Tsing Hua, Peking
December 30, 1956
Dear Wilma:
It is a pleasant surprise to hear from you again after all these long years. I was away in Poland and Germany when T. S. came back with your warm letter which reached me only after my return to Peking a few days ago.
Yes, Wilma, I know that you will share with me my grief over P.'s death and I am deeply touched by your sympathy and condolescence. It is more than a year and a half now. She fought most courageously against her poor health and was undaunted till the last moment. It may console you a little to know that she was never so happy over life and work as in her last 6½ years. Like all the intelligentsia in China today, she had already seen with unshakable conviction and absolute self-confidence a picture of the great and bright future for her country and her people. In spite of her very poor health, she proudly shares with other architects the responsibility and burden of reconstructing the country and the training of future generations of architects. She was appointed a top-rank architect of the Municipality of Peking and a member of the City Planning Commission, concurrently teaching in Tsing Hua, and was elected a representative of the People's Representatives' Congress of Peking. She even found opportunities in improving the designs of cloisonné (remember how ugly they could be?!) and "soaked" herself in the workshops for days on a stretch,working together with the artisans and created articles of exquisite beauty.
She was still bending over her drawing board, sitting in bed, against the advice of doctors and disregarding the protests of the family and friends, till a few days before she was taken to the hospital on Feb. 12,'55. She was 50, and ill, but her enthusiasm was as high as ever, as you knew her years ago. She was confident that she would recover soon and be back to work again. But in spite of all the efforts of the doctors, she lost her last battle on April 1st. Perhaps her only regret is that she did not live to see the radiant future for which she contributed every ounce of strength of her last few years' life.
亲爱的威尔玛：
多年以后再次收到你的来信，真令我感到惊喜。（钱）端升带回来你热情洋溢的信件的时候，我正在波兰和德国。几天前，我刚结束访问回到北京，就收到了你的来信。
是的，威尔玛，我对徽因的病逝痛不欲生，我想你也会和我一样悲伤。你的同情和慰问让我非常感动。徽因的离去已经超过一年半时间了。她非常勇敢地同病魔战斗，直到最后一刻也没有畏缩。她从来没有像生命中最后六年半时间里那样，为生活和工作而如此幸福——我想这会使你感到稍许宽慰。像今天中国的知识精英一样，徽因对她的祖国和人民伟大光明的前途有着坚定不移的自信。她拖着病体，与其他建筑师一起非常自豪地承担重建国家和培养下一代建筑师的责任和重担。她被任命为北京市高级建筑师和北京市都市计划委员会委员，被推选为北京市人大代表；同时，她一边还在清华教课。她甚至觅得良机去改进景泰蓝的设计（你还记得它们是多么地不堪入目么?!），整天绷紧了弦泡在车间里，与工匠们一起工作，创造精美的款式。
她不听从医生的忠告和家人朋友的反对，即使卧病在床仍然离不开画板，直到1955年2月12日被送往医院的前几天。她当时已经有50岁了，病魔缠身，但是她的激情与你多年前认识她的时候一样高昂。她相信自己将会很快康复，并重新投入工作。尽管医生们竭尽全力，她还是在4月1日结束了人生的这场战斗。她在最后几年光阴里耗尽精力为之奋斗的事业，其未来是如何地光辉，这个她没有亲眼见到，也许是她唯一的遗憾。
Ever since 1949, she was given the best medical care by the Government (all free of charge, of course) and, after her death, in recognition of her service to the people, was buried in the People's Revolutionary Cemetery near 八宝山. Only if she had such case a few years earlier, she would have a much better chance to recover, and would be able to do much much more.
Yes, Wilma, P.'s death is a terrible blow to me and an irretrievable loss to many of our friends, Lao Chin, Hsi-jo and T. S. especially, and to many younger members of the teaching staff in Tsing Hua. I found work difficult without her cooperation to which I was so accustomed for nearly 30 years. It took me considerable length of time to pull myself together again and proceed with work. But, you can well imagine, how limped I am without her guiding wisdom and never failing encouragement on which I was almost completely dependent.
As to myself, I can only tell you that, like every architect, no, like almost everybody in China today, I have been very, very busy for the last eight years. In 1949, architects were transformed overnight from a mere social ornament to the post of vanguard of the country's reconstruction. Ever since 1949, I have been working on the planning of Peking, but did comparatively little in the designing of individual buildings. If you come today, you will find Peking very much changed.Hundreds of new buildings have sprung up, most of them in the suburbs—enormous cotton mills with their workers' dormitories in the East suburbs where you used to go riding with P.; the North and N.W.suburbs covered with numerous new buildings of new institutions of higher education. All these connected by miles and miles of new roads.And by the way, talking about roads, the road from 西直门 to the Summer Palace is now a double driveway, and on Sundays and holidays, when the Summer Palace (usually) gets as crowded as the Tung-an Shih-chang (unimaginable?), the traffic flow on the driveway presents a sight unthinkable a few years ago, and of course the parking problem in front of the entrance to the Summer Palace duely becomes a headache for the city planner. The area around the former race-course and 八宝山 is now almost completely urbanized. In short,you will find Peking very much different from what you know of it from your memories.
1949年以来，她一直受到政府最好的医疗护理（当然一切都是免费的）；在她去世以后，为肯定徽因对人民的贡献，她被葬在八宝山附近的人民革命公墓。哪怕更早几年是这种情况，她将会有更好的机会康复，也将会做更多的事情。
是的，威尔玛，徽因的死对我是一个重大的打击，对我们的许多朋友以及清华大学的许多年轻教师而言也意味着不可挽回的损失，特别是老金（金岳霖）、（张）奚若和（钱）端升。近30年来，我早已习惯了她的协作，失之犹感寸步难行。我过了很长时间才使自己恢复平静、重新振作起来投入工作。但是，你能想象得到，她的睿智引导和从未间断的鼓励，是我所完全依赖的；缺少了这个，我就如同跛行夜路一般。
至于我自己，我只能告诉你，像每一个建筑师，不，像今天的大多数中国人一样，我在这八年里非常繁忙。1949年，建筑师从仅仅是社会的装饰品，一夜之间转变为国家重建的急先锋。1949年以来，我一直在忙于北京城市的规划，在单体建筑的设计上所作相对甚少。如果你今天来到北京，会发现北京发生了翻天覆地的变化。成百上千的新建筑如雨后春笋般出现，它们大部分在郊区。在你从前经常和徽因一起骑马的东郊建起了大片的棉纺厂和工人的宿舍。北郊和西北郊满是新建高校的新建筑。穿连其中的则是一条条长长的新公路。说到公路，从西直门到颐和园的公路现在是双向车道。在周日和节日，颐和园（常）像东安市场一般拥挤（不能想象吧？），车流之繁忙为几年前所无法想象；当然，颐和园入口处停车的问题令城市的规划者颇为头疼。过去的赛马场和八宝山附近的区域现在已经几乎完全城市化了。简而言之，北京与你记忆中的印象大为不同了。
It may also interest you to know that the architectural department in Tsing Hua has grown to more than ten times its original size and by 1958, it will be expanded to about 600 undergraduate (plus about 50-60 graduate students). These boys and girls are all so eager to learn and so confident and aware of their responsibilities in the future that it is a joy to teach them. In spite of these vast expansions, but still, how they clamour for more and more architects.
Engaged principally in planning and teaching, I did comparatively little field work in Chinese architecture since 1949. But many of my former colleagues, who are now working in the Ministry of Culture, had done a great, great deal. Besides many important discoveries, they also did much in repair and restorations of ancient edifices, including the Sui Dynasty bridge at Chao-chou. Batches of archaeological workers from all over the country were given courses in Chinese architecture in successive summer training classes in which I gave series of lectures almost every summer. But recently, the Government decided to establish an Institute of Research in the History and Theory of Architecture, starting with a staff much bigger than that of the Ying-tsao Hsüeh-shê and I expect to devote at least half of my time to it.Perhaps you've already read about it in the Kuang-ming Jih-pao.
Perhaps it will be a surprise (or no surprise?) to you if I tell you that P.was already a grandma before she died, and that now I have already three grandchildren!! Tsai-ping (Bao-bao) has a son and a daughter and Chung-chieh (Hsiao-ti), a son. Chung-chieh's wife is Chou Ru-mei (May), Pei-yuan's daughter. Enclosed are a few snap-shots introducing the new members of the family.
还有一个消息也许会令你感兴趣：清华大学建筑系的规模已相当于初建之时的十多倍，到1958年它将扩展到拥有600名本科生（以及五六十名研究生）。这些孩子们都非常好学，非常清楚他们未来的责任，并且信心十足；所以，给他们教课是一件令人愉快的事。尽管建筑系扩展得很快，但我们仍然需要越来越多的建筑师。
1949年以后，我主要精力放在城市规划和教学工作上，对中国建筑的实地调查所作相较而言极少。但是我之前的很多同事现在在文化部工作，他们在这方面做了很多很多。除了一些重大的发现，他们在修复包括隋代赵州桥在内的古建筑方面也贡献颇多。连续几个暑期的训练班上，全国各地的考古工作者分批接受中国建筑方面的课程培训，几乎每个暑期我都为此作了一系列讲座。而就在最近，政府决定重新建立建筑历史与理论研究室，人员的数量要比营造学社大很多。我希望能把至少一半的时间投入其中。也许你已经在《光明日报》上看到了这一消息。
如果我告诉你徽因在去世之前已经成为祖母，而且我现在也已经有了三个孙辈孩子了，你也许会感到惊讶（或者不惊讶？）。再冰（宝宝）生了一儿一女，从诫（小弟）有了一个儿子。从诫的妻子是周如枚，是（周）培源的女儿。信里附上几张我家新成员的照片。
About your old friends, all I need to tell you is that they are all well and happy. They are happy in their work and very busy. I hope you and John will come and pay us a visit. (The door of New China is always wide open and many Americans have already been here.) You'll find great changes here. They are worthwhile seeing. And of your old friends, with the single exception of myself, the most noticeable change in their appearance is perhaps in their hair, especially Lao Chin and Hsi-jo, who are now almost completely white, but in spirit, as young as ever. In health, the only one who should be ashamed of himself is myself. I had a rather bad relapse of T.B. last year and was in the hospital for six months and later in the Summer Palace rest-curing for five months. But I have only myself to blame because I still insisted on working with such gusto as I did in the young days, a little too disproportionate to my age and present state of health. Now I have learnt to be wiser and promise to go slow and to apply my brake more diligently. I am determined to keep on going, moderate but conspirito,for at least another 25 years, because New China needs every architect—every single person's strength, no matter how meager his contribution.
In closing—One request and three wishes:
Request:—Will it be too much trouble for you to mail the drawings and photographs of Chinese architecture which I left with you back in '47to "Miss Chen Lau 刘蕙真, Methodist International House, 76, Osborne Rd., Newcastle-on-Tyne, 2, England"? I wish to make many revisions and additions to those drawings.
Wishes:—(1) that you will write again; (2) that you and J. will come and pay us a visit soon; (3) [much belated] A very Merry X'mas and a Happy New Year!
Yours,
Ssu-ch'eng
关于你的老朋友们，我要告诉你的是，他们都身体很好，也都非常幸福。他们非常开心地投入工作，也非常繁忙。我希望你和约翰（译者注：即费正清）能来看看我们。（新中国的大门永远是打开的，很多美国人已经来过这里。）你将会发现这里发生了巨大的变化。这些都值得看看。除了我以外，你的老朋友们在外貌上最显著的变化就是他们的头发，特别是老金和奚若，头发几乎全白了，但是精气神儿仍旧跟年轻时一样。在健康上，只有我自惭不已。去年，我因为肺结核复发住院六个月，尔后在颐和园疗养了五个月。这只能怨我自己，因为我仍然坚持像年轻时候一样干劲十足地去工作，这与我现在的年纪和健康状况有点不太相称。现在我学聪明了，答应会放慢脚步，勤踩刹车。我决定平和而精神饱满地至少再工作25年，因为新中国需要每一个建筑师、每一个人贡献力量，无论他的力量是多么微薄。
最后，一个请求和三个心愿：
请求——可否麻烦你将我1947年留在你那儿的中国建筑的绘图和照片邮寄给刘蕙真小姐？她的地址是 Methodist International House, 76, Osborne Rd., Newcastle-on-Tyne, 2, England。我想对那些绘图作多处修订和补充。
心愿——（一）你将会再写信过来；（二）你和约翰很快会来看望我们；（三）迟到的祝福：圣诞快乐！新年快乐！
思成
一九五六年十二月三十日
于北京清华大学
