Meet you in the most beautiful years

Chapter 13 Zhang Youyi: Even Dreams Are Deep and Lovely (2)
After graduating from Clark University, Xu Zhimo gave up the opportunity to continue to study for a doctorate. In September 1920, he left the United States and went to England to follow his spiritual idol Russell.At this time, Xu Zhimo already had new ideals and pursuits.The British philosopher Russell had a profound influence on him. He became more emotional and respected inner freedom, so he went against his father's wishes and resolutely came to England.

Unfortunately, at that time, Russell had been expelled from Trinity College, Cambridge University, where he had previously worked because of his anti-war remarks, and visited China one month before Xu Zhimo came to London.In desperation, he chose to study for a Ph.D. at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Isn't this a hidden arrangement.After sorting out his life, I feel in a trance that when he traveled across the ocean to England, he came for love and ideals, or it can be said that he came for Lin Huiyin.

Although he didn't know it before, in London, he will meet a woman named Lin Huiyin, and he will perform a romantic story with her, and because of her appearance, he will exist as a poet for the next ten years.

When he first arrived in England, he had a very difficult time.Although he met Dickinson through the introduction of Lin Changmin, and Dickinson won him the qualification of a special student at Cambridge University, but for a married man with a healthy body, he lived alone in a foreign country and lived a lonely life like an ascetic. , is an unbearable torture.

The water plants and gentle waves of the Cam River ignited his lonely longing. He needed a woman to fill his empty moments.

At this time, Zhang Youyi, in the old house of the Xu family in Xiashi Town, guarded A Huan and the lonely time, and devoted herself to being a virtuous and capable young mistress.She knew that the distance between herself and Xu Zhimo was so far that there was no edge.He floated abroad, like a proud hawk flying away from her sight.She sat in the yard, looking at a corner of the blue sky above the patio, so high and so far away, where is he?This Xu family mansion is full of his breath, but he is living a free life without her in another world.

She thought, no matter what, he will always come back, one year, two years, or even a few more years, she will always be his woman, besides, she has added blood to the Xu family.She passed the days quietly, "I never thought about reuniting with him, because I thought it was my responsibility to stay with my in-laws." She thought that as long as she stayed by her side, until the clouds opened and the sun rose, everything would be fine. worth.

She never thought that people's hearts can sometimes be unstoppable.

When the second elder brother Zhang Junmai returned from abroad, Zhang Youyi went back to her natal home.The second brother said: "You should be with your husband now, and you can even go to the West to study." What Zhang Junmai worried about was that the relationship between Youyi and Zhimo would become irreversible due to the distance in time and space.The second brother vowed that he would ask Zhimo to write a letter to his family, asking Xu Shenru to agree to her going to England to reunite with Zhimo.

Although Xu Zhimo didn't love the woman who guarded the vacant room for him in Xiashi Town at all, he still wrote a letter sincerely: "My son is studying abroad, and I am alone, and my child's selfishness, I don't wait until I can complain, my lord." Don't Ai'er want to comfort her?" He urged Xu Shenru again and again to let Zhang Youyi go abroad to England as soon as possible.

In the early spring of 1921, Zhang Youyi's ship finally sailed into the port of Marseille, France.At this time, she was full of urgent expectations—her husband, the excellent man who didn't love her, she hadn't seen for a long time.Although she restrained her emotions like a breeze in Xu's house, no matter what, he was her man, and she never really let go of her ardent longing in her heart.

But the moment she saw this man, her eager heart dropped to freezing point.

I leaned on the quarterdeck, impatiently waiting to go ashore, and then saw Xu Zhimo standing among the crowd looking around.At this moment, my heart became cold.He was wearing a long, thin black fur coat with a white silk scarf around his neck.Although I've never seen him in a suit, I know it's him.I could tell his attitude at a glance, and I couldn't be mistaken, because he was the only one in the group of people who received the boat with an expression of not wanting to be there.

——(Zhang Bangmei's "Little Feet and Suit: Zhang Youyi and Xu Zhimo's Family Change")
He urged her to come, but seeing her was so cold again.Perhaps to put it more clearly, in front of Xu Zhimo at this moment, she is just a woman who can live with her, but she is definitely not a lover.

At this time, compared with his suit, she exudes the atmosphere of Xiashi Town, as well as the respect and restraint cultivated by Xu's old house.He immediately took her to buy some outfits, from top hats, dresses to leather shoes.After changing them one by one, he seemed more satisfied, so he took a group photo and sent it back to Haining to tell his family that he was safe.Then she wore a small round-brimmed foreign hat and leaned against him. She wanted to smile, but her frozen expression was aggrieved and stiff, as if she was about to cry.

They were so inseparable along the way. When flying from Paris to London, she was airsick and vomited. Xu Zhimo turned his head in disgust and threw her a sentence: "You are such a country bumpkin!" However, he himself threw up after a while, and Zhang Youyi also lightly Lightly replied to him: "I think you are also a country bumpkin."

They rented a cottage in the Shaxton countryside, six miles from Cambridge, with two bedrooms and a living room, "from the large glass window in the living room overlooking a path full of dust and sand."

She became a Chinese housewife in Shaxton. She thought she came to England to sing with Mrs. Xu Zhimo and learn Western civilization, but what she has to do every day is to cook three meals, shop and clean.This place is no longer the territory of the Xu family, a rich businessman in Haining. Even though Xu Shen sent the living expenses as usual, it was not enough to meet their daily expenses.Perhaps it was the torment of these days that trained Zhang Youyi's self-reliance.

But Xu Zhimo is immersed in his own spiritual world, dreaming of a better future.

He rode a bicycle between Shaxton train station and Cambridge, and sometimes took a bus to campus.Even if he doesn't go to Cambridge, he will rush out to get a haircut every morning. I can't understand his habit at all. I think he can simply trim his hair at home and save the money, because we seem to be waiting for the master to send us money. The check comes.However, Xu Zhimo still went his own way and did a lot of things that I can't explain.

——(Zhang Bangmei's "Little Feet and Suit: Zhang Youyi and Xu Zhimo's Family Change")
She rushes out to get a haircut every morning - Zhang Youyi really finds it hard to understand, she is not a sensitive woman, but after that, she knows that he is actually using the address of the grocery store opposite the barber shop to keep in touch with a woman who lives in London connection.They exchanged fish and geese almost every day, even in order to prevent her from finding out, the content of the letter was written in English.

She finally realized that her man has a woman she admires.

This year, Xu Zhimo was 24 years old.In "The Collection of Tigers" published in 1931, he wrote in the preface:
Before the age of 24, poetry, whether new or old, was completely irrelevant to me... Ten years ago, I was blown by a strange wind, perhaps according to some strange moonlight, and since then my thoughts have tended to branch of writing.A deep melancholy has occupied me, and this melancholy, I believe, gradually submerged my temperament.

——(Xu Zhimo's "Tiger Collection Preface")
A strange wind, a strange moonlight, what a wonderful feeling that is.Although he said it so implicitly, we learned later that in that spring, he fell in love with Lin Huiyin and fell in love with writing poems.

Love is like a luxury, especially for a married man, it is either quiet, or it is a torrent of fire.He has sincere romantic feelings for love. When Lin Huiyin, who is both talented and beautiful, appeared in front of him, he couldn't help but fell into it like going through fire and water.

But at this time Zhang Youyi was pregnant.When she excitedly went to tell Xu Zhimo, he replied firmly: "Kill the child!" She didn't understand why this man was so ruthless. If it was in Xiashi, it would be a great joy.

She was very wronged: "I heard that some people died because of abortion." He said in an almost mocking tone: "There are also people who died because of taking the train. Have you seen that people don't take the train?"

Zhang Youyi understood that his heart was not with her.She vaguely felt that he seemed to have a secret.She imagined that in his world, many new-style women would appear.Many years later, she summed up her life, and the most regretful thing is that she never read a book seriously, unlike those educated and educated women with elegant temperament and demeanor.Despite her natural feet, "to my husband, my feet are bound because he thinks I'm old-fashioned and haven't read much."

She is a natural foot, but Xu Zhimo regards her as a little foot.She understood what he meant. Their marriage was an irreconcilable match between little feet and suits.

Finally one day, Xu Zhimo told her that he was going to bring back a woman to have dinner with them.

She faces threats from "girlfriends" all day long.She even felt that Xu Zhimo was hinting to herself that he would turn this new-style woman into his second wife and live under the same roof with them.

From morning till night, I had to reassure myself that my position in the Xu family would not change: I bore him a son, served his parents, and I will always be the original wife.So I swore that I would detach myself from this insult that Xu Zhimo forced me to accept in a dignified and dignified manner, and be firm and easy-going towards this woman, without showing jealousy or anger.

——(Zhang Bangmei's "Little Feet and Suit: Zhang Youyi and Xu Zhimo's Family Change")
From Zhang Youyi's point of view, how helpless she was that day.She traveled across the ocean to join her man, here, he is the only relative, but this only relative has another woman in his heart.

One can imagine how awkward that dinner went.For some reason, she actually forgot the woman's name, so in her memory, she used the title "Miss Ming".

The only thing I really remember, is her appearance.She tried very hard to look glamorous, with cropped hair, dark red lipstick, and a woolen navy dress.

I looked down her stockinged legs, and was breathless when I saw her feet, tiny feet squeezed between two embroidered Chinese shoes.It turned out that this new-style woman had her feet bound!I almost laughed out loud.

When the four of us (including Guo Jun) were sitting together for dinner, Miss Ming said that she also grew up in the suburbs of Shanghai, and mentioned several families I knew and did not know.Her father works in the Foreign Office, but I have never heard of him.I have only one thought: if Miss Ming's family is so trendy and she is willing to let her go overseas to study alone, why did she have her feet bound.

(End of this chapter)