作品原文

宗璞 《送春》

说起燕园的野花，声势最为浩大的，要数二月兰了。它们本是很单薄的，脆弱的茎，几片叶子，顶上开着小朵小朵简单的花。可是开成一大片，就形成春光中重要的色调。阴历二月，它们已探头探脑地出现在地上，然后忽然一下子就成了一大片。一大片深紫浅紫的颜色，不知为什么总有点朦胧。房前屋后，路边沟沿，都让它们占据了，熏染了。看起来，好像比它们实际占的地盘还要大。微风过处，花面起伏，丰富的各种层次的紫色一闪一闲地滚动着，仿佛还要到别处去涂抹。

没有人种过这花，但它每年都大开而特开。童年在清华，屋旁小溪边，便是它们的世界。人们不在意有这些花，它们也不在意人们是否在意，只管尽情地开放。那多变化的紫色，贯穿了我所经历的几十个春天。只在昆明那几年让白色的木香花代替了。木香花以后的岁月，便定格在燕园，而燕园的明媚春光，是少不了二月兰的。

斯诺墓所在的小山后面，人迹罕到，便成了二月兰的天下。从路边到山坡，在树与树之间，挤满花朵。有一小块颜色很深，像需要些水化一化；有一块颜色很浅，近乎白色。在深色中有浅色的花朵，形成一些小亮点儿；在浅色中又有深色的笔触，免得它太轻灵。深深浅浅联成一片。这条路我也是不常走的，但每年春天，总要多来几回，看看这些小友。

其实我家近处，便有大片二月兰。各芳邻门前都有特色，有人从荷兰带回郁金香，有人从近处花圃移来各色花草。这家因主人年老，从孙远居海外，没有人侍弄园子，倒给了二月兰充分发展的机会。春来开得满园，像一块花毯，衬着边上的绿松墙。花朵们往松墙的缝隙间直挤过去，稳重的松树也含笑望着它们。

这花开得好放肆！我心里说。我家屋后，一条弯弯的石径两侧直到后窗下，每到春来，都是二月兰的领地。面积虽小，也在尽情抛洒春光。不想一次有人来收拾院子，给枯草烧了一把火，说也要给野花立规矩。次年春天便不见了二月兰，它受不了规矩。野草却依旧猛长。我简直想给二月兰写信，邀请它们重返家园。信是无处投递，乃特地从附近移了几棵，也尚未见功效。

许多人不知道二月兰为何许花，甚至语文教科书的插图也把它画成兰花的模样。兰花素有花中君子之称，品高香幽。二月兰虽也有个兰字，可完全与兰花没有关系，也不想攀高枝，只悄悄从泥土中钻出来，如火如荼点缀了春光，又悄悄落尽。我曾建议一年轻画徒，画一画这野花，最好用水彩，用印象派手法。年轻人交来一幅画稿，在灰暗的背景中只有一枝伶仃的花，又依照“现代”眼光，在花旁画了一个破竹篮。

“这不是二月兰的典型姿态。”我心里评判着。二月兰是一大片一大片的，千军万马。身躯瘦弱地位卑下，却高扬着活力，看了让人透不过气来。而且它们不只开得隆重茂盛，尽情尽性，还有持久的精神。这是今春才悟到的。

因为病，因为懒，常几日不出房门。整个春天各种花开花谢，来去匆匆，有的便不得见。却总见二月兰不动声色地开在那里，似乎随时在等候，问一句：“你好些吗？”

又是一次小病后，在园中行走。忽觉绿色满眼，已为遮蔽炎热作准备。走到二月兰的领地时，不见花朵，只剩下绿色直连到松墙。好像原有一天张绚烂的彩画，现在掀过去了，卷起来了，放在什么地方，以待来年。

我知道，春归去了。

在领地徘徊了一会儿，忽然意识到二月兰的忠心和执著。从春如十三女儿学绣时，它便开花，直到雨孱风愁，春深春老。它迎春来，伴春去，送春去。古诗云“开到荼蘼花事了”，我始终不知荼蘼是什么样儿，却亲见二月兰蓦然消失，是春归的一个指征。

迎春人人欢喜，有谁喜欢送春？忠心的、执著的二月兰没有推托这个任务。

作品译文

Farewell to Spring

Of all the wild flowers in Yanyuan, the campus of Peking University, the most luxuriant would be the February orchids. They are originally very fragile, with delicate stems and plain, tiny flowers. Yet, after blossoming into an expanse, they become the dominant color of spring. Each February in our lunar calendar, they push through the earth and leap into an amplitude of both dark and pale purple, mysteriously nebulous. They creep around houses, alongside roads and ditches, and seem to immerse and season everything. Whenever, there is a breeze, their flowery surface would ripple out, its shades of purple twirling and rolling, as if aspiring to reach further out.

No one had ever planted the flower, but it flourished year after year. During my childhood living on the campus of Qinghua University, it took up the space around our house and the ban of the creek nearly. People did not care about it, nor did it long for their concern; it just kept on blossoming. Its constant changing shades of purple threaded through several decades of my life, with only the exception of a few years in Kunming when it was replaced by the white osmanthus. My life afterward has been bound to Yanyuan, where the February orchid has always maintained its presence in the radiance of spring.

People rarely go near Edgar Snow’s grave behind the hill, so the place has become the domain of the February orchid. The flowers swarm from the roadside to the slope, and among the trees. The strip that has a dark shade invites toning down, another patch looks almost pale white. The fair petals stand out in relief among the darker ones forming tiny bright spots, while the dark expanse gradually shades off in self-restraint. I do not usually frequent this trail, but in the spring I would always go there a few times to see my tiny friends.

As a matter of fact, there is a large stretch of February orchids near my house. The gardens of my neighbors are all unique each in their own way. Some have brought tulips back from Holland, some have transplanted flowers and grass from nearby nurseries. The owner of one house does not tend to his garden because he is old and his son and grandson live abroad; this provides the February orchid an opportunity to flourish unchecked. When spring comes, it grows into a thick carpet o flowers against a wall of pines. The tiny flowers squeeze into the crevices of the pines and even the staid trees seem to smile down at them indulgently.

“How profusely do they blossom!” I murmured to myself. At the back of my house, when spring comes round, they dominate both sides of a meandering stone-paved lane which leads to my back window. Though not a big patch, they cheerfully emanate the radiance of spring. Unexpectedly, some one came once to clean up the yard and burned the withered grass according to regulations. The February orchids disappeared the next spring. They could not stand regulations. The weeds, on the other hand, continued to grow like mad. I wanted to write to the February orchids, asking them to come back to their native garden. Of course there was nowhere to send such a letter. I transplanted a few stalks from nearby, but it didn’t work.

Many people do not know what the February orchid looks like; even its pictures in Chinese textbooks look like the classic orchid. The orchid has always been known as the “gentleman” among flowers, with its elegance and faint aroma. The February orchid shares the word “orchid,” otherwise it has nothing in common with the “gentleman” orchid, and it does not aspire to kinship. It simply creeps out of the earth in silence, adorning the spring, then fades away unnoticed. Once I asked an art student to draw this wild flower, and suggested that it be done in water color in an impressionist style. The young man gave me a sketch of a lone February orchid in bloom and added on a “postmodern” touch—a battered bamboo basket on the side.

“This is not typical of the February orchid,” I commented in my heart. February orchids come in droves. Frail an lowly, they nevertheless shimmer and shine with a life force which overwhelms the beholder. And they bloom on stubbornly, something which I did not realize until this last spring.
Ill and lazy, I had not ventured out for quite some time. Spring flowers of various kinds come and go quickly, so I had missed some of them. Yet the February orchids had stayed on, as if waiting to ask me: “Are you better?”

Later, after another bout of illness, I walked into the garden one day. Suddenly my eyes meet an expanse of green which had see no flowers, but green extending to the wall of pines, like an immense painting now rolled over to be stored for the coming year. I know spring is over.

Pacing up and down in the world of green, I suddenly realize the loyalty and tenacity of the February orchid. It begins to blossom with the first tender breath of spring when “the maiden of thirteen first learns to embroider,” and lasts until late in the season when drizzles and gusts of wind bring on melancholy. It greets spring, ushers it in and sees it off. When the February orchids finally disappear, I know that spring is over.

Everyone likes to welcome spring. Who would like to send it away? The loyal and tenacious February orchid does not reject this task.