"'I come from the Heavenly Kingdom, Excellent Young Sir,' the Shell Maiden replied. 'The Emperor of the Gods was pleased with your unselfishness. As a reward for your respect for your father he has sent me to care for your house and to cook your food for you.'
"Well, of course it was not long before the young fisherman married the lovely Shell Maiden. And he had many sons who cared for him in his old age just as kindly as he had cared for his own father. What better reward could the Heavenly Emperor have given him?
"Ai, my little ones, everyone praises a child who is kind to his parent. Even a thief's heart can be melted by the sight of a dutiful son." Grandmother Ling had just thought of a second story which she wanted Ah Shung and the other children to hear.
"Once a young man, whose name was Ho Lin, lived with his mother. His father had died, and the good young man never stopped grieving for him. Each spring and each autumn he swept his father's grave clean and never forgot to set out food for his spirit when feast days came around. Toward his mother, Ho Lin was as kind and good a son as woman could wish.
"Well, one night a robber came to the little house where Ho Lin lived with his mother. He bound the young man tight to a chair. Then he spread on the floor a square piece of cloth upon which he began to lay out the things he meant to take away with him.
"The thief took Ho Lin's best silk gown out of the treasure chest. But the young man said nothing. The thief took his new shoes with the heavy black satin sides and the clean white soles. But the young man still kept his lips tightly closed. One after another the robber laid on the square cloth all of Ho Lin's most prized possessions. But still the youth remained silent. Only when the thief picked up a copper pan did he speak.
"'Be good enough, I pray you, to leave me that copper pan,' Ho Lin said to the robber. 'Take all the rest but leave me that, so that I may have something in which to cook my old mother's breakfast tomorrow morning.'
"The thief was astounded. He dropped the pan on the table. 'Bad luck will surely come to me if I rob so dutiful a son,' he thought to himself.
"'Not only will I leave you the copper pan, O Young Sir of Such Remarkable Goodness, but I will leave all your belongings,' he said to Ho Lin. And he went on his way.
"Here again, my dear children, a good son was rewarded because of his respect and care for his old parents."
XV
THE POET AND THE PEONY PRINCESS
ONE AFTERNOON in spring guests came and went through the bright red gate in the wall that surrounded the Ling courtyards. The Old Old One had invited friends to walk through the Garden of Sweet Smells and enjoy the peonies which were then in full bloom. Their shaggy blossoms made the garden gay with their red, pink, and white petals, and they sent a sweet perfume into the air.
The day was sunny and warm. So the Old Mistress had ordered the maid servants to bring tea and cakes to the round stone table in the center of the garden. There the blossoms could be seen better than in the summer house at the end of the walk.
Yu Lang sat on a curving stone bench with the grownup guests. Her bound feet hurt her too much to run about with Ah Shung and the boy visitor with whom he was flying kites. The little girl watched the huge paper butterfly and the giant paper fish that floated high above the garden across the blue sky. The boys were pretending these were fighting kites. Once Ah Shung succeeded in hooking his fish behind his visitor's butterfly and in drawing both kites to the ground. But he was not so rude as to suggest that his guest should give him his kite, which would have been his right if they had really been fighting kites, as young men of China so like to do.
"Of all the flower queens, the peony seems to me the most lovely," one guest remarked as she sipped her hot jasmine tea from a handleless cup as thin as an eggshell. In old China each moon or month had a flower as its queen, and one day in early spring was set apart as the Birthday of All the Flowers. At that season, also, parties were given and there were celebrations in the gardens.
"You speak truly, dear friend," said Grandmother Ling. "No flower guests are quite so welcome in my garden as the peony blossoms. With their sunrise colors they drive away the last dark mists which the Black Tortoise of Winter has left behind him. Our peony friends are late in coming this year. I have been impatient. I have felt like the ancient Emperor who tried to hasten the blooming of his flowers by building a glasshouse about them and by sending his musicians to play sweet tunes to them as they opened."
Each spring at her peony party it was Grandmother Ling's custom to show respect to her flower guests with poems and stories.
"Will you not honor us with a flower poem?" she asked the oldest one of her visitors.
"I am unworthy of having first place, Great and Ancient Hostess," the visitor replied, "but I remember some verses about the peony blossoms that were written by a poet of long, long ago."
The visitor repeated charming lines that told of a young man who fell deeply in love with a princess in the Emperor's palace. When the Emperor discovered that the two had been meeting he shut up the princess and forbade her to set foot outside the inner courts. But the princess had heard that the stream which ran across the imperial garden flowed, also, through the garden of her young lover. So she wrote messages to him upon white peony petals which she cast on the water. No one in the palace noticed the floating white petals. But by lucky chance the young man saw the marks of her brush upon one as it floated under his bridge. He captured the petal and read the message it bore. He took heart at this sign that she was waiting for him. He studied well and worked hard to pass the examinations, and he rose to such a high place that in the end the Emperor gave his consent to his marriage with the princess.
Everyone about the stone table was delighted with this poem about the white peony petals. When it was ended the old visitor bowed to Grandmother Ling, saying, "Now that my unworthy voice has been heard, will you not lighten our dark minds with your own learning, Ancient Lady of Great Goodness?"
"I fear that my words will seem like dull garden pebbles beside the shining jade clearness of those you have just spoken," the Old Old One replied. "But, if you wish, I will tell you the story of the poet and the peony princess."
Ah Shung and his playmate had pulled down their kites and had joined the group of children who were sitting with the grownups on the stone benches. Everyone listened in silence as Grandmother Ling began her tale.
"Once in ancient days, near the temple on the Old Mountain, the peonies grew twice as high as a man. Their blossoms were as large as those pots along our paths, and their masses of bright colors made each garden look like a giant piece of embroidery.
"A young poet named Fang built his house on that hillside because he thought the sight of the flowers would help him to make his verses more beautiful. One day, as he looked out of his window, he saw in his garden a fair maiden dressed in a trailing rose-colored robe.
"'She could not have come from the temple. Only priests may live there,' he thought to himself as he went down the path toward her. But before he could question her, she had disappeared among the peonies.
The maiden gave a cry and fled down the path, her rosy robe floating behind her like the tail of a phoenix
"On several occasions the young man almost caught up with the maiden in the rose gown who walked in his garden. But each time she vanished before he came near her. Fang could not put the maiden's image out of his mind. When he sat down at his table to write verses, the words would not come. His paper was blank. At last he decided to hide in the garden, in the hope that he might watch her without himself being seen.
"In this way he was able to look full on her face, and he found her as beautiful as the new moon. He stepped from his hiding place and was about to speak to her. But the maiden gave a cry and fled down the path, her rosy robe floating behind her like the tail of a phoenix. Fang ran after her to the end of his garden. Suddenly he was face to face with his own wall, and there was no maiden in sight.
Sadly he returned to the house. He dipped
his writing brush in the ink upon his ink stone, and on a piece of white paper he set down this verse:
"With trembling heart, fair maid, I call,
Come back within my garden wall.
Some awesome fate for you I fear,
Take care! Take care! For danger's near.
"He fastened his poem to a tree near the wall where the maid had disappeared. And that very evening, as he sat in his library looking out at the garden, the young girl herself entered his door.
"'Excellent Sir,' she said, 'you frightened me there in the garden. But that was before I found out that you were a learned scholar who could write beautiful verses.'
"'And you, Shining Maiden,' said Fang, 'who are you and why are you here on this lonely Old Mountain?'
"'My name is Siang Yu and my home is far away. But a powerful god forces me to remain here on this hillside.'
"'Tell me where he lives, and you shall soon be set free,' Fang said, flushing with anger.
"'No, Excellent Young Man,' the maiden replied, 'I shall be quite happy here, now that I have met such a learned poet as you. If you will not make fun of me, I should like to say for you a verse that has just come into my mind:
"Beneath thy roof the hours fly.
Too soon the sun lights up the sky.
O Gracious Moon God, grant that we
Never more may parted be.
"The maiden hung her head with shame at her bold words, but Fang was filled with joy.
"'Fair Without and Wise Within, who could fail to love you?' he cried. And as you may easily guess, it was not long until the poet and the maiden were married.
"Now the fair Siang Yu explained that she could not spend all her time under Fang's roof because of the god who kept her on the Old Mountain. However, she came as often as she could, and the two young people were happy.
"Then one day, as she took leave of her poet, Siang Yu's eyes filled with tears. 'Do you remember the verse you pinned to the tree near the wall?' she asked Fang. 'Do you recall that you wrote:
"Some awesome fate for you I fear,
Take care! Take care! For danger's near?"
Well, that time has come. Our life together is ended. I shall not be here tomorrow.'
"'What is it, my dear one?' Fang asked in dismay. 'Tell me what the danger is and I surely can save you.'
"But his wife would say nothing except, 'It lies in the garden. It lies in the garden!'
"That night Fang had a dream. His soul walked in a garden between tall peony flowers. Suddenly he came upon a workman who was cutting out a new path. The man was digging up a peony plant which had a rose-colored blossom. As he threw the flower to one side it seemed to Fang that its shape changed into that of a maiden and that that maiden had the face of his beloved Siang Yu. He gave such a cry that he woke himself from his slumber.
"The sun had already risen. Fang leaped from his bed, for from his dream he had learned that his dear wife was a flower fairy, a Peony Princess.
"'Oh, that I may be in time to save her,' he cried as he rushed out of the house and along the paths in the garden. Down this one, up that one, he went. But all was quiet and still. Then he saw in the distance a figure clad in the blue cotton suit of a gardener. He ran like the wind, and he arrived just as the workman was setting his hoe to the roots of a tall peony plant whose blossom was of the same rose color as the gown Siang Yu always wore.
"'Stop! Stop!' Fang cried, and he told the gardener his story. The stupid fellow did not believe him at first, but as they stood talking, a bud on the peony began to swell. Before their eyes it grew larger and larger. It opened wider and wider. It was almost as big around as the basket which the gardener carried. And in the nest of its rosy petals there sat a maiden, no more than twelve inches tall, who had the face and figure of the poet's wife. Fang lifted the tiny creature gently from her rosy throne and set her upon her feet on the path. At once she grew to the height of a woman, and he found that she was indeed his beloved Siang Yu.
"Thereafter, the poet and his Peony Princess lived safely together there on the Old Mountain, for Fang built a white wall to shut in the flower upon which his wife's life depended. Even after she died and her plant no longer bloomed, he cared for it tenderly.
"At last, when the time of his own death drew near, he called his son to him.
"'I shall not die, my son,' Fang said. 'You must not weep. As I slept last night, my soul made a journey to the God of the Flowers, and he has consented that I may be born again as a peony. Look well at the ground beside your dear mother's plant inside the white wall. When you see in the ground there beside it a red shoot with five slender leaves sprouting from it, you may know it is I.'
"It happened as the poet foretold. The red shoot with the five slender leaves rose from the ground. It grew strong and tall beside Siang Yu's plant inside the white wall. So, as she had prayed in the verse which she made on her first visit, the Peony Princess and her poet were not parted, even in death."
XVI
THE FIRST EMPEROR'S MAGIC WHIP
THE SKY DRAGONS are having a good battle today. The rain pours like a river out of the clouds," Wang Lai said to the children as they walked along the covered veranda that led round the courtyard to their grandmother's apartment. The old nurse firmly believed that dragons were lashing their tails against the black clouds that covered the sky. She was sure it was their fighting that sent down from the heavens the streams of water that were running over the paving stones of the courtyards and dripping from the turned-up corners of the gray tile roofs.
During this afternoon's hour with their grandmother Ah Shung and Yu Lang looked out at the rain through an open window whose paper-lined panes had been pushed aside to let in the warm air. For a time they talked of this and of that, of Ah Shung's lessons with the writing brush, of Yu Lang's embroidery, of the good things they had eaten with their rice at midday, and of the cakes they would soon be having at tea.
Then Ah Shung walked across the room to look at a shining black chest that stood against the gray wall. Upon its glossy face a country scene was painted, and bits of pearly shell had been set deep in the black lacquer to make the pattern more beautiful.
The scene on the chest showed a broad stretch of land, with tiny women and men, wee houses and trees, and even mountains and rivers. But the thing that interested Ah Shung the most was a wall that wound across the land, up mountains and down valleys, like a twisting dragon.
"What a long wall, Lao Lao," he said, as he ran his finger delicately along its winding course.
"Ai, Little Bear, and the Long Wall is what we call it," the Old Old One replied. "That is a part of the great wall that was built by a famous Emperor who belonged to the family named Chin. It is a story you should know. I will tell it to you.
"In the ancient days, when this Chin Emperor lived, our land was surrounded by unfriendly people. From the north and the west strange robber bands often rode down upon us. So the Son of Heaven decided that he would build a great wall to shut out these foes. He was a true dragon, that Chin Emperor. Men say he was cruel. They say he was a tiger. So indeed was he. He let nothing stand in the way of what he wanted to do. He gave orders to build a wall around our vast land just as we would tell men to lay up a wall round a courtyard.
"'My name shall be called the Only First,' the Tiger Emperor declared. 'Never has there been an Emperor like me.' And he burned all the books that told of the deeds of kings who had lived before him, in order that his own glory should shine the brighter.
"The Long Wall was the greatest thing the Only First built. Just as you see it there on the chest, it runs over our land, up hill and down dale, for many hundreds of miles. As high as the temple roof it rises above the fields, and they say two carts can be driven side by side along its paved top. I have been told that it is really two walls of stone and brick, with earth packed hard between them. Can you see the towers, Ah Shung, where the warriors stand with their bows and their arrows and their cannon, that keep the strange
rs away? So long as the Walls stands there to protect us, we shall be safe."
"Does the Long Wall truly go about all sides of our land, Lao Lao?" Ah Shung asked his grandmother.
"No, Small Bear, that Chin Emperor did not finish his wall. He intended that it should be shaped like a huge horseshoe, with both ends in the ocean and with our country hugged inside its encircling arms. He began at one end in the Eastern Sea, and he succeeded in building his wall far into the desert at the north. There it ends. There is a story about that too. Men say Chin did not finish the Wall because he lost his magic whip.
"You see, my children," Grandmother Ling explained, "never in all the world has there been such a feat as building the Long Wall. The Only First kept hundreds of thousands of men at work day and night, year after year. He had them whipped when they stopped. But even so, he could never have built the Wall if the gods and the spirits had not come forth to help.
"How could the poor workmen have carried those great stone blocks in baskets on their own backs? How could they have lifted them high up to the top of the Mighty Wall? No, the spirits of the mountains themselves helped to roll the stones into their places, and a magic white horse dashed ahead of the wall builders to lay out the way. You can see there on the chest how he must have climbed rugged cliffs and leaped across deep valleys, as only a fairy steed could. And always the builders followed his lead, laying up their wall zigzag, like a serpent in stone.
"Only once did the wall builders lose their fairy guide, so the tale goes. The white horse galloped so swiftly they could not keep up with him. At first, when they found he had disappeared from their sight, they did not worry, for they said to each other, 'We can follow his hoof marks.' And they stopped long enough to make tea with which to quench their thirst.
"But even as they drank, there blew down from the Northern Desert a terrible windstorm that covered the land with a thick carpet of dust. The wall builders could not find a single hoof mark of the Emperor's horse, but they went on building the Wall in the direction in which they thought he had gone. Day after day passed, and still they did not catch up with their fairy guide. At last they sent a lookout to the top of a high mountain, and far in the distance he spied the white horse, galloping in quite another direction. So the poor wall builders went back to the place where they had lost him, and they began their work over. This tale must be true, for my honorable father himself once saw this very part of the Wall, shooting off from the main line like the branch of a tree.
Tales of a Chinese Grandmother Page 9