Chapter 15 A Letter from Jing Yinyu and Romain Rolland

Romain Rolland's "John Christopher" has been translated into Chinese for a long time in China.I think few people will know that long before this translation was published, someone had already started to translate this book, and it was Romain Rolland himself who authorized him to translate it.It's a pity that the translation was interrupted after only one section. The original Chinese translator of "John Christopher" was Jing Yinyu, and his translation was published in the "Novel Monthly" at that time. Not many people know Jing Yinyu's name now.However, he was the one who first introduced us to the works of Romain Rolland, and later translated a novel by Barbusse, "Light".His relationship with our new literary world is not small.But he still has another important relationship with the new literary world, that is, when he went to France to study and then returned to China, it is said that Romain Rolland once asked him to bring a letter to Mr. Lu Xun.At that time, Jing Yinyu returned to China because he was too poor to live in France. Because of his withdrawn nature and neurasthenia, he left this letter somewhere and failed to reach Mr. Lu Xun.

Later, when Mr. Lu Xun found out about this, because Jing Yinyu had frequent contacts with people from the Creation Society, he suspected that the letter had been "destroyed" by the people from the Creation Society. He repeatedly mentioned this in his articles. , This is a major "grievance" in the early Chinese new literary world.In fact, it is unnecessary, because the truth has been mentioned above.I remember that after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Mr. Guo Moruo defended this "unjust prison" in the publication "Cultivation" published in Shanghai, saying that the Creation Society had never "done" the letter written by Romain Rolland to Mr. Lu Xun .However, Mr. Guo himself did not know that Jing Yinyu had lost the letter, so he still could not completely resolve this question. ——This "dispute" is really a long story, and it cannot be explained clearly within the scope of such a short article, so I have to save it for a future opportunity.

Jing Yinyu is from Sichuan. It is said that he grew up in a Catholic monastery in Sichuan.He learned French first, and then Chinese.Later, I somehow got to Shanghai (maybe because of Mr. Guo’s relationship, because Mr. Guo is from Sichuan), and published several creations in "Creation Weekly". Upstairs in the editorial department of the weekly newspaper.The few creations he published at that time were written in French first, then translated into Chinese by himself, and published after being polished by Mr. Cheng Fangwu. Later, in order to go to France, he wrote to Romain Rolland for help and got his reply, which made him decide to start translating "John Christopher".At this time, "Novel Monthly" published a special issue of Romain Rolland, and was about to introduce his works. At the same time, only the Commercial Press has the financial resources to accept such a long translation, so his translation will be published in "Novel Monthly". Newspaper.Jing Yinyu also used this to make up enough travel expenses to go to France.However, he was eccentric and could not work or live in France, and Romain Rolland could not take care of him for a long time, so he had to try to return to China soon.Unexpectedly, because he mistakenly called "Hong Qiao", Pingkong added an unnecessary dispute to the early Chinese new literary world.