Mourning for Husheng
Zhu Ziqing

In March I heard from Mr. Liu Xunyu that Husheng was sick andhopelessly sick at that. The doctor said there was nothing he could do but towait for the day to arrive. Toward the end of April, I came across an obituaryissued by Lida Association in the newspaper Current Affairs. How quickly theday had arrived! Later, when I learned how he had suffered during his illness,I thought it was too miserable. From his point of view, however, his passingaway was not a bad thing after all, because he suffered less by going earlier.But it must have been very hard for him to close his eyes and resign himself tothe fact that he was leaving his Lida School, his friends and his studentsbehind.

What was most memorable about Husheng was his attitude toward life.He was as strong as a man of steel, his dark complexion set off by clothes ofcoarse cloth, looking like someone from the countryside. He could withstand anyhardship and never sought ease and comfort. In this respect he was like a countryman,too. Again like a countryman, he had a heart as warm as fire radiating warmth,power and light. He was a man of few words, but of all smiles. His smile wasnatural and friendly. In his view, people could love each other, except thosewith deep prejudices and those who could not bring themselves out in the open.He hated these people, and to them he wouldn't show anything like gentleness.In this world, only those who could hate could love. Those who did not knowwhat to love and what to hate were useless people. Hushenng thought that youngpeople had little prejudice but lots of future promise, so he was willing todevote his life to them without reservation, letting the religion of love growand flourish among them so that they could all go to a new world. Hushenng wasnot fond of talking too much, instead, he put his mind on work, and work, andnothing but work—an embodiment of the Confucian spirit. Though I never had achance to talk with him very closely, I was convinced that I understood him fromthe way he carried himself and conducted matters.

Few people I knew of were as devoted as Husheng. When he was runningLida School, all his thoughts were on the school, whatever he did. Lida waslike his sweetheart, his only son. He was by nature an honest man, but for thesake of Lida, he had to go and see important people, bosses and others fromwhom he hoped to borrow money. To raise funds, he had to run many places, evenas far as Beijing and Nanjing. Once he could have gone to study abroad, but hedid not go in the end because he could not tear himself away from the school.He had sacrificed his life for Lida and Lida had become his life too. Though hewas head of the school for so many years, he never tried to make his name knownto the public. He had forgotten about himself altogether. Now he had workedhimself to death for Lida despite his robust constitution. He had died for hisideal—a meaningful death. His ideal was merely beginning of bud. Now we shouldall think about one question: what must we do to keep Lida alive? If Lida iskept alive, Husheng lives on.