The Yiyang Banqiao Zhou clan in Hunan Province is a well-known local family, and Zhou Yang (former deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee and former chairman of the China Federation of Literature and Literature) was born in this family in 1908 after Zhou Yu, the general of the Eastern Wu Dynasty of the Three Kingdoms.
The illustrious Zhou family mansion of that year has long ceased to exist, leaving only three old wooden houses.
Zhou Yang was the youngest son of the Zhou family and was known as the Second Young Master. When Zhou Yang was studying at Xinyi Middle School (now Yiyang No. 1 Middle School), the landlord Yao Rentao was a private school gentleman, and he had a female disciple named Wu Shuyuan, who was about the same age as Zhou Yang and was very beautiful. Yao Rentao then said to Zhou Yang's mother: "A good man, a good girl, just a pair." ”
According to Zhou Yang's sister Zhou Yurun, when Zhou Yang went to see his relatives at the Wu Mansion, Wu Shuyuan was embroidering flowers and combing a big braid of black oil, Zhou Yang was very satisfied when he saw it, and came back with a smile.
Wu Shuyuan's milk name is Jiaojiao, known as Miss Jiao, people who have seen her say that she looks very beautiful, and for Zhou Yang, she is also fascinated at first sight. In February 1923, 15-year-old Zhou Yang and 16-year-old Wu Shuyuan became intimate. The two little ones have a good relationship and are inseparable, and even drink water to share a cup.
Portrait of Wu Shuyuan
Soon, Zhou Yang was accompanied by a bride to Study in Changsha, with a male maid and a Yahuan named Ruiyun. A family of four lives in a hotel, which is not a small expense. At this time, Zhou Yang had separated from his brother, and he received half of the Zhou family's big house, 40 quintals of land and some belongings. For his mother's 40th birthday to spend almost all the money, he began to sell the land, it did not take long, the 40 quintals of land under his name were all sold out, fortunately, Wu Shuyuan's mother's family had money to avoid poverty.
It turns out that Wu Jiazu was an official, it is said that Miss Wu's father started from the Taiping Army, because of his military merits, he met the emperor three times, and he was a water army admiral in a certain place in Jiangsu. The Wu family not only has more fields and more gold and silver jewelry, but also has a large mansion in Yiyang City.
The mother-in-law was very fond of the young Son-in-law, and she let her daughter accompany her to Changsha to accompany her, providing a lot of financial assistance. After that, Zhou Yang went to Shanghai to study and study in Japan, and his mother-in-law often gave her daughter a bag of gold jewelry or silver dollars for them to spend.
In his later years, Zhou Yang said to his son Zhou Mike: "I lived in Shanghai at that time all depended on your mother. What does your mother rely on? Rely on the jewelry given by your grandmother, a large bag of gold jewelry, put it in a drawer, not locked, no money to use it to take one piece to exchange money. ”
Wu Shuyuan is willing to be a good wife and mother, and she is convinced of her husband's feelings.
When she was in Shanghai, she had found letters from the opposite sex to her husband in her husband's suit pocket, and Wu Shuyuan returned them to Zhou Yang very calmly. In 1928, two female Communists in Yiyang went to Shanghai to seek Zhou Yang's protection because they evaded arrest, and Zhou Yang and they pretended to be husband and wife, brothers and sisters and lived in another house for more than 20 days. In this matter, when Wu Shuyuan was consulted in advance, she also readily agreed without hesitation. Zhou Yang praised her as "a rare kindness in the world" and praised her for her "selflessness and rare simplicity".
【Wu Shuyuan who is obsessively waiting】
In 1933, at the age of 25, Zhou Yang became the secretary of the chinese left-wing writers' union, and often went to the "Left League" groups of various universities to make situation reports.
In the spring of 1934, he went to Fudan University to give a speech and met a female college student named Su Lingyang.
In the late autumn of 1934, Wu Shuyuan became pregnant with her third son, Joseph. Zhou Yang sent her back to Yiyang with her two children to give birth.
Usually, Zhou Yang always had to wait until the baby landed before returning to Shanghai. But this time no, he didn't wait for the child to be born, he left.
Before leaving, he left a light green letterhead for Wu Shuyuan and said, "You have to write to me often!" ”
Wu Shuyuan never expected that she and him could only be a husband and wife on the letterhead in the future.
At that time, she did not expect that this trip would be a parting, and her husband would become a permanent trick.
Zhou Yang returned to Shanghai from Yiyang in this year, and when he appeared in front of people, his image had been renewed, he had changed into the suit he usually wore, wearing a white silk robe, wearing a white top hat, and there was another woman next to him.
Fast forward to the spring of 1935, and it was time for Wu Shuyuan to leave for Shanghai. At this time, Zhou Yang wrote a letter saying that I was returning to Yiyang during the summer vacation. So Wu Shuyuan was relieved to wait for the summer vacation to come.
The eldest son, Zhou Aero, recalled:
The mother successfully gave birth to three brothers, who were named "Joseph" according to the confession. Soon, my mother received a letter from my father saying that he would be back for summer vacation, and my mother waited with joy for the day. My father loved to eat the licorice plums made by my mother, which was a kind of preserve made by soaking fresh plums in honey, and my mother entrusted someone to buy the best plums and made a pot of licorice plums. At that time in the countryside, there was nothing good to eat, so this jar of preserves on the red lacquer cabinet was a great temptation for our three little children, but I knew that we could not eat it, because it was specially made by my mother for my father. I don't eat, and neither do my two younger brothers. ”
In the spring of the following year, qingmei went on the market, and Wu Shuyuan began to make the second pot of licorice plums for Zhou Yang. At this time, Zhou Yang wrote again, saying that he had returned this summer, but he had not returned. Also in this year, he went to Yan'an.
When he arrived in Yan'an, Zhou Yang still kept in touch with Wu Shuyuan and brought a purple-red tweed coat to his son.
In 1938, Wu Shuyuan also received a copy of "Anna Karenina" sent by Zhou Yang, and Wu Shuyuan read her husband's translation while making the fourth altar of licorice plums for him.
At this time, Zhou Yang's mother wrote a letter to her son and asked her son: Is it because the wife and children are gone? Did you forget everyone in your family? Zhou Yang immediately replied to his mother. The gist of the letter is: I am now the director of education in Fushi (Yan'an), and I will not do anything to be sorry for my family.
One day in June 1941, Ai Ruo, the eldest son who was attending boarding middle school, returned from school and felt that the atmosphere in the Zhou family house was tense. From the neighbors to the family, they were passing on a newspaper, and that newspaper made the whole family lose their color. Ai Ruo looked at her mother again, her mother was Wooden Ran, she couldn't see any expression, Ai Ruo didn't know what kind of newspaper it was, only that the newspaper that made the whole family lose color revealed Zhou Yang's news.
It turned out that the newspaper was the "Salvation Daily" run by Guilin, and it published a letter from Zhou Yang to Guo Moruo, and at the end of the letter was appended the following sentence: "Su (referring to Su Lingyang) has gone to the Anti-Japanese War, and the child has entered the kindergarten." ”
The last sentence of the letter was undoubtedly a thunderclap on a sunny day, which dealt a heavy blow to the old and young of the Zhou family, especially the mother-in-law, who was elderly and faltering and extremely fond of her son-in-law, could not withstand it and soon died of illness. Shuyuan was hit by a double blow and was devastated, and for a while, she took her three sons for more than ten miles almost every day, lying on her mother's grave and crying.
At this time, the eldest son, Ai Ruo, was fifteen years old and remembered very well, and he later recalled:
"Mother's crying is the kind of crying with hunan singing, which sounds very sad and miserable, and it is an hour or two of singing." It was the most tragic scene I've ever experienced in my life. Crying graves are more tragic than weeping spirits. Perhaps only by combining sorrow and lamentation can we release the deep sorrow in our hearts. Originally, the mother who was the most able to wrap the sorrow in her heart, the mother who never showed a little bit of bitterness and sorrow, in this wilderness, there was no one around, and only in the situation of the two sons who pulled her to rely on her and accompanied her to tears, she would express the despair of losing her grandmother in such a wisp. She hid her endless cries for a long time, and could only face the equally lonely grave of her grandmother in the silent wilderness. ”
Zhou Yang
In the spring of 1942, a cluster of peony flowers bloomed in the flower garden on the east side of the Zhou Family House. The peony had no branches and leaves for many years, but in that year it suddenly emerged from the ground, grew branches and leaves, and blossomed.
This peony bloomed a little strangely, and the old people thought it was a strange omen and were deeply disturbed.
"Life and death, the normality of life, the suffering of the world, all in it." My grandmother passed away, and my mother was depressed by unbearable misery and was seriously ill and bedridden. At that time, a boy with a distant relative, slightly older than me, had found a job as an elementary school teacher. My mother reached out from the quilt and pulled me to the bedside and said, "Aro, if you can teach an elementary school, I will be satisfied." "I knew it was my mother's expectation of me, but I didn't answer. I don't know what I can do. Looking at my mother's swollen neck, and her whole body was so skinny that she had no strength to speak, I was just dazed and hopeless. At that time, the family was already destitute, and there was no economic input. Doctors were asked for treatment, first entrusting people to sell batches of leather goods, and then selling batches of exquisite porcelain altars in Jingdezhen. When it was too late to sell, simply give porcelain to the doctor. The rows of red-lacquered glass cabinets in my mother's bedroom were filled with utensils, one by one, disappearing one by one. The doctors changed one after another. One doctor used a needle as thick as a sweater and nearly the length of a chopstick, first burning it on a charcoal brazier, then piercing it into the mother's skin and flesh, leaving black circles on the skin after pulling it out. Every time I pricked a stitch, I didn't dare to look at it. I really can't look at it anymore. Although I never heard my mother call for a needle, I was always full of terror, nervous and even in tears. She endured it like this. Month after month, day and night, never groaning, never shouting any great pain in the heart or flesh. Until a cold night of continuous autumn rain, we have all fallen asleep and our mother has quietly passed away. She left no last words for her beloved three sons. Her sorrows, her endurance, her last words, along with her doom, were all wrapped up. She never had any resentment, leaving only a lifetime of generosity and kindness. ”
In the late autumn of the year when the peony blossoms were in full bloom, Wu Shuyuan died.
When Wu Shuyuan was critically ill, she could not eat anything, but she wanted to eat a kind of powder skin, wanted to eat fresh bun grain, and wanted to eat a kind of northern pear. When her brother had managed to buy a fresh pear, she couldn't eat it.
This is the second year after Wu Shuyuan read the "Salvation Daily", and the 35-year-old kind woman left her three children and passed away. In this year, the three children were 15 years old, 11 years old and 7 years old.
Wu Shuyuan's tomb is located on the back hill of the Zhou family's mansion, only 100 meters away from the old house. Wu Shuyuan's grave is covered with grass and shrubs, and there is no tombstone.
In the spring of 1980, when Zhou Yang returned to his hometown, he stopped briefly in Tianzhuang Bay, first looked at the old house, accompanied by locals, and then went to see the tomb of Wu Shuyuan, the cemetery is very close, a few minutes away. And it is already halfway through, and Wu Shuyuan's tomb is in front, just a few feet away. However, it suddenly began to rain in heaven, this rain was the rain of 38 years ago, it was the tears that the woman did not shed 38 years ago, and this rain did not fall for no reason. I don't know which retinue suggested: if it rains and the road is slippery, don't go.
Zhou Yang followed the advice, immediately stepped back and walked back.
Maybe Zhou Yang didn't want to face Wu Shuyuan's tomb in front of everyone. Maybe he wants to continue to avoid it in a way that he's avoided for more than 40 years. He may not have the courage to face Wu Shuyuan, even if it is just a wordless tomb.
In his later years, Zhou Yang still wept bitterly when he recalled the past, and said to his son:
"I'm sorry you mom";
"Your mother is so kind!" That is a rare kindness in the world. ”
In the autumn of 1948, my two younger brothers and I struggled to finally say goodbye to my father in Peiping. This was the first time joseph, the third brother, who was 13 years old, had met his father. I don't remember much what my father said to us, but one of them is unforgettable: "I'm sorry for your mother!" After that, my father rarely mentioned my mother to me, as if he had been avoiding it.
We met Su Lingyang for the first time, and my father pointed at her and said, "This is Su Lingyang, you can call her mother, you can also call her comrade." "But I didn't shout anything, I didn't shout in my whole life, I couldn't shout."
After the father married Su Lingyang, he gave birth to a daughter Zhou Mi and a son Su Su. In 1946, Su Lingyang took Zhou Mi and Su Su in a carriage and retreated south from Zhangjiakou with North China Union University. Because they are afraid of being bombed during the day, they are all night marching. The carriage tumbled into the ravine in the night, both mules fell to their deaths, and Susu was pressed against the heavy file box and left this world forever. After a long time, my father came on horseback with a lantern. That day also happened to be the day he returned to Zhangjiakou after saying goodbye to us in Nanjing, and I heard that my father was grief-stricken and crying at that time, and it was several people who helped him up and put him on horseback. Su Su's death hit both his father and Su Lingyang hard, especially Su Lingyang. We learned about this after we arrived in Beijing, and we didn't dare to mention it to our faces. During the Cultural Revolution, even Su Su, who died at the age of 6, was not spared, and was dug up from a small earthen grave and thrown away his bones...
After liberation, Su Lingyang was the principal of any middle school in Beijing, and many people said that this principal was good and had prestige, but frankly, my relationship with Su Lingyang was not good, and it was not because my father left her mother because of her - from a certain point of view, I even think that the combination of my father and Su Lingyang is understandable.
Because I had joined the Kuomintang Youth Army, in Su Lingyang's eyes, I was a "traitor", and my marriage was not recognized by her. My lover's father, who had studied in Japan and was a police officer during the time of the enemy and hypocrisy, had long since died in prison, but this kind of birth was not tolerated by Su Lingyang, and his father did not interfere. I later married her despite her objections. That summer, we both came to Beijing to see my father, and it was Su Lingyang who opened the door, and as soon as she saw it, she said, "You have betrayed this family, what qualifications do you have to run here?" "My lover's self-esteem was greatly hurt, and he turned his head and left, never to return to this home. I worked in Harbin, and every time I came to Beijing to see my father, Su Lingyang resolutely refused to let me live in the house, so I had to borrow a house with my classmates.
I (Zhou Airuo) and the three brothers Zhou Mai and Zhou Yue did not live a day in my father's "home", and we did not participate in their normal family life. When he arrived in Beijing, the third brother, Zhou Yue, was too young to live with his father. At that time, my father, Mao Dun and others each had a separate small building in the Ministry of Culture, and there were many rooms in the family, but the third brother could only live in the basement full of water pipes, which was damp, but his father never asked.
In fact, the separation between me and my father has never been removed. After my father left that year, after I went out to join the army, my two younger brothers were raised by my grandmother. Grandma was very kind to my mother, and she felt sorry for this daughter-in-law. After I joined the work, I often wrote letters to my grandmother and sent her money, and in my grandmother's eyes, I was better to her than my father. Because of my father's problems, the whole family was implicated, my great uncle Zhou Guyi was implicated by his father before liberation and sat in a Kuomintang prison and was almost executed; during the Cultural Revolution, he was imprisoned by criticism and died in prison, and even the whereabouts of his bones were unknown; my aunt was an old lady with small feet, who also wore a top hat to parade the streets.
Our relationship with Su Lingyang also eased during the Cultural Revolution. At that time, my father was taken away for several years, and his life and death were unknown. I went to see her, and she lived alone in a room too small to be small, with only a bed and a table to put down. At that time, she was very amiable, and took out a cup and said, "This is the cup that your father used, you can take it back as a souvenir." "And a couple of little pictures for me to take back. I felt in my heart that the Cultural Revolution was so bad, but it could still bring our family to harmony.
But when my father's life gradually returned to normal, our relationship was strained again. When my father was living in a Beijing hospital, my brother and I often went to see my father. When only our father and son were there, we had a pleasant conversation. In the past, my father was so immersed in his field of research that he wouldn't even go out on the street to buy a dress. So when we talk about our hometown, in fact, my father is particularly interested, he has been separated from his hometown for too long. But I don't know why, as long as Su Lingyang is there, she always makes the atmosphere very unpleasant with a few words.
Once, Zhou Mai and I rode a bicycle to see my father. That day my father sat in a chair with a plate of grapes next to him. We chatted with my father, and said something in the middle, Su Lingyang began to accuse me again, and I replied to her preparedly: "I came to see my father, of course, to communicate, to communicate that everyone has their own thoughts, you don't want to interrupt us with everything, all say you're right, this is not good." "She was obviously unprepared and choked on me. She first got angry at her father, then pointed at me and said, "You're the worst!" "Turned and left.
The father didn't say a word from beginning to end, just a long sigh. Curiously, every time we looked at him in the past, my father never said anything when he left; this time, he unusually got up, walked through a long corridor, and sent us away without a word. This wordless speech made me know a lot of things at once, and my father had the helplessness of my father.
After my father died, we all rushed to the Beijing Hospital, Su Lingyang was in a wheelchair, carefully accompanied by her, me and my two brothers were in a circle, and we did not have any communication with each other before.
I think that when my father was there, I had a relationship with her, my father was gone, and I had nothing to do with her since.
In 2007, Zhou Airuo and Zhou Mai returned to their ancestral home
Above: On March 7, 2007, Ms. Wu Shuyuan celebrated her 100th birthday. Zhou Aero, former vice president of the Lu Xun Literature Institute of the China Writers Association, Zhou Mai, former researcher of the State Education Commission, and Zhou Yue, professor of the Hebei University of Economics, and other descendants of Zhou Yang went to Zhou Yang's former residence to deeply remember this ordinary and great mother.
【Source: Tetsuji Bunkshi】
Copyright belongs to the original author, a tribute to the original