Compared with the romantic romance of Xu Zhimo and Wu Mi and others, Chen Yinke's emotional world seems to be bland. He has his own unique views on the choice of marriage and love, and he once clearly expressed: "It is my great shame to be inferior in learning." And if the partner in marriage is not as good as others, what is the shame at all?" and said more bluntly: "Marriage is just a small thing in life, insignificant. Just take it lightly and fix it as soon as possible. ”
It can be seen that Chen Yinke's life focuses on academics, rather than children's affection. Therefore, he did not pay much attention to the matter of marriage. Until he was 36 years old, he was still unmarried, and he had never even been in a relationship. In the face of his father's repeated urgings and stern warnings, he realized the seriousness of the situation and asked for a grace period to prepare for the marriage as soon as possible.
In the history of the Republic of China, Chen Yinke's reputation is known to everyone. At the age of 36, he was hired as a tutor of the research institute together with Liang Qichao and Wang Guowei, and was known as the "Tsinghua Big Three". The famous historian Fu Sinian once praised: "Mr. Chen's knowledge can be called a leader in the past 300 years. However, if it weren't for Chen Yinke's appearance, few people might know Tang Yun's name. In fact, Tang Jun is also a new woman in Beiyang, and her grandfather Tang Jingsong was a jinshi in the four years of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty and a patriotic general. Tang Jun has loved reading since childhood, graduated from Jinling Girls' School with a major in physical education, and later taught at Beijing Women's High School, where she was Xu Guangping's teacher.
Although Chen Yinke is not keen on the love of children, when love quietly comes, he quickly falls in love like all young people. One day, while chatting with several Tsinghua colleagues, one of them mentioned that he had seen a poem hanging on the wall in the home of a female teacher named Tang Yun. This colleague said that he was puzzled by the inscription of the poem "Nan Zhusheng" at that time, so he wanted to consult the erudite Chen Yinke. Chen Yinke thought for a while, and then said: "This person must be the granddaughter of Jingsong, the Tang Gong of Guanyang. It turned out that Nan Zhusheng was Tang Jingsong's alias. At that time, Chen Yinke had read Tang Jingsong's "Please Ying Diary", so he had a strong interest in Tang Yun, hoping to get to know this female teacher.
After being introduced by a colleague, Chen Yinke was finally able to meet Tang Yun. At this time, Tang Jun was already an older "leftover girl" wandering in Beijing. However, fate is destined, and in the subsequent contact and conversation, the two gradually deepened their understanding of each other. In 1928, 38-year-old Chen Yinke and 30-year-old Tang Yun tied the knot in Shanghai.
However, Chen Yinke and Tang Jun's married life was not all smooth sailing, but was full of suffering and tribulation. After Tang Yun gave birth to her eldest daughter, the original carditis deteriorated into heart disease, and her life was almost hanging by a thread. In the decades that followed, she continued to shoulder the responsibilities of the family despite her illness. Chen Yinke, on the other hand, is a typical scholar who devotes himself to his studies, but his life seems clumsy. Tang Jun didn't know how to run the household before marriage, but in order to support her husband, she began to learn to cook, raise flowers, grow vegetables, take care of children, and coordinate interpersonal relationships in the extended family.
On July 7, 1937, the Lugou Bridge Incident broke out, and the Japanese army invaded Beiping on a large scale. Chen Yinke's father, Chen Sanli, died of heartache. However, during the funeral of his father, Chen Yinke suddenly found that his vision in his right eye had deteriorated sharply. Upon examination, it was found that the retina in his right eye had detached and he urgently needed surgery or risk blindness. However, when the country was in danger, how could Chen Yinke recuperate with peace of mind? The family, like all refugees, began a difficult journey of escape. On the way to Changsha, they took three children, the eldest daughter was only 9 years old, the younger daughter was less than half a year old, and Chen Yinke and his wife were both seriously ill. For them, this escape from Peking to Changsha was full of unknowns and dangers.
In the spring of 1939, the University of Oxford in England sent an invitation to Chen Yinke to become a professor of Sinology. In the summer of the same year, Chen Yinke met with his wife and daughter in Hong Kong to prepare for the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, however, World War II broke out and they were stranded in Hong Kong. In 1941, Hong Kong was also occupied by the Japanese army, and at that time there was a great shortage of living materials. As a highly respected "national treasure", Chen Yinke even wrote to the military department to ask not to embarrass him. So, the Hong Kong commander sent people to send bags of flour. However, Chen Yinke and his wife resolutely refused to accept the enemy's handouts, and they dragged the flour out of the house one by one. Their national integrity is admirable.
In the environment of war, Chen Yinke's family was displaced, with a difficult material life and hard work. As a result, Chen Yinke's eye disease is getting worse day by day. By the end of 1944, Chen Yinke's eyesight had been completely lost and he could not see anything. In 1945, Chen Yinke failed to undergo surgery in China and suffered a huge blow in his life - blindness. Half a year later, the University of Oxford extended another invitation to him and hoped that he would go to England for treatment.
After arriving in London, Stuart Duke-Elder, one of the UK's most famous ophthalmologists, personally performed two surgeries on Chen. However, surgery did not restore his vision. For a scholar who makes a career out of writing books and theories, the loss of his eyesight is undoubtedly a huge blow. He wrote a poem in a desolate manner: "Last year's illness is now dead, although it is called the same as a human and a ghost, it is ridiculous that the family members make a birthday, just like setting up a memorial to the dead." ”
In the days that followed, according to her daughter's recollections, in addition to taking care of her blind husband's daily life, Tang Jun also played the role of a clerk, recording the letters and poems that Chen Yinke wanted to write at any time. In the first 20 years of the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were many political movements, and Chen Yinke suffered an impact because of his adherence to "independent spirit and free thought". His various "statements", "protest letters", and even all the "confession materials" in the "Cultural Revolution" were all written by Tang Yun.
In 1962, Chen Yinke accidentally fell while washing at home, resulting in a fracture of the femur in his right leg. Unfortunately, subsequent conservative treatment failed to heal his femur, and he was confined to bed for a long time. In his later years, Chen Yinke once sighed to the people around him: "A person who loses his eyes is equivalent to losing 50% of his life, and losing his leg means that even the remaining 50% will be halved." ”
In the prime of life, he suffered the pain of blindness, and in the twilight years, he suffered from the pain of his feet. What kind of humiliation did fate inflict on a conceited, proud, and noble life! However, fortunately, in those difficult times of storm, poverty and illness, there was a well-informed wife who was always by his side. Tang Jun not only took care of him personally, but also sheltered him from the wind and rain, using her weak body to resist the attacks of the outside world, winning him a breathing space. However, this dedication also made her heart attack worse.
After losing his sight, Chen Yinke is still tenacious and unswerving. It took him a full decade to complete the 850,000-word masterpiece "Liu Ru is Farewell Biography" in the form of oral narration. Sometimes for a small detail to be revised the next day, he would even stay up all night until the knock on the door of his assistant Huang Xuan rang in the early morning. A person who lost his eyesight wrote nearly a million words in more than ten years, which is undoubtedly a great miracle in the history of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign scholarship.
In October 1969, Chen Yinke passed away. In the last moments of his life, he was silent, only tears constantly welling up in the corners of his eyes. After Chen Yinke's death, Tang Yun was surprisingly calm, and he didn't even shed a single tear. She didn't let him wait long, and after forty-five days she followed him, as she had said to people: "When I have finished taking care of Yin Ke's business, I should also go." She suffered from a serious heart disease and spent most of her life on medication, which could be ended after more than 10 days of discontinuation. Tang Yun, who lived for Chen Yinke, finally passed away for Chen Yinke.
Chen Yinke often said to his daughter: "In our family, you can disrespect me, but you must respect your mother." "Mom is the pillar of the family, without her there would be no home, without her there would be no us, so we have to protect Mom well." Tang Yun, a new woman in Beiyang, has both talent and morality, but after meeting Chen Yinke, she resolutely gave up her career and devoted all her life to the trivial affairs of the family and the responsibility of taking care of her family, and life and death depended on each other. This kind of love has reached such a state that people in modern society who are in fast-food love are ashamed.
Chen Yinke once put forward the "five-class love theory": he believes that the greatest and purest love should be completely based on ideals, "the highest love, no one else in the world." Suspended assumptions, and willing to die, such as Du Liniang in "The Peony Pavilion". This kind of love does not exist in reality, and can only be found in literary and artistic works.
Second-class love, "with people who are well acquainted, and those who have not tasted the pillow are secondary, such as Bao and Dai are also", if you are really in love with someone, even if you can't get married, you are willing to remain loyal to them, just like Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu.
Third-class love, "once pillowed, and forever commemorated and never forgotten, such as Si Qi and Pan You'an", the two once had an intimate relationship, and then they can never forget, just like Si Qi and Pan You'an.
Fourth-class love, "secondly, is the husband and wife who have no affair for life", this kind of love is the most common among ordinary people, and the married life is plain and stable.
Fifth-class love, "the lowest one, connect everywhere, only desire is the picture, and it doesn't matter about the feelings", for the kind of light people who see one love another, their feelings can no longer be called love, which is a blasphemy of love.
According to Chen Yinke's love classification, his love with Tang Yun may only be regarded as fourth-class, but Tang Yun's dedication and perseverance, her love has reached the point of living for him and dying for him, but it has undoubtedly raised this love to the highest level, "willing to die".