In 1932, 22-year-old Yang Jiang accidentally met Qian Zhongshu in Tsinghua University. Several years later, Yang Jiang said, "He was wearing a green cloth coat, a pair of fur-soled cloth shoes, and a pair of old-fashioned big glasses. He was not elegant at all." (Yang Jiang's "Remembering Qian Zhongshu and")
Yang Jiang was originally a student at Soochow University. Due to the suspension of classes at Soochow University, students borrowed money to study at Peking University, and Yang Jiang came to Tsinghua University. With such a coincidence, it can only be said that they are destined to be married. What’s even more interesting is that this chance encounter was truly a coincidence. Yang Jiang’s father, Yang Yinhang, and Qian Zhongshu’s father, Qian Jibo, were both famous people in Wuxi. Zhang Jian once called them “Jiangnan Talents”, and the Jiangnan Talents met many friends. Naturally, there are constant contacts. Yang Jiang and Qian Zhongshu met by chance and talked by chance. Only then did they realize that, not to mention their family friends, it turned out that as early as more than ten years ago, 8-year-old Yang Jiang had visited the Qian family with his father. At that time, when Qian Zhongshu was running and dancing in the courtyard, he might not have noticed such a girl who came to visit his family. But when I think about it now, I feel that there is a definite destiny. Later, Yang Yinhang once joked about Yang Jiang, "Aji's feet are tied with the red silk of the old man under the moon, so he only wants to get into Tsinghua University."
This coincidence, coupled with the two people's literary talent, Attracted to each other, the love between Qian Zhongshu and Yang Jiang naturally spread like wildfire and spread throughout Tsinghua University. At that time, there were more girls than boys in Tsinghua University, and most of the girls lived in "Guyue Hall", so the boys would go there if they had anything to do, and couples would also "every time the sun goes down, the shadows would wander on the West Garden Road" for money. Tang Yan, the biographer, said humorously that Qian and Yang were probably one of them.
Xia Zhiqing said that Qian Zhongshu was "talented, humorous, and very sarcastic. He looked down on everyone, and many professors at the Lianda University hated him at that time. Although he was still modest on the one hand, But he is arrogant because of his talent." If Qian Zhongshu's love life is lackluster and the same as others, it will be a pity that it will be lost. But this kind of worry is unnecessary. Just look at "Fortress Besieged" and you will know that he can't deal with anything he puts in his hands.
Xu Zhende, Qian’s friend at Tsinghua University, once said, “Brother Zhong Shu always tells the story of his love story one by one and recites his masterpieces of love letters.” (Xu Zhende’s “Forty Years of Shuimu Tsinghua University”) This kind of pride His literary talent in love letters is not unusual, but it is Qian Zhongshu's specialty that he can read private love letters in public. If someone teased Yang Jiang about this, I wonder if Yang Jiang would be surprised. During this period, Qian Zhongshu "loved Yishan and Zhongze's graceful and elegant style, wrote poems for talented people, and relied entirely on his talent", so he "wrote many love poems with the flavor of Li Yishan." (Tang Yan's "A Generation of Talented Qian" "Zhongshu") He has a group of "Preface to Miscellaneous Poems in the Autumn of the Year of Renshen", which contains love poems written to Yang Jiang, and we can probably get a glimpse of some of them.
One poem says, "Lingering and pathos is a good article, the fragrance of pink love is heartbreaking. There is no other way to repay love, and the sadness is a thousand lines of tears." Although Qian Caizi's poetry is simple, his true feelings are No one can doubt it. Another poem says, "A trapped man has no control over his solar terms, and the mud is a sign of unfulfilled dreams. A bitter cold night is like water, and he sleeps alone amidst the sound of hundreds of insects." This is an old tune in love poems, which is touching because of the sky.
Of course, the most surprising thing about Qian Zhongshu is that he used Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism to write love poems. It is really a wonderful idea, and of course it is also weird. He himself was very proud of this initiative, saying, "There is no other person who writes love poems in the Neo-Confucian language." (Wu Zhongkuang's "Recording Mr. Qian Zhongshu")
Such a sentence, I found a few passages in biographies written by others, such as "If you remove the snake, the grass hook will look ugly, and the imperial army will not be able to hold on to the ruins." It is said that this is a metaphor for lovesickness, which means that it is unpredictable and difficult to control. The method is novel, but it doesn't feel like a love poem. When Yang Jiang saw such a love poem, she probably had to smile bitterly while admiring it.
Tang Yan said that "Fortress Besieged" actually indirectly talks about Qian Yang's love. In addition to basically matching the writing era of the book, a small story is also revealed. Someone once asked Qian Zhongshu face to face, saying that everyone in "Fortress Besieged" was satirized by him, with the exception of "Ms. Tang", and in the end it was just "fadeout". What was the reason? After hearing this, Qian Zhongshu asked slyly, "Do you mean to say that Tang Xiaofu is my dream-girl?"
The letters between Qian Zhongshu and Yang Jiang are not very diligent, such as "Fortress Besieged" The Fang Hongjian described in the book is the same as Tang Xiaofu, but "I met her seven or eight times, wrote her more than a dozen letters, and Miss Tang also replied five or six letters." In reality, if Yang Jiang replied There were five or six letters, so one of them must have fallen into the hands of Mr. Qian Qian Jibo. The old man calmly opened the envelope and read it. When he saw Yang Jiang's letter, he said that there was no use in agreeing on her and Qian's affairs. , both parents and brothers need to be happy. Seeing that the girl was reasonable, the old man was so happy that he bypassed Qian Zhongshu and wrote a letter directly to Yang Jiang, praising Yang Jiang. This kind of thing makes people laugh even when they talk about it. This family is really amazing.
As for Yang Jiang’s father, he is even more interesting. He and his son-in-law Qian Zhongshu have a similar hobby. Originally, he had a son-in-law who was not very good at reading. But when he found out that this son-in-law likes reading dictionaries as much as he does, he suddenly became more interested in reading dictionaries. It was greatly appreciated. Once, he secretly asked Yang Jiang, "Is Zhong Shuchang so happy?" He looked happy and concerned.
Qian Yang held the wedding after both parents were satisfied. Yang Jiang later recalled that there was talk of "engagement" before they got married, which was very funny, "Obviously we knew each other ourselves, and it was obviously me who introduced Mo Cun to my father.
?But we still follow our parents' orders and the matchmaker's words upside down. " (Yang Jiang's "Car Passing the Ancient Battlefield - Reminiscing about Going to Beijing with Mr. Qian Mu")
After getting married, the two went to the UK. During their stay in the UK, Yang Jiang became pregnant. Qian Zhongshu said, "I don't want to Son, I want a daughter - just one like you. "(Yang Jiang's "We Three")
Half a century after the storm, in 1999, 88-year-old Qian Zhongshu left Yang Jiang forever. Four years later, Yang Jiang wrote A collection of essays "The Three of Us" was written to recall the story between him and Qian Zhongshu. It became popular and everyone rushed to read it. At the beginning of the book, Yang Jiang said that she had a dream. She dreamed that "Zhong Shu and I were together." We took a walk, talked and laughed, and ended up somewhere unknown. The sun had set, the dusk was thin, and Zhong Shu suddenly disappeared in the vast sky. I looked around for him, but there was no trace of him. I called him, but no one answered. Later, she told Qian Zhongshu about the dream, complaining that Qian Zhongshu did not wait for her and made her anxious and lonely. Qian Zhongshu said, "That was an old man's dream, and he often had it too." "(Yang Jiang's "We Three")
This was the old man's dream. Yang Jiang said it boldly, but Qian Zhongshu buried it in his heart for a long time. Because Qian Zhongshu knew that one day When they got separated on the ancient post road, it became a real "dream that lasts thousands of miles", and he faced it more bravely than Yang Jiang.
When he was passionately in love with Yang Jiang. , Qian Zhongshu once wrote a poem,
I spent a long night sleeping with each other, hunting the west wind to test the cold.
There are stars like this and the moon, who can point them out and look at them.
I thought about the last two sentences for a long time, so I couldn't stop for a long time.