Liang Shiqiu Recalls Lao She

I recently went to the United States and accidentally saw a small booklet collected by my daughter Wen Qiang. One of the pages contained an inscription by Lao She. This happened more than 40 years ago, when Lao She and I were both living in Beibei, Sichuan. Lao She first lived in a small room near the stairs upstairs in a small bungalow owned by Mr. Lin Yutang. The room was very small, with only one bed and one table. He stayed alone and amused himself by writing. Once

I asked him how he was progressing in writing novels. He said he would write seven hundred words a day, not more. He was in poor health, suffering from gastroptosis, walking with a slight stoop, and his face looked obviously old. His writing attitude is very cautious, and he does not write seven hundred words a day casually. He later said to himself: "It takes a long time to think about any word." Lao Xiang's family lived downstairs, but they didn't have much contact with each other. Lao She was amiable and approachable, but he was very lonely inside.

Later Lao She moved out of that place and moved to one of the row of bungalows on the side of the road. I remember that Zhao Qingge lived in another one of the bungalows in that row, and Li Chendong and his wife also lived in the other one. One room. This place is very close to my Yashe, so I have more opportunities to meet Lao She. One day I took Wen Qiang to see him. Wen Qiang was a teenager in junior high school at Nankai Middle School in Shapingba. It is a habit among young students to ask for signatures and inscriptions. Lao She gladly took up his pen and wrote for her thirteen words: "The best citizen is the one who is strong in body and well educated." Although these are general words of encouragement for underachievers, we can also see Lao She's unpretentious and friendly attitude. He understands the importance of being "physically strong".

At this time, Lao She suffered from acute appendicitis. At that time, many people suffered from appendicitis, and I was the first to set the record among my friends. Due to the lack of anti-inflammatory drugs at the time, I had two caesarean sections and was almost in danger. I was hospitalized for more than a month before being carried back to Yashe to recuperate. Lao She followed in my footsteps, and the operation was not smooth. According to the news from Zhao Qingge, after opening the abdominal cavity, he searched for the cecum but could not find it. It took him a full hour to find it on the left side of the abdominal cavity. Normally, the cecum is on the right side. Lao She had gastroptosis. The cecum changed position. After the surgery, he became increasingly weak.

At the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War, Lao She, like me, went to the rear alone, and his family was sent from Jinan to Peiping. He wrote to a friend and said: "My wife and children cannot come out. I have to say goodbye to them. I am the parent and now I have to leave them to their fate." Later I asked his wife how she was doing, and he pretended to be calm and said: "She The situation is very good, and it now serves a public library - the building behind the 'Five Colored Earth' in Central Park. "In fact, at the end of the Anti-Japanese War, the lives of Peiping residents were very difficult, and they were almost helpless. The point of life. Soon, Lao She's wife, Ms. Hu Qing, came to the rear. After living in Beibei for a short time, she and Lao She moved away, seemingly to some countryside near Chongqing. Not long after he left, he sent me a letter and composed six rhythmic poems (see appendix). The poem is well written, and you can get a glimpse of his mood. He laments that he likes to be quiet in his middle age, has no money to buy wine, is an old man and has no official, and articles are his life. It is a portrayal of a wanderer in the world!

Lao Shezhi Death has been a mystery for a long time. It's no longer a mystery. He died miserably. His father also died tragically. Hu Qing said:

When the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing, his father died in a grain store on Nanchang Street. It was a letter from his uncle's second brother, who was also a flag soldier... He was defeated, passed by the grain store, went in to find some water, and happened to meet Lao She's father. The incendiary bombs of the Eight-Nation Allied Forces that attacked Zhengyangmen ignited the gunpowder on his father's body. His whole body was burned and swollen. He crawled to this grain store to wait for death. When the second brother saw him, he could no longer speak and was completely blackened. He only gave the second brother a pair of cloth socks that he had taken off due to swollen feet. Later, it was this pair of socks that was buried in my father's small tomb. At this time Lao She was less than two years old.

This tragic family history is a natural subject for novels. Throughout Lao She's life, no matter where he went, it returned to his memory again and again, evoking his infinite bitterness and sadness. indignation.

History cannot repeat itself, but history is often very similar.

Lao She's father died under the fire of imperialism, and Lao She himself died tragically under the poisonous arrows of the "black-line dictatorship of literature and art" theory; Lao She's father died alone and in pain in a small grain store, and Lao She himself He also died alone and in pain on the shore of a small lake; there were no remains in the tomb of Lao She's father, only a pair of cloth socks, and there was also no ashes in Lao She's own urn, only a pair of glasses and a pair of socks. A pen... (Preface to "Under the Red Flag")

Both Lao She and his son died tragically, one was killed by the Eight-Nation Allied Forces, the other was killed by the minions of the Gang of Four. The former died under enemy fire as a flag soldier. It can be said that Lao She, a scholar, also died under the poisonous arrows of the evil "black line dictatorship of literature and art" theory. It is really a tragedy. Our understanding is that he did not drown in the water of a small lake, but his body was found on the shore of a small lake. His body was cremated quickly, but there were no ashes in his urn! A man like Lao She had always been upright, open-minded, and indifferent to the world. His ideological tendency had always been individualist and liberal. His writing has always been realist and deeply sympathized with the poor people. What's more, he also wrote many articles praising virtues due to the situation. From any aspect, he should not have the ending he did. However, something that shouldn't happen happened. I had nothing to say. I thought of a folk "side tune" song quoted by Mr. Hu Shi from "Bean Shed Gossip" in the late Ming Dynasty when thieves were rogues:

God, you are old,

Being deaf makes your eyesight blurry.

You can’t see people or hear words.

/p>

If you don’t know how to make the sky, it will fall!

Lao She’s last novel is "Under the Red Flag". Published by Beijing People's Literature Publishing House in June 1980, with 142 pages and 97,000 words.

This novel was written in late 1961 and 1962. According to Hu Qing's preface, the story of this novel was tragic and the story was tortuous. The novel mainly writes about the Manchus, and it is about the Manchus in the late Qing Dynasty, and it is based on the turmoil of the Boxer Rebellion era. So the genre is certainly different from the so-called "modern genre". The reason why Lao She dared to write this novel that he had wanted to write for a long time was because he thought that he had been allowed to "freely choose genres under certain general premises", but he was wrong. In the second half of 1962, a wave of "modern literary inquisition" emerged, implicating a large number of literary and artistic workers. "Who wants to be labeled as 'anti-party' for writing novels for no reason?" "These literary and artistic workers Abnormalities in policy constitute the reason why "Under the Red Flag" was neither finished nor published."

The 164 pages of the original manuscript of "Under the Red Flag" have never been seen. Japan’s contraband was “hidden in bathtubs, boilers, and coal piles, moving from house to house, from the city to the suburbs, like poor little deer being hunted.” We are now reading this book, “The True Story of the Day.” "Under the Red Flag", I really don't see anything that would be objectionable to anyone. Perhaps its only negotiable aspect is the lack of slogans that are suitable for certain fashions. Maybe this novel is a realistic work that is loyal to history, human nature, and art, rather than something that serves anyone, so it violated a taboo. In short, this novel has just begun, introducing several characters in the story. Just when it was about to write about the Boxer Rebellion and the tragic death of his father, it stopped writing, and the remaining manuscript was not published until It took a long time after Lao She's death for it to be published.

It is a pity that this novel is not finished. This autobiographical novel is different from previous works in that it has a more serious attitude and no longer uses humor in spoken words. There is no hiding that this is an autobiographical novel, but it is a novel after all, not an autobiography. The characters are real, the background is real, and the story is interspersed with truth and fiction. From this novel we can understand Lao She's life experience. (Excerpted from "Reminiscences of Dreams in Sophora Garden", written by Liang Shiqiu and published by Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing House.)