【中文】
Li Xuying passed away on November 15, 1969. At that time, Wan’an Cemetery, where Wang Yuanqi was buried, was not yet open to the public, so her ashes stayed at home with the family.
In 1978, Li’s second daughter Wang Hongzhi (my mother) was working at the Beijing Education Bureau’s Textbook Editing Office. That August and September, she was temporarily assigned to People’s Education Press to help compile primary and middle school textbooks. The whole team stayed at the Fragrant Hill Hotel. Every morning she and her colleagues would hike up the paths to enjoy the scenery. It reminded her that this hill was where her own mother, Li Xuying, had spent the happiest days of her life (Biography of Li Xuying, Chapter 1). So she and her older sister agreed to bury Li Xuying’s ashes, along with a photograph of her and Wang Yuanqi, beneath a tree on Fragrant Hill.
To mark the moment, Wang Hongzhi wrote a poem commemorating Li Xuying’s life and also noting the burial spot: behind the Hibiscus Pavilion, at Incense Burner Hill. Sadly, the description was quite imprecise. In fact, there’s no “Incense Burner Hill”; the correct landmark is “Incense Burner Peak”, which is 1.2 km away from the Hibiscus Pavilion. Years later we went to the Fragrant Hill to look for that tree. My mother, relying on her memory, could only vaguely identify the place. Whether it was accurate is impossible to say. The hill keeps its secrets.
I now transcribe Wang Hongzhi’s poem here. My mother wrote it in a moment of feeling and did not polish every word, but until the publication of the book Famous Decorative Artist Li Xuying: Our Mother, it was the only written commemoration of this artist that we had seen.
“In Memory of My Late Mother“
by Wang Hongzhi
(With the help of friends Zhang Youlun, Li Yuman, Zhao Henglie, Hu Wenyan, and others, we buried my mother’s ashes behind the Hibiscus Pavilion on Incense Burner Hill)
Behind the Hibiscus Pavilion, on Incense Burner Hill,
A master painter rests in eternal sleep.
Half a lifetime battered by dust and wind,
In her later years she tasted both bitter and sweet.
Her learning vast, her brush and ink brimming with talent,
An old steed whose ambition never grew idle.
In the sea of art, like shifting grains of sand,
Born out of season; what fate could she command?
National calamity took her beloved partner too soon;
Left alone, she poured everything into her tender daughters.
Teacher, friend, father, mother—on a single pair of shoulders
Four roles she bore, through years of toil and sorrow.
Now she is gone, and her children weep on and on;
I, bereft of my beloved mother, question the heavens.
Does life return in cycles, yes or no?
My only wish: in the next life, may we never part.
Written in August 1978, at the Fragrant Hill Hotel
[English]
李旭英1969年11月15日去世，那时候王元奇所葬的万安公墓没有开放，所以她的骨灰一直放在家中。
1978年二女儿王宏志，也就是我的母亲，在北京教育局教材编写处工作，8、9月间，被借调到人民教育出版社参与中小学教材编写工作，地点在香山饭店。每天清晨，她和同事们一起爬山观景。这让她想到自己的母亲李旭英曾在香山度过一生中最快乐的时光(《李旭英传》第一章)。于是她和姐姐商定将李旭英的骨灰，连同与王元奇的合影葬在了香山一棵树下。
下葬之际王宏志曾赋诗一首，纪念李旭英的一生，也记录了埋葬她的地点，芙蓉馆后香炉山。可惜这个记录十分不精确。香山只有香炉峰，距芙蓉馆大约1.2公里。多年后我们曾经去香山试图寻找那棵树，母亲凭记忆依稀辨出地点，准确与否，无从判断，只有香山知道。
现将王宏志的诗抄录于此。母亲的诗是有感而发，不太字斟句酌，但也是目前所见，在《著名图案画家李旭英：我们的母亲》一书出版之前唯一对这位艺术家的文字纪念了。
《悼亡母》
王宏志
（靠友人张友伦、李玉满、赵恒烈、胡文彦等帮助，将亡母骨灰盒埋于芙蓉馆后香炉山。）
芙蓉馆后香炉山，
一代画师永长眠。
半世坎坷风尘里，
晚来尝尽苦和甜。
博文书画才华溢，
老骥壮志不等闲。
艺海沉浮似沙粒，
生不逢时奈何天？
国难早年失爱侣，
孤身只为娇女怜。
良师益友兼父母，
一身四任苦熬煎。
人亡家慈泪涟涟，
我失爱母问苍天，
人生转世有与无？
寄愿来生常相伴！
1978年8月于香山饭店