"Someone once asked the naturalist John Ray: "What is the use of butterflies? "
John Ray said: "Butterflies can adorn the world, be pleasing to the eyes and ears, and make the countryside glow, just like countless golden rings adorn the fields. "He added: "The beauty of butterflies is indescribable. Who marvels at seeing the heavenly workmanship of creation? "
From an ugly chrysalis to a beautiful butterfly, this process is completed in an instant. We can't help but sigh at the miraculous power of the Creator. This process is a metaphor for the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who came to the world, died for mankind, and was resurrected from death. This process enlightens human beings, don't give up hope in times of extreme difficulty, and don't give in to evil under the pressure of boulders.
Human beings have dreams and extend their limited life into eternity.
In the 1940s, the war of resistance against Japanese aggression filled the smoke of gunpowder . The three major education centers in the north - Peking University, Tsinghua University and Nankai University were forced to move to Yunnan in the rear. The three schools merged to form a new "National Southwest United University". To preserve the lifeblood of education is to preserve Therefore, Southwest United University has become one of the symbols of the national spirit during the war.
At that time, my grandfather was also one of the students who walked thousands of miles. My grandfather was born in a declining gentleman's family in Yangzhou, and he was a quiet and gentle person. He studied biology. He just started a year of school when the war broke out on the campus. So, they carried books on their backs, held hands, and walked to the back. On the
way, grandfather and classmates saw the school Everything he couldn't see in: death, famine, flood... He was still climbing and wading in the gaps, and saw beautiful butterflies in the mountains and fields.
After the air raid, the butterflies were flying among the broken walls in the countryside. Grandpa see Stayed.
After arriving in Kunming and just settling down, grandpa irretrievably fell in love with butterflies in the suburbs of Kunming. Because he fell in love with butterflies, he made butterflies his lifelong research direction-he wants to decipher the mysteries of butterflies, he wants to know The true meaning of beauty. I have not been to Yunnan. However, I read from some sources that there are the most diverse butterfly resources in China.
Grandpa studied biology, but he is still infatuated with literature. He deliberately watched the beauty of literature through the wings of a butterfly. This fatal character factor also flows in my blood-literature has given me innumerable joys and pains at the same time.
Grandpa had a close relationship with the classmates known as "Nine Leaf Poets". Between the alarms, the poets recited newly written poems on the hillsides in the suburbs. The grandfather, who wears deep myopia glasses, is engrossed in catching butterflies and making specimens. He was so focused that he once fell into a trap set by a hunter, broke his thigh and spent a month in the hospital.
Grandpa's love for butterflies became famous among his classmates, and he became a "legend" among the college students of Southwest United. It is said that Feng Zhi's sonnet was specially written for his grandfather who studies "wonderful little insects":
we are ready to deeply receive
those unexpected miracles,
the sudden appearance of a
comet , the gust of wind suddenly rises:
at this moment, our lives,
as if in the first embrace, the joys and sorrows of the
past are suddenly in front of our eyes, and
congeal into a still and unmoving body.
We praise those little insects who end their wonderful lives
after one copulation
or defense against danger. Our whole life is subject to the gust of wind and the appearance of a comet. Grandpa is an aestheticist, he doesn't like utilitarian and bloody politics. He wants to explore the mysteries of life, the mysteries of beauty. Instead of being a poet, he became a biologist specializing in butterflies. He is "writing poetry" in another form that may be closer to poetry. He found poetry, beauty, the dignity of life and the greatness of God among the butterflies of all shapes and sizes.
There is a beautiful girl in the normal school that is separated from the Southwest Associated University by a wall. She noticed her grandfather who sleeps and eats for butterflies. Her eyes looked pitifully at the thin young man's figure, which appeared and disappeared from time to time in the mountains.
She is my grandma.
Grandma is a down-to-earth lady. My great-grandfather was an open-minded gentleman, and despite the opposition of the rest of the family, he resolutely sent his daughter to school. As a result, my grandmother became the first local girl to finish college.
Grandma likes to read, writes well and speaks fluent English. She didn't appreciate the hypocritical poets, who thought their long hair and pipes were nothing more than a cover for the emptiness of their hearts. Her eyes crossed a lot of celebrities and talents, but she found Grandpa, a taciturn young man with eyes like an ancient well. She found the kind heart behind his fair face.
One day, grandma gave grandpa a specimen of a butterfly. They met, fell in love, and got married. Everything came naturally and the whole process took less than a year. The great-grandfather did not interfere in their love and marriage, graciously accepted the poor grandfather as his son-in-law, and presided over their modest wedding.
Their love has no thrilling twists and turns, nor life-and-death turmoil.
However, the tragic factor was sown by then. Grandma knew in her heart that she loved her grandpa more than anything, and the butterfly was just her way of approaching grandpa; but the "confused" grandfather never understood in his life: whether he loved butterflies more, or grandma more, or the same Love.
In the early 1940s, my grandfather and grandma traveled across the ocean to study in the United States. He joined one of the most famous butterfly research experts in the United States, and he was fascinated by the unique world under the microscope. In order to collect various butterfly specimens, he and his mentor drove almost all over the United States in an open-top car. Grandma followed along, taking care of their diet meticulously. Grandpa is a fool in life, and his American tutor is full of praise for grandma's cooking skills - what foreigner doesn't like Chinese food?
Grandpa's heart fell on butterflies. He collected a large box of butterfly specimens and published several papers that attracted the attention of the international academic community.
Grandpa's love for butterflies is not as good as even the tutor.
The tutor said that Grandpa was the best student in his life.
In the early 1950s, like most patriotic intellectuals, grandpa and grandma decided to return home without a second thought. They want to work for the newly established New China, and they have listened to the powerful pulse of the giant.
Grandpa has always been like a wild crane. He couldn't understand the difference between the complicated political factions anyway, just as others couldn't understand why he liked butterflies with all his heart. However, he believes that the motherland needs his butterfly research, not to mention that he will return to Yunnan, where he once spent the best youthful years, where there are many rare butterfly species that cannot be found anywhere else on earth.
His love belongs there, his career belongs there, and his life belongs there.
The American tutor sent away his best student. When grandfather and grandma got on the boat, the instructor said sadly: "Butterflies can't fly in such a wide ocean." Unexpectedly, he turned out to be a prophecy.
Grandpa and grandma came to Yunnan as soon as they returned to China. They settled down, grandma went to teach at a school, grandpa started his huge collection and research project of butterfly specimens. His small studio is filled with colorful butterfly specimens.
Every month, my grandfather would go out into the wild to catch butterflies and make them into exquisite specimens. He wants to make instant beauty solidify into eternity. He has published many academic papers, and he has put forward unique insights on many issues, which has caused quite a stir in the biological community.
Later, my father was born, the only son of my grandparents. At this time, the grandparents already had some disputes and frictions. The balance of grandpa's mind is still in favor of butterflies, although on the side of the family, the son's weight is added.
Grandma complained from time to time, and she began to question herself: Does the man she loves love her?
Small friction is normal in any family. A small friction will not overturn the building of the family, but will brighten the eyes of love.
However, all the common people, including grandparents, did not expect that disaster was coming quietly. They can't hide.
Who can guess the mind of a great leader? Even his comrades around him were kept in the dark. Not to mention the grandpa who is an idiot in daily life except for butterflies?
Chinese people have nothing to do but live and work in peace and contentment. Intellectuals like Grandpa are the most humble, gentle and purest group among them. However, the fate of grandfathers is like a small boat folded by children, how can they escape the devastation of the storm?
"Under the nest is overturned, there is a perfect egg", in an era where truth, goodness and beauty are the enemies, and an era where blood and violence are fashionable, will there be tolerance for a heretic who stays in a corner and studies butterflies?
Evil will not have the slightest mercy. Evil will destroy all people and things that have to do with beauty. At that moment, evil was flooding in like a flood. With every political movement, the water level of the flood rises to a new level.
Fear has seized the hearts of people, and they cannot see a ray of light.
Only heaven knows the nature of things. The Bible says:
The wicked flourish like grass, and when
all the wicked flourish,
it is they who perish
forever. ("Psalm 92:7")
However, how can mortals see through this heavy cloud of smoke?
Many of them, did not hold out until the day when the evil perished, they fell under the torment and threat of the evil. They fought in their own way, such as Fu Lei and his wife who hanged, Jian Bozan and his wife who took poison, Lao She who was thrown into the lake... My grandfather, a poet and biologist, chose the exact same method as the writer Lao She. Say goodbye to this evil world.
In the more than ten years after returning to China, my grandfather escaped several political storms. From the anti-Hu Feng movement to the more ambitious anti-rightist movement, many of my grandfather's college classmates were swept away by the huge historical whirlpool. Grandpa survived not because of his sophistication and intelligence, but because of his dullness and simplicity.
He remained silent the whole time, retreating into his own world of butterflies. He stubbornly guards his own world, a world that contains countless codes of nature. In this world, he is like a duck to water. He was usually dull, but when he was fiddling with the butterfly specimens, he showed a radiant look.
Grandpa never speaks at meetings big or small, he doesn't know anything about snowflakes of documents. Colleagues and leaders are also used to this "butterfly idiot" and did not force him to speak and express his views. They almost forgot his existence.
Grandpa is silent day by day. What mystery has he discovered in the butterflies?
Grandpa and grandma rarely speak. And grandma was getting used to his stony silence.
However, even Grandpa, an uncontested intellectual, a poet who used biology to write poetry, still did not let him go during the proletarian "Cultural Revolution".
Doom came overnight.
For no other reason, just because his grandfather studied in the United States, he was given the hat of "American spy". He became "the enemy of the people". In those days, the hat was deadly. Grandpa jumped into the Yellow River and couldn't wash it.
One evening, the Red Guards from the university broke into Grandpa's house and into his studio. These children who were still listening to their grandfather's knowledge of butterflies in class yesterday with relish, turned into vicious gods descending from the sky.
They said that grandpa went to the mountain to collect specimens to engage in "spy activities", and they said that grandfather's mentor in the United States was a "CIA spy". They forced grandpa to kneel, they forced grandpa to confess. What can poor grandpa say? In any case, he could not connect the gentle and enthusiastic American mentor with the evil "American imperialism". He told the aggressive Red Guards that he had never done anything to betray his motherland or his conscience.
Some of the Red Guards continued to ask about Grandpa's life in the United States, and some began to rummage through boxes in his study. They found the butterfly specimens that Grandpa had hanging on the walls. This is the wealth of my grandfather's life. He often proudly says: "In terms of personal collection of butterfly specimens, I can be regarded as second to none in China." He also said that these specimens did not belong to him privately. All specimens are sent to museums for more people to visit, appreciate and study.
That day, the bad luck of the butterfly specimen befalls. Grandpa's bad luck also befalls.
The beautiful butterflies did not evoke the last shimmer of humanity in the Red Guards, but instead triggered the turbulent evil in their hearts. They saw the stuffed butterfly, and they had mischievous expressions on their faces.
They did it, and they whipped the feeble stuffed butterflies with wide belts. As they whipped, they laughed wildly like wild beasts. They blushed, as if performing a great work. Destruction is joy, it is the darkest side of human nature.
Butterfly specimens shattered, fragments flying in the afternoon sun. Pieces big and small, colorful pieces, flying in the air for the last time.
Grandpa's heart was also shattered, and every fragment was soaked in his hard work, and each fragment corresponds to a certain period of his life.
Grandpa, who has always been silent, cried, and he rushed up like a leopard. He desperately protects his beloved butterfly, and he uses his frail body to resist the stormy whipping.
The children showed no mercy at all, on the contrary, their whipping became more vicious. They thought it was more fun to whip their professor, a living person, than a bunch of dead butterflies. They are dominated by evil, and they think they are doing a righteous thing. They grew up in a toxic culture, and now they are tools of the devil.
The kids had had enough, and then they started destroying Grandpa's collection of books and manuscripts. They rummaged through boxes to find the so-called "spy evidence", but they found no clues after searching for a long time.
Grandpa's head gurgled blood. He seemed to lose the pain, he didn't dodge, he didn't moan. He struggled, trying to keep the most precious specimens under his body.
Grandma and Dad were crying, but other young Red Guards held them tightly, preventing them from getting close.
Grandpa finally passed out on the ground.
The thugs had had enough enjoyment and tossed enough, and then they went away.
Butterfly specimens that Grandpa had collected with a lifetime of practice were brutally destroyed in a matter of hours. These cruel young people, I do not hate them, I pity them. They take pleasure in destroying beauty, science, and human dignity, and their happiness will eventually be destroyed by their own hands. They take their crimes as honors and their harms as credits, not knowing that the sword of punishment will soon fall upon them.
Grandpa didn't eat or drink for a few days. No matter how my grandmother persuaded me. He lay on the ground like a mummy, staring straight at the broken butterfly wings beside him. The last batch of butterfly specimens that he desperately saved had already soaked through his blood.
After a few days, Grandpa seemed to regain his sanity. He began to eat and sleep normally, and began to organize the horribly devastated butterfly specimens, books and papers. He won't let grandma help.
Grandma thought Grandpa had survived and happily cooked for him. Later, Dad recalled, those days, despite the storm outside, the home was filled with warmth that had never been seen before. Grandpa was often arrested by the Red Guards for criticism, but he has not completely lost his personal freedom and can come home every night. Instead of hiding in the almost empty studio, Grandpa chats with Grandma and Dad in the living room. More often, my grandfather talked in a low voice with my dad, who was still in elementary school. In those moments, father and son were like friends and brothers.
Later, my father told me that this period was the time when he talked the most with his grandfather. Through the conversation, he began to understand Grandpa and Grandpa's career. He begins to have a heartfelt respect for his eccentric father -- a man with dreams, he realizes.
However, that was only the calm on the eve of an even more brutal disaster. Grandma and Dad were vaguely aware of the fierce struggle in Grandpa's heart.
Dad said that after that day, Grandpa actually decided to go. Grandpa was leaving this world, a world he couldn't understand and couldn't understand him. Grandpa's beloved butterfly has gone with the wind, and he can no longer accumulate this wealth. He loves grandma, but he doesn't want to add pain to grandma because of his own pain.
He decided to leave quietly alone, and go to another world to find butterflies, to find love and beauty.
In the last days, Grandpa tried his best to be a good husband and father. He has a sense of guilt for his family.
Suddenly one day, after a denunciation meeting, my grandfather never came home again.
At night, grandma frantically went around asking about grandpa's whereabouts. However, in those years, who cares about the life and death of an "American agent"? The rebels in power in the university only care about their ever-changing factional struggles and the life of a downed professor, how could they care? No one listened to Grandma's call sign.
A few days later, news came that grandfather's body floated on the edge of Green Lake. The corpse had been soaked beyond recognition, and there was still a specimen of a butterfly in his pocket.
When grandma went to the scene to identify the corpse, she found that the butterfly specimen was the gift she gave to grandpa back then. It is through this butterfly specimen that they met, knew and fell in love with each other. In terms of species, this is not a specimen of a rare butterfly, but it is a testimony to their love.
Grandma passed out crying. Facing her lover's corpse, she still didn't understand: Does he like butterflies more, or does he like himself more? If he likes himself a little more, then why did he hide from himself and go to a dead end, how could he live without orphans and widows? If he likes butterflies more, why would he bring that special specimen, that specimen that symbolizes love and youth, when he bids farewell to the world? "
The question in Grandma's heart seems to be the same as Dominica's last question,
"where do u want to put the third rose?"
For men, career and love are indistinguishable.
For women, love always holds the most weight in their hearts~
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