My Two Mothers
Su Xuelin文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/13294.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/13294.html
A man, if not an idiot, or born cold-blooded, must have the ability to love. Being capable of love, he must find someone or something to bear his love. A child’s love is his parents; a youngster’s love is his lover, while a middle-aged man’s love is his sons and daughters, or his interest and career. But what is the love of an old man? I haven’t reached that age, thus have no idea. But since he has been kicked out of the stage of life and retired from the reality, it is quite possible that he has to count on the future for hope. Besides, with the evening of life drawing on and his left days limited, it is almost unavoidable that the prospect of an afterlife would constantly echo in his mind. In view of this, the love of an old man might be God or the afterworld.文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/13294.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/13294.html
I have no intention to imitate the sage Shun who, in his fifties, still craves for his father’s love like a child. But as I once wrote in an article, there might be something wrong with my pineal gland, which had prevented me from growing into a mature adult. I have always wished to lean on someone’s arm like a spoiled child, saying something wanton and doing something idle and fun. And I always feel the need of someone who can inquire after my illness and health, who are soothing and attentive, and will scold me in a doting way and offer genuine suggestions for my own good. But nobody can do all this except a kind, great mother to her child. For this reason, nobody in the world is more beloved to me than mother; and I can give my love to nobody but mother.文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/13294.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/13294.html
Coming to maternal love, I’m convinced that I shall be termed fortunate. Before mother passed away, most of my childhood days were spent wallowing in her bosom. It’s a pity that many cozy experiences and happy moments then have been buried in the dust of time which, when recollected now, are just like withered flowers after a storm, long deprived of their vividness and scent. To my solace, I can still trace some of the scenes in my old works, such as the one preserved in a poem composed twenty years ago, which was titled By the Oil Lamp,文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/13294.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/13294.html
By the oil lamp sat my mother smiling,文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/13294.html
Happy that I had grown one year older.文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/13294.html
Yet frowning, she couldn’t help whispering
“Why my girl remains as childish as ever?”
In another poem titled Accompanying Mother to See My Sick Brother in Yicheng, Hubei Province, I wrote,
When slowly we reached the Magpie River,
The sun already set behind a perilous peak.
Unloading the luggage, we found a local inn,
And treated ourselves to good food and drink.
Exhausted, I soon fell sound asleep,
And slept the night away in a sweet dream.
With reluctance, mother woke me up;
I rubbed my eyes, yet another dawn had come.
Dressing me neatly by the dim oil lamp,
She gave my hair a beautiful braid and comb.
Catching me not grown with my years,
She showed both a frown and a smile.
O generous is a mother’s love to her child,
And sweet is the heart of the child loved.
I would be a girl as childish as ever,
And cling to her soft knees forever.
These verses may not be good, but because each line of them could bring mother’s smile and voice back to me and fill my heart with her sweet love. I still consider them the gem of my previous works.
Ever since mother left me, my heart has been held in suspension, with nowhere to lean on. Fortunately, although I have lost my real mother, I still have another mother in spirit. I cannot name definitely where she is, but that she exists there is undoubtedly. Her breath runs in the whole sphere. The white clouds are her shirt, the blue sky is her dress, the scarce stars of autumn her beautiful eyes, the crescent moon her arched eyebrows, and the flashes of lightning in the dark summer sky her very smiles. Like the spring flowers, her smiles come one cluster after another, in eternal bloom. I also know her mildness in vernal water, her warmth in the sunlight, and her greatness in the dynamic atmosphere. Unlike other mothers, she has countless children, and each of them can get her whole love. Even a neglected child’s sorrow can move her to tears, and the meanest and most insignificant child’s prayer can get her answer. Her love is as great as the immense ocean, with refreshing, cool sweetness, a mere spoon out of which shall be enough to ease the thirst of any child craving for care.
Of course, I am only one of her many children, but I wonder if she is partial with me. When closing my eyes, I feel she is sitting beside me, ready to attend me. When confined to bed with illness, I feel her kissing me on the forehead. Once, a great disaster almost broke down the spirit of mine and sent me to despair. In a frenzy of emotions, I threw myself onto the bed and cried my eyes out. If a rope were available at hand, I might have taken my own life in an instant. It is easy for someone in desperation to end himself, isn’t it? But through the tears I saw outside the window the wind was blowing strongly, and the trees were swaying violently. In illusion I seemed to behold my deceased mother standing by a distant tree, beckoning to me. Or she might not be my real mother, but my other mother in spirit. Her white shirt was glittering with gold, and her streaks of hair were fluttering in the wind; she pressed her arms to her bosom, very much like a helpless mother whose heart was aching because her child was suffering while she could do nothing. The illusion was soon gone, and my distresses, too, disappeared together with it. Moreover, I had inquired new courage to live on, for I found the existence of such a mother, who would offer me shade and shelter, though in a mysterious way perhaps; and whenever I needed her, she would be there kissing me, caressing me and soothing me.
The occurrence of such an illusion is too mysterious a thing to be creditable. Someone might doubt there must be something wrong with my nerves, or I must be making up stories to amuse people. Yeah, my friend, it would be too foolish of you if you were to believe it. The real truth is, I didn’t see it; I felt it. Or in other words, what caught the vision is not the physical eye but the inner eye. Have you ever read Fyodor Sologub’s The Kiss of the Unborn? The abundant love of a mother will help her see the unborn child of hers in illusion, and allow her to watch him grow up day by day into adulthood. There has never been such a day when I stopped missing my mother and her soothing love, and then is there anything strange that I would dream of her coming to rescue me in the tight corners of my life? I am convinced that mother has been with me, and will never leave me until the last moment of my life.
（李珍 译）
