Fortress Besieged

by Qian Zhongshu

  When Hung-chien learned that Miss Sun had received a contract, he quickly made a detailed check among his colleagues and found that next year’s contracts had all been issued. Even Han Hsüeh-yü’s wife was among those hired. He stood out as uniquely ridiculous as the fox with no tail in Aesop’s fables. It so enraged him that his brain ran a fever while his body went cold. All his well-thought-out words and actions were useless. They just had to stay pent up inside him to ferment. This is comparable to the student who had prepared well for his examination only to find it postponed.

  Whenever Hung-chien met Kao, Kao always smiled broadly and acted as though nothing were amiss. Administrators have their own methods of social intercourse. Among close friends, you can put on airs or blow your temper all you want, but with others, the more intimate the smile and the more courteous the treatment, the deeper the suspicion and hatred become. Kao had not quite perfected his skills. His smile and politeness were like poorly copied antiques. The flaws showed all over, and one could tell at a glance that they were fakes. Hung-chien considered questioning Kao several times but then thought better of it and refrained. In a quarrel the one who speaks first doesn’t necessarily hold the upper hand; having the last word is what counts as the victory. Since Kao Sung-nien never changed his expression, Kao must have a plan already worked out. If he risked going in to start a quarrel and found himself out on a limb, he’d just be laughed at. If the story got out, people would say that when Fang lost his job, his shame turned into resentment. The best way to regain face was to put on a show of indifference, to let people know he wasn’t worried about his job.

  It was his colleagues’ attitude that Hung-chien couldn’t take. They all seemed to know that he had been dismissed, but since it hadn’t been made public yet, all they could do was stuff their sympathy in an envelope and send it to him under cover. People who were ordinarily very distant toward him would suddenly come for a visit. He knew they came to feel him out, so he never mentioned a word about his contract. But the pity in their words and expression was like the gifts Santa Claus puts in the Christmas stockings: They wouldn’t leave till they had been delivered. This sort of sympathy was harder to take than reproach or ridicule. As soon as the guest was out of earshot, Hung-chien ground his teeth and let out a bilingual curse: “Go to hell, your mother’s egg!”

  Before their engagement, Sun Jou-chia often came to see Hung-chien. Once they were engaged, it was Hung-chien who went to see her, while she was very reluctant to come see him. At first he thought she was just a girl who had to ask him for advice in everything. After their engagement, however, he gradually realized that not only did she have her own opinions, but she was very firm about them. When she heard him say he was going to turn down the contract, she disagreed, saying that it wasn’t easy to find a job and unless he had something else in mind, he shouldn’t let his emotions get the better of him.

  “Don’t tell me you like staying in this place?” Hung-chien asked her. “Haven’t you been saying all along that you wanted to go home?”

  “It’s different now,” she said. “As long as the two of us are together, any place is all right.”

  Naturally when he saw how sensible and loving his fiancée was, Hung-chien was pleased, but he had no intention of doing as she said. He felt that, though they were already engaged, she was still quite a stranger to him. Never having been engaged before—the business with the Chous didn’t count—he didn’t know what sort of emotional state was to follow the engagement, whether it was supposed to be as dull as it was now. The way he explained it to himself was that passionate love usually reached its peak by the time of the engagement and was all over after marriage. In the case of their engagement now, there was still room left between them for their feelings to develop, and that was a very good thing. He remembered what the philosopher with a goatee had said in a class on moral philosophy in London, “There are but two kinds of people in the world. If given a bunch of grapes, for example, one kind will eat the best ones first, while the other kind will leave the best for last. In principle, the first kind of person should be an optimist, since with each grape he eats he is eating the best of the remaining grapes, while the second kind should be a pessimist, since with each grape he eats he is eating the worst of the remaining grapes. But in actual fact, it’s just the opposite, the reason being that the second kind of person still has hope while the first kind has only memories.” From first falling in love to growing old together it’s like a bunch of grapes: There is always just one best grape remaining at the end to provide hope. Isn’t that wonderful? When Hung-chien rashly recounted all this to her, she said nothing. When he spoke to her, she answered only with “oh’s” and “um’s.” When he asked her why she was so unhappy, she said she wasn’t unhappy at all.

  He said, “You can’t fool me.”

  She said, “As long as you know it, then that’s enough. I want to go back to the dormitory now.”

  He said, “No, you can’t go until you’ve explained it to me.”

  She said, “I just want to go.”

  He coaxed and pleaded with her all the way. Finally she said, “Since the good grape you’re hoping for is at the end, I must be a bad grape, so don’t ruin your appetite.”

  He jumped about excitedly and said she was being silly.

  She said, “I know you don’t really love me; otherwise, you wouldn’t come up with such weird ideas.”

  After he had spent a long time carefully explaining everything to her, her expression softened, and smiling sweetly, she said, “I’m very stubborn. Later on you won’t like it.”

  He kissed her, effectively cutting off her sentence, and said, “You sure are a sour grape today.”

  She made him tell all about his past love affairs. He refused, but after she had pressed him over and over again, he reluctantly told her a little about them. She complained it wasn’t enough, and so like a rich man being tortured by a robber into confessing his assets, he disclosed them bit by bit. She still found it wasn’t detailed enough, saying, “Why be so wishy-washy? You think I could be jealous over something that old and stale? I just get a kick out of hearing about it.”

  Hung-chien noticed a slight redness in her cheeks and a forced smile about her mouth. Thankful he’d seen them in time, he kept most of the details to himself. She asked to see Su Wen-wan’s and T’ang Hsiao-fu’s pictures and was not easily convinced that he really did not have any pictures of them with him.

  She said, “You must have kept a diary at least. That should be very interesting. Do you have it with you?”

  “How ridiculous!” he exclaimed. “I’m not one of those writers or literary types Fan Yi knows. Why should I have kept a diary when I was in love? If you don’t believe me, go to my room and search for yourself.”

  She said, “Don’t talk so loud. Everyone will hear you. If you have something to say, say it properly. I’m the only one who can put up with your rudeness! Just ask this Miss Su or Miss T’ang to try.”

  Angered, he kept silent. She looked at him closely and said with a smile, “Mad at me? Why do you look away? It’s my fault for teasing you. Sorry.”

  Thus, after being engaged for one month, Hung-chien seemed to have acquired a boss, and though he hadn’t been brought to heel by her, he admired her training skills. He remembered Chao Hsin-mei saying the girl was sharp. How right Chao was. Six years her senior and much more experienced in life than she, he felt he was a whole generation ahead of her. He merely found her amusing and let her do whatever she wanted, never seriously disputing with her over anything.

  When the issue of his contract came up, she said gallantly, “Of course I’ll send my contract back. But why don’t you ask Kao Sung-nien about it directly? Maybe he inadvertently left yours out. If you feel uncomfortable about asking him yourself, you could have someone else ask him for you.”

  He wouldn’t listen to her, and later when she learned that his contract had not been inadvertently left out, she didn’t press him. />
  He remarked jokingly, “I’m out of work for the rest of the year. We can’t get married now. If you marry me, you’ll have to go hungry.”

  She said, “I didn’t want you to support me in the first place. When I go home and see Papa, I’ll ask him to think of something for you.”

  He suggested that they not return home at all but go to Chungking and look up Chao Hsin-mei. Hsin-mei worked for the National Defense Committee and his letters indicated he was doing quite well. He seemed to have recovered from the distress he felt at the time he had left the school.

  To Hung-chien’s surprise, she was strongly opposed to this, saying that Hsin-mei was no more than his equal, and that asking Hsin-mei to recommend him for a post would be too humiliating. Furthermore, she said, in the position at San Lü University, for which Hsin-mei had recommended him, he had only done odd jobs for various departments and never made it to full professor. Even as an associate professor he wasn’t secure. She asked whether the job Hsin-mei recommended was any good.

  “When you put it that way,” said Hung-chien uneasily, “it makes me look even worse. How about leaving me a little room for self-respect?”

  She said that, in any case, she wanted to go back and see her parents, and he too should meet his future in-laws. He suggested they get married there at the school. It would save money and effort for one thing and make their traveling arrangements easier for another.

  She stopped to reflect, saying, “I haven’t even received Mama and Papa’s consent to the engagement. Luckily they like me, so there won’t be any problem. But we can’t get married that casually. I’ll have to let them make the decisions. Don’t be alarmed. Papa isn’t mean. He’ll like you.”

  Hung-chien suddenly remembered something and said, “It was that letter of your father’s that hastened our engagement. I’d like to see it. When are you going to get it out?”

  She looked at him, puzzled. He lightly pinched her nose and said, “How could you have forgotten? The one about the anonymous letter.”

  She shook herself free from his hand and said, “Obnoxious! You made my nose all red. That letter? I was so mad when I read it, I tore it up—hmm, I really should have kept it. Now we’re not afraid of rumors any more.” At this she squeezed his hand.

  In Chungking when Hsin-mei received news of Hung-chien’s engagement, he sent an airmail express letter congratulating them. Hung-chien showed the letter to Miss Sun. When she came to the last line, “P.S. My remarks on the boat have come true. Ha, ha,” she asked Hung-chien what Hsin-mei had said on the boat. Now that Hung-chien was engaged, he had of course become a little distant from his friend, so he gave her a full account of Hsin-mei’s comments.

  An angry look flashed over her face as she listened, but instead of flaring up, she merely said, “You men are shameless. You always say how crazy women are about you. Why don’t you just look at yourselves in the mirror? Aren’t you ashamed? Lu Tzu-hsiao is probably going around telling everybody how crazy I was about him! It’s my lousy luck. Hsin-mei must have said bad things about me, too. Tell me.”

  Hung-chien quickly spouted some nonsense to end the discussion. This may have been the reason why she was against asking Hsin-mei to help him find a job.

  Hung-chien suggested that for their return trip, instead of taking the old route back, they should simply fly straight from Kweilin to Hong Kong and avoid all the hardships. They could ask Hsin-mei to help them get plane tickets. Miss Sun was all in favor of this. Hsin-mei wrote back saying that his mother was going to Hong Kong from Tientsin at the end of July, and he was going to Hong Kong to meet her and take her back to Chungking. The time would be just right for them to get together in Hong Kong. When Miss Sun read the letter, she frowned and said, “I don’t want to see him. He’ll just make jokes. You mustn’t let him.”

  Hung-chien said with a laugh, “The first time we meet he’s bound to joke, but after that he won’t. What are you afraid of him now for? You’ve now become his equal and no longer his niece. He’ll have to address you as sister-in-law.”1

  Before Hung-chien left the school, none of his colleagues gave him a farewell party. Since the school itself was unhappy with him, the colleagues were all reluctant to have anything to do with him. He didn’t seem like someone who would advance rapidly up the ladder of success. “Sun Jou-chia is really blind to marry him. She’ll regret it some day. . . .” A dinner for him would probably not be like bread thrown in the Nile, which floats back to its original owner a few days later doubled in size. Inviting someone for dinner is like sowing seeds. Among the guests there would be some who would not return the invitation, such as one’s superiors or low-ranking clerks, and some who most certainly would, such as one’s peers with the same rank and income. Thus, for every meal sown, a harvest of several could be reaped. Hung-chien’s position was not important, and he didn’t belong to any department. Ordinarily no one tried to make friends with him, while he himself, being close only to Hsin-mei, hadn’t scattered any dinner seeds among his colleagues.

  Still, although Hung-chien never actually ate any dinners, he thanked people for them many times. Having asked his departure date, people would say regretfully, “What? Leaving so soon! Why, there’s not even time for a farewell party. Damn! And right during finals, when I’m so busy I haven’t a moment to spare. Miss Sun, try to persuade him to leave a few days later, so we can all have a leisurely get-together—all right, all right, whatever you say. Well then, I’ll just have to dispense with courtesy. When you go home and have the wedding, let us know as soon as possible. Don’t keep it from us! You mustn’t forget all your old friends here once you’re happily married! Ha, ha.”

  President Kao had been summoned by the provincial government to its capital for a meeting and didn’t return to the school until time for final examinations. Throughout this period Kao never formally brought up the matter of the contract with Hung-chien. The day before he left, Hung-chien went to the president’s office to ask that travel documents be issued to him in order to avoid trouble with the military police during the trip and bid goodbye to the president. Kao wasn’t in his office. In the afternoon when Hung-chien went to the office again to pick up the documents, he was told that the president had already left. In the office hours they keep, heads of organizations are like the midwinter sun or that once-in-a-lifetime stroke of luck: they come late and leave early. Since Kao had always been a hard worker, Hung-chien guessed Kao had purposely avoided him, and despite his indignation, he did derive a certain perverse satisfaction from not seeing Kao.

  A few of his student advisees, having finished their examinations that day, came over in the evening when they were free to chat and say goodbye. In his grateful delight Hung-chien understood the psychology of the corrupt official, who on leaving office still wants the local populace to try to make him stay, present him with a “Ten Thousand People” umbrella,2 and put up a “Virtuous Rule” tablet3 in his honor. Leaving a place is like death, and while a dying man knows death is inevitable, he still hopes people will show that they want him to live on. A person’s postdeparture reputation is just like posthumous honors: One can be concerned for it but do nothing about it, fearing that one’s departure or death, like a wax candle, will leave nothing behind but a bad odor when it goes out. Being seen off is like a man on his deathbed having filial sons and grandsons around to escort him to his grave. At death he can close his eyes in peace. The students came and left. The temporary excitement only added to his loneliness, and he tossed and turned for half the night unable to fall asleep. As much as he hated the place, now that he was about to leave, he felt a melancholy attachment to it at the thought of never seeing it again. That is how unpredictable man can be. He came last year with so many others. Now just two of them were going back. Luckily Jou-chia was there; otherwise, having lost his job, he really wouldn’t have the courage to take such a long journey by himself. When he started thinking about this, like a body that curls up into a ball on a winter night, he felt a l
ittle warmer and wished only that Jou-chia were there by his side.

  Sedan-chair bearers and rickshaw pullers arrived before dawn the next day. As it was already summer, they wanted to get an early start while it was still cool. Blurry-eyed from sleep and wearing an undershirt, the servant who served Hung-chien saw Hung-chien and Miss Sun out the main gate and watched them get into the chairs. In his hand he tightly clutched Hung-chien’s tip, ready to count it as soon as the chairs had left. Miss Fan, her nearsighted eyes even more dimmed from lack of sleep, thinking she might run into some male colleague saying goodbye to Fang and Miss Sun, had hastily slapped some rouge on her face. With her arm hooked in Miss Sun’s, she walked Miss Sun over from the women’s dormitory. Miss Sun was also loathe to say goodbye and couldn’t bear to part from Miss Fan. Miss Fan watched Miss Sun get into the chair, wished Jou-chia and Hung-chien a pleasant journey, and said she would certainly forward Miss Sun’s mail to Shanghai.

  “But what address should I use? I’ll have to use Mr. Fang’s address,” and with that she giggled.

  Miss Sun said she would be sure to write to Miss Fan. Hung-chien laughed to himself at what natural-born politicians women were. They maligned each other behind their backs and yet were so affectionate to each other’s face. Two political enemies clinking glasses at a champagne party could probably have done no better. If he hadn’t heard their cutting remarks about each other with his own ears, he would have thought they were really good friends.

  The sedan-chair bearers finished breakfast in town and had just lifted the chairs ready to set off when Kao Sung-nien’s personal servant rushed up, his forehead bathed in sweat, and handed Hung-chien a large envelope, saying that it was delivered at the president’s orders. Hung-chien thought it was a contract, and his heart beat so wildly it nearly burst from his chest. He hurriedly tore open the envelope. Inside there was but one sheet of stationery and a red paper packet. Kao’s letter stated that because he had been so tied up with school business all that month, he hadn’t had a chance to have a good talk with Hung-chien. When he returned from the provincial capital the day before yesterday, there were so many things to be taken care of, and Hung-chien was in such a hurry to leave that he hadn’t been able to give him a farewell dinner. For this he was very sorry. The school was postponing plans for a philosophy department for the time being, so to retain Fang would have been quite unfair and he did not feel right about it. Thus, he had written to such and such well-known academic institutions to recommend Fang for a job. At first he had intended to wait for a reply before informing Fang of it formally, but no reply had come as yet. As soon as he received word, he would certainly send a telegram to Shanghai. Would Fang please accept the gift coupon as a token of his congratulations on their marriage.