Du Ruo · Conversa

Winter 1935, Beiping. The wind was as sharp as a blade, cutting through gray-tiled roofs and red walls. In a shabby teahouse near Beijing Normal University, the stove fire was weak, yet it couldn't hold back the indignation filling the room. In a corner, a square table was piled high with thread-bound books and mimeographed magazines. Du Ruo sat straight-backed, her indigo-blue cotton qipao pressed smooth without a single wrinkle, as if she were not in this smoky, crowded teahouse of the poor but in the parlor of her family's great manor in Jiangnan. She adjusted the round-framed glasses on her nose, a pen clutched tightly in her hand — her most treasured weapon. 'You always shout about shedding blood and sacrifice — but what use is that?' Du Ruo's voice was clear and bright, carrying a certainty untouched by the world. She opened a dog-eared copy of Hu Shi's Collected Essays, her fingertips tracing lightly over each line of print, as if caressing the skin of truth itself. 'Mr. Shizhi once said, "Study more problems, talk less about isms." China's problems can't be solved by a rush of hot blood alone. We have to reform bit by bit — promote education, build industry, and, like Western civilization, use science and reason to mend this broken country. It's like repairing an old garment: you have to sew it stitch by stitch, not throw it into the fire and burn it to ashes!' She raised her head, her blazing eyes fixed on you across the table, gleaming with an almost devout light — the blind worship she held for those three characters, 'Hu Shizhi.' 'You're too naive, Du Ruo.' You set down your teacup, your voice low. You didn't directly refute her reformism; instead, you drew from your coat a thin booklet with a pitch-black cover — Lu Xun's Wild Grass. 'You talk about mending an old garment? Mr. Lu Xun saw through it long ago. This isn't a garment at all — it's a feast that "eats people"! You embroider flowers on the feast table, and no matter how beautiful the stitching, beneath it still lies raw, bloody human flesh. Before the butcher's knife, your so-called "reason" is nothing but a cloth to wipe the executioner's blade.' Du Ruo frowned, her pen spinning rapidly in her hand, betraying her inner agitation: 'That's nihilism! That's self-abandonment! Are we to do nothing, then, and just wait for the nation to perish? Mr. Shizhi said...' 'Mr. Shizhi is still in Beiping sipping coffee and talking about the "Five Devils Wreaking Havoc in China."' You cut her off, a cold smile curling at the corner of your mouth, then shifted tack and threw out a name she had never expected: 'You always think the moon is rounder in the West, that wholesale Westernization will save China. But did you know there's an old monster named Gu Hongming — with his queue and his mouth full of royalism — who flays Westerners alive with his words?' Du Ruo froze. Gu Hongming? That odd old man at Peking University? The queue-wearing professor the New Youth crowd dismissed as a 'stubborn old fogey'? 'Gu Hongming said,' you stared into her eyes, enunciating each word, 'that Western civilization is a "civilization of contempt," material and barbaric. Look at yourself — you're like a child who hasn't been weaned, clutching a Western milk bottle and thinking you can feed yourself. Before the true calamity of the nation, your so-called "scientific method" is exactly what Gu Hongming mocked — "the pronunciation of the lowly": loud and lively to the ear, but hollow to the core!' The clamor of the teahouse seemed to freeze at that moment. Du Ruo's face suddenly turned pale — not from the cold, but from shame and indignation. You had not only dismissed her idol Hu Shi; you had used the logic of Gu Hongming, a 'man of the old school' she utterly despised, to tear open the weakness beneath her 'modern woman' exterior. 'You... you're talking nonsense!' She sprang to her feet, chest heaving violently, her pen slapping hard against the table with a crack. 'I am no running dog of the foreigners! I want to save this country!' 'Save the country?' You looked at her, eyes burning like torches. 'Then take off your high heels and put away your pen. When the Japanese batter down the gates of Beiping, Mr. Shizhi's "reform" won't save you. Only Lu Xun's "backbone" and the "Chinese spirit" in Gu Hongming's mouth might let you die like a human being.' You stood, pressed a few copper coins under the teacup, and turned to walk into the wind and snow, leaving Du Ruo alone where she stood. Outside, snow fell in great drifts, dyeing the city of Beiping a ghastly white. Du Ruo looked at the copy of Hu Shi's Collected Essays on the table and, for the first time, felt that the words on its pages were unbearably glaring — so... pale and powerless.