The Past and the Punishments

by Yu Hua

  Only after he had encountered several young aristocratic gentlemen en route to the examinations in the capital did Willow suddenly remember that this was an examination 48 yu hua

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  year. His own first attempt at examination success was already a vague memory, ten years distant. Contemplating the twists and turns his own life had taken in the interval, Willow sighed. This world, with all its sudden and inexplicable changes, is truly heartless. Each of the aristocrats loped down the road with hearts full of hope and ambition. Willow could not help but sigh for them as well. In a world of infinite, ceaseless change, what good are honor and glory anyway?

  Where scarred and withered trunks had once stood,

  Willow now saw thriving trees with leafy canopies, under which village peasants napped in the shade, with an unconcerned ease that bespoke great prosperity. Tall grass danced in the breeze. Herds of cows and sheep lazily grazed and slept in the open fields. Moving insensibly through this landscape, Willow arrived once more at the little stream by the crossroads.

  It was the stream where he had paused on his first journey to the capital. Despite the catastrophe to which they had been subjected, the green weeds by the bank had grown back into a dense, strong clump. The weeping willows that not long before had resembled gutted corpses swayed happily in the breeze. As Willow walked over to the bank, grass stuck through his pants leg, tickling his shins. The stream water was so clear he could see to the bottom. A few green leaves floated on the surface. A white fish ambled back and forth in the water with a lovely swaying motion. All was as it had been ten years before. Willow could not help but be moved. Gazing at the lovely sway of the fish, how could he be expected not to remember the lovely gait of the maiden within the brocade tower? Recalling how this stream had been dry and desolate only a few years before, Willow was even more stirred. The trees, the weeds, even the white fish had somehow been given a new lease on life, but the maiden was left to rest in a lonely grave, never to be resurrected, forever unable to enjoy the return of prosperity to the land.

  Willow stood for a long while by the stream before sadly Classical Love 49

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  turning to leave. Regaining the road, he could already make out the city wall in the distance, toward which he hastened with a quickened gait.

  As he neared the city gate, he heard a lively clamor of voices issuing from the countless pole bearers busily pouring in and out of the town. Clearly, prosperity had returned to the city as well. Once inside the gate and in the market street, he saw that the town was still brimming with storied buildings and pavilions. The golden paint that covered their facades had been restored to its former luster. Chipped and cracked walls festooned with dusty cobwebs were no longer to be seen. Taverns and teahouses spilled into the street.

  Green banners beckoned to those thirsty for wine, and tea braziers hailed customers with their smoke and glowing ash. There were noodle sellers, dumpling vendors, letter writers, and fortune-tellers. Fat slabs of lamb lay once again across the taverns’ counters, and the tea shop tables were covered with a cornucopia of delectable snacks. Almost all the passersby glowed with good health and buoyant spirits.

  Several wealthy young ladies, festooned with glowing pearls and glittering gems, strolled the market accompanied by comely maids. A few aristocratic young gentlemen astride noble mounts made their way through the throng of pedestrians. All along the road, serving boys from the taverns warmly beckoned for Willow to come in and enjoy a cup of wine. All was as it had been ten years earlier. Willow, flustered, felt as if he had never passed through the vicissitudes of the past.

  Soon Willow came to the temple, now glittering gold and green as before. The temple gate was thrown open, and inside the courtyard the lofty ancient cypress stood tall and straight as a beam. The tiled floors were polished so that not a speck of dust remained, and the courtyard’s columns and rafters gleamed with an oily luster. This too was just as it had been ten years before. The decay of the famine years remained only in Willow’s own memories of choking weeds 50 yu hua

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  and spider webs. Willow opened his bundle, extracted brush, paper, and inkstone, and quickly set a few poems and flower blossoms to paper. Soon enough, a small crowd formed around him, and, while most had come just to admire his handiwork, several were inclined to make a purchase. In a short while, he had sold a few paintings and earned a few strings of cash. Content, Willow packed up his bundle and slowly walked away.

  Unthinkingly, Willow came to the place where the pavilions and secluded courtyards of an aristocratic estate had once lain. Nearing the site of the estate, Willow could not help but be startled, for neither the ruins of the mansion nor the vast empty field he had seen on his last journey were anywhere to be found. Instead, what appeared before him were the pavilions and secluded courtyards of an elegant estate. Shocked, Willow began to suspect that what lay before his eyes was simply an illusion. But, after he had gazed for a time and the pavilions had refused to disappear, the estate began to assume an air of solidity. The vermilion gates were shut. Beyond the wall, he saw the soaring eaves of the pavilions within. Birds flew to and fro between the tops of innumerable trees that, although they did not tower above the eaves, were fairly stout. Two fierce stone lions stood guarding either side of the gate. Willow walked over to one lion, extending a hand to assure himself of its reality, and felt the stone cold and hard under his fingers.

  Willow slowly walked along a path that traced the

  perimeter of the palace wall. After a short walk, he reached the side gate. The gate was shut, but he heard the muffled sound of people laughing from within the wall. He paused for a moment and then continued to walk.

  Not long after, he reached the other door, which was open, just as it had been ten years earlier, except that this time no one emerged from inside to walk hurriedly away.

  Willow walked through the door into the pleasure garden.

  There was an open pavilion by a little pond. There was a Classical Love 51

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  tower. There were artificial hills constructed of piled stone.

  All of it was exquisitely tended. In the center of the garden lay two pools, half obscured by the profusion of lotus leaves that bobbed above the water’s surface. A serpentine stone bridge zigzagged between the two pools, on top of which was constructed a little open pavilion. Another pavilion flanked the pool. On either side of the pools stood the two towering maples, which despite the travails of the famine years still looked much the same as before. Four porcelain seats had been placed within the pavilion, backed by a screen. Behind the screen were over a hundred stalks of green bamboo, through which appeared a vermilion railing. Behind the railing grew countless flowers. The peach, apricot, and pear trees were a riot of blossoms, and even the crabapples, chrysanthemums, and orchids that had previously lain dormant before were in flower.

  Willow’s forward movement came to a halt. He looked up at the brocade tower. He gazed around the garden once again. All was as it had been on his first journey to the capital. The latticed windows of the tower had been thrown open on all four sides, and a slight breeze blew from the opposite side, through the tower and out the window toward Willow, carrying with it an intoxicating fragrance. Willow, fluttering, sank into a reverie of his encounter with the maiden by the brocade tower. The scene once again unfolded before his eyes, so vividly that he was oblivious to the fact that their meeting was only a memory.

  Willow sensed that he would soon hear the sound of a chanted poem drift toward him. And, indeed, the marvelous sound began to float down from the window of the brocade tower, softly dispersing throughout the garden like a fine drizzle. The sound was like pearls raining drop by drop onto a plate, as delicate and drawn out as the murmuring of flowing water. With careful listening, he was able to discern that it
was not chanting but the sound of a zither. Even so, the sound of the zither was nearly identical to the maiden’s 52 yu hua

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  voice. Concentrating all his energies on the music, Willow insensibly began to meld with it. The trials and troubles of ten years’ time began to fade, to swirl away like so much dust, and Willow was left standing below the window of the maiden’s brocade tower for the very first time. And, though he was aware of the sequence of events that were about to happen, this knowledge failed to distract him, for the past and the present had become one in his mind.

  Just as Willow was thinking that it was time for the maid to appear at the window, a girl who looked like a maid appeared at the window, eyes wide with anger, saying, “Go away!”

  Willow could not help smiling. Everything was as he had predicted it would be. The maid said her piece and retreated from the window into the tower. Willow knew that she would angrily reappear at the window in a moment.

  The sound of the zither continued to waft through the air, and with it came the maiden’s chant. The sound moved from elegant melodious peaks to slow, halting indecision.

  Could it be that the maiden had grown weary from the intensity of her longing?

  The maid came once again to the window: “You still

  haven’t left?”

  Willow was still smiling. The maid found Willow’s

  strange smile hard to swallow and left the window. Soon, the sound of the zither came to an abrupt halt. Willow heard the sound of people moving within the tower. The heavier sounds would be those of the maid, and the lighter sounds were undoubtedly those of the maiden.

  Willow sensed that dusk was approaching. Perhaps he would soon be enveloped by the darkness of night. Then the rain would come, the rain would come with a roar, the window would close, and threads of candlelight would shine through the paper panels of the window. In the midst of the rainstorm, the window would open once again, and both maid and maiden would appear in the window. A rope

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  would sway down to the ground, and Willow would clamber up the rope into the tower. As she retired to the inner apartments of the tower, the maiden would sway with a lovely motion like a white fish. Soon, the maiden would come back to Willow’s side, and they would link hands as they stared into each other’s eyes, in silent, profound com-munion. Later, Willow would slide back down to the

  ground and step onto the highway. Several months later Willow would return, having failed the examination in the capital, only to find a desolate expanse of ruins.

  The sudden appearance of the ruins startled Willow out of his reverie. Looking around the bright and sunlit garden, he came to the realization that it had all been a daydream.

  And at that very moment, he realized that the rainstorm had been a terribly real basin of cold water. His whole body was sopping wet. He looked up at the window. No one was there, but he heard low giggles emerging from within. A moment later the maid appeared once more at the window, yelling, “If you don’t leave now, I’m going to have to call someone who’ll make you leave!”

  Willow, his daydream evaporated like mist into the air, could not help but be overcome by sorrow. The tower was as before, but this was clearly a different sort of maiden. He sighed and turned to leave. Outside the wall, he turned back to gaze at the pavilions of the estate and realized that this, finally, was just not the same mansion as before. He took the lock of hair the maiden had given him on parting many years earlier and carefully examined it. All of the dead maiden’s wonderful qualities arrayed themselves in his mind, and Willow began to cry.

  6

  After Willow left town, he walked for a few more days until he came to the place where he had buried the maiden.

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  The riverbank was green and luxuriantly covered with plants, among which swayed a constellation of different wildflowers. Willow branches cast countless jade-green shadows on the rippling stream.

  As Willow stood by the bank, the water yielded up the reflected image of an aging, careworn face, of hair that was unmistakably growing gray. Lovely scenes can disappear in a twinkling and regain their former beauty just as quickly.

  But youth, once lost, is gone forever. And the glow of lovely memories, once lost, is also gone forever, as transient as wildflowers in bloom.

  Willow looked around at a dozen grave mounds that had been recently covered with fresh earth and swept clean for the Qingming Festival. Little piles of ash – what was left of offerings of incense and spirit money – lay in front of many of the mounds. How was he to tell which of the graves belonged to the maiden? He slowly made his way through the mounds, carefully inspecting each one, but was still unable distinguish the maiden’s resting place from the others.

  Soon, however, he happened on one mound that had gone untended. Through long neglect, the earthen mound was almost level with the ground and had narrowly escaped being completely immersed by weeds and wildflowers. There were no ashes in front of the mound. Catching sight of this mound, Willow was suddenly seized by a strange and unaccountable feeling. This unswept grave must certainly be the maiden’s final resting place.

  As soon as he had recognized her grave, distant recollections of the maiden’s voice and face approached him, slowly rising through the water of the stream. On closer examination of the stream, Willow saw a white fish ambling through the water and disappearing into the depths of the center of the waterway.

  Willow knelt down and began to pluck the weeds and

  wildflowers that threatened to obscure the maiden’s grave.

  When he had finished weeding, he spread earth collected Classical Love 55

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  from the side of the road onto the mound. He stopped work only when dusk began to descend. Inspecting his handiwork, he saw that the mound was already considerably taller. He began to sprinkle the top of the grave with water from the stream. With each drop of water, little clouds of dust flew from the earthen mound.

  The sky had grown black, and Willow wondered whether he should spend the night outside or continue down the road in search of lodging. He thought for a long time before deciding to stay for the night and leave in the morning.

  Thinking of how very briefly he had seen the maiden in life, he could not bear to leave her so quickly, even in death. To stay with her for the night, he thought, would perhaps help fulfill something of his obligation to her.

  The night was peaceful and quiet. The only sound was the rustling of leaves in the wind, which made a noise like the splashing of raindrops. The stream’s murmur sounded like the music of a zither, like a chant. Willow recalled once again the enchantment of the scene by the tower. Sitting by the maiden’s grave, Willow seemed to hear faint sounds arising from underneath the ground, like the sound of the maiden moving inside the tower.

  Willow did not close his eyes the whole night through.

  Instead, he sat absorbed in hazy fantasies of reunion with the maiden. It was only when the sky in the east began to lighten that he regained his senses. Although these were but fantasies, he was loath to leave. If he could only pass his days accompanied by these fantasies, life would be lovely indeed.

  Soon, the sky was bright with dawn. Willow knew it was time to leave. He gazed around him at the green weeds, at the branches of the weeping willows. He looked at the grave. It glimmered in the morning sun. This was not a bad place for the maiden to rest – only a bit lonely. Lost in thought, Willow stepped back onto the yellow highway.

  As he walked along the yellow highway, Willow was

  oblivious to the lovely spring landscape full of happy and 56 yu hua

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  colorful scenes, to the cries of the swallows and their gam-bols through the air, for his eyes wer
e fixed on the faraway point at which the highway disappeared into the horizon.

  After walking but a short while, Willow could not help asking himself where exactly it was he was going.

  He was unwilling to resume his duties, to tend and

  sweep other people’s graves while neglecting those of his mother, his father, and the maiden. And to seek some other sort of work was just as bereft of meaning. Willow came to a halt. He thought for a long time before deciding to return to the maiden’s side. For his mother and father had each other, and the maiden was alone.

  He came once again to the maiden’s grave. Once he had made up his mind, Willow’s heart was set at ease. He gathered wood and began to build himself a little hut by the side of the road. Noting that a few families lived a short distance away, he paid them a visit and bought a kettle, for he planned to make a living selling tea to passing travelers.

  Just as he was finishing up the process of settling in, the sky began to grow dark with dusk. Willow was terribly tired, so he drank a few mouthfuls of stream water, ate a griddle cake, and sat by the stream to watch the water flow by.

  Gradually, a full moon rose in the sky above. The moonlight splashed onto the surface of the stream, and the water softly glimmered. Even the weeds and the willow branches began to sparkle with light. Willow could not repress a sort of amazement at this sight. He had never realized before that pure moonlight could render a landscape so strange and so luminous.