The Hours of Tedium
Su Xuelin

In my recent year’s correspondence with friends, I frequently mention a word unconsciously. The word, “I only feel tedious; tedium has overwhelmed me like a serpent”, seems to be from Lu Xun’s “Preface” to Calling to Arms, which I have especially like quoting. In my mind, tedium is something with magical powers; once put under its spell, you can never get rid of it, as if wrapped around by the snake in Indian forest, which is both holy and enchanting in the eyes of the locals.

The view around my present dwelling is not bad. Beyond the overhanging trees lies the silver sheet of Huangpu River glittering in the sunlight; sloops in twos or threes floated by every now and then, the reflections of their white bulging sails gliding along the still water, very much like the amber clouds moving slowly forward with the wind; from time to time, the breeze wafts the roar of the sea across the window. Silent is the universe, whose heart though never ceases to beat, and whose song never stops. What nature unfolds before me is so sublime, beautiful and adorable. Yet in the hours so tedium, all these views appear life less and pale to me, and only produce in me a feeling of apathy

I have had many ups and downs in life, and to look back on the past years now is no other than a kind of suffering. Yet when the feeling of apathy gradually encroaches upon my heart, I should wish all the past sorrows came over again, for that way I might have a higher spirit. Since have no courage to commit suicide as Ryunosuke Akutagawa once did, nor would I reconcile myself to the prospect of eternal apathy, I can only find another way to relieve the tedium and idle the time.

A loner by nature, I have little interest in all forms of social entertainment popular nowadays. My living in suburbs has further removed the possibility of anyone calling upon me. Thus apart from taking a personal walk into the fields, I can only stay indoors, doodling on a piece of paper, or taking a book out of the shelf and reading. If coming to wonderful chapters, I would write them down, as a kind of notes, in case I might refer to them later in my leisure time.

Besides reading, corresponding with bosom friends can also delight me to some degree, for in letters I can say what I like. Although our topics are all some trifles, our language in disorder, yet I needn’t weigh my words or measure my tone, nor do I have to organize my ideas in a way as precise as doing a paper. I can write what I think; my pen follows my mind, and goes where my mind chooses to go. Thus letters are indeed the spontaneous overflow of my personality, and the true voice of my heat. I like the casualness in writing letters, and trust my friends who read them must have the same feelings with me.

But the problem is, although I do have several friends, they all have their own business. And if I write to them, they have to take time off their busy schedule and reply to me. I feel sorry that just because I need to relieve my tedium. I should bother them to read my letters and send me replies. Thus the idea occurs to me that I can write to myself, and speak to myself.

I think of a female writer who I got to know when studying in Lyon years ago. Her husband was them Dean of the Architecture Department in Lyon’s Ecole Nationale Des Beaux-Arts, who was the very designer of the famous Fourviere Basilica. I had visited her house for several times, and saw many landscape paintings hanging over their walls, which were all born out of the architect’s hands of course. Those paintings were not so good’ art was not his sphere of specialty after all. But the lines were all thin and light, flashing with inspiration. On one painting framed with a bronze tablet, there was a line of inscription reading The Hours of Tedium.

Although constantly crying tedium then, I had not yet felt in real in bones. But the view of the architect, and his painting with the line of inscription had aroused a strange feeling in me and puzzled me deeply. Can a man as lofty and reverend as him, whose mind could admit a great basilica, also feel tedium sometimes? And it is for what reason that he should frame those paintings and hang them in his living room and study, as if meant to be a lasting memorial to something?

Now it has been a long time since I left France and lost in touch with that female writer. It was said that her husband had passed away. I don’t know whether the news was true or not, but those casual paintings of gray and pink, together with that line of inscription born out of his hands had impressed me greatly. It was the first time I ever paid attention to the word “tedium”.

This small essay, together with those letters I once wrote to friends or to myself, can well be regarded as the paintings of my heart. It is to show the deep impact the architect and his paintings had on me that I cite his line of inscription directly to title this painting of my heart, though it might mean quite otherwise actually.