until he ended up in death by suicide. Vincent van Gogh was not good at making a living, but he had carved a new path for himself in art, though the artist was not recognized till many years after his death. Having read this book, I was moved by his devotedness to art and loved his “Sunflowers” all the more for its gracefulness and suggestiveness. I seemed to understand why joyfulness and loneliness are inherently mixed in his works. (Feng Yidai. Sunflowers, tr. Wen Xiuying & Liu Shicong)
(Passage 7)
读朋友的来信，尤其是远自海外犹带着异国风云的航空信，确是人生一大快事，如果无须回信的话。回信，是读信之乐的一大代价。久不回信，屡不回信，接信之乐必然就相对减少，以至于无，这时友情便暂告中断了，直到有一天在赎罪的心情下，你毅然回起信来。蹉跎了这么久，接信之乐早变成欠信之苦，我便是这么一个累犯的罪人，交游千百，几乎每一位朋友都数得出我的前科来的。英
国诗人奥登曾说，他常常搁下重要的信件不回，躲在家里看他的侦探小说。王尔德有一次对韩黎说：“我认得不少人，满怀光明的远景来到伦敦，但是几个月后就整个崩溃了，因为他们有回信的习惯。”显然王尔德认为，要过好日子，就得戒除回信的恶习。可见怕回信的人，原不止我一个。 回信，固然可畏，不回信，也绝非什么乐事。书架上经常叠着百多封未回之信，“债龄”或长或短，长的甚至在一年以上，那样的压力，也绝非一个普通的罪徒所能负担的。一叠未回的信，就像一群不散的阴魂，在我罪孽深重的心地幢幢作崇。理论上说来，这些信当然是要回的。我可以坦然向天发誓，在我清醒的时刻，我绝未存心不回人信。问题出在技术上，给我一整个夏夜的空闲，我该先回一年半年以前的那封信呢，还是七个月前的这封？隔了这么久，恐怕连谢罪的有效期也早过了吧？在朋友的心目中，你早已沦为不值得计较的妄人。“莫名其妙!”是你在江湖上一致的评语。
To get letters from friends, especially airmail letters from overseas that bear the stamp of exotic climes, is unquestionably one of life’s greatest pleasures, provided, that is, that they do not call for a reply. Answering letters is a heavy price to pay for the enjoyment of reading letters. The inevitable consequence of tardiness or infrequency in answering letters is a corresponding reduction in, and ultimate cessation of, the pleasure of receiving letters, in which case friendship is prematurely broken off, until the day in sackcloth and ashes you summon up the willpower to put pen to paper again. Through this dilly-dallying the pleasure of receiving letters has turned to the misery of owing letters. I am an old lag in this respect: practically every one of the friends I have made in my comings and goings can recite from my crime sheet. W. H. Auden once admitted that he was in the habit of shelving important letters, preferring instead to curl up with a detective novel; while Oscar Wilde
remarked to Henley: “I have known men come to London full of bright prospects and seen them complete wrecks in a few months through a habit of answering letters.” Clearly Wilde’s view was that to enjoy life one should renounce the bad habit of answering letters. So I am not the only one to be faint-hearted in the regard.
If it is conceded that replying to letters is to be dreaded, on the other hand not replying to letters is by no means a matter of unalloyed bliss. Normally a hundred or so letters are stacked on my bookshelf, of diverse maturity of debt outstanding, the longest being over a year. That kind of pressure is ore than an ordinary sinner can bear. A stack of unanswered letters battens on me like a bevy of plaintive ghosts and plays havoc with my smitten conscience. In principle the letters are there for replying to. I can swear in all honesty that I have never while of sound mind determined not to answer people’s letters. The
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