I have been married to her for decades and have never regretted marrying her;

I never thought of marrying another woman.

-Qian Zhongshu

1932, Spring, Gu Yue Hall.

1932 There is an elegant name in the Tsinghua girls' dormitory, which is called "Gu Yue Hall". In the evening, boys waiting for their girlfriends often stand in front of Gu Yue Hall. They joked that "dating" means "going for a walk in the lake pond".

Tsinghua at that time was no different from now. There are more men than women, and girls are loved. There is no reception room in Gu Yue Hall, so all the boys are standing at the door. Whether it's spring or winter, whether it's cold or hot, one or two anxious figures can always be seen in front of the Gu Yue Pavilion, staring at the door eagerly, expecting, but we shouted for a thousand times and urged her for a thousand times before she came to us.

Among those waiting, there is a handsome man named Qian Zhongshu, who is a student of Tsinghua University Western Language and Literature Department. He is a famous genius in the department of western languages. At that time, he and Cao Yu were called "three outstanding men", and he was particularly prominent. Professor Wu Mi, who teaches literature, praised him: "Talents are rare and outstanding since ancient times.

He is a native of Wuxi, Jiangsu, with a distinguished family background. His father, Qian Jibo, is a famous ancient prose writer in modern times. Professor of St. John's University, Guanghua University, Tsinghua University and Zhejiang University. His mother, surnamed Wang, is the sister of modern popular novelist Wang. He is the eldest son of the family.

In middle school, I studied in Suzhou Taowu Middle School and Wuxi Furen Middle School run by the Anglican Church, and paid attention to English education. As a result, his English foundation is very solid, and Chinese is taught by his father himself, and gradually he has a deep foundation. His attainments in ancient Chinese are far higher than those of his peers. Before he was admitted to Tsinghua, he prefaced Qian Mu's Introduction to Chinese Studies on behalf of his father. Later, his preface was used when the book was published.

His Chinese and English are good, but his math is poor. When he was a child, he read The Journey to the West's Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Tang Dynasty, but he can clearly remember the weight of weapons used by the Monkey King, Guan Yunchang and Li Yuanba, but he can't recognize Arabic numerals. 1932 was admitted to Tsinghua in the spring. When he took the entrance exam, he got a zero in mathematics, which he could not accept. But because of his excellent Chinese and English, President Luo Jialun decided to make an exception and admit him. Because of this unusual experience, as soon as he entered Tsinghua, his name spread all over the school.

He didn't let Lun Jia down. Tsinghua is famous for his heavy schoolwork. Everyone else stayed up studying, but he not only finished his major easily, but also spared no effort to study China classical literature. The number of books he read and the range he dabbled in made his classmates flinch. One of his classmates, Rao Zeng, lamented: "Among the classmates, we are most influenced by Qian Zhongshu. He has a deep knowledge of Chinese and English and is good at philosophy and psychology. He reads old and new books in China and the West all day. The strangest thing is that he never takes notes in class. He just takes a book that has nothing to do with the class and reads his own book while listening to the class, but the exam is always the first. He likes reading and encourages others to read. "

He has an outstanding talent in the arts. His excellent memory and photographic memory are one thing. Another important aspect is his obsession with books. Reading is not a task he must complete at all, but an innate instinct. He reads all books and even dictionaries with great interest. He can feel great pleasure in reading.

The girl he is waiting for is named Jiang Yang, who is one year younger than him. She is a completely kindred spirit and regards reading as her life.

Jiang Yang was admitted to Tsinghua University this year and studied in the Department of Western Languages and Literature of the Graduate School. She was a native of Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, and later settled in Suzhou. Her family background is no less than his. In Suzhou, the Yang family is a famous scholar. Her father Yang Yinhang is a famous lawyer. He studied in the United States and Japan and obtained a master's degree in law from the University of Pennsylvania. Founded Wuxi Inspirational Society and Shanghai Lawyers Association, served as the editor-in-chief of Shanghai filing, and successively served as the president of Jiangsu Provincial High Court and Zhejiang Provincial High Court. He has two masterpieces, Xue Ming and Logic, which have been handed down to later generations, and even Qian Mu said that he was deeply influenced by them. Jiang Yang also has an aunt named Yang Yinyu, who is the president of Beijing Women's Normal University. Later, when the Japanese army captured Shanghai, she was shot to defend her students.

She grew up in such a family and received a good education. He has successively studied in the primary school affiliated to Beijing Women's Normal University, Shanghai Qi Ming Girls' School and Suzhou Zhenhua Girls' Middle School with excellent results. When she begins to study, she likes to be naughty in class. She plays the game of blowing fluffy balls, and laughs when she blows. Seeing that she was angry, the teacher asked her to stand up and answer the text. Unexpectedly, she was omnipotent and accurate, and the teacher was very surprised. She was very smart since she was a child, and she was very popular with her parents and aunt Yang Yinyu.

At the age of seventeen, she was admitted to Soochow University in Jiangsu. After leaving the department a year later, she chose the political department. But in fact, her interest is not political. She likes literature, but Soochow University didn't have a literature department at that time, and liberal arts had better pre-law courses and political courses. She wants to take a pre-law course, so that she can be her father's assistant in the future, get in touch with all kinds of people in society and accumulate material for writing novels. However, her father disapproved of her studying law. Maybe he felt that the society was dark and the constitution was empty, so he lost hope in the law, or he felt that the law was heavy. Not suitable for a girl. In a word, he resolutely doesn't want her to be his assistant, so she wants to change the political department. Because she didn't like it, she just perfunctory about the course and spent most of her time reading literature books in the library. After three years, her interest in literature is even more out of control.

In her junior year, she got a scholarship from Wellesley Women's College and could study in the United States. However, the scholarship does not include living expenses. The cost of living in the United States is expensive, and she doesn't want to add burden to her family. More importantly, she has no intention of continuing to study politics at all. She doesn't think much of foreign degrees. She would rather go to Tsinghua College of Literature. She wants to go to the best university in China to study her favorite literature.

As expected, she was admitted to Tsinghua. As soon as she entered the school, she won the appreciation of Mr. Liang. At that time, Mr. Liang taught French, and the first class was dictation. Her educational background impressed Liang. He asked her how she learned French, and she said frankly, "I taught myself."

Jiang Yang is no less talented and intelligent than Qian Zhongshu. He and she, one is a gifted scholar of a noble family, and the other is a talented woman of scholarly family. Love is like oxygen. Even her mother said, "Aji's feet are tied to HongLing, the old man under the moon, so I just want to take the Tsinghua exam."

They spent a year together in Tsinghua. /kloc-in the summer of 0/933, Qian Zhongshu graduated. Because of his outstanding talent, Tsinghua wanted him to stay in school to continue his master's degree, but he refused. He feels that he has enough self-study ability, and his level is not worse than that of graduate students in school. There is no need to learn repetitive things in the same school. He has always been extremely confident in literature.

At that time, his father was the head of the Chinese Department of Shanghai Guanghua University, and he was instructed by his father to teach at Guanghua University.

Jiang Yang hasn't graduated yet and continues to study in Tsinghua University. They separated briefly for the first time.

He wrote many letters to her after he left. He wrote many love poems, all of which are old-school poems. One of them is written like this.

Good articles are lingering, and the powder is heartbroken; There is no other answer, only a thousand bitter tears.

According to the attention of Miss Sister's drama, I am affectionate; Don't say a word after the joke, cherish the ink and cherish the gold.

Sleeping at night, hunting for the wind and measuring the cold; So the stars are so bright, so who can show you and who can see you.

Trapped solar terms, mud is not round; Bitter rain pours cold nights like water, so many insects dare not sleep alone.

This poem is elegant and profound, which is no less than this in the excellent works of Tang and Song Dynasties. He also wrote a poem, in which there is a sentence, "It is difficult to remove the snake and keep the wall." He never wrote new poems that were popular at that time, but always used old poems. Old poems need to be neat and even, which is more difficult than new poems. His talent will be displayed on such a small matter.

Although his poems were well written, she didn't reply much. She told him that she didn't like writing letters, and he complained a little about her. "I didn't say a word when I died, but I didn't care." Later, when he wrote Fortress Besieged, he remembered the story, and Tang Xiaofu in Fortress Besieged didn't like to write letters.

Perhaps Qian Zhongshu wrote letters too frequently, and even his father Qian Jibo saw the clue. One day, the old gentleman opened a letter from Jiang Yang without authorization, which greatly praised Jiang Yang. It turns out that this letter was written by Jiang Yang to discuss the marriage with Qian Zhongshu. He wrote: "Now we are both happy and useless. We need our father and brothers to be happy. Our happiness has never been hindered." After reading it, Qian Jibo took the initiative to write a letter to Jiang Yang without consulting Qian Zhongshu, praising her understanding and her earnest "trust" to her son.

In this accident, the relationship between Qian Zhongshu and Jiang Yang was known by both parents. Both families belong to local famous families, so both parents are engaged for them according to the customary ceremony. Led by his father, he went to Yang's home, visited his parents and formally asked for relatives. Then invite friends and relatives who are familiar to both men and women as matchmakers. They also held an engagement party in a restaurant in Suzhou, inviting people from both sides and their close relatives and friends.

He and she are in free love, but the combination still follows the "parents' matchmaker's words" and honestly goes through the procedure. He felt that this matter was turned upside down, and she also felt at a loss. "I don't remember how the marriage was booked at a loss, only that I was a silent fiancee from then on. That night, Mr. Qian Mu was also present and attended the engagement wedding. " Mochu is his number. She likes to call him Mochu, and he also likes to call her "Ji Kang". Ji Kang is her number.

After the engagement, he also taught at Guanghua University, and she went back to Tsinghua to continue her studies. She still has one year to graduate. At this point, she has made her mark in Tsinghua. In Zhu Ziqing's "Prose Writing" class, she taught an assignment called "Lulu, don't worry!" Describe the love triangle psychology of adolescent girls, which is delicate and touching. Zhu Ziqing appreciated it very much and recommended it to Ta Kung Pao Literary Supplement for publication. Later, this article was also selected into Selected Novels of Ta Kung Pao Literary Supplement edited by Lin. When it was published, its title was changed to Lulu and it was signed by Ji Kang. This collection selected 25 writers, * * *.

She is very talented and cultured. In Tsinghua, where there are more men than women, she naturally attracts much attention. Although engaged, I am not married and my fiance is not around. Therefore, there are many people who admire her. "When Jiang Yang graduated from Tsinghua University, she was crowned with beauty, and more than 70 boys sought spouses. Jokingly called Jiang Yang seventy-two evil spirits. " But she didn't think it was a big deal. She doesn't care much about her appearance, and she never thinks she is beautiful. Many years later, someone wrote a biography for Qian Zhongshu, and she wrote a special paragraph: "I am by no means a beauty." I am a middle-aged woman. Xia Zhiqing met me. Ask him if you don't believe me. In the eyes of lovers, it is another matter. "

Qian Jibo is not wrong. She has always been a rational and wise woman, a sophisticated woman. When someone praises her for her beauty, even if one or two faces are not exposed, she will secretly rejoice, but she is an exception. In fact, it doesn't matter if those irrelevant outsiders see her beauty, as long as she is beautiful in the eyes of lovers, and only the recognition of lovers is truly praised. She knows her appearance very well, so she didn't lose her mind in the pursuit of a bunch of boys in Tsinghua, and she became a "princess" outside the cloud nine. Just like her writing, her people always remain restrained and simple.

Another year passed, and in the spring of 1935, Qian Zhongshu took the qualification examination for studying abroad at public expense by the Ministry of Education. At that time, the Kuomintang Ministry of Education used the Geng money returned by Britain as a scholarship for domestic youth to study in Britain. However, this open recruitment quota is extremely limited, with only one quota for English literature. Qian Zhongshu ranked first with absolute advantage and successfully got this position.

Jiang Yang was overjoyed when the news came. Are there people who study western literature who don't yearn for Britain? Shakespeare, Dickens, Mansfield ... the names of those English writers echo in textbooks. The country they describe, the foggy London, the mist on the Thames, the elegant English gentleman and the girl with flaxen hair in a Scottish plaid skirt are like dreams in her world every night. Three years ago, she rejected Wellesley Women's College. This time, she can't wait to graduate.

She discussed with the teacher to replace the exam with a thesis and graduate one month early. In mid-July, they officially got married.

The wedding is a matter for two people. Jiang Yang's maiden adopted western style, and the bride wore a long veil. There are flower girl carrying a flower basket for the bride and flower girl carrying a long gauze for mopping the floor. There are bridesmaids and groomsmen, and the band plays music. The bride and groom bowed as gifts, put on rings and stamped their marriage certificates. After they got married in Wuxi, Qian Zhongshu and his family went to the bridal chamber to worship heaven and earth and Gaotang.

Their wedding day was in hot summer, and the ceremony was very boring. The black dress and starched collar he was wearing were soaked with sweat. She was tightly wrapped in layers of white wedding dresses and soaked from head to toe, as if she had been fished out of the water. They walked into the dinner together and made a toast to the guests. In the hustle and bustle, they occasionally smiled at each other. It's very hot, but their eyes are very clear.

Once upon a time, when she told him about her family, she was a little proud. He said that Zhang Qian, the top scholar in the late Qing Dynasty, once called his father Yang Yinhang "a gifted scholar in the south of the Yangtze River". I don't want him to show her zhangqian's letter to his father. In the letter, Zhang Qian also called Qian Jibo "a gifted scholar in the south of the Yangtze River", and she suffered from heart failure.

It is not known whether Zhang Qian gave away the "Jiangnan gifted scholar" in a perfunctory way, but she was predestined to be praised. She "went from a gifted scholar's house to another gifted scholar's house", and the man she married is also worthy of these four words.

A month later, they both left the south of the Yangtze River, set sail from Shanghai and went to England by boat, taking the wedding chores with them.

When the dust settled, they finally had a quiet and relative time.

The ship is sailing on the sea, and the hunting wind is blowing, and the air is salty and cold. This is the first time they have left Wan Li, and the journey is long and endless. I don't know when they will reach the other shore. Looking at the boundless sea, she suddenly felt a sweet and fearful mood.

She often hears him say that she is "clumsy". Now she knows that this famous genius can't tell his right hand from his left, can't tie a bow on his shoelaces, and even grabs chopsticks with one hand. In life, he has completely lost his "demeanor" and turned into a child who knows nothing and relies on him everywhere, which reminds her of an old saying, "We live together". She has lived alone all her life.

Autumn in Oxford University begins in 10. When they arrived at Oxford, the school had not yet started. He was arranged by the government to enter Exeter College to study for a Bachelor of Arts degree. She also contacted the women's college, hoping to continue studying literature, but the literature quota was full and she could only study history. She refused, so she became an auditor in Oxford.

She attends lectures occasionally and spends most of her time in the library. The Oxford Library is ancient and magnificent, and the medieval architecture is like a castle. When she was still studying at Soochow University, she searched in the library and wanted to enter the field of literature. After she was admitted to Tsinghua, she felt that she owed a lot of literature lessons. Now, in the Oxford Library, which is famous for its rich books, she has a lot of free time. She was happy, so she made a plan.

In the afternoon, the sun shone through the high window and cast a shadow on her notebook. She sat at the table by the window, reading literary classics on the shelf. Because there are few middle school students in the library during class, she is often the only one in the huge hall, so quiet that even the rustling of her writing can be clearly heard.

He will come after class or holidays. When two people are reading books on their desks, sometimes they will go to the downtown library, where they can borrow19th century works and popular books. They went home with a pile of books. At night, the lights are on in the street, tall policemen walk slowly, go door to door to check whether the doors are closed, and the postman knows them. If you meet halfway, you will give them a book. Oxford is a quiet little place.

After he got his degree in Oxford, they went to Paris University to study together. Paris University is more liberal than Oxford University. They read more freely. Besides English, they also read many books by French writers, such as Madame Bovary by Flaubert. In particular, he read not only French, but also German, and later added Italian. Their reading is amazing.

Besides reading together, they also read and recite poems together, both in Chinese and western languages. They also like to watch the scenery together according to the description in the book. When they see different houses, they guess what kind of people live in them together. When they see a person in the crowd, they guess what kind of identity that person is.

They have a child, a healthy and beautiful girl. They call her "Yuan". When she gave birth to Yuan, he stayed by her bed every day. She lives in the hospital. He ran from home to the hospital. He is always making trouble and says with a bitter face, "I did something bad."

He knocked over one ink bottle after another, stained the tablecloth of the landlord's house, broke the door shaft and smashed the desk lamp. She always smiles and says, "Never mind, I'll wash it and fix it." However, when she came home from the hospital, he stewed chicken soup for her, peeled tender broad beans and put them in the soup. He did a good job, and she really got rid of all his "bad things".

In this way, they were taken care of by domestic servants from an early age and stumbled to learn life. She has never cooked, and after making several mistakes like throwing lentil shells, she actually made decent braised pork. And "clumsy" he not only learned to draw the first match in his life, but also arranged their breakfast. His breakfast is still very rich, fragrant milk tea and boiled eggs.

Those years in Oxford and Paris were their happiest time. In her own words, it was "as if she had created a new world."

Many years later, a martial arts novelist named Jin Yong wrote a couple, Huang and his wife, A Heng, in his Legend of the Condor Heroes. This fictional couple is very much like them. They are all smart, proud and talented men, and their wives are smart enough to keep pace with them, but Huang and Aheng are imaginary fairy couples, and he and she are mortal.

They stayed in Paris until 1938. That autumn, they returned to war-torn China with their one-year-old daughter.

At that time, Tsinghua Peking University had moved south to Kunming to avoid the war, and * * * established the National Southwest Associated University. At the invitation of Tsinghua, he will teach at National Southwest United University, while her family took refuge in Shanghai, and her mother died on the way to escape. In order to protect her students, her third aunt Yang was shot by the Japanese army, and she was anxious to go home and comfort her sad father. So they separated halfway. He went to Kunming from Hong Kong, and she went back to Shanghai alone with her daughter.

In Shanghai, on the one hand, she took care of her father and Ayuan; on the other hand, she helped her alma mater, Zhenhua Middle School, to set up a Shanghai branch, and became a tutor for a rich lady. Although her work was hard, she was comforted by her family. He is far away in Kunming, but he is not happy. He used to be superior, but now he has returned from studying abroad and is more diligent in his studies. In China, the early bird is always beaten. What's more, he is not a good person to hide and don't agree with him. He is a master of words and often shows his satirical ability in just one or two sentences. In the west, this is the humor of literati. In China, he offended many people.

He only stayed in The National SouthWest Associated University for less than a year and then left. It happened that his father also taught in Lantian Normal School in Hunan, so he also went to Hunan. He worked there for two years and established the Foreign Languages Department of Teachers College. 194 1 During the summer vacation, he learned that Tsinghua was going to rehire him to teach in the school, so he resigned from Lantian Normal University and returned to Shanghai. He lives at home, wholeheartedly waiting for Tsinghua's appointment.

However, the letter of appointment has been delayed. When he left The National SouthWest Associated University, such a thing happened. At that time, President Mei Yiqi personally sent a telegram to keep it, but he didn't receive it. It was not until the Tsinghua school sent a telegram asking him why he didn't return to President Mei that he knew that President Mei had sent a telegram before, but at that time he had gone to Lantian Teachers College.

Both letters are "missing" so skillfully that he is a very clever man, so he doesn't understand what it means. It is said that he was excluded because he said, "Ye Gongchao is too lazy, Futian Chen is too stupid, and Wu Mi is too pedantic". Whether he said this sentence is unknown. Wu Mi admired him and argued with Tsinghua for him, saying that Tsinghua was intolerant. However, when he was at National Southwest Associated University, he did offend Ye Gongchao and Futian Chen, no matter what.

He is a noble man. He met two nails and naturally didn't want to go back to that unpopular place. Therefore, when Futian Chen came to Shanghai to complete the task of hiring him, he still didn't receive the letter of appointment and politely refused.

He stayed in Shanghai, where his family stayed for eight years.

The Japanese army occupied Shanghai, Zhenhua Branch was dissolved, and rich girls graduated from high school. So she changed her job and worked as a substitute teacher in a half-day primary school in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, while he taught at Aurora Women's College and accepted two students.

After her father died, the family's economic conditions were not as good as before. They don't want to ask for help from home. She drove all the way to the suburbs to attend classes, quit her job as a servant, took care of all the housework, chopped firewood herself, and made coal cakes with him. He also repeatedly asked Aurora to give him more lessons. Even if they work so hard, they still can't compete with soaring prices.

Poverty destroyed the health of their family, and she continued to have a low fever for unknown reasons. He is seriously ill almost every year, and their baby "A Yuan" almost died of bone tuberculosis. Compared with their wonderful years in Paris and Oxford, this is a very difficult time.

However, their lives are still lively and interesting. When she was chopping wood and cooking, she joked that she was a "servant girl under the stove". He teased her and always bullied her when there was something delicious, saying, "Baby, don't eat it". When she was speechless, she smiled. He slept with her and made faces on her stomach. He always plays practical jokes on her.

The hardship of life does not detract from the glory of their career. He wrote the famous Fortress Besieged, which made the name Qian Zhongshu remembered by the world. From 1939, she began to translate and publish the English prose work Tie Shao's Going Home, and created a four-act comedy "Catch by the Wind", which was praised by Li Jianwu: "We started to publish the" Catch by the Wind "by Ms. Jiang Yang, and she was the first one.

The war finally ended with 1949. That summer, they were hired by Tsinghua, returned to Beijing, and started their life in new China.

They didn't choose to leave, just like when he was in Oxford, he refused to give up his scholarship in China to take refuge in a foreign rich man and study philosophy. They have no choice but to stay in their own country, not to sing "patriotic tune" and seek higher professional status. "We don't want to run away ... we are intellectuals, love the culture, writing and language of our country ... and don't want to be foreigners."

These eight years are not the only difficulties in their lives. Later, they also experienced the same difficult years of the Cultural Revolution. When they were sent to cadre schools, she was punished for growing vegetables. He served as a correspondent for the cadre school. When he goes to the post office to get the letter, he will meet her in the east of the vegetable garden. During the ten-year Cultural Revolution, he wrote a grand and profound book on ancient books research and criticism-Guan Cone, which quoted tens of thousands of Chinese and foreign works.

With the passage of time, life has faded from its original glory and gradually presented a rough face. She is no longer the Miss Suzhou who doesn't know the daily necessities, and he is no longer the engaging young man who wrote poems in front of Gu Yue's hall.

War and poverty have changed many things, but some things will never change.

That is "the character of the wind".