The Three Leaps of Wang Lun

by Alfred Doblin

  The young woman, though worried for herself, followed him as he wished. She moved in with him at the charcoal burner’s that Nung worked for. The patient treetrunk of a man warned the youngsters, but they avoided him.

  Meanwhile the year was far advanced; the Isle’s inhabitants prepared for the Yü-lan festival, All Soul’s Day. Everywhere in the open, swings were set up on which bright threads fluttered. Faded leaves drifted down from the horse chestnut trees. Fresh earth was piled onto graves. The usual hearty feasting began. Women went along every path with catkins behind their ears, so as not to be reborn as yellow dogs. The men strutted down alleyways, sat in the teashops in gold-embroidered jackets and belts and played at dominoes and dice.

  Near the temple of the town deity lay the women’s burial ground; the women of the Broken Melon had their dead brought there in great state and compassion. As they flocked to the graveyard that festival morning—Ma No tolerated the observance of all folk traditions—some sisters came upon the young woman who was Nung’s beloved at the entrance to the burial ground, denied her entry. There were no harsh words; the sisters merely made it plain that she could no longer count as one of them since she was living with Nung as his wife.

  The sister ran back home in shame, told Nung, whose knees began to tremble, that her spirit when she died wouldn’t find a resting place beside the other sisters, cried that she’d been driven from the circle, that she couldn’t go on living so and must return to the sisters. Their host, the tall bent charcoal burner, heard her and growled, “That’s the way it should be.”

  Nung, left alone, occupied himself all day numbly at his coals and in the garden. At night he threw himself fully dressed onto the earth, left his face unwashed, ignored his rice bowl. He took himself one morning to the wall of the women’s graveyard and waited for the girl. When she came past in the rainy evening together with a brother (not having fallen into bottomless misery she could now breathe again), Nung set upon them, shoved the brother in the chest, dragged the shrieking girl behind him by the hair. Villagers ran, tore the sister loose, beat the man.

  Nung, on quite the wrong track, slid farther down it. The precious rule forbidding the possession of a wife was taken hard by many in the sect. Speaking openly of it with his many friends the day after the foiled assault, he drew them round to his way of thinking. Workmates from the village joined them. From their lair behind a willow grove, they sent a messenger to Ma No for a dispensation from the precious rule. The three Law Kings had the messenger thrown into gaol. Bent on possessing the young woman—she had fled to Ma No in the capital—during the next four days Nung gathered supporters among villagers, to whom he decried the king as intolerant and cruel, and among brothers no better than he. They congregated in the morning in the streets of the capital to force Ma No into conceding their demands. But the priest-king and his advisers gave Nung a warning and told the men to leave the town and make their own way.

  So young Nung, grubby, barefoot, in ragged garments, stormed into the yamen that served as the king’s palace. Standing at the threshold of the open door with his unbound pigtail flapping down the back of his skull, he shouted into the dark chamber where Ma and his three Law Kings were sitting against the wall: Were they going to grant his wish or should he draw his bow. Answered by silence he sent the first arrow close over Ma’s head into the wooden wall, the second passed through the arm of a Law King, then he himself was hit from behind in the shoulder. The arrow wobbled in his flesh, Nung roared. Citizens in the streets had driven away most of Nung’s unruly companions, surrounded the yamen, penned him and a few others up in the courtyard. Nung, snarling about him, was set in the cangue and locked in the town gaol. The Law Kings sentenced him, Ma having brushed the matter from him with indifference, to death by slicing.

  Nung knew his spirit was doomed. He played the part of a demon eager to reach the nether world, reviled brothers and sisters he passed on the way to the execution ground, mocked the father he had sacrificed himself for, and at the block was so scornful of the holy sect that the executioner could not carry out the sentence of lingering death, but at the outraged crowd’s insistence strangled the impenitent man.

  There followed the severe punishment and expulsion of the brothers who had taken part and their accomplices. This disturbance and the loathsome raving symptoms that accompanied it erupted over the Broken Melon like a grievous misfortune. It seemed to many sectarians that as a result of this affliction they were condemned to tear themselves apart. Many crept about dejected, thought of desperate flight to the surrounding countryside, were forlornly weary of life. Others looked on the disturbance as a purifying process unavoidable in a young cause, consoled themselves and each other, tried to look on the bright side.

  The marketplaces of the villages and the capital witnessed emotional scenes. In the courtyard of the king’s yamen this event occurred repeatedly: a two-wheeled cart drove up, a lady struggled out, tripped to the gong next to the steps and threw herself to the ground. She knelt in front of Ma or one of the Law Kings, denounced home and family and then cursing, in front of all the onlookers, laid one after another on the steps all her bracelets, necklaces, rings, feathers, pulled off all her painted silken garments, ripped underclothes into long shreds, let her hair be loosened by the sisters who embraced her.

  When Ma was present at such scenes he covered his eyes with his left hand. Sometimes when the gong clashed he rushed out even before a messenger called him, and sought around the yard amongst the fervent people. He sought Wang Lun and Yellow Bell.

  When a month had elapsed since the founding of the kingdom a festival was held in the capital. This festival has been described many times; poems were composed about it; even Ch’ien-lung alluded to it in some later verses. Almost everything we have is a phantastical distortion of the event.

  All work, even military duty on the border, ceased for six double hours. Trumpets blew in the morning on the streets of the capital. They were deep, dreadful, jolting blasts devoid of music, piercing screams of frightened shades, cries for help from the dead to the living, uttered with increasing force so that it seemed the blaring would at any moment become corporeal and fall damply around the shoulders of passers by. The blasts approached, receded, emanated from all around; it seemed the town was surrounded by them.

  From the back streets emerged creatures in strange disguise. They appeared from nowhere, sprang from the earth under the noses of the spruce strolling citizens, flitted past the houses, crouched down in front of sedan chairs and dumbly blocked their progress. There was sudden laughter when the apelike brown and black creatures jumped onto the shoulders of sober men, crossed skinny legs on their breasts and, satisfied, with a loud bleat grasped a low gable end and swung free.

  In the main street, called Yellow Beam Street, citizens promenaded. Brothers and sisters took over the empty market square and began to make soft music. The fine shrilling sounds of yüeh-ch’in strings rose with a hypnotic sweetness and monotony into the autumn air; the shuang-ch’in, the octagonal guitar, joined in: a chirping, then regular, abrupt chords that formed a chain of golden links, scattered like grains of rice on the soft ground.

  While the voices of the sisters swelled and faded in accompanying song, sober promenaders, climbing bowing from their chairs, transformed themselves into playful blue and red Pekinese, ran at the others on all fours, romped on the roadway and howled comically at the festive music. Here just now a couple stood in polite conversation, leaned shoulder to shoulder in front of a shop; all of a sudden one collapsed, pulled a turtleshell over himself and waddled off. The music continued unperturbed. Bamboo flutes blew; as the poem says: The notes drew themselves out, supple as silken thread.

  In the streets jugglers, athletes, conjurers, grotesque masks twirled in and out. Clacking, twanging, nasal hornblasts. A lean queueless man, made up all in white, in a long, narrow white gown with a black sash, squatted low on his stool. Around him crouched three grown white tigers that he held by plain co
loured leashes. The beasts stretched, scratched the ground with their claws. Suddenly there was a scream, a tumult of people. The tigers made off with great strides, pulling the white man behind them by the leashes. He half flew through the air, his mouth a circle in his fear. They scrambled up to a tiger column at a street corner, sniffed, sat down one beside the other, stayed calmly sitting when a couple of bold youths shoved through, gently patted backs and bellies smooth, their legs tucked in, until they formed a wide white blackdappled tableau of paper in front of their whitepainted master with the black sash, who sculpted his uncannily mobile mouth very slowly into a crooked snout and set one cheek twitching violently so that the flesh seemed to laugh.

  While jugglers waked on stilts standing unsupported in the air; athletes balanced bellhung pennants on their teeth; swordsmen lunged at each other in mirrors booths, struck off hands and heads, ran bloodthirstily about with flapping hands in their mouths and outside bowing graciously collected money, there a sly young fellow in a tall red cap sat peering into a wooden cage pointing all the white at the little polished chest inside; a canary trilled in front of it and at his master’s call opened a tiny casket with his beak, took out and brought little messages.

  Puppets, marionettes danced on smooth boards before inoffensive country people who had strolled into town with their crude fans and bamboo parasols. They gawped at the bunting-draped stands where trained mice and rats crept over carpeted steps, little ladders, ran in pairs in treadmills, jumped through flying rings, pushed mallets against tin gongs.

  A wild commotion encircled roped-off spaces in the markets. Behind the ropes stood heaps of little earthen pots with slits. In the middle of these stockpiles crickets were set to fighting, excited bets were placed on the little creatures.

  Every spirit from whom something good could be expected was served in the houses and little temples with offerings and incense; menacing the gongs pealed, drumrolls crashed; the town puffed itself up, with one breath blew evil spirits and hungry and demons from itself. On the doors hung long red scrolls with supplicating figures, messengers bore good wishes from clan to clan. Endless, restless, whipped-up bustle. Sombre dramas were performed in the great teahouses and pleasures houses.

  On this day the brothers and sisters were allowed every luxury and pleasure. In many houses they shared the family feast. The more sharpwitted sat in public places, in front of temples, beside them great quantities of rice in bowls, tea, ginseng, noodles, dumplings, told their audiences wonderful stories and played host. The younger, well-formed sisters donned bright expensive silk brocades, gifts from propertied townsmen; their faces were beautifully made up; they played in the theatres, performed strange dances, in the painted houses went willingly around among their working sisters.

  Afternoon came. The stallholders, jugglers, hawkers cleared the marketplaces. On tsu-lands at the edge of the town, where inside the walls a spruce wood advanced on the houses, a square prominence had been leveled off. Here where the little dark temple of an ancient virtuous mandarin crumbled, the brothers and sisters of the Broken Melon were to come together. Again the trumpets screeched, ever louder, ever more urgent. The streets emptied, the terrible sounds echoed on the wind, no salvation, no compassion; the town immured behind hard walls of stone.

  Against this black backdrop of evergreens the future of the brothers and sisters played itself out. On the town slope, facing the trees, the sectarians sat in long rows; behind, above them townsmen and innumerable peasants. They thronged the flat roofs; their fans and parasols waved from upper windows and doors. Confused shouts, dense buzzing; from the town isolated squalling gongbeats; over everything the black muteness of the spruce wood. In the blue sky white cloud traces.

  The ground began to shake. Horsemen broke through the trees in a long line; looming in a thundering gallop they approached the flat hill facing the town slope, separated into two squadrons, leapt at one another. Some of the onlookers quickly noticed that one troop bore the accoutrements and weapons of an Imperial Banner regiment; yellow with border, led by an officer of high rank, lancers with bamboo lances yards high and triangular field ensigns. From the rooftops the genuine breastshields of the officers—leopards and bears—were pointed out; some called out that these were captured weapons and uniforms, many shouted exultantly that the riders themselves were booty; they were all prisoners from the frontier; there was excitement at the fate of these men. It was in fact a captured Imperial company. The other riders in simple peasant garb: straw hats of enormous circumference, straw sandals, grey tunics; armed indifferently with swords, scythes, flails. They outnumbered the Manchus perhaps ten to one. At first they mingled soundlessly, separated, thundered at one another more menacing, yelled curses as they rode by, then all of a sudden the peasants stormed the enemy and drove them to the wood, where more mounted peasants were waiting. Jubilantly the flushed riders swarmed over the field, brandished their swords, ran beside their mounts and swung themselves with a handspring into the saddle.

  Into the midst of their riotous cavorting burst the Manchu prisoners. Now from the ranks of seated brothers twenty, thirty, fifty thinly clad men jumped up, seemed to ask something of an abstracted Ma No, who paid them no attention, then of a Law King, who after a few words nodded assent. These were brothers who offered themselves as fervent sacrifices, who could no longer contain their souls. Quick as lightning they tied up their queues, ran among the peasants; they held fast to the bridles of the horses. Again the troops mingled without contact, but the brothers snatched at the Manchu lances; some of the runners were struck by hooves and lay writhing on the field. Shrill calls from windows and roofs vibrated over the field and echoed back from the wood; parasols, caps, sashes and scarves were waved; horrified cries could be heard from men who lost their footing in the excitement and tumbled down steps. Women shrieked, clamoured for the enemy. The noise of the throng thickened to a wild roaring that flowed down like a deafening fog into the field.

  Now on opposite sides of the square the two hosts halted. The Banner troops had drawn themselves up in a circle; the Manchus gesticulated wildly and called to one another; mocking laughter and quarrelsome words. Two pulled their horses side by side, threw away their lances and wrestled each other from their saddles, crashing to the ground and rolling. As roars of abuse dinned from the town like iron bars poked into a cage, some turned ragebloated faces to the town, set themselves firmly in the stirrups, brandished lances ready for hurling.

  The brothers ran over the field, quickly pulled the trampled bodies clear, danced unarmed, bareheaded, barefoot in the pelting forefending “No, no no!” of the onlookers towards the waiting Manchus. The foremost of the brothers leapt at horses, sought to relieve the manbeasts above them of their lances; they were driven off with kicks and blows. When they grabbed bridles, making the horses rear, the two officers issued curt orders; the closepacked square dissolved. Manchus of gigantic strength lifted brothers by the throat like buckets by the handle, slung them at the gallop in front of them and rode over them. None of these onrushing men now recognized the others; they threw themselves, hung with their lances, far over the heads and manes of their straining horses.

  A raging blood thirsty murderous horde, mouths, lungs, throats, arms, staring eyes, horsefoam rushed down on them; the thousand fold feverish howling from the town broke suffocatingly on their shoulders. Flashing of swords, creaking flails, long drawn groaning of the speared, axes flying through the air, brothers already dreaming, peasants at their work, death rattles, neighing, dumb grimaces, iron hands from saddle to saddle, sweat, dust, wet blood in blinded eyes, arrows from the town. At the windows of the houses, on the roofs, on the town slope faltering sobs, breathless gasps, outbreaks of fury, embracing, fainting. Then none of the Manchus was left seated on his horse.

  One of the Law Kings, bent over his knees, gave a signal. Drums rolled in front of his place; behind the dark backdrop the blare of trumpets swelled; great swarms of ox carts drove creaking over the field. Th
e battle was over. The field was cleared, horses herded together.

  An hour passed; breathing became easier. Gratification lay on the faces of the citizens. Then on the flat hill that lay like a stage in the middle of the field calm peaceful music began to play, a melody that drifted free and always returned. Bamboo tubes and panpipes took it up gravely, cymbals rustled frequently among them and the bronze bell rang; castanets accompanied. A long procession of sisters after a while, sumptuously adorned, with long fluttering red ribbons on snugfitting cloth headdresses, walked out among the men; the silk of their overgarments scraped; they swung rosaries, magic swords and placated the irate spirits of the field. They ranged themselves in front of the hill; faces turned from the town they sang to the orchestra.

  All the brothers, sisters and townspeople listened enchanted to the singing and let sweet melancholy smooth down their souls. They were attentive to the music; few, lowering their eyes in delight, recalled the clangorous tumult just past. Hands were unclasped; they sat with their backs to the field, rested their heads. Softly the bronze bell was struck.

  There was a shout; those lost in thought sat upright. Masks approached the hill. A new play was beginning. Murmuring arose among the brothers and sisters on the town slope; the words travelled upwards. It was the Eight Immortals who approached.

  The brothers who played these figures had not disguised themselves in detail; some wore threadbare clothes under the face masks and emblems and walked barefoot. Climbing up the hill were old men, with tin clasps around their foreheads instead of a halo.

  Chung-li Ch’üan, the whitebeard, held an enormous wooden sword, the other end of it borne by two small boys. An old bent woman fanned him with a fan as big as an unfurled parasol. The old man had obtained the elixir of immortality; he appeared in many guises, he could walk on water; he took his fan and his sword everywhere.