The Three Leaps of Wang Lun

by Alfred Doblin

  The mat rustled, he sat by them, they cleared throats, said nothing.

  “Tell me your names now and where you come from. Don’t tell me any more than that. It’s not necessary.”

  Softly they named themselves.

  “Now I know you. You four or five must think it’s a brave thing coming all this way from Chihli through Shantung and Kiangsu here to the great dyke? Once I made a great journey, to Shantung. Especially you, Tang, you have a sly face. Really, you’re heroes. It’s not because you left the bucket with Chu’s head in it with your sick friend. The landlord found out about the head a long time ago. But you’re quite wrong if you think you’ve compromised me so I have to leave the Lower Reaches. I’m not so easily caught, you tame rabbits. Tell me now, you with the crooked shoulder, how did you come upon the Truly Powerless?”

  One of the linguists among the Chihli emissaries, whose shoulder drooped, bowed: “I lacked for nothing in my village. My family is not poor. You’re a great worker of wonders.”

  “I know, I know. That’s how it should be. It’s as if I’d sprayed poison around me. It goes on and on. Now tell me. How is it you’ve come here, sit here like this? You don’t need to be afraid of me. I’m not impenitent like my brother Ma No was when I spoke to him. When I saw you standing there on the bank I knew everything. My fate, my whole fate, my wife’s too. I’d been expecting you, feared your arrival for months! Everything’s going to pieces. Feared it. Oh.”

  “Does Wang Lun know,” Tang’s voice came after a silence, “that his roar is that of a lion, a slothful lion being driven from its cage?”

  “I did too much for you, so much. You don’t give even a copper cash in return. You just flash these words at me, grind me down. You’re digging me out. You want to take me back to Chihli so I can be sacrified in the right spot, or to Shantung. I’ll be sacrificed in Chinan-fu. What a lot of fuss you make about things. How many more of you has the Emperor Ch’ien-lung slaughtered? Say a thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand. Any day now you’ll be counting men again, a few more, a few less. Every day the women on the boats crush the heads of little maggots; that’s why I’m not disturbed, why none of you dares move even from here to the k’ang. It’s all the same—it makes me rage to say it—what the Emperor does or the women do or a fever of the bowels does, it’s got nothing to do with me. Nowhere is it written that I’ll be struck down if ten thousand, a hundred thousand are struck down in Chihli. Why do you pursue me like ghosts? I owe you nothing. I can’t help it, I can’t help it.” It was quite dark. They sat on the floor, heads dangling, couldn’t see one another.

  “What sacrifices I’ve made, what they’ve taken from me! Yes, it’s me they come after with such things. Murdered friends. Severed heads. As if I was a fairground booth, a peepshow they had to fill. I’m glad my father and mother are dead, otherwise someone would up and strike them dead, bring me a nice portable leg, a salted face, a well wrapped piece of my mother’s breast. To make me more amenable. It’s my fate. I know it. I’ll come with you. I have a wife, a farm, cotton, a raft, people respect me. They dump a pickled head in a bucket in front of me and I’m supposed to dine on it and leave everything behind.”

  Wang paced around the room. A flint struck, the little oil lamp glowed up on the stovebed. Wang paced some more, sagged beside them, a long bast-wrapped object on his knees. When he removed the bast a long shining sword glinted. They lowered their heads again quickly. Wang Lun cradled Yellow Leaper in his arms.

  Next morning the carts drove at first light out of the lodging house, the snake dealer hobbling and needing support. They went north from the village. Behind the village the slow moving train of five peddlars was overtaken by the great bent figure in the straw hat.

  Wang spat at them: why had they sneaked away so furtively, so the landlord had to send to him to tell him his countrymen were leaving? The peddlars looked shamefaced at one another. The one with the crooked shoulder sniffed: “We were ashamed. We were sorry we ever came here. We don’t want to be blamed for what you said.”

  “We’re brothers,” uttered Tang. “We don’t want to force you.”

  Wang Lun turned on Tang, withered him with anger: “You cowards, you’re ashamed, don’t want to be blamed! Why not?”

  “What’s the point of scolding?”

  “I just have to puff a little and you run away. Emissaries—you! They don’t run away, I can tell you, and they aren’t afraid. Why shouldn’t you force me, you Simpleton, why shouldn’t you be blamed? That’s my Truly Powerless all over. Truly, truly powerless.”

  Wang Lun urged them to move on, they could be seen in the morning grey from the village. At the last marker stone of the village they witnessed Wang’s parting grief. He was leaving his land, his wife. Then they moved on separately, Wang Lun with Tang. Wang was uncommunicative. Their days were passed in walking, hiding, the furtive purchase and begging of rice, melons and water. Tang couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was escorting a prisoner back to Chihli. Wang, who at night often spoke softly to himself, seemed to be wrestling inwardly, holding himself down. Tang noticed shrewdly that the only things the uncanny man allowed himself to speak of, grasping at them lustfully, greedily, were bloody deeds of the Ili troops, cruel violations, tortures of the brothers that he soaked up with pleasure. Tang even heard him telling himself fragments of such stories at night. The young peddlar feared for his life at his companion’s side. Occasionally Wang cast reproaches at him, asserted grimly that he’d been waiting a long time for them with horror. But they must have him. They must have him. The young peddlar bewailed the fix he’d landed himself in, considered running away, but it was obvious that Wang was keeping an eye on him. He didn’t dare ask the fisherman.

  Until the tension between them slowly slackened the other side of the Huang-ho, where Wang began to show some interest in the local inhabitants, challenged T’ang to races and, having wrapped himself in the yellow brocade cloak of an itinerant Taoist savant, strutted strangely lighthearted. They enjoyed the spring, the approaching summer. Wang’s easy mood died away, disquiet, impatience languished about him. The nearer they drew to the hills of Shantung, the less able he was to control himself. Behind one village he ripped off the Taoist cloak, put on his grey torn beggar’s rags with a shout of joy. His sword hung on a string around his neck. Tirelessly he questioned his companion about events of the last few years, checked out villages. After leaving the homeward wending T’ang alone for half a day he disappeared completely near Chinan-fu. He left T’ang one task: he was to spread the word among the brothers and sisters that they were not to lose one another. The tide would turn.

  Wang strode as years before the hard coal roads of Shantung. Pillars of smoke, grimy columns in the air. Undulating ground. On a bare stony plain the great city of Poshan. Ch’en Yao-fen had long expected a visit from Wang Lun. News of the tragedy in the Mongolian town had filled the merchant with tremendous awe for his former guest. During the winter and up till now, conferences of the leaders of the White Waterlily had taken place. They were undivided in their disgust at the measures taken by the Emperor, who favoured foreign lamas and had the native movement suppressed by force.

  As Wang Lun ducked through the back door of the house and appeared beside the altar from behind the wallscreen, Ch’en Yao-fen flung his arms around the great ragged beggar’s shoulders and held him tight. Wang asked if they were alone and if he didn’t want to fetch the others. The merchant sounded the gong. They sat in the hall under the panelled ceiling, from which embossed iron birds and dragons hung with lamps and lanterns. The beggar refused his tea; with proud gestures, throwing back his cloak, he showed the merchant Yellow Leaper. Ch’en, taking up the sword and with just a glance at the inlaid symbols, told of an officer who’d claimed to belong to one of the Imperial banners, had appeared four times in Poshan to ask Ch’en about Wang Lun. He called himself Hai, claimed to be colonel in a cavalry regiment, a most courteous, gaunt man with a dangling beard and moustaches. Wang,
excited, asked for more. Yes, the man also called himself Yellow Bell. He’d implored Ch’en to look for Wang, who was doubtless wandering around griefstricken at Ma No’s death, and direct him to a certain barracks in Peking where Hai was posted. Ch’en had promised without understanding any of it, for the man was not talkative and might be a spy. After Wang’s explanation Ch’en wandered, arms crossed, over his carpets. He was astounded. The whole face of things was altered. Wang Lun’s eyes too glittered.

  Sedan chairs halted in front of the house. The curtains rustled. Amazement of the rich merchants at the sight of the ragged man, whom they failed to recognize, then friendly armshaking and whispers.

  “Air!” cried Wang, “air, air!” He hugged Ch’en, who restrained himself with difficulty. With icy calm Wang addressed the twenty elegant gentlemen, who listened in a mixture of horror and awe. They flinched from him. He used naive expressions; announced that he didn’t intend sticking to the old path; he needed money to arm men and pay them. It was shameful, but they were forced to it. Perhaps his brothers and sisters hadn’t done what was normal, traditional, but he wouldn’t see them annihilated. Nor should the White Waterlily. They’d promised protection; now he’d come to secure it.

  The gentlemen questioned. Some were hesitant: should all strings be played at once and the smouldering popular uprising fanned up? The occasion was too trivial. The whole business affected only two northern provinces. The huge South knew nothing of it. They would dare what could be dared. The Emperor Ch’ien-lung had aroused admiration, never sympathy. By favouring lamaism, terrible persecutions, he had sown hatred. The cowardice, misgivings of the merchants had long receded. Ch’en, interrupted numerous times by Wang, revealed Yellow Bell’s visits and their import. Shoulders, queues were grasped; Ch’en was surrounded.

  “Expulsion of the Manchus!” came the whisper. The clan marked, the Emperor half mad, the sons criminals, without respect.

  “The Banner troops are deserting,” they cried laughing to one another. What an insult to the province, to place the bloodspattered murderers of Ili before the town gates. The Emperor has no love for the people.

  Ice flowed through the limbs of the gentlemen as Wang explained with emphatic gestures that the Truly Powerless themselves would be armed at the start of the struggle. It was imperative for the followers of Wu-wei to take up the sword. They must set aside their purity and their hopes like fine clothes and incense, place them on an altar and sacrifice before it. They must sacrifice Imperial troops, the last dynasty, themselves; nothing else was left. As Wang brought all this out, the gentlemen looked away from him, controlled themselves with difficulty.

  Ch’en gesticulated as he spoke. Ringed fingers, warm wafts of air, rustling. Wang breathed heavily, his furrowed brow twitched. The gentlemen should consider giving him money for arms and soldiers. Sending their followers to him, to join the Truly Powerless. No one could tell how it would turn out. They shouldn’t set too much store by it, shouldn’t think all lost for ever if things went badly. In a powerful voice that rang out from deep under his ribcage he concluded: for him the time for standing by was over. His task was set, once for all. Quickly, in the next day or two, they had to make their decision, so that things could be brought to a head before winter. Again talk turned to Yellow Bell. Ch’en drew Wang aside to the great wallscreen. Whispering they sat around the little tables, huddled in corners.

  The outcome of the two days of deliberation was that trusted individuals, whose names Wang was told, would be instructed to place at his disposal with the utmost despatch any sum he asked; the White Waterlily would be mobilized in the northern provinces; guilds alerted for active participation as soon as fighting broke out; plans for uprisings in various towns prepared at once; whether action was feasible or worthwhile in any place must be decided on the spot. Advantage should be taken of the situation to remove unpopular, unjust or corrupt mandarins.

  Wang tramped back along the coal road in the heat. The hills where he had so often lain concealed embraced him. When the plains of Chinan-fu shimmered ahead he gave them not a glance, sped unheeding to the northwest. Herds of sheep, kaoliang fields, rice mills, dry ditches, army patrols. Not a beggar on the highways: imprisoned, murdered, driven into towns. No brothers, no Truly Powerless! The league with the spirit of the waters, soil, trees—tom up, driven ruthlessly behind mud walls to rot!

  Wang was still travelling as a Taoist savant with uneasy Tang through Kiangsu when Yellow Bell, referred to Ngo in his search for Wang, entered Hochien with his two servants and took lodgings in the clan house of a friendly family. The two spry servants, utterly loyal to their nobleminded master, scouting around one spring morning in the squares, on the walls, flushed out the former captain, now drill instructor of a town officials’ club, living quietly in the house of a Controller of Audit. Ngo, reserved, already half withdrawn from the cause of the Wu-wei, sat many evenings with Yellow Bell in a pavilion in the Controller’s garden. Yellow Bell explained that, in case Wang didn’t turn up soon, he wanted Ngo to help him organize resistance to the government. He could vouch for his regiment; other officers had joined the cause. The task of organizing the masses must fall to others.

  Ngo, listless, oppressed by the memory of Wang’s departure, healed under Yellow Bell’s gentle decisiveness. When Yellow Bell rode out through the town gate on his white stallion, his servants following, Ngo dressed respectably in black walking beside him, beggars, brothers emerged to join them, noisily greeting longlost Ngo, wailing. Yellow Bell, recalling Ma No and lovely Liang-li, weeping turned his head away, then softly greeted the beggars: brothers. When they reached the hill that Wang had rolled down in the snow, raging in his grief for Ma No, Ngo could not go on. He took his leave of Yellow Bell, who stood up in the stirrups, saluted with his sabre, galloped away beneath white blossoming trees.

  Large numbers of Truly Powerless had taken refuge in Hochien; the White Waterlily was in charge. Ngo leapt into action.

  The guilds of oil dealers, coolies and smiths had a common clubhouse in the town. The unimposing building with its refectories, small theatre accommodated these labouring men in innumerable rooms, eating, talking, leavetaking, sleeping, listening to music, smoking. The rumour of Wang Lun’s reappearance exploded among them. Amid reports of troop movements under Chao Hui, instructions buzzed from the Shantung Committee not to undertake any assaults on soldiers. In the club they all shouted at one another. At one evening’s debate an old smith whose little property near Linch’ing had been burned waved his arms groaning, cursed the dynasty, compared it to a parasitical plant. The most imposing of the coolies was called Li, a robust, upright man who belonged to the Truly Powerless, had lived in the town since the summer of the Broken Melon. During the conference a young man came from the neighbouring house into the long hall, held his hands giggling to his mouth, reported by fits and starts, with wild haunted looks, that the gentlemen ought to watch out: police with a crowd of soldiers were searching the house where Li lived with his clansmen. The coolie himself—. Since the young man didn’t continue beyond this point the closepacked labourers fell on him, the smith banged him on the back, made a movement towards the breathless halfwit’s throat.

  Then two elderly guildsmen slipped in, barred the door, gasped that Li had been taken; police had been accompanied by soldiers who had Li’s head in a cage suspended from their lances. His clansmen had been carried off to prison. The young man nodded blubbing. The confusion of whispers ceased, confusion of fear, fury and menace: everyone wanted to go home.

  Li had heard of Wang’s imminent arrival from the southwest and had set off to meet him with two long knives and a concealed dagger. Passing a troop of soldiers in his beggar’s garb not far from the town, his calmness attracted attention. They stopped him; he stated name, address. The affair ended as it had done for Chu and countless others. Asked if he belonged to the Truly Powerless he replied that he was a beggar, going about his business; seized for searching he defended himself, quickly l
ost his life; his head returned northeastwards.

  The troop of soldiers was billeted in an ancient yamen inside the town walls. Night watchmen beat the first night watch. Guildsmen squatted in the long hall of the clubhouse by curtained windows. When one of them opened the door at a prearranged knock, a lone lean unknown man came in, was quickly seized. A light shone on his face, which was darkened with soot. It was Ngo. Several hissed: what did he want there. His stirring among little groups of acquaintances was well-known. Politely he asked for protection. He was afraid for himself, having been warned by the Controller; now he was warning them. Word was about that the authorities were waiting for large numbers of soldiers so they could pounce on suspect guilds. Nervous men, coming around the low tables with their teacups, shouted: they didn’t need his warnings. What was he trying to stir up?

  Ngo freed his right arm, showed three large starshaped bum scars inflicted on him at his own wish by Ma No. “My arms aren’t a pretty Sight. At first I took these scars for a sign of my liberation. Now for a sign that I’m fettered. If you curse me and tarry you’ll wear other fetters, gentlemen. pheasants are calling, leopards, lions roar. You know well enough what golden pheasants I mean, the panthers of Chao Hui’s army, the literati-lions. But curse away!”

  “You were a panther yourself! Look at your hands. No working man has such soft fingers.”

  “Why’ve you broken out of your cage, Ngo?”

  “He thinks he’s better than the soldiers out there.”

  “Curse away. I shan’t sully these scars by letting you gape at them. If I’m a panther, then you are cats and dogs. I’m sorry I disturbed you. Rather, dogs is too good. Rabbits, woodworms, maggots.”

  “Rabble-rouser!”

  “It appears that only those with loud mouths and no livers are coming forward.”

  The smith pulled Ngo’s sleeve up. “Hold your tongues! I’ll get me marks like these. Three burns, one under the other. You loudmouths won’t need any marks on your arms. You’ll be branded on the forehead soon enough and have your heads cut off.”