China News Agency, Beijing, January 31, title: Translator of "Wuthering Heights", 100-year-old Yang Yi has passed away
"China News Weekly" reporter Song Chundan
On the evening of January 27, 2023, Yang Yi passed away at the age of 103.
In Yang Yi's study room, there is a picture of himself when he was 17 years old.
German writer Anna Seghers once wrote a novel "Late Girl's Outing". Yang Yi often joked to friends who looked at this photo that it was actually a "dead girl".
This "deceased girl", whose real name is Yang Jingru, the translator of "Wuthering Heights", has left.
In the last year of her life, she still read newspapers, news, watched movies and listened to favorite old songs every day.
She likes to listen to an American country song "You Are My Sunshine". Every time she reads the title of the song, she can feel a kind of confident vitality from it.
Emerald Age
Yang Yi likes to tell stories about her childhood and girlhood, and once wanted to write this life into a memoir, titled "Emerald Years".
In 1919, she was born in a big family in Tianjin. Her father, Yang Yuzhang, was the president of the Bank of China. There were two wives and one concubine in the family.
Although he died of illness two months after his daughter was born, he left a considerable legacy.
Yang Yi has been very attached to her elder brother Yang Xianyi since she was a child, and she loves to go shopping with her brother Yang Xianyi the most.
When my brother went out, he always shouted and hugged, and when he saw something, the servant went up to pay, carrying big bags and small bags.
Whenever Yang Yi wanted books, toys or other things, she would pull his clothes from behind.
Yang Xianyi was very kind to his sister, who was 5 years younger, and always responded to requests. He told the servant "I want this" and everything was resolved.
When Yang Yi was 15 years old, Yang Xianyi showed her the newly published "Family".
She felt that "Family" written by Ba Jin was very similar to her own family. Her grandfather had been an official in Sichuan, and both had old wives.
Also under Yang Xianyi's suggestion, in 1938, she went south to Kunming to study and entered Southwest Associated University.
After graduating from Tianjin Zhongxi Girls' High School the year before, she was recommended to the Chinese Department of Nankai University, so she entered Southwest Associated University as a "returning student".
Shen Congwen said that those thread-bound books in the Chinese Department would "tie her up", so she followed the advice and entered the Foreign Languages Department.
Under the introduction of Ba Jin, Yang Yi met Li Yaolin who taught English in Nankai Middle School when he was in Tianjin.
Yang Yi once made an appointment with him in Kunming, but after Ba Jin's eldest brother committed suicide, he, who was responsible for supporting the family, did not show up in the end.
Yang Yi joined the Plateau Literature Club organized by Mu Dan, Lin Pu and others. At an event, "wearing a cheongsam with small flowers on a black background and a red sweater on top, she is so beautiful." She attracted the attention of her senior and young poet Zhao Ruihong. Pursue.
In 1940, the two married.
In 1941, 22-year-old Yang Yi and her husband Zhao Ruihong were at Southwest Associated University.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee, Zhao Heng, daughter of Yang Yi
She wrote a letter to Li Yaolin, saying, "You ask me to get married, and I will obey you." After that, the two did not communicate for a long time.
Later he wrote back: "I only hope that one day we can listen to our favorite records together quietly again, and I will be satisfied in this life."
In 1945, Li Yaolin died of illness.
This made Yang Yiping feel his heart being torn apart for the first time in his life.
Many years later, she wrote in "Dream of Li Lin" (Li Yaolin's pen name Li Lin): "It seems that someone once walked into my heart and lit a lamp, but after a while, he blew it out again, turned around and walked away. Already!"
"It's the only way to show that we don't submit"
In the early 1950s, life was stable and good.
After Nanjing University moved to the Drum Tower area, it bought some nearby houses and distributed them to the teaching staff.
Zhao Ruihong was assigned to the first floor of a small two-story western-style building.
In 1953, the Ministry of Higher Education sent Zhao Ruihong to Karl Marx University in Leipzig, East Germany as a visiting professor to teach Chinese literature.
Knowing that the child could not be taken with her, Yang Yi stayed behind.
In those years, Yang Yi didn't go to work, but translated books at home, and the occupation he filled in his resume was "freelance translator".
It was here that she completed the classic translation of Wuthering Heights.
She had watched the original American film "Soul Returns to the Heavens" adapted from "Wuthering Heights" when she was in middle school, and read the original work in the library in 1943 when she was borrowing from the Foreign Languages Department of Central University.
Previously, Liang Shiqiu had translated this work and named it "Roaring Heights".
Liang Shiqiu's English is superb, but Yang Yi always feels that the translation is inappropriate.
On a stormy night, a gust of wind whizzed by, and the raindrops hit the glass windows, like Catherine crying.
Inspiration suddenly fell from the sky, and she excitedly wrote the four characters "Wuthering Heights".
In June 1955, "Wuthering Heights" was published by Ba Jin's Pingming Publishing House. It was extremely popular, but it was criticized soon after.
During the "Cultural Revolution", due to the criticism of "Wuthering Heights" and children's literature works "Problematic Stories" and "Cinema Story", as well as being implicated by the arrest and imprisonment of his brother Yang Xianyi, Yang Yi was criticized again and again.
"Wuthering Heights" also disappeared.
One day in the summer of 1969, when the Red Guards interrogated her, they asked her to confess her relationship with Ba Jin, and they slapped her severely for not cooperating.
But she didn't cry.
She said that we have all learned not to shed tears easily, because this is the only way to show that we are not submissive.
The correspondence between Yang Yi and Ba Jin began in 1935. At that time, she had a total of 23 letters from Ba Jin in her hands, which she had to hand over.
In 1972, after Yang Xianyi was released from prison, Yang Yi was also "liberated".
These letters were sent back, not one missing.
Yang Yi continued to work as a teacher at Nanjing Normal University.
In 1980, Yang Yi resigned.
Many people advised her to wait for her professional title to be fixed before retiring. She left without any regrets, and retired with a monthly salary of more than 90 yuan, which was 25% off.
Because of this, she has never had a title.
When someone calls her a "professor", she must correct her: "I'm not a professor, I'm a teacher."
"The Richest Man in the World"
Yang Yi always remembers that the early and mid-1980s was a long period of beautiful and exciting new period.
In 1980, her representative translation "Wuthering Heights" returned to people's vision and was extremely enthusiastically sought after by readers.
Li Jingduan, the founder of "Yilin" magazine, single-handedly contributed to the reprint of "Wuthering Heights".
He told reporters that after the reform and opening up, Jiangsu People's Publishing House, where he works, began to translate and publish a small amount of contemporary literary works from Western countries, and urgently needed a translation of a foreign masterpiece to make the first shot.
But it was too short to find someone to translate now, so Wu Ningkun, a classmate of Yang Yi's Southwest Associated University and a professor at Anhui University, recommended "Wuthering Heights" to Li Jingduan.
After Li Jingduan reported to the agency leader, the agency leader hardly hesitated and quickly made a decision.
The first edition of 10,000 copies sold out quickly.
Later, "Wuthering Heights" was published by Yilin Publishing House, which was developed from "Yilin" magazine, and it is still a long-selling variety of the press.
1980 version of "Wuthering Heights".
In May 1987, "Snow Mud Collection - Ba Jin Letters" was published by Sanlian Bookstore, which included Ba Jin's letters to Yang Yi, including 23 letters sent back to her, as well as subsequent correspondence, with a total of 60 letters of different lengths. .
Knowing that she has so many correspondence with Ba Jin in her hands, her classmates envied her as "the richest person in the world".
"Life Begins at 80"
In his later years, Yang Yi liked to look at the moonlight streaming in through the curtains in the middle of the night to recall the past.
During the day, she stays at home most of the time, and likes to write letters to old friends at home.
She puts a lot of effort into organizing these letters and old photos, which are her most cherished possessions.
She loves to write letters, and she is good at writing long letters, often writing seven or eight pages.
There are countless people who correspond with her. When an old friend dies, she will send the other party's correspondence to her children.
She maintains the rules and etiquette of her early church schools. When visitors come, they must treat them to afternoon tea, send guests out of the door, dress according to the occasion, and wash their face and eyebrows before going to a concert or going out for dinner.
When chatting on weekdays, no matter what Yang Yi talked about, he would refer to his elder brother Yang Xianyi, thinking that he knew everything.
In 2007, 92-year-old Yang Xianyi was diagnosed with lymphoma, but he was able to cooperate with the doctor for 35 radiotherapy sessions.
After radiotherapy, he returned home, puffing his breath freely again, falling into his "never public reveries" on the sofa, and playing long-lost doggerel.
Yang Yi said proudly that the Yang family is not easily scared out of their wits by any disease, and they can all "do not be surprised when it comes suddenly, and do not get angry when it happens for no reason".
Perhaps because of this, the Yang family has amazing longevity genes.
His mother died at the age of 96, Yang Xianyi lived to 94, and his sister Yang Minru lived to 102.
Centennial Yang Yi.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee, Zhao Heng, daughter of Yang Yi
In recent years, Yang Yi said every year: "I have a hunch that this year will not pass, and we must hurry up."
She has been making various preparations for her death. The correspondence with Shen Congwen and Ba Jin has been donated to the museum, and the correspondence with Shao Yanxiang has been entrusted to someone to return to herself. If you want to figure out how to give away the large collection of books, it is best to donate the house go out.
She doesn't want to leave any inheritance.
She often self-deprecatingly quotes a short article she once translated: "Old friend, please try to live to be 80 years old. This is the best moment in your life. People can tolerate everything about you. If you have any questions, I I'll tell you: life begins at 80."
Her husband Zhao Ruihong passed away in 1999, when she was 80 years old.
She always had new ideas for furniture, books, and dolls everywhere, and often ordered the nanny to rearrange them.
The positions of the photos are constantly changing, but no matter how they are arranged, the photos of Ba Jin and Yang Xianyi are always placed in the most prominent position.
September 12, 2022 is Yang Yi's 103rd birthday.
This year, "Yang Xianyi's Poetry Translated by Brother and Sister Yang Yi", "Yang Yi's Oral Autobiography: One Hundred Years, Many People, Many Things" Volume 1 (Yang Yi's Oral, Yu Bin's Writing) and "Songs of Innocence and Experience" were published successively.
She still has a lot of work plans to publish the second volume of autobiography, poetry collection, essay collection, and sort out manuscript letters.
On September 26, with the assistance of the notary office, she formally completed the legal procedures for donating her private house, and completed a long-awaited important matter.
She never shies away from the topic of death and never loses hope.
She likes to quote the ending of "Monte Cristo": "All the wisdom of mankind is contained in two words: waiting and hope." (End)