The Three Leaps of Wang Lun

by Alfred Doblin

  They shoved against one another, hanging on his words, burst out powerfully with, “Ming, it was Ming!”

  They went about smiling. The smith called out as rain spattered the windows, “We need a wall, a white wall around Peking!”

  “Oh, why did the Mings die out? Why did the people desert them?”

  “There are still Mings alive, they say there are some on the Yangtze.”

  “Wang Lun’s supposed to be a Ming, that’s why the Emperor hates him so.”

  “That’s just it. That’s why he hides himself away. He knows why. As soon as the Emperor catches him, he’s done for.”

  “Or the Emperor’s done for.”

  “Wang Lun knows he’s a Ming and the Emperor is protecting himself.”

  A tremor appeared in Ngo’s delicate features. The young agitator and the teacher grinned. The old man winked at Ngo, shook his head. “They are right, and they are not right. Wang Lun is a Ming and more than a Ming.” Ngo’s eyes were shut in a reverie. “I should like to see Wang Lun soon.” “Yes, Ngo, we all need him.” Ngo sighed: “I’m not made for such deeds. If someone doesn’t take the load off me, I shall be the first to fall in battle.” Both the others lowered their heads too.

  The old man and the agitator separated from Ngo. They took part in the radiance of faces, pumping of hands, walking up and down, stumbling in the gangways. Scrapings, rhythmic footfalls, giggling permeated the muffled turmoil. In a side alley someone had lost his wits, was indulging in bizarre grimaces, puffing himself up, jerking his head. Two others strutted in front of him: “Make way for the Taot’ai!”, jostled those in front and at the sides, always pouncing on the one nearest them. He wore coarse sacking instead of a gown. On his smoothshaven skull he had placed a piece of gourd to represent a mandarin’s button. Made grotesque faces, strutted laughably pompous behind his runners, sat all of a sudden on a low wooden bench that he dragged from a pile, pretended to gallop off uttering shrill cries. A number of other men behind him tried to ape his movements, but for laughter couldn’t keep composure, tottered; until the galloping Taot’ai turned on his bench and with a swipe of his sabre, as it were, did for one of them. The whole assemblage rocked. Even the old sage had crawled onto an ornate cabinet and grinned down from it. The man who had been struck down grabbed the Taot’ai by the shoulders, aimed a punch at him. His neighbours joined in with enthusiasm. The rider defended himself, to roars of approval from the onlookers crept under his bench; then they overturned it and began to kick him. The old man screamed down from his cabinet: they weren’t to make him angry. They broke up slowly as the rider stood up and stared at the wall. They clapped him on the shoulder.

  The spokesmen of the organizing committee made their way to a corner of the low storeroom. The gathering seemed over. Conversations took place in scattered groups. Men came up to the delegates in the corner, asked for details of who was there, which guilds were represented, who would speak. The answer they got was: everyone should wait. All would soon be revealed. The whole assembly had convinced itself that Wang Lun must come. The golden word “Ming” rose from many groups. The din abated when the spokesmen and Ngo stood, pressed through the gangway, the old teacher climbed the steps. Gravity made itself felt. The old man spoke like one casting accounts. Again accusations were hurled into the crowd against the Emperor, the mandarins, soldiers. The Truly Powerless were representatives, offspring of the people, had grown from a movement that could arise only at a time of oppression; misfortune was their fate. And here bloomed the White Waterlily. United by the terrorism of the alien rulers, baseness of the mandarins: the Committee in Shantung would have reached the same conclusion. It had been decided that all should stand together and accept the decision of the Committee in Poshan. The land must be freed of the Manchu and the lying, deceiving officials driven out. “The Mings!” called two, three voices from the floor. The old man’s face became transfigured: yes, they must prepare again for the time of the Mings. As the Truly Powerless sought the Western Paradise, so friends of the White Waterlily and of Wang Lun must strive for the age of the golden Mings. Sadly he shook his head. Still they would have to wait, until Wang himself arrived, a week, two weeks more. Before then many misfortunes could occur. But Ngo was with them, and it was certain that in Peking itself Imperial troops would come over to them.

  The crowd stood stock still. The old man had got down from the steps. “No decisioon?” broke over him. The theatre lights were still burning. The names “Wang Lun” and “Ming” echoed. The mass became looser. They shoved in droves through the doors, across the bottomless streaming temple yard into an unpopulated side alley, into the rainwashed park that belonged to the temple. Several remained in the storeroom, banged windows tight, curled up on soft bundles and snored.

  Wang hastened to a little village near Hochien, inhabited now almost solely by his adherents and friends of the White Waterlily. Barely a week later he stood with eight hundred tolerably well armed soldiers behind the village. Solemn wrath, passionate disputes with his followers had preceded the enlisting of the Truly Powerless as soldiers. The transformation of these most peaceable of men—for none here had been provoked by direct attacks—into a mob of warriors ready to kill and ready to die was achieved with difficulty.

  Unopposed by Imperial troops Wang Lun marched on Hochien. And four weeks after Yellow Bell had sought out Ngo, three weeks after the gathering in the pawnshop, Wang threw his troops against the town walls. Gate guards, police were struck down, the occupying troops of the Imperial army first locked in, then driven over the walls with arrows; officials given mercilessly over to the rage of the populace. The great town fell unconditionally to Wang. People rejoiced in the streets. Wang’s soldiers had broken in like a pack of wild beasts: vicious under the violation of their souls, now truly vengeful. Victory meant nothing to them; they were spurred on to all their deeds for no further goal than to become peaceable beggars again, quiet artisans and labourers. Chao Hui could breathe again: the smoke was dissipating; now naked, jagged flames were breaking out.

  The morning after the seizure of the town Wang Lun and Ngo sat in the yard of the locked magistrate’s yamen. They sat in a wooden shed that petitioners had to seek out. The streets were noisy: jubilant shooting, gongbeats in procession. Wang, in a grey dangling unbelted smock, wide straw hat on his head, had one leg over the other. His voice had taken on a hard, bright military tone. When he laughed, it rattled and croaked breastdeep like the neighing of a horse. His eyes gazed firm, straight ahead, right, left, seeking, controlling; he adopted a highhanded tone that gave the impression he had found a secret way to order, decide, explain. He observed Ngo good-humouredly. “Do you still hold it against me, from back then?” Ngo replied with a black look from under his brows, smoothed his simple gown: “All past, Wang.” “You had cause, Ngo. It was a cold bath for me, what you brought me about Ma No. Couldn’t take it too well at first.” And then Wang gave such a loud, free, uninhibited yelp that Ngo was reminded of his laughter with the slut under the gate. “Belter skelter down the hill, through the snow, Yellow Leaper in the thick of it, had his fill. Nearly took my hand off. Ngo, what times they were!”

  “Yes, yes, fine times. Wang, I’ve not changed much since those splendid times.”

  “A thousand li, Lower Reaches, cormorant fishing calm a man down. Hey, what’s up, Ngo?”

  “Sorrow, Wang.”

  “I can see that.”

  “So.”

  “Are you reproaching me?”

  “Not at all, Wang. I can’t keep pace with the times.”

  “My soldiers have a better grip on them. Bow to hand, arrow in, let it fly. In between, just one thought: hit the mark! Anyone who thinks differently is no use to me, he’s too good for me.”

  “The Lower Reaches did you good. I envy you.”

  Wang sprang up, pulled Ngo up by the hands. “Ngo, careful now. Take care, think twice, answer. When I lead my Truly Powerless into this—raising bows, aiming, shooting, always
hitting the mark, am I doing right or wrong? Think twice, Ngo.”

  Ngo slowly shook his head. “Let go of my hands. I’m happy you’re here.”

  “That’s all very well. But—who are you? What am I to make of you?”

  “Let’s sit down. I haven’t come as far as you. I’d rather have gone with Ma No to the Mongolian town and drunk your poison. Then I could have stayed where I was and wanted to be. They were the flower of your league, Wang, believe me, those who fell in the Mongolian town. Yellow Bell’s taken another road, you’ve taken another road, so have many others. I can’t follow you. I stick by you and forgive you Ma No’s tragedy. But what’s coming now I don’t understand and can’t be a part of. I am a Truly Powerless, want to model myself on the Tao, stop struggling against fate, against the knocks that buffet me. I rode a horse before I came to you in the Nank’ou mountains, shot, swung a lance, a sword. What I suffered then and because I suffered so then, I sneaked away from horses and weapons and made my bed on your good teachings, teachings that are still so good. Being free, staying free, what can happen to me, what boy, what hopeless desire could torment me! You can hear it in my prattling: you didn’t deceive us. Our souls didn’t grub after riches, long life. Misfortune lit on us with a sigh; doorcreeping Misfortune, that adored, abused child, found a home with us. Wang Lun, the Lower Reaches can’t have taken all that from you. The rivers and the sea are so wild; the Great Dyke can’t hold firm; but they can’t have torn from you what is most certain, most immutable. I myself, Wang, helped with half a heart to prepare what has now come to pass. Yellow Bell told me: a sick man clings to the first thing he sees. But I know better now: it would have been better if we’d all fallen like the hundreds Chao Hui has already killed. That would be ten times, a thousand, countless times better, believe me, Wang Lun, please believe me, than for you to enter the city, slaughter, at best found a new kingdom that must soon become as bad as any other.”

  Ngo, his expression calm, regarded Wang from forlorn convinced eyes.

  The swarthy man was unmoved. “It’s good, Ngo, that you’ve spoken to me like this. I’ll give you an answer. A lot of my soldiers have said the same thing to me.”

  “Yes, answer, tell me. You’ll heal me if you speak like you did to the beggars in the Nank’ou mountains. After all you haven’t changed, it makes me calm to see it, the same old Wang Lun on whom all build, I built and still build.”

  Wang sprang up, sat again only when he started speaking. His voice was hard, relentless: “You know the Emperor issued an edict to have us exterminated. Who is the Emperor? What is it, this ‘emperor’? I know lightning, men killed by rivers, on the water, beneath beech trees; you can be crushed by a landslide, there are floods, fires, wild beasts, snakes. And demons. They can kill any of us. There’s little enough protection from them. What is this ‘emperor’? What is it founded on, this outrageous, shameless presumption of the Emperor to have us all killed? He’s a man like you, me, the soldiers. Because his ancestor, the dead man from Manchuria, marched in and conquered the Ming empire, the Emperor Ch’ien-lung has the right to slaughter the Truly Powerless and me. Does his ancestor’s deed put him on a level with floods, landslides, thunderbolts? You need to demonstrate the fact, Ngo. Until you can refute poor dead Chu, who saw emperors as intruders and mass murderers, I assert that they are the fate of the Broken Melon and the Truly Powerless. I’m not going to take poison of my own accord. I’ll send them packing to where they belong. Our league lives on soil that belongs to us.”

  “This is new, I’ve not heard this from you before, Wang. I don’t know if I can cope with it.”

  “You’d better, and fast, dear brother.”

  Ever more astonished, Ngo: “Quite right, quite right. What should I do? These are things I’ve said myself—to others.”

  Wang raised his hands. “So we agree.”

  Ngo, shifting, his voice unsure: “What does that mean, Wang—we agree? What are we agreed on?”

  “What do you want of me? Why must you press me so? Do I owe you something? Have I stolen something from you? The Emperor’s an intruder, so Chu said; you have to come to terms with it, Ngo. There’s nothing more to say.”

  Ngo rolled up his eyes; Wang’s gaze wandered over the empty yard. They were silent. Wang clapped his knee. “The others came to terms with it.”

  An eternity of silent waiting and glances. When a procession gonged past the yamen and Ngo, jumping at every drumbeat, looked towards the door Wang stamped to his feet in disgust, walked up and down in the plank shed, his face suddenly suffused with anger, planted himself in front of Ngo, rested one knee on the bench.

  “I don’t give a damn. You choose your own way. I don’t want to see anyone who has no faith in me. You for sure I don’t need; one less makes no difference. Forcing me to—Idon’tknoow what.”

  Gaunt Ngo got wearily to his feet. Clear face, clear voice: “I’m going now, Wang.”

  “Just what I mean. Wants to force me. But no faith. Not a trace of faith. What didn’t I give you all. I made you invincible, resccued you from—. And when I come at last nothing but white walls, planks. Questions, why why, why? It’s not enough for me to come and say such and such and such. It’s all to be paid for in ready cash, accounted for on five sides so nothing goes astray. Hah, I’ve got your measure, haven’t I?”

  “I don’t know who you’re talking to.”

  “To Ngo.”

  “Wang, I’m loyal to you. I ask because I am no insensate wall. I can’t go into this battle; I’ve fled from it. You gave me a few years of peace. Thousands are dead because they didn’t want to go back and now here you come, want to throttle me, one of those still alive, and I’m not even supposed to ask a favour of you.”

  “Favours, questions. Just let me hear one more ‘why’! You roused me to a fury once. Just keep on talking. Yesterday I took this town; we’ve been skirmishing these past few days. You were supposed to be easy on me. I say the Emperor’s an intruder. The Emperor Ch’ien-lung has no right to issue edicts against us. You have to understand that. He’s a hangman, he’s not fate. There’s nothing there to check over.”

  “I’m not checking anything over any more, Wang, excuse me, I’m still loyal to you.”

  “You’re still checking me over, you! You always doublecheck everything. I’m telling you everything so you know it too. That’s all. Now get this through your head:

  “It—was—not—granted—to—us to be Truly Powerless. It—was—not—granted to us. Now I’m going to squeeze myself dry for you.

  “Five times I dreamed about the Mongolian town. Then I realized. Yes, you’d better hear it all, just listen, don’t butt in. That’s why I fled to the Lower Reaches, that’s why I ridiculed you, kicked you out. I was wrong in the Nank’ou mountains. Fate strikes at us with its hoof wherever we appear. A Truly Powerless can only be a suicide. And they were, and I saw it in the Mongolian town and the Emperor’s generals saw it too. And that’s stupid, Ngo, and I can’t bear to see it, and that’s why I’ve come back, because I’m to blame and it can’t go on like this for ever. Everyone must be struck down, and all at once, and I with them in one heap. Yes, the Mongolian town was better, and that’s the way it must be for us, only worse.”

  On unsteady legs Ngo approached Wang, who spewed his words out at the wall of the shed, froth on his white lips, and touched his dangling arm. “But it can’t be true, Wang Lun, it can’t be true.”

  When Wang uttered a moan, Ngo let go his arm. Wang flung down his straw hat, sank back onto the bench, groaned. “It’s a shame, it’s a filthy shame.”

  He rubbed the back of his skull against the planks. His pinched rigid face stared straight ahead. “Go. I don’t want to know about you, Ngo. Don’t make me lose patience. Run away, Ngo, run away. I’m afraid for you, I beg you. Get away from here fast.”

  Ngo, confused, swayed on the wooden door like an automaton.

  As the door slammed shut behind him Wang’s fists drummed against the woodwork.
Blood pounded through the claws that ripped loose the bench on which he had been sitting, splintered and scattered it. He set bitterly to work on the flimsy hut, raged across the sunbright yard. “Villains, they’re villains here, scoundrels, assassins! I’ve fallen into a snakepit.” Ran his back, knees hard against the tottering, creaking structure. “Why don’t I kill myself?”

  Two hours later smoke wafted from the yamen windows; the two front buildings screeched, scolded, howled mouthfuls of flame. When they were about to break down the door it moved, opened from inside. Wang Lun rasped through the gap; sick bellicose glances: the yamen was to bum down, they’d better look to the neighbouring buildings.

  That evening a council of war convened in the Town God’s temple. Thirty men attended, twenty captains of the existing forces and ten from the town, representing guilds. Ngo appeared, invited at Wang Lun’s wish. The discussion, which lasted into the night, concerned the organizing of the young men of the town and how to arm them. Here for the first time proposals were aired for making Wang king. Wang Lun’s plan—to prepare for a direct assault on Peking after joining up with renegade Guards—was approved. A proclamation was to be issued: the Dragon Throne was to be regained for the Ming Dynasty.

  At noon next day, after the troops had finished their drill and wrestling practice, Ngo approached quickstriding Wang, who was wiping sweat. They walked through muddy side alleys towards the centre of the town.

  The former officer’s delicate face vibrated, became a shade paler: “I shan’t beat about the bush. I have to ask your pardon.”