The Three Leaps of Wang Lun

by Alfred Doblin

  Bent over himself, Ma concealed his cold face in his hands. And he concealed from himself that softly, sharply, he hated them, with a twitching unearthly pain that he could feel behind his breastbone. “Wang Lun,” he groaned. Ma No saw him as the others did: mythically large. “Wang Lun, Wang Lun,” whimpered Ma No. He felt unclear things stirring in him, Wang Lun could straighten everything out. What terrible journey was that- to Shantung, to the White Waterlily, and he didn’t come, and he didn’t come back.

  And he was coming back too late. Where was it heading? They had all grown calm and bright, with a peculiar kind of hopefulness. He had come to nothing. His golden Buddhas, the thousand-armed crystal Goddess were dragged along behind him in their cart like a meal from which he never ate. In his daily toil for the brothers was no absorption, no self-subjugation. His feet no longer trod the four steps of holiness: now caught by the current, born again, never born, Arhat, Lohan, sinless worthy, yeah, regarding with the same eye gold and clay, sandalwood and the axe that will fell it. Nothing, nothing more of the Paradise where they shrink from each other, spirits of the finite light, the unconscious, those who feel no pain, the dwellers in nothingness, and those who are where there is neither thinking nor not-thinking. Silent and mild the golden Buddhas sat before him on the Nank’ou Pass, earlobes extending to their shoulders, blue hair knotted over round foreheads with the third eye of enlightenment, distant gazes, radiant, almost evanescent smiles on protruding lips, squatting on slim round shanks, feet turned soles up like a child in its mother’s womb. Nothing more of that. And nothing of Wang, of calm, serenity; he took no part in the growing Circle of Piety. Nor in anything else.

  Tomorrow they would celebrate the Perfection of glorious Sakyamuni.

  Ma No removed his hot shaking fingers from his face, laid hands together on his breast, placed his fingers in the holy mudra position, sent himself into a trance in the sweet dark summer night.

  He got up, struck a light for his paper lantern, went into some of the men’s huts and said with rigid composure that tomorrow was the Day of Perfection of Most-holy Buddha; they must build a barque to celebrate the Blessed Traverse. As he walked across to the women’s camp, a confusion of bright lanterns moved swiftly up the other hill, where piles of planks lay that the men had not used for building huts. Twenty paces from the first of the women’s tents Ma No came to a halt on the slope, swung his lantern, said very softly as three women ran up to him that tomorrow was the day of Sakyamuni’s Perfection; the brothers would construct the barque of the Blessed Traverse. He bade the sisters think on the succouring Goddess of the Traverse.

  In the morning conches blared from the men’s hill: five notes. With thin ropes they hauled a long, crudely built barque out from the darkness under the catalpas, pushed it carefully supported at the sides and stern down into the micanthus bushes, which the ship parted like waves. A long procession of girls and women emerged from the rough scratching stalks; at the head were young ones, bearing on upstretched arms a huge brightly coloured cloth doll. They thronged around Ma No’s tent.

  Ma stood in the open, silent, in full priestly garb with the sulphur yellow robe and sumptuous red sash, crowned with the black four-cornered hat, his head bowed, hands in the mudra position. The women with the doll knelt to him. A long time passed before he noticed them. They asked that his Goddess of rock crystal yield up some of her spirit to their effigy, open their Goddess to the light. Ma No seemed bleary; his voice was flat. He lay a good while in his tent, where they had placed the doll next to his Kuan-yin; he seemed to be praying. Then the women came in. One held a small wooden dish containing red juice with a stalk floating in it. Ma took the stalk, dabbed red spots: eyes, mouth, nostrils, ears. Now the doll could see, taste, smell, hear, had a soul, was Kuan-yin, Goddess of the Barque.

  Into the surrounding villages ten men and ten women went this day healing, working, helping, begging. There were long hours of prayer in the miscanthus fields, men in one line, women in another; Ma No in front of the ship. A handbell tinkled; all fell on their foreheads; the priest recited in a monotone; from time to time the congregation joined in. When the sun no longer shone directly overhead the men and women sat together around the ship with the bright Goddess leaning against its mast, and ate their midday meal.

  Storytellers went around, leapers and jugglers demonstrated their skills, a few former courtesans who had been making music in various parts of the valley came together; as they approached the barque, circling hand in hand around the Kuan-yin, sang the joyful Song of the Green Crag; from many throats, repeated many times, the fine sweet song rose over the low hills, echoed from the trees.

  Striking the ground rapidly with boards, they smoothed a heap of earth thrown up at the top of the women’s hill, invited a young eunuch and a large-eyed slender courtesan to dance. So the eunuch came out first onto the stage, visible to all in the micanthus field and on the slope of the men’s hill, with the limbs of a gazelle, gazing around out of proud enraptured eyes. He wore an ordinary loose tunic and flapping trousers of a black material; everyone knew he’d brought a great chest of clothes with him from Peking when he fled to Ma No. In this loose black garb, queue wound up in a knot, his arms now raised lightly, he danced.

  He went slack-kneed back and forth, sank down slowly until he sat on his heels, straightened again by fits and starts and brought his arms, palms turned outwards, more and more rapidly together above his head. Then he stood still, turned his face to the side so that his radiant smile could be seen, and with one leg placed in front of the other began to make strange movements with body and arms. He leaned far to the right, laid his arms together on his breast, leaned far to the left, gyrated his body; now, body held still, moved his arms so they fluttered, coiled, sought beside him. He swung his arms sharply round, and again they fluttered gently, coiled, sought. Now his little feet quickly placed themselves one before the other, tripping on the spot; at the same time the arms flew to one side, the movement being followed to the tips of the outstretched fingers. It seemed that the body was under a spell, sought in vain to run after hands, fingers. The movement of the feet became ever wilder, jerking, jumping, until the dancer managed with a great spring to the right, a great spring to the left to free himself from the spot, until he bounded high, crouched low in a joyful frenzy, sinking down to the ground on one side, and with a shake forced himself back to the spot. Now the large-eyed courtesan glided up to him, her low round forehead bare, black hair bound in the chignon of the thirteen braids, a plump well-shaped face, a long shirtlike tunic of light grey over her slender figure, at her ankles tongues of white protruding from violet leggings. In her left hand she held a grassgreen girdle.

  She began with brief head movements to both sides. Then came a nodding, lifting, a slow luxurious circling of the head. As the sequence began again the hands that had been hanging limp from tight pressed arms came into play, swung at first unnoticeably and then more strongly in front of the violet legs, lifted the forearms high. Both arms stretched: with swirling hand movements she jerked her hips abruptly sideways, and the movement was carried down to the legs. At first they were pulled along with the swing of the hips; then, infected, stimulated, impassioned they swayed to the left, to the right, paced, jerked, trembled in their own way. Strong thighs pressed together; calves weaved around each other, knees flicked apart, came together. Thus the girl leapt, girdle balanced on both arms, around the marked-off stage and the young eunuch who accompanied her in an undefinable rhythm of head and hand movements. They danced about each other, side by side. The eunuch sank to the earth, arms raised rhythmically, and slowly and forcefully pushed his tender body up from the ground; the courtesan stood stiffly over him, arms diagonally across her forehead. As he swung his arms one last time, she dropped onto her heels and, meeting her fingers from above with his own widespread, he drew her up. As if they were fishes they swam with straight fingers, outstretched arms towards each other.

  In costumes from the young eunu
ch’s collection, they danced for the insatiable audience the dance of the peacock feathers, of the red and black ribbons. Male and female were indistinguishable. As evening fell everyone began to stir. The barque must begin its voyage with the departing sun. The women squatted together in conclave; over their knees were long slips of coloured paper on which they scribbled their names and those of loved ones, inscribed spells against ghosts, diseases, ran to the barque and threw the slips at the feet of the effigy. Late in the afternoon the barque had been gaily decorated by the men with red paper, long pennants fixed at the mast, little sails attached to strings; it was studded with a thousand red eyes. In a dense crowd they all stood around the ship; the handbell clanged. Now fire blazed up, burning strips of paper flew onto the planks, over the deck. The crowd shrank back. The ship took fire at bow and stem; bright red flames flitted up sailropes, devoured sails, and all at once the rigging flared in dazzling light. An “Ayi” of awe; they raised their hands. The light died. The Goddess stood; the deckboards and the planks of the sides burned smokily, crackling, spitting sparks. The people prostrated themselves with ceaseless anxious prayers that the Goddess might take their wishes with her on her voyage. The smoke grew thicker, the cracking of the wood louder; the flames worked briskly. A whitish glow, whose brightness swiftly increased, sometimes subsided in order to spring cautiously up again, broke through the billows. The mast and the Goddess now stood in smoke; something calm, brown-black could be made out. Wider and higher the flames flared, writhed like clouds around each other. They trickled like thin sand between the seams of the planking, grasped with dripping hands at the beautifully carved oars, pulled at them like brawny sailors. The fiery pennants fluttered more gorgeous than red paper. Then the glow lost all redness. A white even light shone dazzling, and now—. Everyone retreated. Sizzling, blue steaming in a sea of white; long motionless lines of smoke above the glow.

  As the roar of the flames died away, Kuan-yin vanished. From all sides they pressed close around the barque through the thick smoke. The superstructure and the slips of paper were consumed; they poked gaily, vainly after bits of paper on the shimmering wood; the Goddess had set off joyfully on her Traverse. Conversing softly the people scattered.

  Night fell. On the hills, under the catalpas, in the moss, in the field of micanthus they slept. Through the irregular rows of tents a lanky man clambered carefully in the dark without a lantern, slipped a little way down the hill, pranced into the valley: he was the band’s night watchman. He walked through the pitch blackness, peered right, peered left, carried a little box in his hand. He called himself the “Twilight Man”; no one knew his proper surname. He was greatly esteemed in the band, this elderly man who had attached himself to them a few li outside Chengting. There were days when he was quite agitated, roared, ran behind the column holding a little metal mirror, barked at it like a dog, drove stragglers on, warned, pointed at his mirror yelling. Under his tunic around his neck a sword hung, woven from horsehair, long and thin, its handle a piece of wood decorated with little tassels of hair; it was thought to possess great powers. In the box he carried the “King of the Left Side”: this was one of his shadows, which a base deceiver had once stolen away from him. The Twilight Man intercepted the shadow late one afternoon when it was playing tricks on him again, locked it up in the little box; if the King of the Left Side escaped, its triumphant owner would fear for his life.

  The man slept only a few hours each evening. He spent the night searching for one of his shadows, called Hai-ling-t’ai, which became visible only under special precautions in the thickest darkness.

  The Twilight Man went on tiptoe around the burnt-out barque through the bushes, bent soft stems aside, crouched down tensely watchful. Now and again a broad stem nodded; then he would grip it with his foot, feel it suspiciously, keep watch. As the night advanced, he heard immediately behind him a shout: “Twilight Man, Twilight Man!” He stayed rooted to the spot, felt for his hair sword. After a silence it came again, testily: “Twilight Man!” He got up, strutted, head hunched between his shoulders, after the voice. Hailing-t’ai wanted to negotiate with him.

  Glided into a narrow gangway between two rows of huts. There on a stick an uncovered lantern blinked; a little man stood in the gangway, called “Twilight Man!” It was Ma No that the old soothsayer was approaching. Ma No whispered to him to watch his hut tonight. As soon as dawn broke, he was to go in; Ma No had a little errand for the Twilight Man.

  While outside the peering about, the striking at the air began again, inside the event was consummated which decided the fate of those sleeping on the two hills and in the valley.

  When the Twilight Man saw a grey gleam in the sky he marched stiffly into the hut, where Ma No was lying on a sack of straw but quickly stood up. He embraced the old man and clung to his breast. The old man smiled menacingly over the bent head, waved his sword threateningly in the eight heavenly directions. The little priest mumbled, “Twilight Man, you will bring joy to your brothers. Go to all the huts and tents of the men and wake each and every one. Ma No asks them to assemble in the open place where we celebrated the Perfected Buddha. They must come at once. Before the sun rises, this poor brother beseeches them.”

  They crept down from the hill. Milling of lanterns between coalblack trunks. Chattering teeth, subdued voices, yawning, lame bones, pushing, tramping. When they stood in the open place in the valley, there was a wooden snapping and creaking. Disturbed by the jostling the remains of the barque collapsed. The half charred mast swished sideways, splinters flew, tore holes in lanterns. The men stacked up planks, squatted, waited.

  Ma No came in his torn bright gown. Behind him the Twilight Man swaggered solemnly; on his arm he brandished Ma’s clerical gown, sash and cap. When an elevated space was cleared for Ma on the pile of planks, his companion put the clothes down next to him, first stabbing with his index finger in the eight heavenly directions. Ma’s eyes were swollen and red, his bleached face bloated from crying, bloody scratch marks on hands and forearms.

  The multitude and their leader, the invincible sorcerer, sat dumbly facing each other, wall facing wall. Those sitting nearest looked at Ma’s sash. Their unease conveyed itself to those farther away. They roused him, called to him. He must speak.

  He stood up, turned his priest’s cap in his hands. He explained haltingly that for years up on Nank’ou Pass he’d served the golden Buddhas in vain. The man from Hunkang-ts’un appeared, and now he was on the right track. But Wang Lun had been away for months, he hadn’t come back, he wasn’t coming back, and if Wang Lun came back now, he’d be too late. That’s what he wanted to say to them.

  Ma No relapsed into himself. When he lifted his eyelids he looked out exhausted, from overlarge bleary eyerings. His voice sounded completely changed, soft, close, like the voice of an intimate friend.

  “What’s happened? Has someone hurt you? What have they done to you?”

  He repeated three, five, ten times that he wanted to speak to them, choked on his spittle, hunched his arms, turned aside from a lantern that someone held to his face, whispered, “Amitofo, Amitofo, Amitofo.” And then he cried out loud in a voice that cut to the heart, “I want to leave. I have no part in you, as you voyage across the foamy white sea. I wasn’t taken into the Circle of Piety. I must sacrifice myself for you, I know I must, because anything else is denied me. But this poor brother who is not your brother can no longer live. I want to leave. Curse me, or don’t curse me. Your poor brother is bound beyond salvation to the Wheel of Existence, and so weeps before you.”

  The men prayed. Clear heads were filled with deep dismay. “What do you want?”

  “You don’t have to lead us anymore. We’ll take turns.”

  “Be patient, Ma No. Wang Lun’s only two hundred li behind us.”

  “Ma, a demon’s got hold of you. Believe me, it’s a demon.”

  “You’re our brother. We’re no purer than you. You mustn’t despair. Stay here, stay with us, Ma!”

&n
bsp; “What do you want?”

  Ma’s agitation increased. Their calls did not reach him.

  “I want to leave. I’m bound to the Wheel of Existence. It will drag me through all the impure animals and plants. I shan’t resist, no, I shan’t resist any more. I’ve resisted fate up to this moment, when I heard the Twilight Man searching for his Hai-ling-t’ai in the field of micanthus. My shadow has been stolen from me. I wasn’t as clever as the Twilight Man. I haven’t a sword as good as his. I haven’t a box like him. I don’t keep such a good lookout. My shadow is not the King of the Left Side, I’ve lost my Hai-ling-t’ai too, and my Lu-fu and So-kuan and Tsao-yao. Whoever loses all his shadows must seek them or die. Forgive me, my brothers, for not resisting any more, for submitting to my fate. Not in silence, for I’m not capable of that, but groaning, howling, rending my flesh. I must go to the light that shines on me. Forgive me, my brothers.”

  The men sat there stupidly. Ma was cudgelling them. Most heads were lowered; they held their breath.

  “I’ve summoned you here before daybreak because on this day of the glorious Sakyamuni’s Perfection I want to have done with you. For myself I don’t want perfection, merely an ending. Your poor brother no longer believes in perfection for himself. He didn’t throw a slip bearing his name to the hundred-armed lady in the barque, for he has long known that she wouldn’t take him with her. Look at me, a man who sighs, and groans, and so—goes in freedom.”