Early in the morning in February 2022, the No. 18 bus in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province ushered in its old acquaintance, but the old acquaintance did not get on the bus today, he stood next to him and let the others get on first, "There are so many people, I am afraid that if I squeeze into me, the next bus will be empty."
The old acquaintance hunched his back, his hands behind his back, and looked intently in the direction from which No. 18 came.
In less than 5 minutes, the next No. 18 bus, which was less crowded, came slowly, he stretched out his crumpled hand, grabbed the doorknob hard, lifted his foot to board the bus, and sat in the window seat.
He has walked this road for more than 30 years, and the older drivers also know him, and he can always be seen on the few trips at 7 o'clock in the morning every day.
Who is he? Where is he going?
At first, the drivers didn't pay much attention to him, but they saw him more often, he would appear at a fixed time every day, get off at a fixed stop, and the drivers became more and more curious about him.
It wasn't until the appearance of a documentary that the drivers of the No. 18 bus solved the doubts in their hearts.
Their "old acquaintance", named Shen Xieyuan (xiè) yuan, is a "living fossil" of the Nanjing Library, now 98 years old, and for more than 30 years, he has insisted on coming to the library early every day to fulfill his dream.
Shen Xieyuan was a little late today, he got out of the car and walked into the library quickly, walked through the long corridor into the office, and his colleagues greeted him warmly, "Coming?" ”
Hmm", Shen Xieyuan responded to her with a smile and walked to the last position, where the table was full of books, and there was a small cart next to it, which was full of books.
Shen Xieyuan put down the bag, took out a red pen and black pen, skillfully took out a book from the pile of books, the sun illuminated the flying dust, Shen Xieyuan waved his hand indifferently, sat down and started today's work.
In 1924, Shen Xieyuan was born in Suzhou. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, he was admitted to Wuxi Sinology College with the second place, and from here he began his life of studying ancient books.
After graduation, Shen Xieyuan was invited by Gu Tinglong, then director of the Shanghai United Library, to work in the library. Later, after arriving at the Nanjing Library, he worked here until his retirement, and continued to report every day, rain or shine.
Wuxi Chinese Studies School.
In 1947, Shen Xieyuan completed the first draft of the book "The Annals of the Tu Gentry" at the Shanghai United Library.
Annals refer to works that record the life deeds of individuals in the chronicle genre. Liang Qichao once mentioned in "Chinese Historical Research Method" that it is difficult to make a chronology for those who have great achievements and many things, and those who have few materials.
The chronology of the Tu Gentry that Shen Xieyuan wanted to compile was particularly difficult to make. Tu Shen's achievements are outstanding, and he is the author of 20 volumes of notes** "Liuhe Internal and External Trivia" and the long literary language ** "History of the Dragon".
"The History of the Dragon" tells the story of the uprising of ethnic minorities in the Qing Dynasty against officers and soldiers. Although Tu Shen's writing is ancient and esoteric (referring to ancient and profound, not easy to understand), it has a strong magical color, objectively exposing the dark corruption of the Qing Dynasty's bureaucracy, and has been praised by Mr. Lu Xun, "with its style that others have not tried, it is enough to be called unique."
Shen Xieyuan used his spare time to find a lot of information, and before graduating, he wrote "The Chronicles of the Tu Shen Year" in Chinese, which was published on the full page of the newspaper, and in 1958, it was published under the name of "The Year of the Tu Shen".
Shen Xieyuan remembered the manuscript fee at that time, and a deep smile appeared on his wrinkled face, "The price of this book was two cents at that time, and the manuscript fee was 500 yuan, which is amazing." I used this money to buy an imported Swiss watch, and in Xinjiekou, Nanjing, I made a coat out of imported materials, and I ended up with some money left, but I was happy."
This "Annals of the Tu Gentry" also provided basic material for later generations when they were Tu Gentry.
In 1948, after graduating, Shen Xieyuan officially entered the Shanghai United Library. At that time, during the war, the Kuomintang occupied the gate of the library and piled up a lot of sandbags as a fortress, and these staff could only enter and exit through the back door, and no one usually came to read the books.
Gu Tinglong's assignment to Shen Xieyuan was only to copy books, and when he finished copying the 20,000-word Wu Daxi's "Huanghua Chronicles" with one stroke, the Kuomintang also withdrew from Shanghai.
Shanghai United Library.
In 1975, when he was critically ill, he was still concerned about the cause of China's library. Since the late Qing Dynasty, wars have occurred frequently, and a large number of ancient and rare books in China are scattered everywhere, and a large-scale inventory and investigation are urgently needed.
** It was proposed that "the general catalogue of rare books in the country should be compiled as soon as possible", thus starting the largest project of compiling rare books in China in the past 100 years.
In 1978, Shen Xieyuan received instructions to participate in the compilation of the Bibliography of Chinese Ancient Books and Rare Books, and served as the editor-in-chief of the sub-department.
Rare books refer to rare books that have historical relics, academic information and artistic representativeness and are less in circulation, and the lower limit of the age is roughly cut to the Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, as well as before the Xinhai Revolution, and the engravings, manuscripts, manuscripts, and school books with special value are included as rare books.
The Bibliography of Rare Books of Chinese Ancient Books, compiled by the Editorial Committee of Rare Books of Chinese Ancient Books, is a collection of rare books in China's existing public collections.
It contains about 130,000 rare books (excluding Taiwan Province) from 781 units such as libraries, museums, cultural relics preservation committees, institutions of higher learning, libraries of the Academy of Sciences, secondary schools, cultural centers, temples, etc. The arrangement method is basically arranged according to the four-part classification method, and the series of books is added, which is divided into five parts: classics, history, sub-books, collections, and series.
Shen Xieyuan recalled that back then, as if vividly, there were no computers and the Internet, hundreds of thousands of cards needed to be checked one by one with their eyes, and sometimes they were dazzled and had to look at them again.
The specifications of the cards sent by various libraries are not uniform, and some of the information is still wrong, which undoubtedly increases the workload for Shen Xieyuan and others, who can only rely on years of experience and knowledge to carefully screen these contents, correct the mistakes, and make up for the omissions.
Shen Xieyuan gave an example of the compilation work, "In the Qing Dynasty, there was a person named Tang Han, and those who don't understand it think that the person is called 'Tang Han', and the word 'inscription' is redundant, which is an obvious mistake and omission."
After 18 years, the final draft of "Bibliography of Chinese Ancient Books and Rare Books" was completed, and Shen Xieyuan breathed a sigh of relief.
In 1996, when the Catalogue of Rare Books was published, Fang Xing, director of the Shanghai Cultural Bureau, commented that the project was "not possible ten years earlier, and not ten years later". "Ten years ago, people were not yet together; Ten years later, there are no old-timers. ”
This Bibliography of Chinese Ancient Books and Rare Books surpasses the official bibliography and private bibliography of previous dynasties in terms of quantity and content, and is considered to be the most authoritative joint catalogue of rare books in China.
And Shen Xieyuan also went from being full of green silk to gray hair, and he dedicated the best time of his life to this "Bibliography of Chinese Ancient Rare Books", and the Ministry of Culture awarded him the "Special Contribution Award" after the completion of the project.
Shen Xieyuan took out a group photo at that time, the old hand rubbed the yellowed old **, he said nostalgically, "At that time, after taking the photo, they went back to their respective homes", and then he pointed to the person in the ** and said, "This is Mr. Pan Tianzhen, the consultant of the committee, this is Gu Lao, this is the deputy editor-in-chief ......."”
As he spoke, Shen Xieyuan's voice was a little choked, "It's a pity that many people are not here now." After completing the task, these "old men" left one by one, and future generations could only find the treasures they left behind through the lines.
As early as October 1955, Shen Xieyuan came to work in Nanjing Library, and this stay was 67 years.
After the completion of the work of "Bibliography of Chinese Ancient Books and Rare Books", Shen Xieyuan was already at the age of retirement, but he still came to work in Nanjing Library rain or shine, becoming a "living fossil" and "treasure" in the library.
Once colleagues have uncertain words or some questions, they will definitely be able to find the correct answer to him.
Shen Xieyuan, who has been relieved of his heavy responsibilities, finally has time and can continue to fulfill his dream.
He excitedly picked up the work of sorting out the inscriptions of the Qing Dynasty bibliophile Huang Pilie, and he touched the past paper and said, "This is a knot in my heart, if it weren't for the compilation work, it would have been completed long ago."
Huang Pilie is known as "the first person to collect books in the past 500 years", and has reached an unprecedented height in the quantity and quality of the collection. The content is mostly appraisal, appreciation, examination, note-taking, etc.), proofreading, examination, and engraving.
The ancient books inscribed by Huang Pilie mean that they have unique value in terms of edition and proofreading, and Huang Pilie's ancient books contain rich humanistic stories and are cherished by people. In the book collecting world, "Huang Ba" is already a special term, as long as there are "Huang Ba" ancient books will be recognized as heavyweight collections.
Shen Xieyuan quipped, "As long as there is a yellow treasure in the auction house, the value will go up immediately."
In the late Qing Dynasty, Pan Zuyin had engraved and printed six volumes of "Shiliju Collection of Book Inscriptions", and during the ** period, Miao Quansun also engraved ten volumes of "Xingpu Collection of Book Inscriptions". In the years since, many people have done Huang Pilie's sorting work.
However, because most of the ancient books are private collections, most people have never seen the original books, and the inscriptions are copied by others, and there are many errors and omissions.
In the early years, Nanjing Library pocketed a large number of books in Guoyunlou, including two inscriptions by Huang Pilie.
Nanjing Library.
Guoyunlou is a famous private library in the south of the Yangtze River, and it is known as "the collection of Jiangnan in the world, and the collection of the cloud building in the south of the Yangtze River". It was first founded by Gu Wenbin in the Qing Dynasty, and after 150 years of inheritance and collection by six generations of Gu people, there are more than 800 kinds of books in the collection of Song, Yuan, and ancient 椠 (qiàn), fine old copying, Ming and Qing dynasty carvings, and inscriptions.
With Shen Xieyuan alone, how can he fulfill his dream?
Shen Xieyuan named the sorted out Huang Pilie inscription "Shiliju Inscription".
In the first draft, he summarized the existing Huang Baji, and then divided the follow-up work into four steps: finding, comparing, supplementing, and proofreading.
The first step, "Finding", is the hardest part. Shen Xieyuan wanted to find out the original book with Huang Pilie's inscription from the vast sea of books.
Shen Xieyuan could borrow Huang Bayuan's original books owned by the Nanjing Library, and he also asked libraries, museums, research institutes, and bibliophiles from libraries, museums, research institutes, and bibliophiles in China and abroad for book shadows (referring to representative samples showing the layout and part of the content of books and periodicals). In the past, it was copied from the original book engraving or lithograph, but now it is more photocopied).
Shen Xieyuan also kept inquiring about other undiscovered Huang Ba and sorting them all out.
Every year, Shen Xieyuan could receive letters and materials from all over the world, some of which revealed Huang Ba's traces to him, and some of which asked him to verify Huang Ba's authenticity.
A colleague who has worked with Shen Xieyuan for many years recalled a scene many years ago, when He Jinyuan, who was on the editorial board of the "Bibliography of Chinese Ancient Rare Books", asked Shen Xieyuan to identify the authenticity of "Huang Pilie" in a certain engraved version of "Zhongwu Jiwen".
As soon as Shen Xieyuan opened the book, he only glanced at it and decided that it was copied by later generations, and he said that although the fonts were similar, there was a little bit of Huang Pilie's "charm" missing between the lines, and it was definitely not genuine.
Gu Tinglong once presented a pair of couplets to Shen Xieyuan, the upper one is "Fu Weng meets confidants in different generations", and the lower one is "Zhongli Hook Xuanxi Housheng", in which "Fu Weng" is Huang Pilie's number.
Shen Xieyuan is like a cross-era friend of Huang Pilie, and he has studied his words very thoroughly.
The second step is "comparison", Shen Xieyuan corrects errors and loopholes by comparing the Huang Baji written by his predecessors with the original books and book shadows.
Shen Xieyuan pointed to a place in the old book and said, "There is a 'still chaos' here", and then he opened the original book to find this place and said, "There is no scene in the back of 'still chaos', and there are hundreds of words missing."
This work is extremely tedious, Shen Xieyuan needs to be carefully compared, and sometimes there are typos, he needs to make a record one by one and correct the mistakes.
The third step, "Supplement", seems to be the easiest of all the steps. Shen Xieyuan added the new Huang Bao he found to the manuscript to complete the book "Shiliju Inscriptions", making it more accurate and providing researchers with very detailed information in the future.
In 2020, Shen Xieyuan's "Shiliju Inscription" has completed the first proofreading, he said, "The current "Shiliju Inscription" has more than 800,000 words, and the manuscript has been printed, and it needs to be proofread and proofread, especially the title should be re-examined. ”
This book includes more than 800 Huang Bao books and shadows collected by Shen Xieyuan from all over the world, as well as 10 newly discovered Huang Ba, which will become the best, most complete and most important collection of Huang Ba, at this time, it is only one step away from the completion of Shen Xieyuan's dream.
During his 67 years at the Nanjing Library, Shen Xieyuan did only two things, one was cataloguing and the other was book procurement.
Today, the museum has the "Top Ten Treasures of the Town Museum", two of which were purchased by Shen Xieyuan. One is the Northern Song Dynasty's "Greenhouse Bathing Monks' Sutra", which comes from one of the four major libraries in the late Qing Dynasty, and the other is the "Dafang Guangfo Huayan Sutra" of the Liao Dynasty, which has a history of thousands of years.
The greenhouse bathes the monks.
The latter's procurement process, Shen Xieyuan still remembers that it was in the 50s of the last century, Shen Xieyuan met with the seller on the streets of Shanghai, he got the "Dafang Guang Buddha Huayan Sutra", only half of it was unfolded and immediately concluded that it was genuine, and immediately asked the price, the seller said that he wanted 500 yuan, Shen Xieyuan didn't say a word, and ran away immediately after taking out the money, for fear that the seller would regret it.
Thinking of this, Shen Xieyuan's eyes smiled into a line, "This is all the usual accumulation, you can know it as soon as you get it in your hands, and it's too late to learn now."
There is a saying called "literati are good wine", Cao Cao once wrote "Short Song Xing", which mentioned "How to solve worries?" Only Du Kang". And Du Kang is the ancestor of winemaking in ancient Chinese legends.
Shen Xieyuan is also a good drinker, and he usually likes to have a drink when he eats, and he said with a smile, "My amount of alcohol is still okay, and that kind of 10-degree rice wine is no problem."
In addition, Shen Xieyuan also likes to watch **, watch "If You Are Honest, Do Not Disturb", in order to watch this variety show, he also specially bought a color TV, but now he has plunged into "Shiliju Inscription", and only retains his hobby of drinking wine and eating meat.
For 98-year-old Shen Xieyuan, everyone sometimes jokingly asks him how he takes care of it, Shen Xieyuan smiled and showed his last big tooth, waved his hand and said, "The secret of health is to go with the flow, don't get angry, and don't feel sorry for yourself all day long." It's best not to have too many hobbies, and the simpler life is, the better. ”
There is only one thing in Shen Xieyuan's life, that is, the bibliography of ancient book editions, he said, "A person can't always play in the world, use time to do something", dedicate his enthusiasm to feel young.
You will be very happy when you do what you are interested in, Shen Xieyuan only thinks about books, he said, "Living every day is the most important thing."
If you love something, you will put 200% of your energy into it, so that life will be full of vitality because of your love. Don't worry about no results and rewards, time will always give you a satisfactory answer.
Like Mr. Shen Xie, he dedicated his life to the bibliography of ancient book editions, and to this day he still has a dream to complete Huang Pilie's poetry collection and chronology.
He often says, "There is not enough time", every day in addition to eating, drinking tea, and going to the toilet, Shen Xieyuan sits firmly on the stool, racing against time to complete his dream.
Are we going to lie down and live our lives when we are so young?