Chinese Literature

“New Life”

CHANG TIEN-YI

When Mr. Li I-mo first came to this middle school to see Principal ~

Pan, many teachers and students gasped in surprise. What? Was this the writer and artist Li I-mo?

The heavy overcoat in which he was clad, and the two small but heavy suitcases he was carrying were overlaid with dust. A rather darkcomplexioned face showed over his tall and lean frame. It seemed he had not shaved for weeks, for a stubbly beard stood on his chin. Although only around forty, he looked ten years older. Elven the myopic lenses of his spectacles were yellow with dust, like window-panes that had not been cleaned for a whole year.

If you had read some of his exquisite short essays; if you had been told that a certain publication once called him “the purest artist,’ you would certainly have felt that his appearance was completely at odds with his works.

Now Mr. Li was saying to Principal Pan, in a voice full of emotion:

“My former self died yesterday and what happened in the past died with it. Old Pan, I was dreaming for a long time, but | am awake now. Really I must thank the Japanese brigands. Were it not for their cannon shots that woke me up, I would still be leading the life of a hermit.”

He talked about conditions in his native place when it was about to fall into the hands of the Japanese and how he had fled. He was speaking very rapidly. The skin over his prominent cheek-bones glowed slightly. Sometimes he stopped suddenly, as if, for the moment, he had forgotten what had happened next. Then he gave an uneasy jerk and resumed his narration hastily. Old Pan could see that his old friend was full of deep indignation but it showed as impatience because he was usually a very calm person and did not easily lose his temper.

Mr. Li had fled with his wife and daughter when the Japanese were only about twenty miles from his native place. Usually he collected seven hundred piculs of rice every year from his tenants as rent, but this year he would get nothing. He had left his wife and daughter with his in-laws in a village somewhere in the southern part of Chekiang Province, and come here alone to look up his old friend.

“It would be meaningless to bury myself in a village with my wite and daughter. My decision is made: I want to do some work in the rear. I want to begin a new life!’

He had heard that the senior section of this middle school needed a teacher for art classes, four periods per week, and he offered to take this

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