A letter from the newly discovered Feng Xuefeng to Ding Ling

Ding Ling's love for Xuefeng has long become an open secret with the publication of "Not a Love Letter" in 1933.

I came to work with Ding Ling in 1982, six years after Xuefeng's death. I haven't seen Xuefeng, but when I hear Ding Ling talk about Xuefeng, she has a tone of respect and reverence, and even when she is dying, she still remembers Xuefeng. Even a junior like me can feel Ding Ling's deep love for Xuefeng.

Is Xuefeng so good to Ding Ling? I asked Fengzhu quietly. In the early 50s of the last century, she worked as a secretary for Ding Ling, and naturally met Feng Xuefeng. "Xue Feng has a deep affection for Ding Ling!" Feng Zhu replied very affirmatively, and also talked about two small things.

Once Ding Ling asked Fengzhu to go to Xuefeng's house to deliver a document, Xuefeng asked Ding Ling about her body, daily life, and work situation with enthusiasm and concern, and asked a lot and carefully. Feng Zhu replied one by one, said goodbye, and Xue Feng was actually sent outside the gate. Feng Zhu walked far away, and when she looked back, Xue Feng was still standing there looking. "I know, this is not Comrade Xuefeng's politeness to me, just because I was sent by Ding Ling. Fengzhu said.

In the early 50s of the last century, Ding Ling and Feng Xuefeng successively served as the secretary of the party group of the Chinese Writers Association and the editor-in-chief of the "Literature and Art Daily". In the mid-50s, they were wrongly criticized at the same time. At an enlarged meeting of the party group held by the Writers' Association to criticize them, when Feng Xuefeng was speaking, Ding Ling suddenly interjected: "I know that you are saying that all to protect me!" Feng Zhu said, I'm really sad in my heart, when is it, and I'm still thinking about each other!

On December 19, 1983, Luo Binji visited Ding Ling, and he said that in March 1939, he went to Shentan Village, Yiwu, Zhejiang Province to visit Xuefeng, and had a long talk for three nights, one of which was that Xuefeng talked about love at first sight with Ding Ling. Luo Binji said: "I have the impression that when he saw you, he had a feeling: it's over, everything is over, reputation, status, it's all over." I thought to myself, how can I have such feelings? Later, when I got older, I realized that it was also a kind of captive appearance, and I fell in love at first sight. Ding Ling laughed when she heard this: "Then he didn't tell me about it, he didn't show it." ”

Is there any more direct material for Xue Feng's feelings for Ding Ling? In 2007, he finally made a new discovery. In the summer, when I was helping Mr. Chen Ming sort out the letters, I found a letter from a friend to Ding Ling, who was called "Bingzhi" on the stage, and the signature at the end of the letter was "缄之" and "Chengzhi". The letter consists of two pages, 16 pages of size and horizontal expansion, the white newspaper with raw edges has been yellowed, and the small script of the brush is written vertically from right to left, and the date of payment is July 15, no year. At the beginning of the letter, he talked about receiving a letter from Ding Ling's mother, talking about the difficulties in life, and in the second half, he talked with Ding Ling about his thoughts, moods, and creation. Judging from the title and tone of the letter, the writer of the letter is a very familiar friend of Ding Ling, who has an extraordinary close relationship and is suitable for the national control area. Who is this friend? When I asked Mr. Chen Ming, he couldn't remember who it was.

Recently, I flipped through the "Xuefeng Yearbook" compiled by Bao Ziyan, and suddenly found that from the autumn of 1965 to the summer of 1966, when Feng Xuefeng participated in the "Four Qings" in Anyang, Henan, he used a pseudonym "Feng Chengzhi". At this point, I suddenly realized that the letter from a friend was written by Feng Xuefeng. The payment should be "sincere" rather than "silent". The letter was written in July 1946.

Reading along these lines, the rich connotations and unusually full emotions of this letter become more and more clearly displayed. Whether it is as a literary historical material, or as an emotional exchange between Ding Ling and Xue Feng, this is a very valuable letter.

The reason why Xue Feng wrote this letter was: "Your mother wrote a rather miserable letter in May and sent it to Chongqing to transfer to you, and now it is forwarded to you." Where was Feng Xuefeng at that time and what was he doing?

After Xuefeng was rescued from prison by the party at the end of 1942, he was called by Zhou Enlai in June 1943 to come to Chongqing to work. In mid-February 1946, he was appointed by Zhou Enlai to travel from Chongqing to Shanghai to participate in cultural activities, and the party's relations were placed in the liaison office of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai. During that time, he had no fixed occupation and income, and lived in poverty, so he used his evenings to write articles to earn some manuscript fees. He wrote a large number of essays, essays, and fables, which was at the peak of Xuefeng's creation.

In April 1936, Ding Ling was confined to Nanjing, and was secretly planning to go to the Soviet region in northern Shaanxi. In the late autumn of that year, she went to northern Shaanxi. In August 1938, after Ding Ling returned to Yan'an with the Northwest Field Service Group, she entrusted her cousin to bring 8-year-old Zu Lin and 4-year-old Zu Hui from Hunan to Yan'an. After that, Ding Ling's mother, Mrs. Jiang Mutang, stayed alone in her hometown, the situation was turbulent, wars were frequent, and the old man's life was very difficult.

At the end of 1943, the Japanese army once captured Changde, and Ding Ling lost contact with her mother. After resuming contact in March 1945, Ding Ling told her mother that she could write a letter "to Feng Xuefeng, a writer's bookstore in Chongqing." But don't write the word "turn me" on the envelope. Only ice is written on the inside. Please don't have to say where I am."

Mrs. Jiang Mutang wrote a letter to Feng Xuefeng according to the contact information and address provided by Ding Ling. Xue Feng was very anxious when he saw the letter, and immediately started fundraising, and soon had a settlement. In this letter, he told Ding Ling: Send her 200,000 yuan first, this amount is certain, Pengzi also said that he can send some, Hu Feng also has royalties of more than 80,000 yuan, and said that in the future, the old lady's living expenses, "within the year, I can be responsible for collecting a little money in Shanghai on your behalf and sending her a few on a monthly basis, there is no problem." In this way, the obligation that should have been undertaken by Ding Ling is not an easy matter, and Xuefeng has solved it carefully and safely, and it is not a one-time temporary solution. Xue Feng himself was also in a tight situation at that time, and he helped his friend with such a big favor, but the letter was in a flat tone, as if it was a gesture of effort, without any intention of "showing merit".

Xue Feng said: "After reading your letter about your life in the past eight or nine years and briefly introducing Brother Chen Ming, I feel very happy to understand what it means to be sincere. ”

In August 1931, Ding Ling wrote "Not a Love Letter" and "For Me Love" to Xuefeng, and the poems were full of strong emotions and burned with blazing flames. At that time, Ding Ling was 27 years old, and Xue Feng was one year older than her, they were powerful and heroic figures in Shanghai's left-wing cultural movement, and they were also a pair of lovers. In the summer of 1936, after Ding Ling was banned for 3 years, she secretly sneaked back to Shanghai through Xuefeng's arrangement. As soon as she saw her, she burst into tears, thinking that she could get some sympathy and comfort from her close comrades, but Xue Feng coldly and harshly criticized her and said, "Why do you only think that you are suffering alone, and the whole revolution has been suffering in the past few years!" In September, with the help of Feng Xuefeng's arrangement, Ding Ling fled Nanjing to the Soviet District of northern Shaanxi. At the beginning of 1937, Xuefeng returned to Yan'an to report to work, and they met twice, and then parted for nearly 10 years.

In the past 10 years, the lives of both have changed significantly. Ding Ling led the Northwest Field Service Corps to the front line of resistance against Japan, and participated in the Yan'an rectification and trial, and experienced trials and tribulations both physically and mentally.

Snow peaks also rise and fall. With such an experience, the two people will naturally sharpen off some of the restless hearts and fierce spirits, become much more mature and calm, and their feelings will be deeper and more dignified.

In the first letter after 10 years of separation, Xue Feng almost didn't talk about himself, and after talking about how to help Ding Ling's mother solve the emergency, he talked about his feelings about Ding Ling's changes in the past 10 years, and his expectations for her future development.

Xue Feng attaches great importance to Ding Ling's creative talent and always pays attention to her creative path. In his letter, he said, "I have asked you to send your works, whether printed or not, and now I want to read all of your works. I wanted to understand your creative development, and I wanted to write a paper on your experience of the 'heart' in the fifteen or sixteen years. ”

Ding Ling didn't have all the "things" that he had written over the years, so Xuefeng had to find it himself. In October 1947, the "Collected Works of Ding Ling" edited by Xue Feng was published by Shanghai Kaiming Bookstore, and Xue Feng wrote a "Postscript", which was obviously different from the discussion of Ding Ling's works more than ten years ago: when Ding Ling became popular in the Shanghai literary circle, she was young and vigorous, and Xue Feng was focused on finding faults and being in the limelight, afraid that she would raise her tail; now Ding Ling is calm after ups and downs, and Xue Feng's articles are full of encouragement and expectations, like a strict teacher, with appreciative and loving eyes, looking at the students he has not seen for many years. At the end, Xue Feng wrote a slightly emotional sentence: "This is only until 1941, after which there are new and greater developments of her, I will not talk about it here, and I ask readers and authors to forgive me for writing these many words more and more, and I also express my nostalgia to the author." ”

Coincidentally, when Ding Ling was in Yan'an, American female reporter Helen Snow once asked her, "Who do you miss the most?" Ding Ling replied: "What I remember most is Yepin, and what I miss the most is Xuefeng." "It's really heart-to-heart.

Xuefeng knows Ding Ling both as a person and as a writer, and they are real confidants. In April 1979, as soon as Ding Ling returned to Beijing from Shanxi, she wrote "Mourning Xuefeng", talking about her 50-year relationship with Xuefeng, saying: "The most important thing is to know each other. ”

Xue Feng's letter has almost no words to express feelings, but the whole letter is full of deep feelings, full of a brother-like care, love and longing. He does not confess, does not exaggerate, does not move, hides his feelings deep in his heart, "deep and wide" and "bright" - this is the noblest sentiment and the most sincere feeling.