Chapter 107 In memory of Mr. Liang Shiqiu

At 8:30 this morning, I was on my early break when I heard that Liang Wenqian had called, saying that his father, Mr. Liang Shiqiu, had died of myocardial infarction in Taiwan on the 3rd of this month.He also said that he had no pain at all when he passed away, and advised me not to be sad.But how can I not be sad?The friendship between us is extraordinary! Liang Shiqiu was Wu Wenzao’s classmate at Tsinghua University. We went to the United States on the same ship in 1923. I knew him a few days earlier than I knew Wenzao, because Liang Shiqiu, Gu Yiqiao and others from Tsinghua University established a kind of A literary publication called Xu Dishan and I were invited to write for it.Once, after an editorial meeting, he suddenly said to me: "Before I got on the ship in Shanghai, when I said goodbye to my girlfriend, I cried a lot." I was surprised by his sincerity and frankness, not " Men don’t flick their tears easily”?Why did you say your "privacy" so easily to a stranger like me?

When I arrived in the United States, I entered Wellesley University for Women.A year later, Shi Qiu also transferred to Harvard University.Because we are both in Boston in the east of the United States, we often meet, not only at the monthly "Hu Club" discussion meeting, our Chinese students also performed "The Story of the Pipa" for them at the invitation of American classmates.He played Cai Zhonglang, Xie Wenqiu played Zhao Wuniang, and Gu Yiqiao played the prime minister.Because Ms. Qiu, who played the prime minister's daughter, was temporarily ill, I was asked to replace her.Later, Gu Yiqiao showed me a letter Xu Dishan wrote to him from England, saying, "Shiqiu is really blessed, first he became a son-in-law on stage."

I never said any jokes among these young foreign students to each other. Now that Dishan and Shiqiu have passed away successively, and I am also old, I still think it is very humorous when I recall it. Shiqiu loves her family very much, and returned to China after only two years in the United States. After I returned to China in 1926, we often met in Beijing.At that time, he was editing "Freedom Review", and I wrote "One Sentence" poem for him, and also translated the long poem "Ancient Beijing" by Helen Snow, Mrs. Snow.I didn’t leave any drafts of these things, they were all sent to me by Shiqiu many years later.

After we got married in the summer of 1929, Wen Zao and I lived in Yenching University. He and Wen Yiduo came to our new residence and laughed at us, saying, “Everything inside and outside the house is well furnished, except that we lack cigarettes and tea for hospitality.” Thanks to them. Reminder, because Wenzao and I do not smoke, and drink plain water! After the July 7th Incident, we all went to the rear. In the early 1940s, we met again in Chongqing.He had been to Gele Mountain where we lived, and sat on the porch of a mud house without walls to watch the Jialing River, and he could sit quietly for several hours.Wen Zao and I often go to Beibei where he lives.I remember that when we first arrived in Chongqing in 1940, it was he and Yeya, the wife of Wu Jingchao (also a classmate of Wenzao), who first came to take us to Beibei for a happy reunion.

Soon after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, we arrived in Japan. Shiqiu's family first returned to Peiping, and then to Taiwan in 1949. We still kept in touch with each other.I remember that in our apartment in Takashimaya, Japan, there was still a picture of calligraphy given to us by Shiqiu. During the ten years of turmoil, it naturally disappeared together with the calligraphy and paintings presented by many friends! When we returned to our motherland from Japan in 1951, there were rumors in Taiwan that "Bing Xin and his wife were persecuted by the CCP and both committed suicide."When Shiqiu heard the news, he wrote an article "Sad Bingxin".I am very grateful that this article was passed on to me. I once wrote a letter and entrusted someone to forward it to him from the United States, and earnestly asked him to come back and have a look at the real situation in New China, because he is from Beijing, and the article is always full of Clothes, food, housing...everything is nostalgic for ancient Beijing.

How unfortunate!Just yesterday when Liang Wenqian told me that her father might come back to take a look, he passed away the day before! Shiqiu, you are still happy, being mourned by others, you shed less tears than those who write articles mourning others, right? (This article was originally published in People's Daily on November 10, 1987.)