闻长孺病甚，念念。若长孺死，东南风雅尽矣，能无念耶？弟作令备极丑态，不可名状。大约遇上官则奴，候过客则妓，治钱谷则仓老人，谕百姓则保山婆。一日之间，百暖百寒，乍阴乍阳，人间恶趣，令一身尝尽矣。苦哉！毒哉！
家弟秋间欲过吴。虽过吴，亦只好冷坐衙斋，看诗读书，不得如往时，携侯子登虎丘山故事也。
近日游兴发不？茂苑主人虽无钱可赠客子，然尚有酒可醉，茶可饮，太湖一夕水可游，洞庭一块石可登，不大落寞也。如何？
Letter
to Qiu Chang-ru Yuan Hongdao
I’ve been very concerned since I
heard how sick you’ve been. If you should die, all the grace and culture of the
Southeast will be gone. Can I help being concerned? As a county magistrate, I’ve
had to play the most hateful roles—they are indescribable. To give you a
general idea: when I chance to meet a superior official, I’m a slave; when I
entertain a guest who has dropped by, I’m a courtesan; when I manage money or
grain, I’m a warehouse supervisor; when I explain things to the peasantry, I’m
an old lady matchmaker. In the course of a single day, things blow hot and cold
a hundred times now bright and active, now dark and passive—the county
magistrate experiences all the worst qualities of the everyday world. It’s
painful and it’s like poison to me.
My brother was going to pass
through Wu last autumn, and though he did pass through, he just wanted to sit
around in the county office library reading books and poems, and we didn’t get
to go climb Tiger Hill as we had before with Mr. Hou.
Have you felt much of an
inclination to travel lately? Even though, as chief officer of Mao-yuan here on
the outskirts of Su-zhou, I don’t have any money to give to visitors, s till I
have wine to get drunk on, tea to drink, the Great Lake as my spoonful of water
on which to go boating, and Dong-ting Mountain as my lump of rock to climb—so I’m
not too gloomy. What do you think?
（Stephen Owen 译） |
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