His health is getting worse. Since 1928 was seriously ill in May, tuberculosis and pleurisy have been haunting him. He often has a fever and a cough. At first, he could suppress it by taking medicine, but later he couldn't. 1in the late autumn of 934, his low fever lasted for a month. People are getting thinner and thinner, their cheekbones are prominent, and even their gums are deformed. They are not worthy of their original dentures, so they have to find a doctor to correct them. 1936 In the spring, his weight dropped to 38kg, and he walked in the street wearing a cotton robe, as if a gust of wind could blow him down. Once at a friend's party, Smedley, an American journalist who had little contact with him, intuitively found that his health was very bad. She invited one of the best lung experts in Shanghai to make a diagnosis. The American doctor looked serious after careful examination. He said that Lu Xun's lung disease was very serious. If he had been a European, he would have died five years ago, which made Smedley cry on the spot. By this summer, he didn't even have the strength to accompany his guests to finish a meal. A Japanese friend Masuda made a special trip from Japan to visit his illness, so he invited Masuda to lunch. However, he managed to eat a little, stood up and said, "I'm tired. I'll go upstairs and have a rest." Take your time ",that is, Xu Guangping helped him and walked slowly upstairs. Leaving Masuda alone, I fell into uncontrollable anxiety and sadness.
Aging is not only a physiological phenomenon, but also a psychological phenomenon. With the deterioration of health, Lu Xun's psychological weakness became more and more obvious. He is increasingly dependent on material living conditions. People in China have always had an anti-comfortable and self-reliant concept, and Mencius' famous saying "The sky will fall for the people of ..." is a classic expression of this concept. It was not until Zhang Taiyan, Mr. Lu Xun's teacher, wrote "On the Disadvantages of Saving Learning" that he asserted: "All scholars value their efforts before they can do difficult things, and their morality is solid." This set of thoughts has a great influence on Lu Xun. When he was in Beijing, he often said that single people can't live an easy life. If life is too comfortable, work will get tired of life. So, before living with Xu Guangping, he was interested in keeping the Puritan life. In winter, his bed is only padded with a thin cotton mattress, and he never buys a second-class soft sofa. Although his daily life is untidy and he doesn't wear cotton trousers in winter for specific reasons, this concept of frugality and moral practice is obviously a deeper foundation. However, since arriving in Shanghai, with the careful care of Xu Guangping's hands around him, his ridiculous idea will inevitably be shaken. With the growth of age and the decline of health, young people's love for sex is gradually weakening, and his rejection of material enjoyment is bound to soften. Every time a farmer treats him, five or six dishes are placed on the table, which are steaming and full of fragrance. When he pours a cup of strong yellow wine, his expression will immediately become cheerful. Although he occasionally says "it will be weak to live like this" while holding chopsticks, the pleasant expression when he speaks has pierced the literal disguise of this statement. In fact, he has always loved this kind of enjoyment and is willing to "weak" at once. Later, he also began to change his mind. Once chatting with a friend, he criticized a passage in Zhang Taiyan's Saving Learning from Disadvantages: "This job is really good, but it is impossible for students not to admire the beauty of western things, but to protect their innate wildness and clumsiness. Because this is a good thing ",with his clever mind, who would have thought that he was so paranoid in this respect? Until the body is extremely weak, the body's drag on will is getting heavier and heavier. Give up the attitude of inviting Christians to live! Of course, only by giving up passively, he has considerable dependence on the current material life. Once you find that this life may change, you will feel panic inside. You must remember how sorry he was for Xu Guangping's sacrifice when he fell in love with her, but by this time, he had forgotten about it. On one occasion, several friends encouraged Xu Guangping to take part in social activities, and Xu Guangping was heartbroken and seemed to agree. He actually lowered his face in front of the agitator and said, "Guangping, don't go out!" " He doesn't know the truth of equality between men and women, and he doesn't know Xu Guangping's character of being keen on social activities. She will feel suffocated if she is allowed to take care of his life at home all day. But he can't live without the care of women, and he can't fill the gap in Xu Guangping's life after he left home alone. I think, this time he stopped Xu Guangping's rude attitude and made his unconscious psychological weakness obvious.
Lu Xun has been playing a dependent role since his youth. However, now that he has become a dependent, it is naturally difficult to maintain his original role. It was only in his early thirties that he clearly felt this. He talked about his new life with his wife and children, and his tone was quite confident: "I originally wanted to live alone, because if I had children, I would care about life. But now that my mind is mature, I think I should live like this. " But soon he felt at a loss. For example, economically, the burden on his shoulders was so heavy that he repeatedly lamented that he had not saved enough money before. He felt even more miserable, and it was really unbearable to be greeted like this and help the old and the young. At first, he criticized China people, saying that they could only have children but not raise them. Now that he has his own son facing the sea, he will naturally pay special attention to his upbringing. In order to encourage children's nature, he even tries not to go against the idea of facing the sea. But he only has a little living space. He didn't kiss his mother before, and now he doesn't kiss his son. Only his own wishes can be kissed. This naturally upset him, so while working hard for his dutiful son and father, he couldn't help complaining: "It's really a great pain to bear the burden of family life, and I have been stuck in this matter for most of my life, so that I gave birth to another child the year before last, and my responsibility is even more uncertain." Because the new burden was unbearable, he even resented the old one. Once his mother complained to him about the situation at home, and he replied in a rather fierce tone: "In fact, the traditional lifestyle at home is still above average in terms of the difficulty of life now. If you can't understand each other and make a big noise, it will really make people embarrassed. " He also spread this grievance to public articles. In the preface to the book Pseudo-Freedom, he described why he contributed to the so-called "Free Talk" column. With a change of pen, he dug up an old work that losing his mother is not a bad thing: "My view has always been that if he has a loving mother, he is still happy, but if he was born without a mother, he is not completely unfortunate, and he may become a braver and more bold person." By the spring of 1935, even his mother wanted to live in Shanghai for a period of time, and he found it troublesome. He complained to his friend, "Soon, my mother will come, which makes me have no place to write quietly. The family system in China is really troublesome, that is, one person has the most relationships and is often not his own. " 10 of course, just as he announced that he was quitting the battlefield, he continued to shout. Now he is complaining, but he continues to bear the burden of his relatives. Most of his complaints and dissatisfaction are just lip service, but when I think about it, Jing didn't really unload all these burdens. However, he has been unable to resolve this unbearable bitterness in his heart. He often relies on venting to keep his psychological balance. Can't you see from this side that his endurance is weakening and his psychological elasticity is disappearing?
When the spirit loses its elasticity, the temper becomes worse and worse. He has never been a peaceful man, but now he is more angry. 1935 and 1936, he reprimanded the producers of * * * in the "left-wing writers" or criticized other literati and young people he didn't like. His words are often so extreme and his expression is often so decisive, which shows how much his rational self-control ability has faded. Especially at home, he is more likely to lose control. He couldn't help getting angry with Xu Guangping. More often, he sulked alone, even lying on the balcony floor, ignoring people for a long time. Once in correspondence with a friend, he openly vented his dissatisfaction with Xu Guangping: "Even the children make trouble, and few people do it ..."11I think if he could control his anger, he wouldn't want to show such an old-fashioned face. In his later years, the spiritual communication between him and Xu Guangping seemed to weaken, and their dissatisfaction with each other gradually developed. This is also an important reason, but they are naturally different in age, intelligence and temperament. His spirit lost its elasticity in his later years, and some pathological tendencies in his personality became increasingly obvious. The society is dark, and the scene at home is so bad. His mood is getting worse every day. Please read his letter to a Japanese friend in 1935: "Shanghai has entered the rainy season and the weather is bad. We are still healthy, but I lose weight every year. With the growth of age, life is getting more and more tense and hard. Many friends also advised me to take a rest for a year or two, but I couldn't. ..... The previous letter mentioned the kingdom of heaven, but I hate the kingdom of heaven. I generally hate good people in China, and it would be unimaginable to get along with such people all day. " Almost every word of this passage, 12, exudes resentment and anger. Even if it is a joke, it is still heavy. It seems that everything he thinks is so boring and disgusting, and nothing in the world can make him feel relieved. A month later, he said more openly: "At this time, you should be in a bad mood." 13 even take it for granted.
With such a bad mood in my heart, my attitude towards the world is naturally extreme. Since 1935, the voice of advocating hatred in his works has become louder and louder. From "Literati should not be easy-going; ..... He must attack the wrong place like an enthusiastic landlord. From 14 to 14, he can kill, live, hate, love, live and write. 15' s tone became more and more intense until he said, "If my flesh and blood want to feed animals, I'd rather feed liger Falcon, but I won't give it at all." Even when judging the personnel in history, he often praised the "hateful" side. He argued that Tao Yuanming was just an idle man who "picked chrysanthemums under the hedge and saw Nanshan leisurely", and it was clearly stated that "dancing together in the fields is always fierce". He also asserted that the spiritual legacy left by Zhang Taiyan to future generations was mainly not the achievements in primary school, but Yuan Shikai's prestige in using the Grand Medal as a fan pendant. He even urged revenge: "Even if the oppressed have no intention of revenge, they will never be afraid of revenge. Only those murderers who secretly suck blood and eat meat and their helpers can give people the motto of' Don't go to school if you commit a crime' or' Don't miss the old evils'. -This year I have seen through the secrets of these people more and more! "17 is simply gnashing her teeth. He has experienced numerous bullying and persecution in his life, and his aversion to society and the world is bound to increase gradually. However, whenever possible, he will always suppress his disgust and try to believe and embrace life. You can say that most of his energy is spent on this kind of self-explanation and encouragement. However, now that he is old, it is difficult to have that kind of heart to suppress disgust. The psychological balance will inevitably tilt and the sense of disgust will expand sharply. 1September, 936, he wrote: "When Europeans die, there is often a ceremony to ask others to forgive and forgive themselves. I have many enemies. If a new type of person asks me, what should I say? After careful consideration, I decided: I won't forgive any of them for being disgusted. "18 A person is willing to leave this world with a lot of resentment, and his despair and disgust for this world cannot be solved.
Lu Xun is very sensitive to his aging. In the first few years of living with Xu Guangping, it almost became a taboo topic for him. 1928, Feng Naichao wrote an article criticizing him. He didn't pay much attention to the criticism itself, but when he saw that Feng Naichao's article had the words "Lu Xun's old student", it was actually planted by the people by mistake, but he was very angry and thought it was a deliberate satire on him. He has always been bitter. Zhou Yang and a group of young people called him "old man" behind his back, but the result reached his ears and caused him a very strong reaction. He doesn't even want to listen to others talk about his illness. He thinks this kind of talk is a hint of his aging. "More hints are bound to have some impact." 19 might as well not listen at all. However, whether taboo or unwilling to listen, aging itself will not stop. It develops day by day and appears in every aspect of his life, forcing him to admit it. Therefore, although he has strong self-confidence and refuses to admit the seriousness of his illness to others, he knows very well that his life is coming to an end. 1936 in may, he took Qu Qiubai's posthumous work "the forest at sea" newly printed in Tokyo and said to Xu Guangping, "China didn't take such pains to publish this book. Although it is to commemorate' Why bother' [Qu Qiubai's pseudonym], it is actually to commemorate me ",20 intentionally or unintentionally revealed a sense of foreboding at the bottom of my heart.
When a person consciously approaches the end of the road of life, it is inevitable that he will look back from time to time and look back at the road he has traveled. Lu Xun has always had a special temper. When he loses confidence in the future and is confused about reality, the enthusiasm for shouting fades and nostalgia will surely come to mind. In the mid-1920s, his inner "ghostly spirit" broke out, and a group of reminiscence essays named "Flowers in the Morning and Picking Up in the Evening" appeared. Now that ten years have passed, he has once again plunged into the arms of nothingness, and the temptation of the past is naturally stronger. Of course, his motivation for reviewing the past is not as simple as it was ten years ago. He not only has the desire to fill the emptiness after losing faith, but also has the painful desire for future liquidation. 1June, 933, he ate his childhood favorite food as an adult, but it didn't taste as good as before. He said with emotion, "the taste of things is not necessarily retrogressive, but when I am old, the organization is declining, and taste buds are no exception." This is almost a repetition of the "introduction" of "morning flowers pick up in the evening", but the mood is much lower and more depressed; He then took "Kaleidoscope" as an example, saying that compared with fifty years ago, "Kaleidoscope has obviously regressed", and 2 1 seemed to overturn the previous lament, which not only made him old, but also made the world worse and worse, showing the unique stimulus of aging to his nostalgia. It was about this time that he decided to write another set of reminiscence prose similar to Morning Flowers and Evening Picks.
However, it was precisely because of his awareness of his aging that he really started writing. It was not until 1936 that the end of his life was clearly presented to him. From February to April this year, as long as he could get out of bed, he worked hard at writing. My First Master, This is Life, Death and Female Hanging wrote four articles in one go. There are also two books written by heart, one is about "maternal love", describing the great and blind maternal love he suffered all his life; Another article is about "poverty", which shows how he changed from the Puritan concept that "poverty is good" to the later belief that "poverty is not good". I think that a single team has written a chapter and drafted a chapter, and we can also see how different this group of compositions is from "Morning Flowers and Evening Picks". Most of the articles in Morning Flowers and Evening Flowers are pure homesickness. Although they are always induced by reality, some places still exude a strong flavor of essays, but the general meaning can be classified as the so-called "homesickness" and "old meaning" in the introduction. This group of memories he has now naturally has this meaning, such as My First Master and My Lady's Hanging, as well as many descriptions of maternal love in that chapter, which is considered to be chewing the old meaning. However, this is life and death, and it is a chapter about poverty. I am afraid that Lu Xun could not write it when he wrote Morning Flowers. This is his summary of his life, his feeling at the end, and his reckless judgment of the world through the shield of death. If he hadn't come this far, he wouldn't have.
The title of "This is Life" is intriguing. What kind of life is this? He wrote:
Four or five nights after my connecting flight, I woke up and woke up.
Guangping.
"Give me some water to drink. Turn on the light and show me.
Go and have a look. "
"Why? ..... "Her voice panicked, probably thinking of something.
I'm being silly.
"Because I want to live. You got it? This is also life. I want:
It looks very worth seeing. Take a look. "
"Oh …" She came up, gave me some tea and stayed for a while.
The next morning, I lay down gently and didn't turn on the light.
I know she doesn't understand me.
The street lamp shone through the window, and the stars in the room looked dim. I took a look.
A familiar wall, a ridge at the end of the wall, a pile of familiar books, a pile of open space.
An album of paintings, the night going on outside, the endless distance, and countless people.
Ladies and gentlemen, everything is for me. I exist, I live, and I will live.
After leaving, I began to feel more practical, and I had the desire to move-
But soon I fell asleep again. He finally understood life, or he finally believed his own understanding of life. Since studying in Japan, he has despised "such a life" intellectually. Country, society, nation, enlightenment, struggle, resistance to autocracy and singing about the future, even despair and depression, silence and nothingness all point to goals other than individuals, despair of "them", silence forced by "them" and nothingness seen through "them". "Familiar walls, familiar piles of books ... these, in peacetime, I often look at them, which is actually a kind of rest. But we have always despised these things. Although they are part of life, they are ranked under the itch of drinking tea, or they are nothing at all. " Why is there such a choice? Isn't it because his mind is already full of all kinds of stimuli from "them" and all kinds of concerns about "Xuanyuan"? He devoted his life to society and country. Just when he thought he was shrinking in his personal world, he was actually trapped by some external values. What he contributed to society was only those articles and ideas. He obviously handed over almost all his personal life, as well as all those personal experiences and life tastes! So, after reading his feelings at the moment, I really don't know what to say. He finally realized that, fortunately, at the same time and later, how many people lived all their lives, but there was no such understanding at all. However, he didn't realize until now, was it too late? He was introduced into this understanding by nihilism, and the guide itself will not allow him to learn the joy of life from this understanding. If you are in others, such understanding may open a new world of life. But in Lu Xun's view, this kind of understanding seems to mean only a deep doubt about the past life choices and an involuntary contraction of the spirit. It is quite clear that Zhou Zuoren said that he "turned to nihilism again" in his later years. Compared with the situation of talking about "vanity" and "fishy" ten years ago, his understanding of "such a life" now really shows the depth of his nihilism. He is not denying everything now, but affirming everything. In a sense, such affirmation is irretrievable nihilism.
The end of the road of life is naturally death, and Lu Xun simply takes it as a topic. The most disturbing thing about death is that it shows indifference to death from beginning to end. In such a teasing style, he told the plan of the poor, the plan of the rich and the plan of the rich to die. Sometimes he is a little angry, but the irony is even stronger. He said that he is one of the "casual parties" and has rarely thought about death; He described in such a relaxed tone how the doctor diagnosed him as "dying": he also wrote such a will, almost every one of which revealed the meaning of seeing through life; Since he has seen through life, it naturally includes death, so in the end he made all kinds of assumptions and estimates about his feelings when he died, as if he had no scruples about the readers' feelings and only talked to himself. No matter who you are, death is always a terrible thing. Therefore, people always avoid it or try to transform it. The poor people's desire for rebirth and the rich people's pre-built graves are all ways to transform it. Lu Xun, on the other hand, used this novel Death to show a very special attitude: he stood there talking about his own death, neither avoiding it nor trying to reform it, as if he were interested in it. He seems really interested. This book Death has just been published. He went to visit a Japanese friend named Ludigan. The first thing he said when he entered the door was, "Have you read my Death?" The whole morning, he and Lu Digen have been talking about death, from ghosts in China to Japanese ghosts, from suicide to ghosts, and they are full of enthusiasm and talk nonstop. He once said in an essay, "If you think about the fun of life, of course you can miss it; But if you think about the bitterness of life, impermanence is not necessarily a bad guest. " Seeing him talking about death so enthusiastically, I can't help feeling that he doesn't regard "death" as an evil guest. He walked so hard all his life, and the more he reached his later years, the more nervous and boring he became. Not only does he see no hope for the future, but his eyes are full of disgusting personnel. Even his own life struggle seems to be of little value: if he is in this state of mind and thinks that "death" is coming, will he have some ideas of "finally being free"? A young friend read this book Death and said to him, "You write too sadly", but he replied, "I have no choice but to write like this." When he had a premonition that the end of his life was coming, he didn't have much fear or even a strong sense of anxiety. This is his mental state, and he can only write like this. I wonder how Xu Guangping felt after reading this "Death". I'm afraid nothing can be said to be an interesting talk about death than this "casual" attitude towards death, which can better show a person's weak desire for survival. Lu Xun will write such a reminiscence prose, and all those who really love and understand him can't help crying.
There are more tangible signs. Lu Xun's life is based on writing. Whenever he sits at his desk in the dead of night, he will be like a high-speed machine, and every cell in his body will be active. At this time, Vince became the most important expression of his vitality, and his writing style became the most accurate annotation of his physical and psychological state.
In my opinion, in Lu Xun's literary thoughts and styles, what can best show his vitality is naturally the very vivid sense of humor. Whether reading his public articles or his private letters, whenever I meet those humorous words, I can't help laughing, as if I saw his sly expression when writing these words with my own eyes, and even remembered his naughty appearance when playing tricks on that tricky classmate in San Tan Ying Yue. Therefore, even if he is in a serious predicament, as long as humorous words can still flow from his pen, it always shows that his mood is still calm, and no matter how bad the environment is, it can't crush his soul. At least in the world of words, he can maintain a condescending mentality. However, since the early 1930s, there has been less and less humor in his personal letters. Especially after 1934, you can rarely read another letter as vivid and interesting as his letter to Zhang Tingqian on March 5 1929. It seems that communication is already a burden for him. He just wrote, sealed and mailed the letter in a hurry, and he could no longer enjoy writing letters with friends in peace. Then his essays, from this time on, gradually lost the meaning of ridicule and humor. Although the pen is still sharp and the attack is still powerful, without the humorous background, the momentum is much weaker. There are fewer and fewer chapters in his three Essays on the Pavilion of Jie, which can still express a trace of humor in generate, such as The Unknown Cao Liu and Guan De.
In particular, the words in "Essays on Street Pavilion Not Edited" will make every careful reader feel sad. Whether describing the past or criticizing the reality, whether it is a slightly long essay or a short essay, the author's writing seems to have been exhausted, and the words often seem a little dry, and the connection between paragraphs always seems stiff, even between the previous sentence and the next sentence, sometimes giving you a feeling of astringency. His mixed feelings are getting shorter and shorter Copy a paragraph from the newspaper and send a few regrets and comments. It is rare to see the momentum and brushwork of the original vertical pen. Lu Xun seems to have only one breath, which is not enough to support him to write a long article. If you encounter big topics, such as "this is life", "death" and "two or three things about Mr. Goose", you must write a little longer, which often seems out of touch and lacks strong control and attention. As for the "two or three things that Mr. Taiyan remembers", it is even more rambling, almost thinking all the way, writing whatever comes to mind, and it is really impossible to finish because of illness. The writing of "My Essays on Caution" is vigorous and sophisticated, but next to it, it is clearly the dryness of literary thinking and the exhaustion of literary spirit.
A writer is really old when he shows his age in his article.
19361October 18 in the early morning, Lu Xun had a sudden attack of asthma. Until dawn, I still wrote a short message, which was taken by Xu Guangping to Neishan Bookstore and called the doctor. He leaned back in his chair, panting all day, speechless and sweating. Doctors and nurses tried various methods, but they couldn't relieve the illness. That night, every time Xu Guangping wiped the sweat from her hands, she held her hand tightly, as if to hold her life. However, by six o'clock the next morning, he still failed to survive and died.
After trudging for fifty-six years, he finally came to the end of his life, and the end was one word: death.