Chapter 22 Zhimo is in memory

The new poem spreads across the universe, but you go back by the wind, classmates are the same age, old friends are like a king, and live in the grass first. Huabiao entrusts the elves, why should he turn into a crane and come back again, he will die in his life, and there is a woman in the deep boudoir who summons the soul. This is an elegiac couplet for Wan Zhimo that I asked Mr. Chen Zihe from Hangzhou to write on behalf of me.Mr. Chen asked me about my relationship with Zhimo. I just said that he was my classmate since I was young, and he was in the same year. Besides, his death this time is very suitable for his status.

I can't do elegiac couplets, especially the couplets in classical Chinese.And Mr. Chen also thought of a lot of complete sentences, such as "It's too cold at a high place", "It's like a person in a boudoir's dream", etc., but he couldn't seem to find a suitable upper and lower pairs, so it only became a couplet for the above.I don't know how good or bad this elegiac couplet is, but I think the sentences are too well done, and the antithesis is too well-balanced, which is not suitable for the original intention of mourning.The greatest expression of sorrow is the natural stunned and frozen look, which I saw with my own eyes when Mrs. Xiaoman first received Zhimo's bad news.The second is the crying of the coffin, which I have seen among many relatives and friends of Zhimo who came to hang that day in the Wanguo funeral parlor.As for whether the elegiac poems work or not, that is a question after another; I don't want to say how great Zhimo is, I don't want to say how cute he is, and I don't want to say that I am because of his death. And I feel so sad, I just want to relive the Zhimo in my memory, so I can imagine his face and voice once again that no one who has seen him will easily forget.

Around the spring of the second year of Xuantong (1910), I left the small city of my hometown to study at the Hangfu Middle School at that time—it seems that I studied in Jiaxingfu Middle School in the last issue, but because of the long distance So I transferred to Hangzhou Mansion—the supervisor in the mansion at that time, I remember it was Mr. Shao Bojiong, and the dormitory was opposite the library of the uncle. At that time, I was a fledgling country boy under the age of fourteen, who suddenly broke into the center of the provincial capital, and everything around me seemed strange and scary.So in the dormitory and in the classroom, I just crouched down like a snail in fear and trembling, not even daring to stick my head out of the shell.But contrary to my shrinking attitude, in the same dormitory on the same level, there are two strange people jumping around.

One was born with a very small body, but a very long face and a very large head.Of course I was still a child at the time, but when I saw him, I kept thinking, "This naughty boy looks really strange", as if I was already a grown child.There is another one who stays with him day and night, loves to do all kinds of naughty tricks, and gathers the love among classmates. He is quite tall and has the expression of an adult man on his face. At that time, I guessed in my heart, as if he should be an adult who should be over thirty years old—in fact, he is only about the same age as us. The two of them, no matter in class or in the dormitory, are always whispering and whispering, laughing, jumping up and down, making trouble with this and that, but finally they will do something very light, funny and strange unexpectedly things to attract everyone's attention.

And what surprised me most was that naughty kid with big head and small tail, wearing gold-rimmed myopia glasses, who didn't study hard like that, and loved reading novels like that—he always held a roll of glossy paper in his hand A small book with fine lithographs printed on it—but it is always the one with the most points when it comes to exams or essays. I lived with them in the dormitory for half a year like this, except for once or twice I was tricked by them a little bit, after all, I didn’t have any close relationship with them; it seems that my dormitory also changed later, except in the classroom Outside of getting together on the Internet, there are even fewer opportunities to meet.In the spring of the second year after the annual leave, for some unknown reason, I suddenly left Fuchu and changed to a missionary school that didn't seem to be closed yet.Since then, after more than ten years of separation, I and these two strange people—a child and an adult—finally have no chance to meet.Although wandering in a foreign land, I often think of the old events of that day, but because of the migration and drastic changes of the surrounding environment, I don't have much nostalgia for this breeze-like youth memory.

In the 13th and 14th years of the Republic of China—at the turn of 1923 and 1944—I wandered in the soft red dust of Beijing; one afternoon, when the wind was calm and the sun was slanting, I suddenly met in the Songpo Library in Shihu Hutong. Shimo.If you look closely, his head and face are still as big as they were in middle school, but his short figure is different, he has grown up very much, standing next to him, he is almost taller than me It looks like two inches. His frivolous and upright attitude is still the same as when he was a child, but because of his extensive travels in Europe and America, he has invisibly become a person who is good at socializing.When he laughed, he was still the same as the naughty kid from more than ten years ago.

Since this year, I have been in constant contact with him, meeting several times almost every week.His various virtues of being good at discussions, being quick at communicating, and being good at reciting poems naturally made him a social center.Literati and scholars at that time, high-ranking official Limei, and unlucky classmates in middle school, regardless of age, high or low, can all be seen from his guest seat.No matter how upset you are, just teach him to use his loud and clear voice, "Hey, old ×, how are you today? What's the matter?" Naturally, he would throw away all his worries and be assimilated by his joyful brilliance.

Around this time, I talked to him about the things in middle school, but he was suddenly stunned, his eyes widened and he asked me in surprise: "Old Li, do you still remember? He is dead!" The so-called Lao Li is the naughty adult I wrote on my head, and his cousin who went to middle school with him. Later, he went to Europe and India, where he made a lot of friends and expanded from a social center in China to an international one.As a result, beautiful and magnificent poems and fresh and uncommon prose have accumulated year by year.After the revolution of 1927, Beijing was transformed into Beiping, and many middle-class people at that time scattered and turned into autumn leaves.Some flew up to the sky and became dignitaries, never to be seen again, and some even descended safely to the underworld; some, neither dead nor alive, are still wandering on the crossroads, depressed, And finally couldn't find a way out.It was in this state that one day on the streets of Shanghai, I suddenly met Zhimo, "Hey, where have you been hiding these past few years?"

With a sip, it still sounded like his loud and happy voice.We talked for a while on the road, and we went to his apartment to sit together for a while, and then he took me to the ship pier of Dalai Company.Because he had just received a wireless telegram before noon, the poet Tai Guoer's boat back to India was scheduled to dock at around 5:00 p.m., and he wanted to board the boat to see the old poet's condition. When the boat hadn't docked and the people on the shore and the people on the boat couldn't talk to each other, he stood in the cold wind on the pier—it seemed to be autumn at this time—and looked at me quietly and blankly. Say:

"The poet is old and rejected by the new era. The sorrow of his old man is exactly the sorrow of Confucius." Because Tai Guoer just came back from the United States and Japan to give lectures this time, he was rejected by some newcomers in Japan and the United States, so he was not very happy in his heart; seriously ill.When Zhimo said these words to me, he stared blankly into the distance, his face turned gray, and his voice was extremely low.I have been with Zhimo for many years, and this is the first and last time to see a sad expression on his face. From this time onwards, the two of them kept seeing each other as they did when they were in Beijing.But one is because of my laziness and boredom, and the other is because he is busy teaching and running around. In the past two years, I haven't had much time to talk to him.After this year's summer vacation, he had a three-day feast before going to Peking.When we drank the first day, Mr. Dong Renjian and I were there.Mr. Dong was also one of the old classmates of Hangfu Middle School at that time. During the meeting, we also talked about Hangzhou at that time.Before his death, on the second night after flying back from Peiping, I also accidentally, really accidentally, broke into his apartment.

That night, because many friends gathered there, we talked about it until after twelve o'clock.Before leaving, I made an appointment for the next night's dinner before we dispersed.But I didn't go the next day, so I lost the chance to see him forever, because his coffin had already experienced it when it arrived in Shanghai. Among men, there are two kinds of people who can be envied the most.One is the old birthday star who, like Gorky, lived to be in his 60s and 70s, but was able to write many impressive memoirs;The former can write about many ups and downs in the literary world that are not recorded in the history of literature, and he is a longitudinal literature history.The latter can ask every contemporary literati to write a text that mourns him or criticizes him, forming a horizontal and enlarged literary biography. Now Zhimo is dead, but his poems are immortal, and his voice and appearance are also immortal, unless everyone who knows him, old or young, dies. December 11, 1931 [Additional note] After writing the above recollection, I thought about it, thought about it, and then asked Mr. Chen to do it for me. A little fact was added to the elegiac couplet, and it was affixed into the following forty-two characters: Three volumes of new poems, an old friend of 20 years, and the same world as the king, only for the rare beauty. When the river is full, the smoke rises at nine o'clock, and the crane returns to the Huabiao, and the high place is extremely cold. December 19, 1931