The Three Leaps of Wang Lun

by Alfred Doblin

  Once a robber was brought before Wang in the yamen, a ragged scoundrel with a black look who had announced himself to peasants as a Truly Powerless and then, allowed in, had fallen on the unsuspecting fellows. Probably ten serious cases of robbery in the vicinity of Tungch’ang were his work. Wang asked the rawboned, no longer young man where he came from. Kneeling, the man twisted from side to side because during the night he had been made for several hours to kneel on thin chains to persuade him to confess. He sighed and asked to be set free; he was innocent, they’d mixed him up with someone else. Then seeing the judge’s sombre gaze fixed on him he begged more importunately, stretched out his arms without answering Wang’s questions. At last he said he was the son of a baker from Ch’angch’ing, had run away long ago because he wasn’t suited to the bakery, he couldn’t stand the heat, still couldn’t; what a miserable fate. And then he told more lies until at last he spoke of the rebellion, how he sympathised with the sectarians; his mouth gaped when he explained how peasants had taken him for a pious brother. At the judge’s command he had to stand up, supported by one of the attendants walk up and down the hall. With sidelong glances, knees often folding under him, the criminal observed the strange judge, who looked steadfastly back at him.

  Wang was the same age as this fellow. If not for such and such a chance, his fate would have been the same: if not for Su-ko in Chi-nan, the misery up on Nank’ou and so on. In Chi-nan he’d gone about like this rogue who was now dragged up before him. Perhaps he hadn’t made such a mess of things as this fellow, but once, once thin chains had been spread for his knees too.

  “Turn round!” called Wang. “Keep him walking!”

  A starved hulk with claws and arms like an ape, toothless mouth, scrawny shanks; as good a climber as he was a liar. His brother, his brother! A true word among all the lies: no Truly Powerless, but his brother.

  Astonished Wang examined the man, couldn’t take in enough of his rags, compared his hands with the rogue’s; cast furtive glances at the attendants to see if they noticed anything and found it strange that he sat up here and wasn’t himself walking down there. No, they noticed nothing. Shouldn’t they change places; wasn’t the rogue to be envied? A curse on Su-ko and Nank’ou and everything that had forced him, torn him from his path. That anyone could have such a mouth and give such dirty looks!

  When the criminal had been paraded up and down before the k’ang several times, Wang sent the happy man, bowing ceaselessly, unpunished back to prison.

  At dusk Wang slipped into the prison yard, waved the guards away, sat down beside the grinning man, who hopped jauntily with shackled feet around his guest. Instead of interrogating him the judge began whispering to him in thieves’ argot, so the prisoner at first shrank back in dumb astonishment, then responded cheerfully; he knew the Truly Powerless had drawn all sorts of people. The prisoner told droll stories about the singing brothers and even the crazy sisters; you wouldn’t believe what cattle they were. They hatched an escape plan: rob the young solitary guard and once outside give the peasants who’d arrested the rogue something to remember them by. The rogue grew talkative and Wang listened; they smacked their thighs whispering. They had to sit in a huddle, the other prisoners came hobbling up and wanted to take part in the conversation. When Wang saw the man’s obtrusive grimacing, the mutilated ears and nostrils, he all at once fell silent. He listened beyond his neighbour’s hurried babbling, stared at the repulsive laughing unkempt heads. Nervously he rose, gave the criminal a few kind words, went into the street. His belly was frozen, his entrails heaved under his ribs. He hurried through the miry streets, in which scarcely a house door was lighted by a lantern; no patrols passed him by.

  Don’t be a criminal, no murders, no murders! How could anyone stand to commit a murder? Help the others, the mutilated, help them! Make their faces whole again! Nank’ou, resist, don’t resist, mollify fate! Oh they were wicked and poor, they should come to him, then they wouldn’t need to kneel on chains, lie in their filth, suffer the long rod. His brother, his brothers, oh, so might he have become! No murders, no murders!

  Next morning he gave orders that no one should be taken prisoner, and all the prisons emptied. Whoever among the criminals seized in the towns and the surrounding countryside declared himself for Wu-wei and ready to fight the Manchu was to be taken into the league. Pacing about in a lively unease he sent at midday for Yellow Bell, who came quickly.

  Wang was waiting for the greybearded officer in front of his yamen, drew him into the house, grasped his hands without a word, embraced him. “If Ma No were still alive I’d send for him. You’d be there too. I have to tell you: last night I went to the wretched criminals in the gaol, but I can’t be a criminal any longer. I’ve still had yearnings that way sometimes, but it was wrong of me; it’s all old stories, you can’t relive your youth. I saw them in the gaol with their ears, noses missing; they spat at me; oh their looks were evil. You haven’t seen it, Yellow Bell. If one of them seeks you out, take a good look at him, then you’ll see I’m right: these are terrible, terrible people. I don’t know how anyone can sleep knowing such terrible people exist. Or how I brought myself once to murder a man. Oh, how unhappy they are, dear brother, how wretched. For murdering they go to gaol, for thieving they’re put in chains, flogged on the soles of their feet, their flesh is hacked off, ears burned away; and if they still live they go and rob again and don’t have the slightest idea what people want of them and how it’ll all end, why everything turns out so strangely. Mandarins there, there the Emperor, and there peasants and there criminals. Oh, how will it end? I conjured up my Wu-wei to help myself and them. It was supposed to go better that way, everyone on Nank’ou believed me, and it went well for so many. I don’t want to found a kingdom; I could kick myself, beat myself for being so heedless. The Wu-wei belongs to them and me, and I want us to be defeated.”

  Yellow Bell removed Wang’s arm from his shoulder. They squatted together on a grubby rush mat by the door. Wang raised his arms to the wall: “Golden Buddhas ought to stand here, like they did in Ma No’s hut. The mild gods say everything and all of it good. Am I not once more on Nank’ou? I should like to be on Nank’ou again in gentleness and peace among my brothers.”

  Yellow Bell spoke in a trembling voice: “Have you changed so much, Wang? I feared for you. You might so easily be lost to us, I thought. I only thought it. In fact I’m happy for you and for me. What are you still waiting for?”

  “Everything, dear brother! That’s why I summoned you. What have I achieved, tell me, since I came down from Nank’ou? Has it been good? How am I to comprehend my life?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen everything you’ve done.”

  “The Wu-wei is good. No one can take that from me. Yellow Bell, I’m so afraid I’ve missed the Way. And the prisoners must all come with me, I have to care for them.”

  The other comforted Wang; he had to lead him around in the hall. Whatever the fate of their army, the Wu-wei wouldn’t be defeated.

  When they were seated again on the mat Wang soon fell silent, reproaching himself. After a pause Yellow Bell said softly, emerging from thought, that he wanted to tell his brother a story.

  “In a village in the province of Chihli, it is said, there was once a family called Hsia. Listen quietly, Wang, it’s a story that concerns you; be calm, dear brother, I shall give you my whole opinion and help you. The wife did her work in the fields, she went out early in the morning with the oxen and ploughed. She loved her husband. One morning before she got up, a loud whisper came from the wall: ‘Your husband drinks wine in the tavern, he’s playing about with the neighbour’s daughter, thinking of making you his second wife.’ The husband took her in his arms before she went to the fields and kissed her, she took both her children by the hand and they sat with her in the field. The oxen lowed, the woman played with the children and left the plough alone. At midday she strolled back home with the children, hugged her husband passionately, said she felt unwell. He
had to untie his apron, put on his straw hat, and go to plough. She sat on a ruined grave behind the house, thought how a man’s love was as brushwood and straw, cried pitifully and wondered how to find comfort. With a determined expression she got up: ‘Do me a favour,’ she prayed to a Buddha, ‘save me.’

  “In the dead of night she slipped down from the bed, swung her hands in farewell to her sleeping husband, stroked the gently breathing children, went out into the blue night over a great field of cabbages, and beyond a patch of fallow there was a mountain with steps cut into its steep flank by which, in certain months, Buddha could be reached. Others from the village must have climbed them this night, for as she went up she noticed fresh muddy footprints. She grew anxious because there was no end to the steps, and she feared she would lose her strength. She climbed and climbed; she overhauled others; all at once they slid down a short stretch and were then swept up and up without having to move their feet. On a platform the god sat with covered knees on a donkey. Two men with umbrellas, fans and lanterns were standing behind him holding the donkey on a halter, looked friendly. The god was smiling too. He had a narrow, finely drawn face with a goatee; his feet were tucked into his grey overgown. The woman stationed herself at the very end and waited with downcast eyes. When the men beckoned to her, she timidly crept closer into the lamplight. The god laid his thin hand, transparent as white jade in the light from the lanterns, on her hair and invited her to speak as soon as she had turned her back on him. She spoke haltingly, at which she too seemed to turn to transparent jade. She turned to face the god once more; he bent down, whispered a strange word in her ear, gently told her she could go back home now, everything would be fine. She put her hands up to her face, stood for a while until one of the two men led her to the steps.

  “Now a whole summer passed, until the woman, who only occasionally went out to the fields, sat more and more on the grave, held her children to her and finally at the end of the harvest wandered off again to the steps. The climbing did her good; her feet hurt, which contented her. It seemed to her she climbed the whole night long. She was quite alone; it wasn’t the month for going to seek the god, but she stared boldly in the face of the stern old guard up there and demanded to be let in; she had a right, no one could deny that. He led her sadly to the huge dark platform, said the god was there, she only had to speak. At once she cried out, gave her name, complained that the god hadn’t helped her. He answered from far away, ‘What do you want of me, woman?’ She cried, ‘You’re not supposed to do the asking, I am. I wanted to die. But you gave me a word of comfort, kept me living. What do you want of me? That’s why I’ve come to you. I’ve walked the whole night long to ask you this.’ Hard, very close to her, the voice asked, ‘Where are your children? Who tended your millet all summer through?’—‘You must help me; my children are all right; I’m the only one who bothers with the millet.’—‘The word did not help you because you were stubborn, woman.’—‘You led me by the nose all summer long, you’re a fine god.’—‘Woman, you did not want to help your husband and yourself.’ She burst out laughing: ‘And you call that comfort?’ She said not a word more. At a frown from the narrow forehead that loomed up close in front of her she crumpled together, whizzed like a jagged stone down into the abyss to where the steps began, where they penetrated the clouds. She dived past stars, like a homeless meteor amid the swarms whirled past the cloudgates. Have you understood me, Wang Lun?”

  Who stood with head bowed and nodded. “I have received a sign and must accept it. I can’t strike fate in the face. But believe me, Yellow Bell: resolutions don’t help a man when he’s not at peace. Resolutions can’t change anything within him. Everything must come of itself.”

  Suddenly he lifted his grave face to Yellow Bell. “You rejoice over me. And I rejoice, because today I’ve received this sign and because it will go better with me now. I can feel that it will go better, dear brother. I begin to love mankind once more. What a muddle I’ve lived through; now I can stand upright again and go in peace and tend our beloved Wu-wei.”

  “Woe to us that we must tend it with swords and clubs, Wang. It is we alone who take the proper path that leads to the Summit of Supreme Bliss. I want to live only so long as I am able to defend our good teaching. Last night I wanted to let you go with that criminal. I shan’t forget tonight, when for the second time I have sat upon the pass of Nank’ou.”

  Yellow Bell held Wang’s left hand, stroked it. “This is you, this is how I wanted to know you, dear brother. The fever has gone from you. Let them defeat us. Who can harm us?”

  They rose. At Wang’s request Yellow Bell accompanied him through the streets. When they had walked for an hour they came to a green meadow of low grass through which a shallow brook ran. Wang’s stride was firm. Yellow Leaper hung from his neck on a string; it dangled gleaming over his blue shortsleeved smock. A pointed straw hat covered his brow, which was slashed by a red scar; masterful eyes in a dark tanned face squinted into the sun. Yellow Bell’s long legs took great steps; he walked bent; grey smock and grey trousers, strawsandalled like Wang. Hollow temples, deepset eyes that flashed black, flapping beard. Larks and finches sang above them.

  Wang pointed to the town wall, smiling. “We shan’t come to Nank’ou today.”

  They stretched out by the brook, were silent. Yellow Bell murmured, “I shan’t have many more such days. I shan’t lie much longer in the kaoliang. I was outside Chengting with Ma No. The sun shone fair over the lama monastery. Salt boilers knocked at the gate, we were startled. Liang-li sat beside me.”

  “You’ve never forgotten this sister, brother Yellow Bell.”

  The officer fended this off with his arm. “When the sun shines, Yellow Bell thinks of Liang-li from Chengting. When it doesn’t shine, he wonders why, and why he has forgotten Liang-li.”

  “She died in the Mongolian town.”

  “Wang, she’s in the Western Paradise. Beyond the white clouds in the west I discern at times a fine, clever face.”

  Hooting, rattling from the distant houses. Ceaseless twittering from the birds, black animated clusters high overhead. Wang, reclining, drew in his legs, flung himself around, knelt up and observed the birds swooping and soaring, and the little brook. He took off his straw hat, removed his neck from the noose of the swordstring; then he stuck the sword in the soft earth, jammed his hat on the hilt, swung his arms and placed his legs as if for a runup. “On your feet, brother Yellow Bell. I’m going to jump.”

  With one leap he was on the other side of the brook. “Now I’m on Nank’ou. Ma No is doing what I want to do. Everything is going badly. I must jump again.”

  He swished down beside his sword; the hat was blown off by the draught. “Now in the Lower Reaches. A beautiful time, Yellow Bell. The dyke, the Yellow River, the Yangtze; I had a wife. The Wu-wei wended its way to me, I’m not there yet, I can’t follow so quickly. Slaughter, my yellow sword! And now—”

  He crossed the little stream with a third leap. “Where am I? On Nank’ou again with you, Yellow Bell. The sign was good. The criminals were good. I’ve come back from the Lower Reaches, I’m home again in Chihli. Come across to me here, dear brother, bring my Yellow Leaper with you, for there’s a fight to be fought.” Yellow Bell stood beside him.

  They put arms around each other’s shoulders, gazed into the trickling, glittering water. “The Nai-ho,” Yellow Bell laughed. They held each other tighter. Wang lowered his head, sighed softly: “The Nai-ho. It has to end this way.” Yellow Bell too shivered slightly: “I hoped for a good fate for us. I leave the Flowering Middle with reluctance.”

  On the evening of this day of the three leaps two ladies of the town had themselves carried to Wang. One elegant slender lady came first into the silent yamen, where Wang remained seated on the mat. The lid of her left eye drooped mostly; now and then big white spots could be seen on the eyeball. A plump, very pretty lady followed, who carried herself with less assurance than the elegant one. The first gave her name as P�
�ei, the other Ying. Settling themselves on the mat they waited for Wang’s greeting. The elder remained unruffled even when the man asked harshly what they wanted. They came from the Vermilion City. They’d had to flee even before the seige. They offered their services to the sectarians. Madam P’ei described in broad terms what had befallen them, ended by explaining that she was in a position to get back into the Vermilion City and bring about the deaths of the Manchu leaders by sorcery. Wang had heard something of this sorceress’s deeds. He stayed silent for a while, not moving. Then he climbed down, thanked the ladies, asked them to leave their address, sent them away with two soldiers for their protection.

  That evening the affair left Wang fretful. First he sent for Yellow Bell, then the messenger had to be recalled. He wanted to come to a decision alone. In the courtyard of the yamen he paced about. This was a new sign. Unexpected end of the Manchus. Ought he seize the chance, must he not? No Nai-ho yet! But his initial reluctance returned. There was something unbearable about the proposal. It was revolting, the whole thing was senseless, it came from without, wasn’t a sign, it simply disturbed the course. What he experienced with Yellow Bell at the little brook was final, and no one should interfere in it. No murders. The paths all lay straight ahead.