经是“内部干枯”了吗？
一个朋友说过：“我若是灯，我就要用我的光明来照彻黑暗。”
我不配做一盏明灯。那么就让我做一块木柴罢。我愿意把我从太阳那里受到的热
放散出来，我愿意把自己烧得粉身碎骨给人间添一点点温暖。
Friends
Ba Jin
On my recent travels, I came to realize still more fully the significance of the word
“friend”.
Seven or eight days ago, I said to a friend whom I had just come to know, “I can’t
help feeling embarrassed before my friends. You’re all so nice to me. I simply don’t know
how to repay your kindness.” I did not make this remark out of mere modesty and courtesy.
I truly meant what I said. The next day, I said goodbye to this friend, not knowing if I
could ever see him again. But the little warmth that he gave me has been keeping my heart
throbbing with gratitude.
The length of my days will not be unlimited. However, whenever I look back on my
brief past life, I find a beacon illuminating my soul and thereby lending a little brightness
to my being. That beacon is friendship. I should be grateful to it because it has helped me
keep alive up to now and clear away the shadow left on me by my old family.
Many people forsake their friends in favour of their own families, or at least draw a
line of demarcation between families and friends, considering the former to be many times
more important than the latter. That seems to be a matter of course. I have also seen with
my own eyes how some people abandon their friends as well as their own careers soon
after they get married…
Friends are transient whereas family are lasting—that is the tenet, as I know, guiding
the behaviour of many people. To me, that is utterly inconceivable. Without friends, I
would have been reduced to I don’t know what a miserable creature.
Friends are my saviours. They give me things which it is beyond my family to give
me. Thanks to their fraternal love, assistance and encouragement, I have time and again
been saved from falling into an abyss while on its verge. They have been enormously
generous towards me.
There was a time when my life was miserable and gloomy. My friends then gave me
in large quantities sympathy, love, joy and tears—things essential for existence. It is due to
their bountiful free gifts that I also have my share of warmth and happiness in my life. I
accepted their kindnesses quietly without ever saying a word of thanks and without ever
doing anything in return. In spite of that, my friends never used the epithet “self-centered”
when referred to me. They are only too generous towards me.
I visited many new places and met new friends on my recent trip. My time was mostly
taken up by looking around, listening, talking and walking. But I never ran into any trouble
because my friends had done their utmost to make sure that I would be short of nothing. ⑨本⑨作⑨品⑨由⑨⑨網⑨提⑨供⑨下⑨載⑨與⑨在⑨線⑨閱⑨讀⑨
Whatever new places I called at, I always felt at home as if I were back in my old residence
in Shanghai which had been already been raged to the ground by Japanese troops.
No matter how hard up and frugal my friends themselves were, they would
unstintingly share with me whatever they had, although they knew I would not be able to
repay them for their kindness. Some, whom I did not even know by name, showed concern
over my health and went about inquiring after me. It was not until they saw my suntanned
face and arms that they began to smile a smile of relief. All that was enough to move one
to tears.
Some people believe that, without writing, I would lose my livelihood. One of my
sympathizers, in an article published two months ago in the Guangzhou Republic Daily
Supplement, gives a full account of the conditions of my life. He also says that I would
have nothing to live on once I should lay down my pen. That is not true at all. It has
already been proved by recent travels that my friends would never let me suffer from cold
and hunger even if I should go without writing a single word. There are a great many
kind-hearted people in the world who never attach undue importance to themselve