The Three Leaps of Wang Lun

by Alfred Doblin

  A struggle developed between him and Wang, a chewing over of reproaches, slow brimming antagonism. Wang kept coming back. He could never hear enough of sutras and sayings from holy books. Willy-nilly Ma No had to give him more; the hulking fellow just nodded as if he took it all for granted. Ma No thought such behaviour shameless, and he wrung his thin hands, gave himself for lost in his own home, was inhibited from bolting the door against Wang. When the ruffian crouched on the grime crusted mat, repeated teachings in his awkward manner, the little monk sat down breathless beside him, anxiously put out fingers to touch him, sniffed at him. Twice in a passion he showed Wang the door.

  It was a still moment, one that caused the mountains around Ma No to recede, when one evening after Wang left Ma found himself doing something remarkable. He was observing the snowladen sky in a deliquescent absorption, when all at once he knew that he was Wang’s inferior and did not mind. Suddenly that night the memory of his absorption rose before him. Dull astonishment at this state of affairs: and did not mind. He was Wang’s inferior and did not mind. The feeling crawled tightly over his skin, turned his heart to a feather; tenderly, appetizingly, the thought in him went out towards Wang with kneebending abasement: “Oh, how good it is to be Ma No.”

  Only for minutes.

  Then he checked himself, warily stifled it all, laid himself down in front of his body and dispersed the feeling.

  Was aghast finally at himself and the whole incident. Dragged himself into sleep.

  Could not face Wang the next few days; was ashamed to see him; stabbed and bit himself. But this image persisted in him undisturbed: Snowladen sky, and I am Wang’s inferior. It emerged from his breast and pulled him along behind it, growing, growing. He considered for several nights if he shouldn’t go wandering again. Stayed, to his own astonishment. Approached Wang abjectly. Their peculiar conversations resumed. Days followed when Ma No became impatient if the vagabond didn’t come tramping in, when he tried to find out what he was doing, hurried in search of the outcast gang.

  The priest taught the vagabond with a sense of unease. Everything in him was prepared for abdication.

  An icy cold spell set in at the start of the New Year. The cliff paths became too slippery to use. On the high hills snow lay like a quilt in layers many feet thick. If anyone stepped in the white mass it did not compress softly; it clinked gently like a thousand slate. The snow cut hands. The air, at first of a deep green transparency, took on a grey hue.

  A Mongol caravan wending its way from the northern passes progressed as far as the Nank’ou mountains. In one night thirty-five mules froze; in the morning two bears sat immovable with threatening bloodshot eyes beside a horse, which had either frozen to death or been torn to pieces alive. Balls of tea and silk, huge skins were left lying on the final pass. The pilgrims wintered in a village farther back.

  After this caravan no one came over the road to Wut’ai-shan. It was enough to congeal blood, split mountains. The stamping mills stopped work. The river, narrower than usual, blew air through its valleys that was thick enough from cold to choke on.

  The footpads and criminals had infiltrated some of their number into villages that lay east and west of the mountains. The others stayed for a little while on the pilgrim trails that were their living. Then everywhere small and large bands gathered together in desperation. The paths behind which the caves and huts of the homeless were tucked would soon be unclimbable; then there would be no forward and no back.

  The band to which Wang belonged took refuge in several twisting narrow caves, protected from the wind, along the road above Ma’s hermitage. They were about fifty strong. But two days later, after five of them had gone in search of starving, freezing comrades along the still passable roads, hillsides, valleys, they grew to eighty. There was no long debate. The nine most respected decided that the little village of Pat’a-ling, about six hours’ trek away, should be plundered and taken over.

  During the downward climb the same thought occurred to several of them and spread among the others: none of the villagers should be allowed to slip away. They must either be locked up or killed. From the band, which not far from the village had happened on another clueless little group of thirty, there came as it ran down a continuous yelling, collapsing, pleading to be helped along. The stronger ones held their mouths open from hunger and bit the wind; they ran blindly. They took turns to carry the older and lighter vagabonds on their backs. They ran the last part of the way through an undulating valley completely silent, in a long line that thickened towards the rear, the strongest like windhounds in front, heedless of those behind.

  The village had fifty houses lying along a single street, except for four houses that stood around an evergreen oak where the road from the hills entered the village. It was from these houses that the people first saw the leaping of men over the cliff known as Shen-yi, the falling and rallying of more and more men. They approached rapidly across the blue-white snow; they looked as if they were being chased. Their queues flew out behind, could be seen swinging like whips over their shoulders.

  The wife of peasant Lei was the first to yell from her yard: “Bandits! Bandits! Bandits!” Women, children, then men with beds behind them ran down the village street, banged on doors, disappeared into houses. Whimpers and screams swirled over the houses, borne from roof to roof, trembled along the empty road.

  From the hills the pattering came nearer, an irregular crackling and rasping, extended movement that seemed not even to take breath. Livid faces with immobile features, hands swinging to and fro like clubs. Bodies that ran insensibly. Torsoes sitting stiffly on hips, as if riding horses. Behind the long line of single runners black groups swam, hand clutching hand. Disconnected stragglers whirled arms like hammers, smashed holes in the wall of air before them.

  The few villagers who remained at their doors watching the long wedge sweep onwards also saw the black cawing swarm of birds that had left the mountains with the vagabonds.

  The first robbers hurled themselves like rocks against doors. They jumped up behind each other, pushed forward. The next arrivals to the neighbouring door. They overran each other. The screaming faded; from the mountain-runners in the houses poured icy cold and the horror of the dying. They couldn’t open their jaws, their eyes didn’t blink. The last houses were barricaded. A howling rose outside, a bellowing of wounded beasts, so that the women crawled into hiding places. The living outside lifted fallen bodies clear and ran their headshaking torsoes against the wooden bars. Then suddenly the peasants opened the doors, felled the whimpering scarecrows with axes, ran to neighbouring houses, hacked at wheezing mouths. Stragglers, the strongest, carrying the lame on their backs, raced into the village, dumped their loads in the first yard, followed the screams, crushed the peasants like missiles, throttled them, smashed their children onto the street, wordlessly, with no change of expression.

  The dead froze thin and stiff on the road.

  The rabble pressed trembling into the houses. These toughs embraced and stroked each other. Strong and weak succumbed to a shuddering. They broke out in a dull snivelling that they couldn’t shake off even hours later. They devoured blubbing whatever they found. Not a finger was lifted against anyone in the houses.

  As darkness fell, twenty of the younger ones went from house to house distributing axes, flails, telling off night watches.

  The band’s plan was to stay in the village as long as the worst of the cold weather held, then pull out together. The inhabitants were apprised of this. It was not possible to notify the village headman; he had been slain with all his family.

  They had no cause to fear treachery during this time. The nearest place lay six hours off, and the road was impassable.

  For a whole month the village was completely cut off. Among the bandits a sense of brotherhood developed. At this time Wang attained the power over these hundred men that his role as chief demanded. In the daily quarrels, regulation of dealings with inhabitants, detailing of watches, th
e necessary scouting parties, his physical strength and careful diplomacy prevailed; the esteem of the older people pushed him to the fore.

  Before two weeks were up the footpads were promising themselves that after pulling out of the village they wouldn’t split up, but would press on under Wang’s captaincy in search of a more comfortable life. Wang left them one morning, disappeared into the mountains for two days.

  He ran to Ma No, found him cheerful, buried under piles of covers and tow, lying grinning in a corner of his hut; brought him rice, beans, teal eaves.

  When he returned he spoke a lot with the older men, day and night. That they were poor outcast wretches. That no one should do to them what they themselves didn’t do to others. That nothing was more terrible than men killing each other, and the sight was unbearable. Ma No, the hermit from P’ut’o-shan, had told him many good and precious things about the golden Buddhas, especially about lady Kuan-yin who had a thousand arms on each shoulder and gave women babies. They were his friends, and should do as he did. Fate alone had brought them so much suffering already, so much suffering; who could say why Heaven hated them? When the cold spell eased he would go through the villages and tell everyone, even the mandarins, what he thought. He was set on that.

  Those who knew him from the stamping mills were not in the least surprised to hear him speak in this vein; they expected such talk from his lips. They had no thought of turning away from him. His views completely agreed with theirs. Heaven hated them; why should anyone make it worse.

  They were a gregarious lot, with definite ideas about all kinds of things, worldly wise, in many respects a cut above the average of their countrymen. There were hardly five among them who did not consider themselves driven out, downtrodden, or have the impression of leading an unfree, constrained life.

  Many were victims of a strong impulse that they could not control, indeed did not want to control, who summoned up and sharpened all their cunning in the service of this impulse with which they identified themselves. There were opium smokers, gamblers with faces of some refinement, elderly men. Not a few had a trade, cheated on and off, were found out and punished, now felt themselves hounded by the police, allowed trick to pile on trick, spite on spite, overstepped the bounds and at bottom were glad to be free as a bird with one stroke, flown from an oppressive legality. These were the fortunate, who felt little bitterness in their freedom.

  The worst in this regard were the hotheads, the vengeful, unbridled. They had allowed themselves, mostly young, to be dragged onto a fateful path because of an ambition, a romance, a jealousy, stood apart from their family, clan, neighbours, among whom their impulses like their crimes were a sin, went around with evil looks, cursed themselves, chewed on the inseverable rubber of their suffering. Nothing served them well; they were capable of anything; they were to be left alone. They were close tongued, always there when something was going on or planned, gave vent to their cruelty where they could, were closely watched by their fellows.

  Then there were many who waited, who had attached themselves only to have somewhere in the Eighteen Provinces to live. They were discharged soldiers, still dressed in ragged blue tunics and hopeful of re-enlistment. Cripples from little hamlets unable to support them, who now thronged the pilgrim routes. Fit, serious men who had lost families in floods; the kind for whom a failed harvest was a yearly guest; the kind who at first, as a temporary expedient, went in shame to the far mountains to beg, then could not break loose and saw no way out.

  There were rare, striking phenomena, Wang Lun among them: restless souls never long in one place, who turned up here as everywhere among trusted comrades and disappeared. Many such man-ripples passed over the face of the vast Empire.

  The hard, immovable kernel of all the mountain-runners comprised four or five old criminals who had plagued the higher roads and passes for years. They were amiable, rather false men, who had a fund of anecdotes to tell, listened good-naturedly to others, played crude tricks on the younger fellows. One in the fullness of his figure had the appearance of a mandarin; only the button was missing from his cap. He placed great store by respectful behaviour, and had a comical habit of responding to the most trivial communication with ceremonial politeness; if interrupted at this he was liable to break out in unspeakably common abuse. He was a hypochondriac, terribly self-pitying, and spent most of the money he got from stealing and robbing on little herb women, hawkers in nearby villages that he frequented in search of medicines. He had a mass of peculiarities, carved very delicate tobacco boxes with flowery lids, sought from every newcomer information on the latest novelties in the towns, went to unbelievable lengths, when he wanted and it was necessary for him, to obtain samples. To his hawker women, who treated him like a fine gentleman, he sighed at how a poor man had to take his own skin to market, even when he only wanted some trifle. At break-ins he was the toughest, surest of men, with muscles of steel, indefatigable patience and coolness. People, especially young men, who took him by surprise so he had to attack them disgusted him if they did not defend themselves, or asked for mercy after he seized hold of them. Once two shop assistants cried out in fear on their brickbed when he burst into their room at night; first he stunned them with an iron bar; then when the brawny fellows, despite his orders, kept on whimpering under the blankets he strangled them one after the other with best quality cord, ran like mad back to the mountains without taking anything. From then on he was known as “Silken Cord”.

  Another of the five was a big bony Cantonese with hornrimmed spectacles. This one liked neither killing nor break-ins; he was a scholar and wrote poetry, social and moral treatises, observations on all manner of topics including the animal world, geology, astrology. His nature remained forever alien to most of the vagabonds. He kept himself quite aloof from them; they came to his cave for advice on all kinds of matters, particularly illnesses and lucky days. He was a man of a certain education, who could quote from many authors and write neat characters. Every few months a change came over this big peaceful man. His visitors noticed the signs: he no longer listened patiently to them; his normally rather tidy dwelling in the cliffside was in disorder. He explained, when anyone asked him, that he was busy with his own affairs, just for a few days; they shouldn’t be put off; he would give his thorough attention to the matter they were consulting him on later, and let them know. Then came a few days when the bandits couldn’t hold back their laughter, when the learned man climbed muddy and tattered up and down over all the paths, addressed all his acquaintances with a flood of pompous incomprehensible words and scraps, interspersing them lavishly with outrageous obscenities such as otherwise were never heard from him, and couldn’t stop laughing, so that his face was buried under a thousand dry wrinkles. On these excursions, when he allowed himself no rest, slept barely two hours a day with no sign of exhaustion, his gaunt figure hid sometimes on a moonlit night behind a rock by a bend in the road, fell with loud shouts on entire caravans, which more often than not scattered before him; after stalking a solitary pilgrim for some distance, growling with fury, pushed him with a shout of triumph into the gorge; behaved swinishly to women and children in the little market towns. After a day or two he sat once more in his cave, earnestly showed his guests the chaps and chilblains he had acquired. He treated these outbreaks for the first few days as something holy, quickly resumed his old ways, the scholarly work, and woe betide anyone who reminded him of his derangement.

  These men had little influence on the others; they weren’t even very close among themselves. The others considered them dangerous eccentrics, not amenable to any common purpose.

  The vagabonds spoke furtively about Wang Lun in the overheated kitchens of the village. His prolonged visits to the sorcerer Ma No made them shiver. Everyone conceded that there was more to it than met the eye. He was on the run, persecuted, found nowhere safe. A hunchback who shared the same house as Wang thumped the table: “Something happened to this Wang in Shantung. He’s gone to learn how to exorcize ghos
ts and get his revenge on someone. There’s a fellow up on Liangfu-shan who has the demons of the whole province sealed up in jars.” Another agreed: “Ma No’s lived up there a long while. He knows all the mountain spirits. What does Wang want from him?” The hunchback: “I watched him at the mills once. He was swatting his hands about in front of his eyes. Why? He saw demons and wanted to crush them.” An old man leaned across the table and smirked: “He’s a scholar, is Wang Lun. He carries something about with him. What’s so strange if he can do magic? Who knows the one knows the other.”

  Thoughtfulness and resolve crept over Wang under the influence of his conversations with Ma No. He grew calmer. The walls and curtains that screened off something dark inside him fell away. He smoothed himself, mastered himself with the greatest stealth. The seesaw in him appeared only occasionally: in practical jokes that got on the others’ nerves, in hourlong spells of apathy with no cause; in transient spite, obstinacy. The older vagabonds knew that something holy lay behind the tricks he played, that it was no different from rolling around in a fit.

  Towards the end of their stay in Pat’a-ling, Wang stomped one evening shivering into the kitchen. He laughed, yelled, jumped about the room. In a drift of fresh snow, completely freshly fallen white snow, he’d found—they should just think, just imagine it—an enormous locked leather bag with the Imperial war seal; and when he felt inside it he had lots of round gold nuggets in his hand. He threw a black bag onto the table. Ten smooth shaved pigtailed heads cracked together over the bag, a happy startled jabbering arose. One of them grabbed, and had coaldust up to his elbows; another felt carefully inside, with the same result. And so with two more. They stared puzzled at each other in sheepish silence across the table with the oil lamp, blinked at the tall figure of Wang lounging calmly by the brickbed, looked from one to the other and back again, shook the coaldust from their hands. A fat albino lifted the bag to his ear, shook it, listened. The four who had felt inside the bag shoved forward and laid their heads against it. The albino put the bag down on the table, shrank back, said without looking at Wang, “He’s right. Wang’s right.” He was so confused he didn’t do what it occurred to another of them, the hunchback, to do: namely, without touching the bag, ask Wang to show them the Imperial seal and check whether it was a seal of Ch’ien-lung or of some earlier emperor. But what if he didn’t feel like showing it to them. If he still had something to say to them about the seal, and about the gold nuggets. They were startled, very startled, of course they were; he was too; but they’d listen gladly, and tell the others.