On April 27, 1924, Lin Zixuan visited Luxun.

The reason I chose this day is because it is Sunday, Luxun serves in the Ministry of Education and only has one day off a week.

This system of seven-day rest day was introduced from the West. In ancient China, officials usually had one day off for ten days.

In 1882, Fuzhou Naval Academy implemented Sunday holidays to take care of the living habits of foreign teachers.

In 1906, the central departments of the Qing government had successively implemented the Sunday public holiday system. By 1911, seven days off had become a practice for government departments.

Lin Zixuan brought some Shanghai specialties to Luxun, which was not worth much, mainly because of his intentions.

He originally wanted to give the book he wrote to Luxun, but after thinking about it, he would just forget it.

First, there is suspicion of showing off, and second, he copied these books, so there is no need to be taken to a real writer. It is enough to give a sense of existence in Western society.

Luxun is from Shaoxing, Zhejiang. Speaking of which, everyone is from the south, and there is little difference in living habits.

To be honest, perhaps because of the influence of later generations, in Lin Zixuan's mind, Lu Xun is the kind of fighter whoever he catches and scolds him. When he came to visit, he was quite nervous.

In the literary world during the Republic of China period, there were only a handful of literati who had never been scolded by Luxun.

Guo Moruo once said: "Of course, Luxun doesn't scold anyone except himself."

Luxun is different from Hu Shi. Hu Shi gives people the feeling that he is a humble person. Even if he has any objections to you, he will keep it in his heart. He will only accuse him when he is extremely angry. This situation is very rare.

At this time, Lu Xun was already forty-three years old. It basically matched the image in later generations.

Lin Zixuan came to visit as a student. He studied Luxun's articles in later generations, and it was not an exaggeration to say that it was a student. This is also a basic etiquette.

Lu Xun chatted with Lin Zixuan in the study room for nearly an hour, and most of the topics revolve around new literature.

He was more interested in the current situation of the Shanghai literary world and criticized the old literature of the Mandarin duck butterfly school, hoping that Lin Zixuan could write more new literary works that reflect real life.

He held reservations about the "organization of national past" advocated by Hu Shi.

Finally, I talked about this new literature series. Luxun seemed a little worried.

He felt that new literature had just developed and was not very mature. If you took it abroad to show it, it would probably not be able to introduce China well.

"You understand that Western literature has been developed for hundreds of years. New literature has only been a few years. It is still exploring the content and form. It is very immature and rashly taken out. Instead, it is underestimated." Lu Xun said.

Lin Zixuan believes that cultural exchanges are mutual.

While Chinese people understand the West, they should also let Westerners understand China. Literature is undoubtedly the best way of communication, which can let Western society know what is happening in China.

The two did not talk about Tagore and avoided this hot topic that was discussed in Peking.

Because on this day, Tagore went to the Forbidden City with the introduction of Fu Yi's English teacher, the British man Zhuang Shidun, and met with Fu Yi, the deposed emperor of the Qing Dynasty. He also visited the Imperial Garden.

This undoubtedly found a new reason for Chen Duxiu to attack.

In an article titled "What is Tagore?", he said that Tagore "has never said a serious word" when he went to Beijing, but only dealt with Emperor Puyi of the Qing Dynasty, monks from Fayuan Temple, young women in the Buddhist world, and Mei Lanfang for a while...

"What is he!"

He also said, "Tagor barked in Beijing for a while. In fact, his great oriental spirit is still a small witch compared to Beijing society..."

In fact, Lin Zixuan also wanted to go to the Forbidden City to take a look, and to learn how the emperor lived with a curious attitude.

In later generations, the Forbidden City was the place with the most tourists in Beijing, and it was comparable to the Badaling Great Wall. The main reason was people's curiosity about the life of the palace.

But Lin Zixuan didn't go.

The year before, Hu Shijingong and Fu Yi talked for half an hour. After coming out, he was scolded by those progressive people for half a year, which became a stain on Hu Shi. He didn't want to follow Hu Shi's footsteps.

In the afternoon, Luxun found someone who translated the novel collection "Call to Arms", and the translator was named Lin Yutang.

Lin Yutang was from Fujian and went to Harvard University in the United States to study in the Department of Literature in the fall of 1919.

After studying for a year, the scholarship was stopped, so he had to go to France to work. Later, he went to Germany and studied at the University of Jena.

In 1922, he obtained a master's degree from Harvard University by transferring credits, and then went to the University of Leipzig to study comparative linguistics, and obtained a doctorate degree in 19 years.

In the same year, he returned to China and served as professor at Peking University, provost of Beijing Women's Normal University and chair of the English Department.

Lu Xun also taught part-time at the Women's Normal University and was a colleague of the school with Lin Yutang. He knew that Lin Yutang was proficient in English, so he introduced Lin Yutang to Lin Zixuan.

Interestingly, Lin Yutang is also one of the people who attacked Tagore.

He once said: "I don't think Tagore has anything to do with my spiritual life, I never think he has any meaning, and how impulsive he has brought me."

He also believed that Tagore talked about a painless spiritual life, "a reaction to the environment of destruction."

Lin Zixuan had no prejudice against Lin Yutang. Anyway, it was Lu Xun's introduction, and anyone could translate, so he talked to Lin Yutang about the issue of translation costs.

In this era, copyright laws are not perfect, and everyone negotiates and then acts according to the contract.

There are generally two types of fees for translators.

One is that the translator receives the royalties and pays them in one lump sum, or the publishing house buys out the translator's royalties.

Another way is that the translator takes royalties and calculates the money based on the sales volume of the book. The payment time is relatively long. If the book cannot be sold, the translator will have no income.

Lin Zixuan felt that the sales of books abroad would not be good this time, so he gave Pearl Buck a high translation fee.

In the process of promoting the new literature series, Lin Zixuan could only be regarded as a middleman, and he also had to negotiate with foreign publishers to determine the final royalty allocation.

Lin Yutang lived in the West for a few years, read literature, and had some understanding of the Western "Copyright Law".

He did not accept the one-time payment, but chose royalties.

He also felt that he should talk about royalties with foreign publishers, which meant that he did not believe in Lin Zixuan and thought that Lin Zixuan had collusion with foreign publishers.

Lin Zixuan was speechless about this. He would rather pay a high amount of translation payment than do so many things.

Although both of them have surnames Lin, he doesn't feel very good about Lin Yutang.

The interview was not going well this time.

He cannot accuse Lin Yutang of his request. After all, this is a legitimate request. The question is whether foreign publishers are willing to talk to you.

Lin Zixuan didn't want Lin Yutang to contact foreign publishing houses, and Lin Yutang was more and more aware that there was something wrong with it, and hinted that Lu Xun was unreliable.

Coupled with Luxun’s concerns about publishing, this matter has been temporarily put on hold.

Lin Zixuan remembered that in the end Luxun and Lin Yutang also broke up, and they reached the point of cursing each other in public.

Before Luxun's death, he left a passage that could explain Luxun's character very well.
Chapter completed!