Chapter 43 my friend's wife

Upstairs above the single professor, there lived three people, L, T, and me.Both of them are professors of the Faculty of Science. They spend a lot of time in the laboratory, and they are both engaged. When they come back from get out of class and have dinner, they write love letters under the lamp. As long as they keep the door closed, I always Don't bother me.People who are immersed in the happiness of love will not realize the loneliness of others. I can only find my own "God" from the sonnets of the eighteenth century in the living room by myself, turning on the electric light next to the sofa. Lover of "light separation and reunion".

L and I are quite acquainted, and often invite me to sit in his room.On his desk, he saw a picture of his fiancée, with a round face, glasses, and a gentle smile. L told me that they met abroad and got engaged. The background of this romance was in a biology laboratory of a university in the eastern United States. They became comrades and sympathized with each other because of their classmates and peers. In the end, they thought that lifelong co-workers were friendship. The most happy destination, so... L's face flushed when he said this, he is a shy person, and he doesn't know what to say next.I hastened to say:

"In the future, you will be a Curie couple again, congratulations, when will you treat us to a wedding wine?" So in the summer of one year, L went back to Shanghai, and when he came back, he took his bride and lived in a newly built professor's residence. The night we were invited to dinner was only a week after they had moved in, and the small four-room house had been beautifully furnished.The bedroom is light red, light red curtains, tablecloths, sheets, carpets, with simple white furniture, it looks soft and warm.In the study room, there are two large desks facing each other, a bright desk lamp in the middle, a row of bookshelves on the wall, many books, and more bottles, which contain frogs, flies, and various unknown insects.

In this room, the furniture is light gray, the curtains are green, the outside is a large room connecting the living room and the dining room, everything is blue, although the tones have different shades, they are harmonious and very pleasing to the eye. The bride came out from the back of the kitchen after the guests finished visiting and sat down in the living room. She was wearing a light red dress, elegant attire, and did not wear any jewelry. Her face was similar to that in the photo, except that she did not wear glasses, so she was not beautiful. , but has a dignified and kind demeanor.She shook hands and greeted us one by one, with a natural attitude and fluent speech, scaring us, a group of bachelors, with a pre-rehearsed talk about a new house, to the heart of Java.

At the banquet, the bride talked to everyone, and no one felt idle. L didn't talk much at first, just looked at us and smiled.We all said: "Mrs. L, you should give L a little family education and teach him to talk more." She said with a smile: "I'm afraid I talk too much, and he has no chance to get ahead."——Xi San everyone Some played Go and some played cards. Mrs. L quickly organized the guests. I am not good at playing games, so I chatted with this new couple on the porch watching the moon.I said, "Mrs. L, I'm not afraid of your annoyance. I think your family arrangement looks like someone who studied literature and had aesthetic training." Literary girlfriends are very good in their profession, but as soon as they enter their house, Mr. X, as you said, is like a family of people who study science..." I feel embarrassed, so I asked Talking, she hurriedly laughed and said: "I know what you mean, I mean, aesthetic concepts are sometimes almost innate, of course, this does not mean that I really have aesthetic concepts, I just mean that what I learn and what I use are sometimes inconsistent. "From then on we talked about literature, which is my profession, but Mrs. L really knows a lot, and her appreciation is also very high. We talked about the game of chess and ate some ice cream before leaving.

Mrs. L goes to the laboratory with Mr. L every afternoon. After class, the two of them often pass by our dormitory and invite me to dinner.The dishes in the big kitchen are naturally not as good as the cooking at home, so I don't refuse. I only send some meat floss, drunk crab, candy and biscuits from time to time, and they say I'm being polite. On winter nights, they often built a fireplace and chatted by the fire after dinner.I taught them to drink some good wine and smoke some good cigarettes. Although they didn't refuse, they didn't take any interest in it. Mrs. L even said that I drink and smoke because I am not married, so she asked me why I am not married, and I said: "Mrs. L, you are so puritanical, you have never seen anyone who smokes and drinks, Like me, a glass of wine before dinner and a cigarette after dinner, among men, we do not fully enjoy our rights. As for marriage, I still have the old saying that if the article is worse than the man, the wife must be better than the man , and my friend's wife, one is as good as the other, tell me where to find a better one? After going back and forth, it was delayed, and I can't blame me..." Mrs. L laughed out of breath, and L said: "Don't pay attention to him, he is a weirdo! As long as his attitude is a little more serious, are you afraid that you won't be able to marry a wife? I'm afraid the real reason is because his writing is so good."

Mrs. L is really a Puritan, not only for tobacco and alcohol, but also for everything else, she has too high and sometimes unreasonable ideals, although she is the most human and feminine woman I have ever seen.For example, she often praises those men whose wives never remarry after death, and thinks that is the most faithful expression of love. I have heard her give examples more than once.Once it was New Year’s Eve, and everyone went back to celebrate the New Year—my home was still in Shanghai at that time, and I didn’t want to go to the city to play—the L couple knew that I was alone, so they called and invited me to eat hot pot.After the meal, the wine was hot and the lights were soft. By the fireside, she seemed to be feeling emotional. She mentioned that an old gentleman was so lonely on New Year's Eve. He had been a widow for thirty years, and he was only accompanied by his wife's photos day and night. How lovely and respectable he was An old man!

I stood up, threw the cigarette tail into the fireplace, and said: "I'm sorry, Mrs. L, this is a reflection of my disloyalty and insincerity to myself. I said something that is not afraid of women's anger, which is a full exposure of vanity. and as a matter of fact, anyone who feels happy in their married life will remarry sooner than others. For those who are used to a happy family, the death of their wife is like a bereaved dog. Yise, seeing his sons and daughters crying bitterly, servants and servants lazy, and housework slack, he completely lost his basis. In the dead of night, seeing his children's tear-stained, pale and thin faces, he felt like a needle in his heart, and wished he could recover those things for a while. Paradise lost..." At this moment Mrs. L fell silent and blew her nose with a handkerchief.

I said: "Conversely, for a person whose married life is not happy, his wife dies, he is like a fish slipping through the net, slipping away for thousands of miles, he will not be bound by the married life for the time being, and let him enjoy a few years of free time first. Therefore, the early remarriage of a widower is the trust in the married life and the love for the warm family. What vanity and jealousy are there when he is dead and ashes? Don't you have the heart to let him live a life of loneliness and misery with no one to comfort him? Moreover, if your husband really loves you, he won't forget you completely just because there is a new person in front of him.The lotus root official here is very thorough in this truth. People asked her why she forgot the old one when she got a new one.she says:

'It's not that I forgot. For example, if a man dies, some woman will marry again. But if you don't forget about the dead, you have a relationship. ’ So even though she met Rui Guan, she talked so hotly that she couldn’t leave it behind, but she was still willing to risk the disgrace of the Grand View Garden, burning paper for the dead Yao Guan in the shade of apricots with tears all over her face. , this story really shows the most normal human physics!Listen or not, I can only say that if I were a woman, my criticism of a man would never degrade his personality just because his wife died and remarried.If I were a woman, I would never have emphasized the inadequacy of remarried men during my lifetime..."

Probably because I was a little drunk, I continued talking non-stop. This was the first time that Mrs. L and I had an unceremonious debate.She doesn't bring it up anymore, but I know she doesn't agree with me completely. A year later, there was a fact that convinced her. T, who used to live with us, also married L in the same year, and their two families live very close together. Mrs. T. was also a very gentle and genial woman, and got along very well with Mrs. L. It goes without saying that Mrs. T's love is good.A year later, Mrs. T died in the hospital due to dystocia, and T cried to death. While weeping, Mrs. L helped him clean up, bury him, help him with funeral arrangements, and also helped him with housekeeping.At that time, Mrs. L's son, Baodi, was born not long ago, and she was also very busy, taking care of T's housework, which made her exhausted.In the end, she introduced Mrs. T's sister to Mr. T, and urged him to get engaged and married. I watched from the side and found it very interesting, so after the wedding banquet of T's second wedding, I walked back slowly with Mrs. L. , I smiled and said to Mrs. L: "If you think the highest standard of a man's personality is that his wife dies and never marries, then you shouldn't fall into injustice." But her eyes were red, and she said, "Mr. X, please stop talking!" Tears, to my surprise, I will never mention it again. But she is still firmly opposed to my not marrying. This may be her revenge, because I cannot refute her.As soon as their son Baodi could speak, she taught him to call me "Old Zhangren".Until the year of the Anti-Japanese War, when I left Peiping, my nine-year-old brother said goodbye to me, "My father-in-law, when you come back, you must bring your daughter, my wife, back!" He asked me if I wanted a daughter, let alone one, it would be easy to have two, but my wife has no shadow yet. scholar. )