Library

This collection contains nearly thirty essays by Mr. Wen Jieruo. The book is divided into four volumes. The first volume is "Home and Books", "I'm Afraid of Walking through Goldfish Alley", "My Junior High School Life" and "My Starting Point". It recalls the birthplace of Goldfish Alley in Peiping, his early years of studying at Japanese Elementary School, Sacred Heart School, and Fu Jen Catholic High School for Girls, the bitter memories of the family's loss due to his father's unemployment during the Anti-Japanese War, and his experience in starting his career in Sanlian after graduating from university. The second volume, "Remembering Xiao Qian", "Literary Marriage" and "Warm Memories", describe the 45 years of ups and downs that she and her husband Xiao Qian went through together. The third volume pursues senior teachers and friends such as Ba Jin, Bing Xin, Shen Congwen, and Nie Gannu; "The Later Years of the Master of Kuyuzhai", "Zhou Zuoren and His Children and Grandsons", and "Zhou Zuoren and Tanizaki Junichiro" describe the desolate old man Qiming who fought side by side with Lu Xun during the May Fourth Movement, which helps us understand the other side of this "traitorous scholar". The fourth volume includes two essays on James Joyce's masterpiece "Ulysses".

Since the death of my wife Xiao Qian on February 11, 1999, I have returned to my home in this unit in Muxidi, Fwai, alone, and have lived there for nearly eight and a half years. I have been a person who has been very good at arranging my life since I was a child. In June 1941, my third sister Chang Wei suffered from osteomyelitis and was admitted to the Japanese Tongren Hospital at the east entrance of Santiao Hutong in Dongdan, where she underwent foot surgery. My mother originally asked the fourth sister and me to take turns taking care of the patients in bed. However, the fourth sister was only on duty for one day, so the third sister no longer wanted her. The fourth sister is very talented and good at playing the piano. She is proficient in English, French, German and Japanese without even looking at her hard work. She said to me personally: "I can see ten lines at a time." But she had no idea how to care for patients. Therefore, I became a full-time nurse and stayed with my third sister in the ward until she was discharged at the end of August. At that time, I was studying English at Sacred Heart School, which was located at the west entrance of Santiao Hutong.