Today, many of the Chinese versions of French masterpieces that Chinese read come from a famous translator of the last century, and this person is Fu Lei.
In the limited time of his life, Fu Lei translated dozens of classic works by French masters such as Balzac and Romain Rolland, so he was also recognized by the French Balzac Research Society and became a member of it.
Seeing Fu Lei's name, many people will first think of Fu Lei's side as an educator, and the letters he exchanged with the children were bound into a "Fu Lei Family Letter", each of which is worthy of every parent and child's serious imitation and careful consideration.
After reading this book, people will feel that Fu Leizhen is worthy of being "the most daring Chinese to tell the truth".
Unfortunately, in the 1960s, at the age of 58, Fu Lei was so persecuted that he hanged himself in front of his own window in humiliation, and his wife followed him.
After the husband and wife left, their aftermath was still full of ups and downs, and the fates of the two sons were also very different, the eldest son escaped the disaster by leaving England, and the younger son was persecuted because of his father.
More than ten years after the death of Fu Lei and his wife, the family had been placed on trumped-up charges before they were finally cleared, and Fu Lei's relatives and friends rushed to find the ashes of the couple who could not be buried at that time.
Fu Lei was a very charismatic person, and on his tombstone, just 12 words summed up his life.
What are these 12 words?
Fu Lei's tombstone
As the protagonists of the book, the experience of Fu Lei's two sons seems to be more intrigued by people, and his two sons have been so charismatically educated by their father that their lives are certainly very exciting.
But unfortunately, the eldest son was denounced as a traitor by his father and everyone because of his conversion to British nationality, and the younger son spent a relatively ordinary life.
Why are the two sons so characterized? What is the truth and context of the matter? What should people think of Fu Lei and his family?
A cause bred by anger
In 1908, Fu Lei was born in Pudong, Shanghai, which was still part of Jiangsu Province at the time, and his original name was Nu'an, because he cried louder than other babies at birth, and the whole hospital resounded with his voice.
Fu Lei's family is rich in cultural heritage, so the elders in the family named him according to the ancient text "King Wen is angry and the world is at peace".
When he grew up, Fu Lei changed his name to a word and named it "Lei", which also means to be angry.
It can be seen that Fu Lei was associated with "anger" all his life, and he also developed a strong personality in the process of growing up, and he was a literati who was just and upright all his life.
Fu Lei learned to be rich in five cars at a young age, thanks to his mother.
Fu Lei lost his father at a young age, and from an early age he lived a life of dependence with his mother, who regarded the child as her only dependent, she was not only a good wife and mother, but also very assertive, so she sent Fu Lei to a private school to learn traditional Chinese studies and mathematical English.
The mother's education of Fu Lei is very strict, Fu Lei is stubborn, greedy and tired of school from an early age, often skipping classes and fighting, and is an extremely difficult to discipline "bear child".
But there is a truth in the world that one thing drops one thing, and when her mother saw that Fu Lei was unwilling to study, she tied his hands and feet to the legs of the table when Fu Lei returned home after skipping school one day, and when he woke up, he let him confess his mistake to his father's spirit card.
Fu Lei naturally did not easily repent, he still did the opposite as if he was skipping school, one evening, when he returned home from school, he found that the door of his home was closed, at this time it was cold outside the house, and Fu Lei knocked on the door several times and shouted without getting a response.
It wasn't until late at night that he was "just discovered" by his mother, and Fu Lei knew that it was his mother punishing her for not going to school. After several times and three times, Fu Lei never skipped school again.
Her mother used extraordinary means to make Fu Lei study hard from then on, and she even pretended to hang herself to force her to die, and her mother's extreme practice was for Fu Lei to succeed and not repeat her father's mistakes.
Fu Lei thus became more paranoid and more rigid, and he was admitted to a famous local middle school with his tenacity, and he was admitted to the university with excellent results.
During this period, Fu Lei saw the crisis of the country, and the national feelings in his heart rose.
He was expelled from school for his blatant opposition to religion, and he also participated in the May Thirtieth Patriotic Movement and the anti-warlord movement to save the country. Due to his positive performance, Fu Lei was often a leader in the movement, and he was almost arrested and imprisoned by the police.
Fu Lei's patriotism was as strong as his enthusiasm for studying, and due to the turmoil of the times, Fu Lei wanted to study with peace of mind, so he decided to study abroad.
The mother is very happy that the child is finally on the right track, and unswervingly supports his studies, even if she sells her property for his schooling. Before studying abroad, Fu Lei secretly resolved to return to serve the motherland as soon as possible after completing his studies.
After months of drifting at sea, Fu Lei arrived in Marseille, France, and he rushed to Paris to learn French with a letter of recommendation from a friend.
He was highly capable of studying, and soon he could read speeches fluently in French, and in the same year he was admitted to the University of Paris, majoring in literary theory.
France is famous for its art, and during his time in Paris, Fu Lei traveled to France with many Chinese students, who visited various museums and art galleries in France and listened to the speeches of many masters of art at the University of Paris.
During the summer vacation of the second year in Paris, Fu Lei went on vacation to Switzerland and found an old book from the owner's collection in the local homestay.
After reading a few pages, Fu Lei fell in love with the book, especially one of the articles in the book, "The Legend of St. Jancholf", and his desire to share gradually rose.
Fu Lei thought that at this time, there were very few Translators of French works in China, and he could try to translate them and spread them to China for everyone to enjoy.
So with the mood of trying it out, Fu Lei translated this article and published it in domestic literary and art magazines, and unexpectedly, the article attracted the love of some readers in China.
The success of this translation greatly increased Fu Lei's confidence, and he immediately translated the works of some French masters, including Romain Rolland's "Celebrity Biography" series, which received a certain response.
Since then, Fu Lei has not only made translating works his profession, he has also created some travelogues that he has seen and heard in France, and written out his impressions of his visits and published them in domestic magazines.
These translations and literary creations made Fu Lei famous in China, and many newspapers and periodicals invited him to serve as an editor after returning to China.
The love and affection of the master
After returning to China, Fu Lei married his cousin Zhu Meifu, who had already made a marriage contract, and although the two were arranged marriages, the couple had a happy, happy and harmonious marriage, because Zhu Meifu and Fu Lei had similar experiences.
When she was 4 years old, her father was imprisoned for being framed by a local land snake, and during the 3 months of detention, the family ran around for his father's sake.
The harsh prison environment and the helplessness of never being saved caused him to contract a serious lung disease, and eventually Zhu Meifu's father died depressed in prison.
The responsibility for caring for the children fell to the mother, and before that, because there was no time to take care of the children, Zhu Meifu's younger siblings died one after another, leaving him only one daughter in the family.
Zhu Meifu's mother also attaches great importance to the development of her children's studies, so she was able to enter the girls' school from an early age and learned to play the piano, which made her a knowledgeable, gentle and kind woman.
Zhu Meifu and Fu Lei are fellow countrymen, the difference between the two is 5 years old, they have been a relationship between young plum bamboo horses since childhood, and Fu Lei often unconsciously helps and protects his sister.
At the age of 14, Zhu Meifu and Fu Lei made a marriage contract, so after returning to China, when Fu Lei saw such a cousin who was both heavenly and gentle like water, he immediately chose to marry her, and the two lived a harmonious husband and wife life ever since.
Yang Dai also praised her: a gentle wife, a loving mother, a beautiful lady in the salon, and a capable woman.
At this time, Fu Lei's love career was double harvested, and he was at the peak of his life, but the sudden death of his mother disrupted his life.
Although his mother's strict supervision of him occupied most of his life at this time, he was grateful and loved his mother from the bottom of his heart, and it was his mother's discipline that enabled him to have the life he has now, so after his mother's death, Fu Lei was very sad.
Fu Lei was no longer in the mood to participate in the work, so he quit his job as an editor of the newspaper and from then on, he only regarded translating French books as his only job.
After that, Fu Lei devoted all his energy to translation work, first translating the rest of the "Celebrity Biography" series, and then translating the works of Russell, Balzac and other literary masters.
Due to the frequent wars in China at this time and the serious shortage of talents, in the spirit of simple patriotism, Fu Lei accepted the relevant positions of cultural relics protection work, went to the Longmen Grottoes to investigate, and briefly served as the editor of the war report column.
On the eve of the founding of New China in 1949, Fu Lei took his family to Hong Kong for a short life, but he did not choose to follow Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan like most literati, but returned to his hometown again and continued to deepen his translation career.
The wrong way to play the piano
With the development of the times, Fu Lei's early translations were inevitably biased, so he retranslated many classic works.
He and his wife had three sons, the eldest son died early, the second son was called Fu Cong, and the younger son was named Fu Min. Fu Cong loved to play the piano very much, and his life became very different from playing the piano, which in turn affected his parents.
Fu Cong only began to learn to play the piano when he was 9 years old, but his skills improved by leaps and bounds due to his extraordinary talent, Fu Cong won numerous awards since he was a child, and he was able to participate in competitions abroad and study abroad with his outstanding talents.
In 1954, Fu Cong went to Poland to study abroad with his dream of piano and began touring Europe, and his work was even nominated for the Grammys.
For more than a decade after Fu Cong went abroad, he exchanged letters with his father who was far away in his hometown, and these letters became the later "Fu Lei Family Letters".
However, with the sudden change of the domestic situation, Fu Lei was convicted of his words, he has always been just and righteous, so he will never admit the mistakes he has not made, and at this time, whether Fu Cong can return to China in time has become the key to rescuing his father.
But what Fu Lei could not accept was that after Fu Cong graduated in Poland, he did not return to his homeland, but moved to Britain.
Fu Lei, who learned of this, was furious, and he taught his sons to keep patriotism firmly in mind when they were young, and Fu Cong's act of throwing himself into the capitalist base camp was tantamount to treason.
In extreme anger, Fu Lei did not write to his son again, and Fu Mingbai's actions not only made his father passive, but also violated his father's bottom line, and he has been trying to find ways to reconnect with his father.
It was not until a year later that Fu Cong wrote to his father through his wife and father-in-law in England, explaining that he just wanted his career to continue to develop and promising that he would never become a British citizen.
Although Fu Lei hated his son's behavior very much, he had no choice but to resign himself to it. As time passed, Fu Lei was stripped of his charges, and he continued his translation work and acted more low-key than before.
Fu Lei thought that Fu Cong's going to live in Britain was the most outrageous thing, but he did not expect that Fu Cong would give up his Chinese nationality and become a British a few years later.
In the letter, he explained to his father that he had many mistakes in doing things in foreign countries as a Chinese, and he could only seek perfection for his career.
So Fu Lei expressed his strong dissatisfaction in the final letter to his son, and said that he wanted to break off the father-son relationship with him.
He didn't care that his son's actions would put him in danger, but he cared deeply about his arrogant bones as a literati, and he thought that Fu Cong's use of the Fu family was dusty.
A proud bone to enjoy a reputation for future generations
Fu Lei was eventually judged a reactionary, and one day he was suddenly raided, Fu Lei was put on a top hat, and the extremely crazy people inflicted endless physical and mental humiliation on Fu Lei.
Fu Lei, who was fierce in nature, naturally could not bear such treatment, and chose to hang himself at home, and his wife saw that Fu Lei wanted to commit suicide, felt that he could not live alone, and chose to die with her husband.
So the two tied a white cloth on the iron frame of the living room balcony, and in order to prevent the neighbors from disturbing the rest of the neighbors due to the noise caused by the falling of the body, the couple also laid thick mattresses under their feet.
So on the morning of September 3, 1966, Fu Lei and his wife quietly passed away, and it was not until the nanny found out that the couple had died.
In writing the will on the eve of suicide, the couple also tried their best not to bother others, they did not show complaints and anger, and the words in the letter seemed to be gently saying goodbye to the world.
In the power of attorney, Fu Lei listed 13 requests to his wife's brother, which were nothing more than to explain the distribution and disposal of his debts and inheritance, and at the end of the article, Fu Lei also expressed his apologies for disturbing others.
The ashes of Fu Lei and his wife were only found after they were rehabilitated in 1979, and their relatives found them and buried the couple in the Shanghai Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery, engraving the following sentence on Fu Lei's tombstone: The naked son is lonely and will create a world.
Fu Lei's life is indomitable, he is a person who always maintains the heart of a child, and retains in his heart the stubborn spirit and paranoid ideas of the old century.
He was always immersed in his career, and he did not relax at all even in the moments of life's ups and downs.
In the face of injustice, Fu Lei faced it calmly with the feelings of a naked child, and he was always like a child who unconditionally believed in the mother of the motherland, such patriotic feelings that no one could match.
In today's society full of lust and suspicion, how many people lack such a pure heart and such firm faith. Becoming a person like Fu Lei will always be loved by the world.