Happy thoughts are all alike; every unhappy thought is unhappy in its own way.
My thought is unhappy as I walk on the campus at noon, a December campus, a leafless and cheerless campus, a cold campus to which the sun sends little warmth. We have just been told that Christmas parties won't be allowed anywhere at our university. Almost everyone is let down by the announcement; almost, because those student informers (学生信息员) do perk up, as they are given a new opportunity to spy on their own teachers and schoolmates.
What's worse, I'm not cheered on this occasion by the author I've been reading these days. That's George Santayana (乔治·桑塔亚纳, 1863 – 1952), a literary philosopher born in Spain and once a teacher at Harvard before he settled in Rome. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Who said this? Santayana. Who wrote Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (《英伦独语》)? Santayana. Wallace Stevens, an American poet, was inspired to write a great poem "To an Old Philosopher in Rome." Who is this old philosopher? Santayana.
But why am I not cheered by him right now? A puzzle I'm unable to solve, however hard I try. Perhaps I should choose another author to read, an author more popular than him, and less difficult? Abruptly, the train of my thought is halted, for a man is hailing and waving as if he wants to board it.
Ah, it's 张沪宁, a faculty member known for his erudition and for the catchphrase 稳中向好, coined by him and spent by all ever since. We first met each other at a big party welcoming new students (迎新晚会) in September. A middle-aged man of medium build, bespectacled, his hair so listless it would threaten to fall asleep at any moment, at the party he had worn the look of a solitary camel left behind by the caravan in a desert, until he saw me and began at once to engage me in a long conversation.
How was he transformed into a new being! His eyes sparkled, he seemed taller, younger, his hair was now fully awake, and he acted as the lead camel seeking in high spirits an oasis of happiness for the whole caravan. He complimented me on my good looks, he asked me what books I was reading, he urged me to acquire a broad knowledge well beyond my science major, he even offered to become my mentor in the future. "If you indeed desire a liberal education off campus," he said eagerly, adding that such an education was impossible on campus at present.
Do I really desire a liberal education? A high school teacher of mine cautioned me against it. "Not in mainland China anyway," she said, "if my past could serve as a lesson." I have been torn between her warning and his eagerness.
Rumor has it that he is an unhappily married man. I won't be surprised if it's true, for he ought to have married a book rather than a woman. He adores books. "You may smile, you may laugh, and you may even snicker at me, but books are the details of my life," he tells his students. "Those details, a pool of sunlight cannot drown them, the inky night is unable to darken them, and no wind, however fierce, can blow them away. Mind you, I dine on books. When I am old, my appetite for them will be as strong as that of a boy who devours his first book." Rare is an edible beauty (秀色可餐), yet an edible saying such as his is even rarer. He will go far, people predict, although they are uncertain whether he will be more than a footnote in the annals of Chinese history. Is his name likely to enter literature? Leo Tolstoy might give him a place in his novels, if he lived in China and could write without a great leader showing him the correct literary direction.
It's Aaron, not Tolstoy, who will give him a place in this story. The train of my thought halted, he boards it forthwith and proceeds to inspect its content. "What are you thinking?" he asks. "In any case, whatever you think today is not so happy as I hoped," he says, laughing and shaking his head. "But Aaron, you do look even more attractive with your new haircut, new clothes and a pair of new patent-leather shoes," he adds, much like an appraiser examining a piece of property. "Are you a connoisseur and an idolater of male beauty?" I wonder aloud. "Of course I am!" he replies without delay, whereupon he drops his eyes while he colors, the glasses he wears glinting in the sun and attempting to reflect his true thought away from my intense gaze. His lips tremble, as if they could scarcely bear the weight of what he is about to say. Both Aaron and Tolstoy watch his mouth, from which a magic saying might blossom. Looking up, he says, "In fact, I'm a connoisseur and an idolater of human beauty."
Within moments, Tolstoy vanishes, leaving me alone with him on a desolate campus and with a no less desolate image of human beauty.
Immediately will he move from human beauty to the topic of books, of which he is extraordinarily fond and in which he is an acknowledged expert.
