Lao She (1899-1966) was in Beijing in the 1950s
One
On February 15, 1950, a medium-sized tenant walked out of the Beijing Hotel on the north side of Wangfujing West Road. He was chubby, walking, his steps were heavy, and his body was crooked. His attire was also quite different from that of others: a leather coat was covered with a suit, but underneath he was wearing two pairs of blue silk cotton trousers, and he also wore trouser cuffs. He looked strangely afraid of the cold, and seemed to be not very accustomed to the weather of the tenth winter moon,—— so cold that it seemed as if even the air was frozen.
This person who looked at the top of the past was no one else, but Lao She, who had only returned from the United States a few years ago.
On December 11, he boarded a train from Tianjin to Beijing, and as soon as he left the station at the front door, he saw Lou Shiyi, who had come to pick him up. They were old friends they met in Wuchang during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Lao She came with him to Wangfujing and stayed in the seven-storey Western-style hotel built by the French in the early years. Immediately after, he entrusted his old classmates to help look around the house and wanted to buy a small courtyard that suited his heart.
To pool the money, he also wrote to the United States asking his agent, David Lloyd, to send royalties from New York. "My family is on their way back from Chongqing," he said. I've got to buy them a home. Now that Beijing is the capital again, finding a house you like here is both expensive and troublesome. I would be very happy if you could send five hundred dollars to Hong Kong and have Dr. Hou transfer it to me. (Dr. Hou Baozhang, Department of Pathology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong). ”
Because of the work he did not yet have to do, except for meetings, receiving visitors, visiting relatives and friends, he would huddle in his room, or lean on the sofa to read new books on literature and art in the Liberated Areas, or would lie down in front of a dresser with a large mirror.
He took the guest house as his home, and stayed in room 222 on the second floor of the hotel for more than two months.
However, all day long, always on the hotel floor, there is no way to do it. He fell ill with leg disease in the United States and struggled to walk. On crutches, I reluctantly walked to the hotel gate at most, and when I got out of the door, I had to take a car. He complained, "I really like to eat some burnt cake fruit, but when I leave the restaurant and walk to Dongdan, which is three minutes away for ordinary people, I have to walk for half a day, and I have to rest four or five times!"
However, no matter what, he still had to go to the door today. He had to go to the Dongan Market and go to the Mainland Bank to get fifty thousand yuan. He must hurry up to visit Master Zong Yue's mother and send her New Year's money.
Tomorrow, it's the first day of the Chinese New Year.
Two
Over the years, Lao She has run east and west, wandering around, and has no certain residence, but Beiping's close relatives and friends have always been in his heart.
Once back in Beijing,—— Beiping changed back to Beijing more than two months ago, and when he learned that many of his relatives were safe, especially Master Zong Yue's mother was still alive, he was really excited and relieved, and there were some faint sadness,—— benefactor Master Zong Yue had been sitting down for more than eight years.
Like Lao She, Zong Yue is also a Manchu, he is happy to be charitable, help orphans and poor, and is a well-known "good person" in Northwest City. Before leaving home, Lao She called him "Uncle Liu" ,—— that was when his name was still Qingchun. Later, when Lao She reached the school age, he should have gone to apprentice with his eight-year-old brother instead of studying, but thanks to Uncle Liu's help, he was lucky enough to enter the private school without having to pay tuition and book money.
And long, he also heard that the relationship between the two families is even more profound:
"His relationship with us is quite interesting. Although my great-grandmother helped him at his house, we were not his domestic slaves. His grandfather, his father, and my grandfather and father, always had something to do with it intermittently, and not much to do with it. Until he became a family, this relationship was not broken. ”
The implication is that they are the friendship of the four generations of the ,——, which began with the great-grandfather generation. He also remembered that the things of the old age, the gossip of the elders, often had to say:
"My great-grandmother followed a Manchu official to distant places such as Yunnan. How many yuan treasures that the senior officer got was no longer available. My great-grandmother's task was probably to help the wife of the senior officer get into the car and pour tea for the lady. In our house, none of these tasks were mentioned about my great-grandmother, but only remembered that our house was purchased by her. ”
The legend of his great-grandmother also explains why his ancestors belonged to the Zhenghong Banner, but when he was born, he lived on the ground of the Zhenghuang Banner.
It is said that the Great Qing Dynasty entered the Guanjian capital, and Lao She's ancestors had meritorious conquests, and they were assigned housing in the camps under the Xizhimen. Probably before his great-grandfather's generation, his family had already fallen, "The twenty or thirty acres of land outside the north city have long been sold by the predecessors, and only more than one acre remains, lined with several graves." The houses distributed by the banner have also been sold by his ancestors first, and they have been eaten by roast ducks", so I had to consider finding a house and moving. It was also around this time that the eight flags of the imperial court were gradually relaxed, and the impoverished flags had the freedom to move. Therefore, when the outer enlarger returned to Beijing after his term of office, the great-grandmother of Lao She, who was accompanying the waiter, used the maid's income to set up a house in a small sheepfold close to the root of the west wall of the Huguo Temple, and the family moved out of the Red Flag Defense Ground.
Lao She can be born in the small sheepfold, and it cannot but be said that he also relies on the shadow of Zong Yuezu.
Three
The small sheepfold is the birthplace of Lao She, and most of the events in "Four Generations Together" and his autobiographical novel "Zhenghong Flag" also happened there.
Floor plan of the small sheepfold, drawn by Hu Yuqing and Shu Yi
Thirteen years after the sinking of Lao Shetou Lake, Hu Huqing and Shu Yi mother and son came to the Small Sheepfold for the first time, which is now the Xiaoyangjia Hutong, and painted a "Schematic Diagram of the Small Sheepfold Hutong in the Novel "Four Generations Together"" in the small sheepfold hutong. However, at that time, no one could have imagined that Lao She had also drawn a map of a small sheepfold in the early spring of 1947.
Map of the little sheepfold, drawn by Lao She in 1947
Lao She's own map is more accurate than that drawn by his family, and the "gourd" is a vivid image, except that the "gourd" is not sitting, but lying flat: "mouth" facing West Street, "ass" to the east. The picture is drawn with a pen on an ordinary writing paper of A4 size, which is clearly marked in English as "little sheepfold", "main street", the four directions of southeast, south, and northwest, the distribution of courtyards from one to seven, and the specific location of two large trees. The drawings are exquisite, the pen is simple and complex, and it is clear at a glance; comparing it to the depiction in "Four Worlds Together", there is no discrepancy at all:
"Perhaps, this place was really a sheepfold at the beginning, because it was not as straight as the ordinary Peiping hutong, or slightly curved one or two times, but rather like a gourd." Leading to West Avenue is the mouth and neck of the gourd, which is very thin and long, and very dirty. The mouth of the gourd is so narrow that it is easy for people to ignore the past if they do not pay attention or ask the postman. Entering the neck of the gourd and seeing the garbage piled up at the base of the wall, you dare to go inside, just as Columbus dared to go further when he saw something floating on the sea. After walking for dozens of steps, suddenly you saw the chest of the gourd: a thing with forty steps, a circle of thirty steps from north to south, two large locust trees in the middle, and six or seven families around it. Further on, there is another alley—the waist of the gourd. Through the 'waist', it is another open space, two or three times larger than the 'chest', which is the belly of the gourd. 'Chest' and 'belly' are probably sheepfolds, right? ”
Lao She wrote the direction of the small sheepfold and explained the origin of the Qi family's house:
"The Qi family's room is in the chest of the gourd." The street gate faces west, diagonally opposite a large locust tree. In the beginning, when Mr. Qi chose to buy a house, the status of the house determined his going to take it."
Old Man Qi was the old lady of the same house of the fourth generation, that is, his great-grandfather; they lived together as a family of ten. The house of the Lao She family in the small sheep pen was bought by the great-grandmother, and there were exactly four generations of people living before and after.
What could be more ingenious in the world?
Four
Lao She's map of the sheepfold was drawn to Pu Ed for her translation reference.
I have copied half of Pu Ed's letter to Yang Xianyi's wife Dai Naidi on October 20, 1978. In the summer of that year, the urn without ashes in Lao She was solemnly placed in Babaoshan. Pu Ed heard the news and wrote to Dai Naidi, saying:
"In the late winter and early spring of 1946 and 1947, I collaborated with him in translating Four Worlds Together, and he translated the title into English as The Yellow Storm. He came over at seven o'clock every night and we worked until ten o'clock. The reason why it was so late was because my work at the U.S. Committee office that aided the Chinese Industrial Cooperative had to be busy all day to finish (fortunately, I didn't have to go to the field during that period). ”
In the same letter, Pu also said: "The way we work is very unusual. Lao She read it aloud in Chinese, and I typed it out in English. His actual mastery of English was higher than his own level. I played and read it to him. He often has to question and will help me correct it. Where it's difficult, let's discuss it together. I remember that he especially liked me to translate 'leper Hanako' as 'scabby headed beggar'. ”
Five
Pu Ed's letter, Lao She's map of the sheepfold, and the translation of "Four Generations Together" were all found in the library of Harvard University during the summer vacation seven or eight years ago.
When I arrived in the United States in July of that year, my first stop was New Haven, where I planned to attend a week's class at Yale University, and then I would take a detour to Rhode Island to Professor Vogel's apartment at 14 Sumner Street in Cambridge near Boston to discuss the publication of his "Japan First", and then go to the Schlesinger Library, not far west of his home, to check out the Pu Ed's archives.
In late May of the previous year in New York, two days after the graduation ceremony was gleefully held under a white tent by Columbia undergraduates in light blue robes, I found a translation contract signed by Lao She and Pu Ed in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department of the Butler Library, and learned that the English translation of "Four Generations Together" was still in good storage at Harvard University: Pu Ed died in 1985 at the age of ninety-six, and many archival documents were donated to the Schlesinger Library. It was the first professional library of women's studies in the United States, named after the famous Harvard historian Professor Arthur Mai Schlesinger Sr,—— his son Schlesinger Jr. was a brother-in-law of Fairbank and a professor of history at Harvard; it was located in Radcliffe College, which was originally a famous girls' school in the United States.
It was a typical New England summer afternoon, sunny, hot, and without a hint of wind; above the very high blue sky, there were very thick white clouds floating, big and large, and they did not move. Because it is a holiday, there are few people in the huge library, and the large reading room on the second floor is especially quiet. After nearly thirty boxes of Pu Ed's archives were sent one by one, I quickly checked out the map of the small sheepfold drawn by Lao She, some of Pu Ed's correspondence, and all the manuscripts of "Four Worlds Together" that she translated. People have always thought that this long work written more than seventy years ago never hopes to see quanbi: on May 13, 1950, Lao She sent the first ten chapters of the final draft of "Famine" to the Shanghai "Novel" monthly magazine for publication. The serialization lasted less than a year, that is, it ended in vain. Fifteen years later, one day in late August, Lao She was in the small courtyard of No. 19 Rich Hutong, hula la burst into a large group of young generals, the unpublished manuscript of "Famine", and has not been known since.
In the afternoon of that day, I came out of the library and went to Professor Vogel's house to talk about the publication of the book, and then talked about the translation of the "Four Generations Together" in the archives, and a letter related to him written by Professor Eizo Yokoyama of Japan's National Yamaguchi University,—— Yokoyama is a disciple of Masao Aoki and came to Harvard as a visiting scholar in November 1973; Lao She's Experience in the United States is the subject of his research.
In his letter, Yokoyama asked Pu Aide a number of questions that no one had been able to answer so far:
[1] When was Lao She invited by the State Department to come to the United States? Did a person come? If so, where was his family during his visit to the United States? Does he live alone in the United States?
[2] What was his purpose in coming to the United States?
[3] Was he very ill when he came? Healed?
[4] Where does he live in the United States?
[5] He is said to have written a novel in New York. If true, what was written? When will I start writing and when will I finish writing? Did you write any other work?
[6] What else did he do outside of writing?
[7] How did he feel about life here?
[8] When did he leave the United States?
[9] Why did he return to Red China instead of Taiwan? If he didn't say it, what do you think was his reason?
[10] What is the State Council's assessment of his return to Red China?
Yokoyama also said in the letter that because there was no information about Lao She, he contacted Fei Weimei through Professor Vogel. She was at the U.S. Embassy in Chongqing as an official for cultural relations; Lao She and Cao Yu's visit to the United States was specifically arranged by her. But because of a defect in the U.S. State Department file, she couldn't provide more information, but recommended Pu Aide to him.
"Is that so?" Mr. Vogel smiled and said, "I have an impression that he came to Harvard, but I don't know about this letter. ”
Later, I copied Yokoyama's letter and sent it to Mr. Vogel,—— on the road of Lao She's research, he was Yokoyama's most important guide. He was then director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Harvard.
The author of this article with Vogel, October 2016 at the old man's home
More than forty years later, Mr. Vogel appeared before me on the same road as a guide: four years ago, in August, I was able to enter the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, thanks to his selfless help.
Six
In the year of Harvard, we lived close to Mr. Vogel, just across the street.
The house we lived in, numbered 109 Irving Street, was located in the southwest corner of an intersection next to the seminary, across a small road not wide, and the small yellow building facing the north was the office of the Department of East Asia, which was often visited by Chinese students; diagonally opposite the northeast corner was a large towering old tree, and the house of the American College of Arts and Sciences was hidden deep in the dense forest.
Mr. Vogel also knew our landlord, Andrew, and his mother Marianne. The old lady was the widow of Professor Arthur Mai Schlesinger Jr., and her sister was Fethomy, both of whom were born in Radcliffe.
The first time I met Marianne, speaking of lao she I was studying, the 100-4-year-old misheard her ears and shouted excitedly:
"Old Kim?! Do you know Old Kim, I know him! ”
Eighty-two years ago, as soon as the twenty-three-year-old Marianne left school, she took a cruise ship alone from San Francisco to Beiping via Shanghai to see Fairbank and Fei Weimei, so she became close friends with Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin and his wife, as well as Jin Yuelin.
Over the years, whenever I talked about Mr. Vogel and thought of the research he gave me and the care he took care of my family, his smiling and squinting appearance clearly appeared in my mind,—— at this time, lao She's words of remembering Master Zongyue seemed to ring in my ears: "Without him, I may not have enrolled in school for the rest of my life." Without him, I may never remember the joy and meaning of helping others. ”
Lao She's words, especially the last sentence, are also thinking back to Mr. Vogel at this moment, what I want to say most in my heart,—— I can't believe that he has left us for a whole year; and the plague king who has harmed people for three years still refuses to stop at all.
New Year's Day 2022, 1:30 a.m., hit Pu Bridge
Author: Zhao Wuping
Editor: Wu Dongkun
Editor-in-Charge: Shu Ming
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.