The distant Republic of China was a turbulent period, with a strange situation and everyone's own danger. People struggle to make a living in the alternation of the old and new societies, and people are afraid and running for life. Occasionally, those who are not engulfed by the tide of the times are also panicked, and their material needs can be satisfied, and naturally they cannot think of the spiritual level, and they cannot think of the word "freedom". But this is just ordinary people, and the Republic of China is not only ordinary people, but also masters. Chen Yinke is such a master who has been interpreting freedom all his life.
One of the reasons why Chen Yinke was able to implement the principles of freedom was his family lineage. He was born in Changsha, Hunan, his grandfather Chen Baozhen was a loyal vassal of the late Qing Dynasty, with a rich resume, successively serving as an envoy in Zhejiang and Hubei, an inspector of Hunan, and with one hand promoted Liang Qichao Kang Youwei and other backbones of the restoration, and his father Chen Sanli was famous in the poetry world. It is not only a family of officials and eunuchs, but also a scholarly door, and the natural family is rich.
The Son said, "Do not exceed the rules of your heart' desires." Although Chen Yinke acted freely, he did not overstep it, also because he was knowledgeable. At the age of 13, he traveled east to Japan to study with the prevailing customs, and on the way he had a good conversation with a teenager from Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, and the two formed a deep friendship, and the teenager's later pen name was "Lu Xun".
From 1910 to 1921, except for the refuge in China during World War I, Chen Yinke studied abroad and traveled between Germany, Switzerland, France, the United States and other countries. After years of hard work, he was able to read sanskrit, pali, Persian, Turkic, Western Xia, English, French, and German fluently, and was especially good at Sanskrit and Pali.
When he returned to China after completing his studies, Chen Yinke had already passed the age of establishment, but he had not yet married and realized the freedom of marriage and love. He also put forward the well-known "five-degree love theory", of which the fourth-class love is "the husband and wife who have never had an affair; the fifth, the lowest, everywhere, is connected, but the desire is the plan, and it does not matter." ”
When Chen Yinke formed this famous theory, I am afraid that he did not expect that his marriage would be what he called "fourth-class love". He and his wife Tang Yun had already passed the age of establishment when they married, but their marriage was not a hasty move, but a decision based on real feelings, and the years also proved the correctness of this decision.
Chen Yinke and his wife raised three daughters after marriage, and they were originally happy and happy. During the special period of ten years, Chen Yinke and his wife were criticized by the Red Guards for their status as literati, and the two who were already old and sick were under the double humiliation of spirit and body, and their condition deteriorated even worse. Chen Yinke also really felt that his wife might go away by herself first, and only then did he write a famous elegy for her when his wife was still alive: "Weeping on the cow clothes, the swastika is a history of intestinal destruction; the cripple is difficult to hide, and the Nine Springs are a little bit dry." ”
People were in tears with such deep emotions, but in the end, it was Chen Yinke who took the first step. He died first, leaving behind his frail wife and three daughters, all of whom fortunately had grown up. After the death of her husband, Tang Yun resolutely stopped taking medicine despite the persuasion of everyone, and there was no medicine to maintain his life, let alone a reason to live. A month later, Tang Yun also passed away unexpectedly.
Such love is rare and unusual in modern society, but it is still desired by the world. But in Chen Yinke's mouth, this kind of love is only the fourth class, only better than the fifth class. I am afraid that society has changed, the sound and color of dogs and horses, impetuous and noisy, no longer the previous "everything is slow".
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The Biography of Chen Yinke