My acquaintance with Mr. Zhao began in the early autumn of 1960.
At the beginning of the new semester that year, Feng Zhi, head of the department of western literature in Peking University, adjusted and expanded the teaching and research section of western literature according to the instructions of the Propaganda Department of the CPC on strengthening the teaching of foreign literature. So I graduated one year ahead of schedule with some students majoring in English, German and law, and stayed in the teaching and research section as teaching assistants. At that time, in addition to teaching, the center of the Foreign Literature Teaching and Research Section was the compilation of the History of European Literature, with three professors, Yang, Wu Dayuan and Zhao, as the editors, and Feng Zhi was entrusted by Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China to be responsible for the compilation of the History of European Literature and the History of China Literature. When Mr. Zhao was less than fifty years old, she was already a second-level professor (the full professor at that time was divided into three levels). At that time, there were only two female professors at this level (the other was Feng of Shandong University, Feng Youlan's sister). Because it is in its infancy, there are many ways out for the teaching and research section. I found that in the ranks of professors, the only woman with a good face, elegant manners and graceful demeanor always listened quietly and rarely spoke. I don't know anything about her, even her name. So I introduced myself to her after the first meeting, so as to get to know her slowly. Unexpectedly, her first sentence was: "I think you are from Zhejiang!" There is a hint of approval in the tone. I took the opportunity to say, "You seem to be from Zhejiang, right?" "Of course, otherwise how could I win at a guess!" My mood is very relaxed. Knowing that she was from Huzhou, I said, "That is to say,' I live at the head of the river and you live at the end of the river'." She threw out a bunch of laughter and said, "So we are drinking the same river!" So we became "hometown". Mr. Zhao is very proud of Zhejiang, saying, "Zhejiang is the most beautiful place I have ever been to at home and abroad, and Fuchunjiang is the most beautiful figure in Zhejiang." "It seems that your lover is also from Zhejiang?" She said, "You guessed it!" I soon learned that his lover was a famous poet and archaeologist, Mr. Chen.
Originally, I just wanted to chat, but I didn't expect to chat so happily at the first contact. I heard that when she was young, she was a famous talented woman and beauty queen in yenching university, but she couldn't see the common pride of ordinary beauty at all. She was 48 years old that year, just twice as old as me. This is the beginning of our new year friendship. At that time, her dormitory at school was Zhai Jun in four teachers' buildings lined up by the unnamed lake (later moved to the North House). I live in Dezhai, which is very close. She wants me to talk when I'm free, and I'm happy to do so. Because as a teacher, she is much richer than me in both knowledge and life experience. What a good learning opportunity! Besides, we have two hobbies: poetry and music. And she is also my ideal teacher in these two aspects. I often write some inappropriate poems and ask her for advice. Every time she and I scrutinize and revise them together. Mr. Zhao was a poet when he was young, but now he is an expert in English and American poetry. He is not only good at translation, but also likes reading. After talking about topics of common interest, she recited English poems to me. She pays great attention to the rhythm, tone and rhyme of poetry. Even if you don't understand the content, you can feel the beauty of that kind of music. Through her recitation, I further aroused my desire to read British and American poems, especially Byron, Shelley, Longfellow and Whitman. Naturally, she often asks me to recite those famous German poems that she is familiar with, such as Goethe's Wild Rose, Heine's Rockley and Bodhi Tree, all of which were named by her. It happened that these poems were all set as famous songs, so I sang them to her one by one. When singing Bodhi Tree, she shook her head and hummed with me. Then she said: these songs have been tested and tested, and they have excavated the beauty in poetry to the maximum extent; But recitation itself is also an art, and successful recitation can also add beauty to poetry. Then, she recited a fragment of Shelley's Prometheus Liberated, and asked me to recite Goethe's masterpiece Prometheus. After listening, she repeatedly said, "Good, good-including your voice!" "
Everyone knows that Mr. Zhao recites English poems very well. Although he criticized the bourgeois academic trend of thought at that time, the old teachers (according to her age, she is still middle-aged, but according to her knowledge background of studying abroad, she has been classified as "old teachers") are no longer so popular, but the young teachers of the Department of Western Languages held a party in the name of the League branch life expansion meeting, and specially invited Mr. Zhao to give a poem recitation. Her speech and demonstration won applause.
We also talked a lot about music. But my hobby is mainly vocal music, while she focuses on instrumental music, especially western symphonies and piano music. Because she plays the piano well, she often talks about Chopin and thinks that Chopin's charm is "sad and happy". For the two giants of Germany and Austria, Mozart and Beethoven, she prefers the latter. She thinks Mozart's music is elegant and beautiful, but "a little childish". Beethoven's works are "feminine, brisk, vigorous and gloomy, and sometimes Marek's Pentium". Others such as Brahms, Liszt, Schumann and Tchaikovsky are also of interest to her. I think this quiet and dignified woman is full of romantic passion. No wonder she mostly deals with romantic poets in literary research and translation.
The campus in Peking University is very big. Mr. Zhao found that I didn't have a bike, so he said, "I'll lend you one!" This is a female car I bought from England. It's easy and light to ride. " I said, what about yourself? She said, "I am too old to ride a bike." When she knew I didn't have a radio, she said, "Use mine. A music lover cannot live without a radio! " "I said," that won't do, you didn't! " "She said," I have it at home! And I wanted to buy a new one, smaller and more advanced in technology. "She called me by my name from the beginning, and I think I heard my mother calling me when I was a child. But my mother died when I was seven. My long-lost maternal love seems to have been compensated in front of this teacher now, and I feel very warm.
2
She often talks about poetry, but never mentions the great poet Chen around her. One day I asked: Has Teacher Chen written many poems recently? She said flatly, "I stopped writing long ago! I have been engaged in archaeology since liberation. " I don't want to talk about it anymore. I quickly changed the subject. Later, I asked someone with doubts. It turned out that Mr. Chen 1957 was unlucky and put on his hat. Mr. Zhao was mentally stimulated and was hospitalized. My mood suddenly became heavy, and I thought: It turned out that her heart was not only full of romantic passion, but also unspeakable hidden pain.
Once I said, "I really want to meet Teacher Chen." She said, "Well, I wanted to invite you to my house and invite you to eat our favorite mushrooms and braised pork in Zhejiang." She told me the address of Liang Qian Hutong 19.
19 Liang Qian Hutong is not a quadrangle, but it is a veritable deep house compound: after entering the house, a middle-aged nanny led me through a long aisle, a few steps to the left is a horizontal rectangular patio, and then a dozen steps to the right before entering the gate, which is also very deep after entering the house (this is a rare old residential structure). I saw a man in his fifties, sitting sideways on a bench near the square table, with his left leg hooked and his bare feet resting on the bench: he was picking his feet. Seeing me go in, he turned to look at me and saw his eyes were big, his cheeks collapsed and he was grinning. I thought to myself: Is this Chen? No wonder there is a saying "slovenly". I said "Hello, Teacher Chen", but he just nodded and still didn't stop his indecent actions. He didn't begin to greet me until Teacher Zhao came to introduce me. Mr. Zhao showed me the whole house. Besides "deep" and "big", we should also add "ancient": antique beams and columns, antique furniture, antique calligraphy and painting. Unfortunately, there was too little awareness of cultural relics at that time to ask Mr. Chen about the age and story of the house and the exhibits inside. Later, I learned that Mr. Chen is also an expert in Ming Dynasty cultural relics, and he has a large collection of precious Ming Dynasty furniture. I must have seen part of his collection at that time. At dinner, Miss Zhao cashed in her dried mushroom dish braised pork, saying that this dish was specially made for me by her aunt, so I must eat more. Teacher Chen is easy-going and kind, and is a typical "temperament middleman". But he smiled gently on any topic and his expression was indifferent. I can see that he is very sad, and I am obviously unable to comfort this strange young man. Fortunately, he asked some irrelevant anecdotes about my hometown Quzhou, which gave us more topics.
Later, I at least went to 19 Liang Qian Hutong. But this never happened again: it was expropriated by the government, and Mr. Zhao moved to No.22 Houjie, an art museum closer to the city center, to live with her parents and younger brother. It is a typical large quadrangle in Beijing, with spacious courtyard, lush flowers and trees, magnificent south-facing courtyard doors and zhaobi. Her parents live in the east room. When I first went, Miss Zhao took me to visit her parents first. His father, Zhao, is a famous professor of theology at home and abroad, and once served as the head of the Department of Theology in yenching university. He also has profound literary attainments. He used to be the provost of Southeast University and dean of the College of Literature. At that time, he was eighty years old, tall, with neat silver hair and a gray moustache, sitting at his desk sorting out some manuscripts. When he saw me, he turned around, smiled and nodded, and then motioned me to sit in the living room. Then her mother came to meet me. This is an old man who was obviously handsome when he was young. He is kind and kind, but he is still alert and discerning.
The first room is occupied by her younger brother Zhao Jingxin and his wife, and Mr. Luo lives in Westinghouse. When I went this time, I had transferred from Peking University to the Institute of Foreign Languages of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences today. The dormitory was in the unit, so I didn't have much demand for bicycles, so I returned it to Teacher Zhao by the way. She said, "You don't need so many bicycles. Give it back to me. I'll take it. I happen to have a relative who wants to use it But you don't have to give me back that radio, because I don't want to live in Peking University, and I already have a new one at home. But don't scrap your old mobile phone easily, because its wooden speaker sounds very good. " I was reluctant to give up for a long time, and I used it until the late 1980 s when I had a stereo.
Before the "Cultural Revolution", I went to No.22 Backstreet of the Art Museum, and her mother smiled and introduced me to Mr. Zhao's residence. That room, which is only eleven or twelve square meters, is both her bedroom and reception room. A colorful and elegant bedspread covers the single bed. On the right side of the bed is a chest of five drawers. Her precious new radio is placed on the bed behind the pillow. The remaining limited space has really become a place where the host and the guest "talk". There are several bookshelves and a piano in the hall. She doesn't like receiving guests there. Maybe she feels warmer in the bedroom. This is also a habit she has developed by living in a single dormitory at school for a long time. During this time, we talked more about several popular singers at that time: Li Guangxi, Zhou Xiaoyan, Liu Shufang, Yu Shuzhen, Zhang Quan, Lou Gangui, Li Shuangjiang, Hu Songhua, Ma Yutao and so on. We all admire Li Guangxi's success in winning world-famous operas such as Eugen onegin, Salesman and Miss in a few years, and regret what happened to Lou Gangui and Zhang Quan in 1957. We also talked about the individual characteristics of Lv Yuan's songs and the unique charm of Lv Wenke's solo art. We all hit it off on these topics. When the new version of her (Longfellow's) poetry translation Song of Hayawasa came out, she signed a copy for me. Her neat and beautiful pen handwriting is as straight as her people.
three
After that, I went to the "four clean-ups" in Jiangxi, and when I came back a year later, the "Cultural Revolution" had already broken out. In the rebellion, I was worried about Mr. Zhao's situation. After asking around, fortunately, the students didn't bother the undisputed teacher. However, a few months after I came back, I was shocked to learn that Mr. Zhao's lifelong partner Chen died angrily because of persecution! This is a mental blow to Mr. Zhao: her old illness recurred and she was sent to a mental hospital. I really want to see her, but I dare not. I think she must be another Zhao in the hospital, which will ruin her gentle and honest image in my mind! A few years later, I came back from the May 7th Cadre School and heard that Miss Zhao had basically recovered. I quickly went to see her at No.22 Backstreet of the Art Museum. But this quadrangle has become incomplete: the main entrance no longer belongs to it and is blocked by a pile of walls; Facing the west wall of the College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, an entrance is opened, facing the street. The Westinghouse where she once lived has been occupied by strangers. I saw Mr. Zhao and Mr. Chen carefully walking around in the narrow yard. It is said that he will insist on walking sixty or seventy times a day as an anti-aging exercise. Her mother still smiled and led me into the house. Mr. Zhao has to live in his brother's house. My brother Zhao Jingxin is a teacher of Beijing Institute of Foreign Trade and is famous for his hospitality, so the cupboard is full of decent cups, plates and bowls. Teacher Zhao invited me to dinner and asked the nanny to cook braised pork with dried mold. Obviously, she loves this dish herself. The first thing she did after dinner was to watch the news broadcast on CCTV, especially the international news in the last five minutes. She refused to miss a day and complained that five minutes was too short: "How much news is there every day in such a big world! How can five minutes be enough? " She said that now she wants to listen to music and read small books. Music is still one of the topics of our conversation. But she didn't talk about what happened during the "Cultural Revolution" and didn't mention the name of the dreamer. I also pretend that I don't know anything. I found that the corner of her mouth on the left sometimes twitched slightly, and it was easy to get excited when she spoke. She sometimes realizes it herself and opens a bottle to take medicine on the spot.
Her mother always greets me warmly and asks about her family. Later, Teacher Zhao revealed a secret to me: "You know, my mother really likes you and said,' If I have a little daughter, I must marry her to him!'" ""I am very moved to say,' The old man's words make me both warm and sorry, and will make me have many warm and sorry dreams. Later, the old man died at the age of 9 1. Mr. Zhao specially wrote to inform me and told me emphatically: "You must send her to Babaoshan with us on the day of the funeral. She really said that! " So I gladly bid farewell to the elderly as a virtual member of their family. The three men and one woman raised by the old man are all gifted, but they are not conspicuous, which shows the success of her family education.
four
After the "reform", Mr. Zhao is completely different: she is very talkative! I am in a high mood every time I see it. Kan Kan talked about it. A lot of things she hasn't said before, now she dares to say. Obviously, she has been depressed for too long! From then on, we talked about literature, not only realism and romanticism, but also modernism! I was studying Kafka, the representative novelist of modernism. She was very interested, asked questions and told me repeatedly that if I wrote or translated something, I must tell her and show it to her. Only then did I know that her doctoral thesis when she was young was to write about Henry James, the American modernist writer, and the younger brother of william james, the founder of stream-of-consciousness theory. Eliot's masterpiece The Waste Land, which she translated in 1930s, is a classic of China's modernist poetry translation.
One day, she suddenly sent me a letter saying that she would choose a date to invite me to "eat out" with her wife and children. As a result, we met in a "high-end restaurant" in Kuanjie at that time. Seeing my family, she was very happy and laughed loudly. She is especially fond of our daughter. At this time, I can't help feeling a kind of regret: Mr. Zhao has no children! How can lonely old people not be lonely? So I simply said something in my heart: Teacher Zhao likes children so much, so let's bring a baby to raise it; As the saying goes: if you have milk, you are a mother, and when you grow up, you will be the same. She immediately said, "That's my son or grandson-hahahaha!" After a pause, he said, "These days, I can't afford to spend it if I want to: I used to spend 280 yuan's salary every month (this is the salary of a senior professor after liberation), but I always felt that I couldn't spend it all. But now that so much money is spent soon, I always feel stretched! "
Many years after the Cultural Revolution, the family that occupied her Westinghouse finally moved away. Mr. Zhao moved back to his old place and restored it to its original state. After a few years, Mr. Zhao Jingxin asked his sister to pay 20 thousand yuan to decorate the house, and finally had a little modern atmosphere. Since then, the hall has also become a living room. It was here that I met Professor Wu Ningkun, an old classmate of Mr. Zhao's in the low class in the United States. When Professor Wu was the president of Yan 'an University at the beginning of liberation, he invited Mr. Zhao to return home from the United States. I didn't expect to be transferred to Tianjin when the department was adjusted, and I also wore the hat of 1957. For this reason, Mr. Zhao felt guilty and wept bitterly.
Soon, Zhao Jingde, her younger brother in America, returned to China with her family to visit relatives. She specially introduced her brother to me: he was wearing a brown waist-length leather jacket, holding a stack of books in his right hand, and his burly figure was at least 1.85 meters. He looked extraordinarily healthy, energetic and loud. But left in a hurry without saying a few words. Mr. Zhao said: My brother is one of the four experts in American space technology at present, so he is very busy. She took out a thick new English dictionary and said it was given by her nephew who had just returned home with her father to visit relatives. But she was sorry and said that he didn't have a job, so he must have bought it with his pocket money. I said, you don't have to worry. His father is always rich. She immediately said, "Oh, you are wrong! Americans are very strict with their children and will not give money to adult children casually, like two families! "
Mr. Zhao also had contacts with Mrs. Lu Xiaoman of Xu Zhimo, but she disagreed with Lu Xiaoman's evaluation of Xu Zhimo: "Lu Xiaoman said that Xu Zhimo was the best poet in China. I think this evaluation is not objective enough, and I believe many people will not agree with it. Xu Zhimo is a figure written in the history of literature. The evaluation should be calm and scientific, and the feelings should not be overwhelmed. "
five
About the end of 1980s, she asked me for advice: "Now a publishing house has asked me to translate Whitman, but I am puzzled because Li Guangjian (my colleague) is already translating." I said, "Literary translation is not afraid of retranslation. You and Li have their own merits and are worth translating. " Later, unexpectedly, she translated The Complete Works of Whitman in one breath, which was widely praised and became another monument of her translation career.
After a while, it was the early 1990s, and I advised her, "Now the academic circles in our country have frequent exchanges with foreign countries. Mr. Zhao has been back to America for so many years. You should visit the United States or Britain! " She said, "Well, I've always liked peace, and now I'm old!" " After about a year or two, she wrote and said, "I really went to America and felt a lot." I went to see her immediately. As soon as she entered the door (this time she received me in the lobby), she took out an English newspaper and said, "Look, an ordinary scholar like me went to the United States, and they actually reported me on the front page of The New York Times, which took up so much space!" When I saw it, it really took up half a page on the right. I said, "This is called' respecting knowledge and talents'! I also heard Ye Junjian say that he visited Sweden, and Swedish newspapers also reported him on the front page with a lot of space and photos. " She said: "But in my mind, only the president or the head of government is entitled to such news treatment." I said, "I can see that we have alienated ourselves over time, and we all look down on ourselves!" " She "ha ha ha ....." A burst of laughter.
Another important news that she is eager to tell me is: "The times have really improved." She said, "My biggest worry when I come back from the United States is that I have to transfer through Japan and Hong Kong. The younger brother repeatedly stressed:' Don't worry, sister, I have already completed all the procedures for your transfer.' But my heart is always restless. Unexpectedly, just after getting off the plane in Japan, there was really a wheelchair waiting at the door and asked,' Are you Mrs. Zhao?' But I am still worried about what will happen in Hong Kong, and the result is still the same problem. I'm afraid I can't go to Beijing, but the result is still:' Are you Mrs. Zhao? Hehe, the times are progressing so fast! "
Unexpectedly, this party became my last meeting with Mr. Zhao. I didn't take time to see her for the next few years, until one day on 1998, the bad news suddenly came! It happened that I was in Shanghai on business. When I returned to Beijing, her affairs were over, leaving me with permanent guilt and regret. But her voice and smile will remain in my heart forever.