And then Your vassals would blithely pay homage to the Throne—even the obdurate Brit would prostrate himself! Is not the Dragon Throne the hub of All-Under-Heaven? Foreign lands—from Korea to Portuguo, from Japan to the African coast—are like moons flooded by the rays of Your Sun, as Your courtiers never tire of repeating. Why exclude the Empire of Heaven from overseas trade? What fool would build walls around the sun?
Without the periphery, no centre holds; the circle reveals itself in its circumference. No day without night, and once the Earth withers and dies, the sun will shine in vain. Not even the Son of Heaven can meddle with Nature’s laws. Like lesser planets, our vassal states pursue their courses, abiding by their own laws and sacrosanct sayings. Is that so bad, Your Majesty? Is it not in the nature of living beings to build empires? Even the humble bees and termites do it, although they are governed by empresses…
During the time I served the Dutchman Ti Qing in Deshima, I found him to be a master of many skills. Botanist, philosopher, and historian, theatre director even: all these qualities merged in Ti Qing’s person. What little knowledge I do possess, I owe not to myself but to his teachings—and never did Your unworthy servant envy scholars vying for success in the Imperial Exams!
Still, my deportment may strike Your Majesty as immodest. Fearing to overstep limits, I consulted the Mistress of this Pavilion—venerable Old Lady Chun Xian, once Your Majesty’s Imperial Father’s favourite. Not only does she concur with my request for reinstatement, she also graciously allows me to mention her name in these lines. Yet her exalted station does little to ease my mind: sooner or later, a Censor may enter this pavilion and chide me for comparing Your Empire to a termite mound. Should this come to pass, Ti Qing will surely rush to my rescue, for it is he who inspires my plea. His lore is based both on the observation of nature and the wisdom of Sepinosa, who lived more than a century ago.
Your Majesty! If it (Heaven forbid!) be true that even barbarian vassal states have their own Confuciuses, the honour is Sepinosa’s for the marshes north of Franguo. Not all Sages of the West are indebted to Jesuit hotheads, who, under the guise of spreading scientific knowledge, precipitated the downfall of the Ming Dynasty with their religious fervour, and who jeopardized the high esteem Your grandfather, the Kangxi Emperor, enjoyed. Plain words were all Sepinosa needed to unravel the superstition that a god would kill his own son like a common bandit to pay for our faults, even future ones; with plain words he chided the most insidious of delusions—that this god should have created Heaven, Earth, and Life out of chaos in merely six days, as if All-Under-Heaven were an ephemeral firecracker show.
While claiming all ideas, words, things, and beings, whether lofty or low, to be dependent on the One Substance alone, this Sage also asserted that all things and beings strive to perpetuate themselves—either under the guidance of Nature’s Wisdom or by persisting in folly. As soon as I commenced my address to Your Majesty,it was Sepinosa’s clarity that animated my pen, to which Ti Qing’s knowledge of Nature—of queen bees and such—added welcome examples.
And if I am any judge, Oh Your Majesty, I believe that Sepinosa spoke the truth. Is not the soldier dependent on Heaven—the Substance, as the Sage would call it—and does he not put his life on the line to rush to the defence of his overlords? Yet duty never precludes the ardent preservation of the soldier’s own person. In the heat of battle he strives to save himself as well as those he protects. When famine rules, even the poorest of parents still feed their children, bedding themselves with empty stomachs if need be, yet they will cling to dear life today to rescue their offspring from starvation tomorrow. Even Your Majesty and I are, despite the vast difference in our ranks, subject to Nature’s Law. We both wish to see life blossom: You, in the Elysian Fields of Your Empire; I, merely in this derelict pavilion where the concubines dwell.
In my mind’s eye, I see Confucius and Sepinosa drinking tea at an inn on West Lake’s shores, peacefully bickering about human nature, wisdom, or prudent governance—and about the power of words and names, an issue on which our philosopher cast light by stating that right words lead to right deeds and right deeds to a noble civilisation. Yet we would inflict injustice upon Confucius, Oh Son of Heaven, were we to follow him blindly. Right words aren’t always the same words, and the same words may lead to improvement or evil. In each Imperial Era, old words must be assessed anew, even if they once flew from the lips of the Sage himself. For words connect to deeds in line with prevailing usage—and the minds of those who use them. Confucius’ own words may serve as a case in point: they have been cited so often that they have lost their vigour. People tend to forget that words, even wise words, are forked—now acting as teachers, now as jesters and fools. The very same words may reflect truth and falsehood alike.
Oh Majesty, are we not perpetually in need of a rejuvenation of words, if only to invigorate ancient, moribund yet cherished phrases, proverbs, and sentiments once again? Hence we imbibe poetry, novels, and operas, so why not Sepinosa’s wise doctrine?
Never would I wish to torment You with meaningless words, Oh Exalted One, let alone with names for which You never asked. But sooner or later I must mention the one name that hovers over these scribblings like a dark cloud of ink—the name of the evil genius who usurps Your authority and extorts subjects in Your name, filling his henchmen’s rice bowls at the expense of those poverty-stricken peasants! Even officials steeped in loyalty to the Throne no longer know how to serve You without being bribed into submission by Your Grand Councillor.
It is out of unwavering loyalty that I dare speak. Were it merely my life at stake, Oh Majesty, I would never allude to that man! But my well-being is interwoven with the well-being of all, so much so that I almost forget to plead innocence. I do not even know how to go about it, beyond stating that I am—save of literary crimes—guilty of naught. I am not punished for what I did, Your Majesty; I am punished for what the Brit failed to do. It is Macartney who merits blame, and I shall prove it! Not by lengthy argument, but by enabling the Throne to exchange courtesies, ideas, and proposals with the Dutch envoy. I shall prove that dealings with our vassals may be conducted amiably and be of benefit to both the Throne and to the foreigners.
Anticipating this fortunate outcome, I seal this scroll, come what may. I do not know if this request will reach the Imperial Eye. Many stand between You and me; many are entitled to break the seal… But following in the footsteps of Confucius and Mencius, who against all evidence maintained the worthiness of men, I place my trust in humanity. At some time, Your Majesty will, I hope, read these words, after which You might extend the right of speech to me, sever my head from my body, or both.
Whatever fate awaits me, my purpose remains unaltered. I wish to erase the stain with which the Brit soiled the Forbidden City by serving as mediator and interpreter between the Throne and Dutch envoy Ti Qing, who is expected (Heaven grant I’m not deluded by false rumours!) to arrive in Peking sometime next winter.
The Qianlong Emperor
To Lady Cao, Imperial Interpreter Second Class,
Residing in the Pavilion of the Forgotten Concubines
Lady, the Qianlong Emperor salutes you! No other mortal will read this message. It will reach you through Our body servant, the eunuch Weigong, as We deem fit to keep it separate from official traffic—requests, decrees,memorials, and other missives—lest Our Secretariat be overburdened. Should you ever be put to trial, Lady, the document you hold in your hand now will not be admitted as evidence. You are at liberty, however, to regard these words as a token of Our Imperial Benevolence.
Indeed, how could a caterpillar judge the mulberry tree? We will mercifully ignore your political musings. Henceforth We wish to learn more of your literary crime,as you call it, inspired by the obscure Cao Xueqin. You made him laugh, you say. What dealings did you have with him? Were you his pupil? Do you belong to his clan, as the family name Cao suggests?<
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You are to provide clear answers. Beware of liberties and poetical asides! If necessary, the scholars of Our Hanlin Academy will compare the fruits of your penmanship to the facts. Without assuming any disloyalty on your part, We must warn you that We, especially in matters literary, will be utterly displeased by mystifications.
Cao Baoqin, Imperial Interpreter Second Class,
To the Son of Heaven,
From the Pavilion of Forgotten Concubines
You desire of me, Oh Exalted One, that I stay clear of mystifications. And as I only wish to oblige, I blithely obey. Yet how am I to serve the truth when the facts themselves consist of mystifications?
Heaven alone is immutable.
All-Under-Heaven is fleeting, variegated, and of shifting hue, much like the rainbow—and as elusive.
Even in our Celestial Empire, order and chaos, qing and li, passion and measure mingle. Fiction and truth intertwine inextricably: threads in a tapestry, stitching in gossamer…Facts—what facts, Your Majesty?
Never will Your unworthy servant submit lies to the Throne! Yet the full truth may be too intricate to fathom. That You should require an account of my dealings with the deceased author Cao Xueqin presses heavily on my frail shoulders. Just as the caterpillar has no intelligence of the five-clawed dragon on the Imperial robe even if the threads are woven from its cocoon, it is beyond a woman with no family, with no private courtyard, without a spouse or offspring, to grasp the forces that confine her. The caterpillar loses itself in the butterfly, and in the course of one summer her wings wither. Time speeds ever faster as death becomes imminent.
Yet if the butterfly, as one sage of the West asserted long ago, symbolizes the soul, there is hope. As long as I follow the path meted out to me by the most glorious novelist of Your reign—Cao Xueqin, who wrote Dream of the Red Chamber, thirty years dead but my true master still—I shall attain my goal. My sole wish, oh Lord of Ten Thousand Years, is to be granted permission to pursue my supposedly criminal ways.
Fiction and truth… Before my brush painted my first poetic attempts, I was the main character in Dream of the Red Chamber—the tragic heroine Lin Daiyu!
Your Majesty will be familiar with the story: at the expense of the wealthy Jia clan, a ‘Garden of the Spacious View’ had been laid out to honour one member of that family, a girl by the name of Yuanchun, appointed as an Imperial Concubine and deprived of friends and relatives ever since; now she was to be received in grand style by her own clan, a one-time occasion only.
Later, Yuanchun’s brother, Jia Baoyu, the family’s heir, inhabited a simple abode in that garden, surrounded by lovely cousins and charming maidens. Like the Twelve Beauties Your father the Yongzheng Emperor commissioned court painters to depict, these women may seem interchangeable at first, passing for any young ladies of charm, refinement, and wit. But as the story progresses,the reader learns their true characters, and they never disappoint.
Ah! Baoyu’s companions commanded so much more grace than these women in here… Oh, I know my verdict to be unjust, Oh Majesty, as if one compared brothel inmates with the elegant courtesans of yore. And I have no wish to be unjust; I am in the thrall of wistfulness. Those scenes in Dream of the Red Chamber fill me with a melancholy that transcends time and place; they stem from the soul of an author whose visions transcended nostalgia for the golden days of youth.
Most readers believe that Lin Daiyu, Baoyu’s orphaned cousin who lived in the garden as well and was the heroine of the Dream, had been modelled after a girl with whom the author was in love as a youth (a maiden who died of heartbreak after he reluctantly married the one destined for him by his family). It was not so! Lin Daiyu, Xue Baochai, Qin Keqing, Shi Xiangyun, all those lovely slips of girls who populated that lush garden did not belong to a time the author remembered; they belonged to a time he had wished for. And I, after whom cousin Daiyu was modelled, spread the rumour that this heroine embodied Xueqin’s swan song for a girl who died at too tender an age.
This mystification—yes, that is the very word; Your Majesty sensed it ere he could know!—deeply pleased Xueqin’s relatives, so much so that the glorious past of the once prominent Cao clan acquired new wings as it were; the story unfolded like a peacock-tail under the enchanted gaze of male cousins, half-brothers, uncles, and neighbours. Illusion is truth and truth is illusion: this is the central idea of the novel, as Your Majesty will recall, and with good reason. The author read one passage after the next to his audience of relatives, neighbours, and friends, who bore down on it like gulls on a fisherman’s boat. So deeply were they moved that they even recalled funerals, revels, and quarrels that never were—the untruth of which never deterred Tianyou,Xueqin’s favourite cousin, from adorning all drafts and copies he could lay hands on with exclamatory remarks such as Exactly how it was! and Brilliant sketch of that girl; wasn’t she lovely!—painted in crimson ink. To everyone’s chagrin, Tianyou used to embroider on memories he shared with Xueqin and emphasize how well the author evoked these in his story. And as if crimson interjections by his brush were insufficient, Tianyou eulogized the glorious past at many a get-together by lengthy speeches and digressions, so that the reading of newly written episodes would be delayed for hours.
I myself was devoid of any family life; each time Favourite Cousin Tianyou lost himself in reminiscences, I found scant consolation in knowing that Xueqin had fooled his audience at my behest. I even suspect Tianyou was aware of the deception that allowed him to wallow in an imagined past, as glittering as my real past was bleak. And why did he weave these memories? To taunt me, to make me envious of his glorious life! And it is true that his babblings lent shine and polish to my mystification. Under no circumstance were others to be let in on my love affair with Xueqin: I kept my grudges against Tianyou well hidden.
Oh Majesty, this Dream of the Red Chamber—I could reveal secrets of which even the most learned of literati are ignorant, so astutely did Xueqin beguile us by his storyteller’s craft. How I wish I could whisper those secrets in Your Majesty’s ear! However, decorum forbids it, as do officials who will lay eyes on this request. How could I ever hope to bridge the distance that separates me from the Throne—a distance which, if modest as the crow flies, is littered with guards, eunuchs, and bolted moon-gates? Here, in the Pavilion of Forgotten Concubines, I am still Your prisoner, as I was back in the dungeon. Merely because I obeyed duty’s call, I am now no longer free to move about in the Forbidden City or to wander through the bustling, sweet-scented alleyways of Peking, and so I imbibe my share of the bitterness that has haunted Your forgotten concubines since time immemorial. Each day I avoid the petty intrigue that ruins the lives of despised women, until that bleak hour when they descend to the Yellow Springs. Oh, Your humble subject isn’t wallowing in self-pity; she merely sketches the pitch-dark that serves as a backdrop to her delight! I am so grateful—I can’t reiterate my gratitude enough—for the writing implements bestowed on me. With ink-brush and paper I rise above webs of intrigue woven here night and day, as the nightingale rises above the bramble bush, bursting out in song.
Writing sets me free—and chains me to an urge I cannot dismiss. When youth fades, talent brings solace, or so the saying goes; but is it true?
Certainly, my youth has faded, but talent has brought me trouble rather than solace. I began to weave scenes and seasons into ever-widening vistas, and in the wake of my recollections I dredged up events I would fain forget. Yet for me this is the Way to imagine life, life as it could be—and as it really is, when one removes the frills.
Once upon a time I wrote poetry. Some of my poems are to be found in anthologies; most were consumed by flames ignited by the all-powerful Imperial Censorate. I have no regrets. Prose is my element; in the novel my strength resides. Behold my literary crime—the sole crime I ever committed! Placing my trust in Your Majesty’s benevolence, I will now await Your verdict.
Memorial (no number)
The Qianlong Emperor
To Grand Councillor Heshen
If an Emperor had friends, Grand Councillor Heshen, you would rank highest among them! Your zeal enables Us to fulfil Our duties, a burden aggravated by the seditious disposition of Our ungrateful subjects—and by severe loss of face as Macartney begrudged Us the kowtow. That man robs Us of Our sleep, night after night. In the Imperial bedchamber his barbarian’s plump mien looms large with disapproving grimaces, devoid of awe.
We bid you replenish the stock once more: current supplies of the poppy are proving insufficient to sustain Our visionary thoughts. We shall not attend morning sessions of the Grand Council during days to come and therefore entrust you with on-going Matters of State as well as with Our daily encumbrances. We shall suffer no one near Us. See to that, Heshen: no one! Save you, of course, as well as four cooks, granted access to Our chambers twice a day to bring meals, after the eunuch Weigong shall have tasted them first—in secret of course, in case one of the kitchen staff fosters some grudge against Our body servant.
Our seclusion will serve to allow us to study Dream of the Red Chamber, allegedly written by one Cao Xueqin, who, according to the Peking registry, died thirty years ago. After having slumbered in oblivion for years, this novel has now acquired fame overnight and appears to have, for reasons unfathomable, unleashed voracious reading-appetites all over China. Most disturbing! Something rotten must be brewing among Our populace. Does not perfidy cloak itself in the garments of beauty and zeal?
The Pavilion of Forgotten Concubines Page 2