我母亲手中保存了40多年的九封三叔达夫寄自日本的家信，上世纪60年代初母亲将这批手札捐给了北京图书馆。当时北图只拍了一套照片送还给她作为纪念，她又将照片珍藏了20多年（所幸十年浩劫中她藏得很好，抄家时也没抄去）。直到1982年1月逝世前几个月，母亲才把她用厚纸剪制封套的一叠20张八寸照片交给了我。
多年来，母亲交我的这叠照片因几经迁徙，已经无从寻找。去年因举办名家手稿展览，我去信请问北京图书馆（现为国家图书馆）达夫叔的九封家书原件是否还在？得到图书馆肯定的答复，并应我的要求寄给我全套复印件。
郁达夫青少年时期留日8年，为何只有9封家书呢？从信中内容看，几乎每封信都有达夫新作的诗，估计当时母亲是为了学诗，为了要保存诗稿才把信保存下来，其余的信当时就毁去了。
1913年父亲（郁华烈士）二次东渡日本，带了刚刚结婚的20岁的母亲陈碧岑和幼弟郁达夫（当时叫郁文）同去，在东京租屋住下。父亲是当时大理院派去考察司法的，达夫叔入校学习日文，母亲后来也入女子家政学校。晚上各人功课完毕，在灯下兄弟二人谈古论今，吟诗联句，母亲也跟着学习作诗。后来母亲跟父亲回国以后寄达夫诗中有思念此时生活之句：“何日小屏红烛底，相将斗句理盘餐。”达夫叔9岁能诗，15岁入杭府中后不断写诗，还匿名向各报投稿。到日本一年以后剩下他一人，他很不容易地考入第八高等学校，虽然是学医，后来学经济，但给兄嫂的家书中几乎每封信都有诗。如：
昔年作客原非客，骨肉天涯尚剩三。
今日孤灯茶榻畔，共谁相对话江南？
对于母亲来说，在东京的一年是她的启蒙黄金时代，直到老年她还常常对我们说起。父亲自回到北京后因公事繁忙，与留在日本的幼弟通信则大半是母亲的事了。她不顾自己没有正经读过书，仍学着写诗寄达夫，如：
犹忆他乡同作客，那知今日独思君。
一家羁旅留京国，千里音书望暮云。
达夫立即和原韵酬答：
定知灯下君思我，只为风前我忆君。
积泪应添西逝水，关心长望北来云。
三叔把嫂嫂当作亲姐姐看待，而把长兄当作严父。他有时偷偷问嫂嫂多要点钱花，有时把为女性所烦扰而作的诗写给嫂嫂看，又注明“慎勿为曼兄见”。这一年正是到名古屋入“八高”后的1916年，也就是《沉沦》中主人公20岁时所经历的生活。长兄对他爱之深，责之严，他的得意经常要被扼制；如信中说：“曼兄再三戒弟以勿骄，前年弟曾有百钱财主笑人之习，近且欲对黄狗亦低头矣。前次狂言，唯向我亲爱之兄嫂言之，以示得意，决不至逢人乱道也。”他还写很长的信教长嫂学诗，发一通对唐诗和唐以后诸家的议论，从议论中可以看出，他早年喜欢清初吴梅村和王渔洋的诗，至于说“闺阁中人”不宜如何如何，倒并非特别轻视妇女，而是反映那个时代和他本人对女性美的看法。以上也只是他早年的见解，其后他转而寝馈宋诗，晚年也爱黄仲则，并且逐渐形成他自己的独特风格了。他在一张明信片中写了《奉寄》这样一首诗：
谁从乱世识机云。兄弟飘零几处分。
天下英雄君与操。富春人物我思君。
如今公论尊经济。敢把文章托盛勋。
记取当时灯下约。阿连有力净河汾。
千九百十八年十二月二十八日夜作
达夫虽然从青少年时期就经受悲苦寂寞，具有特别忧郁的气质，但时时总也离不开忧国忧民。这首诗就颇有以天下为己任的气概。即使在招来“颓废作家”头衔的早期代表作《沉沦》中，也执著地贯穿着对祖国贫弱的呼号。他在家书中有这样一段话：“……每有弃此红尘，逃归山谷，作野人想。是以日日课余后，跑三里余路至八事山（在名古屋西乡）散步，藉一得生人趣。近则以普度众生为心，即贫者病者，欲使之不贫不病。是以有暇辄埋头于书卷中，欲求得一真学问，使能用之于实事也。然脑病作矣，吁！弟不得不为天下苍生哭！……”
达夫叔终于在远离故国的苏门答腊死得那样惨烈，绝非偶然。在他殉难前不久的诗中已表明了与他早年的抱负相同但更为成熟开阔的心胸：
天意似将颂大任，微躯何厌忍饥寒。
长歌正气重来读，我比前贤路已宽。
这9封信是三叔从18岁到24岁时写的。说也奇怪，这里面几乎已经现出贯穿他一生的气质、爱好、才华以及对家乡祖国的思恋、烦闷、苦恼、思想矛盾……他十二三岁就喜欢写诗，十五六岁在杭州读书时曾投稿《神州日报》发表过诗，在日本时期从刚刚进入“八高”的1915年，就在校友会杂志以“春江钓徒”笔名发表诗作，尽管他开始是学医的，但后来在《新爱知新闻》和《太阳》杂志等当时诗坛权威严格选稿的刊物上发表过数以百计的诗作。从信中可看出他是按捺不住胸中沸腾着的情感，才形之于诗的。最后直到他晚年（说晚年，其实只40多岁）在印尼隐身流亡期间，再也不可能发表作品时，他仍然以写诗为难忍的痛苦之唯一寄托。
郁达夫的文学生命以诗开始，以诗告终。我曾读过日本稻叶昭二先生著《郁达夫——他的青春和诗》的中译本（浙江文艺出版社），其中对于郁达夫自1913—1922年在日本期间的一切学习（包括课程表和考试成绩）、生活、发表作品、交友、从师、住宿等等都提供了翔实周密的资料，乃至日本文艺界人士在30年代到上海、杭州以及郁达夫于1936年再到日本的相互交往和友谊，都有当事人的第一手记述。此外，稻叶昭二先生和其他几位日本学者还有不少关于郁达夫的研究专著，如铃木正夫曾专程去印尼为郁达夫之死作过调查，证明郁达夫确为日本宪兵残酷杀害，铃木正夫还将调查结论于1985年在富阳举行的纪念郁达夫殉难40周年学术讨论会上正式公布。他们都把郁达夫作为中国新文学的重要作家而又与日本有着那么密切的关联当作一个有国际影响的事例，但郁达夫却又是在侵华战争结束时死于日本宪兵之手，这是个悲剧。
稻叶昭二的书引用了大量资料，也包括关于我父亲的，父亲用的笔名我也是第一次知道。1909年父亲在日本留学时，写过东京竹枝词40首，以六郎、井久计云、郁庆云等笔名发表于《太阳》杂志，当时日本著名汉诗人森槐南给以很高评价，于是小弟弟达夫也跃跃欲试地模仿而又更出新地写出《日本竹枝词》12首，在《新爱知新闻》汉诗栏以《日本谣》为题发表。当时的日本汉诗盟主服部担风附了这样的评语：“郁君达夫留学吾邦犹未出一二年，而此方文物事情，几乎无不精通焉。自非才识轶群，断断不能。《日本谣》诸作，奇想妙喻，信手拈出。绝无矮人观场之憾，转有长爪爬痒之快。一唱三叹，舌挢不下。”据稻叶先生说：“服部担风对郁达夫就如同藤野先生之于鲁迅。”在“八高”时，他的学习成绩并不好，据稻叶先生查考，在预科毕业成绩官报中，郁文的名字列入丙类34人中的第28位，可是所有接触他的同学都一致说他“语学能力超群，爽快而机敏善辩”。当时除日语汉语外还要学英语、法语、德语。据说教他德语的对日本文学有很深造诣的老师阿诺德·哈恩先生，经常在课上课后和达夫用德语“畅谈些什么，快得大家都听不明白”。达夫在他自己后来写的回顾中说：“在高等学校里住了4年，共计所读的俄、德、英、日、法的小说加起来总有一千部内外。”而当时也在日本留学却比他小的冯乃超，曾听学校附近的旧书店老板说，达夫的买书读书量极丰富，常把读完的新出版的原著拿来卖掉，再买走一些新书。
达夫从青春时期就有出世、入世，悲观、革命的矛盾思想。他对于国家贫弱、军阀内战、留学生在外受辱痛彻于心，但又自卑：“天下大事非白面书生之所当言。”可是他几乎每封信都关心着国家大事：“只恐故园戈未息，烽烟缭乱怯登楼。”他对于日本的风土人情、语言文学、人物友好，从17岁开始到成熟期就有深深的爱恋种在心里，但对于日本帝国居高临下，把中国当作劣等民族的那种统治观念又憎恨得咬牙切齿，最突出的事例如他最爱读佐藤春夫的早期作品，后来直到上海互相往来且成为好友，但是当战争开始佐藤春夫以郭沫若为原型写了《亚洲之子》发表，为军国主义的东亚共荣骗局张目，达夫恨得立即回敬他一篇《日本的文士与娼妓》，把他骂得狗血喷头。
My Uncle’s Poems Written In Japan
By Yu Feng
The year 2006 marked the 100th anniversary of my uncle Yu Dafu (1896-1945). His literary career started and ended with poems. I write this article in his commemoration.
My mother had kept 9 letters sent home from Japan by my uncle for more than 40 years until she donated the letters to the Beijing Library in the 1960s. The library photographed the letters and gave her a batch of photocopies in memory of the letters. She hid the photos well that they survived the calamitous Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) when our house was illegally searched and property confiscated. A few months before she passed away in January, 1982, she gave me twenty 8-inch photocopies of the letters in a thick envelope which she made decades before.
Unfortunately I lost them as I have moved several times since then. On the occasion of the exhibition of literary masters?manuscripts last year, I wrote to the Beijing Library asking whether it still had the original letters. The answer was affirmative and the library sent me a complete set of copies at my request.
My uncle spent eight years in Japan. Why are there only nine letters left? Given that each of these letters contains poems, my conjecture is that my mother waned to learn how to write poems so she kept the nine letters with valued poems. Other letters were not kept.
In 1913, my father Yu Hua went to Japan again on a government mission to study the Japanese legal system.He traveled to Tokyo with my mother, who was 20 years old and had just married my father, and his younger brother Yu Dafu. They settled down in a rented house. Yu Dafu went to a school to learn Japanese and later my mother studied domestic economics at a women’s school. In the evenings, the two brothers would chat at home about nearly everything and then compose poems. Later my mother learned to compose poems too. One year later, my father and mother came back to China, but Yu Dafu stayed in Japan to further his study. He first studied medicine and later switched to economics. He wrote back to my father and mother regularly.
For my mother, the year in Tokyo was a year of enlightenment. In her twilight years, she often talked about the year in Tokyo. She also explained why she wrote to my uncle. She said my father was so busy with the government work that he asked her to write to their younger brother in Tokyo. Yu Dafu treated my mother as a sister and the elder brother as a strict father. Sometimes he asked my mother for some pocket money and now and then he confided in my mother about his unhappy romances in Japan.
The nine letters wrote over a period of 6 years from the year my uncle was 18 to the year when he was 24. Oddly enough, his early poems highlight nearly all major facets of his life: a burning passion, literary gift, personality, nostalgia for the homeland, frustrations, and contradictory thoughts, etc. My uncle started writing poems at 12. When he studied in a middle school in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, his poems were published in local newspapers. In Japan he continued writing poems. In 1915 his poems were published in a school magazine. Later, he had hundreds of poems published in authoritative newspapers and poetry journals in Japan. Before he was executed in his late forties in Indonesia, he wrote poems even though it was impossible to publish them.
Some Japanese scholars have conducted thorough studies on the life and works of my uncle. From their researches, I am able to know more about his life and poems. A Japanese scholar traced all the details of Yu Dafu’s life from 1913 to 1922 in Japan and his life as a writer back in China. The book records such details as his curriculum schedules, school report cards, everyday life, a list of his published works, friends and teachers and residences. The book also contains first-hand narrations of Japanese writers and artists who visited Yu in Shanghai and Hangzhou in the 1930s and Yu’s 1936 visit to Japan. A Japanese scholar went all the way to Indonesia to investigate Yu’s death there. He concluded that it was Japanese gendarmes that killed Yu Dafu in 1945. The investigation result was disclosed at an academic seminar held in Fuyang in 1985 in memory of the fortieth anniversary of my uncle’s death. Japanese friends regard Yu Dafu as an important writer in China’s new literature movement and also an international writer with close relationship with Japan. It was a tragedy that Japanese gendarmes killed Yu in the last months when Japan’s invasion into China was about to end.
According to Japanese scholars, Yu Dafu’s poems were highly evaluated by Japanese poets of that time. Some of his classmates recalled that Yu Dafu had a gift for language though he got poor scores for other subjects. During the four years in the high school in Japan, he studied Japanese, Chinese, English, French, and German. In his own reminiscences, he wrote that he had read 1,000 novels in Russian, German, English, French, and Japanese during the four years.
As he spent his formative years in Japan, my third loved the country as testified by his friendship with many Japanese people and his passion for Japanese literature and lifestyle, but as a Chinese he hated the way Japan treated China and Chinese people.
(Translated by David)