by Tam King-fai
which crushes even the humblest wish of an ordinary woman.
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196
A Garden of One’s Own
Outside the Garden Ruins (1941)
After dinner, I went out for a walk and, without meaning to, once again
arrived at that spot.
I looked into the garden through the gap in the wall. Inside, the
OIZLMV _I[ [QTT ITQ^M IVL T][P 1V WVM KWZVMZ I KT][MZ WN ZML ÆW_MZ[
was in bloom, and next to them was the bare frame of the destroyed
building. The tiles of the roof had been blown away, but the green
banister from the front of the building was still there, hanging on
precariously.
1TWWSMLI\PMÆW_MZ[JTWWUQVOUIOVQÅKMVTa_QPPMQZN]TTXMIT[
and long green leaves. They must have been planted in front of a
window that was no longer there. A week ago, I thought, someone inside
this handsome house might have opened the little window to look at the
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likely, someone else might have spent the whole day leaning against the
window to look at the plants and trees, his youthful yearnings projected
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But now, the window was no more, and the whole building was
threatening to collapse. The garden had remained green throughout,
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talked, they would have told me about the young and the middle-aged
faces they had seen through the window inside the house. Oh yes, the
aW]VONIKM[J]VW_PMaPILLQ[IXXMIZMLNWZM^MZJMKI][MPMÆW_MZ[
would then have told me something more. They would certainly have
told me about the tragedy on the fourteenth of August, the day when
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the whole garden had been reduced to rubble.
I looked at the garden; its green color was soothing to my eyes.
Rubble, did I say? No, the garden had come back to life after the enemy
bombing, and there were no signs of destruction among the robust
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LI]OPMZWN PM+PMVNIUQTaR][VW_L]OW]º1]ZVMLIZW]VLJ]VW
one was there. What I had heard had been spoken a few days before—
in fact, on the day after the bombing.
I had walked by the garden that afternoon, too—not on this side,
however, but behind the building, right by the air-raid shelter that
was hit. There were three bodies covered with grass mats, but I forget
whether they were laid on the ground here or up on the knoll. A small
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Ba Jin
197
thin leg stuck out from under the mat in the middle. There was mud all
over it, and if one did not look carefully, it would be impossible to say
whether it was a human leg. People were still digging among the rubble.
Standing on a mound of earth newly piled up, I looked from a distance
through the gap in the wall and saw seven or eight people looking at the
LMIL JWLQM[ ;]VVML PMQZ NIKM[ _MZM ÅTTML _QP OZQMN NWZ PMa U][
have known the victims. A middle-aged woman pointed at the body
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+PMVNIUQTaR][VW_L]OW]º4IMZ1NW]VLW]NZWUIVWPMZXMZ[WV
about the tragedy that had befallen the air-raid shelter.
A mud-covered leg. The life of a young woman. I did not know her,
had never even set eyes on her face. Looking at the plants in the garden,
however, I thought of the loneliness of youth captured in this garden,
and my heart ached at the thought, almost as if I had been stabbed. In
I Y]QM XTIKM TQSM PQ[ PM IQZ_IZZQWZ[ _QP PMQZ []VMUJTIbWVML ÆIO[
would not even permit a humble life to live. Two or three bombs had
taken away the yearnings of this young woman. They had destroyed
everything, even the nebulous hopes of her lonely life. Though now
freed from her captivity, she would never see the wide world outside the
garden.
never again see the familiar face in the window, and must have felt
lonely and sad. The building separated them from the air-raid shelter,
and thus they were spared the sight of the girl being suffocated to death,
and that of her mud-covered leg. I, however, saw everything. How am I
to tell the world about it?
Evening had fallen, and the garden gradually became invisible
in the dusk. Darkness began to surround me, but I could still see the
flowers shaking their heads. There was nobody around, and I was
suddenly assailed by feelings of desolation. Why was it so quiet? Why
did no one come to tell me angrily the tale of the young woman? Was I
in a dream?
Something cold and wet fell on my cheek. I looked up and saw that
it was raining. So, this was not a dream after all. I could not stay here in
the rain forever. I had to go home, to the house which, damaged by the
shock of the shelling, was now leaking all over.
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qr
Ye Lingfeng
Ye Lingfeng (1905–1975) was educated at Shanghai Arts Institute. He
was an active member of the Creation Society, and is well known for
creating characters with great psychological depth.
He moved to Hong Kong in 1938. He developed such an interest in his
adopted home that he spent the latter half of his life researching and
writing about the history of the city.
¹
the point of view of the homesick writer, who is led to ponder the
irrevocable passage of time by the plaintive music coming from an aging
musician on the street.
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200
A Garden of One’s Own
The Weary Sound of the Fiddle (1932)
Day after day, she passed by below the building where I lived.
Day after day, I watched her from above as she passed by below the
building where I lived.
The silent evening. The pallid streetlamps. The coolness of the new
autumn air circulating around the dark shadows of the trees.
In the coolness of the new autumn evening, awakening thoughts of
PWUM PM XTIQVQ^M [W]VL WN PMZ PZMM[ZQVOML ÅLLTM LZQNML IQUTM[[Ta
QVPMY]QMTWVMTaIQZTQSMIJQZL_QPW]IVM[\WÆaJIKSWI\PMMVL
of the day.
There were no other instruments or singing to accompany the
ÅLLTM 1 _I[V¼ I IVa ZIM I [][IQVML OZIVL XMZNWZUIVKM J] WVTa
fragmented chords casually strummed on a string. But from these
fragmented phrases, there seemed to emerge all on its own a boundless
sorrow.
A grayish white coat and a pair of dark colored pants. Her hair
and face formed an indistinguishable, blurry patch. With the streetlamps
behind her, she cast a heavy shadow through the gaps in the trees. She
disappeared around the corner, seemingly not on her feet, but slowly
gliding away like a spirit.
Her silhouette disappeared around the corner in darkness, but the
NZIOUMVML[W]VLWN PMÅLLTMZMUIQVMLQVPMY]QMTWVMTaM^MVQVOIQZ
Twenty or thirty years ago, the same woman now roaming the street
today was perhaps a woman at the height of her beauty, enchanting
one and all. But ruthless time, heeding the turning of the wheel of life,
had whittled away unsparingly at this masterpiece of creation. Time
ÆQM[QVM`WZIJTaR][I[_IMZÆW_[WPMMI[1
might be the same as before, but the hand that strummed the string was
LMÅVQMTaVW\PM[TMVLMZaW]PN]TPIVLWN PMXI[
Leaning against the quiet balcony in the evening, I stared at her
[PILW_[TW_TaUW^QVOIUQL[\PMKPIWQK[W]VLWN PMÅLLTM)_I^MWN
pity for the swift passage of time swept over me.
Day after day, she passed by like this below the building where I
lived.
1
All major rivers in China have their sources in the northwest part of the
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has thus traditionally been used as a metaphor for the irrevocable course of
events.
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Ye Lingfeng
201
Day after day, I watched her like this as she passed by below the
building where I lived.
After several days up on this balcony in the autumn rain, my
longing for home increased. I got up from my short nap, and looked out
to the street in the evening rain. The lamps were lit as before, but in the
P]UQLIQZPM[W]VLWN PMZÅLLTM_I[IJ[MV
down by the autumn wind but wet with rain, were still stuck to the steps
IVL PIL VW ÆW_V WNN aM )NMZ PM [ZMMTIUX[ KIUM WV WVM Ja WVM
I leaned against the window forlornly. I knew that tonight, under the
shadows of the trees, I would be united again with the sound of the
ÅLLTMPI1PILUQ[[MLNWZINM_LIa[
The darkness under the trees deepened, and the water puddles on
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ZINÅKPILLQMLLW_V]VLMZPMXITTQLTQOPWN PM[ZMMTIUX[1[QTTLQL
not see that heavy shadow pass by.
still absent.
There were more and more fallen leaves in the autumn wind. I
leaned against the balcony in the evening and faced the new chill in the
air. Besides thoughts of home, there was now another nameless yearning
inside me.
The autumn wind was growing all the more violent. Outside the
window, the two trees had exposed their bare trunks in several places.
Beneath the evening streetlamps, there was only the rustling sound of
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)]]UV_I[OZW_QVOWTL
likely passed away with the weary autumn, I sighed.
Day after day, I still leaned against my balcony.
And day after day, I never saw her pass by the building where I
lived.
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qr
Li Guangtian
Li Guangtian (1906–1968) began his writing career as a poet, publishing
Hanyuan ji with He Qifang and Bian Zhilin, but later came to be known
mostly as a highly original prose writer. He was educated in the foreign
language department of Peking University, where he also studied French
on his own and Japanese with Zhou Zuoren. During the war years, he
taught in various secondary schools and universities, while continuing to
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WNÅKQIT _ZQMZ I[[WKQIQWV[ J] PQ[ TQMZIZa W]X] OZIL]ITTa LMKTQVML QV
quantity until he died under persecution during the Cultural Revolution.
Li’s early works, two of which are presented in the following pages,
demonstrate what He Qifang (also featured in this anthology) describes
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[MIUTM[[VM[[ WN XWMZa IVL PM XTW\ML UMQK]TW][VM[[ WN VW^MT[º *WP
¹5W]VIQV[ IVL ?IMZº IVL ¹<_W
reminiscent of novels but the language that is used in the unfolding of
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ÅTTML _QP VW[ITOQI NWZ PQ[ KPQTLPWWL QV PQ[ Z]ZIT PWUMW_V _PMV TQNM
was presumably simpler if not better. The latter, moreover, is ridden
with anxiety with life in the city, underscoring yet another characteristic
of Li’s work.
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204
A Garden of One’s Own
Mountains and Water (1936)
Sir, I have read all of your essays on mountains and water and think
they are superb. However, I haven’t been able to suppress a rather
peculiar thought, namely that I don’t think I will read any more of your
writing. I suspect that your writing is all something of an exaggeration,
and that kind of exaggeration can bring sorrow to children growing
up on the plains. Why, I wonder, do you always come up with such
beautiful descriptions of mountains and water? Has it never occurred to
you that those lovely mountains and water may have a not-so-lovely side
to them? Let me, a son of the plains, tell you something from my heart
about them.
Unlike the expansive, unobstructed plains, mountainous areas, with
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for people living there to see the sky, or the sun rising from its edge, or
meteors vanishing beneath its horizon because their view is blocked by
the mountains. To behold in a glance the sights of a thousand miles
is a privilege with which only people living on the plains are blessed.
People like you like to write about sailboats and bridges, waves and the
surging sound they make, but as a man of the plains, I think they are
TM[[ IXXMITQVO Ja NIZ PIV ÅMTL[ WN ZQKM IVL _PMI QV PM I]]UV _QVL
or horses sauntering on an abandoned road. And the rumblings of
wagon wheels are perhaps something that you people of the mountains
can never hear. Besides... there are many other reasons besides, but since
I am inept with my pen, I don’t think I can put them into words. Oh,
how stupid I have been! I started out with the thought of playing a joke
WVaW]J]\PMRWSMQ[WVUM)ÅZ[1PW]OP1_W]TLMTTaW]IJW]
the sorrows of the people of the plains, but r
eading your pieces about
mountains and water has led me to think of my hometown, where I
spent a dozen years of my life. I cannot forget the sadness of those
plains.
Naturally, on that plain of ours, there are neither mountains nor
water. Yet, how we descendants of that place cherish even a puddle
WN _IMZ WZ I ZWKS PM [QbM WN I Å[ 7N KW]Z[M PMZM IZM [XZQVO[ PI
serve as wells, but people have to go down twenty or thirty yards before,
with the help of a well-sweep, they can obtain the clear water they
need. We treasure water in the same way we treasure money. Children
long for rain, and a few drops of rain from an overcast sky are enough
nourishment for their souls. On days when it pours in torrents, they are
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Li Guangtian
205
mad with joy, just as one might expect. They swim in pools of water
PIIZMWVTaSVMMLMMXIVLÆWI\PMQZOZI[[WaJWI[QVLQKPM[
imagine rivers from tracks of water left behind by cart wheels, and
oceans from rivulets not much wider. Wherever water collects becomes
a place to play all kinds of games. Even if their parents scold them,
PMa [QTT NMMT LZI_V W _IMZ
and rivers about scenes of water, and fruit vendors from the mountains
about what is produced there. If someone from the mountains brings
them a small smooth pebble, it becomes virtually the most prized thing
among them. They pay a high price for it, when the pebble moves from
the pocket of one child to that of the next. They speculate on the origin
of the pebble, saying that it was acquired from such and such a lofty
mountain, and nurtured in such and such a valley, where it was washed
by mountain springs for thousands and thousands of years. This is why
it is so smooth, so round, and so lovely.
People who have been to far-away places come back to report, in
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ZWKS[ VWPQVO J] ZWKS[º ?PMZM]XWV PMQZ TQ[MVMZ[ JI[ML WV _PI
they have heard, conjure up mountain ranges in their dreams. Looking
up at the fabulous clouds in the sky, they point them out to the children
IVL [Ia ¹4WWS 4WWS 6W_ that’s _PI PM UW]VIQV[ TWWS TQSMº )VL
the children look at the changing clouds, quite lost in amazement.
