Chapter 215 about men

Forty years ago, when I lived in seclusion in Geleshan, a suburb of Chongqing, I wrote a book under the pen name of "Men".I have always only used the name "Bing Xin" when writing articles, but at that time I really had no choice but to use it!Firstly, it was because I was in urgent need of royalties; secondly, I was unwilling to use the name "Bing Xin" to write articles at that time and place.When a friend asked me for a manuscript, I asked, "Can I use a pseudonym?" The editor said, "Unfamiliar names will not attract readers' attention." I said:

"Well, let me pick an interesting subject." So I wrote. I originally wanted to write a series of game articles, but I was depressed, and I still couldn't "game". After all, I made a book and couldn't write any more. In the postscript of the book, I once said, "I only worry that I will not live to be sixty years old."That is indeed true.Unexpectedly, in my later years, I was in a prosperous age, which actually allowed me to live to be over eighty!I should write "About Men" with limited light. After being ill, it was difficult to move, and I lived a life of confinement. I had less contact with the world, but the memory time grew longer.I think the respectable and lovely men I have come into contact with in my life are far above the respectable and lovely women.The memory of these characters often brings a tearful smile from me.The things recorded here are all real people and real things, maybe they are all trivial things of ordinary people. (Maybe there will be some great people and great things!) But these little things and anecdotes always make me never forget, and I am willing to write these anecdotes freely and heartily, just for my own pleasure.But from my experience as a reader, when the author uses his true feelings to write words that please himself, it will often please the readers.

a my grandfather I have written a lot about my grandfather in many short essays.But there are still many small things, interesting things, which are often on my heart.I became really familiar with him when I returned to my hometown Fuzhou when I was eleven years old, and I wandered around him almost all day long!I remember that he often went to Nantai outside the city to visit friends in his spare time. This road must be very far across a bridge, but he never took a sedan chair.He also said that as he was walking, he often met juniors sitting in sedan chairs, and they always hurriedly got off the sedan chair to pay respects to him.Therefore, when he saw the sedan chair approaching from a distance, he always turned his head away, pretending to look at the things in the shop by the street, so as not to let people get off the sedan chair.He said that over the years, he has only sat in a sedan chair twice: once he was holding a map of the holy sites in Qufu (he is the president of the Fuzhou Zun Kong Xingwen Association), and he thought it was too disrespectful to carry the holy book under his arm He came back in a sedan chair with his arms in his arms; another time his old friend gave him a puppy, and he couldn't walk such a long distance with it in his arms, so he had to sit in a sedan chair.Grandpa named the puppy "Golden Lion".When I saw it, it was already a big dog.When I held its front paws and let it stand up, it was already as tall as me, with golden and shiny yellow hair all over its body.It is a good housekeeping dog. When an acquaintance comes, it wags its tail when it smells it, and sometimes stands up on its hind legs, raising its front paws and throwing itself on someone's chest.When strangers come, it will bark, making the whole family vigilant.My grandfather was in excellent health, but sometimes he would have a headache, and he would lie down quietly when he had a headache. At this time, the whole family became quiet, and even the golden lion was locked in the back garden.I remember my mother quietly ordered a bowl of vermicelli for my grandfather and put it on the kitchen table, and my fourth aunt quietly picked it up and put it on the small table in front of my grandfather's bed, with a small plate of "Susu" next to it Smoked duck.This "Susu" is a person's name, and it is also the name of a famous smoked duck shop in Gulou, Fuzhou.This smoked duck must be very expensive, because we rarely buy it.

The grandfather generally treated his granddaughters more leniently than his grandchildren, we made mistakes, and he often "turned a blind eye" and let it pass. I remember most that my third sister and I (she is the daughter of my fourth aunt, who is the same age as me) often "filled cigarettes" for my grandfather. We all thought that the hookah that came out of his mouth smelled very good.So once he went to Nantai to visit friends, and after he left (he always closed the door of the front room and left from the back room), we were still folding the clothes he had changed in his room.Guessing that no one will come at this time, we calmly picked up the hookah, blew on the paper coal, and took turns smoking. When we were choking and coughing, my grandfather suddenly came in from the back room again, and we were so frightened that we put it down quickly. Hookah, picked up his clothes and shook them, trying to shake the smoke out of the room.Grandfather didn't speak or smile, picked up the glasses case on the desk, and went out again.Our hearts were pounding, we smiled wryly across the face for a long time, folded grandfather's clothes, and took out the back door.Of course we dare not tell anyone about this, and my grandfather never told anyone about our deviant behavior.

My grandfather hated gambling the most. Even during festivals, our family never heard the sound of playing mahjong or throwing dice.His own birthday is the busiest day for our family. When guests come, we only eat a bowl of birthday noodles after celebrating his birthday.Close relatives and friends sat and talked again, waiting for the evening banquet, but the guests who were addicted to mahjong often left after eating birthday noodles. In our big family, it is not without mahjong tiles.There is a pair of exquisite ivory mahjong tiles in the house of the fourth aunt.I remember that in the second year of my return to Fuzhou, when my father was called to leave home, I stayed temporarily because I was going to finish the second semester of the Women's Normal School. My mother was afraid that my family would spoil me, so she stayed Put me in my grandmother's house.But my grandfather often asked my nanny (she was working part-time with my grandfather at that time) to call me.She said, "Yingguan, your grandfather asked you to go back to eat longan. The handful of longan he left for you to eat, hanging under the lamp, is almost rotten!" At that time, my third cousin, Liangguan, , who grew up in my family, came home from the warship to visit relatives, and he and I, as well as the fourth cousin in the second aunt's house, the chief, and the third sister, after my grandfather went to bed at nine o'clock in the night, I came out to face the four My aunt wanted to play the set of mahjong tiles, and started playing in the back hall of the west courtyard.Playing and playing, I suddenly put together several pairs, and I made a pair of "pairs and pairs"!I was so happy that I clapped my hands and screamed.

At this time, the fourth aunt hurried out from her back room, and shouted in a low voice: "You are more courageous than the sky! Fourth sister, don't think that grandpa dotes on you. If he hears it, not only will he not love you anymore, but I will also have something wrong with me. Put it away quickly!" Put the card in the box and send it back.When I think about these things now, I feel very guilty. I am not the good boy in my grandfather's imagination. From his eyes, I am a "little guy" who is both mischievous and law-abiding. 2 my father I have also written quite a bit about my father in bits and pieces.I have mentioned many times that he was on the "Weiyuan" ship and participated in the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese naval battle.But many friends and readers have written to tell me that they read modern history, "Weiyuan"

The ship did not take part in naval battles.At that time, there were many battleships ranked by the word "Wei". I must have heard it wrong. I regret that I didn't ask the name of the captain of that battleship at that time, otherwise I could get it right.But my father did participate in the First Sino-Japanese War on a warship named after the word "Wei", as evidenced by poems! I remember that between 1914 and 1915, on the living room wall of my home in Zhongjianzi Lane, Beijing, I saw a photo of my father’s best friend, Uncle Zhang Xinru (my father kept a photo of the “Three Friends of Suihan” in his collection. Uncle Zhang Xinru and Uncle Sa Youzhou. They are all my father's classmates and colleagues. I don't know their names, "Xinru" and "Youzhou" are their aliases) Qilu to celebrate his father's fiftieth birthday Two poems, I forgot the first two sentences of the first one: ×××××××Donggou decisive battle The second poem of Gaobi Morale Stretch is all about the Xie family's allusions, which is not interesting, but the last two sentences point out the age of his father: I want to see Fang Xiyi in Yushu in front of the stage, talented, Gongyue Fuhuilian enters the dream, recalls the pond and comes out as a Lin Yu sat facing the chessboard villa in Dongshan Guang Mo Dao vacation Fang Xueyi's poems and ceremonies have already been heard in the first poem From the first poem, it can be seen that the warship where the father was on was in the "decisive battle" in Dadonggou, and the father was in Weihai Wei swims to "escape".

Speaking of Uncle Zhang Xinru, I also saw a letter from him to his father, probably from the time when my father was the principal of the Naval Academy in Yantai (there is a bookcase in my father’s study room with two drawers in the middle, and the one on the right is where many friends’ books are stored. The letters and poems, my father never forbids me to read them.) The letter roughly said that now that my father has settled down and his life is stable, my mother will no longer have: The complaints of "less and more" are gone, and so on.There are a few sentences in the middle that say: "Autumn Equinox Bailu, a good story for ten years, the understanding is not far away, so keep it with a smile."

I went to ask my father: "This is a good story for ten years, what is it?" Both father and mother laughed and said: At that time, Uncle Xinru and my father served on the same warship.Life at sea is lonely and monotonous, so whenever someone receives a letter from home, everyone rushes to read it.Few family members of military officers at that time would write letters in their own hands, and mother's letters would always attract the special attention of father's companions.Once when my mother mentioned "weather" in a letter, she quoted a folk proverb: "Bailu autumnal equinox night, one night is cold and one night", everyone read it and laughed and teased my father, saying: "Your wife misses you, this is clearly The meaning of 'Mandarin duck tiles are cold and frosty, and the emerald quilt is cold'!" The father had no choice but to snatch the letter back with a blushing face.From this letter from Uncle Zhang, one can also imagine the lively atmosphere of the young officers who had served at sea for a long time mocking each other.

It was from the drawer of my father's bookcase that I found a poem by Mr. Sa Zhenbing, whose title seems to be "Yellow River Night Crossing": Passing through Xingze Jueyidan at night on the Yellow River bridge, crossing the river in a light car under the moonlight. I saw the last line of this poem praised by my father, saying that it is "a minister's demeanor". This poem was probably written in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. Mr. Sa Lao When he was the vice minister of the navy, the minister was Zai Shunbeile. Early morning of November 5, 1984