The clothing of a writer

【Literati Masaji】

Author: Li Yuhui (Lecturer, College of Liberal Arts, Qufu Normal University)

Clothes are like people, temperaments are different, clothing is often very different, and literati are no exception.

Lu Xun believes: "Life is too comfortable, and work is tired by life." Therefore, Lu Xun did not pay attention to dress, even to the point of surprise. In Sun Fuyuan's memory, "He usually only wears old cloth clothes, like an ordinary college student." The pants of the suit are always single, even in the cold weather of Beiping, Mr. Lu Xun always wears such single pants. Such a simple dress may be related to Lu Xun's economic conditions and habits when he was a student. Xu Shoushang said: "Regarding his clothing, when he was studying in Nanjing, he had no money to make clothes, so he spent the winter with silk and a cotton robe that was pitifully worn, and there was no cotton wool on his shoulders. When Lu Xun was teaching at the Hangzhou Two-level Normal School, he was a colleague with Xia Yazun. Xia Yazun remembered that Lu Xun's clothes were simple at that time, "The clothes are not exquisite, a cheap feather yarn - called foreign official yarn - long gown, from before the Dragon Boat Festival, until Chongyang." For half a year, I saw him wearing a foreign official veil, which is very deep in my memory. In the early autumn of the 15th year of the Republic of China, he went from Beijing to Xiamen to teach, passing through Shanghai, and his friends in Shanghai invited him to dinner, but he was still wearing a foreign official dress. I said to the old friend I hadn't seen for 20 years, and after shaking hands, I couldn't help but bring up the words of 'foreign official yarn'. Is it still a foreign official veil? I laughed. 'Well, it's still a foreign official yarn!' He replied with a wry smile. ”

In the impression of Zang Ke's family, Ji Xianlin is "dressed plainly". In 1946, "Xian Lin, who had studied in Germany for ten years and knew many languages, had just returned to China and was hired as the director of the Department of Oriental Languages of Peking University, passing through Nanjing. When we saw each other, we fell in love with each other. He has been abroad for many years, but he has no foreign atmosphere, his clothes are simple, he is innocent and honest, and his speech and demeanor are completely the temperament and demeanor of Shandong people, and I really admire it in my heart." In Zhang Zhongxing's eyes, Ji Xianlin "is simple, there is nothing", he is dressed simply, "an old Zhongshan suit, cloth shoes, if you are walking on the road, what you carry in your hand is often an old schoolbag with two belts at the top of the cylindrical shape". Although he is a professor, vice president, head of department, and director of a research institute, he is "gray-haired, old, and old-fashioned", and he is easily considered an "old worker" in such a outfit. Once, Ji Xianlin was really mistaken for an "old worker" by the new students and was entrusted to take care of the luggage, and he readily agreed.

In the impression of student Chen Mengjia, the poet Wen Yiduo's clothes are also very simple. "It was about the winter of 1928 that I met him for the first time in his apartment in the single archway in Nanjing, and he was a broad but not very tall man, wearing a dark robe, trouser ties, and a pair of Beijing black satin old man Lemian shoes. He was not yet thirty years old, with thick lips and tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. He gives the impression of being strong and kind." At that time, Wen Yiduo was the head of the Department of Foreign Languages at National Central University, and Chen Mengjia was a student of the law department, but Chen Mengjia often went to listen to Yiduo's classes. According to Chen Mengjia's observation, Wen Yiduo "likes to wear dark clothes", and his favorite colors are also "black and red". During the Anti-Japanese War, due to rising prices and currency depreciation, Wen Yiduo's family was in dire straits, "from spring to winter, only an old cotton robe and a gray cloth caftan were worn alternately." An old friend couldn't see it, so he gave him a half-new gray cloth jacket robe, and he liked it so much that he couldn't close his mouth. The cloth shoes worn on the feet were also torn and mended, mended and torn."

Compared with the above-mentioned gentlemen, the poet Mudan is much more fashionable. In the forties of the twentieth century, Wu Xiaoru once met this sincere poet, "One afternoon at the turn of spring and summer, in the professor's dormitory of Peking University, I hurriedly met a young, delicate and gentle passer-by, wearing a white straw hat, a short shirt, and shorts, and his voice was sincere and simple, revealing his heart—a warm heart: he was Mu Dan." ”

Differences in life experience and social environment often affect people's clothing. Zhao Shuli was born as a farmer, and he "came out of the ravines and ravines of Shanxi" and did not care much about his dress. Yan Wenjing once wrote in an article: "He was afraid of the cold, and as soon as the temperature cooled down in late autumn, he put on a fur coat. In the early fifties, there were many used fur coats sold in various shopping malls in Beijing, and although the prices were not very high, the sales were not good. In the 'new society', people are reluctant to dress themselves up like the bureaucrats, landlords and big businessmen of the recent past. Lao Zhao didn't care, so he put on this kind of coat, like a local 'old wealth' in the past. But each of his coats had not been worn for a long time, and they were either given to someone else, or they had forgotten somewhere, and they had to buy another one. "I remember that in the winter of 1952 he wore a women's fur coat, and he shrunk his head, and only stretched his long, curled red nose out of the long leather collar, like an old hen in the cold wind, but he still looked a little complacent."

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the tunic once became a popular costume. In Feng Sichun's memory, his father abolished his name "cloth clothes and shoes all year round, and a set of Ka Ji cloth tunics has been worn for more than ten years". In the eyes of student Yang Wuneng, the first time I saw the teacher Feng Zhi was also dressed in a Mao suit, "One morning in October of that year, on the dilapidated and narrow road leading to the left side of the building of the Institute of Foreign Languages in the dilapidated and narrow Academy of Social Sciences, I stood in a group of candidates waiting for the re-examination of graduate students, and met Mr. Feng, whom I had admired for a long time. He walked towards us with a cane, an old tweed cap, an old tweed tunic, and a smile on his face, and naturally talked casually with some of the candidates who knew him." Yang Wuneng felt a little surprised, "Mr. Feng Zhi, a famous poet and scholar, is such a kind elder!" ”

In 1979, Qian Zhongshu visited the University of California, Berkeley, "He wore a set of Tibetan blue people's clothes, warm and kind, and his sharp and unbridled brushstrokes, which would never match." He sat there, looking around at a few people in a room, square faces, thick eyebrows, a new pair of black-framed myopic glasses, white skin, neat white teeth, looking like forty people, just beautiful and neat like Mr. Mei Lanfang in his later years, although according to official records, he should be sixty-nine years old this year. "In fact, the predecessor of the people's suit is the tunic suit. In 1980, Qian Zhongshu visited the Institute of Humanities and Sciences of Kyoto University in Japan, "Mr. Qian is still wearing a navy blue people's uniform, which is really elegant and graceful, rich and handsome, and more graceful than seen in the photo." ”

Some scholars do not pay attention to appearance, and even become an anecdote in the academic circles. In the impression of student Li Yun, Liu Wendian "is a 'weirdo' who procrastinates in life, does not pay attention to the decoration of clothes, sometimes even buttons the wrong buttons of the cheongsam, and his hair grows, and he does not cut his hair if the barber does not come to the door, but he is an extremely rigorous scholar in terms of academics."

At the Southwest Associated University, even the chemist Zeng Zhaoluan dressed casually, and a student wrote in "Eight Years of the United Nations University": "Mr. Zeng is unkempt, sometimes wearing socks on one foot and not on the other. The buttons of the clothes are always incomplete, and the shoes are always dragging on the feet. ”

Clothing is a small matter, it is a matter of temperament, but you are not careful! Perhaps, there may be differences in style, and freedom and comfort are good.

Guangming Daily (2024-05-10 Edition 16)

Source: Guangming Net-Guangming Daily