The Nine Cloud Dream

by Kim Man-jung

  “You are so handsome and have such a fine physiognomy that it will be hard to find a suitable wife for you even in the capital. You must come see me again when you have time.”

  “I come from a poor family, my mother is old, and I have lived in the country all my life,” Shao-yu answered. “I had no chance to find a bride. It was more than my mother could do to provide me with food and clothing. But now that I have come to you with this request, I cannot tell you how sorry I am to see how much trouble it will be.” He said his good-byes to her and left.

  The day of the examination drew gradually nearer, but now that his aunt had agreed to help arrange his marriage, Shao-yu’s dreams of fame and success began to wane. A few days later, he went to see her again.

  The abbess laughed when she saw him. “I have found a girl,” she said. “Her beauty and intelligence are good enough to make her a suitable wife, but her family is too high a rank for you. They have produced dukes for six generations and three of them have been prime ministers. If you win first place in the examination, it might be a possibility, but otherwise I’m afraid there is no chance of a match. So stop coming to see me and study hard for the examination.”

  “Whose daughter is it?” Shao-yu asked.

  “She is the daughter of Minister Cheng, who lives just outside the Ch’un-ming Gate. The house is the one with the red gate topped with spikes. The daughter is more like a fairy than a girl.”

  Shao-yu suddenly remembered what Ch’an-yüeh had told him, and he was curious to know why Minister Cheng’s daughter was praised so highly. “Have you seen her?” he asked.

  “Of course I’ve seen her. She really is like a fairy. Her beauty is beyond words.”

  “I don’t mean to boast,” said Shao-yu, “but I am sure I will win first place in the examination. There is no need to concern yourself about that. But I have always had a special wish, though it may seem unreasonable to you. I do not wish to be engaged to a girl whom I have never seen for myself. Could you please arrange for me to see her just once?”

  “How could you ever hope to see the daughter of a high minister? You do not trust what I say?”

  “I do not doubt your words,” Shao-yu replied. “But each sees with different eyes. How do I know that your tastes are the same as mine?”

  “Han Yü1 said that even children can distinguish between phoenix and giraffe and both the wise and foolish know when the bright sun shines in a blue sky. Only a blind man would not see her beauty.”

  Shao-yu returned to the inn dissatisfied. But he very much wanted to get his aunt’s permission to see the girl, so he went back to the temple the following day. The abbess was laughing once again when she met with him. “You must have something weighing on your mind to come here again!” she said.

  Shao-yu smiled sheepishly. “My mind will not rest until I see Minister Cheng’s daughter,” he said. “Please, for my mother’s sake, think of some clever scheme by which I may get a look at her.”

  The priestess shook her head. “That would be very difficult indeed,” she said. But then she ruminated in silence for a while and asked, “You are so bright and such an accomplished scholar. Have you had any time to study music?”

  “I once met a Taoist master and learned some unusual tunes from him,” Shao-yu replied. “And I know the five tones and the six harmonies.”2

  “It is a minister’s house,” said the abbess. “The walls are high and the inner quarters are secluded. There are five gates before the inner garden. You would need wings to get in. The girl has studied The Book of Rites, and so she follows the strictest etiquette. She never comes here to offer incense, nor does she go to Buddhist temples for the Feast of Lanterns or to celebrations for successful examination candidates. There is no occasion on which an outsider might see her. There is only one way that might work, but I have my doubts about whether you would care to try it.”

  Shao-yu replied, “I would go to Heaven or Hell to get a glimpse of her. I would go through fire and water. Yes, I will try it.”

  So the priestess explained: “Minister Cheng is old. His health is poor, and so he has little interest in matters of state. What he enjoys is watching his garden and listening to music. His wife, Madame Ts’ui,3 also likes music, and so their daughter has studied music along with everything else. She can hear a tune once and analyze it expertly and offer criticism.

  “Every time she hears something new, the mother will invite the player to the house so that she and her daughter can listen to it and discuss it in the study. Here is my idea: Since you can play the ch’in, practice some tunes on it. The day after tomorrow is the last day of the third month and the birthday of the Divine Emperor, Ling-fu. The Cheng family sends servants here to the temple with candles and incense on that day.

  “You will dress up in the robes of a priestess and let the servants hear you play the ch’in. They are sure to tell their mistress about you when they return, and she will most certainly invite you to the house. Once you are inside, whether or not you will get to see the daughter is a matter of your karma. I can make no promises. I could think of no other way.”

  She added, “Your facial hair has not yet started to grow, so you will have no trouble being taken for a girl. Priestesses do not put up their hair as other girls do, or let it down over their ears, so your hair will also pass.”

  Shao-yu was delighted. He went back to the inn and, counting the days, waited impatiently for the end of the third month.

  * * *

  Minister Cheng had no child but his daughter. While her mother was in a semiconscious state during childbirth, she had seen a fairy come down from Heaven into her room with a shining precious stone in her hand, and so Cheng had named his daughter Ch’iung-pei, which means “Jasper Shell.” As she grew up, she became more and more beautiful and talented, most extraordinary, and her parents, who loved her dearly, had tried in vain to find her a suitable husband. Now she was sixteen and still unmarried.

  One day, her mother called the nurse, Old Ch’ien, and said, “Today is the day we celebrate the feast of Ling-fu. Take incense and candles to Chu-ch’ing Temple and give them to the priestess Tu. And take some silk and fruit as presents to show that I have been thinking of her.”

  Old Ch’ien took a little sedan chair4 and went to the temple as she was ordered. The abbess received the incense and candles and lit them in the San-ch’ing Hall. She graciously thanked the old servant for the presents and treated her with great hospitality. Old Ch’ien had said good-bye and was about to step into her sedan chair to leave when she heard Shao-yu start to play the ch’in in one of the halls to the west.

  The sound was clear and fresh, as if it flowed down from the clouds. Old Ch’ien told the bearers to wait while she listened, and then she went back to the abbess and said, “While serving the Chengs, I have heard many famous ch’in players, but I have never heard anything so fantastic. Who is that playing?”

  “It is a young acolyte who came here from Ch’u some days ago to see the capital,” said Tu. “She often plays the ch’in, but I am ignorant about music so I cannot tell good playing from bad. But from what you say, she must be very gifted.”

  “When she hears of this, Madame Ts’ui will surely want to invite her to the house,” said Old Ch’ien. “Persuade her not to leave for a while.”

  “Very well, I’ll do so,” the abbess replied. After she had sent Old Ch’ien on her way, she told Shao-yu what had transpired. Shao-yu was delighted, and he anxiously waited for his summons from Madame Ts’ui.

  * * *

  When she returned to the Chengs’ house, Old Ch’ien said to her mistress, “There is a young priestess staying at Chu-ch’ing Temple who plays the ch’in superbly, like I have never heard before.”

  “I would like to hear her,” said Madame Ts’ui.

  The next day she sent the sedan chair and a servant girl to the temple with a message for the abbess
Tu, which read: “I have heard that the young priestess who is staying with you plays the ch’in very well. Please do your best to persuade her to visit me at my house, even if she is reluctant.”

  The abbess said to Shao-yu, in front of the servant: “A great and noble lady has invited you. You must not refuse her.”

  “It is not proper for a lowborn girl from the provinces to go to the house of a noble lady,” said Shao-yu. “But if you command me, then I cannot refuse.”

  So his aunt dressed him in the robes and hat of a Taoist priestess, and when he came out with his ch’in he looked just like a fairy musician of ancient times. The Chengs’ servant girl was beside herself with joy.

  When Shao-yu arrived at the Chengs’ house, the servant girl led the way into the inner quarters. Madame Ts’ui, looking very dignified, was sitting in the main hall.

  Shao-yu bowed twice at the bottom of the steps.

  “I have wanted to hear you play after what my servant told me about you yesterday,” said Madame Ts’ui. “Now even your very presence seems to make me feel at peace.” She motioned for him to sit, but he declined.

  Instead, the young priestess came up the steps. “I am only a country girl from Ch’u,” said Shao-yu. “Just a traveler passing like a cloud. It is too great an honor for someone of such little talent as myself to presume to play for you.”

  “What can you play?”

  “I learned several ancient tunes from a strange old man I met in the Lan-t’ien Mountains,” said Shao-yu. “Nobody plays them anymore.”

  Madame Ts’ui told a servant girl to bring Shao-yu’s ch’in to her. “What beautiful wood!” she exclaimed as she stroked it.

  “It is made of paulownia wood cured for a hundred years from Lung-men Mountain,” said Shao-yu. “It is as hard as rock. You could not buy it for a thousand pieces of gold.”

  The shadows of afternoon moved across the stone threshold as they talked, but there was still no sign of the daughter. Shao-yu grew anxious and worried. “I know many ancient tunes,” he said. “But I do not know any modern ones. And I do not know the names of the old tunes I can play. I heard from the girls at Chu-ch’ing Temple that your daughter’s knowledge of music is like that of Chung Tzu-ch’i. I would like to hear her comments on my playing.”

  The lady sent a servant girl to call her daughter. An embroidered curtain parted and a wonderful fragrance wafted into the room with the girl, who sat down at her mother’s side.

  Shao-yu rose, and as he bowed to her, he lifted his eyes to steal a glance. She was like the first dazzling rays of the morning sun or a lotus blossom reflected on the blue water. His eyes blinded and his mind dizzy, Shao-yu could not look for long. He was sitting so far from her that he could not see her very well in any case, so he said to Madame Ts’ui, “The room is so large I fear I will not be able to hear what the young lady says.”

  Madame Ts’ui told a servant girl to move Shao-yu’s cushion closer. Now he was very close, but he was to the right side of the daughter and could not look directly at her. He did not dare ask to be moved again. A servant girl placed some incense in a burner as Shao-yu straightened his posture and prepared to play.

  He began with “The Rainbow-Feathered Robe,”5 and the young Lady Cheng exclaimed, “How beautiful! It comes from peaceful times. Everyone knows it, but you play it marvelously. They say of this tune:

  With thundering drums, the barbarous Yü-yang

  Drowned out the sound of “The Rainbow-Feathered Robe.”

  “It is associated with rebellion and brings up powerful emotions. I should not be listening to it. Please play something else.”

  Shao-yu played a different tune, and the girl said, “This is also beautiful. It is Ch’en Hou-chu’s ‘Flowers in the Jade Tree Courtyard.’ It is melancholy but reckless. It is said:

  If, in Hell, you happen upon Hou-chu,

  Speak not of the flowers in the Jade Tree Courtyard.

  “Hou-chu lost his kingdom to the sound of this tune. I cannot approve of it. Play something else.”

  Shao-yu played another tune, and the girl said, “This tune is sorrowful and happy, moving and sensitive. It is the song of Ts’ai Wen-chi, who was taken hostage by barbarians during wartime. Ts’ao Ts’ao paid her ransom so she could return to her homeland. She composed this tune when she said good-bye to the two sons she had borne during her captivity. It is said that, upon hearing it,

  The barbarians shed tears upon the grass

  And the Han envoy’s heart was broken.

  “It is a very beautiful tune, but it is by a woman who had forsaken her virtue. We should not discuss it. Please play another.”

  So Shao-yu played again, and this time the girl said, “This is ‘The Song of the Distant Barbarians,’ written by Wang Chao-chün, who missed her king and longed for her homeland. The tune is imbued with her sorrow and her resentment of the portrait painter who was her undoing. She herself said of it,

  Who will write a tune that will move hearts

  For a thousand years to weep for me?

  “But it is not a proper tune. It is from the bride of a foreign barbarian. Do you have another?”

  Shao-yu played one more. The girl’s expression changed, and she said, “I have not heard this tune in a long time. You are surely not of this world. This calls up the story of a great man, Hsi K’ang,6 who had fallen on hard times and had given up all thoughts of worldly things. His loyalty brought him trouble in troubled times and he wrote this tune, called ‘Kuang-ling,’ or ‘The Hill of the Wide Tomb.’ Before he was executed in the East Market he played it, looking at his shadow. He said, ‘Alas, will anyone wish to learn “The Hill of the Wide Tomb”? I have not taught it to anyone, and now it will be forgotten. What a pity.’

  Is that the direction of Kuang-ling?

  A lone bird flies southeast.

  “If it was not taught to anyone, you can only have learned it by meeting the departed spirit of Hsi K’ang himself.”

  Still kneeling, Shao-yu replied, “The young ladyship’s knowledge is beyond compare. I learned this from a great teacher, and what he told me is exactly what you have said.”

  He played a sixth tune, and she praised it also.

  High, high, the blue mountains,

  Wide, wide, the flowing river.

  “And remarkable, the footprints of the immortals in the world of dust! That is ‘The Water Fairy’ by Po Ya,7 is it not? If he had known of your great talent Po Ya would not have been quite so sorrowful at the death of Chung Tzu-ch’i.”

  Shao-yu played yet another tune and the girl fidgeted with her collar as she knelt. “This is the supreme sacred melody,” she said. “The Sage lived in troubled times and traveled throughout the world helping the people. Who could it be except Confucius that composed a tune like this? It must be ‘The Fragrant Orchid.’

  Wandering through the world

  Finding no place to settle

  “—is a phrase from it. The Sage tried to save the world, but the time was not right.”

  Shao-yu added some incense to the burner and played again. This time the girl said, “This is a noble and beautiful tune. It expresses the joy of all things under the sun and the feeling of spring. It is the ‘Song of the Southern Breeze’ by the Sage King Shun,8 almost too majestic to name.

  The fragrant southern wind

  Blows our cares away.

  “There is no song in the world better or more beautiful than this. Even if you know others, I have no desire to hear them now.”

  Shao-yu bowed and said, “I have heard that if one plays nine tunes the spirit of Heaven will descend. I have played eight, and one is left. With your kind permission, may I play one more?”

  He straightened the bridges on the ch’in, tightened the strings, and started. The music began softly and then became fast and l
ively, stimulating the spirit. The flowers in the garden all bloomed at the sound of it, swallows wove through the air in couples, and the nightingales sang to each other. The young mistress bowed her head, closed her eyes, and sat silently until he reached the part that went:

  Phoenix, phoenix, come back to your home

  Over the wide sea, in search of your mate.

  The girl looked up at the priestess, but then she looked down again, blushing as she pretended to adjust her dress. The pale color of her brow reddened, as if she had been drinking wine. She got up and went into the inner room without another word.

  Startled, Shao-yu pushed away his ch’in and stood up, staring in the direction the girl had gone. He looked like a clay statue.

  Madame Ts’ui told him to sit down. “What was it you played just now?” she asked.

  “I learned it from my teacher, but do not know what it is called,” said Shao-yu. “I was hoping the young lady would tell me.”

  When the girl did not return after a long time, Madame Ts’ui sent a maid to ask why. She returned and said, “The young mistress has been sitting in a draft and is not feeling well. She cannot come out again.”

  Now Shao-yu was worried that he had been found out. He dared not stay any longer, so he rose and said, “I am sorry to hear that your daughter is feeling unwell. You will no doubt want to look in on her. I should go now.”

  Madame Ts’ui presented him with gifts of money and silk, but Shao-yu politely refused to accept them. “I studied a little music, but it is only for my own amusement,” he said. “I cannot accept payment like a professional entertainer.” He bowed and went down the stone steps.

  Afterward, Madame Ts’ui asked after her daughter and found that there was nothing to be concerned about.

  * * *

  Back in the inner quarters, the young mistress, Ch’iung-pei, asked one of her maids, “How is Ch’un-yün feeling today?”