Once an authoritative commentator said that there had been three greatest genius scholars in China. One is Confucius (551BC- 479BC) well known as the Chinese Sage, another is poet Li Po (701-762) as a Divine Poet of China, and still another is Lu Hsun (Lu Xun) (1881- 1936) as a General Commander of the Chinese Literature. Approximately every other 1300-years, one of them was born consecutively.

Lu Hsun was well known for his great works such as A Madman's Diary, Kung I-chi, Medicine, My Old Home, and especially, The True Story of Ah Q. Almost everyone used to think his “pen is mightier than a sword”, but not so many people know some detailed information about his love or his romantic stories.

Lu Hsun's mother was much more concerned about his marriage as she was told a young lady kept him company along the street in Tokyo, Japan. His mother took a fancy to one of the girls in Lu Shun's hometown, Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province. Her whole name was Zhu Ann at the age of 24 in 1906 [Zhu is her family name. Zhu is before her own name in Chinese way]. The girl behaved very well with good disposition and she treated everyone in good manners. Mother asked Lu Hsun to return home from Japan immediately by making a pretext that she had been seriously sick.

Well, Lu Hsun found his mother healthy and happy to meet him as he homed to her again. It's July 26, 1906 that Lu Hsun was forced to accept his mother's “gift” and got married with Zhu Ann. According to the traditional customs, Lu Hsun greeted the wedding sedan, showing his love to his bride and then with Zhu Ann did obeisance to their ancestors… Although they shared the bridal chamber, still Lu Hsun had kept awake for the whole night and 4 days later he went to Japan again by ship. Recalling what happened to him, Lu Hsun said: “Marrying Zhu Ann means accepting my mother's unexpected gift, that means my mother took a fancy to her as her daughter-in-law, but as for love, I don't know. However, I could take good care of her and earn a living for her.”

Every day Zhu Ann was cooking, washing or cleaning, sewing and serving for her mother-in-law carefully. She had repeated the same daily household job till she was 50 years old. But to her surprise, she saw a picture that Lu Hsun got married with his student Xu Guangping. Zhu Ann was absolutely disappointed and bitterly said: “As a great scholar, Mr. Lu was not good with me presumably due to my doing something wrong. If I served for him very well and took good care of him, he might be good with me one day. I seemed to be a snail climbing up from the bottom of the wall, and I thought I might get to the top of the wall. But now I had no courage and effort to fool myself for it's no use for me to do so again. ” However, she was not a jealous woman. She tolerated Lu Hsun's new choice and still showed her love to Mr. Lu and Mrs. Xu with their son. She firmly said: “I belong to Lu's family whenever I live; I 'll be a ghost of Lu's in hell whenever I die.”
Miss Xu Guangping was 17 years younger than her teacher Lu Hsun. As a student of Beiping [Peking, Beijing] Normal School (for girl-students), Xu had begun joining Lu Hsun's private life since 1923. At that time Lu Hsun seemed to be raunchy in appearance but clear in his teaching, deep in his thinking. She started to show her love by writing letters. At least Lu Hsun and she had written and exchanged more than 135 letters in all from November 3, 1925 through June 1929. Eventually, he made his final decision that he “could love…” after his careful consideration of Xu's indirect suggestion of love.

It's an interesting thing to read her first letter published in public. Lu Hsun answered her first letter, calling her “Brother Guangping” at the very beginning of his letter, which puzzled Miss Xu, and she asked Lu “why you called me in this way” when she wrote the second letter to him.

“Usually I would like to take my student or my old or new friends contacting with me lately as my ‘Brother' which is a little bit sweeter than their first name. “This is my own term only I know.” wrote Lu Hsun.

In her first letter, Miss Xu complained and criticized something unreasonable happened on the campus and finally she asked Lu a question “Is there any way to put some sweet into bitter medicine that will absolutely not be bitter? ”

Years later, Xu told her first love story to Lu Hsun. She told him that her father decided her to marry Gentleman Ma's son just three days after her birth while her father shared dinner with Gentleman Ma by cheering up to make such an engagement instead of herself. And her first true love was Li Xiaohui studying at Peking University. Xu once said that the young guy was “enthusiastic, chivalrous, smart, honest, upright, intelligent and hard-working”. She had been stubborn to fall in deep love with him at her age of 19, and firmly refused to marry Gentleman Ma' son. However her first true love, Li Xiaohui suffered from scarlatina and died young as he would be graduated a semester later. Xu was extremely regretful that his disease originated from his visiting her while Xu was first suffering from such scarlatina.

It's clear that Xu told Lu Hsun about her true love story on purpose, and she wanted to express such an idea that “All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. ”(Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina)

Lu Hsun and Xu Guangping had worked and lived along together for 13 years until he passed away on October 19,1936. The couple had loved each other, helped each other and learnt from each other, which was one of the most important reasons that Lu Hsun had great contributions to China and all over the world.

Usually, people used to think that Lu Hsun was a hard-boned man. He never stopped sharpening his pen and he was so dauntless and unyielding to expose and reveal all the enemies' ugly manners. His pen was mightier than any sword holding in his opponents and foes. As his serious disease promised that he had no time enough to complete what he wanted to do or write, he left a piece of paper entitled Death. “As I got fever, reminding one of the European ceremonies before one is going to die, which the dying man will be asked to forgive the other(s) or to be forgiven by the other(s). How many opponents and foes I have! If I were asked the same question, what would I like to answer? I think it over for a little while, I decide to answer: Let them hate me forever, but no one will be forgiven. ”

Lu Hsun had not compromised with any enemy. However, his heart was not like a stone; his mind was full of love. He loved all the common people with good intentions, but at the same time, he would like to point out their shortcomings in detail in his articles. Lu Hsun's love and hate were clearly demarcated.

Usually, people classify him into the first-class writer, but pay no attention to the fact that he was still a true poet. And also his poems perfectly reflect his great inner world with true love sense and affection. The following two poems will tell readers something about Lu Hsun's rich feelings. Let me translate them into English:

[Note: In 1931 Lu Xun copied the poem to his friend Xu Shoushang. Tr. Manfield Zhu]

Lu Hsun had written 61 poems in classical style. So far we could conclude that he was not only a great writer，but a true poet. Lu Hsun seemed to be a perfect alloy in nature, being made up with hard metal and soft one, and also like an iron tree with hard leaves but tender flowers. So we love Lu Hsun both with his sharp pen and with his romantic love story.

[附鲁迅诗二首的原文]

[注释]：
《鲁迅书简补遗》有这首诗，末题“未年之冬戏作，录请坪井先生哂正，鲁迅。” 坪井是上海的日本［竹条］崎医院的医生，曾给鲁迅的儿子海婴治痢疾。
①《战国策·赵策》触□（上“龙”下“言”）说赵太后，触把自己的小儿子托给 太后，要太后给他一个王宫卫对的职位。太后说：“丈夫亦爱怜其少子乎？”
②《易·乾·文言》：“风从虎。”《左传》宣公四年：“楚人……谓虎於菟。”

[注释]：
鲁迅于1931年（51岁）将该诗书赠给许寿裳。
［“灵台”指心灵；“神矢”指“神箭”。“寒星”出自宋玉《九辩》：“愿寄言夫流星兮”；“荃不察”源于屈原《离骚》：“荃不察余之衷情兮。荃是古书上说的一种香草。“轩辕”本指黄帝，这里系指自己的祖国。］