Ren Shuyong (left) Chen Hengzhe (middle) Hu Shi (right)
▌ Knowing each other is important in feeling sorry
At the end of 1917, Hu Shixin kept his marriage promise and married Gujiang Dongxiu, a small foot township. In 1919, Chen Hengzhe felt the sincerity of Ren Shuyong's return to the United States and Wanli's marriage proposal, so he gave up celibacy and married Ren Shuyong in the Mid-Autumn Festival of 1920. At that time, Hu wrote a poem Our Three Friends and gave a pair of helian: Wuhou is the best book for the big book. Since then, the friendship of the three friends has still been mellow and intoxicating.
In the summer of 1920, Chen Hengzhe received a master's degree from the University of Chicago, and with the help of Hu Shi, he was hired as a professor of Western history and English at Peking University, becoming the first female professor in the history of modern education in China. On July 31, 1921, Hu Shi wrote in his diary: "Dedong Xiuyi letter, Zhi Shuyong and Sha Fei xin had a daughter, because they went to Jiming Temple to write a poem to congratulate them." The last two sentences are "Last year, the people on the lake were healthy and added new branches and sister flowers." Hu Shi also specially added a note at the end of his poem: "Three friends add two daughters a year, and my daughter's name is Su fei, that is, in the name of Sha Fei." Hu Shi's life was most opposed to Chinese taking a foreign name, but giving his daughter a foreign name that was in harmony with his best friend, which at least reflected his desire for his daughter to look as smart and cute and self-motivated as the talented woman Shafi.
Chen Hengzhe, as an intellectual woman, is even more concerned about Hu Shi's life. Chen Hengzhe and Ren Shuyong fell in love freely, and their love for forty years can be described as happy and satisfying. But she did not weaken her friendship with Hu Shi, she admired Hu Shi's talent and achievements in his career, and was willing to follow him as a confidant and try her best to help him. For the inadequacies and misfortunes of Hu Shi's family life, she always has the deep concern and sympathy of a female best friend. Chen Hengzhe knew that Hu Shi's work in "Effort Weekly" was too heavy, worried that his body could not stand it, and almost mobilized her husband to go to Beijing to help him.
Hu Shi and Jiang Dongxiu
Since 1923, Hu Shi's family has been constantly attacked by diseases, and Chen Hengzhe learned that Jiang Dongxiu had no culture and lacked medical knowledge, so he wrote to Hu Shi: "Suitable, if you feel that you can't bear the mental burden, please come here at any time to recuperate." She was worried about Hu Shi's economic embarrassment and offered to take his savings to help him, and then thought of Jiang Dongxiu saying, "Your wife is also very hard to come to, please transfer my sympathy to her."
Seated by Jiang Dongxiu, the left one is Hu Shi's daughter Su Fei, the right one is the eldest son Zu Wang, and the middle is the second son Si Du
Chen Hengzhe especially likes Hu Shi's beloved daughter Su Fei. After Sophie unfortunately contracted the disease and died, she and her husband went to the Hu family to comfort her, and gave her daughter a book to Hu Shi as a dry daughter, which is really careful and considerate. The premature death of Hu Shi's daughter and the weakness of his son gave Chen Hengzhe, who was in a prosperous career, an unprecedented shock, and soon she began another life and entered another realm.
Chen Hengzhe is a woman with ambition, talent and special learning, but after the 30s, why did she fall silent when she was prosperous and prosperous? She went to educate her three children and be a good mother full-time until the three children studied in the United States and achieved a career. At that time, she woke up from the tragedy of the Hu family to realize that "the mother is the foundation of culture, and the subtle maternal position is irreplaceable" and "when the family profession and social occupation cannot be combined, she prefers to give up society and concentrate on the family." However, since then, Chen Hengzhe's contact with Hu Shi has decreased, and a limited number of letters have only talked about the education and life of his children until 1949.
Chen Hengzhe, Ren Shuyong and three children
▌ The book is merciless
In March 1949, Hu Shi went to the United States again, but who knows, he had no direct contact with the mainland Yongqiao, Chen Hengzhe and Ren Shuyong. Fortunately, Chen Hengzhe has a pair of sons and daughters (Ren Yidu, Ren Yi'an) in the United States, becoming the transit of friendship between the two sides. After liberation, Chen Hengzhe was a member of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, but due to his old age and flexural fitness, he rarely participated in social activities. When Hu Shi learned that her eye disease was serious, he asked her children to convey greetings: "Her eyesight is broken, she can't read or write, I don't know if I have made progress in recent years?" ”
In 1961, Chen Hengzhe also learned from his children that Hu Shi had given them a new version of the "Diary of Hu Shi's Study Abroad", which recorded many of Hu Shi's friendships with her and her husband. When Hu Shi died on February 24, 1962, Chen Hengzhe was also grieving the death of her husband (November 1961) so her children wrote to a friend in Taipei: "I must hide from her, because Uncle Hu is the best friend of her mother and father in life." Yet she knew it anyway, but it was too late, and the blow was heavy, and the pain numbed an old lady for a long time.
"Hu Shi's Study Abroad Diary"
At that time, the mainland was sweeping away all "cattle, ghosts, snake gods", Hu Shi was criticized as a "reactionary cultural authority and enemy of the people", and Chen Hengzhe's family was also raided several times because of overseas relations, but Chen Hengzhe still found the long-cherished "Diary of Hu Shi Studying Abroad" and found his early work collection "Little Raindrop", where there are records of her interactions with Hu Shi and her heart. In his later years, Chen Hengzhe lived in a kind of memory of friendship, concern for family affection, and confusion about the future of the motherland.
Chen Hengzhe died quietly in Shanghai on January 7, 1976, at the age of 86. A generation of talented women did not see their children at the end of the world, did not see a fair historical evaluation of Hu Shi, and did not wait for the arrival of the spring of the motherland.
However, throughout her life, it shows a woman's struggle with fate. Chen Hengzhe not only has the entrepreneurial spirit of Western women going out of the house and being independent, but also has the motherly complex of gentleness and wisdom and sentimentality of oriental bridesmaids, and even more patriotic feelings of speaking out in righteousness and worrying about the country and the people. And all of this has to do with Hu Shi.
The friendship between Chen Hengzhe and Hu Shi for nearly 50 years (1916-1962) has always been pure, sincere and mellow, and has always emitted infinite fragrance in their respective life courses.