by T'aejun Yi
And so the hunt came to an end.
Han was woken by the noise in the carriage as his train passed through Ch’ang-dong. He was approaching Seoul and his home. Yet he did not feel any kind of joy. He thought to himself how wide the world must seem to the man in the Western jacket, who could run away with just thirty won.
First published in 1942. Translated from Yi T’aejun,
Toldari (Pangmun sŏgwan, 1943)
EVENING SUN
For some reason Maehŏn ended up embarking upon his long-planned trip to Kyŏngju in the dog days of summer. Several friends had offered to accompany him in the fall, but even if he could wait until then, he was not so interested in waiting for his friends.
By nature, he found it hard to adapt to others. No matter how familiar the friend, he was always more comfortable alone. If he were to travel one hundred ri by himself, he would feel he had gone further than if he traveled one thousand ri in boisterous company. And so, when the opportunity arose, he set off in spite of the heat.
Whereas Puyŏ had been the ancient capital of Paekche, Kyŏngju was the ancient capital of Silla: this was the extent of his knowledge of the town. Even when buying his ticket at the bureau, he had not asked for any leaflets or information. He had switched to a pair of comfortable shoes and taken out his hiking cane, not even bothering to pack a bag. Rather than discover somewhere new, he was in the mood to escape his cares for even a little while; he wanted to simplify his daily life and return to solitude, and there didn’t seem much need to stuff belongings into a bag. Upon his return he would no doubt be pressed to write several travel pieces, but he didn’t pack even one sheet of manuscript paper. He did not want to clear his head so much as to unwind it. Perhaps he was already exhausted in every possible way. It was enough to make sure he had plenty of money in his pocket.
Because it was the height of summer in both the north and the south, there were none of the seasonal disputes commonly on view in spring or autumn during the course of the journey. Moreover, he had already ridden the Seoul-Pusan line several times, so dusk settled outside the window without much interest. It was still dark when he switched trains at Taegu, but several stations further down the line unfamiliar scenes began to reveal themselves outside the window. The green fields remained the same, but the sight of glittering dew gave the impression of morning. The names of passing stations, such as Panyawŏl, “Midnight-moon,” emitted a whiff of poetry, while the sight of rods hanging over misty riverbanks, belonging to fishermen even more diligent than farmers, presented a rustic scene. Just as he was wondering whether to lower the blind to block out the strengthening sunrays, the train pulled into Kyŏngju.
A stone pagoda stood to the right-hand side as he came out of the station, which bore the contours of a Korean house. The sun was already beginning to burn, as if it were not in the east at all. The cracked and crumbling pagoda was yellowed and bumpy, like the spine of some beast extracted from a layer of earth tens of thousands of years old rather than something made from stone. Surrounded by mountains and stretching out quietly, the streets seemed too fragmented for a town.
Maehŏn didn’t have to drag his hiking cane far before he entered a pleasantly low inn. He ate breakfast on the veranda without even securing a room, smoked a cigarette, and then set off for the museum.
There was an elegant garden that would have been pleasant for a walk had it been just a little larger. The shards and stone burial figures were most attractive. Their impression was altogether unlike that of the pagoda in front of the station; here daily life seemed to radiate even from the porcelain, as if they were Yi dynasty pieces. Standing under a luxuriantly leafy quince tree, the stone lanterns didn’t seem like remnants of a past age, and as for the well stones, carved with generous and sturdy lines unlike the tottering earthenware of the Silla period, well, even the dirt from wear glistened on them, as if that very morning red hands had washed rice and rinsed greens at their side.
Inside the exhibition rooms, the crowns were merely strangely interesting, while the bell of Pongdŏk Temple made the greatest impression on him. From a distance, it was majestic; up close, of unbelievably fine detail. In front of this bell, with its harmonious combination of majesty and detail, he felt the same awe that he had felt when reading that literary masterpiece War and Peace. And yet, if one were to pull back the pounder and strike the bell, he had the feeling that the resulting sound would be more sorrowful than majestic, more sad even than its own legend.
By the time he walked back out onto the street he felt thirsty and was searching for a shaved ice shop when an antiques shop caught his eye. Although not particularly fond of Silla earthenware, his love for old things could hardly allow him to pass by such a place. Piles of roof tiles and end tiles were spread out alongside earthenware, and photographs and picture postcards of the area in antique frames. There was not much of note amongst the tiles. Of the earthenware, several had simple but quite unusual incisions that were hard to find in Seoul. He began to pick some out as if by habit, even though he did not want to carry them around, but soon the shop grew stiflingly hot. He asked a boy wearing a jitsumi shirt, who had come to his side, for some water. The boy rushed inside. But it was a girl who returned in his place, carrying a bowl of water on a tray. Maehŏn was taken aback by her pretty features. Her eyes were clear and rather narrow and, together with her round chin, left a quiet and dignified impression.
“That water’s nice and cool!”
“I drew it fresh from the well.”
Upon hearing her dignified voice, he noticed her chest and height were not those of a child. Her simple dress, with its pattern of green leaves printed sparsely onto a white background, made her legs seem too long for her body. She was a young woman, whose arms and legs were a little sunburnt but otherwise perfectly formed and evoked a sense of the refined city in their movement. Maehŏn was pleased. Although she was probably young enough to be one of his daughter’s friends, he realized that for city people a whiff of urbanity could produce the same pleasant sense of meeting someone from a shared hometown. She was probably a student at one of the technical schools who had returned home for the holidays, he thought.
He put down the now almost empty bowl of water and picked up the earthenware he had been fingering before; he blew the dust from the object, which was neither a kettle nor a jar.
“Don’t you have something a little more unusual?”
“Unusual?”
“Something a little interesting …”
“Unusual and interesting … wouldn’t it be better to choose something of which you’ll never tire, even if it’s ordinary?”
Maehŏn was at a loss for words, and looked again at the young woman’s face. Her words were full of such fine pregnancy. An ordinariness that will not tire the affections no matter how long you gaze upon it; this could well describe her own face and its tranquil expression, which seemed to invite unlimited affection.
“What type of piece would that be? Please choose something for me.”
Obliging, she hesitated over several pieces before picking out something that would be called a ritual vessel if it were a Yi dynasty piece, with a high base and a rather wide top in the shape of a lotus leaf.
“With some fruit on top that would make a fine still life!”
“It would be even more still left as it is.”
Her words were simple but contained a certain depth. Maehŏn wondered whether all girls with parents who deal in antiques were this cultivated, and suddenly felt it would be a shame to pay right then. He wanted to talk with this cultivated girl some more. But there was nowhere to sit and it was unbearably muggy, and so he left after asking her to recommend an inn.
After lunch he set off to visit the astronomical observatory and the stone icehouse, before walking along the Half Moon Fortress walls, past Rooster Forest, and alongside the Mosquito River toward the Five Burial Mounds.
This took him quite some distance. Only after he had reached the Onyang road did h
e see a thick pine grove across the bridge, which looked like an ancient royal burial ground.
The narrow signposted road was dark, covered as it was by pine trees. After a steady walk, which left him dripping in sweat, the pines drew back on both sides, and a cozy opening appeared. What seemed more like longish grass mounds than earthen graves gently rose into the air, drawing lines that seemed to have been painted with a soft brush. There were five burial mounds in this one spot, starting with Pak Hyŏkkŏse, the founder of the Silla dynasty. The strange scene appeared more surreal the longer he looked. But as he drew nearer, a wall blocked his view, so high that he could not see over even when standing on tiptoe. He tried walking further along the wall. A gate was locked. He continued walking around the wall, barely able to glimpse the upper contours of the burial mounds. From each new angle the lines of different heights and widths produced a slightly different sense of rhythm and harmony. He had almost completed a full circle. The ground was slightly elevated at this point, making it the best place to stand on tiptoe. Maehŏn pressed down on his cane and stood as high on his toes as possible to try to see inside. But it wasn’t very comfortable, and he could not stand like that for long. He took out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his face, when suddenly a voice resounded through the air, “Why don’t you take a look from up here?”
Surprised, he turned and looked up toward the middle of a fairly tall pine tree. His hair stood on end.
“Come up here. You can get the best view from here.”
For just a moment he was happy to recognize the voice. Then he wondered whether this was a hallucination occurring in an all-too-lonely place, and found himself unable to move. The young woman looking down, not from ground level but from the top of a tree the height of at least several men, was clearly the girl from the antiques shop, to whom he’d been strangely attracted from first sight.
“What are you doing here?”
“I always come here.”
“How did you climb up so high?”
“Please come up here. I can move up to a higher branch.”
She had left her blue parasol and white canvas shoes in a heap beneath the tree. Maehŏn walked up to them. He picked up her shoes and set them straight. There was a faint trace of sweat clearly visible on the insoles. Suppressing an eerie feeling that was rising ever more strongly in his heart, he hung the jacket he had been carrying on a low branch, took off his shoes, and slowly crawled up the tree as she directed. The girl moved up to a higher branch.
“You’ll fall off! Just sit back down.… I’ll be fine here.”
“It’s all right. Come up higher. You’ll get a better view.”
Finally, he reached the branch where she had been sitting before.
“Ah! From up here the balance of the mounds is more …”
“More what?… Try to describe it.”
He could see that her feet were dangling so close they might step on his head.
“Describe it?”
“Isn’t it quite nihilistic?”
“Nihilistic!”
The beauty of the five mounds struck its most effective pose when viewed from the middle branches of this pine tree that the girl had discovered. As he looks down, he is struck by a sense of quiet comfort. These graves seem too simple to be called royal burial mounds; they are mere mounds of earth. And their lines are too attractive to be called graves. They rise up and sink back down into the earth like rainbows, as if flowing through endless space. The sound of the cicadas only heightens the silence. He doesn’t know whether he should cry or sigh as he gazes in silence; he can feel himself falling into a stupor. There could be no more appropriate adjective than nihilistic, just as the girl said.
“Are all the royal mounds here like this?”
“I’ve been to Kwaerŭng and the King Muyŏl mound, but they are nothing like this.”
“So, you come here often?”
“Yes. This is my favorite place in Kyŏngju. I was here yesterday as well.”
“Aren’t you frightened on your own?”
“What kind of feeling could there be without fear?”
Despite his best efforts, he could not see her face. Whether it was maturity or overcultivation, there was something in her spirit that overwhelmed her body.
“Are you from Kyŏngju?”
“I’ve lived here just a few years.”
“Ah, did you say you come from Seoul?”
When she did not answer, Maehŏn decided it would not do to probe more deeply and changed the subject. “But why is a young woman like you visiting old burial mounds so frequently to enjoy their nihilism?”
She did not answer this either.
“I’m sorry. I disturbed you while you were quietly resting here alone.”
“I was reading a book.”
“A book?”
“Yes.”
Maehŏn lit a cigarette. Soon he heard the sound of pages turning above him. He felt it had been a good decision to come to Kyŏngju. The mysterious lines of those mounds brought a strange sense of repose.
The sun began to cast a shadow on the first mound. The cicadas’ cries seemed to be growing longer.
By the time he had finished his third cigarette, the mounds had completely disappeared into shadow.
“Did you have a good rest?”
The girl broke the silence.
“Oh, a very good rest. If I hadn’t met you here, I would have missed this sight.”
“My legs are beginning to ache.”
Maehŏn climbed down from the tree, only to be surprised by the book that the girl was carrying as she too descended. It was none other than his own collection of essays, which he had published the previous spring. Although pleased, he also felt uneasy. The book contained quite a few of his early impressionistic essays, which could only be sneered at by one sophisticated enough to talk about nihilism in this way.
“The stream over there is really clear.”
“Is it all right if I walk with you?”
“Please do. There’s probably no time for you to go to the Stone Abalone Pavilion now.”
Carrying the book under her arm, she seemed even more urbane in the way she walked. With her short upper body and long legs, she would look good in Western clothes. After a while he dared a question,
“Is that book any good?”
“There are several good pieces in it.”
“Have you read anything else by him?”
“I suppose he writes fiction as well? I hardly ever read fiction.”
“Why not?”
“Well … I haven’t read much fiction, but it’s usually too didactic for me.”
“And that book isn’t?”
“Some of the essays are. But I feel I could grow quite close to this writer. There’s something lonely about him.”
“Don’t you think he praises loneliness too much?”
“Have you read this book?”
She showed it to him. He did not reveal his identity, but just answered, “Yes.”
“Sometimes when he tries so hard to praise loneliness, he ends up turning it into mere words, don’t you think?”
He blushed. She continued, “I think that his sense of loneliness is more subtly revealed in the essays that aren’t supposed to be about loneliness.”
“You are quite sensitive! If the author knew he had a reader like you, he would be very happy.”
“So, what do you do, sir?”
“Me?”
Suddenly they were struck by a dazzling sun. The pine grove had come to an end by the side of a river. As if forgetting their conversation, the girl set off running across the burning sand, without opening her parasol or looking back even once. Maehŏn hardly knew what to do and retreated into the shade of the pines. And then gradually, he began to wonder if this was really happening and could not believe his own eyes. The girl, who was certainly no child and who in sophistication seemed to have reached a higher level than most adults, stopped in front of a pool not far
away and cast off her clothes quite unreservedly. For one moment her naked body stands tall on the glittering sand with the distant green mountains as a background; she must be a fairy that has jumped out from those mysterious curves of the Five Burial Mounds! Then, splash splash … and the water leaps up, glittering gold in the slanting sunlight. She sinks happily down. Finally her upper torso reappears, “Aren’t you hot?”
She shouts out. This is clearly a human voice. Maehŏn recalled the saying that genius and foolishness coincide, but he could not look down upon this girl as foolish. By the time he had shuffled down to the next pool and back, having washed the sweat from his face, she was dressed and sauntering along barefoot, parasol in hand and softly singing some song.
Maehŏn tried not to interfere with her mood. He did not want to spoil her innocence; he would rather take inspiration from her completely natural behavior, which enabled her to be absolutely solitary whenever she wanted, even if someone were beside her. They each walked beneath the bridge on the main road as if alone.
“Oh, it’s nice and cool under this bridge.”
“Yes, it’s quite refreshing!”
“It’ll cool down on the main road in a while.”
As she spoke, she sat down on the grass and dangled her feet in the water. Maehŏn sat down beside her in the same position. Bicycles, buses, and people were passing over the bridge.
“Excuse me, but what school did you attend?”
“Me?”
A rare smile came to her lips.
“It might seem like I’m boasting about my age, but I have a daughter in middle school. Please don’t misunderstand my casual form of address.”
“Oh, I don’t worry about such things. You can even order me around if you like.”
“It’s embarrassing to have to say so, but actually I wrote that book. I wasn’t trying to deceive you a while ago, it’s just that I was embarrassed to admit it.”