In the modern academic history of China, Mr. Chen Yinke is still a god-like existence.
He is a famous historian, classical literature researcher, linguist, poet in modern times, and one of the famous "Four Tutors of Tsinghua Academy of Sinology".
Wu Mi, a contemporary master of Chinese culture, called him "the most knowledgeable person in China", and the historian Fu Sinian said: "Mr. Chen's knowledge has been only one person in the past 300 years."
Interestingly, this master, who has reached the pinnacle in the academic field, has a very straight man attitude when it comes to personal emotions.
Regarding the matter of marrying a wife, Chen Yinke publicly expressed this opinion in his early years, "It is a great shame for me to be inferior to others in terms of learning morality; If you are not as good as a wife, why is there any shame? "Marrying a wife is only one thing in life, and the little one is the ear. ”
In the opinion of Chen Yinke, who is obsessed with academics, marrying a wife is really not a major life event.
It is precisely because of this concept of marriage that in 1926, when the 36-year-old Chen Yinke returned from studying abroad and taught at Tsinghua University, he was still unmarried and did not even have any love experience.
There are three unfilial pieties, no queen is the greatest, his emotional "late maturity", anxious for his parents. The family began to urge with kind words, but Chen Yinke was indifferent. Father Chen Lisan finally couldn't help but issue an ultimatum to his son, "If you don't marry, I will be hired on your behalf." ”
Seeing his father's anxious appearance, Chen Yinke felt that the situation was serious, so he had to ask his father for grace. Coincidentally, just when Chen Yinke was at a loss for the unknown marriage, the coincidence of a calligraphy and painting led him to a heaven-sent relationship.
It was 1928, and in a casual conversation with Chen Yinke, a colleague accidentally mentioned that he had seen a calligraphy and painting on the wall hanging on the wall signed "Nan Zhusheng".
Who knew that Chen Yinke was very surprised when he heard this, and he pondered for a moment and said: "This person must be the descendant of Jingsong, the Tang Gong of Guanyang, where does he live?" I'm going to visit. ”
It turned out that Nan Zhusheng was the alias of Tang Jingsong, Tang Jingsong was the former governor of Taiwan and a famous patriotic general in the late Qing Dynasty, who led the army to Vietnam to fight against the French army. Chen Yinke read his "Please Ying Diary" in his early years, and he has admired it for a long time.
For this reason, Chen Yinke asked his colleagues to help him meet the current owner of this calligraphy and painting. In this way, Chen Yinke later visited Tang Jun for the first time. Tang Jun is Tang Jingsong's granddaughter, who was teaching at Beijing Women's Normal University at the time.
Many years later, Chen Yinke still clearly remembers that spring day, Tang Yun came out to entertain them with tea, smiling and generous, although her appearance is not extremely beautiful, her speech and demeanor make people feel like a spring breeze.
As a young lady after a famous family, Tang Yun has read poetry and books since she was a child, and she is a talented girl who is good at piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, and Chen Yinke has a good impression of her.
Since that meeting, he often asked Tang Yun to come out to meet, the two chatted and exchanged knowledge, and soon fell into a love of "not seeing each other for a day, thinking like crazy".
This year, Chen Yinke was 38 years old and Tang Jun was 30 years old, both of them were already older men and women at that time, and they both delayed their marriage because of their dedication to learning.
Less than a year after they met, they concluded an appointment to grow old together in Shanghai, and this natural "flash marriage" has also been passed down as a good story by the academic community.
The period from 1929 to 1937 after marriage was the most rewarding and the happiest and most stable period in Chen Yinke's life.
In his career, because of the stable environment and easy access to library materials, he published more than 50 academic articles and prefaces, and became internationally famous. In terms of life, his wife Tang Jun has given birth to three lovely daughters for her.
It is worth mentioning that when Tang Jun gave birth to her first daughter, because she suffered from heart disease and was a primiparous woman at an advanced age, the infection caused by it almost killed her, and after giving birth, her body was also greatly damaged, and it was difficult to balance work and housework.
In order to maintain her body, and in order to allow Chen Yinke to concentrate on her studies and not be distracted by trivial matters, Tang Yun, a talented woman who graduated from Jinling Women's University, was willing to quit her job and silently retreated behind Chen Yinke. This retreat is a lifetime.
At that time, although Chen Yinke was a famous professor at Tsinghua University and his salary was not low, the expenditure on purchasing books and materials on weekdays was still very expensive. Coupled with the early death of his eldest brother, Chen Yinke also had to bear the responsibility of supporting the entire family, so Tang Yun, who was in charge of the family, had to be careful about the family.
Tang Jun had never been in the kitchen before. After marrying Chen Yinke, she deliberately learned to cook a lot of Hunan dishes that Chen Yinke loves. In order to improve his life while saving expenses, Tang Jun also pondered and planted a lot of vegetables in the dormitory of Tsinghua Garden.
In summer, it is full of gourds, gourds, bitter gourds, etc. The fresh and tender bitter gourd makes Tang Yun stir-fry it with tempeh, and the yard is fragrant. This quiet and peaceful life makes Chen Yinke very satisfied.
However, Tang Jun has always had a regret in his heart. At that time, she had already given birth to two daughters one after another, and she was very eager to give birth to a son to Chen Yinke and continue the incense of the Chen family. So despite the doctor's objections, she risked heart disease and advanced age to give birth to a third child.
The third child is still a daughter, but the Chen family doesn't care as much as she thinks. The father-in-law also happily gave the child a good name - Meiyan, which means "to move the sky, and to prolong the year." ”
This made Tang Yun's anxiety about his son's longing slowly calm down. Compared with her contemporaries, she felt lucky to have met her enlightened husband and father-in-law. Holding his newborn daughter in his arms, Tang Yun's face bloomed with a happy smile.
No one expected that this happiness would soon come to an abrupt end in the ensuing war.
In 1937, the Lugou Bridge Incident broke out, and the Japanese army invaded Beiping on a large scale. Chen Yinke's father, Chen Lisan, as a famous person in the late Qing Dynasty, was sad and angry. Seeing that Beiping was about to fall, he neither wanted to be a slave to the country nor a drag on his family, so he cut off his life by going on a hunger strike.
Misfortune is not a one-way street, while treating his father's funeral, Chen Yinke suddenly found that his vision in his right eye had deteriorated sharply. When I went to the hospital for examination, I found that it was a retinal detachment, and I urgently needed to be admitted to the hospital for surgery, otherwise I would be at risk of blindness.
However, the operation meant that he would have to stay in Peking for a long time to recuperate. At that time, Tsinghua University had decided to move south, merging with Peking University and Nankai University to Changsha to form a joint university. The teachers and students of the three schools rushed to Changsha at the risk of being bombed, and Chen Yinke did not want to stay in the occupied area.
His father was an old man who would rather die than give in, how could he himself survive under the control of the Japanese puppet regime? So Chen Yinke decided not to have surgery and left Peking immediately. Although Tang Jun was very worried about her husband's eyes, she understood Chen Yinke's integrity better.
When the couple made this decision, their eldest daughter was 9 years old, the second daughter was 7 years old, and the youngest daughter Chen Meiyan was still in infancy. After several arduous journeys, the family arrived in Changsha after 17 days.
After that, due to the turbulent situation, they went to Yunnan, Hong Kong and other places. The financial crisis left the family without a permanent place to live, and moved six times in four years.
At the end of 1941, when the Pacific War broke out, Tang Jun and Chen Yinke were poor and sick in Hong Kong, and they fell into a desperate situation again. During this period, the Japanese also coerced and lured Chen Yinke to take up a false position.
Chen Yinke, who was arrogant, refused to bow down to the Japanese, so he could only flee Hong Kong in a hurry with his family, and finally came to teach at the temporary school of Yenching University in Chengdu, and finally had a rare quiet time.
Just when they breathed a sigh of relief and began to calm their lives, Chen Yinke found that his only remaining vision in his left eye had also deteriorated badly, and he became more and more dizzy.
Tang Jun thinks that it may be due to overwork caused by the perennial turmoil, her husband's heavy research tasks, and lack of nutrition. So she used one of her best cheongsams as a cheongsam and bought back a ewe. Every morning, the first thing she does when she gets up is to feed the sheep, then wash them and milk her husband with a bowl full of goat's milk to nourish his body.
It's a pity that God didn't have mercy on her. On December 12, 1944, just after Chen Yinke completed the last article of the "Three Drafts of the Tang Dynasty", "Yuan Bai Poetry Notes", he found that his left eye could not see clearly. He has been blind ever since.
Although Chen Yinke immediately underwent eye surgery in Chengdu, it was unsuccessful. Half a year later, the University of Oxford offered him an offer and invited him to London.
However, Chen Yinke left full of hope, but returned disappointed. Although his eyesight improved after two surgeries in London, there was no hope of regaining his sight.
No one can withstand such a blow, not to mention, Chen Yinke is still a scholar who writes books and essays, and losing his eyes is tantamount to losing half of his life.
Just when he was about to fall, it was Tang Yun who supported him.
In order to cheer up her husband, Tang Jun encouraged him to replace his eyes with his ears and write with his mouth, and cheer up bravely. For this reason, Chen Yinke listened to the newspaper every day and practiced dictating poetry. Tang Jun served as his clerk, reading books and newspapers for him, recording the letters and poems he wanted to write at any time, and assisting him in finding materials for research.
For the next thirty years, she was his eyes.
When Chen Yinke was helped back to Tsinghua University, President Mei Yiqi advised him to recuperate for a while. Chen Yinke replied: "I am a teacher, how can I be called a teacher, if I don't teach, how can I be called a teacher?" I have a lot of salary every month, how can I just take money and not work? ”
This is Chen Yinke's national style. And Tang Jun, as his wife, is also a rare heroine in the world.
In 1949, Chen Yinke was invited to teach at Lingnan University, and during this period, Chen Yinke's assistant left because of ill health. In order not to affect the normal teaching, Tang Jun took on the not easy work of teaching assistant, and grasped both life and career.
Children sometimes wonder why their mothers are so devoted and selfless, and see their fathers as almost the whole purpose of life. Tang Jun explained to his daughters: "Your father's academic attainments are extraordinary, and he should be allowed to write it and keep it." ”
Tang Yun is Chen Yinke's best friend and assistant in his career, and Chen Yinke also regards Tang Yun as the first confidant in his life. For each book he completed, he asked his wife to inscribe the cover. Chen Yinke, who has never easily praised others, also devoted his pen and ink to writing the poem "Weaving the mood is also wine, but the fat can be sealed" for his beloved wife.
He has said to his daughters many times: "Mother is the backbone, without her there would be no family, without her there would be no us." ”
Yes, even in the turbulent times, Tang Yun is still Chen Yinke's spiritual support.
In his later years, in the turbulent waves of the special era, Chen Yinke, who believed in "independent spirit and free thought", was quickly pushed to the forefront. And Tang Jun once again stretched out her thin arms to protect her husband and guard this stormy home.
During that time, Chen Yinke's various "statements" and "* books" were all written by her. Therefore, Chen Yinke's mental pain and resentment when he was criticized, Tang Yun can empathize with him more than anyone else, and he is also more heart-wrenching than anyone else.
She knows her husband's value very well and doesn't want him to collapse, so she can only try her best to support and encourage, and in the increasingly gray journey of life, she tries to comfort her husband, wipe away his difficult sorrows, resist the dense arrows with her weak body, and fight for him a breathing space.
With Tang Yun's care in life and spiritual support, Chen Yinke, who was disabled and frail, relied on superhuman perseverance to complete 800,000 words of "Liu Ru is Farewell Biography" and other works in the last years of the wind and candle.
In 1962, Chen Yinke, who was in his prime, broke the femur of his right leg and has been lying on the sickbed for a long time. At that time, Chen Yinke was so weak that he could only eat a little liquid food such as soup. And Tang Jun also took care of Chen Yinke with a weak body, and her own heart disease was actually getting worse.
In the desolation and helplessness, the husband and wife wept at each other. In extreme despair and sorrow, he lamented the hardships of his wife and the injustice of fate, and left the last elegy of his life for Tang Jun:
Weeping on the cow clothes, the history of intestinal breakage. It is difficult to hide the crippled leopard, and Jiuquan waits for a while. ”
Tang Yun just smiled bitterly and comforted her weak husband: "Don't worry, no matter what, I will definitely live longer than you and walk behind you." ”
Tang Yun, who has silently resisted the wind and rain for Chen Yinke, still can't bear to let her blind husband finish the last journey of his life in loneliness at the last moment. In the end, it turned out to be what she wanted.
On October 7, 1969, Chen Yinke left. When he was dying, he didn't say a word, but tears kept flowing from the corners of his eyes. When Chen Yinke was in power, Tang Yun was surprisingly calm, and he didn't even leave a single tear. After Chen Yinke passed away, Tang Jun once said to people: "After taking care of Yinke, I should also leave." ”
And she didn't let her husband wait long. Forty-five days later, she chased after her husband. Tang Jun had a serious heart disease, and relied on drugs for most of his life to sustain his life, and his life could be ended after more than ten days of stopping the medicine.
He and she finally lived and died together, joyed and sorrowed together.
At this point, I suddenly remembered Chen Yinke's concept of love in his youth. He once said: "First, the supreme person of love, there is no one in the world, hanging in the air, and willing to die, such as Du Liniang in "The Peony Pavilion"; second, those who have a good acquaintance with others, and those who have not tasted the pillow are secondary, such as Bao and Dai; third, once pillowed and forever commemorated, such as Si Qi and Pan You'an; Fourth, and secondly, the couple who have never had an affair for life; Fifth, the lowest one, jointed everywhere, only desire is the picture, and it doesn't matter what the feelings are. ”
According to this statement, the relationship between Chen Yinke and his wife Tang Yun can only be regarded as a fourth-class love. But they spent their whole lives writing this ordinary and extraordinary fourth-class love, written powerfully through the back of the paper, majestic, and better than countless people in the world.