by Yunte Huang
On the surface of the winding and twisting lotus pond floated an immense field of leaves. The leaves lay high in the water, rising up like the skirts of a dancing girl. Amid the layers of leaves white blossoms adorned the vista, some beguilingly open and others bashfully holding their petals in. Just like a string of bright pearls or stars in a blue sky, or like lovely maidens just emerging from their bath. A gentle breeze floated by, bringing with it waves of a crisp fragrance like strains of a vague melody sent over from distant towering buildings. When that happened the leaves and blossoms trembled briefly, as though a bolt of lightning had streaked across the lotus pond. The leaves themselves were densely crowded together, pushing back and forth, and they seemed to be a cresting wave of solid green. Beneath the leaves restrained currents of water flowed, imprisoned beneath them, the color forever hidden, while the stirrings of the leaves were even more pronounced.
The moon’s rays were like flowing waters, gently depositing their moisture on the layer of leaves and blossoms. A light green mist floated just above the lotus pond. The leaves and blossoms looked as though they had been bathed in milk, or like a blurred dream swathed in airy gauze. Although the moon was full, a light covering of clouds in the sky prevented it from shining brightly; yet I had the pleasant feeling that I had come to a fine spot. For just as one cannot do without deep slumber, still a light sleep has its own delights. The moon’s rays filtered down through the trees, and dark, uneven shadows of varying shades were cast by the dense foliage on the high ground, perilously dark and spooky. The bewitching shadows cast by the sparse, twisted willow trees seemed to be painted on the lotus leaves. The moonlight on the pond was spread unevenly, but the rays and the shadows were a concert of harmony, like a celebrated tune played on a violin.
On all sides of the lotus pond, far and near, on high ground and low, there are trees, most of them willows. These trees completely envelop the whole of the lotus pond; only by the side of the path are there gaps, here and there showing through, seemingly left there just so the moon can shine in. The colors of the trees are uniformly dark. At first glance they resemble a bank of fog and mist, but the slender, graceful forms of the willows can still be distinguished in that fog and mist. Above the treetops a row of mountains can be seen ever so indistinctly, just the hint of their shapes, while one or two faint glimmers of roadside lamps seep through the openings of the branches, appearing like the weary eyes of a tired man. Now the spot was at its noisiest, if you count the chirping of cicadas in the trees and the croaking of frogs in the water. But the noise was theirs alone; I added nothing to it.
All of a sudden I was reminded of lotus gathering. The gathering of lotuses is an old custom south of the Yangtze, whose origins probably date from very early on but that flourished during the Six Dynasties period.† This we know from the poems and ballads of the time. The lotus gatherers were young maidens who drifted in small boats and sang their songs of love. It goes without saying that there were great numbers of lotus gatherers as well as those who came to watch them, for that was a festive and a romantic occasion. “The Lotus Gatherers” by Emperor Yuan of the Liang dynasty‡ tells it well:
Princely lads and alluring maidens
Adrift in a boat, their hearts in accord;
The boat’s prow describes a slow turn
As they exchange wine cups;
The oars become intertwined,
And the boat moves across the floating duckweed;
The maidens with their slender waists simply bound
Cast glances behind them.
Summer begins where the spring leaves off;
The leaves are tender, the flowers in bloom.
Protecting their dresses from the dampness, smiles adorning their
faces,
They gather up their skirts, taking care not to capsize the boat.
This paints for us a picture of the pleasant excursions of those days. They must have been truly memorable events; it is a pity that we can no longer enjoy such pastimes.
I then recalled the lines from “Tune of the West Isle”:
Gathering lotuses at Nantang in the fall,
The lotus blossoms rise above our heads.
Bending over to pluck the lotus seeds,
Lotus seeds as transparent as the water.
If tonight there were lotus gatherers, the lotus blossoms here too would “rise above their heads.” But it is not enough to have before me only these rippling shadows. All of this stirred up in me a sense of longing for the South. With these thoughts in my mind I suddenly raised my head and found that my steps had carried me to my own gate; I softly pushed it open and entered. I was greeted by complete silence; my wife had long since fallen fast asleep.
1927
(Translated by Howard Goldblatt)
* The name of one of the author’s children.
† A.D. 317–588.
‡ A.D. 552–555.
XU ZHIMO
(1897–1931)
Born into a wealthy banker family in Zhejiang, Xu Zhimo was a romantic poet who lived a romantic life and died a romantic death. Influenced by his father, Xu first pursued a career in banking, with an ambition to be a “Chinese Hamilton” (after Alexander Hamilton). In 1918 he attended Clark University and then Columbia University. In 1921 he studied political science at Cambridge, where he encountered British Romanticism and began writing poetry. Returning to China in 1923, Xu taught at Peking University till a love scandal forced him to resign in 1925. Like Wen Yiduo and other Crescent Moon Society poets—a label derived from their journal Crescent Monthly, founded in 1928—Xu was interested in metrics, trying to develop a suitable form for the new verse. His exceptional gift for blending classical diction with the colloquial, as evidenced by “Second Farewell to Cambridge,” made him the best-known poet in modern China. On November 19, 1931, Xu flew from Nanjing to Beijing to see a woman he had fallen for. The plane crashed, and he died at the age of thirty-four.
Second Farewell to Cambridge
Quietly I am leaving,
Just as quietly I came;
Quietly I wave goodbye
To clouds blazing the western sky.
The golden willow by the river
Is a bride at sunset;
In sparkling waves a radiant reflection
Ripples through my heart.
Waterlilies in soft mud,
Lush, beckoning from deep;
In the gentle waves of River Cam
I’d rather be a waterweed!
The pool under the elm’s shade
Not a spring, but a heavenly rainbow
Scattered among floating algae
Settling into a rainbow-colored dream.
Looking for a dream? Get a long pole,
Row toward the greenest of grass,
Carry a boatload of starlight,
And sing aloud in starlight’s splendor.
But I cannot sing aloud,
Silence is the tune of departure;
Even summer insects stay mute for me,
Mute is tonight’s Cambridge.
Silently I am leaving,
Just as silently I came;
I straighten my sleeves,
And carry not a patch of cloud.
—1928
By Chance
I am a patch of cloud in the sky
Casting by chance a shadow on your heart
Don’t be surprised
Still less overjoyed
A trace vanishes in the blink of an eye
On the sea of dark night we met
You have your destination, I have mine
It’s fine if you remember
But best if you forget
The sparks set off by this encounter.
—1926
(Translated by Yunte Huang)
WEN YIDUO
(1899–1946)
Steeped in Chinese literary classics, Wen Yiduo was exposed to Western-style education early in life. He spent eight years at Tsinghua College (la
ter Tsinghua University), which prepared him for study abroad. In 1922 he attended the Art Institute of Chicago, and in 1923 he published his first collection of poetry, The Red Candle. A formalist and experimenter, he focused attention on the visual and auditory, emphasizing what he called the “three beauties of poetry”: the beauties of music, painting, and architecture. In 1928 he published The Dead Water, in which he exposed grim and sordid Chinese reality with fresh images, evoking complex emotions. A diehard patriot and fiercely outspoken critic of the Nationalist government, he was assassinated after a rousing speech in Kunming, Yunnan in July, 1946.
The Dead Water
This is a ditch of hopelessly dead water.
No clear breeze can raise half a ripple on it.
Why not throw in some rusty metal scraps,
Or even some of your leftover food and soup?
Perhaps the copper will turn its green patina into jade,
And on the tin can rust will bloom into peach blossoms;
Then let grease weave a layer of silk brocade,
And germs brew out colored clouds.
Let the dead water ferment into a ditch of green wine,
Filled with the floating pearllike white foam,
The laughter of small pearls turning into large pearls
Only to be pierced when gnats come to steal the wine.
Thus, a ditch of hopelessly dead water
May yet claim some small measure of splendor.
And if the frogs cannot bear the loneliness,
Let the dead water burst into song.
This is a ditch of hopelessly dead water,
A place where beauty can never live.
Might as well let vice cultivate it,
And see what kind of world it can create.
Perhaps (A Dirge)
Perhaps you are indeed too wearied from too much weeping.
Perhaps, perhaps you wish to fall asleep now.
Then ask the night owl not to cough,
The frogs not to croak and bats not to fly.
Let no sunshine pierce your eyelids,
Let no clear winds touch your brows,
And whoever he may be, let him not startle you.
With an umbrella of pine I shall guard your sleep.
Perhaps you hear earthworms turning the soil,
The grass roots sucking water.
Perhaps the music you hear now
Is lovelier than men’s cursing voices.
Close tight your eyes then,
I shall let you sleep, let you sleep.
I’ll gently cover you with yellow earth
And ask the ashes of paper money to rise slowly.
Confession
I do not deceive you when I say I am no poet,
Even though I love the integrity of the white rocks,
The green pines and the vast sea, the sunset on the crow’s back,
The twilight woven with the wings of bats.
You know that I love heroes and tall mountains.
I love, too, the national flag outspread in the breeze,
The chrysanthemums colored from soft yellow to antique bronze.
But remember that my food is a pot of bitter tea!
And there is another “I.” Will you be afraid to know it?
The flylike thought crawling in the garbage can!
(Translated by Julia C. Lin)
DING LING
(1904–1986)
The life of Ding Ling is a powerful testament to the uneasy relationship between feminism and revolution in modern China. Born Jiang Bingzhi into a genteel family in Hunan, Ding Ling lost her father when she was only four and was brought up by her independent mother. Always a free spirit, she went to Peking in 1924 and lived with an editor who would later become a revolutionary martyr. In 1928, the publication of Miss Sophia’s Diary, an anarcho-feminist novella about a tubercular young woman’s emotional life and erotic passion, brought her into prominence. In 1932 she joined the Communist Party and became a pioneer of revolutionary literature, but still with a penchant for independent thinking, a character trait that often got her in deep water. Her novel about land reform, The Sun Shines over the Sanggan River (1948), won the Stalin Prize in Literature. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, she enjoyed appointments in key positions and continued to publish widely, until 1955 when she became a target of political purge and suffered over twenty years of exile, persecution, and imprisonment. She was rehabilitated in 1979 and allowed to write and publish again.
Miss Sophia’s Diary (excerpt)
December 24
The wind’s up again today. The blowing woke me before day broke. Then the boy came in to start the stove. I know I’ll never get back to sleep again. I also know that my head will start whirling if I don’t get up. Too many strange thoughts run through my mind when I lie wrapped in the covers. The doctor’s instructions are to sleep and eat a lot and not to read or think. Exactly what I find most impossible. I can never get to sleep until two or three o’clock in the morning and I’m awake again before dawn. On a windy day like today, it’s impossible to keep from brooding over every little thing. I can’t go outside when the wind’s this strong. What else can I do but brood, cooped up in this room with nothing to read? I can’t just sit vacantly by myself and wait for time to pass, can I? I endure it one day at a time, longing for winter to be over fast. When it gets warmer, my cough is bound to clear up a little. Then if I wanted to go south or back to school, I could. Oh, God, this winter is endless!
As the sunlight hit the paper window, I was boiling my milk for the third time. I did it four times yesterday. I’m never really sure that it suits my taste, no matter how often I do it, but it’s the only thing that releases frustration on a windy day. Actually, though it gets me through an hour or so, I usually end up even more irritable than I was before. So all last week I didn’t play with it. Then out of desperation, I did, relying on it, as though I was already old, just to pass time. I read the newspaper as soon as it comes. I start, systematically, with the headlines, the national news, the important foreign reports, local gossip, and then . . . when I’ve finished the items on education, party propaganda, economics, and the stock market, I go back to the same announcements I read so thoroughly yesterday . . . and the day before . . . the ones recruiting new students, the notices of lawsuits over division of family property. I even read stuff like ads for “606” and “Mongolian Lark” venereal tonics, cosmetics, announcements of the latest shows at the Kaiming Theater, and the Zhenguang Movie Theater listing. When I’ve finished everything I toss the paper away, reluctantly. Every once in a while, of course, I find a new advertisement. But what I can never get free of are the fifth- and sixth-year anniversary sales at the fabric shops, and the obituaries—with apologies to those not contacted personally.
NOTHING TO DO after the paper except sit alone by the stove and work myself into a rage. What infuriates me is the daily routine. I get a nervous headache every day as I sit listening to the other inmates yell at the attendants. Such loud, braying, coarse, monotonous voices, “Attendant, bring hot water!” or “Washbasin, attendant!” You can imagine how ugly it sounds. And there is always somebody downstairs shouting into the telephone. Yet when the noise does let up, the silence scares me to death. Particularly inside the four whitewashed walls that stare blankly back at me no matter where I sit. If I try to escape by lying on the bed, I’m crushed by the ceiling, just as oppressively white. I can’t really find a single thing here that doesn’t disgust me: the pockmarked attendant, for example, and the food that always tastes like a filthy rag, the impossibly grimy window frame, and that mirror over the washbasin. Glancing from one side you’ve got a face a foot long; tilt your head slightly to the side and suddenly it gets so flat you startle yourself. . . . It all infuriates me. Maybe I’m the only one affected. Still I’d really like a few fresh complaints and dissatisfactions. Novelty, for better or worse, always seems just out of reach.
Weidi cam
e over after lunch. The familiar hurried sound of his leather shoes carried all the way from the other end of the corridor and comforted me, as though I’d suddenly been released from a suffocating room. But I couldn’t show it. So when he came in, I simply glanced silently at him. Weidi thought I was peeved again. He clasped my hands tightly and cried, “Sister, Elder Sister!” over and over. I smiled. Of course. Why? Oh, I know. I know what’s behind those shy glowing eyes. I understand what it is that he’d rather keep from others. You’ve been in love with me for such a long time, Weidi. Has he captured me? That is not my responsibility. I act as women are supposed to act. Actually, I’ve been quite aboveboard with him. There isn’t another woman alive who would have resisted toying with him, as I have. Besides, I’m genuinely sorry for him. There have been times when I couldn’t stand it any longer, when I wanted so badly to say, “Look, Weidi, can’t you find some better way of going about this? You’re making me sick.” I’d like Weidi a whole lot better if he’d wise up, but he persists with these stupid abandoned displays of affection.
Weidi was satisfied when I smiled. Rushing around to the other end of the bed, he tore off his overcoat and leather hat. If he’d turned his head and glanced at me just then, he’d have been saddened by my eyes. Why doesn’t he understand me better?