The Pavilion of Forgotten Concubines

by Wiersinga, Pim;

  These days, it is no longer his relatives who capitalize on the book’s belated popularity. All who claim talent or wisdom for themselves partake in lofty disputes on the inner meaning of the Dream, on symbols Xueqin allegedly hid in the Garden of the Spacious View, on hazy allusions to Your reign during the time the novel was composed. To this day, men of advanced age never tire of comparing Lin Daiyu’s whims to the steadfastness of Xue Baochai, whom Baoyu is forced to marry. Xue Baochai, a paragon of virtue and dullness who believes that accomplished young ladies have nothing to gain from poetry or literary schooling!

  Whether we prefer Baochai or Daiyu, one thing I do know: students, scholars, frauds, and devoted readers will never deny themselves the pleasure of a hearty dispute, no matter how wide the gaps in their knowledge. This tendency is only human—I blame no one. I even forfeited the right to do so, since I chose to honour Xueqin’s remembrance in silence, and my very silence made me an accomplice to such pompous half-truths as I could have unmasked easily, had I only chosen to reveal my dealings with the author. And by doing so now, I’m offering Your Majesty a formidable advantage: next to the croaking of petty scholars, Your grasp of the literary highlight of Your reign, the Dream, will resound like a nightingale’s song—especially if I provide You privately with details and quotations.

  I beg Your Majesty’s forgiveness for having dwelt upon Cao Xueqin for so long—though my tribute to him will diminish the amount of elaboration needed to submit Ti Qing and my dealings with him to Your judgment. For Xueqin was everything the Deshima chief is not. That said, three-quarters of Ti Qing’s portrait is complete. The Dutch magistrate made my spirit glow; he left my heart unmoved. Without resorting to the mask of the inquisitive lady I truly am, I must say he did stretch curiosity to the limit. Indeed, it was Ti Qing who opened the gate that barred me from the world—on the isle of Deshima of all places, where the world shrank to a bare minimum!

  I assume the Court is familiar with Deshima’s topography: a fan-shaped islet in Nagasaki harbour, that’s all it is. The trading post has three or four streets, alleys rather, segregated from the Japanese quarters on the mainland by one steep bridge only, which is permanently locked. Two dozen dignitaries spend their lives in this dwindled universe, far from home and family—spouses are denied entrance—deprived of civilised entertainment, closely guarded by hordes of clerks and interpreters. The Shogun keeps the Dutch in strict seclusion, more so than he keeps us Chinese on the neighbouring island. But, due to his scholarly merits, Ti Qing was held in esteem by Japanese savants and even by the officialdom in far-away Edo and, as a result, restrictions were slackened somewhat. And so it came to pass that we, denizens of the Chinese post, were intermittently granted visits to the Dutch, and we indubitably owed it to Ti Qing that interpreters, clerks, and officials were absent on such occasions.

  My Chinese master had accumulated gambling debts. To curb expenditure and to obtain additional revenues, he proceeded to lend personnel to Deshima, for a sum of course: another arrangement championed by that remarkable Dutch magistrate. Whether my Chinese master managed to avert loss of face I do not know and did not care to know, for I had entered another world. Less than a year after he took office in Deshima, I was added to Ti Qing’s household.

  My new master immediately set out to teach me Dutch. Hao dyoo doo? and Is it to your liking, Sir? to begin with—the stock phrases to which the overlords of that crumbling Dutch East India Company hope their foreign underlings will limit themselves; and most underlings are quite willing to oblige, given the torture for tongue and throat inflicted by the vagaries of the Dutch language, even though (if I am to believe Ti Qing) it never sounded so sonorous as when uttered by my unschooled lips.

  Apprehensive of flattery—would the magistrate wish to school these lips, and if so, how?—I dared not concur,though it was at this juncture in time that my uncanny talent for languages came to light. And neither my master nor I wished to restrict ourselves to stock phrases: we were ‘carved from another sort of wood’, as the Dutch are wont to say. Soon, I mastered the principles of their snarling tongue and learned to apply these to my expanding vocabulary.

  Neither diligence nor discipline suffices alone, Your Majesty; brains come into learning languages as well. I soon grasped that pitch or intonation doesn’t entail any substantial change of meaning. How hard to comprehend! Imagine qing—passion, romantic feeling—would mean the same as Qing, Your dynasty’s name: the system would collapse! Pitch being of no consequence is reflected in their scribblings as well. Their childish characters denote no concepts, merely the sound-strings of words, the sense of which isn’t decided by tone or pitch but by the nature and sequence of their constituent sounds alone. In Dutch—and in English, as I was to discover later—modulations of tone or pitch express coarse emotions at best, never anything substantial.

  Your Majesty: I fear You won’t believe me; I even hesitate to embark on the topic. When I first heard of it I was speechless. By the barbaric and cumbersome trick of codifying word sounds separately, the Red-Haired Devils succeeded in reducing their number of pictographs to a mere two dozen! Imagine my surprise when Ti Qing had to admit that even in his country some cannot read or write. Granted: counter-weighing the meagre number of characters listed in an ‘alphabet’ any schoolchild can recite, lurks a bamboo-forest of combinations. Often, a written word hardly resembles the way it really sounds, due to its foreign origins or its highly overrated role in a phrase (which Europeans for some obscure reason call syntax, which is the ancient Greek word for ‘setup’ or ‘battle order’). Besides, their spoken language allows for anomalies unacceptable in written form: what one hears is rarely what one sees, and vice versa. All in all, it is hard to write those tongues flawlessly, and to my undying shame I must confess that my spelling in Dutch or English never attained perfection, though I do read documents in both languages proficiently, if not fluently.

  How much damage this alphabet inflicts on the soul I have no way of knowing, but I suspect it to be considerable: both their imagery and concepts are much clumsier than ours. And their philosophy suffers from the same defect. Where one or two characters would suffice, those Westerners wallow in verbiage. Just as they endlessly arrange and rearrange these two dozen characters (the reason why their printings are so joyless to behold, no matter how fascinating the contents), they define concepts through trivial, barren, and endlessly reiterated logical steps, much as we inculcate warnings over and over in our elderly people lest they get lost in the mists of chaotic memories. Unfortunately neither we nor the barbarians practice a science investigating how language clouds the mind.

  But honour where honour is due: Ti Qing possessed the talent to be amazed by any phenomenon under sun and moon. Even the humble objects of my curiosity roused his interest. I could pay him no greater pleasure than by coming up with some outlandish topic for consideration at the oddest hour of day. Myself, a servant, he took as seriously as he would Deshima’s highest official. ‘I’m stirring your scientific curiosity,’ he would say, ‘while you tap the poetic vein that slumbers in me, even if my lyrical abilities are slight.’ It has been years since he addressed me thus, yet I vividly recall how I had to restrain my tears. It struck me deeply that a barbarian like Ti Qing should possess such a sensitive soul. Granted, he was no second Cao Xueqin; but he possessed a mysterious something which Xueqin lacked.

  ‘I gratitudiness owe for you,’ I murmured—still flawed—in his tongue.

  Whereupon he exclaimed, ‘No Lady! It is I who am indebted to you.’

  Surprised, I asked why.

  ‘Since you have graced Deshima with your presence,’ he said in earnest, ‘my horizon is no longer limited by the waves of Nagasaki’s harbour, the hills surrounding it, nor the wall at yonder side of the bridge. Since I have become acquainted with you, Your Ladyship Cao Baoqin, my soul is as wide as the universe itself.’

  Often have I pondered these words, Your Majesty
,observing them from all conceivable angles; I have never understood them. Even now, while Chun Xian’s balm soothes the pain in my bleeding shoulders, it is a mystery to me what the chief of Deshima may have meant.

  One tenet on which Western philosophy is founded is Know Thyself. To Your ears and mine this sounds droll rather than wise, as if one just needs to feed a child for it to mature into a well-bred human being. Even an inveterate Taoist wouldn’t go that far. In fact, foreign devils are no Taoists at all: their opposites rather. While the Tao teaches that All equals Nothing and Truth has no Name, foreigners indulge in transforming trivialities into cast-iron aphorisms they’re pleased to call ‘propositions,’ a delight outdone only by the sport of undermining these very propositions with their wily logic—mindful of the blacksmith whose best horseshoes have been longest exposed to hammer, anvil, and heat. It is well-nigh impossible to comprehend, Your Majesty, but true nevertheless: a century and a half ago (at the time of Sepinosa, or slightly prior to that, when the last Ming Emperor sat on the Throne), a sage from Franguo whose name eludes me now went through months of migraine to solve the riddle as to how and whether he knew that reality was real, not just a notion one fancies—much like gentlemen might fancy songbirds or carp ponds.

  When Ti Qing told me this philosophy, I had to laugh; at the same time I pitied him and his meagre civilisation,ignorant of Zhuangzi who poetically dealt with all issues of illusion and reality: the butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi who dreamt he was a butterfly who dreamt… After months of rumination, ploughing through syllogisms without end and arguments intricate as mazes,the Franguo philosopher at last reached a conclusion: I think, therefore I am.

  Oh Your Majesty, I gave my Dutch master many a happy moment by delivering endless variations and pastiches on this theme: I believe in a dream that I do not exist, and therefore I exist, but beyond this dream or in it? And I want, so I can, so I must, so I do not want: do I believe this myself or does someone else think it through me? In brief, I subverted the entire edifice of Western logic, or so I thought. Now, at a more mature age, these cheap quips fill me with shame; I can only admire the generosity with which Deshima’s chief permitted me to ridicule his classics.

  Meanwhile, I hope I have shed light on my dealings with this Dutch magistrate, Oh Son of Heaven; I believe my account safeguards me from suspicions of indecency. Never did Ti Qing lay a finger on my body. The enthusiasm he provoked in me did not remotely resemble what I knew to be love from my experiences with Xueqin and my memories of him.

  But now that I arrive at the end of this scroll, I am perplexed. I think, therefore I am; I think I love him, so it is love: is there any logic to feelings? Cao Xueqin dies; my love for him dies not! Since I have become acquainted with you, my soul is as wide as the universe itself. Although I think Ti Qing exists (hence he does, if we take the Franguo sage on his word), I’m in the dark about his idea of me and will remain so unless we will be awarded a meeting next winter.

  Your Majesty! If Ti Qing confused my poetic aura with sentiments of intimacy (with these strangers one just never knows), I will say this in his favour: he never once abused the opportunities so amply provided by our sleepless nights in Deshima.

  

  Memorial (no number)

  The Qianlong Emperor

  To His confidant Heshen

  We thank you, Councillor Heshen, for your prompt delivery of new stock. It provides Us exquisite pleasures and allows Us, for the very first time since the departure of the Brit, to enjoy a dreamless sleep after having been diverted by wondrous visions—visions bringing more virtue and pleasure than scenes conjured up in Dream of the Red Chamber. Since We are gifted Ourselves, We have no need for the flashy fabrications of other poets and find ample satisfaction in such lofty imaginings as seem to slumber in Our innermost being.

  Yes, in the end the novel disappoints. Despite its brilliance and splendour, We cannot forget that the vicissitudes are outlined—nay glorified—of a rudderless, lascivious young man who would have benefitted from discipline: his father fails miserably! This flaw, in a novel that is not without minor merits, may mean Xueqin was some sort of rebellious Ming-loyalist, Heshen, yet it is no proof. We wonder what verdict the Hanlin scholars will pass, and Chief Censor Qian Qianlin of course, whose loyalty to the Throne seems doubtful of late.

  We are most grateful for the zeal with which you see to all matters at hand, but one detail has displeased Us deeply: A thrashing! Without having procured Our permission to administer it! For now, We will let your rashness pass unpunished, seeing that We overburdened you with Our daily dealings, but tell me, Heshen, do you believe that inflicting violence on literate citizens will induce them to divulge secrets? Do you not see that Lady Cao, Our esteemed Interpreter Second Class, is above such methods?

  Heshen! Your talents are numerous, but understanding the heart is not one of them. If We are to elicit confidential intelligence from said Lady, We must once again assure Ourselves of her loyalty to the Throne, which has been sadly undermined by recklessness on your part.

  Proceed with caution henceforth!

  

  Grand Councillor Heshen

  To the Qianlong Emperor

  Oh Majesty! Do not attribute the thrashing of the Cao woman to malice on my part! Do You assume I acted out of wrath? The contrary is true! For one must concede that Reason achieves naught when faced with Imperial Interpreter Second Class Cao Baoqin. Given the opportunity, she would lull the entire Court to sleep with her silken tongue. That woman is a two-faced demon,Your Majesty! One face expresses loyalty to Emperor and Throne, while the other mocks Them in a most devious manner. Those who heed her words alone hear nothing but humble deference, yet her brash style contradicts her words and reveals a woman possessed. She toys with everyone—even with You! Her voice is that of the harlot who, under a thin veneer of warmth and sympathy, divests the best men of their silver; her grace is that of the spy, implicating us in obscure designs—a second Empress Wu!—and her elegance is as cold as death.

  You reproach me for not seeing through people, but if there is one man who knows You inside out, it is I! I know Your needs, Oh Majesty, and I always deliver: You just need to raise a finger, as You very well know. Baoqin’s words may delight You, but they nourish You not. That woman is dangerous!

  And yet, I can see why she inspires compassion in You. Once upon a time she was innocent and pure. Unfortunately, Cao Baoqin was corrupted at too tender an age, which was why I assumed her innocence to be hidden behind an armour of shrewdness. Much as one might bemoan her fate, I felt compelled to swing the bamboo in order to unveil her virtue, hidden under layers of falsehood; the physician must cut deep to remove tumour.

  As it turned out, I was misguided; she proved incorrigible. Take my word for it, Your Majesty! Her innocence has vanished for good, for I failed lamentably: her skin bled, but her armour defied the cane.

  

  Letter no. 000.100111.011

  Under seal 197112

  Issued by The Imperial Secretariat

  To Cao Baoqin

  Lady! Once more you have displeased the Court. Your last request (if it merits the name) proves your mind to be obscured by irreverent quibbles. Your jest at the expense of the Qing Dynasty even raised the Imperial wrath! Do you deem insidious, foreign logic instrumental in propitiating the Court to the Ti Qing adventurer? On the contrary! The envoy shan’t be provided with permanent lodgings in Peking, no matter what privileges those Dutch brigands are after. Ti Qing’s kowtow will be frowned upon; it is as dishonest as it is wily.

  And how dare you equate your worthless self to noble Lin Daiyu? Think of how revolting this will be to loyal subjects! Your conduct would even aggravate the British insult, were it but possible. Dare you maintain that you, as the key interpreter, had no part in Macartney’s provocation to the Throne? You were to initiate him into our rules and rituals, but you failed miser
ably.

  In spite of this ever-expanding list of offenses, the Court has once again decided on mildness. For the last time you are given the opportunity to exculpate yourself in an appropriate manner—meaning that your words should be in harmony with Heaven, and that you shall make no undue mention of author Xueqin, let alone Red-Haired Devil Ti Qing. The Court deems it ill-advised to seek support for one’s cause with men who, dead or alive, have in no way distinguished themselves by their virtue and filial loyalty to the Throne.

  

  Lady Cao,

  In the Pavilion of Forgotten Concubines,

  To the Son of Heaven

  Request for postponement

  Your Majesty, how it grieves me to learn that the Court was displeased! In the last request permitted me—my last hope of rehabilitation!—I am to omit author and envoy, both of whom loom large in memory. I shall obey, of course; but how arduous a command it is! How lofty a task! Because You, Oh Son of Heaven, an accomplished poet, place trust in one who is a fledgling novelist at best. You require me to voice a plea without ‘undue’ reference to the main parties involved; You demand of me that I plead innocent without paying ones wiser than I their due. Of course I am grateful for Your Majesty’s confidence in my own judgment, yet I fear it will be too exalted a task to accomplish to Your satisfaction.

  It is as if an author would be required to spin a tale without naming his main characters. How on earth could the story of Baoyu be told without even mentioning his doting Grandmother Jia, his reproachful father, frolicking female attendants, and the virtuous Baochai, let alone mournful Daiyu? Besides, a request, unlike a work originating in the imagination, offers no method to weave fact and fiction into a unified whole, never opens opportunities to portray deep feelings in creatures thinner than smoke.