Xiao Hong's "The Biography of the Hulan River", the famous writer Mao Dun called this novel "a narrative poem, a colorful landscape painting, and a string of poignant ballads". The novel is full of childlike innocence, poetry, and suffering, and there is a suffering person in this suffering, Feng has a crooked mouth.
Feng Crooked Mouth is a mill who lives in a mill and makes a living by selling sticky cakes.
But the mill is not his, the sticky cake is not his, the little donkey pulling the mill is not his, he just works for others and earns two meals a day.
Feng has nothing in his crooked mouth, but he lives happily every day and works very hard.
Feng crooked his mouth and drove the little donkey to grind, working in the middle of the night, night after night, and even longer in the summer.
He's happy every day. The back window of the mill faces Xiao Hong's vegetable garden, and this window is the door to communicate with the outside world.
Through the window, he asked Xiao Hong for a cucumber and asked her how old the cucumber had grown.
Through the window, he and Xiao Hong's grandfather discussed treating the donkey.
Through the window, he chatted with the cook of Xiao Hong's family, and the cook deliberately slipped away in the middle of the conversation. Feng crooked his mouth and asked loudly: "There is a circus in West Park, I don't have time to watch it, have you been there?" When he found that the old king was no longer in the garden, he was not annoyed, and continued to play the hammer and watch the little donkey grind.
Through the window, he chatted with Xiao Hong's second uncle, talking about the rain, chatting about the vegetables in the garden, and the second uncle asked Feng Crooked to go to the back garden for a walk, and Feng Crooked asked the second uncle to go to the mill to sit.
Feng's crooked world is cramped, dark, with leaky roofs and leaky winds, but it seems to have a large vegetable garden full of life and greenery.
However, Feng Crooked Mouth married a daughter-in-law, and this daughter-in-law is a capable and capable girl who is praised by everyone.
Miss Wang is a very talkative and laughing person, a very loud person, she always greets others when she meets: "Have you eaten?" The voice was crisp and loud, as if a magpie had fallen on the roof.
Her father was a charioteer, and she led the horse to the well to drink water, and fetched water faster than her father, and it was a bucket in two rounds. When others saw it, they said, "This girl will be a good person in the future!"
Miss Wang and Feng Crooked Mouth did not have three matchmakers and six hires, and there was no wedding, and everyone only knew after she gave birth to a child in the cold mill.
The neighbors who knew that Miss Wang had followed Feng crookedly, and those who had praised Miss Wang changed their words and scolded Miss Wang for being so bad and so bad, and they knew that it was not a good thing at a glance.
Mrs. Yang, Grandma Wednesday, and the people in the powder room who lived in the same hospital, none of them did not say that Miss Wang was bad.
said that Miss Wang's eyes were not good, that Miss Wang's strength was too strong, and that Miss Wang's braids were too long. It has become a sin for the eldest girl to speak loudly, how can there be a girl's family, who talks a lot.
People are waiting to see the excitement, waiting for Feng's crooked son to freeze to death, waiting for Feng crooked to hang himself and wipe his neck.
The neighbors talked about Miss Wang
No matter how lively the onlookers were jumping up and down, the days of Feng Crooked Mouth and Miss Wang slowly passed.
Feng begged Xiao Hong's grandfather, and the family of three lived in Xiao Hong's grass shed. His son is also like a normal child, teething at seven months, crawling at eight months, walking in one year, and running in two years.
After a few more years, the eldest girl was about to give birth again, but the poverty made her body thinner and thinner, and this time she did not escape the palm of the lord of Hades, and died soon after giving birth.
Miss Wang has excellent conditions, beautiful, tall, and great strength, and is a good worker in the era at that time, so people praise her as "a good hand at building a family".
And the condition of Feng's crooked mouth is so bad that it can't be worse, it can be said that there is no tile to cover his body, and there is no place to stand on the bottom.
The window of the mill where he lived had a big hole, and the roof of the house was also revealing the blue sky, and the temperature in the Hulan River in the cold zone area for three or nine days was the same as outside, minus seven or eight degrees, and the water in the basin was frozen and bulging into a small iceberg, and the tile basin was frozen and cracked. The little donkey also lived in the mill with people, and herds of rats ran around. But even such a broken house is not the asset of Feng's crooked mouth, but the owner's family.
On a cold day, the child was not kept warm by bedding after birth, but only covered with a few face pockets, but even the face pockets were not his own. The shopkeeper's wife scolded him and told him to quickly take down his noodle pocket. Feng crooked his mouth and took off the noodle pocket, and the child was so cold that he cried, and when he cried, snow-white gas came out of the child's mouth.
And it can be seen from the nickname "Feng Crooked Mouth" that Feng Crooked Mouth should look crooked and slanted, and has no appearance advantage, but Miss Wang ignored the pressure of public opinion, betrayed the family, and resolutely married Feng Crooked Mouth, so what did Miss Wang like about Feng Crooked Mouth?
We can combine the background of the times to understand Miss Wang's mental journey.
At that time, in the Hulan River at that time, the status of women was so low, and women's lives were so cheap.
The reunion daughter-in-law of the Hu family, a twelve-year-old little girl, is healthy, happy, and lively, just because she is tall and generous and not shy, she will be beaten, or rather, for no reason, she will also be beaten, "If you don't beat the norms, you can't be a good person."
The mother-in-law of the reunion daughter-in-law, chickens, pigs, dogs, and cats are reluctant to fight, and the cat is afraid of beating the cat away, and the dog is afraid of beating the dog away, and the pig is afraid that the pig will lose two catties, and the chicken is afraid that the chicken will not lay eggs. There is nothing wrong with beating the daughter-in-law of the little reunion, she will not run away and will not lose it, she will not lay eggs, she is not a pig, it doesn't matter if she loses two pounds, and she does not go on the scale! The life of a 12-year-old girl is not as good as that of chickens, pigs, dogs, and cats.
Until the poor little reunion daughter-in-law was tortured to death, everyone didn't feel wrong.
The little daughter-in-law who is unhappy in her marriage is insulted by her sister-in-law, abused by her parents-in-law, and her husband is not hurt. She was a young woman who had never been out of the house before, and she could not stand the many attacks, and when she returned to her mother's house, her mother's family could not do anything, and her mother said, "This is your life, you should bear it well!"
The young woman, inexplicably, didn't know why she had such a life, she couldn't bear it, jumped into the well, hanged herself.
All the women who died, including the little reunion daughter-in-law, their husbands were so cold that they didn't seem to have anything to do with him. Although Feng is ugly and his family is poor, Miss Wang understands that he is not such a person.
Feng crooked his mouth walked the streets and alleys to sell sticky cakes, he was kind and kind, maybe when Miss Wang bought sticky cakes, he respected her words, or gave her a piece of sticky cakes. This little bit of warmth is enough to make Miss Wang like a moth to a fire, and she has no hesitation.
Miss Wang didn't look at the wrong person, although the days after marriage were difficult, the family was happy. Feng is kind, optimistic, and gentle with her.
The life of a family of three described in the article is a few words, but it is a beautiful picture:
In the summer, the child was unclothed, but only a flower bag, and caught a small toad in a puddle in front of the door. His mother sat in front of the door and embroidered flowers for him. His father was in the mill and watched over the donkey pulling the mill.
Feng crooked his mouth went out to help others work or have a banquet on a red and white wedding occasion, he took the steamed buns home with his hood and brought them to the children to eat, and wrapped the two meatballs he deserved, or braised pork, or dried fruits, wrapped them in a hand towel, and brought them home for his son to eat. He was not embarrassed to hear the ridicule of others.
When the eldest girl Wang was pregnant with her second child, she brought a big basin, and he said, "What are you doing here, can't you let me take it!" She hugged a bundle of firewood, and he stopped her: "Isn't it good for you to let me take it!" A load of eggs came to the door, and Feng crooked his mouth and said, "You are not in good health, I think you should eat a few more eggs." ”
Feng crooked his mouth and praised his daughter-in-law to Xiao Hong's grandfather: "That person is thrifty, and he refuses to burn even a single firewood and grass to live." If you want to have a child, you won't eat an extra egg. Look at it, the ...... who will make a fortune in the future"
At that time, in the Hulan River of that era, how many men loved their daughters-in-law so much? Therefore, even if she was extremely poor, Miss Wang was also willing to take it.
In the end, Miss Wang still died, because she died of weakness after giving birth. But her death was different from those who were beaten to death, abused and hanged in a well, and she was happy when she was alive. Moreover, those women who have been abused still have to break through the ghost door of having children.
After the death of Miss Wang, although life was more difficult, Feng Crooked Mouth did not give up, he maintained the weak fire of life and raised his two sons to grow up. The more people looked at him with desperate eyes, the more he disappointed the people watching the excitement with his practical actions. Miss Wang has not made a mistake in this life.
(The picture comes from the Internet, the infringement is deleted immediately)