The author was a family friend from Lydia's childhood.
In the book, its protagonist Li Lan receives a proposal of marriage from the wealthy family of Lim Tian Ching, a young man who died of fever a few months earlier.
我們甚至失去了黃昏
詩/聶魯達 譯/李宗榮
我們甚至失去了黃昏的顏色。
當藍色的夜墜落在世界時,
沒人看見我們手牽著手。
從我的窗戶中我已經看見
在遙遠的山頂上落日的祭典。
有時候一片太陽
在我的雙掌間如硬幣燃燒。
在你熟知的我的哀傷中
我憶及了你,靈魂肅斂。
彼時,你在哪裡呢?
那裡還有些什麼人?
說些什麼?
為什麼當我哀傷且感覺到你遠離時,
全部的愛會突如其然的來臨呢?
暮色中如常發生的,
書本掉落了下來,
我的披肩像受傷的小狗踡躺在腳邊。
總是如此,
朝暮色抹去雕像的方向
你總是藉黃昏隱沒。
Clenched Soul
We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.
I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.
Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.
I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.
Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?
The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.
Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues.
"I was truly enthralled by the events documented by TWELVE 11 (a rarity, frankly), and was actually hoping that Loh Yin San would post her works on Youtube or somewhere just so that it could gain a much wider audience beyond festival circuits as she has had some difficulties trying to get TV stations to broadcast the documentary. I personally would try to help her spread the film around."
"The passing days and months are eternal travellers in time. The years that come and go are travellers too. Life itself is a journey; and as for those who spend their days upon the waters in ships and those who grow old leading horses, their very home is the open road. And some poets of old there were who died while travelling.
There came a day when the clouds drifting along with the wind aroused a wanderlust in me, and I set off on a journey to roam along the seashores. I returned to my hut on the riverbank last autumn, and by the time I had swept away the cobwebs, the year was over.
But when spring came with its misty skies, the god of temptation possessed me with a longing to pass the Barrier of Shirakawa, and road gods beckoned, and I could not set my mind to anything. So I mended my breeches, put new cords on my hat, and as I burned moxa on my knees to make them strong, I was already dreaming of the moon over Matsushima.
I sold my home and moved into Sampû’s guest house, but before I left my cottage I composed a verse and inscribed it on a poem strip which I hung upon a pillar:
This rude hermit cell
Will be different now, knowing Dolls’
Festival as well."