At the beginning of January 1925, an article called "After Drinking" appeared in the prestigious literary magazine Modern Review.
It was an absurd story immersed in drunkenness, narrating an ambiguous storm in the new family during the May Fourth period:
After the couple drank alcohol with their mutual male friend Ziyi, Ziyi fell asleep soundly.
His wife, who had admired him for a long time, pleaded with her husband:
"I don't want anything, I just want you to promise me something... Just a second. ”
"I just want to smell his (Ziyi's) face, do you allow it?"
Later, the "smell" here actually refers to the "kiss" between lovers.
The husband who hears this request goes from incredulity, to unacceptability, to finally compromise and fulfillment; After his wife Cai Yuan, who could get permission, walked in front of the drunken Ziyi, she finally did not put the idea of kissing into action...
And between the lines, the warmth of the stove, the smell of wine that has not gone away, the silent and sweet air in the room... These ambiguous atmosphere descriptions are always filled with a feeling of affection; Between alcohol and reason, it is precisely the struggle of feminist consciousness to sleep and awaken.
The release of this work coincided with the upsurge of May Fourth thought.
There is no doubt: this "derailed work" created "occasionally blown by the wind of literary wine" can be described as a sensation in the literary world after it was published, and Luoyang paper was expensive for a time; Adapted scripts have come one after another, and there is even a small literary genre called "drunken pie".
Similarly, this supreme and delicate work also announces the advent of another literary girl.
She is the talented daughter of the Republic of China, Ling Shuhua, and in the following years, this name and his contemporaries Bingxin and Lin Hui have become high-profile stars and compete in literary history.
1.
It has been said that to understand a writer, you must start with her most absurd and outstanding works; Because there are often hidden feelings that she rarely knows.
The meaning of the work "After Drinking" to Ling Shuhua is like this.
Old and new, tradition and modernity, pursuit and compromise... The characterization and positioning of these female images is precisely the refraction of Ling Shuhua's heart.
Born in a famous family in Beijing, such a birth environment has largely given Ling Shuhua great confidence: the pursuit of freedom, the yearning for love, and the protection of his own world.
Because his father Ling Fupeng has always been a high-ranking government official from the end of the Qing Dynasty to the beginning of the Republic, Ling Shuhua has lived a rich and comfortable life since she was a child.
Regarding the Ling family's mansion, Ling Shuhua once described it this way: "I can't tell how many suites and how many houses there are, I just remember that the children who sneak out of the yard alone often get lost." ”
When Ling Shuhua grew up, China's ancient traditional culture and etiquette happened to experience the impact of the New Cultural Movement and the May Fourth Movement, and under the influence of new ideas, a pursuit of human freedom became the main trend of society, among which the impact of male and female love and family ethics could not be ignored in this huge social change.
Ling Shuhua's "After Drinking" was born during this period; If summed up in one sentence, this is her, who comes from an old-style family, with her back to the dull past, looking at the rising sun, and writing a female writer's thoughts and explorations about fate and the future.
From the perspective of literary schools, Ling Shuhua seems to be the representative of the "new boudoir school."
At the age of 22, she was admitted to Yenching University with honors, specializing in English, French, Japanese and other languages and literatures; The rich living conditions also make this woman, who has been reading poetry since childhood, have the confidence and ability to focus on writing; After that, Ling Shuhua began to submit articles for major newspapers and periodicals, and gradually showed an amazing literary talent.
Among them, because her works are good at expressing the delicate psychology of women, she is also known as "China's Manshufil" by Shen Congwen, Xu Zhimo and others.
In 1924, the Indian poet Tagore visited China, and Ling Shuhua, as an escort, formed a reception group with Hu Shi, Xu Zhimo, Lin Huiyin, Liang Sicheng and others, and thus met Chen Xiying, who was then a professor in the English Department of Peking University.
During the reception banquet, Ling Shuhua's extraordinary speech and temperament left a deep and beautiful impression on him; Later, with the publication of the novel "After Drinking", the name Ling Shuhua became a sensation in the literary circle. Since then, Chen Xiying has admired this extraordinary talent even more.
For Chen Xiying, Ling Shuhua also appreciated; As friends with the same hobbies and interests, they often discuss their views on literature, painting and current affairs, and over time, the love that belongs to two people really comes.
In 1926, Chen Xiying and Ling Shuhua successfully entered the palace of marriage with the blessing of everyone.
The unrestrained and free talent and the determined and gentle talent are undoubtedly the most perfect combination.
But at the same time, when romantic love encounters the siege of firewood, rice, oil and salt, those awakening and free pursuit of women also bring stormy tests to a stable marriage.
2.
The two people after marriage do not get along happily!
As a professor, Chen Xiying has traditional machismo in his bones.
He hopes that his wife can focus on the family after marriage, and become a full-time wife with her husband and children.
But such ideas and suggestions are simply a prisoner of human rights for Ling Shuhua, who has been carefree about food and clothing since childhood, and who is full of pursuit of freedom and natural emancipation; She clearly told Chen Xiying: In this life, she is definitely not a person who gives up herself for her family!
Later, Chen Xiying came to Wuhan University to work because of work transfers; As a wife, Ling Shuhua, who can only follow her husband, feels inexplicably depressed and wronged, especially after learning that her husband personally rejected her application to teach in Wuhan, an uncontrollable rebellion also faintly jumped in her heart.
When irreconcilable contradictions gradually swallowed up the glamorous marriage, and the mutual appreciation and admiration that used to be became accusations and complaints of mutual disgust, Ling Shuhua's life also underwent great changes.
When he wrote the sensational literary "After Drinking", Ling Shuhua was only 25 years old, an age that was not deeply involved in the world and full of endless expectations and yearning for love and the future.
But at the same time, Ling Shuhua that year could not have imagined that her life would be torn back and forth between crossing morality and returning to rationality like her writing, painful and sinking.
The unhappy married life made Ling Shuhua finally choose to cheat.
She fell in love with an English poet named Julian; To be precise, it was a foreign teacher invited by her husband Chen Xiying to be a guest at home.
But this party undoubtedly led the wolf into the house, and Julian's appearance cast a shadow on their marriage relationship ever since.
Perhaps it is the desire and yearning for freedom, Ling Shuhua's encounter with Julian is like finding a channel to rebel against tradition.
Even if Chen Xiying treats her very well, from time to time she comes up with some small surprises and romance, intending to repair the marriage relationship.
But at that time, Ling Shuhua was like the wife in "After Drinking", and although her husband's praise was gorgeous, Cai Yuan could not turn a deaf ear to the lust that came from the bottom of her heart.
In this way, "After Drinking" seems to have become a kind of prophecy, even if Ling Shuhua is buried deep in her inner prison, every iron railing is written with loyalty and upbringing, but married life for her, but a living captivity is a living captivity, and the heart that pursues freedom and liberation needs a way out!
Even though she is no longer young, she is still immersed in love.
For Julian's sake, she began to wear a beautiful cheongsam, perm fashionable curls, and put on bright lipstick... To be more suitable for the young and handsome poets around him.
Later, on the pretext of visiting her mentor, she took Julian back to Beiping for a sightseeing; In the face of the doubts of her friends, she was not afraid at all, but generously introduced her lover.
Ling Shuhua at this moment is rebellious, and at the same time, she, who has sunk into the bottom line of ethics, is also enjoying the comfort of this moment.
Even if this comfort comes at the cost of destroying the family.
By the time Ling Shuhua and Julian returned to Wuhan, the affairs of the two had already made a lot of trouble; As a professor, Chen Xiying was even more indignant, and those originally retained decency and dignity became a joke among the people in his wife's bottomless trampling.
Exhausted, Chen Xiying finds his wife and hopes that Ling Shuhua can choose between the family and Julian.
There is no doubt that this choice also gave Ling Shuhua the right to pursue love and freedom.
But what everyone did not expect was that in the face of the choice given by her husband, Ling Shuhua did not hesitate to choose to return to the family.
It seems that Julian's existence is just a dream she fantasized about when she was slightly drunk.
Ling Shuhua's voluntary departure made Julian unable to continue teaching at Wuhan University, and this amorous and handsome poet eventually returned to England and began a new romance.
3.
The apricot blossom yearning for freedom is finally trapped in the veins and cannot step out of the courtyard wall of human morality; When the hustle and bustle of life came to an abrupt end, everything was so calm and empty.
Suddenly, remembering the year when Ling Shuhua's "After Drinking" became a hit, the famous literary hero Lu Xun's comment on her work:
"She is mostly cautious, and moderately describes the gentle women in the old family, even if there is a cheating behavior, it is because she is occasionally blown by the wind of wine, and finally returns to her old ways."
The road ahead is not clear, a word is a saying!
Her life is really like her story: torn back and forth between love and morality, and finally regains sanity; But life and novels are different, and the drunkenness and expectations shown by Ling Shuhua's Cai Yuan fall back in life, but it is difficult for everyone to be happy, and most of them are defeated.
Just like the marriage between Ling Shuhua and Chen Xiying, it took most of his life to mend, but it still backfired.
Ling Shuhua, who returned to the family, did not reconcile with Chen Xiying as he wished, and although the scarred wound no longer hurts, it will be forever imprinted in his heart.
Just as Chen Xiying minded Ling Shuhua's betrayal, Ling Shuhua also hated Chen Xiying's appearance and cut off his love.
So when Ling Shuhua's mother died, Ling Shuhua directly took his daughter back to Beijing and began to live separately from her husband Chen Xiying.
In a sense, this is the spiritual liberation that Ling Shuhua fought for.
Later, Chen Xiying went to the United Kingdom to take up a job, and Ling Shuhua, as his wife, naturally had no excuse to stay in Beiping, so he had to take his daughter to the United Kingdom together, but even in a foreign country, the couple still slept in separate beds.
It is said that Ling Shuhua has her own room, no one is allowed to enter, and all her secrets are hidden in it, but after she died, her family could not find anything.
The daughter's response to this incident was: "The mother wrapped herself tightly all her life. ”
In fact, in this unsatisfactory marriage, Ling Shuhua repeatedly showed the most restrained despair.
She said to her daughter more than once:
"A woman should never get married".
"A woman must not confess to a man, absolutely not."
From this, you can also see Ling Shuhua's twisting and pain, but who can blame this unrecognizable marriage!
Both husband and wife seem to be satisfied with such a married life, without being different or wide, but they are also fine, allowing time to fly, as if they are praying that their lives can be shorter, shorter.
Until 1970, Chen Xiying died of illness in London, and his life of separation for half his life finally became a loneliness alone.
But for all the things in this old age, Ling Shuhua had an indescribable abruptness.
Many times, she passes the time in a daze, sometimes sitting in front of Chen Xiying's statue for a whole day, no one knows what she is thinking, but in the endless silence, it seems to make people feel the guilt and melancholy of right and wrong, regret and wrongdoing.
Ling Shuhua is old, but she is still the woman who is stubborn and rebellious and will never admit defeat and admit her mistakes, so in this old past that has ended, all she left behind is silence.
Unfortunately, this half-life of entanglement and twisting finally took away the peerless grace of a talented girl.
The brilliance and legend that belonged to her finally became a dim glimmer of light; Only the drunken hazy eyes between the lines of "After Drinking" remind future generations that she has really come!
#头条创作挑战赛 #
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