Fang Lingru's former residence was built in the 1940s. It is a western-style garden villa located at No.3 Baile Bridge in Lingyin. Ba Jin, a literary master, often talks with Fang Lingru in this quiet yard.

The former residence is built on the water, and the more people cross the stream. The stream outside the courtyard is gurgling, and the flowers and trees in the courtyard are lush. There is a tall ginkgo tree on the right and a stout phoenix tree on the left. In the middle of the yard is a bungalow villa with brick and wood structure, with a construction area of about 200 square meters. Half of the round room protrudes from the courtyard, and it is ventilated on three sides with good lighting. The villa faces south, facing the mountains and waters, with beautiful scenery.

In Qingdao

In the literature of the Qing Dynasty, the scholars in Tongcheng, Anhui Province formed Tongcheng School, which mainly advocated ancient prose. Fang Lingru, a famous modern female writer, was born in the scholarly family of Fangjia in Tongcheng, Anhui Province, and is also a family full of feudal ethics. When she was 3 years old, she was betrothed to someone according to her parents' instructions, and married at the age of 16.

Under the influence of the May 4th Movement, Fang Lingru rushed out of the cage and went to the United States to study and receive western education. After returning to China, she loved new literature and wrote poems and essays. Most of her poems are published in Crescent School magazine, and she is called the representative of Crescent School poetess. Her nephew Fang, a talented new poet, became famous when he was a teenager. My nephew Zong Baihua is a philosopher and writer. They only make Confucianism eight years younger, so the other side has a great influence on Confucianism and has frequent exchanges to discuss new poems. Fang is also a crescent poet.

1930, the National Qingdao University was established, and its president, Yang Zhensheng, hired a wide range of teachers. Under the introduction of Deng Zhongcun, Fang Lingru was hired as a lecturer in Chinese Department, and she came to Qingdao for the first time. The school building of Qingdao University is the Bismarck Barracks built by the former German army. Building 7 was originally an officer's barracks, and the school was used as a girl's dormitory. There lived a single female teacher upstairs (Cai Yuanpei's family once lived in the preparatory period). Also living here are the school library staff Li Yunhe (Jiang Qing) and Zhang Zhaohe (Shen Congwen's fiancee). Li Yunhe is also an auditor of China Literature Department. He and Fang Lingru are colleagues, neighbors, teachers and students.

Wen Yiduo is the head of the Chinese Department, and his assistant is Chen. Liang Shiqiu described Fang Lingru like this: "She is quite lonely, and she doesn't like to associate with people except a few friends who can talk to her. She often wears black cheongsam without makeup. When she lives alone, or when she walks outside alone, she always has a touch of sadness. ..... I don't want to talk about family affairs. As soon as I talked about Tongcheng Fangjia, her face turned red and she couldn't talk anymore. "

Wen Yiduo is the first among the "few friends who can talk to each other". After Wen Yiduo moved from Wendeng Road to Yindao Road (now Hongdao Road) in 193 1, Fang Lingru often appeared in the middle of books. Liang Shiqiu, Wen Yiduo and Yang Zhensheng call themselves "Eight Immortals in Wine" and "Eight Immortals in Wine". Wen Yiduo invited Fang Lingru to "make up the eight immortals" every time. In fact, Fang Lingru is not good at drinking, and others don't force her. To get rid of her loneliness.

Fang and Chen Dou are Wen Yiduo's students. They came to Qingdao in 193 1 and met with Fang Lingru, their teacher Wen Yiduo and their schoolmate Chen. Everyone is in high spirits. Those days were a rare happy time for Fang Lingru. Fang called Fang Lingru "Jiugu", Chen Ye called her "Jiugu", and colleagues of Qingdao University also called her "Jiugu". Ba Jin said in the article "Remembering Sister Fang Lingru": "Most acquaintances call her Jiugu. Jin Yi also called her that. " Ba Jin and others called her Jiugu, and Liang Shiqiu said, "Everyone followed her and called her Jiugu. This is an official name, regardless of seniority."

Fang Lingru in Qingdao, in addition to teaching, engaged in writing, writing poetry, but also writing prose. Her collection of essays is entitled Home. Behind the university building is Qingdao Mountain. There used to be a gurgling spring (now the middle site of Haida University), which formed a stream. Fang Lingru wrote in the poem Lingqi:

One night, I was riding a horse under the dim starlight.

I walked up the familiar mountain road alone.

The spring still clings to the mountain,

Thousands of years have soaked my grass and shoes.

Fang Lingru talked with Wen Yiduo and Chen about the establishment of a journal that can publish poems in addition to New Moon. To this end, Chen went to Shanghai and talked to Xu Zhimo about the opinions of his nine aunts. Xu Zhimo is very happy. He immediately organized and donated money everywhere. He took the lead in writing a song "Revelation of Love", which wrote: "I am like a cloud, a pure white cloud, with no weight at all, and the sunshine hugs me."

Crescent Society's new magazine is called Poetry Magazine, with the first issue 193 1 1, a poem by Fang Lingru:

Love only treats me like a stone,

Don't give it to me again,

The tenderness of lilies,

The heat of incense,

Tears flow along the long river.

Chen said to the evaluation: "This is the sound of a calm river of life. She looks very serious. This simple impression sketch is an invisible masterpiece. " Fang Lingru's two years in Qingdao University established her position in the poetry circle.

Xu Zhimo died in a plane crash in Jinan. Fang Lingru is very sad. She wrote the article "Zhimo is everyone's friend": "What could be more tragic than this news? It's really like being in a lost dream. I don't believe that Zhimo will suddenly lose like this! Whether he fell into the sky or broke on a stone, only he knows the scene. Alas! He went with all the pain of mankind! "

Over the past few years, she has corresponded with Xu Zhimo many times and exchanged views on China's new poems. These letters are collected and published, and their names are called letters.

Fang Lingru's loneliness also lies in the students of the Chinese Department of the university at that time, who were keen on exegesis, phonology, Chu Ci and Tang poetry. Only Cang Kejia writes new poems, which is regarded as an "alternative".

1932, the year after the September 18th Incident, students of Qingdao University went on strike for the third time in the two years since its establishment. "Fang Lingru, like many intellectuals with national sense of honor and patriotic feelings, was worried and indignant about this. Coupled with running for a living, he soon fell ill with depression and suffered from hyperthyroidism. She had to leave Qingdao because she was very ill. " (Deng Ming's Biography of Fang Lingru)

After liberation, Fang Lingru became the chairman of Zhejiang Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the only female provincial chairman of the Federation. It is worth noting that Wang Yaping, Secretary-General of the All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Yu, Deputy Secretary-General and Chairman of Henan Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Liu, Chairman of Anhui Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Lao She, Vice Chairman of Tianjin Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Wang Lin, Chairman of Shanghai Writers Association and Cai Tianxin, Chairman of Shenyang Federation of Literary and Art Circles, all lived in Qingdao in the 1930s. Lao She is a professor of Shandong University, and Wang Lin, Xu Zhongyu and Cai Tianxin are all students of Qingdao University.

Fang Lingru was "knocked down" during the Cultural Revolution, and then she was transferred to the May 7th Cadre School. 1973, Xu Changtai, Fang Lingru's party introducer, visited her. She quietly said to Xu Changtai: "I have taught many good people and bad people in my life. When I was teaching at Qingdao University, Jiang Qing was a student. ..... Maybe Jiang Qing did this to me because I had some scandals about her. Although my personal inhuman treatment is small, it is a big deal for the party and the country to suffer. "

Excerpts from letters

The fifth article

The angel of autumn has come these days. Whose tears is the continuous light rain like? The sun leaked out of the clouds this morning, and the color was very light. The sound of waterwheels and short flutes in the street shows a depressed mood, and my heart is desolate. I sigh the passage of summer. Summer sometimes burns my heart and forgets the cold silence of life.

Dude, I don't want a young man with high spirits to get a little sick. I'm sorry. If I can get a flower in this desert, I would like to dedicate it to this suffering person.

I haven't written to you these days because I really want to read Madame Bovary by Flaubert. This is a famous book and an unfortunate story. What I appreciate is the author's art. He connects the plots of the book with clever clues, like a string of pearls and beads of different colors, but it is orderly and colorful when mentioned. I closed the book when I couldn't open my eyes at night, and fell asleep with the sadness in the book. In the morning, I sat up and read in the fish-white light. Today, I finished reading. This nervous heart, like Qiu Chan, disappeared in the green leaves with the end. But this relaxed mood makes me feel extremely tasteless.

I find that life can't be leisurely, busy and complicated. A small garden to raise flowers and feed birds is not enough for our generation. There is no creation and joy, so the words "creation and entertainment" are intertwined with people's lives, and they all teach people that life is flawed. I often suffer from this kind of thinking, and often conflict with the environment ... In the evening, I walked alone on the high platform behind the garden, silently watching the crimson sunset, lying behind a cluster of black trees, the level of the river was quiet without fine lines, and the leaves sighed gently in my ears. Under the stage, people's voices came. I didn't care what they said, but the sound was too loud, like a person walking on a gravel road, with no rhythm and no change. I can't take it anymore. I'm leaving.

Strange to say, I can stand extremely complicated and strong voices, but I can't stand monotony. Once in a big city for the New Year, I walked into the theater on New Year's Eve. People are so crowded that I can't breathe. They play trumpet, flute and all kinds of musical instruments, regardless of age. They want to make the space full of noise, as if this noise can seize the time. I sat in the corner, and my psychology was completely different from theirs. I am more awake and lonely than usual. Listening to their voices is like being in another world. Those fat, black, long and short players are dancing, laughing and singing on the stage; But in my opinion, they are all silk puppets, and there is an invisible thread pulling them on their heads and limbs-pitifully and meekly passive! I believe their hearts must be as cold as mine. Also, a few years ago, I fell ill and slept in the hospital. My room is on the sixth floor, and a new house is being built outside the window. Masons use machines to borrow soil, and sharp voices squeeze into my heart. Crying at dawn every day, I hate that annoying monotony.

I feel the same way about life.

Speaking of life, it's an unsolved mystery! We love it, but we hate it. Why do we love it and why do we hate it? I remember Stevenson said: we go to the theater to explain life in various meanings until we get bored; We can discuss it in all philosophical terms in the world, but one fact is always true-that is, we don't love life, in this sense, we are too worried about the preservation of life-and then we simply don't love life, just exist.

Yes, what we love is not the inherent life, but the benefit of survival. I think the joy of living is because of vitality. A philosopher explained life: life is the permanent possibility of feeling. We love life, naturally not for this superficial pleasure, but for this kind of vitality to drive us to create and bravely cross difficulties and obstacles. This is life, and there is no interest at all! A dull life is like a pool of turbid water, stale and disgraceful.

On the evening of August 23rd.

(Self-confidence, Cultural Life Society, 1945 edition)