Chapter 61 indifferent

Ba Jin once wrote some critical commentary articles. After Shen Congwen read them, he advised Ba Jin not to "pay so much attention to small things" and "don't waste your emotional anger on them too much."He said to Ba Jin: "Small things like so-and-so and so-and-so's disrespectful words can also make you angry, and you regard Xiaodong and Xiaoxi as enemies." "I think it's a pity to waste your feelings." Ba Jin I am very grateful to him and call him "respected friend". After the start of the Cultural Revolution, Shen Congwen, who was in his 60s, cleaned toilets when he was not being criticized.Shen sometimes stared blankly at the people coming and going in Tiananmen Square, and then turned around and said to Shi Shuqing, who was being denounced together, "I'm going to wipe the glass on the toilet." Shen said that he cleaned the women's toilet at the Tiananmen History Museum every day, "This is The leaders of the rebels and the young revolutionary generals trusted me. Although I am not reliable politically, I am reliable morally..." Many years later, when Shen Congwen was asked about his experience during the Cultural Revolution, he only said: "I am not as good as my friends. I just want to clean the latrine, that’s a common thing, don’t I have to clean it at home too?”

There is a scholar at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, who is a student of Shen Congwen's Southwest Associated University, and has a very close relationship with Shen, Huang Biao and his nephew.One afternoon after the start of the Cultural Revolution, he walked nervously and quietly to the door of Huang's house, and told Huang Yongyu softly and considerately: "You must be mentally prepared, I will expose you and your cousin!" Telling Shen Congwen, Shen smiled and said: "Yes, yes, this person will do this. When he ran to the police in Kunming, he was afraid of crossing the shallow river in the village. He asked a classmate who was shorter than him to carry it..."

During a criticism meeting, someone brushed a slogan on Shen Congwen's back with paste. After the criticism was over, he took off the slogan "Down with the anti-communist literati Shen Congwen", and later said to Huang Yongyu: "That calligraphy is too shameful." Oh, how embarrassing to put such bad calligraphy on my back! He should have practiced it!" Once, Shen Congwen walked through Xiaoyang Yibin Hutong in Dongcheng, and someone in the public toilet played the flute while going to the toilet. It was a song of the rebels.Shen said to Huang Yongyu who was traveling with him: "Listen, the sound of string songs is endless!"

Shen Congwen was sent to Xianning, Hubei. He was not in good health, but he always found some jobs to do within his capacity, such as picking up dry reeds by the lake or collecting bamboos by the roadside to light fire. When his health was better, he would move a small stool. , to see the vegetable garden, in case the livestock steal it.He wrote to Huang Yongyu and said: "...cows are more honest, they go away with a bang; pigs are not good, they are extremely cunning, their appearance is extremely stupid, they walk fast, and they seem to be gone, but they suddenly surround them from behind..." He also wrote a letter to Huang Yongyu. Said to Huang: "...the lotus here is so beautiful, if you come..."

Shen Congwen said that when he was sent down, he lived alone in a large classroom, "watching a few big spiders grow up slowly on the window", "you can still see a big cow every morning from this window, You can also see cows, the big cow and the calf are very solemn, the cows in that place are all huge, they are flower cows, and they are so beautiful, they take the calf to eat step by step. Occasionally, some little girls can be seen combing their hair. Wearing two pigtails, lifting bricks to pick leaves from trees." During the Cultural Revolution, Shen Congwen and Huang Yongyu met on the road. When Shen saw Huang, he pretended not to see him. The moment he passed by, Shen said four words without tilting his head: "Be calm!"

For the 13 years before 1979, Shen Congwen lived in a dark room of seven square meters, with the lights turned on during the day.Lin Mei asked Shen: "Mr. Shen, what were you thinking in the days of the small darkroom?" Shen tilted his head, laughed, and said in an open-minded and understanding tone after a long time: "It is enough to have many books around you. What is this? There are many people who lost their lives. It’s just heartbreaking to lose a lot of books, and later bought them back in second-hand bookstores.” After the Cultural Revolution, the Shen family came back from being neglected. Articles re-evaluating Shen Congwen's literary achievements appeared frequently in the newspapers. It was once widely rumored that he would be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.Shen Congwen was very indifferent to this, he said: "Those are outdated things, there is no need to mention them again.... I am just an unearthed cultural relic."

After Shen Congwen donated the manuscript fee to his hometown elementary school, Ling Yu, who wrote Shen's biography, once advised him: "When you get older, you should keep some money for yourself." He smiled lightly: "It doesn't matter, there will always be money." of."