Chapter 21 2. Chen Duxiu

Chen Duxiu lost his father when he was young, and was taught by his grandfather Chen Zhangxu when he was a child.My grandfather was known for his strictness. Because Chen was talented and intelligent, my grandfather had very strict requirements on him. Once he couldn't recite the book, he would beat him with a board, sometimes even gnashing his teeth with anger, almost beating him severely.But no matter how much he was beaten, Chen never cried. His grandfather said angrily and sadly: "This little thing, when he grows up, must be a murderous robber. What a misfortune for the family!" He often said to the villagers: "This child will become a snake if he doesn't become a dragon in the future."

Chen Duxiu recalled that his grandfather was so clean and quiet, and there was a corner of the house where a table and chair were not cleaned, and his mother and eldest sister would be in bad luck.The grandfather did not allow the family members to walk and make noise, and Chen's second sister was too young to know what to do, so she was beaten many times.Even if Chen's grandmother came to Chen's house, if she passed in front of his grandfather, she would have to tiptoe like a thief, because she was afraid that he would be embarrassed if he got angry and cursed out loud.But Chen Duxiu found that this very clean and quiet grandfather liked to smoke opium. gone?"

A certain member of the Chen clan called himself a "yin servant" and often extorted money from other members of the clan under the pretext of burning paper money and silver ingots for the deceased.One day, this "unclear" came to Chen's house to pretend to be a ghost, but Xiao Chen Du was so handsome that he went to meet more than a dozen children and shouted at the same time outside the house that there was a fire somewhere.At this time, "Yin Er" lay on the bed with his eyes closed and asked, "Is there a candle (fire) here?" Chen's mother smiled and replied "Yes".Chen Duxiu couldn't help laughing, covered his mouth, and almost laughed out loud, but his mother hurriedly drove him away with a feather duster.

When Chen Duxiu was 11 years old, his grandfather passed away. In the following two or three years, his family invited his husband to teach him how to read, but Chen was very disgusted with the old-style education and was very dissatisfied with his husband. The family had to let his eldest brother Chen Qingyuan, who had passed the examination of scholar, teach him. read.The eldest brother was mild-tempered and did not suppress Chen Duxiu. In addition to teaching him the Four Books and Five Classics, he also taught him to read "Selected Works of Zhaoming".Chen Duxiu later recalled that when he first read "Selected Works", "I also had a bit of a headache, and gradually the taste came, and I looked down on stereotyped essays even more since then."

Chen Duxiu took part in the scholar examination, and first passed the county and prefecture examinations with low rankings. The examination questions in the college examination were "the fish and turtles can't beat the food, but also the timber".Chen "For such an unreasonable topic, I use unreasonable articles to deal with it. All the ancient prose of birds, animals, plants and trees in "Anthology" and the absurd and difficult characters in "Kangxi Dictionary", regardless of three or seventy-one, the bull's head is wrong. It fills up an imperial essay without continuation."Walking out of the examination room, Chen showed the draft of the article to his elder brother, who "after reading the manuscript, frowned and remained silent for an hour."However, unexpectedly, such an article made Chen take the first place in the exam.When the good news came, my mother was so happy that she almost shed tears, but Chen "despised the imperial examination even more" based on this.

When he went to Nanjing to take part in the provincial examination, Chen Duxiu was very disappointed in the path of "studying well and becoming an official" due to the various behaviors of the scholars. He wrote three stereotyped essays and a five-character eight-rhyme poem in the first examination.After leaving the examination room, he refused to go in no matter what. His elder brother Chen Qingyuan cursed and coaxed him to force him into the examination room.But he resolutely refused to start writing, and both the "Five Classics" in the second session and the policy discussion in the third session were blank papers.