Shen Congwen was not only a literati. In fact, like Mr. Lu Xun, he had a wild fighting spirit flowing in his veins.
On the battlefield of life, there have been many setbacks but no setbacks.
After experiencing the boredom of marriage, he cheated. Perhaps, this is also his struggle against reality.
When New China was about to be founded, Shen Congwen committed suicide. He put his hand into the wire plug, seeing that he was about to be electrocuted, his son Shen Longzhu drank loudly, unplugged the power supply in a hurry, and kicked Shen Congwen away, which saved his father's life.
Shen Congwen was sobbing, and a pair of eyes stared at his son, as if to say: What are you stopping me from doing!
The second time, he locked himself in the room, cut the wrist arteries and superior cervical blood vessels with a blade, and drank some kerosene before.
Looking at the gushing blood, Shen Congwen seemed to be thinking: This time I finally died, see if anyone can stop me.
When it was too late, someone broke through the window, jumped into the room, wrapped his hands and neck in a cloth, and the blood was stopped, and he was also pulled back from the ghost door.
Shen Congwen, who died twice, was sent to a mental hospital.
Shen Congwen, who is famous all over the world, why should he not open it like this? Many people say that this is related to Guo Moruo.
In the 1930s, Shen Congwen criticized Guo Moruo, saying that he was useless in writing novels, or that it was better to write poetry. Knowing that Guo Moruo had the status of calling the wind and rain at that time, Shen Congwen felt afraid from the inside, he said: "I made all the mistakes. All work confidence collapsed. ”
Moreover, a group of college students who did not have the ability to think independently posted large posters at the university and hung up large slogans such as "Down with Shen Congwen", which brought Shen Congwen overwhelming mental pressure.
He said: "I should rest, the nerves have developed to a highest point where I can adapt." I will go crazy if I don't destroy it. ”
From the current point of view, Shen Congwen should have suffered from an anxiety disorder, so he had two suicides.
Later, lin Huiyin, a close friend, learned of his affairs, and although she did not know what to do, she still took him to Qinghua's own home and took good care of him. Shen Congwen was finally well, and he never looked for short-sightedness again.
Some people say that people who commit suicide are vulnerable. What can you do to live your life urgently? Why is it so stupid to commit suicide?
Mr. Lu Xun said: People who dream are happy, and the most painful thing in life is that they wake up and have no way out.
Shen Congwen, who has written countless novels and has a clear understanding of the world, should be one of the awakened dreams. However, after battling reality, he found that he had nowhere to go.
There are two choices after there is no way to go: either not to go and cut yourself off, or to break new ground and kill yourself a bloody path.
Shen Congwen, who committed suicide twice, chose to take the first road, he was cowardly. Fortunately, the first road did not work. So he resolutely chose to take the second path.
Those who dare to take the second path are true warriors.
Shen Congwen's life is a life of alternating cowardice and strength, he is not a god or a giant, and his living experience of fighting with life actually has a lot of reference value for modern people.
When Shen Congwen was a child, he actually died once. At that time, he and his brother both had a rash at the same time. On a hot day, the brothers had a high fever, and they could not sleep lying down, because they would cough as soon as they lay down, and they did not let people hold it, because it was uncomfortable to hold it.
Xiangxi Phoenix, the name sounds good, but in fact, it is just a poor and remote area, and the child has a rash, which is a life and death moment. The adults had no hope, so they rolled up the two brothers in bamboo and stood in the shade of the house, resigned to fate.
Under the porch, there are also two small coffins.
Surprisingly, the brothers' high fever slowly subsided. After that, the younger brother grew tall and strong, but the older brother Shen Congwen became a "monkey spirit" because of his illness.
Having already walked through the ghost gate at a young age, it seems to indicate the many disasters and difficulties in Shen Congwen's life; the saying also says that "great difficulties and immortality will have a blessing", which seems to indicate that Shen Congwen can still survive vividly even if he is beaten by fate.
Born in western Hunan And faced with poor mountains and bad waters, Shen Congwen was very wild and was not afraid of anything. Studying in a private school, the kind of rigid and lifeless traditional cultural education, he was not interested at all, and sneaked out to play.
The next day, the gentleman asked him, "Why didn't you come to class yesterday?" He said, "Yesterday I had a treat at home." "It was easy to fool around.
When you can't get past it, it's a big deal to call the teacher; the teacher can't beat enough, and when he comes home, he still has to call his father. Once his father was so angry that he was shouting to cut off his fingers, he immediately cried and cried, but finally did not cut.
It turns out that no matter how big it is, it is good to cry. Later, a biographer wrote: Shen Congwen loved to cry in his later years.
His son immediately corrected: What is the love of crying in his old age, my father loved to cry all his life.
One of the most vulgar curiosities of children is to look at dead bodies. Sometimes Shen sneaked out from Wen and went to the killing field next to the prison outside Xicheng, where a batch of corpses lay. As a child, he will not be afraid of these lying corpses, and he will not think of the tragedy behind these corpses.
He used stones to knock on the heads of dead bodies; sometimes he poked them with a wooden stick to see if he would move.
The wild dogs gathered around the corpses grinning and fighting, and he stood far away, throwing them over with his hands in his pre-prepared bag, and seeing the wild dogs scatter in fright was a great pleasure for him.
Although he often skips class, Shen Congwen is indeed very smart:
When the teacher drew the endorsement, he could temporarily hold on to the Buddha's feet, read it ten times eight times, and actually memorize it word for word.
So he always felt:
Reading is so easy, why spend so much time reading? It's better to have fun!
Shen Congwen in his youth
Shen Congwen was bent on playing, so he didn't finish elementary school and played into the army. To say that he is a soldier is actually to be a bandit. At that time, the world was in turmoil, and with weapons in the army, it was possible to save a life.
Shen Congwen, who was thin and weak, could only do paperwork in the army. Later, he met the person who had the greatest influence on his life, Chen Quzhen, the king of Xiangxi. Although Chen Quzhen was a soldier, he was also a man of temperament. He treasured a large number of books and opened his study for Shen Congwen to read. Orphan books and many precious cultural relics collected from all over the world aroused Shen Congwen's strong curiosity.
Looking at the book, Shen Congwen gradually changed: it turned out that he felt that the natural world was already big enough, and he did not expect that the world in the book was bigger. Later, he not only had ancient books to read, but also a variety of new books and magazines since May Fourth - "New Wave" and "Transformation".
Shen Congwen pondered bitterly for four days and four nights, and finally plucked up the courage to say to Chen Quzhen: "I want to go to Beijing to study." I had to go to a school and learn questions I didn't understand, to see something that would refresh me. ”
Unexpectedly, Chen Quzhen actually agreed: "You go there and have a look." Here's money for you. You want to come back and there are still places for you to eat. ”
Shen Congwen joined the Army of Baojing in Hunan in February 1922
It can be said that it was Chen Quzhen, a good boss, who gave Shen Congwen the courage to give it a go.
Shen Congwen did not graduate from primary school, purely to open his eyes, he dared to be a "north drift", this courage and insight, is the root of his success. In fact, it is precisely because we do not understand anything and have nothing that we dare to break the status quo. If you fight out, your life will open up another world; if you can't fight it, you won't lose anything anyway.
After arriving in Beijing, Shen Congwen went straight to his sister's house. The brother-in-law saw this blood-soaked stunned Qing, remembered his former self, and said casually: "What are you doing when you come to Beijing?" ”
Shen Congwen stared at the big eyes, his eyes flashed, and said hopefully: "I came to find the ideal and read some books." ”
The brother-in-law burst out a bitter laugh and said, "You come to study?" What is the use of reading? I've been reading here for a full decade, from first-class middle school to first-class college, and now that I'm graduating, I don't know where to find a small errand to do. ”
After calming down for a while, the brother-in-law again looked sad and compassionate and persuaded: "There are now 10,000 college students in Beijing City, and there is nothing to do after graduation." Even if you were to be a university professor, what would you do? Salaries are just as low. You haven't had a job in the country yet! ”
Shen Congwen listened, the bloodiness of the mountain wild was instantly boiled, and he said passionately: "I stay in the countryside? It's not watching them kill people today and be killed tomorrow, what does it mean, and they can't learn anything! I couldn't stay any longer before I ran out! I want to come and read, work and read half, and read good books to save the country. This country will certainly not work like this! ”
After talking for half a day, the brother-in-law did not say that he could move him back, but he still admired his boldness. Finally, he gave Shen Congwen a sentence: "Since you have come for faith, don't lose your faith." Because you have nothing but it! ”
Shen Congwen, who had just arrived in Beijing, did not even use the new punctuation marks of the time. He took a round of entrance examinations for Beijing universities, but he could not pass them. The admissions teacher of Peking University looked at him with this shabby look and kindly returned the 2 yuan of the registration to him.
But on his body, there were only seven yuan and six cents left. Holding the only few dollars in his hand, Shen Congwen wanted to cry without tears. He secretly decided: self-study, must be self-taught! Write, must write!
He practiced writing new-style articles very persistently, and submitted articles to newspapers with great persistence, but fate rejected him again and again: except for the occasional small tofu block, most of his articles were sunk in the sea.
Soon after, Shen Congwen heard about an editor at that time: at an editorial meeting, the editor-in-chief spread out a large number of Shen Congwen's unused manuscripts, saying, "This is the work of the great writer Shen Moumou", and when he finished, he fiercely kneaded the manuscript into a ball and threw it into the waste paper basket.
The constant frustration is not that he has not considered changing careers. Fortunately, Shen Congwen finally remembered a sentence given to him by his brother-in-law: Since you are here for faith, don't lose your faith.
Grief is also grief, tears are tears. When the tears are dry, you still have to continue to write.
In addition to continuous submissions, Shen Congwen also wrote to the literary giants at that time, hoping to be appreciated. One of the letters was sent to Uddhav. Yu Dafu was originally at the low point of his life, he felt that he was miserable enough, he did not expect that there were people in Beijing who were worse than him, he decided to go and see this young man.
As soon as he pushed open the door of Shen Congwen's moldy and small broken house, Yu Dafu was shocked:
It was freezing cold, and there was no stove in the house for warmth; a bloodless young man shrunk in a corner, wearing only two jackets, two lines of snot, wrapped his legs in a worn-out quilt, and writing while shaking at the table.
Shen Congwen was in his peking university dormitory in the summer of 1948
Shen Congwen saw Yu Dafu, who almost broke through the door, like a drowning person who finally caught a life-saving straw.
He quickly told Yu Dafu about his ambitions and his miserable situation in Beijing... It was as if he wanted to say enough at a time what he hadn't had the opportunity to say in Beijing for four or five years.
Yu Dafu invited him to dinner at noon, and after eating Yu Dafu gave Shen Congwen all the remaining change. At the end, he also said: "I have read your article." You have to write well. Shen Congwen, who returned to the broken house, threw himself on the table with a wow and cried loudly:
"Don't die, Shen Congwen, I believe that the Chinese literary circles will definitely have your name in the future!"
Later, Yu Dafu did introduce Shen Congwen to Xu Zhimo. Xu Zhimo had just returned from abroad and had taken over a literary magazine that required a large number of manuscripts. However, he could not read what ordinary people wrote, and could only write it himself tiredly.
Fortunately, Providence allowed him to discover Shen Congwen. Shen Congwen has no experience in studying abroad and has not seen much, which is his weakness, but it also happens to be his strength. His writing, without a translation, is like the landscape and human feelings of Xiangxi, natural and simple, even if it is just a white painting, there is also a surprising wild interest.
In his early career, Shen Congwen accumulated a large amount of materials, coupled with his natural imagination, and soon he created his own style and broke out of his own world.
Now it seems that Shen Congwen's entry into Beijing is not only due to courage, but also to his accurate judgment of himself: he can write words that are very different from others, and can bring readers fresh enjoyment. This doomed him to leave a mark on the stars-studded Republic of China.
When Shen Congwen's reputation was getting louder, he was invited by the eclectic Hu Shi to give a lecture at a Chinese public school. On the day of the first class, he was well prepared, but as soon as he entered the classroom, his legs were suddenly weak:
There were countless people sitting under the black pressure, and everyone had come to see the style of this cutting-edge writer.
Shen Congwen was timid, his back was cold, and the words he had thought about were gone. He and the students in the audience, you look at me, look at each other in a daze. A minute passed, and he could not speak. Five minutes passed, and he still couldn't speak.
As a result, ten minutes passed, and he began to speak, and he talked a lot at once, copying the outline on the blackboard while speaking, and hurriedly finished the content of an hour in ten minutes.
He turned around again, and the students in the audience, you looked at me, staring blankly at each other. The atmosphere was even more awkward.
So he picked up chalk and wrote a line on the blackboard: "The first time I went to class, I saw many of you, and I was afraid." ”
The students laughed: this talented writer can still be shy, which is really cute.
People in the school who were originally jealous of Shen Congwen's reputation found stubble:
"Such a person is also worthy of being a gentleman, and he can't say a word for ten minutes!"
Someone complained to Hu Shi, and the magnanimous Hu Shi laughed: "If you can't speak in class, and the students don't bombard him, this is success." As long as he didn't have to speak, Shen Congwen was always full of confidence and breath through Changhong.
Once he passed by the playground and saw a female student, dark-skinned and strong, playing the harmonica as she walked on the track, and when she reached the end, she threw her hair away, turned around and walked back, still playing the harmonica.
He later learned that this girl's name was Zhang Zhaohe, and she was a qianjin of the Famous Zhang family in Suzhou. Shen Congwen was once ashamed of himself, but he did not suppress the turmoil in his heart.
He said: "Hunting is to hunt lions, to pick stars in the sky, to chase beautiful women." ”
The first time he wrote to someone, he said bluntly: "I don't know why, I suddenly fell in love with you." ”
Such a bold statement did not scare Zhang Zhaohe: because there were too many people chasing her, Shen Congwen's conditions were the worst, and she made him up a number called "Frog Thirteen". It's better to say it's a frog than a toad.
Although he did not receive a reply, Shen Congwen did not give up and wrote letters to the other party one after another. At the craziest time, Shen Congwen even said that if she wasn't with him, he would rather die.
Zhang Zhaohe was really annoyed and ran to the principal Hu Shi to let him stop and stop. Hu Shi also persuaded, Shen Congwen still did not stop, that momentum, just like when he must be famous in Beijing.
Although Zhang Zhaohe couldn't stand his annoyance, he turned out the love letters he wrote, and had to say that the level was not generally high: "I have walked bridges in many places, seen clouds many times, and drunk many kinds of wine, but I have only loved a person of the right and best age." ”
"If I love you, your misfortune will last as long as my life."
……
The passion is so great that anyone who reads it cannot resist it.
During the summer vacation, Shen Congwen even went directly to Suzhou to see her, and successfully won the favor of the Zhang family, and finally made Zhang Zhaohe fall in love with him.
After four years, Shen Congwen wrote love letters for four years, and finally got the favor of the goddess, drank the joy of marriage, and finally lived a happy life that he boldly fantasized about.
Shortly after the marriage, Shen Congwen wrote the greatest work of his life, "Border City", which in addition to continuing to describe the unique scenery of western Hunan Province, also appeared an innocent and lovely heroine - Cuicui.
This dark-skinned, healthy and innocent girl is based on Zhang Zhaohe.
Shen Congwen took a group photo with his wife Zhang Zhaohe in Suzhou in the summer of 1935
However, although Cuicui looks like Zhang Zhaohe, her natural vitality is something that Zhang Zhaohe does not have. As Miss Qianjin, Zhang Zhaohe has more than enough reason, insufficient passion, and is incompatible with Shen Congwen's spiritual world:
Shen Congwen likes to listen to puppet plays, vomiting dumb and mocking, strange tones, and Zhang Zhaohe, who loves to listen to Kunqu opera, can't listen to it at all;
Shen Congwen likes to collect antiques, Zhang Zhaohe feels very strange, he has no money, why collect so many antiques, and directly said that he is "not a gentleman pretending to be a gentleman";
Shen Congwen has a bold personality, often fighting for his friends and neglecting money, Zhang Zhaohe worries about the family's expenses all day, and he can't stand his "swollen face and fat man". Shen Congwen cried helplessly: "What you love is not me at all, but a love letter I wrote!" ”
Shen Congwen, who is meek on the surface but actually proud of the shore, has been disappointed in the reality of marriage. It can be seen that he is not willing.
Once, when he went to visit a friend, he met a young literary woman named Gao Qingzi at his friend's house. Gao Qingzi already knew that he would come, and she originally admired the genius writer, deliberately dressing herself according to the women in Shen Congwen's novel, and even her speech and demeanor were no different from those in the novel, and Shen Congwen was once again shaken by her heart and could not help herself.
Shen Congwen and Gao Qingzi
The goddess has a heart, and the king of Xiang has a dream. He inevitably falls in love with Gao Qingzi. The prototype of the heroine of "Border City" Cuicui, in addition to his wife Zhang Zhaohe, actually has Gao Qingzi.
He once said implicitly: "'Border City' is the result of his being seduced and evaded by extramarital feelings in reality, and it is the sustenance of his feelings." ”
According to the convention, Shen Congwen reveals a lot of his emotional life in the novel.
He has a novel called "Looking at the Rainbow", which is about a male writer visiting his lover on a snowy night. The cold outside the window is compelling, and the indoor fire is warm. Two people who are in love with each other have reached a great harmony of life in the harmony and warmth.
I don't know if this is Shen Congwen's personal experience or his consistent beautiful imagination.
With passion on one side and reality on the other, he was very embarrassed. So he had to visit his friend Lin Huiyin, hoping to get some guidance. Of course, Lin Huiyin understood Shen Congwen's situation, but she could only say: "Life is like this, you have to learn to slowly dissolve it yourself." ”
Shen Congwen took a group photo with Lin Huiyin in Beiping Dayuan in June 1931
Eight years later, Gao Qingzi chose to leave and took the initiative to cut off this relationship that was doomed to be fruitless. Shen Congwen finally chose to grow old with Zhang Zhao and Bai Shou.
When reality and ideals conflict with each other, he can only commit himself to reality. After Shen Congwen's death, Zhang Zhaohe sorted out her husband's manuscript and suddenly understood something:
"From Wen to get along with me, is it happiness or unhappiness? No answers. He is not a perfect man, but he is a rare kind person. ”
In fact, whether it is Zhang Zhaohe, Gao Qingzi, or Shen Congwen himself, he may not be able to clearly define who Shen Congwen really is:
When he is too accommodating to the ideal, reality will hurt; when he is too accommodating to reality, the ideal will hurt. All his life, he has been accepting and rejecting; he is compromising and not compromising.
That's the toughness in his character. This is Shen Congwen's misfortune, but also his luck.
In his later years, Shen Congwen and Zhang Zhaohe
Due to Guo Moruo's strong political influence and the unsmooth family life, Shen Congwen never wrote novels again.
A great talent who was famous for his novels in the first half of his life, and he also conceived several huge works in his mind, some of which have already begun, and suddenly they can no longer write, which is really his life. But only a narrow-minded person has only one life.
Shen Congwen could not write novels, but he found another life in the study of cultural relics.
As early as Chen Quzhen's hands, he had already discovered the vitality of our nation's still water from one antique after another: the traditional culture of a nation was condensed in utensils.
How vast this nation is, how vast its artifact culture is. As a result, his work changed dramatically:
Other great writers, Mao Dun, Ba Jin, and Lao She, have all become "people's artists", going abroad all day and flying around;
Only he, still living in Beijing, voluntarily entered the history museum to do research:
"When the sky is not bright, go out, buy a roasted sweet potato in Beixinqiao to warm your hands, take the tram to Tiananmen, the door is not open, that is, sit down to watch the sky and the moon, open the door and then go in." Coming home at night, sometimes heavy rain, that is, a broken sack. ”
No one understood why he did this: Shen Congwen, who did not write articles, seemed to be completely outdated and outdated.
But he himself said, "It seems that I have discovered myself for the first time." ”
So imagine how proud he was when he reported what he had achieved in his career change:
"I should seriously report to you, now roughly estimated, in addition to clothing, the history of silk and satin has been taken down, I have more than 100,000 silk satin; the history of furniture development has been taken down; the history of the development of lacquer technology has been taken down; the history of the development of landscape painting in the early period has been taken down; the history of ceramic processing technology has been taken down; the history of the application of fans and lamps has been taken down; the history of the processing of gold and stone has been taken down; the history of the application and equipment development of horses in the past three thousand years has been taken down; the development materials for music and dance chow performances have been taken down..."
These achievements were all accomplished by relying on a person's eyesight and mental strength in a small room of 10 square meters.
This rebirth is stronger than the life he had written before: words are nourished by his spiritual life, and once the spiritual world appears depressed, the color of words will be greatly reduced; cultural relics are nourishing his spiritual life.
In the admiration and perception of fine cultural relics again and again, his spiritual world has been greatly expanded, and his own vitality has been nurtured. The so-called "settling down and establishing a life" of the ancients is probably Shen Congwen at this time.
Shen Congwen is truly a strong person with a heart. During the special period, he and his nephew Huang Yongyu met, he pretended not to see it, and at the moment when he crossed his shoulders, he said four words without tilting his head: "Be calm!" ”
One day someone put a slogan, "Down with Shen Congwen," and pasted it behind his back. At the end of the conference, he tore off the slogan himself, looked at it a few times, and said, "That calligraphy is so bad." It's embarrassing to put such crappy calligraphy on my back! People who write should practice well. ”
When he was sent to work at the May Seventh Cadre School, he wrote to his nephew: "There are lotus flowers all around here, and they are very splendid. ”
It was in this place, in this mood, that Shen Congwen did not have any reference materials, and only wrote down a 210,000-word clothing history based on memory. The writing process is too brainy, coupled with physical activity also does a lot, Shen Congwen's body can not eat, need to apply for painkillers.
After filling out the form and taking a few pills, Shen Congwen turned away, singing opera all the way, like an old naughty boy, bouncing and jumping, full of energy.
Shen Congwen once said to his students: "There may be people in this world who build Chonglou JieGe on the sand base or on the water." That's not me. I just want to build a small Greek temple, choose a small land as the foundation, and build it with hard stones. Delicate, sturdy, symmetrical, and small in shape, it is my ideal building. This temple is dedicated to 'human nature'. ”
Everyone's life, like Shen Congwen, to build their own "small temple".
Often under the attack of reality and ideals, our lives are broken.
But since we have no way out, let's wipe away the blood and tears and adjust slowly.
One day, when we see the "small temple" we have built, big or small, we will sigh from the bottom of our hearts: Oh, it turns out that it is myself.