Thus Friends Absent Speak
By Yu Guangzhong

To get letters from friends, especially airmail letters fromoverseas that bear the stamp of exotic climes, is unquestionably one of life'sgreatest pleasures, provided, that is, that they do not call for a reply.Answering letters is a heavy price to pay for the enjoyment of reading letters.The inevitable consequence of tardiness or infrequency in answering letters isa corresponding reductioning, and ultimate cessation of, the pleasure ofreceiving letters, in which case friendship is prematurely broken off, untilthe day in sackcloth and ashes you summon up the willpower to put pen to paperagain. Through this dilly-dallying the pleasure of receiving letters has turnedto the misery of owing letters. I am an old lag in this respect: practicallyevery one of the friends I have made in my comings and goings can recite frommy crime sheet. W. H. Auden once admitted that he was in the habit of shelvingimportant letters, preferring instead to curl up with a detective novel; whileOscar Wilde remarked to Henley: “I have known men come to London full of brightprospects and seen them complete wrecks in a few months through a habit ofanswering letters.” Clearly Wilde's view was that to enjoy life one shouldrenounce the bad habit of answering letters. So I am not the only one to befaint-hearted in the regard.

If it is conceded that replying to letters is to be dreaded, on theother hand, not replying to letters is by no means a matter of unalloyed bliss.Normally a hundred or so letters are stacked on my bookshelf, of diversematurity of debt outstanding, the longest being over a year. That kind ofpressure is more than an ordinary sinner can bear. A stack of unansweredletters battens on me like a bevy of plaintive ghosts and plays havoc with mysmitten conscience. In principle the letters are there for replying to. I canswear in all honesty that I have never while of sound mind determined not toanswer people's letters. The problem is a technical one. Suppose I had a wholesummer night at my disposal: should I first answer the letter that was senteighteen months ago, or that one that was sent seven months ago? After such along delay even the expiry date for apology and self-recrimination would surelyhave passed? In your friends' eyes, you have already stepped beyond the pale,are of no account. On the grapevine your reputation is “that impossiblefellow”.

Actually even if you screw up all your moral courage and settle downat your desk to pay off your letter debt come what may, the thing is easiersaid than done. Old epistles and new missives are jumbled up together andstuffed in the drawers or strewn on shelves; some have been answered, some not.As the poet was told about the recluse he was looking for: “I know he's inthese mountains, but in this mist I can't tell where.” The time and energy youwould spend to find the letter you have decided to answer would be severaltimes that needed to write the reply itself. If you went on to anticipate thatyour friend's reaction to receiving your letter would be less “surprised byjoy” than “resentment rekindled”, then your marrow would turn to water, andyour debt would never be cleared.

To leave letters unanswered is not equivalent to forgetting friends,no more than it is conceivable that debtors can forget their creditors. At thebottom of such disquietude, at the end of your nightmares, there forever lurksthe shadowy presence of this friend with his angry frown and baleful looks: no,you can never forget him. Those who you really put out of your mind, and do so withoutqualm, are those friends who have already been replied to.