Chapter 8 (Four)

Our daughter is already famous.Her grandfather named her Jianru, and because her zodiac sign was an ox, he made a hexagram, "Niu Li Yuying", so she was named Liying.We can't accept this beautiful number, and "Qian Jianru" can't be called loudly even though it's a mouthful.We improvised at any time and gave her all kinds of nicknames, the most convenient one was Yuanyuan, which became her nickname. On the 100th day after her birth, Yuanyuan took a train from Oxford to London with her parents, changed trains to the port of Dover, took a ferry across the sea, landed at the port of Calais in France, entered France, and then took Take the train to Paris and live in the apartment that a friend rented for us in the suburbs of Paris.

Yuanyuan is already a pretty doll in baby clothes that are longer than half her body.A middle-aged passenger on the bus in London looked at the sleeping Yuanyuan carefully, and said, "a China baby" (a Chinese doll) with a pun, which can also be interpreted as "a china baby" (a porcelain baby). dolls), because Chinese dolls have delicate texture, like porcelain.We are very proud. Because Zhongshu can't hold children, I stuffed the typewriter and the like that should be carried in the big box to pay the ticket.He carries two small suitcases in each hand, and I can change hands with him when I can't hold the doll anymore.When the ferry arrived in Calais, France, the port management personnel boarded the ship and saw me holding a baby standing in the crowd, so they immediately invited me out and let me get off the ship with Yuan in my arms.The ferry full of passengers lined up and disembarked one by one.I was the first to get to the customs and recognized my luggage very leisurely.Zhong Shu also arrived later.The customs officers were eager to see the Chinese dolls, but did not check any of the luggage.They expressed their friendliness to the Chinese dolls, and without opening a single box, they smiled and marked "Pass" one by one.I think the French care and love babies and mothers more than the British.

The owner of the apartment, Madame Caseau, is a retired postman.She bought a house with her pension and rented it out, and provided three meals a day for some tenants.Food is cheap, but very rich.She is a good cook, and she is good at cooking.Her husband didn't care about buying vegetables. He bought fish and chicken and duck.The meal is placed in the dining room of her house. There is a large table that can seat more than a dozen people. Both men and women are single tenants.The room we rented had a kitchen, but we also provided meals at first.The person who found this apartment for us was Sheng Chenghua, who was studying at the University of Paris.He picked us up at the train station and drove us to the apartment.The apartment is close to the station, and it takes only five minutes to get to the center of Paris.

There are quite a lot of Chinese students in Paris, not counting the tourists who are transiting for sightseeing, but there are many who come to Paris for vacation after studying in Europe and America.Every time we go out, we always meet classmates or acquaintances.At that time, among the students living in the dormitory "Cite Universitaire" of the University of Paris, there was a Ms. H who lived in the American Pavilion, a Miss T who lived in the British Pavilion, and Sheng Chenghua who lived in the Swiss Pavilion.Others are scattered in various districts of Paris.We often come and go with Lin Liguang and Li Wei.Li Wei is a classmate of Tsinghua University, from the Department of Chinese. He can compose poems and lyrics, and his calligraphy is very sophisticated.Lin Liguang specializes in Sanskrit. He is rigorous in his studies and is currently studying for a national Ph.D.They have a son born in the same year and the same month as our daughter.

Li Wei told me that the children of XX and other classmates were sent to the nursery school, and they lived a rigid life, eating, drinking, relaxing, relaxing, and sleeping at the prescribed time.She hated having her children undergo such training.I can't bear it either. Our neighbor across the door is the wife of a civil servant, and her husband leaves early and returns late.She has no children, and often comes to play with Yuanyuan.She wanted to take her child to the countryside to raise her, and told us: the air in the countryside is good, the milk is good, and the vegetables are good.She tried to persuade me to entrust the child to her and take it to the country.She said: It is also very convenient for us to visit.

If this had been before the baby was born, I might have said yes.But the baby is in my belly, so I don't worry about it, and the baby is no longer in my belly, but it makes me worry about it, and I don't know how to protect it properly.The wife across the door once moved the small round bed into her bedroom to see if the child could get used to it.Yuanyuan was quite used to it, and slept obediently until late at night without crying.Zhong Shu and I stayed up all night.He is as concerned as I am.Fortunately, the wife across the door couldn't go back to her hometown because her husband was working in Paris.She can take the child to play at any time.When we need to go out together, we entrust her to look after her.Of course, we also send her compensation.

Zhong Shu passed the Oxford essay exam and was granted a pardon.He felt that it was not worth losing a lot of time for a degree.In vain he read unnecessary lessons, and many books he wanted to read had to be abandoned.Therefore, he often quoted a British scholar who had received a Bachelor of Arts from Oxford on his evaluation of the Bachelor of Arts: "A Bachelor of Arts means ignorance of literature."Although we continued to pay fees to enroll at the University of Paris, we only studied according to our own courses.Students at the University of Paris are very free. The two ladies and Sheng Chenghua, who lived in the University of Paris, did not want to get a doctorate either.The oral examination of the doctoral dissertation at the University of Paris is open, and anyone can attend it.They often attend.Perhaps in order to show off their proficiency in Sinology, the examiners always ask some difficult questions to make the candidates embarrass themselves on the spot, and then award the doctorate.

Even a truly learned scholar cannot avoid this embarrassment.Those who spend money to do their dissertations are old-fashioned and usually get a Ph.D.So Lin Liguang disdained to be a Ph.D. from the University of Paris, he wanted a national Ph.D.It is a pity that he fell ill and died in Paris a few years later, before becoming a national doctor. During Zhongshu's year in Paris, he worked hard to study hard.French began to be read by the poet Villon in the 15th century, and in the 18th and 19th centuries, every family read the future.The same goes for German.He read Chinese and English every day, French and German every other day, and Italian later.This is a year when Zhongshu, who loves books like his life, reads books as much as he likes.When we first arrived in France, the two of us read Gustave Flaubert's (Madame Bovary) together, and he had more new words than me.But a year later, his French level far surpassed mine, and I was just like the wife he described in "I forgot to give birth to a child".

We don't have many friends, but there are many Chinese students studying in Paris, we often come into contact with a small circle of people, and life is quite lively. Xiang Da also arrived in Paris, and he is still a frequent visitor to my house.Lin Liguang is hospitable, Li Wei can cook, and their family often treats guests to dinner. Miss T is generous and hospitable, and often treats guests. Miss H is her friend, younger and more beautiful than her. Miss H is Sheng Chenghua's favorite.Sheng Chenghua is very envious of our husband and wife classmates, and wants to get married.But Miss H has not yet agreed.A philosopher who was funded by Wang Jingwei to study abroad is chasing Miss T.There is more than one person pursuing Miss T, so the few people I mentioned are enough to be lively.We sometimes ate at restaurants in college towns and sometimes at Chinese restaurants.

Philosophers love to play with their philosopher's posture. At banquets, they always like to pose a question and ask everyone to "think" about the answer.Once he said: "Hey, let's talk about what you most yearn for and what you like the most." What Miss T yearns for most is "brightness" and what she likes most is "quietness".This is the answer most favored by philosophers.Worst of all was another gentleman who pursued Miss T.I forgot what he aspired to, what he liked best - he used three French words that made up an obscenity equivalent to "fuck" (I think he did it on purpose).No wonder Miss T despised him and married the philosopher.

The two of us don't fit in, and we don't have extra leisure time.The meals at Mrs. Kashu's house are too rich, one dish is served one by one, and a meal of lunch can kill two hours.We valued our time and the food was not to our liking, so we were cooking for ourselves before long.Zhongshu went to the market and practiced speaking French; he could only listen in on the landlord's table.We cook chicken and salted bacon in a large pot, and add vegetables such as oyster mushrooms and cauliflower.I drink soup, he eats meat, and Yuanyuan eats me.Mrs. Kashu taught me how to make "bleeding beef" (boeuf saignant), and we saved the bright red blood for Yuanyuan to eat.She also ate bread with egg yolks and spaghetti, and she grew up very well from a small animal to a little person. I put her fat little hands and feet on my hands and looked closely. I was surprised that the skeleton shape was the same as Zhongshu's hands and feet.Zhong Shu sniffed her feet, and deliberately pretended to be sick and vomited, so she laughed out loud.When she saw herself in the mirror, she knew it was herself.When she saw us reading, she came to grab our books.We bought her a high stool, and a big book—the complete works of Alfred Tennyson, in small print and big, nobody wanted it, and it was cheap.She was sitting on a high stool, with a big book spread out in front of her, a pencil in her hand, following our example, reading a book and drawing on it at the same time. Zhongshu's letter to his friend Situya described his daughter as being naughty, which is exactly Zhongshu's exaggeration.In fact, the daughter is very good.We read books, and she quietly drew and played by herself.Sometimes the wife of the opposite door comes to hug her and play with her.We bought a stroller and pushed her out every day.The first thing she could say was "waiwai", asking to go outside. When I was in the maternity hospital in Oxford, I still corresponded with my parents, but there was no news from my family after that. I learned from the newspaper that my hometown had been occupied by the Japanese army, and then I learned from my third sister in Shanghai that my father took the Suzhou family to flee to Shanghai.After we moved to France, my eldest sister wrote several times.I always feel that a voice is missing, why doesn't my mother speak?After the new year, my eldest sister told me: my mother passed away while fleeing in November last year.This is the first sad thing I have encountered in my life. I don’t know what to do with the grief. I can only cry and cry endlessly.Zhongshu tried every means to comfort him, but I held back desperately.I still remember the misery of that time.But I didn't realize how happy I was when I was able to cry freely in misery and Zhongshu comforted me in every possible way. I had only been a mother myself for half a year before I lost my own mother.As the saying goes, "When a daughter becomes a mother, she repays her mother's favor."Although I have tasted the hardships of being a mother, I have not repaid my mother's kindness. We are very worried about our country and our family.The scholarship can be extended for another year, and we are all going back to China urgently.At that time, Paris was already affected by the war, and it was difficult to buy a boat ticket to return home.We were removed by the University of Lyon to buy a ferry ticket for us, and returned home in third class.That was in August of 1938.