My relations with Wei Lien-shu were, come to think of it, rather odd, for they began with one funeral and ended with another.
I used to hear his name mentioned when I was at the city of S. It was said that he was a very strange fellow: He specialized in zoology and yet taught history in the middle school; he was aloof and supercilious in manner and yet had a tendency to mind other people's business; he insisted that the family system must be destroyed and yet he always sent part of his salary to his grandmother as soon as he received it, with never a day's delay. There were many other stories told about him. He was, in a word, a character in the city of S, an unfailing topic for idle conversation. In the fall of one year I happened to be staying with some relatives at Cold Stone Mountain. Their name was Wei and they were Lien-shu's kin. But they knew even less than I about him and seemed to look upon him as if he were a foreigner. "He is different from us all," they said in summing him up.
This was not strange, for although modern education already had a history of over twenty years in China, Cold Stone Mountain did not even have a primary school. In this mountain village Lien-shu was the only one who had gone out to study. He was, therefore, really different. However, they also envied him, for he was said to earn a lot of money.
Toward the end of fall, dysentery began to be prevalent.
