Every day as I lie here on my sickbed I see in front of me a very beautiful picture. It is a picture of a beaming child in red holding a pair of large peaches. At the side of the picture are inscribed the words, “Congratulations on Comrade Bing Xin’ s Eightieth Birthday, ” and at the bottom the words, “Greetings from Children’ s Literature October 1980. ” 

After I fell ill, many old friends wrote to me. Some of the letters were comforting, and some reproachful, saying, “Now you will no longer be able to refuse to devote yourself to the aged!” I replied to one friend: “Confucius once said that he often felt that he ‘did not know when old age would arrive, ’ whereas I am in the position of ‘not knowing’ that I do not know that old age has already arrived!”