An aging writer comes to teach at a nearly empty school, convinced his life amounts to nothing worth remembering, until an old letter forces him to look again at what truly lies at the core of a life.
The Stove and the Empty Chairs
的风从窗缝里钻进来，把桌上那盏台灯吹得直晃。
The twelfth-month wind slipped in through the cracks in the window, setting the little desk lamp swaying back and forth.
李老师把围巾又紧了紧，低头在本上写下今天的第七行字。
Mr. Li pulled his scarf a little tighter, bent his head, and wrote the seventh line of the day in his lesson notebook.
教室里只坐着三个学生，后排那一大片椅子，空得发凉。
Only three students sat in the classroom; the whole stretch of chairs at the back stood empty, cold to the touch.
Mr. Li
都坐前面来吧，挤一挤暖和。
Come on up to the front, all of you. Squeeze in together, it's warmer that way.
他笑着招手，可笔记本翻到中途，忽然停住了——三十年前，台下坐着上千人。
He smiled and waved them over, but as he turned the pages of his notebook he suddenly stopped halfway — thirty years ago, a thousand people had sat below his stage.
The Old Pages
夜里他翻出旧文集，一页页看，越看心里越空。
That night he dug out his old collected writings and read them page by page, and the more he read, the emptier he felt inside.
Mr. Li
这些话，写得真漂亮，可里头一个真心都没有。
These words — they're beautifully written, all right, but there isn't an ounce of real feeling in any of them.
他记得自己当年坐在贵宾席上，端着酒杯，把同行的作品得一文不值。
He remembered how, back then, he had sat in the seat of honor, glass of wine in hand, sneering at his fellow writers' work until it seemed worth nothing at all.
Mr. Li
我追了半辈子那些神圣的大词，到头来，手里空空。
I spent half my life chasing those grand, sacred words, and in the end my hands are empty.
他合上书，吹灭灯，觉得真正的人，大概一辈子也轮不到自己。
He closed the book and blew out the lamp, certain that being a truly noble man was something that would never, in his whole life, fall to someone like him.
A Letter from Far Away
几天后，门房送来一封贴着外地邮票的信，纸都被翻软了。
A few days later, the gatekeeper brought him a letter bearing an out-of-town stamp, its paper grown soft from being handled so many times.
The Letter Writer
老师，您还记得那个总忘带笔的学生吗？您把自己的钢笔塞给了我。
Teacher, do you still remember the student who was always forgetting to bring a pen? You pressed your own fountain pen into my hand.
The Letter Writer
您当时只说了一句：别盯着掌声，盯着你心里那个。
All you said at the time was one line: don't fix your eyes on the applause — fix them on the core inside you.
The Letter Writer
这二十年，我把这句话教给了我的学生，一茬又一茬。
For these twenty years, I've passed that line on to my own students, one class after another.
读到这儿，李老师手一抖，那支早就没墨的旧钢笔，从笔筒里滚了出来。
Reading this, Mr. Li's hand trembled, and the old fountain pen — long since dry of ink — rolled out of the pen holder.
The Core
第二天上课，李老师没翻本，只把那支旧钢笔放在桌上。
At the next day's lesson, Mr. Li didn't open his notebook; he simply set the old fountain pen down on the desk.
Mr. Li
我从前以为，在贵宾席上，在的大厅里。
I used to think that nobility lived in the seats of honor, in grand halls all decked out with lanterns and ribbons.
Mr. Li
原来它就藏在一支借出去的笔里，藏在你们肯不肯往前坐这点小事里。
It turns out it was hiding in a single pen lent out to someone, hiding in something as small as whether you'd be willing to move up to the front.
三个学生，没太听懂，却都把椅子往前挪了挪。
The three students glanced at one another, not quite understanding, yet each of them nudged their chair a little closer to the front.
窗外还是的风，李老师却第一次觉得，这间冷教室，是热的。
Outside the window the twelfth-month wind still blew, yet for the first time Mr. Li felt that this cold classroom was warm.