On November 19, our good friend, the new poet beloved by many people, Xu Zhimo, who was sudden, unbelievable, and cruel, died in an accident on the plane.This news hit the hearts of many friends like a needle on the morning of the 20th, making the sky as dark as ink that morning, and sobs of mourning choked everyone's throats. Zhimo...death...who ever thought of linking these two sentences together!He is such a lively person, such a person who has just stood on the peak of his prime.Friends are often amazed at his activities, his childlike spirit and earnestness, who would have thought he would die?

Suddenly, he bursts out of our common world and sinks into eternal silence, without giving us a hint of warning, a bit of preparation, or a last chance of hope.How many friends' hearts were shaken and numb by this kind of resoluteness that was almost cruel?Now that undeniable fact still relentlessly blocks our way.No matter how painfully we mourn his tragic death, and how eagerly we hope to still have access to his original voice and appearance, the fact is that there will be no changes in order to be considerate of our grief; Some activities may be required!This embarrassing eternal silence and depression is the cruelest part of death.

We are not superstitious, we look at the veil of death irreligiously, and we are not at all sure. Opening our mouths we will not appeal, closing our eyes will not fall into dreams, wandering on the edge of reason and emotion, we cannot predict what will happen later, for this death, we will just be in a daze forever, swallow dry tears, wait for time to exploit the sharpness of mourning , scabbing the wounds of every time we mourn.Didn't many friends who got the news at the beginning of the afternoon all go to Mr. Hu Shizhi's house?But apart from wiping away their tears and sitting in a silent circle, no one had any idea, and no one knew what to say, to die!

No one has an idea, no one has anything to say!Facts do not allow us to place any hope, emotion does not allow us not to mourn this sudden misfortune, reason does not allow us to have supernatural fantasies!Facing each other silently, sitting around silently... and Zhimo still died without looking back, without hearing from him, never looking back, and never hearing from him again. There is no one among us who absolutely believes in the theory of fate, but facing this unpredictable life, who is not surprised, and facing the traces of many facts, how can he not feel the fragility of manpower and the limitation of wisdom.Is there a definite number in the world?Is it all by chance?When will we be fully sure of this eternal question?

What unfolded before us was just a bunch of solid facts: "Yes, he had a telegram for me in the morning of the nineteenth... "Morning on the 19th, yes! He said he would arrive at Nanyuan at 3:00 p.m. and send a car to pick him up... "The telegram was sent from Nanjing Airport at nine o'clock... "Just after he started flying... "Sent a car to pick it up, waited until 4:30... said the plane hadn't arrived... "I didn't arrive...the airline said that Jinan was foggy...it was very heavy..." It was only an hour's difference; when I arrived at Nanyuan at 3:00 pm, Jinan was foggy!Who would have believed that such a different fact could happen in just one hour, Zhimo, my friend!

I still saw him the night before he left. At that time, he didn’t know that he was traveling south in the morning. The plane had been rescheduled three times. He once said that if he continued to change, he would not leave.He and I came out of the same tea party and we parted ways at the entrance of Zongbu Hutong.In this tea party, we invited Dr. Bailey, who came for the Pacific Conference, because he is the sister-in-law of Man Shufeier, the female writer that Zhimo admired most in his life. The shadow of Manshufeier's early years, because of the limited time, we hurriedly dispersed after tea.In the evening I went out on a date, and when I came back very late, the servant said that he had come again, just as our couple had just left, so he sat for a while, drank a pot of tea, wrote some words on the table, and left.I went to the table and took a look:——"The flight will be scheduled at six o'clock in the morning, and the fate of this trip is uncertain..." I was stunned, feeling unhappy for a while, but hurriedly called him.

"Don't worry," he said, "it's very safe. I still want to save my life to see greater deeds. How can I die?..." Even so, he has been dead for two whole weeks! All Zhimo's friends, I believe, understand what it is like to lose a friend like him! Now this fact is getting stronger, more fixed, more undeniable every day.Zhimo is dead, this simple and cruel reality has already added the color of time, one week, two weeks, it keeps increasing... I shouldn't be here incoherently moaning about our sadness as friends.In the final analysis, readers read with our words in mind, that is, like Zhimo’s invitation to Bai Lei, they want to hear something about Zhimo from us.I understand this, but I'm afraid I can't satisfy you, because there are too many things about him, which are touching and let the young people know that there is a rare personality here, and it is by no means that a few thousand words can express it all.No one has to admit that there are not many people like him in the world, whether in China or abroad.

I know him for ten years this year, when he was at the London School of Economics and had not yet gone to Cambridge.The first time I met him was the first time he knew Mr. Tickenson who influenced him to move to school.Needless to say, he and my father got along the most, although there was not a small difference in age between them, they became friends as soon as they met.After he arrived in Cambridge, he was introduced to the Royal Academy by Ti Gengsheng. At that time, his classmate was my sister-in-law Wen Junyuanning.Until the last two months, Yuan Ning often told many jokes about him at that time, even though it was a joke, it was also his first surprised impression of Zhimo.Zhimo's earnest poetry does not contain the slightest falsehood, and his ignorance and childlike innocence can be surprising.Yuan Ning said that one day when he was studying in the school building, it was raining cats and dogs outside—only in an island country like England—suddenly he heard someone knocking on his door, and jumped into a rainwater Get wet guests.Needless to say, he was Zhimo, and as soon as he entered the door, he dragged Yuan Ning and ran out, saying, "Come on, let's go to the bridge and wait."Yuan Ning was stunned by this, and he asked Zhimo what he was waiting for in the heavy rain.Zhimo opened his eyes wide, and said happily like a child, "Look at the rainbow after the rain".Yuan Ning not only said that he would not go, but also advised Zhimo to change out his soaked clothes as soon as possible, and then put on a raincoat to go out. The humidity in the UK is a joke, and Zhimo ran away without waiting for him to finish speaking!

Later, I curiously asked Zhimo whether this story was true, and he smiled and nodded to admit the truth of the whole story.I asked: What about the following, how long have you been standing on the bridge and waited, and did you see the rainbow? He said he couldn't remember but he actually saw the rainbow.Surprised, I interrupted his description of the rainbow and asked him: How did he know that there must be a rainbow.He answered me with a smug smile: "A completely poetic belief!" "Completely poetic faith", I'm about to cry here!It is because of this "poetic belief" that he insists on taking advantage of the convenience of aviation to achieve his long-cherished wish of "wanting to fly"! "Airplanes are safe," he said, "and if something happens it's my fate!" What a completely poetic faith he had in fate!

Zhimo, my friend, death is just a new journey. If we have never been there, we can’t help but doubt too much. Death may be more painful than this life. “We can’t easily conclude that there is no sunshine and human comfort on the other side.” But as I said before, the most embarrassing thing is this eternal silence.We are born in this age without religion, and we are too uncertain about this death.I am afraid that many days of missing you from now on will be full of dark misery, and there will be no light at all, unless I also have your beautiful poetic faith! Forgive me, my friends, for my personal sorrows have again disturbed my clear recollections of his life.

I don't need to say more about the poet's Zhimo, his many poems are the scales for evaluating him.The history of our new poetry is so short, I am afraid that his judgment is still among our children and grandchildren. What I want to talk about is Zhimo who is not a poet.People say that Zhimo's behavior is just casual romance, and Zhimo's poems are all lyric poems. This assertion can be said to be fair to people who don't know him, but from the perspective of his friends, he is really sorry for him.Zhimo is a very eccentric person, romantic of course, but the essence of his personality is his sympathy, kindness, and kindness to others; Such emotions, he absolutely can not sympathize with.I don't say understand, because don't many people like to say that Zhimo is the most incomprehensible?I said that his characteristics are also in this. Ordinary people like to talk about understanding; if we can understand, we will sympathize, and if we don't understand, we will be indifferent or even cruel.We consider it appropriate to express sympathy for what we can understand; we also consider it fair not to express sympathy for what we cannot understand.Zhimo is not the same, whether he understands or not, he does not exaggerate too much, he only knows tenderness, peace, and consideration, as long as he knows that there are emotions, no matter who they come from, under what circumstances, he thinks it is appropriate or not rationally , he can express a little sympathy, he can really appreciate the difference between forgiving others and himself.Never harshly singled out a strict and narrow moral balance to condemn anyone who is different from him.His gentleness and grace can really make many people feel ashamed. I can honestly say that at least he is much greater than most of us; From the perspective of human beings, sympathy should not be limited to the scope we have set.He is right, my friends, after all, how many people, how many things, how many emotions can we know? Which matter, which person does not have multiple views!For this reason, it is not surprising that Zhimo has many friends; it is also a very natural result that everyone who knows him has special feelings for him, no matter how deep or shallow.On the other hand, he himself has received little sympathy in the course of his life.Not only that, but he was almost unacceptable in society several times because of his ideal stupidity.But he never despised the sympathy he gave to others because of this, and his temperament never changed to be harsh and violent because of being stimulated. Who can deny that he has almost superhuman tolerance. The most touching feature of Zhimo is his unbelievable pure innocence, his sincerity to his ideals, his seriousness in art appreciation, and his empathy, all of which are extremely rare.He stood in the rain and waited for the rainbow, he was willing to fight for his freedom of love at the expense of the society; he took the tortuous train to the countryside to pay homage to Hardy, he abandoned the lure of a Ph. Teacher, because of a special situation, he was moved by a special moment. From then on, he took risks in his life, abandoned all his old careers, and just tried to write a few lines of new poems. The fate of trying new poems in recent years is not very exciting. Sneering and scolding are just commonplace—he can often walk miles to pick a few stalks of flowers, go to great troubles to see a friend to have a word or two; these, and many others, are not mysteries that we usually can easily understand.When I say mysterious, I may actually be stupid or idiotic!In fact, he is just more serious than us, devout to foolish, to crazy!When he is happy, his wings of happiness can touch the sky; when he is sad, his sorrow is bottomless.The weight of ordinary evaluation is useless in his hands. He has his own opinion on the pros and cons. It is purely artistic emotion that deviates from ordinary principles, so people often hear friends talking about him with a sigh. Said: "That's Zhimo, what can you do!" Is he really a weirdo?Friends, no, not at all, he is just closer than us, closer to reason, more enthusiastic than us, more innocent than us, more confident in everything than us, in God, in people, in spirit, in nature, in art ! Friends, what we have lost is not only a friend and a poet, but also a very rare and lovely personality. As for his works are all lyrical?Are his interests limited to emotions?It's even more wrong. Zhimo's interests are extremely broad.There are only a few of them. Speaking of which, people who don't know him will be surprised. He loved mathematics very much in his early years, and he has always been very fond of astronomy. He knows a lot of the names and locations of the stars in the sky, and he likes stargazing at summer nights the most.He once translated Einstein's Theory of Relativity, and in 1922 he wrote an article on the Theory of Relativity which was published in the magazine Mindor.He often joked to Sicheng: "Mr. Ren's knowledge of the theory of relativity was obtained from my masterpiece Xu Jun Zhimo, because he said that he had read many philosophies about Einstein but never understood them. I understand that article." This summer I was recuperating in Xiangshan, and he often came to chat, and one day he talked about his childhood schooling and the two years of studying economics at Clark University in the United States. We laughed at each other for a long time, and later he In his "Tiger Collection" There is also such a passage in the "Preface" of the book.But strange!Unlike many geniuses, he went to school when he was young, and he either failed or was repelled. He often got honors. I heard that once a very strict economics professor at Cornell Summer School wrote a letter to teach at Clark University. There flattered his students about a difficult subject.I'm not exaggerating here for Zhimo, because in fact, only because of this incident, Zhimo himself laughed so hard this summer! In addition, his interest is very deep in drama and painting. Needless to say, drama is so close to poetry and prose. He is also very familiar with those from the Renaissance era, and he loves Boticelli and Da Wenqian the most.Naturally, he also often admits that literati's favorite paintings are often indirectly influenced by other people's papers, and his works are greatly influenced by Roger Fry and Walter Pater.Regarding architectural aesthetics, he often apologized to Sicheng and me, saying: "I'm so sorry, my architectural common sense is all Ruskins." He knew that we hated Ruskins the most.But to see a remnant of an ancient building, a piece of stone carving, he is more enthusiastic than anyone else, and he can appreciate it more quietly. He likes colors, even though he doesn’t know how to paint. During the summer vacation, he sent me several letters from Hangzhou. He called them “Watercolor Paintings of Descriptiveness”. , every minute of tender green, every color of light yellow, he observed carefully. Another time he looked at the broken wall in my garden and remained silent for a while. Later, he told me that he was silently experiencing it, and wanted to describe the sunset sun on the wall and the vines that had just entered autumn. As for music, he is interested in both Chinese and Western music, not only. His enthusiasm awakened Peiping once—perhaps the only time—attention to music.No one can forget that year, Klaas went to Peiping to play the violin at the "True Light" for more than an hour.He must also be considered "expert" in old dramas. During his last few days in Peiping, we went to listen to several plays together one after another. When we returned home, our discussion was lively, more sincere and energetic than any drama review. Who would have believed that such a person, such a person who is so loyal to "life", would leave us so early and be thrown into another world forever, where he would remain silent forever without making a sound! I dare not write any further. If Zhimo had the spirit, wouldn’t he feel displeased to hear a kid much younger than him talk about his behavior in an old-fashioned tone?Here I have another extremely embarrassing memory, that year he wrote the article on the tragic death of my father in the same newspaper, this dreamlike life turned a few corners, once upon a time, it was my turn Hold on to his tragedy in this windy night.What kind of life is this?What storm?what road?Zhimo, your last relief is not happiness, not cleverness, I should envy you.