The Three Leaps of Wang Lun

by Alfred Doblin

  “So, the Changkya Hutuktu didn’t feel quite secure in leaving you and me alone?”

  “Your Holiness doesn’t know Ch’ien-lung. In one respect I haven’t aged a single year: in my delight in fine, bright summer weather. On such days I feel only Heaven above me, and I’m convinced that It means well with me. Paldan Ishe, on such days Ch’ien-lung needs no advice; today he’s brimming with happiness because the flower of the snow country is here to share it.”

  “I doubt what use I can be to Your Majesty. The sun and bright days are lovely, but they’re superfluous. I hope Your Majesty won’t say such things to me.”

  “What should I say to Your Holiness? Should I begin like yesterday, and drag the unease of my night into this lovely day? You’d look at me with sympathy but would urge, ‘Good, good, more, more!’ Because you don’t want to understand that old man as I am, I cannot learn new wisdom. It’s a lovely day; I sincerely regret not being able to receive the wise Hutuktu. Let you be sole instructor, Panchen Rinpoche.”

  “Where a river undermines its banks one does not lightly erect a pagoda.”

  “I wish, Panchen Rinpoche, that the Hutuktu were with us to hear you. Aren’t you a murderer in your sympathy for me, in your desire to save me? I praise this day that sets me on my feet and makes me happy again after your harsh ‘No’ of yesterday. But the sun mustn’t shine and the larks mustn’t sing, because for you they’re superfluous. You don’t know, Panchen, what you mean to me, how I waited for you these last months! The sight of you in the garden made me tremble; it affected me as if a sort of judgement were closing in on me. I was mistaken, and shall act as if I’d merely received a visit from the ruler of Tibet, who is about to offer me inordinate quantities of presents.”

  “Beat against me.”

  “I shall remain as I am, unaltered. My forefathers thought as I do. We worship you without having the strength to follow you. Yes, there’s an icebreath about your teaching.”

  “I have prayed for you to Amithaba. If I thought I could kindle that little light that bums in you, then forgive me. Be the poor little man Ch’ien-lung, Emperor of the Middle Realm.”

  “I am ruler of the greatest empire in the world, and I do not want to change. I was born the Son of Heaven and shall die upon the Dragon Throne.”

  “If you won’t rue this lovely day and if it won’t darken the sunlight for you, I should like to ask Your Majesty about the things that troubled you yesterday. Why did Your Majesty’s troops drive those thousands of people into the Mongolian town where they met their end?”

  “Those people were rebels, Paldan Ishe, who calumniated my dynasty, founded a kingdom of their own in my northern province. They had a mendacious way of putting into practice the holy Wu-wei, the non-resistance of Lao-tzu. Instead of tending fields, raising children, they roamed the countryside; begged, seldom prayed, yearned for the Western Paradise. Because they claimed to have acquired supernatural powers through their union with fate, thousands of honest men and countless women streamed to them from every side. My officials couldn’t simply stand by and watch. They tried to disperse them. Some sections of the population also found the movement threatening. And this was the beginning of their end.”

  “I am not yet clear as to the beginning. But the end I know: Ch’ien-lung has grown uneasy. Who thought it a good idea to attack the sectarians? They themselves, as Your Majesty remarked, attacked no one.”

  “The name of the mandarin was not made known to me.”

  “That has nothing to do with it.”

  “This is no crime, Your Holiness: to drive men who’ve abandoned wives and children back to their homes, to whip sons who’ve forgotten the service of their ancestors back to a sense of duty. Fields must be ploughed, sown; taxes must be raised for the upkeep of the commonwealth. When wives, who should be a shadow and an echo in the house, run about with sectarians, then they should be made to kneel on little chains. Immodest wives and concubines who leave their homes to do whore’s duty among people who shamelessly call themselves ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ should be punished according to the custom of the region: buried alive, sewn into sacks and drowned, killed with eight cuts.”

  “All this is right. I say nothing. I cannot understand how such a splendid beginning could lead to such a lamentable end.”

  “No, Panchen Rinpoche, that remains a mystery. Criminals should be dealt with exactly as I’ve said. And yet it’s like a head that only now looked grave and dignified and suddenly twists its mouth and eyes like a tiger and roars. What is this head, Panchen Rinpoche? Why does it gape at me?”

  “Let it be, Ch’ien-lung. Put away your soul. I raise my sceptre. The Buddha Sakyamuni has unveiled the causes of existence and of your quandary. In the first light of dawn, Knowledge came to the king’s son of Kapilavastu before his mound. She knitted cause together with cause; I take the threads, loosen the knot. The sects wandered in darkness, sought Buddha and found him. You fell upon men and women. You have created a thousand restless ghosts. You have unnaturally prolonged the chain of their rebirths. No one can sleep when a thousand wailing, accusing ghost-knuckles rap by night on door and post. Ch’ien-lung, you must place cause beside cause.”

  “What must I do to break the chain? I know my ancestors disapprove of something here. But I can’t bring these people back to life. I didn’t know these sectarians. I’ll arrange sacrifices for them.”

  The holy man laughed. Reflectively he stroked the silken tassels of his breastpiece. “How utterly different lands and peoples are. Ten days journey to the east of Tibet everything has changed, and no one knows of the destruction of worlds, or of the cycle of birth and death. The Hundred Families you call yourselves: not even death shatters a family; your ancestors remain with you. How smooth, how polished, bowed in domestic comfort over the earth. A stick of incense atones for this plunge into the cascade of rebirths. A dish of butter compensates a soul for a millennium of prolonged torment. So, sacrifice to the ghosts of these dead in your own way. Erect wayside shrines for them. Spare the remainder of the Wu-wei sect.”

  “My head is empty, finds no firm ground. You want to help me, you want to help me!”

  “The day is lovely again. To be mild, to be calm; such is the hand that frees every bolt. Come to me, old man, find yourself before you die.”

  The old Yellow Lord stared before him. “The most reverend gentleman from the Mountain of Mercy has a soft, gentle way of loosening threads. I shall take sacrifices of atonement to my ancestors; I shall go to the tombs at Mukden. Contrive atonement for Wang Lun and his burdened adherents. K’ang-hsi, Yung-cheng wish it.”

  Ch’ien-lung straightened his back. The pope of the yellow church drew his rosary of bones through his right hand; his face was turned towards the Emperor.

  The Emperor was surrounded by the shades of his powerful ancestors. They pressed upon his highdrawn shoulders, they scrutinized their drooping descendant. The Emperor squirmed: these were K’ang-hsi, Yung-cheng, who should accept him into their quiet circle. Through their mist shone the bronzed frank visage of the holy man of Tashilunpo.

  In confusion and trembling the Yellow Lord tottered to his feet, stood before the stranger, pulled his silken sleeve. “You, Paldan Ishe, are the sceptre-bearing lama. Ch’ien-lung is afraid. Have you advised him well?”

  They had managed to follow the trail of Wang Lun the criminal for no more than a week after the events in Yangchou. He ran in broad daylight through western towns; no one dared come near him. This man of giant strength threw unsuspecting passers-by aside; superior forces he eluded by his cunning. He was last seen about the time of the first snowfall in Hochien, to the west of the Imperial Canal, outside the walls of this populous city.

  Since then he had not been seen in the northern province. Neither that winter nor the following summer was anything heard of Wang Lun. Even among the brothers and sisters there circulated only vague rumours of him. Ngo, the former captain of the Imperial guard, seemed to know the most of Wang’s
whereabouts; it was Ngo that Wang met outside the walls of Hochien. From him it was learned that Wang was alive; he conceded now and then in a hesitant manner that Wang would soon appear again, but as soon as talk turned to the founder of the Wu-wei sect Ngo fell silent, looked away and was despondent.

  Wang Lun had quit the northern province two days after learning from Ngo details of the Broken Melon’s downfall. The tale had travelled faster than Wang, who had had to lay up for a whole day. Lanky Ngo knew little of the circumstances; some of what he was told he forgot under the dreadful weight of the whole.

  When Wang stood before him, his face haggard, eyes bloodshot, transformed into a demon of revenge and battle, just brain and arm for his infamous Yellow Leaper, Ngo was so alarmed that Wang had to hold him fast by the jacket.

  They walked along under the wall. In a broken prison cage used by beggars as a night shelter they sat while Wang waited for Ngo to calm down. Then Ngo answered his questions, softly, flinching at the sound of his own voice, several times asking, “What is to become of you, Wang?”

  Ngo was able to give some account of the turmoil that night in the Mongolian town, the attempts of some brothers to flee, deathleaps over the outer walls. He had more details of how the townsfolk entered the upper town at break of day. He knew the names of the leader of the former town guards and others, names of the exorcising bonzes. When Wang heard that not a single one of the besieged had survived the night he let out his breath, beat his breast groaning, sat there cast in bronze.

  Then, as gusts of wind scattered loose snow over them from the cage bars, Wang asked whose fate had been particularly commented on.

  Ngo wouldn’t speak at first, related some incidents without being able to attach names to them, described how lovely Liang-li had been found still alive. He talked himself into a state of agitation and ended plaintively with Ma No’s death.

  A piercing howl broke out from Wang; he grasped Ngo tight, blocked up his ears, turned away.

  He ran from the cage through soft snow under the wall, pursued by Ngo. Wang howled without stopping, flung himself to the ground, beat the earth with his fists, pulled himself up. Finally they ran one behind the other to a little elevated spot. The screaming, drooling man sat down in the snow, raised his sword with both hands, swung it steadily through the falling flakes from right to left, from left to right. He lowered it, moaning kissed the blade, cast strange looks at puzzled Ngo. He rolled over the ground, down the hill, painted a long crimson streak in the white snow from his bloodspurting hand, slit at the wrist. Ngo fell to whimpering; he shook the man, heaved him up, pressed snow to the wound, pulled Wang along, who twisted his head with its contorted face around in circles, dragged the battered sword behind him with his right hand like a child his little cart.

  Close by a gate Ngo felt himself grabbed by the shoulder; Wang pushed him away panting with a wild look, stood there heaving, looked as he threw away his sword at the wide cut on the palm of his left hand, repulsed Ngo’s endless whimpering. Ngo pulled a rag from his coat, bound up the red expanse. Quickly Wang made off without a word, without a backward glance.

  Next day the gentle snow flurries ceased; through a dazzling landscape shimmered the tinkling of sleds, happy laughter. The plain outside the gate was flecked black with strolling men and children. Under the wall Ngo and Wang squeezed past the beggars who lay in rows displaying mutilated limbs, shovelling from tubs the dogrice that welfare organizations gave them. Beyond the prison cage it was quieter. They continued, not speaking, along the foot of the wall.

  A pipeseller, a tall fellow, walked past them. The bamboo tubes he carried on his shoulder grazed Wang on the neck with their whitebrass sumps; Wang started and turned round. He cast an evil look at the hawker, who continued unconcerned over the snow. On the elevation they had climbed during the snowfall a throng of children stood, boys in bright caps; a tambourine jangled. In the circle of children leapt a man with a chained black bear. The man shook the furcovered frame over his head, on his back, twirled about. The bear walked gingerly around him, upright, tried to touch the man’s shoulder with his forepaw. The children screamed.

  Wang, relaxing visibly, said that the news of Ma No’s fate had affected him more deeply than he’d have believed. It was like a rockfall he’d seen once in the gorges: two survivors had sat there and laughed and laughed. It was just like that with him. He spoke some more in this fashion, in an unnaturally calm matter-of-fact tone.

  When Ngo, whose agitation was returning and who didn’t feel up to excitement, asked what Wang intended to do, the great beggar smiled a strange sad smile and looked vacantly before him. They turned back. And when they reached the top of the merry children’s hill, Wang hugged his brother and they walked arm in arm.

  It had all turned out so incalculably, said Wang; he had no desire any more to change things or bring anything about or do anything of any consequence at all. He led Ngo, who followed uneasily and didn’t understand him, along the hill to watch the beardance. At the sight of these ragged figures the children drew back in silence; the tambourine man pulled his sullen growling beast behind his back. The two men turned away with a dismissive gesture.

  Yes, he was happy, Wang continued. It was all incalculable, but finally Ma No had been proved right. He’d warned at the Talu swamp against using Yellow Leaper; it would offend against the teaching of non-resistance. Because he, Wang Lun, was of a different opinion they’d parted company. Then the calamity in the Mongolian town was conjured up. In the end the sword rebounded on his own breast; it was useless to resist. Ma No prophesied his fate and he’d denied it.

  Ngo objected: what reason then was there for laughing and being happy.

  As much reason, said Wang, his eyes shining, as anyone has who’s suddenly been taught a fundamental lesson about himself, as if a skin has been peeled from him. You feel content. You feel ground beneath your feet. You know where you are with yourself.

  Wang was clearly too distracted, elated, diverted left and right to speak much. Later he chattered, but such strange trivialities that Ngo was astonished. Wang showed interest in the sleds, made fun of the tottering ladies and the fops swanking along in their wake, told tales of swindles. Ngo observed how Wang’s exhausted face took on new, astonishing features. A peasant joker, another man with another voice, shambled beside him.

  On a sudden whim of Wang’s they sat down with a couple of beggar groups at the gate, threw dice with them. Ngo was alert for a peculiar gesture, a look of pain from Wang, but Yellow Leaper’s guardian seemed ever more at ease among these greedy, idle, filthy riffraff. He was cheerful and relaxed, spread his limbs, paid no attention to Ngo.

  When he took onto his lap a grimy creature, the common property of the beggar band, Ngo stood up in disgust. In gnawing confusion he slipped off towards the gate.

  At the entrance Wang and the girl caught up with him. Both were shaking with laughter. Wang had told her how the captain had left the Emperor’s service because of a catamite. The girl was ready to break up in her delight at the crazy fellow and squealing she asked Ngo the boy’s name, at the same time touching her index finger to her forehead. Ngo strode quickly into the town. He heard Wang call behind him, “Farewell, dear brother! We’ll meet again in the Western Paradise,” and jostle the gate guard to amuse the girl.

  After these events the brothers lost sight of him entirely. Ngo kept quiet about the encounter. When the Imperial decrees appeared, and Wang Lun from Hunkang-ts’un, Hailing, Shantung was promised total amnesty and toleration for his doctrines, the former leader of the sect was settled on his smallholding in the Lower Reaches, went fishing with cormorants; his wife knew him by the name of Tai. He was a shrewd man, respectful to the magistrate, comradely, not quite dependable in his dealings. In matters of the spirit he did as all peasants do: prayed to the gods who promised him the greatest advantage. Of all the migrants of the past few years come to strengthen the Great Dyke against spring floods, Tai was the most esteemed.

 
Within a few weeks the prefects of districts and towns in Chihli and Shantung learned how strangely the outrage in Yangchou-fu had affected the Yellow Lord.

  Further persecution of adherents of the sect was prohibited simultaneously by the Board of Rites and the civil and military authorities. An Imperial edict to the Tsungtus and prefects of the circuit revealed how completely the highest authorities had changed their attitude towards the movement. Magistrates and literati in the western part of Chihli were punished with severe fines and demotions for having submitted false reports on the nature of the sectarians. The Court of Astrologers in the Vermilion City let it be known that the outrage in Yangchou had resulted in difficult constellations for the Yellow Lord.

  In literati circles, in the temples of Confucius, the thunderstruck sat together. One thing was certain: this change of attitude on the part of the Emperor dated from the visit to the Imperial court in Jehol of the Lama Paldan Ishe. The irregular provenance of this deviation from the heresy laws was remarked on: no indication of memorials from the Court of Censors; the Astrological Bureau had brought up the rear, so the initiative hadn’t come from that source. “Lamaism at court”: that old pregnant alarm call roused the conservative elements; they stirred themselves. Whispers circulated of the old ruler’s gloomy disposition, of an abuse of dark senile moods by mystical priests.

  Pogroms against the Truly Powerless erupted with extraordinary ferocity. The decree was made public in scarcely a quarter of the land, for form’s sake pasted up on walls overnight, torn down by hired ruffians. Embittered meetings, discussions, resolutions of the Confucians ensued. In western Chihli the first clashes occurred. In several places brothers were struck down and flogged. Often they scattered; martyrdom drew new believers.