MOTHER

(Cambridge, 1984)

Everyone has a mother, and loves her. I, like many others, always live with deep solicitude and miserable sorry for not being able to do more for Mother, because I love her so much.

Mother, whom I love best on the earth, is so dear to me that I have been thinking of writing a paean to eulogize her virtues, to praise her wits, to extol her resolutions, and above all, to penegyrize her great love to me. The delay in doing so, casued by my literary impotence, pieces my heart and torments my mind from time to time.

Though Cambridge is thousands of miles aways from my home, though my study here is times busier than used to be, my love for Mother grows each passing day. I remember the years when I grew up and lived with her; in my dreams come the nights of my sleeping in her embrace; the evenings when I reviewed my lessons with her sitting by my side, especially when I learnt to use abacus from her, often in bed; the cries of her heart caused by her having to blame or beat me at times in order make me perfect; her boundedless gaiety each time I achieved a success; the forlorn sorry of hers every time I left her; her overjoy whenever I went back home; and the edifications, the encouragements, the genialities, and the helps that she has given me, to make me a Man.

原载<波光>创刊号

上个世纪八十年代初期我赴剑桥留学. 第一次出远门就跑到异国它乡, 很是想家. 写下了这篇思母英文短文