by Tam King-fai
day. One can even live with the door closed if one chooses to. A house
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244
A Garden of One’s Own
thus assumes a new meaning in a person’s life. No longer is the house
only a place to hide from wind and rain or to spend the night; it also
begins to acquire furnishings and decorations, and pieces of calligraphy
and painting begin to appear on the walls. From morning to night, it
is now a place for us to think, work, entertain—a theater where all our
human comedies and tragedies will be staged.
Thus it can be said that a door is a passageway for us mortals, and
a window is a passageway for the sky. The original function of a house
is to enable human beings to escape from the threat of nature and
face four walls and a roof, while a window entraps a corner of the sky,
taming it and putting it to human use, just as we used to capture wild
horses and tame them into domestic animals. From that point on, we
can communicate with nature even inside our houses, and instead of
our having to go out looking for sunlight and fresh air, they will come to
us. That is why we should count the invention of the window as one of
mankind’s victories over nature. It should be pointed out that this victory
is like women’s victory over men. On the surface, it may appear that we
are making concessions to nature, since with the window open, the wind
and sunlight can come in to conquer our space. But little do they suspect
that by staking out such a conquest, they are actually being conquered
by the very space they invade.
We said a while ago that a door is a necessity, and a necessity is
something that is not for us to deny: When I am hungry, I have to eat,
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when someone knocks on the door, you are obliged to open it. On the
other side of the door may be, as Ibsen calls them, the young people of
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Knocking at the Gate in Macbethº QV LQ[K][[QVO PM JIVOQVO WN LWWZ[
after a murder, describes as the bright and shining world making an
attack on the dark and sinful one. It may be a prodigal son returning
home, or someone requesting a loan—or more likely demanding
repayment of one. The more uncertain you are, and the more fearful
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who is knocking, and the more you will want to open the door. Even
the postman’s daily knocking arouses in you an uncertain hope, because
you do not know—but would like to know—what news he is bringing.
Hence, it is not for you to decide whether to open the door or not.
But what about the window? When you wake up in the morning, all
you have to do is open the window and you can tell what is awaiting you
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Qian Zhongshu
245
outside. Is it snow, fog, rain, or bright sun? You can then decide whether
to open the window or not. I said earlier that windows are a luxury,
and as such they are something you can take or leave, depending on the
situation.
I have always thought that windows are the eyes of a house. Liu Xi
said in his phonological study, Shi Ming ¹
see through. Looking through a window is thus akin to seeing light with
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them, however, describe only half of the equation. Eyes are the windows
of our souls, through which we can see the world outside. At the same
time, other people can get a glimpse of our inner selves, too. The look
in our eyes often changes with our hearts. That is why Mencius believed
that there was no better way to read a person’s character than to look
in his eyes. Lovers in a Maeterlinck’s play do not close their eyes when
they kiss because they want to see how many of the other’s kisses rise
from the heart to the lips. That eyes can reveal the heart also explains
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to divine his intentions, as if he were wearing a mask. According to
Eckermann’s record of April 4, 1830, Goethe loathed anybody with
glasses, saying that, while these people could clearly see the wrinkles on
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therefore could not fathom their hearts.
A window enables people to look out from inside and in from
outside. Curtains are therefore needed in busy places to provide some
protection of one’s privacy. When one goes to visit at night, a look at
the window to see if the light is on gives one a general idea whether
one’s host is in or not, and one need not wait for the door to open to
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thoughts without waiting for them to open their mouths. Closing the
window is thus the same as closing one’s eyes. There are many images
in this world that one can only see with one’s eyes closed—dreams, for
example. When it is too noisy outside, closing the window gives our
souls the freedom to explore and meditate in peace. Sometimes closing
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world outside the window is too mundane and fails to bring you any
2
Qian Zhongshu gives only a truncated translation of the four lines in Keller’s Abendlied. My translation is based on Qian and not Keller.
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246
A Garden of One’s Own
satisfaction, you like to go back to your hometown to see friends and
relatives from whom you have been separated. This you can only do by
closing your eyes to go to sleep and seeking them in your dreams, so you
get up to close the window. As it is only spring and there is lingering
cold in the air, you cannot really leave the window open all day and all
night long.
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qr
He Qifang
He Qifang (1912–1977) was born to a wealthy land-owning family in
Wanxian, Sichuan. To escape from his authoritarian conservative family,
he moved to Shanghai for his education. He eventually entered Peking
University where he befriended Li Guangtian and Bian Zhilin. The
three collaborated in the publication of Hanyuan ji in 1936. In 1938, he moved to the Communist base in Yan’an where he served as the
secretary to a number of top Communist party leaders. After the war,
he took up key positions in leading literary associations until his death in
1977.
He Qifang is often mentioned together with Li Guangtian in large part
because of their early collaboration. Yet, their aesthet
ic inclinations are
quite distinct from each other. Despite his political involvement, He
follows a romantic and apolitical orientation in most of his writings.
The title of his essay anthology Record of Painted Dreams is telling in this regard, containing works with a dream-like quality. This is not to say, however, that his essays are devoid of social messages. The two essays
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^QM_WN TQNMWVPMJZQVS_PMZMNWWLQ[[KIZKM_PQTM¹7TL5MVºWNNMZ[I
group portrait of three ordinary old men who live with dignity, ending
with a reminder to himself to make good use of his time before old age
sets in.
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248
A Garden of One’s Own
Old Men (1937)
I think of a few old men.
* * * * * * *
maternal grandmother, where I often spent my days as a child. Her
home was an enormous ancient mansion located at the foot of a bluish
mountain crag. Behind the mansion was a forest of bamboo whose
knotty, whip-like roots draped over the cracks of a low wall. There was
an abandoned well beneath the wall. Covered completely by duckweed,
the well had become an ideal place for frogs. I was frightened by—
yet felt drawn to—the quiet stillness of this part of the estate, because
on those overgrown trails that seemed so far from any human presence
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dragonflies that were difficult to find elsewhere. Like the grass and
trees that had escaped everyone’s attention, I, too, grew up behind the
mansion undisturbed.
The family living in this huge old mansion was made up of
only four people: My grandmother, who was already very old; my
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studying in a middle school in the county seat; and my second uncle,
who, only two years my senior, liked to go out and play with the local
urchins. How was I to pass the time? I seldom wandered into the locked-
up courtyards, the lofts used for storage, or the area behind the mansion.
As for the rooms with patterns carved on their windows, they were full
of shadows. One day, when my grandmother opened a vanity case that
she had long since stopped using, she found a small snake coiled up
inside. I never again had the nerve to rummage through the things in
those rooms.
I often played alone in front of the terrace outside the main hall.
The terrace was long, complete with stone railings and black-lacquered
stools. If you stood there and looked up, you could see three big plaques
hanging high along the eaves. Beside the dragons carved around the
eaves, sparrows found an ideal home. Every now and then, a wisp of
grass or a feather would come drifting down.
All of this, however, has become merely the backdrop against which
the old servant appears in my memory. I can see him now, holding a
bunch of burning incense sticks, walking in from the left end of the
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He Qifang
249
terrace, stepping over the two-foot high threshold (that seemed to be
intent on playing tricks on children’s legs) to go inside the main hall. He
would put sticks of incense in the burner of each of the altars, and then
devoutly strike the bowl-shaped copper chime. A clear and distant silvery
sound would vibrate in the air, spreading far outward until it vanished
in the solitude of the old mansion. This was one of his tasks in the early
morning and evening.
The old servant was deaf, and people tended to shout at the top
of their lungs when they talked to him. When, every now and then,
his hearing allowed him to catch a few simple words, he would smile
and nod, satisfied with his own comprehension and guesswork. He
almost never spoke, except when he had something to report to the
master of the house. On those occasions, he too would shout loudly
and make gestures, a smile on his face. As for how old he was, or when
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and I never asked. His white hair indicated his advanced age, and his
numerous but skillfully executed daily chores revealed his long history of
service in this household.
I don’t know how best to describe his daily duties. Should I provide
a long list of his chores, or should I mention a few at random? Besides
attending to the incense in the morning and evening, I found every
day when I got up that, thanks to his labors with the broom, the stone
courtyard shone with cleanliness like the early morning. He also had his
share of miscellaneous duties in the kitchen, and was alone responsible
for caring for the stove used for cooking fodder for the hogs. Every
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little team back in the evening. One could often see him stooping over to
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When we went for a walk, moreover, we could see the golden blossoms
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_PQMÆW_MZ[PITWWSMLTQSMTQ\TMKZW[[M[QVPM]ZVQXÅMTL
The sunflowers were dignified and cheerful; the turnip flowers,
humble. How fond I was of that patch of grass outside the gate! The
ancient spruce towered high like a giant, and the castor oil plant
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evergreen, with its long tendrils like human hair. They seemed to have
come together to sing a eulogy to that hard-working old man.
I cannot say exactly how long he worked as a servant in my
grandmother’s home or when he left the old mansion, but when, at
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250
A Garden of One’s Own
some later date, life found me squandering my time in another setting, I
heard that one day he had fainted by the kitchen stove. When he came
to, he went home by himself. Only then did people begin to notice his
age. Some time later, I heard that he had returned to the old mansion,
carrying out the same numerous duties as before. Later, was it another
fainting bout or was it some other thing? Whatever it was, he went back
home once again and left the old mansion forever.
* * * * * * *
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Adults demanded of a ten-year-old the circumspection of someone
three times his age, but an honest and compliant child can sometimes
exhibit a tendency toward mischief, just as grown-ups sometimes
engage in meaningless or even harmful actions against others out of
loneliness. Under similar circumstances, I sometimes played tricks on the
gatekeeper.
He was an irascib
le old man. A graying goatee hung down from
his chin and a pigtail from the back of his head. He had served as
gatekeeper for a number of years. He kept a room by the gate and
would go to a different family by turns for his meals. In more peaceful
times, when most of the families moved back to their regular residences
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month to collect several sheng 1 of rice, which he cooked for himself. One will never know whether it was his own impatient nature or the poverty
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he appears in my memory, he is sitting on a short wooden stool in front
of the blockhouse gate with an angry look on his face. Muttering and
grumbling, he knocks the stone slabs of the street with the metal bottom
of his long bamboo pipe.
That bamboo water pipe, which had turned yellow with age, was
also his walking staff. On its top was a copper mouthpiece, and on the
bottom an iron bowl for holding tobacco. This was the source of enmity
between us. When he was not paying attention, I often hid it so that he
would have to look all over for it.
One time, I made myself a toy, which I called a water gun. It was
made of a segment of bamboo with a hole drilled through the node
and a chopstick with one end heavily wrapped in a piece of cloth. It
1
Sheng, a measurement of grain, equivalent to about 31.6 cubic inches.
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He Qifang
251
could draw in a large glass of water, and the water, when forced out,
would shoot a long way. I cannot recall for sure whether this weapon
had offended the old gatekeeper. In any event, he told my grandfather
about it, who, as a punishment, rapped my head twice with his knuckles
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thrown over the village wall, landing at the foot of the cliff.
Later on, the old man got himself another job on the side. Sitting
on a specially designed wooden structure, he spent his time weaving
sandals out of straw and hemp. In the rugged mountain villages, one
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the old man’s skill was rather crude, but it slowly improved and he
