In May 1924, Tagore visited China for the first time.
Xu Zhimo, Chen Xiying, and Ling Shuhua were responsible for entertaining Tagore.
At that time, Xu Zhimo pursued Lin Huiyin, but he couldn't.
Tagore advised him:
"Miss Ling Shuhua is better than Lin Hui, and she is also a very suitable candidate, you might as well plant the flower of friendship."
Ling Shuhua
Ling Shuhua was born in 1900 in a family of eunuchs in Beijing, and his father Ling Fupeng served as the deputy of Yin of Shuntianfu (equivalent to the mayor of Beijing).
She received a good education from an early age:
Cixi's imperial painter taught her to draw, Gu Hongming, who was proficient in 9 Chinese words, taught her English, and Zhou Zuoren, a master of prose, taught her to write.
Therefore, Ling Shuhua became a leader in the literary and art circle in his early 20s, earlier than Lin Huiyin became famous.
Listening to Tagore's words, Xu Zhimo suddenly opened and wrote 80 letters to Ling Shuhua in a row!
Xu Zhimo's talent and demeanor moved Ling Shuhua's heart.
But Xu Zhimo was divorced, which made her prohibitive.
Who knows, Ling Shuhua's hesitation, Xu Zhimo turned his head and fell in love with Lu Xiaoman.
Disappointmentd, Ling Shuhua wrote to Chen Xiying and invited him to come to his house for tea.
Chen Xiying
Chen Xiying, a professor of English at Peking University, was born in 1896 in Yaojiawan Village, Hudai Town, Wuxi, Jiangsu Province.
He went to the appointment with a curiosity and walked into the Lingfu mansion in Shijia Hutong.
It is a large mansion with 99 rooms!
Chen Xiying walked for a long time, and muttered in his heart:
"How could this girl live in such a big mansion? Maybe like Lin Daiyu, it's under the fence. ”
As a result, the maid said:
"Miss is inside."
Chen Xiying was stunned, it turned out that Ling Shuhua was the eldest lady of the Eight Classics!
What flattered him even more was -
Two years later, Ling Shuhua married him with 28 rooms and a back garden.
Ling Shuhua Chen Xiying wedding photo
After marriage, Ling Shuhua followed Chen Xiying and returned to his hometown in Wuxi to visit his in-laws.
As a result, contradictions come out.
Ling Shuhua has been pampered since childhood, and when she came to the Chen family to be a bride, she had to wash and cook, and serve her in-laws, where would she?
So, she pretended to be sick and avoided these household chores.
After two months, she finally returned to Beiping with her husband, and she couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
Who knows, Chen Xiying sent most of his monthly salary back to his hometown, leaving only a quarter to support his small family.
Ling Shuhua was accustomed to spending money lavishly, and often sulked because of this.
What made Ling Shuhua even more unbearable was that Chen Xiying always expected Ai Ai to speak, and it took half a day to earn a sentence.
Moreover, he always mocks and ridicules people as soon as he opens his mouth.
So much so that Ling Shuhua did not dare to show his novel to her husband, for fear that he would undermine his confidence.
A few years later, Chen Xiying and his family went to Wuhan to serve as a professor and dean of the School of Literature at Wuhan University.
Ling Shuhua wants to go to school and become a woman in a new era.
However, Chen Xiying followed Western workplace rules and resolutely refused to hire his wife.
Therefore, Ling Shuhua could only be a housewife, take care of her husband, raise her daughter, and write and paint in her spare time.
She wrote to Hu Shi to complain:
"How a woman is so upset that she is distraught, especially someone who is not willing to be a housewife!
A woman with a husband is really a public servant, and because she does not have a proper income on a monthly basis, everyone treats you as if you were supported. ”
All in all, this marriage was unsatisfactory, which made Ling Shuhua extremely depressed.
Julian
At this moment, the English poet Julian quietly walked into her emotional world -
In 1935, Julian came to Wuhan University to teach English literature.
He came from a famous family, his mother was the famous painter Vanessa Bell, and his aunt was the famous writer Virginia Woolf.
Julian likes to write poetry, has a high artistic talent, and is very disdainful of Xu Zhimo.
However, he is very similar to Xu Zhimo:
The same unruly temperament, the same amorous affection.
Ling Shuhua
Only a month after arriving at Wuhan University, Julian fell in love with the "dean's wife" Ling Shuhua.
He wrote to his mother, talking about Ling Shuhua:
"She is the most charming stunner I have ever met, and the only woman I know who could be your daughter-in-law, because she truly belongs to our world, and is one of the smartest, kindest, most sensitive and talented."
His mother warned him not to mess around:
"Sooner or later you will return to England, and that woman will bear heavy social pressure for your deviance, and her husband will lose face!"
However, Julian didn't listen, and still frantically pursued Ling Shuhua.
He took the trouble to compliment Ling Shuhua as a talented woman, even compared her to his aunt Woolf, and tried to introduce her work to the English-speaking world, believing that she would be a great success!
Julian's insight is a great comfort to Ling Shuhua, who has been a housewife for many years.
She began to confide in Julian:
"I couldn't believe anything, but now I'm trying to find love, to find something to believe."
She also told Julian that she had loved Xu Zhimo and that she married Chen Xiying to fulfill her obligations and marry for the sake of marriage.
Soon, the two became heart-to-eye and fell into a fanatical forbidden love.
This year, Ling Shuhua was 35 years old and Julian was 27 years old.
Ling Mansion
In 1936, Ling Shuhua told her husband that he was going back to his mother's house in Peiping.
In fact, she was having a tryst with Julian in Peiping.
The two spent 20 days, and Julian became obsessed and wrote to his mother:
"We were happy and silly.
She knew the city like the back of her hand, she was committed to me, she was lovely and she was impeccable in her taste.
Also, I want to meet Chinese and British intellectuals, go to the theater, go skating, and have sex. ”
And Ling Shuhua was completely carried away by the fire of lust, and she lamented to her friends more than once:
"I can't find my way back!"
After that, she really took Julian to meet China's cultural elite, and showed her family and connections.
She took him to Lingfu's house as a guest, Shen Congwen's house to a tea party, and Qi Baishi's home to ask for paintings.
Moreover, Ling Shuhua dressed himself up in style, wearing delicate earrings and a fashionable velvet hat... It seems to be 10 years younger all of a sudden.
The two did not know who they were in their dreams, and they had a secret pleasure for a while.
Ling Shuhua's family of three
Soon, this stolen vacation ended, and Ling Shuhua returned to her husband and daughter.
However, she and Julian still secretly mingled together.
During the summer vacation, Julian traveled to Tibet and thought madly about Ling Shuhua, and he wrote the love poem "After the Marriage":
Crossing, straddling, tangled mosquito nets
Fragile Venus, bewildered God of War
The pit has been opened with an iron net
Rusty, like a rising star
Nature still allows penetration
Only in front of a layer of epithelium
Arthropods painted in ink can reproduce
In a crackling fight
Crab legs clasp in the embrace of the sea
Salty mucus, sinking into the deep sea
Flee, the sea breeze flies through the cold
Crimson sunset, black broken trees
Steep English birds hang over the walls until old
Tangled on the beach, we slept
"Tangled on the beach, we sleep", this ending sentence is very impactful, like a beam of early summer lightning, it hit Ling Shuhua's heart hard, and she sank into it more and more.
Julian
However, just when Ling Shuhua was fully engaged, Julian met the English girl Ince.
Julian fell in love with her at first sight, and the passion between the two burned like a wildfire!
In fact, Julian has always been a merry boy.
For him, Ling Shuhua was just an exotic encounter.
Later, Julian gave Ling Shuhua a code name "K" in his memoirs:
It means the 11th girlfriend.
Ling Shuhua learned about Julian's affair with Ince, and she fell into madness!
She angrily denounced Julian for being irresponsible and threatened with death.
She carried a bottle of rat poison, a Mongolian knife, and threatened to hang him in his room!
With such fanfare, the scandal of the misconduct of the two soon spread throughout the campus, and Chen Xiying's face was lost...
One day in October 1936, Chen Xiying blocked Ling Shuhua and Julian in the house, and he furiously "broke the glass on the door and tried to break into the bedroom."
However, when he calmed down, he made an unexpected decision -
As long as the wife chooses to break off the relationship with Julian, the two do not divorce, and life goes on as usual.
Julian in Spain
In the end, Julian was forced by public opinion to resign from Wuda and return to England.
However, he broke off the connection with Ling Shuhua and still wrote to each other.
It was not until 18 July 1937 that Julian went to Spain to volunteer for the anti-fascist "international column" and was killed by a bomb attack.
He was so badly injured that he could not survive. The doctor told me how well Julian had behaved and that he had brought back hundreds of wounded.
Julian was 29 years old.
The news of Julian's death reached Wuhan University, and students held a memorial service for him, and Chen Xiying also spoke.
Ling Shuhua was overwhelmed with grief, and in order to relieve the pain in her heart, she began to correspond with Julian's mother and aunt.
It was thanks to the encouragement of her aunt Woolf that she wrote an autobiographical collection of stories in English, "Ancient Rhymes".
And "Ancient Rhyme" became the most important work in Ling Shuhua's life, making her one of the best female writers in China at the beginning of the 20th century!
In 1960, Ling Shuhua wrote to Julian's mother and copied Su Dongpo's "Jiang Chengzi" to tell his feelings for Julian:
Ten years of life and death, not thinking, unforgettable. A lonely grave for thousands of miles, nowhere to speak desolate. Even if you don't know each other, your face is dusty and your beards are like frost.
The night came and the dream suddenly returned, Xiaoxuan window, dressing. There were no words, only tears. It is expected that every year the intestine is broken, bright moon night, short Matsuoka.
Ling Shuhua and her husband
So, what happened to the relationship between Ling Shuhua and her husband?
They lived apart for many years, and the marriage relationship existed in name only.
One day many years later, their daughter, Chen Xiaoying, accidentally read Julian's biography.
She was shocked to find that her mother had a story with Julian, so she ran to ask her father-
One day not long after, my father and I were sitting on a stool in the park, and I asked him:
"Is this true?"
He said:
"Yes."
I asked my father why he married his mother, and why they were still together after all the things that had happened.
He muttered and replied:
"She's talented, she has her talent."
Just a word, then slowly stand up and go back to the car.
On March 29, 1970, Chen Xiying died in London at the age of 74.
For various reasons, Ling Shuhua and his daughter were not by his side.
In the end, on the way from the funeral home to the cemetery, only his colleague Chen Yaosheng and his wife Xiong Wenying saw him off.
Xiong Wenying later recalled:
"Professor Chen's last journey, the last leg of his life, the last three-mile road where the flesh will be incinerated, is only for us as a couple. Professor Chen Yuan is in the coffin, if he knows, he should feel lonely and desolate..."
Ling Shuhua in Beihai Park
And in her later years, Ling Shuhua returned to Beijing where she was born and raised.
On May 18, 1990, Ling Shuhua insisted on going to the former residence of Shijia Hutong.
That day, she lay quietly on a stretcher, and was carried to see Beihai Park and the old residence of Shijia Hutong——
At that time, the compound had been converted into a kindergarten.
Ling Shuhua listened to the children's laughter, and he suddenly returned to Chenghuan's childhood under his mother's knee.
She chanted her mother's name Li Ruolan over and over again, and said over and over again:
"My mother is waiting for me to eat."
Six days later, Ling Suhua passed away accompanied by relatives and friends at the age of 90.
The last words she left were:
"I'm not going to die."
The obituary sent by daughter Chen Xiaoying to relatives and friends reads:
Professor Ling Shuhua (female, 1900-1990), formerly known as Ling Ruitang, pen name Shuhua (SHUHUA), Su Xin, etc. Originally from Panyu, Guangdong, he was born in Beijing. In 1922, he entered the Department of Foreign Languages of Yenching University, and became famous in 1926 by publishing the novel "After Drinking". He published a large number of works in the supplements of Modern Review, New Moon, and Morning Post, and later collected them as "Temple of Flowers", "Women", "Little Brothers" and so on. Novels such as "Embroidered Pillow" express the bitterness of submissive women in the family, and the psychological brushwork is delicate and elegant, exposing the harm of the old rites to people. She is also good at writing children's moods. At the end of 1989, with the desire to return to his roots, he finally returned to Beijing from the United Kingdom. After becoming seriously ill, he still revisited Beihai Park and Shijia Hutong's former residence on a stretcher. He died at 6:45 a.m. on May 22, 1990 in his hometown of Beijing at the age of 90.
A few years later, Chen Xiaoying buried his parents' ashes together in Chen Xiying's hometown, the Chen Family Cemetery in Yaojiawan Township, Hudai Township, western suburbs of Wuxi.
This is Ling Shuhua, a woman who has never suffered a little in her life, a Chinese lady who is the most standard.
She has achieved success and fame in her life.
Even if she cheated in marriage, she met a husband who was extremely tolerant of her.
As for why, maybe because "she is a talented woman", maybe because-
One wish to fight and one wish to be beaten, this is Chen Xiying's love.
What do you think about this? Welcome friends to leave a message to discuss~
Reference: "Ling Shuhua: China's Manshufeier" – Lin Shan