by Pu Songling
Wang’s mind was racing as he took a small ingot of gold and tossed it to her, so it landed on the lapel of her robe. The boatman’s daughter picked it up and flung it away, with the gold landing on the river bank. Wang picked it up and returned to his boat, thinking her action quite odd, then he took a gold bracelet and threw it over toward her so it fell at her feet; the woman continued her work without turning to look at him. Before long, the boatman returned to his boat.
Wang was afraid that he’d see the bracelet; however, his daughter very calmly proceeded to cover it up with her feet. The boatman then untied his mooring and cast off to leave. Wang felt so frustrated and disappointed that he just slumped into his seat, lost in thought.
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Luoyang: Located in Henan province.
“The Luoyang Girl Next Door”: A song of the Tang dynasty (618-907) era.
He had only recently lost his spouse and Wang now regretted that he hadn’t arranged for a matchmaker to speak to the boatman about his daughter. He asked other boatmen about this boatman, but none of them knew his name. Wang went back to his boat and hurried off in pursuit of them, but by then it had grown so dark that he had no idea what direction to take. He had no alternative but to continue on his original course, and thus he headed south.
Once he’d concluded his business, he made his return northward, making detailed inquiries up and down the river, but without turning up any news of the boatman. When he arrived home, he was too wrapped up in his thoughts to sleep or eat.
A year passed and then he had to travel south once again, so he bought a boat at the mouth of the river, intending to live in it. Day after day, he tracked the passing of numerous boats coming and going with all their sails and paddles, but he didn’t recognize any of them as the boatman’s craft. After he’d been living there for six months, his money ran out and he had to return home. As he traveled, he kept musing about the object of his desires, but he couldn’t think of anything to do about the situation.
One night, he dreamt that he was approaching a river village, and as he passed several gates, he saw a house with a gate made from tree branches facing south, and inside the gate there was a rough bamboo fence, so he figured that this must be the pathway leading to a pavilion and garden. There was a silk bamboo tree there, filled with fine red flowers. He thought to himself: it’s like the poem’s line, “Before the gate there was a silk bamboo tree,” and here’s just such a tree.
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Silk bamboo tree: Common to southeast China, the Albizia mollis features a dark, rough bark and attractive red flowers and grows to a height of 10-25 meters.
As he came several steps closer, he noticed that the fence was actually quite clean and neat. Then as he entered, he noticed a building to the north that had three pillars and a pair of doors that spanned one entire side of it. To the south there was a small shed, with a red banana plant growing there, covering over its window.
Leaning forward to peer into it, he observed a clothes rack near the door with a brightly-decorated skirt hanging on it, and realizing with a start that this had to be the daughter’s bedroom, he quickly stepped back from the window; but he also realized that someone had hurried out from inside to check on the visitor, and he saw that it was the boatman’s daughter, wearing light make-up.
Wang then happily hurried to the gate and called out, “Today we finally get to see each other!”
Just about the time that he was to approach in hopes of becoming intimate with her, the boatman happened to be returning home, and Wang suddenly awoke with a start, realizing that it had all been a dream. But he remembered the landscape as distinctly as if he was still looking at it. It was quite mysterious and he was afraid that if he spoke to anyone about it, the wonderful dream might be permanently lost to him.
Then a year went by, and again he happened to be at a town near the river. In the prefecture to the south there was an official named Xu, who was in charge of the emperor’s horses and carriages, and whose family had been close to Wang’s family for generations, so he invited Wang to join him for drinks. Wang left to go there on horseback, but entered a little village by mistake, the scenery along the roadside resembling someplace he felt he might have visited before.
Upon passing inside the village’s gates, he observed that there was a silk bamboo tree standing there just like the one he’d seen in his dream. He was startled by this and immediately approached it. He looked closer, verifying that it was just like the tree in his dream.
Continuing on, he also came across a building like the one he’d observed. After confirming that it was identical to the one in his dream, he no longer had any doubts and quickly proceeded to the shed on the south side, where he found the boatwoman inside. When she saw Wang approaching, she was startled and tried to block the doorway, demanding, “What’s a man doing here?” Wang backed away, suspecting suddenly that this might be another dream. Seeing him subsequently come forward, the woman bolted the door shut after him.
“Don’t you remember the bracelet I tossed you?” asked Wang. He then described to her what painful longing he felt for her, and what dream omens he’d experienced. Through the window, the woman then interrogated him thoroughly about his family background, which Wang fully revealed.
“Since you clearly aspire to official service,” said the boatwoman, “and a gift of this sort surely could’ve secured you a beautiful woman, why’d you give it to me?”
Wang replied, “If this wasn’t meant for you, I’d have already been married a long time ago.”
“If it’s as you say,” she told him, “then it’s enough for me to know what’s in your heart. It’s going to be hard for me to tell my parents about this, for it’ll mean disobeying them and tearing our household apart. I still have the gold bracelet because I foresaw that I’d have more news from the one who’d fallen in love with me. My parents happen to be visiting relatives, so they’ll be returning at any time. If you withdraw for the time being and then more formally arrange to marry me, I imagine that you’ll be successful; if you approach your goal of obtaining a wife by being pushy, things will surely go wrong.”
Wang consequently hurried off. The boatwoman called out after him, “I’m called Yunniang, and my surname is Meng. My father’s courtesy name is Jiangli.” Wang memorized these details as he departed. He went to accept Xu’s invitation, but returned early so he could pay a visit to Meng Jiangli.
Meng welcomed him to his humble home, setting up a seat for him beside the bamboo fence. Wang talked about his family background and status, then divulged the reason for his coming and offered Meng a hundred taels as a betrothal gift. “My daughter is already betrothed,” Meng told him.
“When I questioned her, she definitely seemed to suggest that she was available,” insisted Wang, “so why would she act this way if she was really rejecting me?”
“What I said to you just now, I revealed because I didn’t dare lie to you,” replied Meng. With an expression like that of a man who was lost, Wang respectfully bid farewell and returned home.
That night he tossed and turned since there was no one he could turn to, to serve as a matchmaker for him. He’d wanted to tell Xu his feelings about Yunniang earlier, but he was afraid that Master Xu would’ve found the idea of his wanting to marry a boatman’s daughter laughable; now he was desperate, unable to think of any other go-between, so he paid another visit to Xu and told him the truth.
“This Meng you mention has connections on my grandmother’s side of the family,” Xu replied, “so why didn’t you say something earlier?” Wang quickly divulged everything to Xu. The official remarked suspiciously, “Meng Jiangli was originally poor, but he hasn’t taken up the boatman business as a living, so are you sure it’s true?”
Xu then dispatched his son, an impressive young man, to pay a visit to Yunniang’s father, where Meng told him, “Though I was poor, I wasn’t someone who’d sell his daughter for marriage. Originally, a man took some money from me to go find
a husband for Yunniang, and I figured that if anyone agreed just for the profit, we definitely wouldn’t want to arrange a marriage with them. Since you’re conveying Xu’s wishes to me, the young master should be a suitable person to marry. Yet my stubborn daughter depends upon her beauty as a bargaining tool and refused some good families’ marriage proposals, so I can’t promise anything until I deliberate with her in order to be sure that she won’t reject your offer of marriage.”
He got up then, briefly went somewhere and then returned, saluting Xu’s son respectfully to signify that he’d been able to carry out his wishes, so they set a date for the marriage ceremony and Xu’s son departed. He went home to report the success of his mission and Wang enthusiastically prepared wedding gifts which he presented to the Meng family, then he and Yunniang left to stay for awhile with Xu and his family, where they were welcomed and celebrated the wedding.
After they stayed there for three days, they took their leave of the mountains to the north and returned homeward. They stayed that night in a boat, where Wang said to Yunniang, “Back when I first saw you here, I had strong doubts that you weren’t really a boatman’s child. Why were you out boating that day?”
“My uncle’s family lives just north of the river,” Yunniang explained, “so sometimes we borrow that skiff to cross and visit them. My family has barely enough money to support itself, hence I don’t pay much attention to valuable things. I laughed to see your eyes staring like big beans as you kept trying to use your money to arouse my feelings. When I first heard the sound of your reciting, I thought immediately that you were a refined scholar, but then I began to suspect that maybe you were just some frivolous fellow looking to find a loose woman. If I let my father find the gold bracelet you threw, then you might be in trouble. How could I not have sympathy for such an eager, talented fellow?”
Wang smiled and said, “You’re really very shrewd, but you also fell for my strategy!”
“Why do you say that?” asked Yunniang.
Wang stopped and said nothing more. Then when she pressed him more insistently, he replied, “Since we’re coming to the subject of my family, I can’t keep this secret any longer. I’ll tell you truly: I have a wife in my family who’s the daughter of a high official in Wu.” Yunniang didn’t believe him, so Wang gave her proof that he was telling her the truth.
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Wu: This could signify either a state during the Zhou dynasty (c. 1045-221 B.C.E.), the kingdom of Wu (222-280 C.E.), or an area comprised of north Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu provinces.
The color drained from Yunniang’s face, she was silent for a time, then she quickly got up and ran out; Wang slipped on his shoes and chased after her, but by then she’d already thrown herself into the river. He shouted loudly for her in all manner of anxious distress through the dim mist of the night’s darkness, where the only illumination was a bit of starlight reflecting off the river.
Wang mourned in anguish all night, then rode aboard a boat up and down the river, offering a high price for anyone who spotted her body, but no one ever saw her. Depressed, he returned home, torn by conflicting feelings of loss and worry. He began to fear that Meng would come to see his daughter, and there were no words he could speak in response. He had an elder sister whose husband was an official in Henan, so he got a carriage ready and went to stay with them.
After he’d been staying with his sister and her husband for a year, he returned home. Running into some rain while he was on the road, he stopped at a private home where the house and porch appeared to be quite clean, and an old woman was playing with a boy in front of the building.
When the boy saw Wang walking up, he rushed into his arms and hugged him, which Wang thought rather odd. But when he saw how sincerely loving the boy’s expression was, he picked him up and set him on his knees. The old woman called out to the boy, but he didn’t leave.
In moments, the rain cleared up, Wang lifted the boy down and handed him over to the old woman, then prepared outside to leave. In tears, the boy cried, “Daddy’s going to leave!” The old woman tried to shush him, but he wouldn’t stop until she forced him to go to his room.
Wang had already finished packing and decided to sit down a while before leaving, when suddenly a beauty emerged and hugged the boy from behind—and it turned out to be Yunniang. Wang was astonished as Yunniang chided him, “You heartless man! You send me this lump of flesh and where was I supposed to put him?” Wang then realized that the boy was actually his own son.
The pain of their separation preoccupied him too much for him to ask Yunniang about what had happened, so instead he first swore his ignorance about what had happened to her and justified his actions. Yunniang’s emotions switched from anger to sadness, and they made their inquiries of each other through their tears.
Earlier, an old man named Mo, who at the age of sixty still had no son, had made a pilgrimage with his wife to the South China Sea. On their return home, they were anchored at the river where Yunniang’s body was being carried along by the waves and happened to bump into Mo’s boat. Mo ordered his servants to pull her out of the water, and after they ministered to her all night long, she gradually revived. The old couple happily saw that she was a fine-looking woman and decided to treat her as their daughter, taking her back home with them. After living together for several months, they tried to arrange for a husband for her, but she absolutely refused. When October came, she gave birth to a baby boy whom she named Jisheng.
To avoid the rain, Wang had come to their house, where he learned that Yunniang had been living there with Jisheng since the first year of his life. Wang consequently rested there a bit, then went inside to do obeisance to the old couple, who proceeded to treat him like their son-in-law.
He stayed there with them for several days, then gathered his family together to return home with him. When they arrived, they discovered that Meng had been sitting there, waiting for them, already for two months. When he’d originally come, he saw the servants wearing unusual expressions and saying ambiguous things, so he began to suspect that something strange had happened; now, upon seeing Wang and Yunniang, he felt gratified that they were all together. Wang told him all that happened, then Meng realized why the servants had hesitated to communicate to him the events that had transpired.
470. Scholar Ji
Scholar Ji, whose courtesy name was Wangsun, was a celebrated literary figure in our prefecture. Because Wangsun was able to recognize his father even while still an infant, his parents believed that he possessed an innate intelligence and doted on him. He became ever more handsome and graceful as he grew, till by the age of eight or nine he was able to compose literary manuscripts, and at fourteen he entered the prefectural academy.
Then he began to think a lot about choosing himself a wife.
Wangsun’s father, Ji Gui’an, had a younger sister named Erniang, who was married to xiucai Zheng Ziqiao, and they had a daughter named Guixiu, who was peerlessly smart and gorgeous. When Wangsun saw her, he was filled with such nervous adoration that for the longest time he found himself unable to sleep or eat. His parents became very worried about him and after they continually barraged him with questions about what was wrong, he finally told them the truth.
His father dispatched a marriage broker to go see xiucai Zheng; Zheng, however, was by nature cautious and treated his nephew with suspicion, so he rejected the proposal. As Wangsun grew more gravely ill, his mother figured there was no other way around it, so she secretly made overtures to Erniang while also begging Guixiu to visit Wangsun personally and make inquiries about his health.
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Xiucai: A scholar who’s qualified at the county level of the imperial civil service examination.
When Zheng heard about this, he grew quite angry, cursing as he left to confront the Ji family. Afterwards, Wangsun’s parents lost all hope as they were forced to listen to his tirades.
There’s a prominent family by the name of Zhang in our prefecture, w
ho had five daughters, all of whom were beauties; the youngest, named Wuke, was the most attractive of all the sisters and hadn’t yet been betrothed. One day, after visiting some family tombs, she met Ji Wangsun on the road, and after peering out at him from her carriage, she returned home and told her mother frankly of her interest in him. Her mother learned through inquiries about Wangsun’s background, so she consulted an old woman matchmaker named Yu. The old woman then went to pay the Ji family a visit.
At the time, Wangsun was still bed-ridden, but after she asked the parents about his illness, Yu laughed and replied, “I can offer a cure for your son’s sickness.” Wangsun’s mother, Yunniang, asked her what she meant. The old woman related her contact with the Zhang family and described Wuke’s beauty. Yunniang was overjoyed and sent Yu in to see Wangsun.
The old woman consequently entered, comforting Wangsun by telling him about Wuke. Wangsun shook his head disapprovingly as he cried, “How can this possibly address the cause of my illness!”
Yu laughed and told him, “If you doubt whether the woman that I’m thinking of can cure your ailment, I can assure you that her effect would be like summoning the best of the ancient doctors; she can cure you, so what could be more stupid than insisting on the first woman and waiting for her until you die?”
In exasperation, Wangsun sighed, “In all the world, there’s only one person who can heal me.”
“Why aren’t you searching more widely?” asked Yu. Then she began telling him about Wuke’s hair and skin, about her amazing appearance, sketching the image of her with her words and hand gestures.
Wangsun again shook his head disapprovingly and cried, “Old woman, stop! What you’re proposing just isn’t going to work.” He turned over to face the wall and refused to listen to her any further. When Yu saw that she wasn’t going to be able to shake his loyalty, she left.