Written on Water, page 14
Xi-feng sets out wine to toast Jia Lian in their own rooms:
She presided over the occasion but looked over at Patience and smiled: “Why don’t you join all the fun tonight? No need to observe the proper etiquette. Sit down and enjoy yourself!”
. . . The three passed the wine cup from hand to hand in celebration. . . . Jia Lian said, “We’ve had to tighten our belts the last two years, but it will all be fine now.”
Xi-feng fixed him with a look: “They say that ‘cash in hand bites its owner.’ It looks like you had better start looking for a couple of fresh new concubines.”
Jia Lian burst into guffaws: “Rest assured, darling. With a couple of women as lovely as you and Patience by my side, why would I need to look anywhere else?”
Xi-feng sneered: “Surely you exaggerate our beauty. You haven’t been able to take your mind off that woman who lives in Drenched Blossoms Townhouse Village for one moment, so don’t feed me any of your false piety! I can see right through you.”
Jia Lian hurried to his own defense: “Ever since you went and kicked up a fuss at the Yous’ place, I’ve heeded your warnings and never gone back again. Patience can attest to that.”
“But how many other little whores besides her are you keeping in the brothels? Tomorrow, I’m going to make inquiries, and once I have a complete census, I’ll settle my accounts with you.” Patience, seeing that they were moving into dangerous territory, tried to change the subject and restore the peace.
Jia Zhen arrives with a letter from Miss You saying she has engaged a lawyer to sue Jia Lian for seducing and subsequently abandoning her. She has decided to blackmail him because he has recently “made a name for himself in officialdom and would not want his reputation besmirched.” Jia Lian is unable to come up with the money. “It looks as though the only recourse is to try to touch Jia Zhen for the funds. After all, he’s played his own part in all this. I’m fairly sure that he won’t want to refuse me.”
Because he’s afraid the debt will go unpaid, Jia Zhen transfers his wife’s own money to Jia Lian and invents a story that he’s borrowed it from another friend.
What comes next is a description of the First Lady Jia Yuanchun’s New Life Movement fashion show, the elopement of Qin Zhong and Sapientia, how Parfumée and Lotus join a song-and-dance troupe after having been ejected from the Jia household, how they become objects of desire for Jia Zhen, his son, and Bao-yu alike, plus the kidnapping of Qiao-jie, as well as Bao-yu’s demand that he be allowed to go abroad with Dai-yu. When this request is denied, he leaves home in protest, and only then do Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang finally cave in and give their consent to the arrangement:
Aroma instructed Bao-yu to go to Bao-chai’s apartment to say his farewells, but Bao-yu demurred, “Lately, Auntie Xue always sees to it that I feel uncomfortable in her presence.” With a twinge of regret, he asked Aroma, “Has Cousin Bao said anything? Does she blame me for what’s happened?” Aroma replied, “How should I know how things stand between the two of you?” Bao-yu . . . heaved a long sigh.
On the eve of their departure, Bao-yu and Dai-yu quarrel once again, this time so seriously that they sever ties with one another completely. Before they are able make amends, Bao-yu has already left for abroad, alone.
This was, of course, popular fiction. But I wrote some relatively high-minded pieces as well. Just before I graduated from middle school, I published two serious short stories in our school magazine, written in the prevailing new literary mode, and entitled “Ox” and “Farewell, My Concubine,” respectively.
One might say that “Ox” is a perfect example of how your average literary youth, born and bred in the big city, attempts to write about rural areas. An admirable effort, and yet every time I reread it, I can’t help losing patience with myself:
Luxing sucked on his water pipe as he stood, hands resting on his hips, by the doorway. The rain had only just cleared, and the thatched roof glistened with dripping beads of water. The muddy pond below was overflowing with greenish water. In the middle of the pond were a few sparse foxtails, moving along with the currents of the water, pale chestnut-colored fringes softly swaying. The wind blowing toward him was still cold enough to chill his nostrils but seemed more redolent of grass than it had been in the winter.
Luxing tapped the stem of pipe against the door frame, tightened the sash around his waist, and moved toward the cowshed. In the shed, the wan sunlight that had only just come out after the rain was shining through the slats of the walls, casting rectangles of light and shade across the muddy ground. Two timid and scrawny chickens, shaking their bedraggled wings, moved back and forth with their beaks to the ground in search of morsels to eat. Inside the shed, the water troughs, empty and coated with dust, lay silently waiting. They were covered with a thin layer of paper, atop which sat dried vegetables. In the corner, there were still some bits and pieces of straw. To one side, the slats were worn smooth and shiny. That was where the ox, after he had eaten his fill, always used to rub his neck to scratch an itch. Luxing softly laid his hand against the worn-out slats, feeling the rough wood under his fingers, as bitterness rose in his throat, tickled his nose, and the tears welled up in his eyes.
Luxing, having sold his ox, can’t plow his fields when spring arrives. He wants to give his two chickens to a neighbor in return for the use of a single ox. At first, Luxing’s wife opposes the plan: “Heavens! First it was the ox . . . my ox . . . led away in the prime of his life, and then the silver hairpin . . . and now it’s these two chickens’ turn. What kind of man are you? All you seem to know how to do is dispose of my things.”
In the end, he does end up borrowing a bull, but it has a bad temper and bucks under his supervision. When Luxing bears down with the whip, the bull charges him, piercing his chest with its horn, and this is how he meets his end:
Once again it was dusk, and Luxing’s woman, wearing the rough burlap of mourning, escorted a wooden coffin carried by two men out of the house. She pressed her face against the cold coffin, rubbing her disheveled hair against the lacquer, still only half dry, that had been used to seal it. Tears filled her meekly trembling big brown eyes, and she softly uttered in a quavering voice: “First . . . first it was my ox . . . my big strong ox, fit to eat and fit to work . . . led away in the prime of his life . . . then the silver hairpin . . . almost a tael of silver as my dowry . . . shiny silver hairpin . . . and then it was my chickens . . . and now . . . now they’re taking you away from me, too . . .” She cried in broken sobs, for she knew that everything she had once loved or pitied had grown wings and flown away, disappearing into the damp, chilly evening wind.
A yellow moon slanted against the chimneys, blackened by the haze of kitchen smoke, morning glory flowers put forth their purple trumpetlike blossoms atop disorderly grave mounds, and foxtails rustled as their chestnut brown fringes swayed in the wind. The road of life that lay before Luxing’s wife was a long night, a long night without the sound of the chickens clucking and the sway of Luxing’s giant shadow in the flickering lamplight. What a long and lonely night it would be!
When I saw Li Shifang perform the play Farewell, My Concubine (Bawang bieji) last year, I was quite struck by it and felt that I should rewrite it as a short story.5 But I wasn’t able to do it, because I had already written a story on the same theme in the past and was haunted by sentences from the original that I had once found quite moving and later realized were bloodcurdlingly bad. That first “Farewell, My Concubine” had very little Chinese flavor. It was in that sense much like one of our contemporary costume dramas. Xiang Yu was the treasonous king and general of the domains to the east of the river. Concubine Yu was a faithful but altogether pallid presence who was loyal to the king. Once the king had conquered the world, even if he did in fact make her his consort, her future would by no means be assured. For the moment, he was her sun and she his moon, reflecting his light. Yet if he were to establish a grand imperial palace, there would be countless shooting stars orbiting around him. And this is why she secretly hoped that the war would go on forever. One night when the army was trapped at Hai, just as the night sentries were making their final patrol, she heard the sound of an anthem of Chu called “Lamenting the Great Wall” coming from the enemy camp. She hurried back to the tent to report what she had heard to the king but could not bear to wake him from his slumber.
He was one of those rare mortals who was forever young: although there were gray strands among the locks of hair dangling from his forehead and the knife of time had carved deep furrows in his brow, his slumbering face still possessed something of the candor and stubbornness of a child.
The king soon hears himself surrounded on all sides by the enemy’s song and realizes that Liu Bang has already won the kingdom of Chu for himself:
Concubine Yu’s heart ached when she saw King Xiang’s stubbornly set lips turn white. His eyes put forth a cold, glassy light. The expression of those eyes as they stared into the foreground was so frightening that she covered them with the wide expanse of her sleeve. She could feel the rapid flickering of his eyelashes on the palm of her hand, and she also felt a string of cold teardrops roll from her palm down to the crook of her arm. This was the first time she knew that this heroic traitor was indeed capable of shedding tears.
He brushed away her hand and, with heavy steps, staggered back toward the tent. She followed him inside. He sat bent at the waist, head buried in his hands. The candle had burnt down almost completely and the soft light of dawn had already begun to steal in through the curtains of the tent.
“Give me some wine.” He raised his eyes toward her.
As he lifted the glowing amber goblet in one hand, he placed the palm of his other hand on his knee and smiled. “Yu, we’re finished. It looks like we will be caught like beasts in a trap. But we don’t want to be the hunted. No, it’s far better to be the hunters. Today! Today will be our very last hunting trip. I want to carve a path of blood through the armor of the Han army! Ha! That Liu Bang! Does he really think that he’s got me trapped forever inside his cage? I’ve been given one last chance to enjoy the thrill of the hunt, and my arrows just may pierce his heart before I’m through, just as they would skewer a rare purple sable. Concubine Yu, put on your Persian armor. You must follow me to the very last. We shall die astride our horses.”
But Concubine Yu does not want to go, for she fears that his concentration will waver because of her presence. He says:
“Oh? Then I will leave you in the rear, and when you are discovered by the Han army, you will be given as a battle prize to Liu Bang.”
Concubine Yu smiled. She swiftly removed a little dagger from its sheath and, with a single motion, plunged it deep into her own chest. Xiang Yu rushed to catch her, holding her at her waist. Her hand was wrapped tightly around the gilt handle of the dagger. Xiang Yu lowered his large eyes, which burned with light and brimmed with tears as they gazed toward her. Her eyes widened and—as if unable to bear the intensity of the sun—closed once more. Xiang Yu pressed his ear to her trembling lips and listened as she uttered something he could not understand:
“I like this ending better.”
After her body had gradually gone cold, King Xiang pulled the dagger from her heart and wiped the bloodstains on his armor. Then, gritting his teeth, he shouted with the hoarse cries of a wild boar, “Lieutenant! Lieutenant! Blow the horn! Ready the cavalry! We’re charging down the hill!”
This last scene is perhaps a bit too much like a Hollywood movie.
Later on, I went to Hong Kong for college and didn’t write anything in Chinese for three whole years. I even wrote all my correspondence in English so that I could practice, which was indeed quite helpful. Now I am writing in Chinese again, without any restraint or limitation whatsoever. It’s certainly a good thing to stop writing in Chinese for a while. Picking up a pen to write after three or five years, I may feel as though I’ve made some little progress—one never knows.
WHAT ARE WE TO WRITE?
A friend of mine asked, “Can you write stories about the proletariat?” I thought it over and replied, “No. Except perhaps about amahs, because I know a little something about them.” Later, I looked into the matter and discovered that amahs don’t count as proletarians, anyway. It’s a good thing that I’m not planning to change my style, since it would only result in disappointment.
The discussions taking place among writers as to our present course and our path forward seem to me an unimaginable liberty—as if there were any choice in the matter. No doubt the garden of literature is broad and inclusive: when visitors buy their tickets and enter its precincts, they can have their pictures taken on the Nine-Bend bridge, swarm over to the zoo, or roam as they wish across the grounds. Their freedom of movement is truly enviable. But I believe that writers themselves should be like trees in the garden, growing naturally within its confines, with their roots extending deep into the ground below. As they grow, their viewpoint will begin to grow wider, and as their field of vision expands, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be able to develop in new directions, for when the wind blows, their seeds will disperse far into the distance, engendering still more trees. But that is the most difficult task of all.
When I was first learning how to write, I believed that I could write whatever I pleased: historical fiction, proletarian fiction, modernist “new sensation” fiction, even the relatively vulgar genre of “family ethics fiction,” not to mention social exposé or martial arts novels or decadent stories of romance and seduction. The sky really was the limit. But later I felt more and more constrained. Here is an example. I have at present enough material assembled for two stories. Not only do I have outlines of the plots and all the characters; even the dialogue has already been prepared in advance. But the stories are set in the interior, and that is why I cannot write them, at least for the time being. And even if I could go there, it wouldn’t really be any use. If I were to take a hurried look around, I would be no better than a news reporter on assignment. Perhaps it’s true that first impressions are the most important. But while a foreigner might well take away extremely vivid impressions from a visit to a “swallow’s nest,” his perspective won’t necessarily reveal very much about the psychology of those who frequent it.1
“Observing the flowers from astride a horse” will only take you so far. But even if you were to live someplace for a few months, searching high and low for dollops of local color, you might well fail to achieve your objective. True immersion in the atmosphere of life usually takes place spontaneously. It isn’t something that can be forced or willed into being. All a writer can strive for is to live with integrity. A real writer can only really write about what he himself thinks. He will write about what he can write; what a writer should or should not write is ultimately beside the point.
Then why do we often feel that we need to change the direction of our literary work? The answer is that a writer will often make the same technical mistakes over and over again and come to abhor the constant repetition. If there is no way to treat the same material with different techniques, might there be a way to apply one’s old techniques to new material? This second option is almost impossible to achieve, because of the limits of individual experience. How many people are like Gorky or Shi Hui, wandering the world throughout their lives and seasoned in any number of different professions?2 Perhaps in the end these anxieties about what and how to write are merely superfluous. As long as one’s subject matter isn’t too specialized, one can write about common experiences—love and marriage, birth, growing up, growing old, getting sick, and dying—from any number of disparate angles and never lack for material. If there came a day when an author could no longer write anything about such things, I imagine it would be because he had nothing left to say, even for himself. And even if he came across some brand-new subject, he would still only be able to produce clichés.
MAKING PEOPLE
I have always felt close to people older than myself, looked down a little bit on people more or less my own age, and felt both esteem and terror when confronted with little children, from whom I deliberately maintain a respectful distance. This is not because I “fear being eclipsed by younger generations,” as the old saying goes. I imagine that, once they grow up, most of them will be quite ordinary and no better, in all likelihood, than my own generation.
Children are little packets of new energy dispatched from the wellsprings of life. That is why they are to be respected and feared.
Children aren’t as muddleheaded as we imagine them to be. Most parents don’t understand their children, while most children are able to see right through their parents and understand exactly what sort of people they are. I remember how as a child I longed to reveal all that I knew, just so that I could shock and dismay my elders.
The distinguishing feature of youth is the ability to forget, for as soon as we pass beyond childhood, we completely forget how children think, and it is only as we grow old that we once again grow closer to them. It’s the time in between that usually throws up the biggest barriers, so that as adults we lose contact with children almost entirely. This is also precisely the time in our lives, of course, when we actually go about having children.
