Chapter 74 fourth quarter

She no longer has a home, and the rest of her life is wandering and turbulent. At the end of half a year, they moved again like hardworking migratory birds. This time, they settled their home in San Francisco.This is a beautiful coastal city.Fisherman's Wharf is very lively, and Chinatown is brightly lit at night, which is much more prosperous than the small town of Peterborough. Aileen doesn't like to socialize, but she likes to live in a bustling city and fall asleep to the sound of the city.She hates being in the crowd, but she can't do without human voices. This seems contradictory, but it is the commonality of literati-writing for their own hearts, but hoping to resonate with readers.

They settled on an apartment at 645 Bush Street for seventy dollars a month.Laiya also found a small office for herself on Post Street not far from home, and went there every day to write his never-ending novel "Christian".He had a huge writing project, including a biography, two plays, and two novels, but unfortunately due to health problems, except for the biography of Sinclair Lewis, the rest of the project could not be completed. During this time, they went out more often, got closer to the crowd, and sometimes went to dances together.And Aileen also made her first good friend after coming to the United States, an American woman who studies art, Alice Bissel, and they often sit hand in hand in Washington Square Park, breathing the fragrance of flowers in the evening breeze. , talk about art or emotion.

Aileen has always been a little girl in her heart, the church girl with a slight "lace complex" in Santa Maria Middle School.She doesn't like being with many people, but she needs at least one close friend. She was Yan Ying in Shanghai, Kuang Wenmei after going to Hong Kong, and now Alice. On the bench in the park, amidst the falling autumn leaves, and in the cool twilight, Eileen Chang and Alice sat side by side, watching the crescent moon rise and shine brightly.Perhaps it was because Alice did not understand China or the literary world in Shanghai at all, so Zhang Ailing talked about her past with others for the first time, and talked about the autobiographical novel she was writing: "When I was in Shanghai, I once loved a Man, he's very talented and famous, he appreciates my writing and clothing design, but he hurt me later..."

Once the box of memory is opened, it can never be closed again.She told Alice all about her life experience and experience, and also gave her her own English novel, and gave her her recipe written in Chinese.The round Chinese characters are not sticking together, like small dumplings, neatly arranged, and the recipes of more than a dozen Chinese dishes are written. Alice doesn't understand Chinese, but has been carefully keeping that Zhang Ailing's hand-copied recipes, treating it as a precious work of art—and that's exactly what it is. At the end of 1959, Zhang Ailing's rewriting of "Pink Tears" "Northern Rouge" was rejected by the publisher again, which made her less and less confident in herself.

The dream of "being more famous than Lin Yutang" when she was young was shattered, and the door of the Western literary world was so heavy that it was difficult to knock on it. This made her want to return to Chinese readers and write Chinese works again. I went to British Overseas Airlines to inquire about the cost of going to Hong Kong, and it cost about 1,000 U.S. dollars.This is really a huge sum of money, simply astronomical. However, she did not give up, and has been saving silently. She plans to write a novel about the Xi'an Incident. I believe that both Chinese and English readers will be equally interested. handsome".She wanted to go to Taiwan to collect more materials, and it would be best to interview the young marshal Zhang Xueliang himself.She also wanted to go to Hong Kong to visit Song Qi and seek more ideal writing topics.And her ultimate goal is to move to New York, live a bright and free and easy life in the metropolis with pride.

Laiya wrote in her diary: "Living in New York for a long time can declare Ailes' achievements. This is her last wish. For her, it is a disease of Chinese civilization." ——In fact, it has nothing to do with nationality, but Zhang Ailing is an urbanite in her heart, and she always prefers to live in the most prosperous city. "Hidden in the city", she likes to stay away from the crowd, but live in the core of the city. In July 1960, Ailes officially obtained U.S. citizenship.This year, she turned 40 years old, which is the year of "no confusion" in China.The birthday gift Laiya gave her was to accompany her to a striptease.

My good friend Yanying got married this year, and she is doing well. She wrote a letter at the beginning of the year saying that she was going to Japan, and that she would visit her when she passed through San Francisco.Aileen was looking forward to it for a while, but Yanying missed the appointment; in March 1961, Yanying wrote again, saying that she would visit them on the way back from Japan.This was the last time we know of the two seeing each other. The situation of their meeting can be seen from Zhang Ailing's posthumous work that has been completed but refused to publish.Of course, novels are not reportage, so they should not be too rote, but Enjuan is the incarnation of Yanying, and Zhao Jue is the projection of Ailing, which is unanimously recognized. The scene of Enjuan's visit to Zhao Jue in "Classmates" is quite vividly and meticulously described——

"At noon that day, there were two very light pecks on the door of the apartment. As soon as she opened the door, Enjuan came in wearing a bright green dress, and hugged her with a smile. Brand-name clothing is like this, It is ironed all over the body, and it does not make people feel that this color is too delicate for a person in his forties or fifties. Looking at it, he is at most in his thirties, but like most rich people in the United States, he is sun-tanned and his cheeks are like Turmeric leather. Very simple inward curls. Before Zhao Jue could speak, Enjuan smiled to herself when she saw the astonishment on her face.

Zhao Jue smiled and said, "You are exactly the same as when you came back from Chongqing. 'Apparently not getting fatter. ... 'There is no need to drive here, and there is only one good restaurant that you can walk to. Zhao Jue said, "It's all cold."It was so crowded that we had to wait in shifts. 'Let the current Enjuan stand in a long queue! 'So I went down there last night and bought some and maybe you'd like to eat at home just so-so. ' Of course she agreed. The apartment has ready-made furniture, an octagonal oak table is an antique, heavy stone vase-shaped monopod, polished yellow, but the top is cracked.Zhao Jue didn't like to use tablecloths, so he put down a large round mirror to make the tabletop, which was just the right size.A narrow strip of calico was spread in the middle, and an orange-red fish was printed on the mustard-yellow ground...

She took out the long disk containing the pots from the refrigerator and placed it on the red fish pattern.The potato salad was also bought from that store, and it was still in the original carton, without a bowl.Lest Eunjuan have no confidence in her craft.I poured two more glasses of Portuguese Sherry, more than enough than the last. There was no tablecloth, so Enjuan took a look and saw that the mirror was spotless, so she picked up the knife and fork. " I once saw in an article by Zhang Xue expert Crystal that Zhang Ailing’s living room is like a snow cave. There are no decorations or photos on the walls. The table is like a mirror, and there is no tablecloth. ——From this, we can also see that there is more or less her own shadow in the article.

In fact, most of Zhang Ailing's novels are sublimated based on real life. Stories about herself, friends, family members, relatives, and even ancestors are scattered in her various works like big pearls and small pearls falling on a jade plate. , as if a star had fallen into a well, the sound could be heard in a trance. For example, in "Classmates", Enjuan and Zhao Jue have been close friends since childhood, but now that there is a disparity between rich and poor, Enjuan always has a perfunctory attitude towards Zhao Jue's words, as if she doesn't trust her.In the novel, Ailing sighed angrily that "when a person is poor, he will find a shopkeeper for everything he says." It is her usual sharpness that makes her even more desolate.At the end of the article, it is written that "the feeling of cloud and mud is still a blow to the head, which is enough for her", which should be spoken from the heart. She sent the manuscript of the novel to Xia Zhiqing, but told him not to publish it in a hurry. After several years of shelving, it turned into a "posthumous work".I guess there are two reasons: one is that the work involves a lot of names, but most of them are mentioned in one stroke. It seems that there was a very grand plan at the beginning of writing, but after writing it, I couldn’t calm down after all, so I rushed to finish the draft.Zhang Ailing said that she is good at writing detailed outlines when writing novels, and "Classmates" is likely to be composed of a detailed outline; the second reason is that she is concerned about Yanying's feelings. After I finished writing, I felt sorry. After all, I was worried that the relevant people would be touched when they saw it, so I hesitated to publish it.Just like later, she also wrote a letter saying that it would be destroyed. Eileen Chang once said: "Writing a novel is to create trouble for myself... I have just overcome the obstacle with difficulty, and I can go down the river, let go and write, the story is over. I can't help but make my own decisions." There is this feeling that the story has just come out, but it is over. However, the impact is far-reaching. The meeting with Yanying this time obviously gave Zhang Ailing a lot of stimulation. It was not a "sense of cloud and mud", but also a bit of "a blow to the head". It made her finally determined to return to Hong Kong - to go back and find what she lost. His prestige revived the mountains and rivers.She had already become an American citizen at this time, and she had a somewhat sense of stability, accumulated some vitality, and was no longer so afraid of turmoil. She had a serious and in-depth talk with Laiya, who was shocked and painful, and fell into a serious illness with depression, her whole body was tingling, and she couldn't rest.He wrote in his diary: "It was a blow like death, the heart was severely injured, the body was shaking, and when I closed my eyes, it was like a long sleep, and I would never wake up again." Aileen was very guilty and embarrassed. She waited and took care of him all night, and planned to ask her good friends John Bacon and Alice to help take care of him.But Laiya didn't want to be a drag on others, and refused out of self-esteem; he wrote to the Huntington Hartford Literary Camp to apply for a residence, but was rejected; so he wrote to his daughter Faith.Aileen was finally relieved when Faith wrote back a few days later that he could live near her home in Washington. Now, she can boldly take off.