“If I be not mistaken,” she said, when both had seated themselves after having exchanged the customary formalities of politeness, “my honored visitor is none other than Tianshou, surnamed Ming Yi, educator of the children of my respected relative, the High Commissioner Zhang. As the family of Lord Zhang is my family also, I cannot but consider the teacher of his children as one of my own kin.”
“Lady,” replied Ming Yi, not a little astonished, “may I dare to inquire the name of your honored family, and to ask the relation which you hold to my noble patron?”
“The name of my poor family,” responded the comely lady, “is Bing—an ancient family of the city of Qingdu. I am the daughter of a certain Xue of Wenhao; Xue is my name, likewise; and I was married to a young man of the Bing family, whose name was Kang. By this marriage I became related to your excellent patron; but my husband died soon after our wedding, and I have chosen this solitary place to reside in during the period of my widowhood.”
There was a drowsy music in her voice, as of the melody of brooks, the murmurings of spring; and such a strange grace in the manner of her speech as Ming Yi had never heard before. Yet, on learning that she was a widow, the youth would not have presumed to remain long in her presence without a formal invitation; and after having sipped the cup of rich tea presented to him, he arose to depart. Xue would not suffer him to go so quickly.
“Nay, friend,” she said; “stay yet a little while in my house, I pray you; for, should your honored patron ever learn that you had been here, and that I had not treated you as a respected guest, and regaled you even as I would him, I know that he would be greatly angered. Remain at least to supper.”
So Ming Yi remained, rejoicing secretly in his heart, for Xue seemed to him the fairest and sweetest being he had ever known, and he felt that he loved her even more than his father and his mother. And while they talked the long shadows of the evening slowly blended into one violet darkness; the great citron-light of the sunset faded out; and those starry beings that are called the Three Councilors, who preside over life and death and the destinies of men, opened their cold bright eyes in the northern sky. Within the mansion of Xue the painted lanterns were lighted; the table was laid for the evening repast; and Ming Yi took his place at it, feeling little inclination to eat, and thinking only of the charming face before him. Observing that he scarcely tasted the dainties laid upon his plate, Xue pressed her young guest to partake of wine; and they drank several cups together. It was a purple wine, so cool that the cup into which it was poured became covered with vapory dew; yet it seemed to warm the veins with strange fire. To Ming Yi, as he drank, all things became more luminous as by enchantment; the walls of the chamber appeared to recede, and the roof to heighten; the lamps glowed like stars in their chains, and the voice of Xue floated to the boy’s ears like some far melody heard through the spaces of a drowsy night. His heart swelled; his tongue loosened; and words flitted from his lips that he had fancied he could never dare to utter. Yet Xue sought not to restrain him; her lips gave no smile; but her long bright eyes seemed to laugh with pleasure at his words of praise, and to return his gaze of passionate admiration with affectionate interest.
“I have heard,” she said, “of your rare talent, and of your many elegant accomplishments. I know how to sing a little, although I cannot claim to possess any musical learning; and now that I have the honor of finding myself in the society of a musical professor, I will venture to lay modesty aside, and beg you to sing a few songs with me. I should deem it no small gratification if you would condescend to examine my musical compositions.”
“The honor and the gratification, dear lady,” replied Ming Yi, “will be mine; and I feel helpless to express the gratitude which the offer of so rare a favor deserves.”
The serving-maid, obedient to the summons of a little silver gong, brought in the music and retired. Ming Yi took the manuscripts, and began to examine them with eager delight. The paper upon which they were written had a pale yellow tint, and was light as a fabric of gossamer; but the characters were antiquely beautiful, as though they had been traced by the brush of Heisong Shezhe himself—that divine Genius of Ink, who is no bigger than a fly; and the signatures attached to the compositions were the signatures of Yuan Zhen, Gao Bian, and Du Mu—mighty poets and musicians of the dynasty of Tang! Ming Yi could not repress a scream of delight at the sight of treasures so inestimable and so unique; scarcely could he summon resolution enough to permit them to leave his hands even for a moment.
“O Lady!” he cried, “these are veritably priceless things, surpassing in worth the treasures of all kings. This indeed is the handwriting of those great masters who sang five hundred years before our birth. How marvelously it has been preserved! Is not this the wondrous ink of which it was written: Bo nian ru shi, yi tian ru ji—‘After centuries I remain firm as stone, and the letters that I make like lacquer’? And how divine the charm of this composition!—the song of Gao Bian, prince of poets, and Governor of Sichuan five hundred years ago!”
“Gao Bian! darling Gao Bian!” murmured Xue, with a singular light in her eyes. “Gao Bian is also my favorite. Dear Ming Yi, let us chant his verses together, to the melody of old—the music of those grand years when men were nobler and wiser than today.”
And their voices rose through the perfumed night like the voices of the wonder-birds—of the Fenghuang—blending together in liquid sweetness. Yet a moment, and Ming Yi, overcome by the witchery of his companion’s voice, could only listen in speechless ecstasy, while the lights of the chamber swam dim before his sight, and tears of pleasure trickled down his cheeks.
So the ninth hour passed; and they continued to converse, and to drink the cool purple wine, and to sing the songs of the years of Tang, until far into the night. More than once Ming Yi thought of departing; but each time Xue would begin, in that silver-sweet voice of hers, so wondrous a story of the great poets of the past, and of the women whom they loved, that he became as one entranced; or she would sing for him a song so strange that all his senses seemed to die except that of hearing. And at last, as she paused to pledge him in a cup of wine, Ming Yi could not restrain himself from putting his arm about her round neck and drawing her dainty head closer to him, and kissing the lips that were so much ruddier and sweeter than the wine. Then their lips separated no more; the night grew old, and they knew it not.
The birds awakened, the flowers opened their eyes to the rising sun, and Ming Yi found himself at last compelled to bid his lovely enchantress farewell. Xue, accompanying him to the terrace, kissed him fondly and said, “Dear boy, come hither as often as you are able, as often as your heart whispers you to come. I know that you are not of those without faith and truth, who betray secrets; yet, being so young, you might also be sometimes thoughtless; and I pray you never to forget that only the stars have been the witnesses of our love. Speak of it to no living person, dearest; and take with you this little souvenir of our happy night.”
And she presented him with an exquisite and curious little thing—a paper-weight in likeness of a couchant lion, wrought from a jade-stone yellow as that created by a rainbow in honor of Kongfuzi. Tenderly the boy kissed the gift and the beautiful hand that gave it. “May the Spirits punish me,” he vowed, “if ever I knowingly give you cause to reproach me, sweetheart!” And they separated with mutual vows.
That morning, on returning to the house of Lord Zhang, Ming Yi told the first falsehood which had ever passed his lips. He averred that his mother had requested him thenceforward to pass his nights at home, now that the weather had become so pleasant; for, though the way was somewhat long, he was strong and active, and needed both air and healthy exercise. Zhang believed all Ming Yi said, and offered no objection. Accordingly the lad found himself enabled to pass all his evenings at the house of the beautiful Xue. Each night they devoted to the same pleasures which had made their first acquaintance so charming: they sang and conversed
by turns; they played at chess—the learned game invented by Wu Wang, which is an imitation of war; they composed pieces of eighty rhymes upon the flowers, the trees, the clouds, the streams, the birds, the bees. But in all accomplishments Xue far excelled her young sweetheart. Whenever they played at chess, it was always Ming Yi’s general, Ming Yi’s jiang, who was surrounded and vanquished; when they composed verses, Xue’s poems were ever superior to his in harmony of word-coloring, in elegance of form, in classic loftiness of thought. And the themes they selected were always the most difficult—those of the poets of the Tang dynasty; the songs they sang were also the songs of five hundred years before—the songs of Yuan Zhen, of Du Mu, of Gao Bian above all, high poet and ruler of the province of Sichuan.
So the summer waxed and waned upon their love, and the luminous autumn came, with its vapors of phantom gold, its shadows of magical purple.
Then it unexpectedly happened that the father of Ming Yi, meeting his son’s employer at Qingdu, was asked by him: “Why must your boy continue to travel every evening to the city, now that the winter is approaching? The way is long, and when he returns in the morning he looks fordone with weariness. Why not permit him to slumber in my house during the season of snow?” And the father of Ming Yi, greatly astonished, responded: “Sir, my son has not visited the city, nor has he been to our house all this summer. I fear that he must have acquired wicked habits, and that he passes his nights in evil company—perhaps in gaming, or in drinking with the women of the flower-boats.” But the High Commissioner returned: “Nay! that is not to be thought of. I have never found any evil in the boy, and there are no taverns nor flower-boats nor any places of dissipation in our neighborhood. No doubt Ming Yi has found some amiable youth of his own age with whom to spend his evenings, and only told me an untruth for fear that I would not otherwise permit him to leave my residence. I beg that you will say nothing to him until I shall have sought to discover this mystery; and this very evening I shall send my servant to follow after him, and to watch whither he goes.”
Bailu readily assented to this proposal, and promising to visit Zhang the following morning, returned to his home. In the evening, when Ming Yi left the house of Zhang, a servant followed him unobserved at a distance. But on reaching the most obscure portion of the road, the boy disappeared from sight as suddenly as though the earth had swallowed him. After having long sought after him in vain, the domestic returned in great bewilderment to the house, and related what had taken place. Zhang immediately sent a messenger to Bailu.
In the meantime Ming Yi, entering the chamber of his beloved, was surprised and deeply pained to find her in tears. “Sweetheart,” she sobbed, wreathing her arms around his neck, “we are about to be separated forever, because of reasons which I cannot tell you. From the very first I knew this must come to pass; and nevertheless it seemed to me for the moment so cruelly sudden a loss, so unexpected a misfortune, that I could not prevent myself from weeping! After this night we shall never see each other again, beloved, and I know that you will not be able to forget me while you live; but I know also that you will become a great scholar, and that honors and riches will be showered upon you, and that some beautiful and loving woman will console you for my loss. And now let us speak no more of grief; but let us pass this last evening joyously, so that your recollection of me may not be a painful one, and that you may remember my laughter rather than my tears.”
She brushed the bright drops away, and brought wine and music and the melodious qin of seven silken strings, and would not suffer Ming Yi to speak for one moment of the coming separation. And she sang him an ancient song about the calmness of summer lakes reflecting the blue of heaven only, and the calmness of the heart also, before the clouds of care and of grief and of weariness darken its little world. Soon they forgot their sorrow in the joy of song and wine; and those last hours seemed to Ming Yi more celestial than even the hours of their first bliss.
But when the yellow beauty of morning came their sadness returned, and they wept. Once more Xue accompanied her lover to the terrace-steps; and as she kissed him farewell, she pressed into his hand a parting gift—a little brush-case of agate, wonderfully chiseled, and worthy the table of a great poet. And they separated forever, shedding many tears.
Still Ming Yi could not believe it was an eternal parting. “No!” he thought, “I shall visit her tomorrow; for I cannot now live without her, and I feel assured that she cannot refuse to receive me.” Such were the thoughts that filled his mind as he reached the house of Zhang, to find his father and his patron standing on the porch awaiting him. Ere he could speak a word, Bailu demanded: “Son, in what place have you been passing your nights?”
Seeing that his falsehood had been discovered, Ming Yi dared not make any reply, and remained abashed and silent, with bowed head, in the presence of his father. Then Bailu, striking the boy violently with his staff, commanded him to divulge the secret; and at last, partly through fear of his parent, and partly through fear of the law which ordains that “the son refusing to obey his father shall be punished with one hundred blows of the bamboo,” Ming Yi faltered out the history of his love.
Zhang changed color at the boy’s tale. “Child,” exclaimed the High Commissioner, “I have no relative of the name of Bing; I have never heard of the woman you describe; I have never heard even of the house which you speak of. But I know also that you cannot dare to lie to Bailu, your honored father; there is some strange delusion in all this affair.”
Then Ming Yi produced the gifts that Xue had given him—the lion of yellow jade, the brush-case of carven agate, also some original compositions made by the beautiful lady herself. The astonishment of Zhang was now shared by Bailu. Both observed that the brush-case of agate and the lion of jade bore the appearance of objects that had lain buried in the earth for centuries, and were of a workmanship beyond the power of living man to imitate; while the compositions proved to be veritable master-pieces of poetry, written in the style of the poets of the dynasty of Tang.
“Friend Bailu,” cried the High Commissioner, “let us immediately accompany the boy to the place where he obtained these miraculous things, and apply the testimony of our senses to this mystery. The boy is no doubt telling the truth; yet his story passes my understanding.” And all three proceeded toward the place of the habitation of Xue.
But when they had arrived at the shadiest part of the road, where the perfumes were most sweet and the mosses were greenest, and the fruits of the wild peach flushed most pinkly, Ming Yi, gazing through the groves, uttered a cry of dismay. Where the azure-tiled roof had risen against the sky, there was now only the blue emptiness of air; where the green-and-gold facade had been, there was visible only the flickering of leaves under the aureate autumn light; and where the broad terrace had extended, could be discerned only a ruin—a tomb so ancient, so deeply gnawed by moss, that the name graven upon it was no longer decipherable. The home of Xue had disappeared!
All of a sudden the High Commissioner smote his forehead with his hand, and turning to Bailu, recited the well-known verse of the ancient poet Qing Gu:
“Surely the peach-flowers blossom over the tomb of XUE TAO.”
“Friend Bailu,” continued Zhang, “the beauty who bewitched your son was no other than she whose tomb stands there in ruin before us! Did she not say she was wedded to Bing Kang? There is no family of that name, but Bing Kang is indeed the name of a broad alley in the city near. There was a dark riddle in all that she said. She called herself Xue of Wen Xiao: there is no person of that name; there is no street of that name; but the Chinese characters Wen and Xiao, placed together, form the character ‘Jiao.’ Listen! The alley Bing Kang, situated in the Jiao district, was the place where dwelt the great courtesans of the dynasty of Tang! Did she not sing the songs of Gao Bian? And upon the brush-case and the paperweight she gave your son, are there not characters which read, ‘Pure object of art belonging to Gao, of the ci
ty of Pohai’? That city no longer exists; but the memory of Gao Bian remains, for he was governor of the province of Sichuan, and a mighty poet. And when he dwelt in the land of Shu, was not his favorite the beautiful wanton Xue—Xue Tao, unmatched for grace among all the women of her day? It was he who made her a gift of those manuscripts of song; it was he who gave her those objects of rare art. Xue Tao died not as other women die. Her limbs may have crumbled to dust; yet something of her still lives in this deep wood—her Shadow still haunts this shadowy place.”
Zhang ceased to speak. A vague fear fell upon the three. The thin mists of the morning made dim the distances of green, and deepened the ghostly beauty of the woods. A faint breeze passed by, leaving a trail of blossom-scent—a last odor of dying flowers—thin as that which clings to the silk of a forgotten robe; and, as it passed, the trees seemed to whisper across the silence, “Xue Tao.”
Fearing greatly for his son, Bailu sent the lad away at once to the city of Guangzhoufu. And there, in after years, Ming Yi obtained high dignities and honors by reason of his talents and his learning; and he married the daughter of an illustrious house, by whom he became the father of sons and daughters famous for their virtues and their accomplishments. Never could he forget Xue Tao; and yet it is said that he never spoke of her—not even when his children begged him to tell them the story of two beautiful objects that always lay upon his writing-table: a lion of yellow jade, and a brush-case of carven agate.
The Legend of Zhi Nü
A SOUND OF GONGS, A SOUND OF SONG—THE SONG OF THE BUILDERS BUILDING THE DWELLINGS OF THE DEAD:
Chinese Ghost Stories Page 3