The Three Leaps of Wang Lun

by Alfred Doblin

  Wang, fingers dismissive, not looking: “Work, Ngo, don’t talk.”

  “It has to happen. I’ve considered the whole matter, Wang.”

  “About the Emperor?”

  “About the Emperor too. I’ll stay by you. I shall ride to Peking with you. Who is to become king?”

  “What do you mean? Perhaps you, or—yes, a Ming prince from the southern provinces.”

  “Not you. Well then, that’s all right, Wang. I’ll stay with you. We’ll leave bygones alone.”

  Wang cast a suspicious sidelong glance. “You’ll ride with us?” “You think my tone a little flat, you mean. That’ll pass. I have a great desire to ride with you. To the northwest, Peking. We’ll break through the walls off the Vermilion City. I have a good idea of all the things we’ll need. Houses, walls, gardens, palaces—we’ll destroy them all. I hope nothing remains of the Vermilion City.”

  “Destroy it all?”

  Ngo, passionately: “I can’t ride with you unless you’re going to raze the Vermilion City, Wang. It must be razed; I’ll ride willingly for that.”

  “Well, well, as you like. It makes no difference. A few houses make no difference.”

  They turned a corner, stood in the marketplace in front of a little house which Wang had taken for his quarters. Wang narrowed his eyes, considering, then invited Ngo in. A woman came awkwardly forward. The two men sat in a smoky room on the mat, slurped tea.

  Wang after a pause, immersed in thought: “I’m still alive, as you see. The yamen burned down.”

  “Let’s not speak of that.”

  “Life turns like a millwheel. You never know which side you’ve got hold of. Now once again I’m—not burned.”

  Ngo very softly: “It’s like that for all of us.”

  “You can sob, rage, roar, if only you know where you are. Anyone could kill me and I wouldn’t know if he was right or wrong.”

  “I’m not to blame for that, Wang.”

  “What are they doing now, in the Lower Reaches? My wife, back with her family. She’ll know my name by now, won’t grieve much for me. That’s a blessing. But there’s something else in the Lower Reaches that comes years later and tells me I must return, because something in me is not yet ready. Always there are clouds somewhere, water, something undefined that years later remembers and wants me to return.”

  “Wang, did someone fetch you back?”

  “It’s all the same. I’ve come back. The position of the millwheel. Ma No hadn’t finished the business. Oh how I envied that man. He wasn’t a priest; he was much braver than me, though he never touched a sword. He did it all so quickly while I was running, seeking help, rousing up the White Waterlily. Shut up his band, suffered what I knew they would; then made the leap, founded his kingdom. It’s all happened already.”

  “We shall all perish and gain our Western Home.”

  “I’d like to go once more to Nank’ou or to Chinan-fu and remember.”

  Wang darted a glance at Ngo. “Or should I really try it? Who can tell beforehand what’s possible? Fish jump high and a moment later suffocate in the net. Perhaps Ma No wasn’t good-we have to bear arms, have horses, cities.”

  “Yes, well, you’re right, Wang. Clouds and water are bad luck. We need hopes.”

  Wang’s upper lip curled grimly. “It’s enemies I need, Ngo, must have. I’m not yet choking in a net. I won’t give the Emperor that pleasure. The Emperor’s the enemy. You don’t chase after the Western Paradise like going to the theatre. I thought too lightly of it. Our Western Home lies in the K’unlun mountains behind crags and ice, up above all clouds and water.”

  “Yes, that’s all good.”

  Laughter pulsed nearer beneath Wang’s voice. “The Western Paradise lies beyond Peking. We’re so many, that was our misfortune. If it was you and me and ten others nothing would have happened to us. We were thousands, and thousands are already dead, and the Emperor’s frightened of every shadow. Thousands from his provinces congregating, wanting to join the Wu-wei—that gnaws at his spleen. And it dines on my heart.”

  He let out a mocking, ringing snort of laughter. Cheerfully he poked wistful Ngo’s cheeks, hot under helpless eyes, sang out fullthroated through the house.

  In the battles that followed the adherents of Wu-wei were swiftly decimated. These Truly Powerless were the boldest soldiers, unable to resist their thirst for death. In the midst of battle Wang struck down the fainthearted. They fertilized the ground for the holy kingdom.

  Wang did not swerve. With cold assurance he proceeded. Except that on some days, when he seemed to slacken, he turned away bands of recruits without a reason, only to rescind the order later. A girl who saved his life near one village, by alerting him to a peasant who was aiming an arrow at him through a window, he kept at his side as the campaign advanced. No one knew if she was his lover. The pleasant, not exactly pretty country girl had a naive trustingness. Wang seemed surer of himself when she was near. This sentimentality aroused comment, but Wang explained several times that he had to do something for himself to get through the next few months; she was his amulet. But some were soon claiming he’d fallen for her. In those weeks no one knew rightly how to approach him: the wind blew now from this, now from that quarter.

  Six thousand men pulled out from Hochien under Wang’s command, horsemen and foot soldiers. And as they marched, hailed by peasants in the fields, northeast against a powerful division of Chao Hui’s forces they were joined by great streams from south and north.

  Wang Lun swung his hands in delight: “They’re coming like rats out of their holes,” as distant drumbeats drew near; “I spilled a glass of wine. Now every drop’s coming back to me. I’ve a great scaly dragon-body stretching a hundred li behind me. Until I find my nice warm cave!”

  The daring of their attack on Paoting was unprecedented. Hundreds of women, mostly sisters, mingled in the battle, shot arrows, urged on, threw burning brands, upturned pails of boiling oil. They ran with great black banners bearing the sign of the Ming up over trenches and defensive works. The Imperials had to throttle them, tear them loose limb by limb like lizards. As soon as hand-to-hand fighting started the battle was decided, the troops of Ili met their match. The fury was horrible to behold. The Truly Powerless fought like demons; their brutish appearance, faces made up like cats or tigers aroused horror. When the village to the rear of the Imperials suddenly billowed smoke, though no enemy detachment had been observed behind the lines, and shrill cries of women from the village rushed closer, the Imperials were crushed between two millstones and all but a few torn to pieces by cats, tigers and women.

  At the feast after the battle, instead of songs there were roars and roars of laughter. Men imitated the womens’ screeching, the women screamed, cooked and ate the livers of brothers and enemies, to ingest their courage.

  This human wave surged from the ground intent on rolling towards Peking. The core of Chao Hui’s forces lay north of the capital; it was no longer possible to bring them up before the Truly Powerless arrived. The Northern Residence had to rely on its Banner troops. Ch’ien-lung had sent emissaries to Chao Hui, to the Tsungtu of Chihli. These, unsuspecting, were intercepted by rebels, some of whom had not attached themselves to Wang’s main body, but on advice from the leaders of the approaching army acted independently to unsettle the northwest and northeast. The war differed in no respect from earlier rebellions. Each side outdid the other in atrocities; only the speed of the revolutionary advance, and the circumstance that everywhere the authorities were the first to be slaughtered, were in some degree noteworthy.

  The crucial link between the rebel army and the secretly rebellious Guards at Peking was forged by Ngo. The council of war had in fact urged that Wang should exercise his incomparable skills in this matter, but after some hesitation Wang declined. There was in general something subdued and dull in his manner, apparent only to those close to him, which confused some of the guild leaders. They could not understand why Wang, a look of gloomy bored
om on his face, sometimes turned his back on the exercising troops, handed command to one of the designated officers, and withdrew nervily with some others to a tent to smoke a waterpipe. He told his friends in endless yearning repetition about Ma No, what heights he’d risen to, a Truly Powerless to the very end. He kept to himself the certain fact that Ma had been killed by a common soldier, and stressed how quickly Death had carried them all away. Which of the Truly Powerless, he wondered, would now have the courage to endure what the brothers of the Broken Melon had endured. How incomprehensible, how admirable was Ma No’s certainty, right to the end. In such a vein Wang spoke often. And then he smoked his pipe dreamily. His little sweetheart had to play the lute to him, or sit there gawping at him. He wouldn’t allow her to be sent away; to the discomfiture of the leaders, Wang would even on a whim summon her in the middle of a council of war into the tent or house and have her sit there across from him.

  Ngo’s discussion with Yellow Bell took place unremarked near Peking, at the lovely tomb of the Fo-shou0 Princess, on the Canal. Ngo and the officer promenaded innocently among the people between the white trunks of spruce trees. When the avenue reached the marble beasts and statues of the Princess’ mausoleum, they turned back.

  Yellow Bell had not expected the speed and extent of the rebels’ success, but everything had been prepared by him both within and outside the Vermilion City. Eagerly he besought a meeting with Wang Lun. Ngo felt again the enormous uncomplicated certainty that streamed from the officer, its rays seeming more direct even than those from Wang.

  From Yellow Bell’s report Ngo discovered with what address he had made use of people. The opening of the two western gates into the Forbidden City had been a difficult task: the officers commanding the watch, both collateral relatives of the Imperial line, could not possibly be taken into the revolutionaries’ confidence. Yellow Bell had used their fondness for women to bring them both down.

  For an extraordinarily clever and beautiful young lady, from the house of a judge to whom he was related, had become close to him. The still unbetrothed girl, in a most uncustomary manner, had letters and books delivered by her maidservants to the taciturn, always grave officer; on excursions with her maids she managed, though otherwise cultivating the utmost reserve, to have her sedan chair come into the neighbourhood of Yellow Bell’s yamen, which did not escape his notice. The young lady, granddaughter of the judge, had been raised by him after the death of her parents in the strictest propriety, trained to an icy coolness. Since the lonely official wished to keep his granddaughter at his side to care for him, he had instilled in her from the start a deep aversion to young men. He had her carefully educated but kept apart from those of her own age, so that as she bloomed to a distinctive beauty only the servants of the household and five or six ladies and gentlemen were acquainted with her. She smiled conceitedly when she played with her dolls and pets, lived entirely in music, books, in respect for her grandfather.

  Yellow Bell, invited often to the old judge’s house and meeting her there, unsettled her. There ensued a more intensive occupation with dolls, a passionate absorption in philosophical works. She often thanked her grandfather unprompted for bringing her up so well. Her inclination towards solitude and lengthy excursions changed; she took her unconcealed pride on outings, looked from behind the veils and screens of her sedan chair at other ladies and felt a mixture of disgust, hatred and scorn. She admired herself in a little silver mirror left by her mother, regarded herself with delight and febrile excitement; she stroked her hair, kissed herself in the mirror, courted herself, yielded, rejected herself. She acted out reunions, partings before the mirror, breaking out in such violent sobbing that her maids told the judge, to whom she explained that she was mourning for her late mother who sometimes appeared to her. The old man shook his head at this, spoke of an absurd female whimsy and charged the maids to take her out frequently in boats, into the country, to the theatre.

  Most unwillingly she let herself be drawn into such liveliness; but the excursions soon transformed her into such an entertaining creature that the maids were able to make the happiest reports of her to the judge. The young lady practised her sharp tongue: she mocked everyone and everything in such a way that her companions had to laugh. It was strange how acutely the girl noted her maids’ coarse turns of phrase, how on their walks she observed and absorbed the earthy language of the common people, interlarded her cruel witty conversation with such handy vulgar crudities. In her grandfather’s presence she concealed such things or defended an expression that happened to slip out, so that he stroked his beard and laughed. Returning home from these excursions she kissed herself smugly and with warmth in the mirror; but then she mocked herself, scolded furiously, pondered deeply how curious people could be. She sat musing half an hour at a time and now suddenly really did mourn her mother, who must have been a quiet, good woman. She felt an urge to know something of the long-dead woman. She made some enquiries of her grandfather, but when he answered only with disparaging banalities she bothered him no more with it, but was offended and in secret honoured her mother all the more reverently. Under this feeling she moderated her behaviour, was condescendingly humorous on her outings, cradled herself in elegaic and pathetic sentiments.

  About this time Yellow Bell was a frequent guest at the judge’s residence. With a slight mistrust the girl occasionally engaged in conversation with him. He did not speak much, always with refined courtesy. He took little notice of the young lady; for lovely Liang-li from Chengting was dead, and he was bereft.

  Then the girl stormed in on the judge one day after a visit, asked him in future not to invite Yellow Bell, he had behaved shamelessly to her. To the astonished mandarin’s queries as to where, when, how, she replied: just now, by his whole manner. The man was only pretending to be sad and stem; he was cunning, she knew enough about men to see that; he was trying to represent himself by his manner in a certain light; she found his attitude impudent and would see him no more. The mandarin dismissed her complaints with vigour, but inwardly he was delighted to see his granddaughter so averse to men, and invited Yellow Bell only when the girl was not present.

  But when she observed her success she found that her resentment of Yellow Bell did not evaporate. In conversation with her maids she made it seem that he had fled from her—for a reason which she did not reveal; she came on the idea during their outings of pestering him, snaring him, taking it out on him. The idea of ensnaring him was particularly vivid in her mind: she imagined Yellow Bell as an eel that she grabbed by the head and dragged quickly over boggy ground. She explained once that the officer had insulted her mother; they must believe her; she hated him for it.

  The manifold girlish and often spiteful tricks that Yellow Bell now had to endure from her did little to disturb him. He wouldn’t have believed the old mandarin could have been so lax with his granddaughter’s education. Only when the barbs revealed some sharpness, he began to receive books about prescribed social conduct, and he noticed at the same time that the young lady was no longer present during his visits did he grow more thoughtful. This was the time when he first discussed with Ngo the beginning of the rebellion and was taking measures in the district around the capital.

  The tricks this strange girl played charmed and diverted him. He couldn’t deny that in the midst of his dangerous preparations he followed her games with a certain interest. Unmarried and belonging to no Peking clan he took his meals in various places, in restaurants in the city, when the weather was fine on the flowerboats, at the homes of friendly officers. The crowds in public eating places, the playful and suggestive conversation of serving girls repelled him.

  One day he noticed in an elegant restaurant an unusual liveliness among the guests, their bright laughter and chatter, saw three new waitresses, recognized to his horror the young granddaughter of the judge, who had been quiet for some weeks, and her two companions. She pretended not to see him, did not serve him, and then, darting forward from the swarm of
flirting gentlemen, asked brusquely what he wanted, her wild glance passing over his head. He ordered his wine; she despatched a waitress with kettle and cup, continued flirting as skillfully as if she enjoyed the company of young gallants every day, then suddenly took her leave of the surprised guests, to whom the host explained that she only came now and then to help out.

  Yellow Bell, gloomier than usual, returned there at noon on the following two days. On the second day he sat alone in a secluded corner of the restaurant. She flounced up. He ordered wine for himself and a lady. She stood stiffly at the table, bent down towards him, asked again, “A lady?” Then half fainting, her eyes extinguished, “Poo, poo.” And wanted to run to her chair, go home to vomit up her rage and shame, smash her mirror and cast herself penitent at her grandfather’s feet. But Yellow Bell held the sleeve of her green overgown. She trembled, cried; with beseeching whimpers, begging him not to do anything, sank onto the bench beside him where he spoke gently and amiably to her for a long time. Her carefully made-up face lay on the wooden winestained table top.

  At last she left, dragging herself away painfully, broken, her face slack and empty.

  The officer did not meet her again in the restaurant. Several visits to the judge’s residence were in vain: she did not appear. That he felt moved by this capricious little creature oppressed him. The secret preparations for war pushed everything else to the background.

  And when he was occupied with the most difficult task of winning over new officers, she appeared on the scene with mocking little letters. He suppressed his first annoyance at this unexpected approach. When her sedan chair appeared in the neighbourhood of the yamen he rode to meet it, walked dismounted beside the girl, conversing while she lolled joking and laughing on her cushions, at the same time watching him sharply. Yellow Bell finally poked his head around the red curtain, whispered gazing earnestly at the shrinking girl that he absolutely had to speak to her, at once; he needed her help; it was a matter of the utmost importance to him.