write a manuscript, I smeared the article "Sending Dreams" and published it on the Spring Festival special issue of the magazine.In addition to greeting my sister-in-law in Taiwan for her safety and congratulating me on the publication of the combined novel "Luhuitou" in Taiwan, the dream is sent to her.In this article, I reminisced about the old days of Beiping’s youth, wished her a happy family, and hoped that she would not become the mediocre housewife "Yin Xueyan" in Bai Xianyong's novels, but stay young forever."Liu Huiyun" whose heart is forever young...

Dream!It's a dream!As I step into the winter of my life, in this snowy winter, revisiting my boyhood, it is a messy and chaotic dream.It was not first love, but the awakening of youth in the haze, and it was the first time that the love of children hit the heart.But all this was self-killing due to my lack of rational thinking. When I was a teenager, my IQ was deformed.The "hole in the pants" that I am ashamed of is just one of them.The second thing that tinged with suicide was that I was admitted to Minmin Middle School. When the admission list was posted on the public list, I actually missed my name.For this reason, my mother, who earns a living as a nanny in Beiping and provides for my schooling, was very sad, and she repeatedly lamented that I was not as good as my father's little fingernails.Little did I know that it was the result of my Ma Daha becoming a student; when I knew that I was admitted, because I failed to report in time, the place was replaced by a backdoor candidate (this not only hurt my mother's heart, but also lost my relationship with Wang Meng. By chance, Wang Meng was also admitted to Minmin Middle School that year).There was no other way. My old aunt, who was studying at Chaoyang University in Beiping, found a relative who worked in the Beiping Municipal Government. After he cleared up the relationship, I walked into the classroom of Beiping No. 2 Middle School.The Beiping No. 2 Middle School before liberation, like the Beijing No. 2 Middle School after liberation, was a first-class key middle school. For a student like me who hates mathematics, science, and chemistry, it was undoubtedly a disaster.The various mathematical equations evolved from the formula X+Y=Z in small algebra made me extremely distressed; it was not because I didn’t want to know the mystery, but because I didn’t have such a head, I couldn’t enter the ocean of Arabic numerals, and I couldn’t solve it. Leave those number mysteries alone.Due to my aptitude and endowment, in the final small algebra exam, I became the only one among dozens of classmates at the same level-I got 0 points, ate duck eggs, and became the class who was not allowed to advance to the second grade of junior high school. The repeater, created the most humiliation of my boyhood.Perhaps when God created human beings, he gave them the following types: rational thinking type, perceptual thinking type, intertwined emotional and rational type and dementia type.I think I belong to the second type: that is, a teenager with rich emotional thinking and withered rational thinking.When I was a child, I hid in the cracks of the tank to read martial arts novels, but I didn’t have the dream of going to Shaolin or Wudang to become a martial arts master, because between my grandfather and my grandfather, I respected my grandfather’s full of literary talents, but not my grandfather. Can dance Guan Yunchang's Qinglong Yanyue Broadsword.After arriving in Peiping, I came across a copy of "Pacific Monthly" edited by Xiaotian. I flipped through it, read it again and again, and even had the dream of writing an article.If you are looking for my debut novel, it should be "The Hole in the Pants" - the essay I wrote when I was in the sixth grade of Xisibei Primary School.At that time, with my childish eyes, I witnessed the corruption and corruption of the Kuomintang before it fled south. On the one hand, it was "the smell of rich wine and meat", and on the other hand, it was "the road is frozen to death". Inspired by the youthful loyalty, I wrote an article entitled The contents of "Laughter in the Great Red Door" (not fiction, nor prose, it can be regarded as an article of "four different images") were sent to "Pacific Monthly".It is conceivable that it sank like a stone into the sea, without an echo. In No. 2 Middle School, I read many novels.In addition to some writers’ works during the Japanese and Puppet Period, I have read Mr. Li Zini’s novel "Green Green Riverside Grass", which describes the love between sons and daughters in the War of Resistance Against Japan, by heart (this novel was changed into a movie, and the heroine is starring Wang Danfeng) .The teacher who taught elementary algebra in No. 2 Middle School was surnamed Lan. I remember one time he suddenly asked me, "What did I just say?" I stood up, at a loss, and the whole class burst into laughter.Teacher Lan said: "What's wrong with you? You don't look at the blackboard, you always look at the window, and there is no golden phoenix there!" My classmate is Li Yucheng, and his math, physics, and chemistry skills are no better than mine How much is the second last in the class.After class, he said to me sympathetically: "I know what you're thinking. You're thinking about the heroine in "Green Riverside Grass" who was injured by a bomb in both eyes, and met the heroine by chance in the hospital. Unforgettable. Right?" It's really a matter of knowing yourself and knowing the enemy.Because I shed tears when I read "Grass by the Green River", the pages of the book left circles of tears that I dripped on the pages of the book.Many years later, in the late 1980s, I received a letter from Jiao Yushu, chief engineer of Anshan Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., saying that he thought of me after reading my novel.I replied to Mr. Jiao and said: "When I was a classmate, you were a top student in science and engineering in the class. It is a matter of course that you became a pillar of the country. Since I was a child, I belonged to a crooked wall. A monk with a crooked mouth is not comparable to Shadi Muni. At that time, it was only by chance that I entered the temple of No. 2 Middle School by mistake, and we became classmates. For this reason, No. 2 Middle School after liberation came to my house several times to take videos of me and keep them as school materials. I always declined , because I, a repeater, am afraid that I will mislead my children and tarnish the reputation of Beijing No. 2 Middle School..." 2. Polenta was poured on my mother, and it also poured into my heart, "...you have to rely on yourself", the widowed mother's exhortation gave me the blood to fight against fate. My mother was devastated by my repetition.At that time, she was working as a nanny for a three-generation family at the diagonally opposite door of Beiping No. 2 Middle School on Neiwubu Street.My mother was afraid of embarrassing me, so she didn't allow me to show it among my classmates, let alone bring my classmates to the host's house to disturb me.During the land reform era, although the Cong family had no bad deeds in the countryside, and his father was an intellectual imprisoned to death by the Kuomintang, he could not escape the baptism of the times because of his family status as a small landowner.My uncle, who graduated from the Mandarin Department of Fu Jen Catholic University, became the mainstay of the family's life.At that time, he first worked as a language teacher at Wanci Middle School in Beiping, and then went to Tongxian Male Teacher and the Middle School Attached to Male Teacher as the teaching director.The living burdens of my grandfather, grandma, and my other uncle and aunt are all on the back of my uncle who is a teacher.He was originally a hunchback, but due to the great changes of the times, the burden on him became even heavier.My mother is very strong by nature. First, she didn’t want to live in my uncle’s family (he was the head of the finance and tax section of the Finance Bureau at that time), and second, she didn’t want to add to my uncle’s burden, so she resolutely walked into this family of three generations to support me. Go to school and become a servant. Every time I avoid my classmates and sneak into the house with the red door, I feel sad in my heart.A scene that is often seen is that the mother washes a pile of clothes for three generations in a large iron basin.She leaned forward and back and rubbed the clothes on the washboard vigorously, and the soap foam covered her arms.She worked diligently and endlessly, all for my worthless son. The incident of repeating a grade made me linger at the door for a long time.I know very well that this pair of widowed mothers who have lost their husbands will go through their hearts like a sharp knife. After thinking twice, it is better to turn around and tell my mother.I first found my sister-in-law who was in the third grade at Peking Normal School (later, before the KMT fled south, they recruited a group of Mandarin teachers in Beijing to teach Mandarin in Taiwan. My sister-in-law was admitted and went to Taiwan in 1948 to become a teacher. She is optimistic and open-minded by nature, she is the person who likes me the most besides my grandfather and mother), after listening to my embarrassing statement, she enlightened me and said: "I can see that you are not a material for science and engineering when you grow up. Go to the High School Attached to Tongxian Normal School, so that you don’t have to suffer in No. 2 Middle School.” I couldn’t wish more, so I begged my sister-in-law to mobilize my mother to let me go and let me leave Beiping No. 2 Middle School. As far as I can remember, it took me a lot of trouble to leave school.My mother was deeply influenced by my father. Although she was uneducated, she picked up such a mantra from her father: learn mathematics, physics, and chemistry well, and you will not be afraid to travel all over the world.The housekeeper who hired my mother was a senior employee in the bank, and they all opposed my leaving No. 2 Middle School. They asked me to repeat a grade rather than leave No. 2 Middle School, because No. 2 Middle School is a prestigious middle school that many children want to enter but cannot.The reason why I was able to go to Tong County later was thanks to the continuous victories in the Northeast Campaign of the War of Liberation.Although the family my mother served in was not a Kuomintang bureaucrat, they also suffered from "communist phobia". At the end of 1947, they were planning to go south to Taiwan.This fundamentally solved my entanglement in leaving No. 2 Middle School, because it was difficult for my mother to find another place to work in the panic-stricken city of Beiping. "It's really bad luck for me," said my mother. "It is my fault." "If your father had lived you wouldn't have repeated a grade," mother said again. I also responded, but I was not convinced.I thought to myself: If they were all people like my father, wouldn’t they all be inventors and engineers?Who will write novels such as "Story of the Stone" and "Green Riverside Grass".The world has become too serious, too organized.Just like when I saw my mother opening the chicken coop when I was a child, I released the chickens out of the nest at dawn; when it got dark, the chickens returned to the nest and covered the chicken coop with stones. Because my mother was reluctant to go to Tong County, I studied in the new class for another two months, and finally went to the house of my uncle who taught in Tong County with my mother, and went to the High School Affiliated to Tong Teachers to jump to the second year of junior high school. grade.If we put aside the atavistic inheritance theory of innate lineage and focus on the shaping of people by acquired life, going to school in Tongxian County is a turning point in my life.Less than half a year after arriving in Tong County, family conflicts broke out first, and the focus of this conflict was caused by the word "poor". I was living in school at the time.Grandpa, grandma, two uncles and aunts and their respective children, a total of 8 people, old and young, live in two houses on the northeast back street in Ximen Inner, plus my mother, there are 9 people in two houses and a living room (cooking room) The hall for use is filled with pots and pans, stoves, etc.), crowded like a honeycomb.The core of the focus issue is that my mother and I are orphans and widows who have no support, so on a Sunday, when I came home from school to visit my mother and grandpa, I witnessed a heartbroken scene where my aunt snatched the porridge bowl from my mother drama.I was 16 years old that year, and I had just woken up from the chaos, and I knew a little about the cruelty of the world: "Go away—" my aunt snatched the thin bowl of cornmeal porridge from my mother's hand, and ordered my mother to leave. "His uncle (referring to my uncle who is the teaching director) has no money to support so many idlers!" My mother had a stubborn personality, so she immediately retorted: "I didn't eat your meal, it was his uncle who agreed for our mother and son to come; Weixi didn't spend your money to go to school, I sold the jewelry for the wedding, tuition fees.” Hearing the two daughters-in-law arguing over a bowl of cornmeal porridge, the grandfather was in tears in the back room.He suffered from cerebral thrombosis, not only became paralyzed, but also became dumb due to language barriers.But his mind was not confused by blood clots. He took my hand and kept rubbing it, expressing his helplessness. Those tears were shed for our mother and child, because my father passed away prematurely. Such a tragedy. The hot porridge fell on my mother's skirt. My mother threw the porridge bowl on the table and said suddenly: "I'm going—I'm going—" I broke free from Grandpa's palm and knelt down beside my mother. I didn't know what to say, but looked at my mother with tears in my eyes.I know that my mother is a person who does what she says and does what she does. Once she makes a decision, she will never change her original intention.But where can she go?To my uncle's house in Peking?This is unlikely, because she despises her uncle's behavior.As the head of the tax department, my uncle is a corrupt official. Although it is not a problem to reward my sister with a meal, my mother has always despised my uncle's unrestrained behavior: he goes in and out of dance halls, wanders in Huajie and Liuxiang.He is more than 1.80 meters tall, and looks like a handsome young man.He has married five wives successively, and the last wife was Ma Yiting, a coloratura soprano in Peking at that time.Originally, Ma Yiting was infatuated with Lao Zhicheng, a master piano player, but my uncle insisted on relying on his skills in Fengyue's love field, and dug Ma Yiting away from Lao Zhicheng, which became a sensation in Beiping. When Lao Zhicheng and I were members of the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal People's Political Consultative Conference, I asked this famous pianist about this matter. On the surface, the old man seemed to have forgotten this matter, but in his dry eyes , but shed tears).My mother didn't understand, let alone forgive, my uncle's prodigal behavior, so she would never go to my uncle's house to beg for food. Her final decision surprised me: "I want to go back to my hometown, Daiguantun, Yutian, Hebei." Although I was young and ignorant at the time, as my family changed, I was not completely ignorant of the word "landlord". I was deeply afraid that my mother would be discriminated against when she returned home, but at the age of 16, I had nothing to do.The uncle who taught also came out to dissuade his sister-in-law, saying: "His aunt has a bad temper, don't worry about it, sister-in-law, just make do with it here! Let you go, I am sorry for the dead brother!" The mother was determined not to follow, and bravely returned home alone.I remember that it was a winter morning, and I sent my mother to the long-distance bus station.There were scattered snowflakes in the sky, and I carried a small package for my mother and walked beside her.In the annual ring history of my life, this is the first time I have paid. Although the small package is not heavy, I snatched it from my mother and held it in my hand. Mother has no tears. I was in tears. Mother stroked the snowflakes off my head with her hands, and wiped away the tears on my face: "You should work hard like your father." At this time, every word of mother's words is worth a lot of money.I responded: "I will remember what Mom said." "And...you have to rely on yourself." My mother told me, "Don't think about relying on anyone else." "I understand." "Go back, it's time to miss your first class." "No, I'll see you off again." I said, "When I grow up, I must take my mother out. You have to take care of yourself." Mother is gone - walking in the cold and snowy winter.In this winter, I seem to have grown up a lot at once, and I seem to realize the responsibility for the first time.I am not only a sucker of breast milk, but also give milk to my mother; I should not only be a container of love, but also give love.After many years, I regard this day as the boundary between my youth and youth. At the age of 16, I entered adolescence ahead of schedule. I am no longer a young bird waiting to be fed. I should be a bird that flies out of the tree nest to forage independently. It's gone. In the 1980s, when some literary critics commented on me from the ground up, they often only mentioned the 20 years of labor camp life, which was a purgatory temper for me; .The sentimentality in this period of my teenage life was very important to the tempering of my character.If it is said that the reason why I have been able to walk through the miserable post life of 20 years of labor reform without sinking, decadence, or self-mutilation, I can find the root cause from the influence and sculpture of my mother's personality on me.Since the beginning of literature in the new era, the reason why I have published more than 30 novels and collections of essays (including Hong Kong, Taiwan and foreign language editions) is an extension of the spirit of my life in the labor camp.For more than ten years, I have cherished time like my life, and I have declined many invitations to visit mountains and rivers; I have never been to the Temple of Heaven in an old Beijing. My zodiac sign is a chicken, but the core is a cow, and I only know how to sow seeds on the manuscript paper , but my cow is a cow with horns, facing all kinds of masquerade balls in the literary world, as well as shameless profiteering, sycophancy, etc., I will treat each other with cold eyes. In 1990, I rejected a powerful figure in the literary world from outside the iron gate of my family, which was one of my character manifestations.And all of this is not the result of my grandfather's inheritance from generation to generation, but the result of the influence of society and my poor mother... Farmers are kind.Especially in the water and soil of my hometown, there are very few unscrupulous people and scoundrels, and most of them are hardworking people.The origin of the county name of Yutian County in Hebei Province, there was a beautiful legend: In the Jin Dynasty, there was a man named Yang Boyong who planted stones in Zhongnan Mountain to make jade, so it was named Yutian.Daiguantun, where my mother returned to her hometown, is also a mountain village, connected to the Zhongnan Mountains, so people are gentle and honest.After the mother returned to her hometown, not only was she not implicated by the landlord's family, but she was blessed by misfortune.According to her mother's recollection, when the village cadres saw her returning home alone, they immediately gave her a house and land. Considering that she was a widow and had two little feet, they placed her in the house of a cousin of Cong's family.It is unbelievable that the village cadres found the illegal loggers who took advantage of the land reform to cut down the old trees of our family, and ordered them to hand over the money for the trees.Of course, the fundamental reason why the village cadres treated my mother so favorably was that my grandfather was a scholarly family and had not left any evil in the village. As for whether the village knew that my father was captured and imprisoned by the Kuomintang when he defected to Yan'an, there is no way to verify it.Farmers are farmers, there is no greater macro bird's-eye view, they start more from humanity and human feelings, and give warmth to my mother who has returned home.Therefore, when I was studying in Tong County, I actually received money remitted from my mother.When writing this winter memory, I must not forget to mention that my cousin Cong Youzhi in the Cong family was born in a poor peasant, but she was willing to serve as my mother's life assistant; Chai (when the author was writing this memoir, my cousin was coming to my house. I entrusted the wealthy group to bring her to Beijing in a car. My mother misses her, and I am grateful to her). In a few years, She treated my mother like she treated her own mother. 3. Uncle’s scrapbook creation enlightenment, Teacher Tian Xiufeng’s creative encouragement, I can finally say to my mother after getting out of inferiority complex: My son will use another achievement to heal your past wounds... Studying in this kind of living environment, my conscience forced me to work hard in order to become self-reliant as soon as possible.In Tongshi Attached Middle School, the learning environment is relatively relaxed, which first of all makes me feel free to breathe. In the winter of 1949, the People's Liberation Army entered Beiping, and after Beiping was renamed Beijing, the school was in a state of changing from warm to cold, which gave the High School Attached to Normal University, which did not pay much attention to mathematics, science, and chemistry, more living space to develop personal interests.At this time, I had two opportunities to develop my aspirations: 1. I entered the school basketball team;In addition to these two jobs conforming to my physical and mental qualities and satisfying my hobbies, the most important thing is that my literary talents hidden deep in my heart have been induced, which is very important for me to become a writer in the 1950s. Young writers played an important role in enlightenment.One day, I went to sit at my uncle’s house, and there was no one at home (grandpa died of illness, and my grandmother and another uncle went to Beijing to find another life), so I looked through my uncle’s small bookshelf, intending to find two novels to read. Unintentionally, I found a scrapbook of my uncle's works.On the gray cover, on the white paper inside the book are the works published by my uncle in Tianjin's "Ta Kung Pao".Among them are poems, novels, fables, prose... Uncle Jia's pen name is Lu Ren, which means breaking down the complex writing into six characters.In the past, my uncle never told me that he had published any of his works. From his ordinary appearance and slightly hunched back, I never found my uncle to have such a literary talent.This discovery was like a spiritual earthquake to me. I eagerly read my uncle's fable novel "The Story of Arabic Numerals" and the prose "Monologue"; Written by brother Weixiong.The other poems were neat sonnets in imitation of Shakespeare and Mrs. Browning, written so vaguely and abstractly that I could not for a moment understand their meaning.Facing the works that my uncle pasted and pasted in his notebook, my heart was pounding. In just a short moment, the image of my uncle with a low hunchback suddenly became much higher in my heart.I think the reason why my uncle never talked about this to me is because of the torment of economic hardship—he used to work hard for the survival of seven or eight people; Huo Magma——he only knew that I was an imbecile who was transferred to the school he taught because I was repeated in No. 2 Middle School. (In the Spring Festival of 1991, I went to the house of Feng Zhi, a senior literary translator and poet, to pay New Year’s greetings. This respected Mr. Feng Zhi, because I have very few surnames, even asked me who I am from Conglu He came. I told him that it was my uncle. The old man sighed and said that my uncle was a talented man when he was in Fu Jen Catholic University, but his literary talent was buried alive by life. The old man told me that he met my uncle in the When he edited "Ta Kung Pao" Weekly Literature and Art Weekly, he believed that his uncle's literary death was due to a physical hunchback, and his physical disability caused him to lose his perseverance in literature. I told the old man that the heavy burden of life at that time was also It is the cause of his genius decline. I told the old man that when I was studying in Tong County, the whole family lived in poverty and embarrassment. Then I told the old man that my uncle had died in the torture of the "Cultural Revolution". The old man listened He sighed and sighed. He said that my uncle has stepped into the threshold of being a writer. Xiao Qian and Li Guangtian are very familiar with his name. He even said: It’s a pity! It’s a pity!) What changed my uncle’s view of me was that Tongxian High School once again A junior high school Chinese teacher came.His name is Tian Xiufeng. When he taught us the first Chinese class, he actually went against the normal teaching practice of old masters and wrote down the names of three people in succession on the blackboard——Hu Feng——Feng Xuefeng——Tian Xiufeng.Then he said wildly to the students: "There are three peaks in China, namely Hu Feng, Xuefeng, and Tian Xiufeng. I am Tian Xiufeng!" The students who were used to the old stereotyped lectures were dumbfounded by this situation, but I was I am very fascinated by the wild demeanor of this teacher.Because he took the first class, he showed his familiarity with modern Chinese literature and his anti-traditional teaching mode.In the first composition class, he was also different from other teachers. He asked the students to make free propositions.His reasoning is: free propositional thinking can run freely without being restricted by propositions.This teacher had a great influence on me.It can be said that I was inspired to create from my uncle's cut-and-paste works; I was inspired to create in the teaching of Teacher Tian Xiufeng.I remember, in the composition of the free proposition, I didn’t know whether I was influenced by Mr. Li Zini’s "Green Riverside Grass" or the temptation of the scenery in the suburbs of Tongxian County. I wrote an article called "Green Riverside" .In addition to the detailed description of the reed pond on the outskirts of the city in summer, the article also describes a classmate Chen Jingwen who lives in Baiyangdian Lake with very good water quality. humorous.Unexpectedly, this article made Teacher Tian Xiufeng, who is called one of the "Three Peaks", feel drunk, and he read my short article in high spirits.What is especially memorable to me is that the teacher wearing silver spectacles prophesied to the whole class: "Don't think that Cong Weixi is very poor in science, but he will definitely achieve something in literature; if you don't believe me, let's wait and see!"之后，他没把这篇作文发还给我，拿去给我家叔过目，家叔在一天下午把我找到学校教导处，询问起有关这篇作文的事情： “是你写的吗？” I said: "Yes." “不是抄来的？”我说，“我写的是班里的陈景文。” “投过稿吗？” 我告诉家叔还是在大红罗厂小学读六年级时，干过一回，但没回音。家叔告诉我，干写作这一行当，不仅要有才情，还要有恒心——至此，家叔第一次对我的看法有了改观——这是田秀峰老师中间搭桥的结果。过去，我一直自卑，田秀峰老师给了我自信；从自卑到自信的心理转轨，无疑对我生活道路的选择起了很大的影响。探究起来，它不过源于一篇小小的作文，竟然对我的精神起了那么大的催化和辐射作用，像是一簇浪花，深藏着海的神韵；像是一滴水珠，折射出人生的朝阳。 我就是这样开始自己的文学之路的，其实田秀峰老师本人，无法与胡风、冯雪峰相比，他只出版过一本小册子，书题为《一串念珠》。我读过这本书，其文采都无法与我家叔之作相媲美，可是他是开掘乌拉尔金玉的开掘机，我就是被他发现的一颗文学矿苗（80年代中期，我曾在报刊上就文学教学发表过一篇文章，提及到这位老师的教学特点，就是极大限度诱发学生的形象思维。不曾料到，此文被田老师的一位友人读到，便把报纸转给了他。不久，我突然接到一封从天津财经学院寄的来信，来信者就是田秀峰老师。他在信中兴奋异常，除告诉我他在该院任教之外，认为他人生的最大快乐，就在于他教的学生中，出了我这样一位作家。三十多年的粉笔、教鞭生涯，他已然忘记了我，过去读我的小说时，有过似曾相识之朦胧印象，经我文章提示，他忆起了在通师附中的往事，还记忆起我的家叔。他说读过我的这篇文章后，他打开酒瓶，喝了个一醉方休云云）。 为了寻找属于我的文学发展空间，在通师附中初中毕业后，我报考了北京师范学校（即我小姑昔日读书所在的北平师范学校——简称“北师”），时值1950年秋，还是因数学考分过低之故，我考了个备取第七名，还算幸运，命运主宰我走进了这所以文、体、美出名的古老学府，大作家老舍先生毕业于斯。校园内青松翠柏，钢琴声在耳畔长鸣。解放前，我来校园找我小姑，就喜欢这座校园，此时我成为这个校园的学生，简直是如鱼得水（电影《早春二月》的大部分镜头，皆取景于该校校园）。可惜，后来北京展宽官园马路，将该校拆除了，至今我仍为此而感伤。学校有个几百平方米的大图书馆，我成了图书馆里的一个书虫— —那年我实龄17岁。 那年冬季多雪，而这个多雪的冬天对我格外多情。该年爆发了抗美援朝战争，我以铁血男儿之满腔热血，除了申请参加军事干校之外，在该年年底我在《新民报》副刊上发表了《战场去》的处女作。1951年初《光明日报）举办全国大、中学生征文，我以碧征为笔名写出《共同的仇恨》的小小说，出乎意料的是此文竟获得征文的第一名。我终于看到我的钢笔字，变成了铅字，那种激动和快乐无法用文字形容。记得，当时支付稿酬的办法，是以粮食中的小米斤价为折实单位，报社给了我90个折实单位的稿费。我拿着钱与同班同学刘炳铸、吴学恒，在南横街的一家饺子馆，吃了一顿饺子。碧征之笔名，我只用过这一次，之后便以自己之真实姓名，发表小说于孙犁主持的天津日报的“文艺周刊”上。《七月雨》、《老菜子卖鱼》、《在河渡口》……1951年，我接到了家叔一封寄自通师的信，他说他在该校图书馆里读到了我的几篇小说，深感自己往日眼拙，并称道田秀峰老师是“识马的伯乐”。他在信中以自身文学创作中途而废为例，鼓励我一鼓作气，万万不可重蹈他的覆辙。 我激动。 我感奋。 我将稿费寄给仍在故园山村的母亲，并写信给母亲说： 妈妈，您含辛茹苦地养育了我，您想把我教育成爸爸那样的人，但是儿子不是那样的坯子，无法成为工程师或科学家。我留级降班之事，曾刺伤了您的心，儿子今天用另一面的成绩，为您医疗昔日的伤口…… 后来在1954年，我被调到《北京日报》文艺部工作，母亲被我接回北京后，曾告诉我，村里小学教师为她念这封信时，她流下了眼泪。当然，她流的是喜泪，她万万想不到她的儿子，走了一条与她的愿望截然相悖的路程。 可怜天下父母心，普天下的父母无一不盼望儿女成龙成风。仔细想来，父母实无必要过多匡正儿女的自我选择，更无需煞费苦心为儿女设计这样或那样的道路。大路朝天，各走一边，条条道路通罗马。重要的是应有能力鉴别儿女们的资质和秉赋，并诱发这种天赋，使其产生光热继而成为闪电雷鸣。其实；过于看重时尚，是一种盲动和肤浅的表现；如果这种功利要求与个人气质逆向，便会造成对人另一种潜在能源的扼杀。试想，如果当时有人强迫我必须学好数、理、化，那么我体躯内的文学秉赋，就可能因为种种干扰而毁灭消亡。 在“北师”3年的学习生活中，我活得轻松自在。除了是学校篮球代表队的前锋，善于闪、躲、腾、跃在乱军中切入上篮之外，一度我还迷恋于钢琴。可惜，父母没有赐给我一双大手，我的手指刚刚够得到八位键盘，要想在钢琴上有所发展，必须要用刀子割开我拇指和食指之间的虎口。这对我来说实在是残酷了一点，我舍不得为此去医院挨上一刀，何况又有文学与我生命相伴，我的精神已然有了栖息之巢。 到了1953年夏天，即将从“北师”毕业之前，学校教导主任王胜川找我个别谈话，他告诉我校党委已决定让我破格深造，保送我去北大中文系。我只回答了一个“好”字，因为在我看来，作家这个职业，更多地在于自身的内在素质，而不在于外在的营养补充；如果非得汲取营养不可，社会大学是更好的课堂。因而当后来北京市召开人代会，决定提高全市教师队伍质量，学校要我服从大局去当一名小学教师时，我并没有任何感情上的失落，我回答了一个“好”字之余，还向学校提出：请把我分配到郊区去，我愿意去农村小学。 该年秋天，我和同级女同学王秀荣被分配到海淀区教育局报到。主管分配的人事干部还没开口，我就主动提出：如果任教的学校有远有近，我愿意到远离市区的小学；她是女同学，离市区近的好学校应该分配给她。结果，她留在了海淀镇教书，我被分配到了颐和园后边的青龙桥小学——当时，北京市的发展刚刚起步，青龙桥已然算是远郊区了。 这所小学是一所关帝庙改造的，十分破旧，但我很喜欢学校的幽静，每当课毕之后，我在配殿改成的教师办公室，埋头写我的小说。学校教师多数不是青龙桥的本乡人，我一进校，使得教师宿舍显得拥挤，我对两只眼睛外凸如玻璃球似的张校长说。“您别为难，我看锅炉房，只住着烧锅炉的勤杂工一个人，还能再支开一张木板床，我就和他住在一起好了。” 张校长连连摇头：“不行，你是教师。” 我连连点头：“行，我得向工人阶级学习。” 张校长执意不从：“锅炉每天要掏灰，屋内脏得厉害。” 我执意要去：“我不怕脏，您知道我是请求到农村来教学的。挨着锅炉睡，便没有冬天了。” 张校长笑了：“这不太合适吧？” 我说：“合适，不算您分配我住进锅炉房，算我自愿请求住进锅炉房的，这总可以了吧？” 张校长最后答应我暂住几天，等一位姓朱的老教师调回市内后，我再顶他的窝儿。我就这样在锅炉房内住下来了，每天拍打被褥时，尘土飞起尺高，我着实不觉得有碍教师面子，反而自得其乐。在这所小学，我任教的一个班有30多个学生，是几个班级里挑出来的调皮捣蛋生。我想想我自己过去也不能算个好学生，因而在学生们身上我投入了许多感情，注入了不少心血。“家有五斗粮，不当小孩王”，这是自古流传下来，社会对小学教师职业的鄙薄，我干得却蛮有兴味。这引发了眨着一双玻璃球一般眼睛的张校长，在一次教师周会上说：“青年同志就是有朝气，不仅把这个'尖子'班带得不错，业余时间小从老师还发表了不少小说哩！同志们看——”他举起天津日报“文艺周刊”以大半版的篇幅，发表了我的小说《远离》。“只是小从老师这号人才，咱这关帝庙怕是大小，放不下这个神灵，终究有一天会被调走的！” 这话被张校长言中了。我在锅炉房与锅炉工为伍半年，1954年初春，北京市委宣传部一纸调令，就把我调到了《北京日报》。那时，党风纯正，青年人心灵洁白，没有“走后门”这个词汇，是因为社会上没有走后门的行为。据《北京日报）老诗人晏明事后告诉我，是他力荐把我调至报社文艺部的。为了证明我是货真价实的文艺苗子，在报社资料室丢了刊登我作品的天津日报的情况下，老诗人晏明硬是偷偷撕下公共报牌上的一张刊登我作品的报纸，找到了当时担任副社长、，来自延安鲁艺的周游同志。周游同志十分爱才，便有了我的这次调离。 是直线。 没有曲线。 在学校教师送别我离开青龙桥时，有一个细节至今使我难忘。小学有一架用旧风琴教音乐的王敦礼老师，弹奏了《魂断蓝桥》中的主题歌《一路平安》。而我则弹了一曲泓一法师留下的： 长亭外 古道边 芳草碧连天 ... 我很惜别，我掉泪了，这是我的感情表现之一；之二，我当然又很想去报社，编辑部的工作离文学更近（我调到报社不久，我教的那个班全体学生曾去报社看我，致使小小的接待室容纳不下，我是在院子里与孩子们交谈的，足以见得我与青龙桥缘分之深）。从1953年至1957年3年多的光景，我先后出版了两个短篇小说集子和一部长篇小说。正当我全力以赴地创作以北京青年志愿垦荒队业绩为素材的长篇小说《第一片黑土》时，反右的风暴潮席卷而来，我先是被划为右派，后因在京郊农村改造时，对“大炼钢铁”，“大办共产主义食堂”不满，并在向党交心会上，陈述了自己这些看法，被当成“极右”处理，在1960年阴霾的冬季，我和我原来16岁就参加了地下党的妻子，一块被送劳动教养，走进了电网和大墙。王敦礼老师送别我时弹奏的《一路平安》没有应验，我在历史的风暴中开始了漫长的劳改生涯（详见《走向混沌）第一部）。划右那年，我正青春；1979年早春归来，我已然是44岁、饱经沧桑发鬓染白的中年人了。 没工夫叹息。 没时间感伤。 在新时期文学开始的1979年——党的十一届三中全会召开前后，我拿起了笔…… 我喜欢冬季，特别喜欢冬季的雪原，大概这不仅出自文人的孟浪，更因为我穿越过历史的冬季，走过了一条冰封雪飘的马拉松长途。这种对雪国的偏爱，不属于我个人，而属于许多受难、但不甘于沉沦的知识分子。 留在雪原上星罗密布的脚窝，每个脚窝里都遗留下昨日的历史经纬；每个脚窝里，都深藏着中国知识分子的悲情故事；每个脚窝里，都回荡着不屈的中国知识分子，在与命运抗争的跋涉中，留下与山谷合鸣的悲壮足音。 我喜欢白雪的颜色，因为冬季还代表着土地收获之后的成熟。在我穿行欧洲，在阿尔卑斯山下仰望那终年积雪的硕大头颅时，我想到了老母亲头上的缕缕白发。从人类情感的天平上去衡量母亲，从我4岁那年，她已然跌入了雪的深谷。我向阿尔卑斯山的银冠祝福，向坚韧不拔的东方母亲致敬…… 80年代初期，前辈作家孙犁写信给我，说我20年的流放生涯，从文学的角度上讲，得大于失。是的，冬日的冰雪铸造了我迎难而进的性格，如果我是一路顺风扬帆的逐浪之舟，就难以有今天的三十多部著作面世。因而，我感谢那条漫长的风雪驿路。中国有句成语： “艰难困顿，汝玉以成”；法国大文学家巴尔扎克也说：“苦难是位最好的老师。”我是这位“老师”孕生的一个学生，这或许就是我的生命原色和我文学之本。That's all! 1993年11月17日 于冬日雨雪之中回目录