The Three Leaps of Wang Lun

by Alfred Doblin

  The officials stood beside the closed palanquin. They lay in the dust before his sleeping body. His state of indifference improved when they approached the Great Wall. A gentle excitement took hold of the Emperor. He ate well, refused to lie in the palanquin, plucked flowers by the wayside. Their progress had to be speeded. When they asked after his health he waved them away with his flywhisk, not speaking. Half fuddled, he climbed on one occasion during these days onto a block of granite beside the road, and fell. But he was visibly more responsive, observed the work in the fields, summoned his travelling librarian to his side, of whom, however, he asked nothing. They remarked happily on the icy looks he again cast.

  A warm breeze blew. He had drawn aside the curtains of his yellow palanquin. In the late afternoon the Director of the Ministry of Rites, Sung, and Hu Chao, Superintendent of the Imperial Eunuchs, walked beside the Imperial chair. Sung a bent man, who wore hornrimmed spectacles on his little wrinkled face and screwing up his eyes sought in vain to discern the beauties of the landscape that Hu described to him so enthusiastically. Hu, a stout gentleman with pendulous cheeks, in the ardour of his descriptions often took the worthy Sung’s hand and squeezed it, so that the eager Minister could at least feel something of the general enchantment.

  They chatted of the tenderness with which a young and rising poet had treated the melancholy of white poplars, and how well he had brought off a few interesting verses on the well-worn theme of a boatride on a moonlit lake. Hu, though not educated like Academician Sung, gushed praises of the poem’s strict form, of the poet’s wonderful calligraphy with its novel flourishes. They inhaled the strong dungy odour of the fields.

  Then a fine perfume wafted at their side. A silken rustling. Between them walked a well-built man of medium height who, when they made to fall at his feet, grasped their queues and walked on with them, arms around their shoulders. The light hard voice of Ch’ien-lung inserted itself between Sung’s measured falsetto and the enthusiastic drone of fat Hu.

  The Emperor smiled when they exchanged embarrassed glances at his seizing on something they had just said: “Don’t talk in the streets, as we say within the Four Seas. The paving stones have ears. Excellency Hu remarked on the marvellous calligraphy in which this young man wrote his poem. Some months ago in Peking I had the pleasure of speaking to a missionary of the Jesus religion. The redhaired people are barbarians, as we all know. They told me in their importunate way of many things; of their poets too. Those fellows write as they please. Calligraphy is of no consequence to the poetry. Even an illiterate peasant can be a poet.”

  “How ridiculous, Majesty,” said old man Sung. “The western longnoses are—this ant was about to say, ruffians. How absurd, indeed, to speak to us of their so-called poets.”

  “Your Grace will have read much of my work.”

  “All of it, Majesty.”

  “All, then. I don’t like flattery. Excellency Hu has also read much of my work?”

  Hu was agitated. He was easily carried away, was a staunch admirer and protector of artists, but his learning left much to be desired.

  “This donkey, Majesty, has indeed read much from the Imperial brush—”

  “—but has not understood it. No blame for that, Hu. And no opinion is required. What I want to say is something else. A peasant woman, like that one there, scatters white grain on the ground. A boy pulls a cart behind her with manure. Larks sing, autumn. There’s no reason why this scene should be—poetised; it is unsurpassably present. Nevertheless I could be tempted to poetise it, but then I enter into a commitment with—the scene.”

  “Well put, Majesty!”

  “Not yet, Your Grace. I mean a commitment to preserve it with respect, to leave the spirit of this moment undisturbed, to sacrifice to it as a creature of the earth. Thus, sitting in my study, do I think of poetry. I, an insignificant mortal, sit in my study and five days earlier there lived the spirit of a reverential moment: two different things. I sacrifice to the spirit of Heaven as befits a rich man and strive to please the spirit of that venerable moment. A peasant, a beggar can’t do that; there are other spirits for them. The finest, softest paper must be used; inks of deepest red and black have been made ready for the brush. And now I write the characters. Their purpose is not to inform, although of course they also serve to inform; round pictures rife with connotations, resonating to the works of the sages, beautiful in themselves, beautiful in juxtaposition. These pictures are themselves little souls, and the paper partakes of them.”

  “Still better put, Majesty!” wheezed Sung. “Cretin that I am, I have heard the same from our astronomer, the Portuguese, that in the West people write as they speak. Which of course is as convenient as it is simple. But if your most exalted Majesty would favour me with a boon, I should like to make a request.”

  “Your Grace?”

  “That I might be permitted to sit in my sedan chair, or even better in a tent, out here in the country, and listen to Your Majesty for as long as is granted me. Your Majesty’s slave is growing weak in his ancient legs.”

  At a nod from Ch’ien-lung the Minister gave brief commands to two lancers up ahead; the vast train halted under the open sky. While the Emperor’s little yellow travelling tent was being erected in a meadow and lancers cleared the field of peasants, he himself stood before potbellied Hu and the Minister, whose scholar’s face bore signs of weariness; let his hands fall, and sighed.

  But the two high officials who looked at each other in dismay were wrong: Ch’ien-lung was thinking of Peking and his sigh was of impatience.

  The Emperor desired two more days on the road.

  The deferment of their homecoming aroused pleasure in all the train. The unwonted sight of the Son of Heaven moving with a spring in his step enlivened everyone. For hours the Emperor debated, now with Sung, whose learning he treasured immensely, now with the tough, stocky general A-kuei, promoted at his own hand from common soldier to officer. A-kuei’s bellicose nature refreshed him; the drolleries of this uncultivated man were a source of amusement for the entire Imperial company.

  They proceeded along the Chao-ho, crossed the grey stone bridge over the Pai-ho. Once through the village of Niulan-shan the train bore westward from the main road along avenues laid out especially for it towards the mountains northwest of the Residence, where the Emperor kept pleasure grounds.

  In the northern Tartar quarter of Peking the streets along which the train must pass were cleansed and smoothed. Side streets were sealed off with painted boards; it was forbidden on pain of death to leave house or barracks during the morning. Gongs clashed and drums beat the whole day. Since the astrologers in the Imperial train had been unable to calculate the hour of entrance into the Vermilion City in time, the entrance was delayed past morning even though the travellers had lain up a whole day in the mountains to the northwest, and the country people had heard the wonderful music of the court orchestra playing almost continuously across the shining lake of K’unming-hu.

  The Emperor spent the last day before his return on the summit of Wanshou-shan, in the woods of whiterimmed spruce. Before dark he went down to the eastern shore of the lake, strolled over the seventeen-arched bridge to the island with its temple that only he might visit. A bronze cow stood mute at the entrance. In the temple the Emperor spoke to his ancestors.

  The waterclock showed the double hour of the dragon as the Imperial train next morning passed through the village of Haitian. They came by the stoneflagged road to the northern gate of the Manchu city of Peking, the Tesheng-men. The double hour of the snake commenced as the Son of Heaven glimpsed the purple walls.

  Chia-ch’ing was a son of Ch’ien-lung, son of the Emperor’s legitimate consort. Chia-ch’ing alone was permitted to accompany Ch’ien-lung as he strolled through the gardens of the Vermilion City. The Emperor bubbled over with animation, came to a halt beneath the giant cypresses, spoke urgently to his stolid son, who towered above him by a head. The prince, not yet forty, had a spongy, wrinkled f
ace; smiles found no dwelling in these broad, bloated masses of flesh. When this lanky man whose head, round as a ball, was fixed solidly between his shoulders felt amused, a flickering and fluttering set up around the little plump mouth; the lines that rippled outwards from it were repulsed by the immobile cheeks, and so the smile fidgetted about his lips as if stranded. The puffy eyelids hung. He could open the left eye only a little. His skin had an unhealthy pallor. His Highness was unfathomable, no one came really close to him; indeed, the physical proximity of most of those in his retinue made him acutely nervous. The prince listened irresolute and passive to his father. He clung to his father as to some blessed object that one does not sniff at, accepts with gratitude. They spoke of the unrest among the Mohammedans. Chia-ch’ing turned, and they strolled towards the menagerie of which they were both so fond. An iridescent green peacock strutted along the marble balustrade of a white bridge. The gentlest of breezes ruffled the reflection of the bridge in the dark water. It lifted the hem of the yellow Imperial gown slightly and swung the golden tassels at Chia-ch’ing’s girdle.

  That night the Forbidden City was overtaken by cold and showers of rain. Two days of rest the Yellow Lord granted himself. He sat at games of morra in the pillared hall of the Imperial quarters. His writing desk, low, of massive gold, was placed close behind him. Its top rested on the back of an elephant, whose legs formed the legs of the desk. Ch’ien-lung used to read off his poems from the long face of the God of Literature, who stood before a delicately fashioned pagoda in the middle of the desk, and from the folds of his gown. A-kuei the jester, honest man of action, squatted facing the Emperor on the ebony floor. A thickset, shortlegged man with a square face and erect back. A-kuei was always of the same temper. You could stick him in a corner and fetch him out again: he would act as if nothing had happened. His rough manners, coarse laughter, crude turns of phrase were considered sanctioned, were cultivated in the Vermilion Court. He himself seemed unaware of them, evinced unhappiness at every breach of etiquette; his attempts at caution made him even more comical. He was a splendid morra player, this peasant, better than Ch’ien-lung. Some whispered that A-kuei was not only grasping and avaricious, but frankly undependable; he was a fomenter of intrigues, a scandalmonger who used his boorishness to powerful advantage. Naturally such talk found willing ears among the most eminent courtiers: A-kuei’s services in the difficult campaign against the Miao-tzu discomfited other men. While the grey capricious ruler sat with A-kuei at the game board, their elegant and cultivated lordships laughed as they amused themselves out on the fishing terrace flying kites; they professed to think that the Emperor tolerated his jester’s prattle; in reality he listened to them. But the Emperor belonged to the men on the fishing terrace and to A-kuei and to others: in his life he needed much and ignored everyone.

  On the morning of the second day Chao Hui rode through the Meridian Gate and made the ninefold genuflection before Ch’ien-lung in the Hall of Exalted Harmony. The Yellow Lord mounted his horse; it took him out through the Western Flower Gate and at a regular pace around the three lakes, Chao Hui beside him, on to birdloud Coal Hill. The lean, supple mandarin was famous not only for his incomparable services in the campaign against the Dzungars on the Empire’s northwest frontier; no one forgot the deeds of this elegant man on the green banks of the Ili Chao Hui, holder of the title Guard of a Gate of Peking, whom the Emperor, after the crushing of the Dzungars, had come to meet bearing a cup of tea at the door of the Summer Palace, was famous also for his legitimate wife. The Emperor frequently read her poems, her impetuous yet restrained prose. Hai-t’ang was her name, the daughter of a former Governor of Anhui. When she married she received as dowry from the Emperor broad fertile estates in the south, on the lower reaches of the Yangtse. The infamous Ili army, the incendiary murderers of Ili, were under Chao’s command. No one dared demobilize these brutes; they were stationed in Chihli as a reserve guard.

  For two days they found delight in fighting birds, huamei and wushicha, rowed on the artificial lotus pond. Only Chia-ch’ing, the heir apparent, walked along the bank. He never boarded a boat, could not stand the rowers close to him. Invited, he always made the same movement: a defensive spreading of both hands in front of his chest. The mere invitation unsettled him, and once home his face and neck had to be rubbed with silken cloths.

  Then the heavy, holy shrouds of the past fell over the Yellow Lord. He steeped himself in the terrible loftiness, the idolatrous glow of his rank; he found himself in the place prepared for him. By not so much as a finger did he disturb the stem rites. Without the sacred ritual the world collapsed, the earth lay alone, men would hurl themselves at one another, spirits of the air rage, heaven curl up, disorder break loose. Relations with Heaven and the Netherworld must be firmly maintained. The ancient past and its glorious flower, Confucius, knew that in the world of appearances the blood of Heaven must flow through every movement; nothing was without meaning. And so Ch’ien-lung spared himself none of the exhausting ceremonial. He did not feel above all this; he considered himself lucky to be the upholder of these terrible things beyond the control of men.

  When he fasted on the day before the sacrifice to Heaven and the sharp eyes flashed in the immobile face, his servants knew as well as the priests, the favourites of his retinue, that this man did nothing superficially. Anything mechanical in their actions was noted by one glance of his eye. Ch’ien-lung, as Son of Heaven, prayed in earnest, thrillingly sincere.

  One dark autumn morning the Yellow Lord was carried into the Temple of the Ancestors. As he climbed the last step, a stone clattered a hand’s breadth from him onto the paving and smashed. Discomposed by the evil portent the Emperor went in to the tablets, recited the prayers. He was seen pacing up and down in his palace, greatly agitated. The ancestors weighed on Ch’ienl ung, they lashed him. This hotblooded restless man, the older he grew, could not live up to his ancestors. He trembled to think that he was born into the fearful responsibility of a descendant.

  This was the day when the report on the Mongolian town and the destruction of Ma No had to be laid before him. Concealment or delay were impossible now that the viceregal memorial had been received. The astronomer, hastily summoned, reported one double hour later that the fallen stone was a fragment of meteorite; the grey ruler received the information impassively. Since the Imperial seal of this day’s date had to be affixed to the memorial the deputy president of the Council of State approached Chia-ch’ing, who undertook the commission disgusted with the man’s cowardice. The Tsungtu’s report was a bald one: it began with a reference to the military action launched against the remnants of the sect, described the investment of Yangchou, the final positions of the troops under their generals, whose names were supplied, then the discovery when the army marched in of the entire besieged population, dead. Wang Lun was designated the murderer, rumours of a massacre by demons not suppressed.

  Chia-ch’ing, horror running down his spine, weighed the scroll in his hand. Were he Emperor, the Viceroy of Chihli and all the generals involved would be executed before the day was out, together with the bearer of the missive and the couriers. He gave instructions for three Under-directors of the Encyclopedia to lecture that afternoon to the Yellow Lord, among them the brilliant Hui, who always knew how to captivate the Emperor. First the deputy president of the Council of State bore onto the fishing terrace curiosities from the campaign against Burma; Ch’ien-lung showed lively interest. Hui was sent forward. Then Chia-ch’ing. The Emperor was still deeply pondering Hui’s quotations when he impressed his crimson seal onto the scroll. Boys in the tripleroofed Pavilion of Instruments sang antiphons with two choirs in a boat.

  The Emperor, suddenly distracted again, pushed back a vase of blue porcelain: he wanted to ask Hui something more. Then: not Hui, he already understood the allusion; rather, what was it they had just reported about the—. Chia-ch’ing in alarm mentioned details of the Burmese. The Emperor, puzzled, asked where he had learned these details. Chia-
ch’ing: hadn’t they just heard a talk on the subject. And why was he so interested in the Burmese all of a sudden that he could recall so many details; in any case, it wasn’t that; was it not Hui in fact—. After lengthy toing and froing of questions and glances the Emperor focussed on Chia-ch’ing: surely he was only interested in politics and what had he brought up himself just now, this little local occurrence in Chihli. He wanted to show him the sort of thing an Emperor was pestered with, what trifles were put up to him. The scroll, then. The heir apparent knelt beside the Emperor, who read out the report line by line with a little red pointer. A third of the way through he laid the pointer aside, read in silence, then told Chia-ch’ing to kneel somewhat farther away. And for a quarter of an hour the ten men around the Yellow Lord kept silent as he read; he seemed not to hear the singing, for he did not order it stopped. Without a glance at any of his retinue the Emperor rose quickly, scroll in hand, climbed into his palanquin.

  What else happened on the evening of this day in the Forbidden City is not known in detail. The Emperor spent the evening alone in his room with A-kuei, after a number of his favourites had found it necessary for some reason, apparently because of a sudden eruption of excitement on the part of the Emperor, to leave the room. Weeping and distraught, Ch’ien-lung is supposed to have smashed a wonderful rare vessel that stood on a stand of porphyry: an ancient plateshaped vessel of bronze, a lotus leaf sliding from the back of a slowworm. Late in the evening two astrologers were first summoned to the darkened palace quarters, then sent away again. Just as the captains of the guard were shifting uneasily outside the Emperor’s window because it had stayed quiet for too long inside, Ch’ien-lung’s gong was struck. He was sitting in an awkward posture among the shards of the vessel. A-kuei transmitted with menacing severity the order to summon an extraordinary council in the morning, and at the same time to make preparations for a journey to the Summer Palace. His Majesty desired his sleeping quarters. Torches appeared.