Stills of Lu Xun in "The Age of Awakening"
Once the "Age of Awakening" was broadcast, many of the scholars and masters of the Republic of China that we are familiar with today can appear in front of us in another way.
As an important representative figure in the history of Chinese literature and a great literary collector in the Republic of China period, Lu Xun's brilliant deeds can be described as well-known.
But after putting aside all the glory, we go to see Lu Xun, to see his life, to see his emotions, his family affection and friendship. We will find that such a person is actually an ordinary person in life.
Whether it was with his original wife, Juan, or with his second brother Zhou Zuoren, Lu Xun's relationship with the two of them could be said to be a mess.
Left Zhou zuoren, right Lu Xun
The reason why Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren broke up with the two brothers has always been a focus of endless debate among later scholars. Because in 1923, before Zhou Zuoren issued a letter of rupture, the relationship between the two had always been excellent.
Zhou Zuoren and Lu Xun are only four years apart, so Zhou Zuoren is not only Lu Xun's brother, but also Lu Xun's best playmate and confidant when he was a child.
In 1885, the four-year-old Lu Xun ushered in his second brother, after which Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren can almost be said to be "inseparable".
Sun Yu, a scholar who specializes in Lu Xun, once compared the relationship between the brothers to a kite and a line, Lu Xun is a kite, and wherever Lu Xun went, Zhou Zuoren followed him.
From the Sanwei Bookstore when he was a child, to the later Jiangnan Water Teacher's School, and then to Japan, Lu Xun's side has always been surrounded by the figure of Zhou Zuoren.
Sanmi Bookstore
When he was in private school, Lu Xun had been taking his younger brother Zhou Zuoren to read "idle books", and in those years, the two brothers read a lot of books, and it was at that time that they accumulated a huge amount of reading.
The reading interest of the private school period enabled the two to have a certain literary foundation, which also laid the foundation for the future literary path of the two.
For the matter of reading "idle books", Zhou Zuoren has always obeyed his brother's arrangements and requirements, and at that time, Lu Xun asked him to read whatever books he wanted to read.
Therefore, since he was a child, Zhou Zuoren has always listened to his brother's words, not only because of the factors of feudal brother's authority.
Lu Xun was also very willing to give his brother some guidance, he would take Zhou Zuoren to the "Sanwei Bookstore" and to the "Hundred Grass Garden", and he regarded him as a playmate and confidant.
When Lu Xun was fifteen years old, he often made up stories for Zhou Zuoren, and Zhou Zuoren was also happy to imagine the scenes of those stories in his mind.
The fun of the brothers' childhood is more or less the same.
Portrait of Lu Xun from a private school
When Lu Xun was young, the family situation was also good, his grandfather Zhou Fuqing was a Shujishi of the Qing Court Hanlin Academy when he was at his highest, and his father was also a talent.
Because of his grandfather's factors, although Lu Xun was not able to eat well when he was young, he did not have to be displaced like those who had been running for their livelihood since childhood, on the contrary, Lu Xun and his two brothers could go to private school and receive education from an early age.
According to the traditional Chinese concept of education, the three Lu Xun brothers were supposed to go step by step to obtain meritorious names, and finally became an official, but there were always unexpected storms in the sky.
In 1893, Lu Xun's grandfather Zhou Fuqing was accidentally involved in a case of examination fraud, and Zhou Fuqing, who was imprisoned, brought a chicken feather to the Zhou family.
After the accident of his grandfather Zhou Fuqing, Lu Xun's father also died and left Lu Xun's mother and son.
And because of their grandfather's relationship, the three Lu Xun brothers lost the opportunity to take the meritorious name, which means that their life trajectory can no longer be as the goal of taking the meritorious examination as before.
No one knows what will happen tomorrow, including Lu Xun at that time.
The sudden death of his father caused Lu Xun's mother and son to lose the last protection in the zhou family, a large feudal family, so in the time that followed, their mother and son did not live well.
Lu Xun was the eldest son, so that his mother and Zhou Zuoren would naturally see him as the next "main heart". Therefore, after that, Zhou Zuoren's dependence on his elder brother Lu Xun naturally increased.
Lu Xun once made a "game of finding brothers" with his brothers, which was probably: the brothers went in opposite directions, and then Lu Xun would shout:
"Brother Xian, where are you?"
Zhou Zuoren, on the other hand, would say, "Brother, where are you?" ”
Later, because the brothers' voices became more and more desolate, they were afraid that they would really lose each other, so the two decided to give up the game.
However, later Lu Xun went to the Jiangnan Water Teacher's Academy to study, and the two brothers had to be separated. Lu Xun left Shaoxing at the age of seventeen to study in Nanjing.
Jiangnan Water Teacher's School
At that time, Zhou Zuoren was thirteen or fourteen years old, and he had lost his most reliable brother around him, so he always found it difficult to accept. For this reason, he once wrote in his diary that "the center is dark".
After a brief loss of dependence, the young Zhou Zuoren did not realize that he had gradually become the dependent of his family, and he was also the son of his mother and the elder brother of his brother.
But what happened in reality was often beyond his ability to accept and bear: his elder brother went to school, his mother was weak, and even the youngest fourth brother in the family died prematurely due to illness.
During that dark period, the exchange of letters with Lu Xun gradually became the only comfort in Zhou Zuoren's heart. Lu Xun had been encouraging him in his letters and describing the outside world to him, just as he had made up stories for him, except that this time all of them were no longer Lu Xun's fabrications, they were all real and existent.
Lu Xun during his student days
In 1901, with the help of Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren was given the opportunity to go to the Jiangnan Water Teachers' School. Everything that can only be seen on paper has become a physical object, which is naturally extremely exciting for Zhou Zuoren.
And more importantly, he once again lived with Lu Xun.
During his time at the Jiangnan Water Teacher's School, Zhou Zuoren's performance was extremely excellent, even for the new disciplines that he had never been exposed to before, Zhou Zuoren often performed well in examinations, and therefore often won scholarships from the school.
Mr. Sun Yu's comparison of Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren to kites and threads is extremely appropriate.
Because whether it was studying in the Water Master Academy or in Japan, It was Lu Xun who went first, and after getting familiar with the new environment, he spent some effort to bring his brother Zhou Zuoren to his side.
Zhou Zuoren during his study in Japan
Shortly after Zhou Zuoren arrived at the Jiangnan Water Teacher's Academy, Lu Xun got a place to study in Japan at public expense. After another brief reunion, the brothers once again face a situation of separation.
In 1902, Lu Xun crossed the ocean and began a study tour in Japan.
Similar to before, lu xun briefly returned to his hometown in Shaoxing in 1906 after studying in Japan for four years, although that time his mother tricked Lu Xun into returning to marry Juan on the grounds of serious illness.
Lu Xun was extremely dissatisfied with the marriage, so within a few days he left his hometown in Shaoxing with Zhou Zuoren and went to Japan to study.
The period of study in Japan was an important period for Lu Xun to become an important period for the Republic of China, and this was inseparable from Zhou Zuoren's contribution.
Lu Xun has always studied hard during his study in Japan, and Zhou Zuoren is naturally the same, and he has become Lu Xun's best helper in his literary career with a hard work that is not inferior to Lu Xun.
They studied together, and during their study in Japan, Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren browsed a large number of foreign masterpieces, just as they had done when they were in the Sanwei Bookstore.
Zhou Zuoren's interest in literature was largely influenced by Lu Xun, so it is not difficult to see how much Lu Xun guided Zhou Zuoren.
Portrait of Lu Xun reading
In addition to their studies, they often collaborate on the translation of foreign masterpieces. As we all know, Lu Xun is often very paranoid about his work, but Zhou Zuoren can endure Lu Xun's harshness and never complains about it.
This can also understand why Zhou Zuoren was the best helper around Lu Xun at that time. He was happy to obey the authority of his big brother.
In addition to these aspects, Zhou Zuoren is also Lu Xun's best "helper" in academic learning.
The way for scholars at that time to argue whether their views were correct or not was very simple, that is, to find someone and argue with him, and if he was finally convinced, then this view would be correct.
Zhou Zuoren often played such a role around Lu Xun, and the two brothers often exchanged views and ideas with each other and exchanged views.
In this regard, whenever posterity mentions the history of the brothers' study abroad, they will always say that this is an ideal "state of study". Therefore, the period of cooperation between Lu Xun and Lu Xun was also the time when the literary output of the brothers was the highest.
In 1909, Shusaku married a Japanese woman named Hata Nobuko, and no one expected that this Japanese would have a huge impact on the relationship between the two brothers.
Zhou Zuoren and his wife, Zuo Yiyu Taixinzi, and Middle Zhou Zuoren
Two months after Zhou Zuoren's marriage, Lu Xun returned to China one step ahead of him and became a teacher at Shaoxing Middle School.
Although Lu Xun received a relatively Western-style education for a long time, he still had the concept of a feudal family in his bones, so he always wanted to form a big family with his brothers.
In 1919, Lu Xun, who was still working in Beiping, spent 3,000 oceans to buy a three-entry compound in Badaowan, and then took his mother, Zhou Zuoren and his wife, and his "legal wife" Juan to live with them.
Lu Xun was a family man, and at that time, most of Lu Xun's salary was used for housework, and he also treated his younger siblings from time to time
of the family to carry out financial help. For his own family, Lu Xun has done a good job.
Although he always wanted to form a big family, Lu Xun never wanted to be the "parent" of this big family, he never intervened in his own family in the tone of a parent, and even when Badaowan was in the past, the family's finances were always controlled by his younger sister Yu Taixinzi.
The Zhou family in the Peiping period
Yu Tai Xinzi is usually not mentioned separately, because she has always been the one who is talking about Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren being mentioned. And we never had a very good impression of her.
Combined with the descriptions of the people around the Lu Xun brothers at that time, Yu Taixinzi was a selfish and strong woman.
During the period when she lived with the Zhou family, she was the one who held the financial power of the family, and Yu Taixinzi's profligate lifestyle made Lu Xun very disgusted.
For this reason, Lu Xun often persuaded his younger siblings to restrain consumption, which often made Yu Taixinzi unhappy. In this way, Lu Xun was also estranged from her.
And all this, Zhou Zuoren saw in his eyes, but he never dared to accuse his wife. Because before this, he had learned many times about Yu Tai Nobuko's fierce and spicy personality.
Even in a previous quarrel between Zhou Zuoren and Yu Tai Nobuko, Yu Tai Nobuko actually moved out of the Japanese embassy to punish Zhou Zuoren, and Zhou Zuoren's personality was weak, where dare to complain.
Nobuko Hata
Lu Xun knew the personality of his second brother, so he would not expect Zhou Zuoren to come out and take care of his wife, so he simply "drank" and "cohabited" later, which is the so-called invisible heart.
Later, however, Yu Taixinzi became more and more excessive, often clashing head-on with Lu Xun, and Yu Taixinzi often told Zhou Zuoren that Lu Xun was inferior to her. This also caused Lu Xun and his second brother to be estranged.
After a long period of accumulation, the contradiction between Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren and his wife reached the extreme. Finally, on the morning of July 19, 1923, an angry Zhou Zuoren threw a letter of no friendship in front of Lu Xun:
"Mr. Lu Xun: I only learned about it yesterday—but there is no need to say anything about the past. I'm not a Christian, but I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford it, and I don't want to blame anyone—everyone is a poor human being. My previous rose dreams were all illusory, and what I see now may be real life. I want to revise my thinking and re-enter a new life. Please don't come back to the back yard in the future, there is nothing else. May you be at ease and self-respecting. ”
Zhou Zuoren
For this sudden letter of renunciation, Lu Xun was naturally unrighteous, so he wanted to ask Zhou Zuoren for clarification, but unexpectedly, Zhou Zuoren refused to see him.
Later, Lu Xun wrote in his diary: "In the morning, Qi Meng came with a letter by himself, and then invited him to ask, but did not come. ”
After a while, seeing that the relationship with Zhou Zuoren had not yet improved, Lu Xun realized that his second brother was not just angry this time.
Disheartened, Lu Xun decided to move out with his mother and Juan, and he borrowed a sum of money from a friend and re-purchased a courtyard in Nishisanjo.
In 1924, Lu Xun originally wanted to go to Badaowan to retrieve some of his objects, but he did not expect to be insulted by Zhou Zuoren and his wife.
Since then, the relationship between the two brothers has fallen all the way to the bottom.
Portrait of Lu Xun
Lu Xun has always loved his second brother very much, whether it was in his hometown in Shaoxing, in Nanjing, during the period of study in Japan, or in the period of Beiping, Lu Xun has always shown the image of a brother, and his care for the second brother has always been even greater than that of the third brother Zhou Jianren.
But what is lamentable is that the brother who was like a confidant before is now fighting hard. When Lu Xun later recalled his past with his second brother, he would inevitably trigger sadness.
"Ah! My brother. You don't remember my mistake, can I ask you for forgiveness? But please forgive me! ”
This is from Lu Xun's 1925 "Kite", and many people think that lu Xun is admitting his mistake to his second brother and may be begging for his forgiveness.
In fact, the issue of discord between the Lu Xun brothers has always been a suspicious point of endless debate among later generations of researchers. Roughly speaking, there are three views: family economic disputes; Lu Xun's disrespect for his younger siblings; and Lu Xun's ambiguous relationship with his younger siblings.
But no matter what kind of view, in fact, there is a certain degree of rationality, but because of the long time and the lack of strong evidence to support it, until now, we still can't determine what the real cause of the brothers' discord was in the first place.
However, no matter what, these trivial things that happened to Lu Xun cannot change the important representative figure of China's literary history, nor can they erase his achievements in the development of China's literature and ideological progress.
Because all of our research and discussion of Mr. Lu Xun today is to be able to better understand Lu Xun, not to criticize anything, or to overthrow something.