[_A.D. 799-831_]
[63] THE STORY OF TS‘UI YING-YING
During the Chēng-Yüan[1] period of the T‘ang dynasty there lived a
man called Chang.[2] His nature was gentle and refined, and his person
of great beauty. But his deeper feelings were resolutely held in
restraint, and he would indulge in no license. Sometimes his friends
took him to a party and he would try to join their frolics; but when the
rest were shouting and scuffling their hardest, Chang only pretended to
take his share. For he could never overcome his shyness. So it came
about that though already twenty-three, he had not yet enjoyed a woman’s
beauty. To those who questioned him he answered, “It is not such as
Master Tēng-t’u[3] who are true lovers of beauty; for they are merely
profligates. I consider myself a lover of beauty, who happens never to
have met with it. And I am of this opinion because I know that, in other
things, whatever is beautiful casts its spell upon me; so that I cannot
be devoid of feeling.” His questioners only laughed.
[1] A.D. 785-805.
[2] I.e., Yüan Chēn himself.
[3] Type of the indiscriminate lover, fourth century B.C.
About this time Chang went to Puchow. Some two miles east of the town
there is a temple called the P‘-u-chiu-ssŭ, and here he took up his
lodging. Now it happened that at this time the widow of a certain Ts‘ui
was returning to Ch‘ang-an.[4] She passed through Puchow on her way and
stayed at the same temple.
[4] The capital of China at that time; now called Hsi-an-fu.
This lady was born of the Chēng family and Chang’s mother was also a
Chēng. He unravelled their relationship and found that they were
second-cousins.
This year General Hun-Chan[5] died at Puchow. There was a certain
Colonel Ting Wēn-ya who ill-treated his troops. The soldiers
accordingly made Hun Chan’s funeral the occasion of a mutiny, and began
to plunder the town. The Ts‘ui family had brought with them much
valuable property and many slaves. Subjected to this sudden danger when
far from home, they had no one from whom they could seek protection.
[5] B. A.D. 735; d. 799. Famous for his campaigns against the Tibetans
and Uighurs.
Now it happened that Chang had been friendly with the political party to
which the commander at Puchow belonged. At his request a guard was sent
to the temple and no disorder took place there. A few days afterwards
the Civil Commissioner Tu Chio was ordered by the Emperor to take over
the command of the troops. The mutineers then laid down their arms.
The widow Chēng was very sensible of the service which Chang had
rendered. She therefore provided dainties and invited him to a banquet
in the middle hall. At table she turned to him and said, “I, your
cousin, a lonely and widowed relict, had young ones in my care. If we
had fallen into the hands of the soldiery, I could not have helped them.
Therefore the lives of my little boy and young daughter were saved by
your protection, and they owe you eternal gratitude. I will now cause
them to kneel before you, their merciful cousin, that they may thank you
for your favours.” First she sent for her son, Huan-lang, who was about
ten years old, a handsome and gentle child. Then she called to her
daughter, Ying-ying: “Come and bow to your cousin. Your cousin saved
your life.” For a long while she would not come, saying that she was
not well. The widow grew angry and cried: “Your cousin saved your life.
But for his help, you would now be a prisoner. How can you treat him so
rudely?”
At last she came in, dressed in everyday clothes, with a look of deep
unhappiness in her face. She had not put on any ornaments. Her hair hung
down in coils, the black of her two eyebrows joined, her cheeks were not
rouged. But her features were of exquisite beauty and shone with an
almost dazzling lustre.
Chang bowed to her, amazed. She sat down by her mother’s side and looked
all the time towards her, turning from him with a fixed stare of
aversion, as though she could not endure his presence.
He asked how old she was. The widow answered, “She was born in the year
of the present Emperor’s reign that was a year of the Rat, and now it is
the year of the Dragon in the period Chēng-yüan.[6] So she must be
seventeen years old.”
[6] I.e., A.D. 800.
Chang tried to engage her in conversation, but she would not answer, and
soon the dinner was over. He was passionately in love with her and
wanted to tell her so, but could find no way.
Ying-ying had a maid-servant called Hung-niang, whom Chang sometimes met
and greeted. Once he stopped her and was beginning to tell her of his
love for her mistress; but she was frightened and ran away. Then Chang
was sorry he had not kept silence.
Next day he met Hung-niang again, but was ashamed and did not say what
was in his mind. But this time the maid herself broached the subject and
said to Chang, “Master, I dare not tell her what you told me, or even
hint at it. But since your mother was a kinswoman of the Ts‘uis, why do
you not seek my mistress’s hand on that plea?”
Chang said, “Since I was a child in arms, my nature has been averse to
intimacy. Sometimes I have idled with wearers of silk and gauze, but my
fancy was never once detained. I little thought that in the end I should
be entrapped.
“Lately at the banquet I could scarcely contain myself; and since then,
when I walk, I forget where I am going and when I eat, I forget to
finish my meal, and do not know how to endure the hours from dawn to
dusk.
“If we were to get married through a matchmaker and perform the
ceremonies of Sending Presents and Asking Names, it would take many
months, and by that time you would have to look for me ‘in the
dried-fish shop.’ What is the use of giving me such advice as that?”
The maid replied, “My mistress clings steadfastly to her chastity, and
even an equal could not trip her with lewd talk. Much less may she be
won through the stratagems of a maid-servant. But she is skilled in
composition, and often when she has made a poem or essay, she is
restless and dissatisfied for a long while after. You must try to
provoke her by a love-poem. There is no other way.”
Chang was delighted and at once composed two Spring Poems to send her.
Hung-niang took them away and came back the same evening with a coloured
tablet, which she gave to Chang, saying, “This is from my mistress.” It
bore the title “The Bright Moon of the Fifteenth Night.” The words ran:
_To wait for the moon I am sitting in the western parlour;
To greet the wind, I have left the door ajar.
When a flower’s shadow stirred and brushed the wall,
For a moment I thought it the shadow of a lover coming._
Chang could not doubt her meaning. That night was the fourth after the
first decade of the second month. Beside the eastern wall of Ts‘ui’s
apartments there grew an apricot-tree; by climbing it one could cross
the wall. On the next night (which was the night of the full moon) Chang
used the tree as a ladder and crossed the wall. He went straight to the
western parlour and found the door ajar. Hung-niang lay asleep on the
bed. He woke her, and she cried in a voice of astonishment, “Master
Chang, what are you doing here?” Chang answered, half-truly: “Ts‘ui’s
letter invited me. Tell her I have come.” Hung-niang soon returned,
whispering, “She is coming, she is coming.” Chang was both delighted and
surprised, thinking that his salvation was indeed at hand.
At last Ts‘ui entered.
Her dress was sober and correct, and her face was stern. She at once
began to reprimand Chang, saying, “I am grateful for the service which
you rendered to my family. You gave support to my dear mother when she
was at a loss how to save her little boy and young daughter. How came
you to send me a wicked message by the hand of a low maid-servant? In
protecting me from the license of others, you acted nobly. But now that
you wish to make me a partner to your own licentious desires, you are
asking me to accept one wrong in exchange for another.
“How was I to repel this advance? I would gladly have hidden your
letter, but it would have been immoral to harbour a record of illicit
proposals. Had I shown it to my mother, I should ill have requited the
debt we owe you. Were I to entrust a message of refusal to a servant or
concubine, I feared it might not be truly delivered. I thought of
writing a letter to tell you what I felt; but I was afraid I might not
be able to make you understand. So I sent those trivial verses, that I
might be sure of your coming. I have no cause to be ashamed of an
irregularity which had no other object but the preservation of my
chastity.”
With these words she vanished. Chang remained for a long while petrified
with astonishment. At last he climbed back over the wall and went home
in despair.
Several nights after this he was lying asleep near the verandah, when
some one suddenly woke him. He rose with a startled sigh and found that
Hung-niang was there, with bedclothes under her arm and a pillow in her
hand. She shook Chang, saying, “She is coming, she is coming. Why are
you asleep?” Then she arranged the bedclothes and pillow and went away.
Chang sat up and rubbed his eyes. For a long while he thought he must be
dreaming, but he assumed a respectful attitude and waited.
Suddenly Hung-niang came back, bringing her mistress with her. Ts‘ui,
this time, was languid and flushed, yielding and wanton in her air, as
though her strength could scarcely support her limbs. Her former
severity had utterly disappeared.
That night was the eighth of the second decade. The crystal beams of the
sinking moon twinkled secretly across their bed. Chang, in a strange
exaltation, half-believed that a fairy had come to him, and not a child
of mortal men.
At last the temple bell sounded, dawn glimmered in the sky and
Hung-niang came back to fetch her mistress away. Ts‘ui turned on her
side with a pretty cry, and followed her maid to the door.
The whole night she had not spoken a word.
Chang rose when it was half-dark, still thinking that perhaps it had
been a dream. But when it grew light, he saw her powder on his arm and
smelt her perfume in his clothes. A tear she had shed still glittered on
the mattress.
For more than ten days afterwards he did not see her again. During this
time he began to make a poem called “Meeting a Fairy,” in thirty
couplets. It was not yet finished, when he chanced to meet Hung-niang in
the road. He asked her to take the poem to Ts‘ui.
After this Ts‘ui let him come to her, and for a month or more he crept
out at dawn and in at dusk, the two of them living together in that
western parlour of which I spoke before.
Chang often asked her what her mother thought of him. Ts‘ui said, “I
know she would not oppose my will. So why should we not get married at
once?”
Soon afterwards, Chang had to go to the capital. Before starting, he
tenderly informed her of his departure. She did not reproach him, but
her face showed pitiable distress. On the night before he started, he
was not able to see her.
After spending a few months in the west, Chang returned to Puchow and
again lodged for several months in the same building as the Ts‘uis. He
made many attempts to see Ying-ying alone, but she would not let him do
so. Remembering that she was fond of calligraphy and verse, he
frequently sent her his own compositions, but she scarcely glanced at
them.
It was characteristic of her that when any situation was at its acutest
point, she appeared quite unconscious of it. She talked glibly, but
would seldom answer a question. She expected absolute devotion, but
herself gave no encouragement.
Sometimes when she was in the depth of despair, she would affect all the
while to be quite indifferent. It was rarely possible to know from her
face whether she was pleased or sorry.
One night Chang came upon her unawares when she was playing on the harp,
with a touch full of passion. But when she saw him coming, she stopped
playing. This incident increased his infatuation.
Soon afterwards, it became time for him to compete in the Literary
Examinations, and he was obliged once more to set out for the western
capital.
The evening before his departure, he sat in deep despondency by Ts‘ui’s
side, but did not try again to tell her of his love. Nor had he told her
that he was going away, but she seemed to have guessed it, and with
submissive face and gentle voice, she said to him softly: “Those whom a
man leads astray, he will in the end abandon. It must be so, and I will
not reproach you. You deigned to corrupt me and now you deign to leave
me. That is all. And your vows of ‘faithfulness till death’--they too
are cancelled. There is no need for you to grieve at this parting, but
since I see you so sad and can give you no other comfort--you once
praised my harp-playing; but I was bashful and would not play to you.
Now I am bolder, and if you choose, I will play you a tune.”
She took her harp and began the prelude to “Rainbow Skirts and Feather
Jackets.”[7] But after a few bars the tune broke off into a wild and
passionate dirge.
[7] A gay, court tune of the eighth century.
All who were present caught their breath; but in a moment she stopped
playing, threw down her harp and, weeping bitterly, ran to her mother’s
room.
She did not come back.
Next morning Chang left. The following year he failed in his
examinations and could not leave the capital. So, to unburden his heart,
he wrote a letter to Ts‘ui. She answered him somewhat in this fashion:
“I have read your letter and cherish it dearly. It has filled my heart
half with sorrow, half with joy. You sent with it a box of garlands and
five sticks of paste, that I may decorate my head and colour my lips.
“I thank you for your presents; but there is no one now to care how I
look. Seeing these things only makes me think of you and grieve the
more.
“You say that you are prospering in your career at the capital, and I am
comforted by that news. But it makes me fear you will never come back
again to one who is so distant and humble. But _that_ is settled
forever, and it is no use talking of it.
“Since last autumn I have lived in a dazed stupor. Amid the clamour of
the daytime, I have sometimes forced myself to laugh and talk; but alone
at night I have done nothing but weep. Or, if I have fallen asleep my
dreams have always been full of the sorrows of parting. Often I dreamt
that you came to me as you used to do, but always before the moment of
our joy your phantom vanished from my side. Yet, though we are still
bedfellows in my dreams, when I wake and think of it the time when we
were together seems very far off. For since we parted, the old year has
slipped away and a new year has begun....
“Ch‘ang-an is a city of pleasure, where there are many snares to catch a
young man’s heart. How can I hope that you will not forget one so
sequestered and insignificant as I? And indeed, if you were to be
faithful, so worthless a creature could never requite you. But our vows
of unending love--those _I_ at least can fulfil.
“Because you are my cousin, I met you at the feast. Lured by a
maid-servant, I visited you in private. A girl’s heart is not in her own
keeping. You ‘tempted me by your ballads’[8] and I could not bring
myself to ‘throw the shuttle.’[9]
[8] As Ssŭ-ma tempted Cho Wēn-chün, second century B.C.
[9] As the neighbour’s daughter did to Hsieh Kun (A.D. fourth century),
in order to repel his advances.
“Then came the sharing of pillow and mat, the time of perfect loyalty
and deepest tenderness. And I, being young and foolish, thought it would
never end.
“Now, having ‘seen my Prince,’[10] I cannot love again; nor, branded by
the shame of self-surrender, am I fit to perform ‘the service of towel
and comb’;[11] and of the bitterness of the long celibacy which awaits
me, what need is there to speak?
[10] Odes I. 1., X. 2.
[11] = become a bride.
“The good man uses his heart; and if by chance his gaze has fallen on
the humble and insignificant, till the day of his death, he continues
the affections of his life. The cynic cares nothing for people’s
feelings. He will discard the small to follow the great, look upon a
former mistress merely as an accomplice in sin, and hold that the most
solemn vows are made only to be broken. He will reverse all natural
laws--as though Nature should suddenly let bone dissolve, while cinnabar
resisted the fire. The dew that the wind has shaken from the tree still
looks for kindness from the dust; and such, too, is the sum of _my_
hopes and fears.
“As I write, I am shaken by sobs and cannot tell you all that is in my
heart. My darling, I am sending you a jade ring that I used to play with
when I was a child. I want you to wear it at your girdle, that you may
become firm and flawless as this jade, and, in your affections, unbroken
as the circuit of this ring.
“And with it I am sending a skein of thread and a tea-trough of flecked
bamboo. There is no value in these few things. I send them only to
remind you to keep your heart pure as jade and your affection unending
as this round ring. The bamboo is mottled as if with tears, and the
thread is tangled as the thoughts of those who are in sorrow. By these
tokens I seek no more than that, knowing the truth, you may think kindly
of me for ever.
“Our hearts are very near, but our bodies are far apart. There is no
time fixed for our meeting; yet a secret longing can unite souls that
are separated by a thousand miles.
“Protect yourself against the cold spring wind, eat well--look after
yourself in all ways and do not worry too much about your worthless
handmaid,