A History of Chinese Literature

In one of the stories a visitor at a temple is much struck by a fresco painting containing the picture of a lovely girl picking flowers, and stands in rapt admiration before it. Then he feels himself borne gently into the painted wall, à la “Alice through the Looking-glass,” and in the region beyond plays a part in a domestic drama, finally marrying the heroine of the picture. But the presence of a mortal being suspected by “a man in golden armour with a face as black as jet,” he was glad to make his way back again; and when he rejoined a friend who had been waiting for him, they noticed that the girl in the picture now wore her hair done up as a married woman.

There is a Rip van Winkle story, with the pathetic return of the hero to find, as the Chinese poet says —

“City and suburb as of old,But hearts that loved us long since cold.”

There is a sea-serpent story, and a story of a big bird or rukh; also a story about a Jonah, who, in obedience to an order flashed by lightning on the sky when their junk was about to be swamped in a storm, was transferred by his fellow-passengers to a small boat and cut adrift. So soon as the unfortunate victim had collected his senses and could look about him, he found that the junk had capsized and that every soul had been drowned.

The following is an extract from a story in which a young student named Liu falls in love with a girl named Fêng-hsien, who was the daughter of a fox, and therefore possessed of the miraculous powers which the Chinese associate with that animal: —

“‘But if you would really like to have something that has belonged to me,’ said she, ‘you shall.’ Whereupon she took out a mirror and gave it to him, saying, ‘Whenever you want to see me, you must look for me in your books; otherwise I shall not be visible;’ and in a moment she had vanished. Liu went home very melancholy at heart; but when he looked in the mirror, there was Fêng-hsien standing with her back to him, gazing, as it were, at some one who was going away, and about a hundred paces from her. He then bethought himself of her injunctions, and settled down to his studies, refusing to receive any visitors; and a few days subsequently, when he happened to look in the mirror, there was Fêng-hsien, with her face turned towards him, and smiling in every feature. After this, he was always taking out the mirror to look at her. However, in about a month his good resolutions began to disappear, and he once more went out to enjoy himself and waste his time as before. When he returned home and looked in the mirror, Fêng-hsien seemed to be crying bitterly; and the day after, when he looked at her again, she had her back turned towards him as on the day he received the mirror. He now knew that it was because he had neglected his studies, and forthwith set to work again with all diligence, until in a month’s time she had turned round once again. Henceforward, whenever anything interrupted his progress, Fêng-hsien’s countenance became sad; but whenever he was getting on well her sadness was changed to smiles. Night and morning Liu would look at the mirror, regarding it quite in the light of a revered preceptor, and in three years’ time he took his degree in triumph. ‘Now,’ cried he, ‘I shall be able to look Fêng-hsien in the face.’ And there sure enough she was, with her delicately-pencilled arched eyebrows, and her teeth just showing between her lips, as happy-looking as she could be, when, all of a sudden, she seemed to speak, and Liu heard her say, ‘A pretty pair we make, I must allow,’ and the next moment Fêng-hsien stood by his side.”

Here is a story of the nether world, a favourite theme with P’u Sung-ling. It illustrates the popular belief that at death a man’s soul is summoned to Purgatory by spiritual lictors, who are even liable to make mistakes. Cataleptic fits or trances give rise to many similar tales about persons visiting the realms below and being afterwards restored to life.

“A man named Chang died suddenly, and was escorted at once by devil-lictors into the presence of the King of Purgatory. His Majesty turned to Chang’s record of good and evil, and then, in great anger, told the lictors they had brought the wrong man, and bade them take him back again. As they left the judgment-hall, Chang persuaded his escort to let him have a look at Purgatory, and accordingly the devils conducted him through the nine sections, pointing out to him the Knife Hill, the Sword Tree, and other objects of interest. By and by they reached a place where there was a Buddhist priest hanging suspended in the air, head downwards, by a rope through a hole in his leg. He was shrieking with pain and longing for death; and when Chang approached, lo! he saw that it was his own brother. In great distress, he asked his guides the reason of this punishment, and they informed him that the priest was suffering thus for collecting subscriptions on behalf of his order, and then privately squandering the proceeds in gambling and debauchery. ‘Nor,’ added they, ‘will he escape this torment unless he repents him of his misdeeds.’ When Chang came round, he thought his brother was already dead, and hurried off to the Hsing-fu monastery, to which the latter belonged. As he went in at the door he heard a loud shrieking, and on proceeding to his brother’s room, he found him laid up with a very bad abscess in his leg, the leg itself being tied up above him to the wall, this being, as his brother informed him, the only bearable position in which he could lie. Chang now told him what he had seen in Purgatory, at which the priest was so terrified that he at once gave up taking wine and meat, and devoted himself entirely to religious exercises. In a fortnight he was well, and was known ever afterwards as a most exemplary priest.”

Snatches of verse are to be found scattered about the pages of these stories, enough to give a taste of the writer’s quality without too much boring the reader. These lines are much admired: —

“With wine and flowers we chase the hoursIn one eternal spring;No moon, no light, to cheer the night —Thyself that ray must bring.”

But we have seen perhaps enough of P’u Sung-ling. “If,” as Han Yü exclaimed, “there is knowledge after death,” the profound and widespread esteem in which this work is held by the literati of China must indeed prove a soothing balm to the wounded spirit of the Last of the Immortals.

THE HUNG LOU MÊNG

The Hung Lou Mêng, conveniently but erroneously known as “The Dream of the Red Chamber,” is the work referred to already as touching the highest point of development reached by the Chinese novel. It was probably composed during the latter half of the seventeenth century. The name of its author is unknown. It is usually published in 24 vols. octavo, containing 120 chapters, which average at the least 30 pages each, making a grand total of about 4000 pages. No fewer than 400 personages of more or less importance are introduced first and last into the story, the plot of which is worked out with a completeness worthy of Fielding, while the delineation of character – of so many characters – recalls the best efforts of the greatest novelists of the West. As a panorama of Chinese social life, in which almost every imaginable feature is submitted in turn to the reader, the Hung Lou Mêng is altogether without a rival. Reduced to its simplest terms, it is an original and effective love story, written for the most part in an easy, almost colloquial, style, full of humorous and pathetic episodes of everyday human life, and interspersed with short poems of high literary finish. The opening chapters, which are intended to form a link between the world of spirits and the world of mortals, belong to the supernatural; after that the story runs smoothly along upon earthly lines, always, however, overshadowed by the near presence of spiritual influences. Some idea of the novel as a whole may perhaps be gathered from the following abstract.

Four thousand six hundred and twenty-three years ago the heavens were out of repair. So the Goddess of Works set to and prepared 36,501 blocks of precious jade, each 240 feet square by 120 feet in depth. Of these, however, she only used 36,500, and cast aside the single remaining block upon one of the celestial peaks.

This stone, under the process of preparation, had become as it were spiritualised. It could expand or contract. It could move. It was conscious of the existence of an external world, and it was hurt at not having been called upon to accomplish its divine mission.

One day a Buddhist and a Taoist priest, who happened to be passing that way, sat down for a while to rest, and forthwith noticed the disconsolate stone which lay there, no bigger than the pendant of a lady’s fan. “Indeed, my friend, you are not wanting in spirituality,” said the Buddhist priest to the stone, as he picked it up and laughingly held it forth upon the palm of his hand. “But we cannot be certain that you will ever prove to be of any real use; and, moreover, you lack an inscription, without which your destiny must necessarily remain unfulfilled.” Thereupon he put the stone in his sleeve and rose to proceed on his journey.

“And what, if I may ask,” inquired his companion, “do you intend to do with the stone you are thus carrying away?”

“I mean,” replied the other, “to send it down to earth, to play its allotted part in the fortunes of a certain family now anxiously expecting its arrival. You see, when the Goddess of Works rejected this stone, it used to fill up its time by roaming about the heavens, until chance brought it alongside of a lovely crimson flower. Being struck with the great beauty of this flower, the stone remained there for some time, tending its protégée with the most loving care, and daily moistening its roots with the choicest nectar of the sky, until at length, yielding to the influence of disinterested love, the flower changed its form and became a most beautiful girl.

“‘Dear stone,’ cried the girl, in her new-found ecstasy of life, ‘the moisture thou hast bestowed upon me here I will repay thee in our future state with my tears!’”

Ages afterwards, another priest, in search of light, saw this self-same stone lying in its old place, but with a record inscribed upon it – a record of how it had not been used to repair the heavens, and how it subsequently went down into the world of mortals, with a full description of all it did, and saw, and heard while in that state.

“Brother Stone,” said the priest, “your record is not one that deals with the deeds of heroes among men. It does not stir us with stories either of virtuous statesmen or of deathless patriots. It seems to be but a simple tale of the loves of maidens and youths, hardly important enough to attract the attention of the great busy world.”

“Sir Priest,” replied the stone, “what you say is indeed true; and what is more, my poor story is adorned by no rhetorical flourish nor literary art. Still, the world of mortals being what it is, and its complexion so far determined by the play of human passion, I cannot but think that the tale here inscribed may be of some use, if only to throw a further charm around the banquet hour, or to aid in dispelling those morning clouds which gather over last night’s excess.”

Thereupon the priest looked once more at the stone, and saw that it bore a plain unvarnished tale of —

“Beauty and anguish walking hand in handThe downward slope to death,”

telling how a woman’s artless love had developed into deep, destroying passion; and how from the thrall of a lost love one soul had been raised to a sublimer, if not a purer conception of man’s mission upon earth. He therefore copied it out from beginning to end. Here it is: —

Under a dynasty which the author leaves unnamed, two brothers had greatly distinguished themselves by efficient service to the State. In return, they had been loaded with marks of Imperial favour. They had been created nobles of the highest rank. They had amassed wealth. The palaces assigned to them were near together in Peking, and there their immediate descendants were enjoying the fruits of ancestral success when this story opens. The brothers had each a son and heir; but at the date at which we are now, fathers and sons had all four passed away. The wife of one of the sons only was still alive, a hale and hearty old lady of about eighty years of age. Of her children, one was a daughter. She had married and gone away south, and her daughter, Tai-yü, is the heroine of this tale. The son of the old lady’s second son and first cousin to Tai-yü is the hero, living with his grandmother. His name is Pao-yü.

The two noble families were now at the very zenith of wealth and power. Their palatial establishments were replete with every luxury. Feasting and theatricals were the order of the day, and, to crown all, Pao-yü’s sister had been chosen to be one of the seventy-two wives allotted to the Emperor of China. No one stopped to think that human events are governed by an inevitable law of change. He who is mighty to-day shall be lowly to-morrow: the rich shall be made poor, and the poor rich. Or if any one, more thoughtful than the rest, did pause awhile in knowledge of the appointments of Heaven, he was fain to hope that the crash would not come, at any rate, in his own day.

Things were in this state when Tai-yü’s mother died, and her father decided to place his motherless daughter under the care of her grandmother at Peking. Accompanied by her governess, the young lady set out at once for the capital, and reached her destination in safety. It is not necessary to dwell upon her beauty nor upon her genius, though both are minutely described in the original text. Suffice it to say that during the years which have elapsed since she first became known to the public, many brave men are said to have died for love of this entrancing heroine of fiction.

Tai-yü was received most kindly by all. Especially so by her grandmother, who shed bitter tears of sorrow over the premature death of Tai-yü’s mother, her lost and favourite child. She was introduced to her aunts and cousins, and cousins and aunts, in such numbers that the poor girl must have wondered how ever she should remember all their names. Then they sat down and talked. They asked her all about her mother, and how she fell ill, and what medicine she took, and how she died and was buried, until the old grandmother wept again. “And what medicine do you take, my dear?” asked the old lady, seeing that Tai-yü herself seemed very delicate, and carried on her clear cheek a suspicious-looking flush.

“Oh, I have done nothing ever since I could eat,” replied Tai-yü, “but take medicine of some kind or other. I have also seen all the best doctors, but they have not done me any particular good. When I was only three years of age, a nasty old priest came and wanted my parents to let me be a nun. He said it was the only way to save me.”

“Oh, we will soon cure you here,” said her grandmother, smiling. “We will make you well in no time.”

Tai-yü was then taken to see more of her relatives, including her aunt, the mother of Pao-yü, who warned her against his peculiar temper, which she said was very uncertain and variable. “What! the one with the jade?” asked Tai-yü. “But we shall not be together,” she immediately added, somewhat surprised at this rather unusual warning. “Oh yes, you will,” said her aunt. “He is dreadfully spoilt by his grandmother, who allows him to have his own way in everything. Instead of being hard at work, as he ought to be by now, he idles away his time with the girls, thinking only how he can enjoy himself, without any idea of making a career or adding fresh lustre to the family name. Beware of him, I tell you.”

The dinner-hour had now arrived, and after the meal Tai-yü was questioned as to the progress she had made in her studies. She was already deep in the mysteries of the Four Books, and it was agreed on all sides that she was far ahead of her cousins, when suddenly a noise was heard outside, and in came a most elegantly dressed youth about a year older than Tai-yü, wearing a cap lavishly adorned with pearls. His face was like the full autumn moon. His complexion like morning flowers in spring. Pencilled eyebrows, a well-cut shapely nose, and eyes like rippling waves were among the details which went to make up an unquestionably handsome exterior. Around his neck hung a curious piece of jade; and as soon as Tai-yü became fully conscious of his presence, a thrill passed through her delicate frame. She felt that somewhere or other she had looked upon that face before.

Pao-yü – for it was he – saluted his grandmother with great respect, and then went off to see his mother; and while he is absent it may be as well to say a few words about the young gentleman’s early days.

Pao-yü, a name which means Precious Jade, was so called because he was born, to the great astonishment of everybody, with a small tablet of jade in his mouth – a beautifully bright mirror-like tablet, bearing a legend inscribed in the quaint old style of several thousand years ago. A family consultation resulted in a decision that this stone was some divine talisman, the purpose of which was not for the moment clear, but was doubtless to be revealed by and by. One thing was certain. As this tablet had come into the world with the child, so it should accompany him through life; and accordingly Pao-yü was accustomed to wear it suspended around his neck. The news of this singular phenomenon spread far and wide. Even Tai-yü had heard of it long before she came to take up her abode with the family.

And so Pao-yü grew up, a wilful, wayward boy. He was a bright, clever fellow and full of fun, but very averse to books. He declared, in fact, that he could not read at all unless he had as fellow-students a young lady on each side of him, to keep his brain clear! And when his father beat him, as was frequently the case, he would cry out, “Dear girl! dear girl!” all the time, in order, as he afterwards explained to his cousins, to take away the pain. Women, he argued, are made of water, with pellucid mobile minds, while men are mostly made of mud, mere lumps of uninformed clay.

By this time he had returned from seeing his mother and was formally introduced to Tai-yü. “Ha!” cried he, “I have seen her before somewhere. What makes her eyes so red? Indeed, cousin Tai-yü, we shall have to call you Cry-baby if you cry so much.” Here some reference was made to his jade tablet, and this put him into an angry mood at once. None of his cousins had any, he said, and he was not going to wear his any more. A family scene ensued, during which Tai-yü went off to bed and cried herself to sleep.

Shortly after this, Pao-yü’s mother’s sister was compelled by circumstances to seek a residence in the capital. She brought with her a daughter, Pao-ch’ai, another cousin to Pao-yü, but about a year older than he was; and besides receiving a warm welcome, the two were invited to settle themselves comfortably down in the capacious family mansion of their relatives. Thus it was that destiny brought Pao-yü and his two cousins together under the same roof.

The three soon became fast friends. Pao-ch’ai had been carefully educated by her father, and was able to hold her own even against the accomplished Tai-yü. Pao-yü loved the society of either or both. He was always happy so long as he had a pretty girl by his side, and was, moreover, fascinated by the wit of these two young ladies in particular.

He had, however, occasional fits of moody depression, varied by discontent with his superfluous worldly surroundings. “In what am I better,” he would say, “than a wallowing hog? Why was I born and bred amid this splendid magnificence of wealth, instead of in some coldly furnished household where I could have enjoyed the pure communion of friends? These silks and satins, these rich meats and choice wines, of what avail are they to this perishable body of mine? O wealth! O power! I curse you both, ye cankerworms of my earthly career.”

All these morbid thoughts, however, were speedily dispelled by the presence of his fair cousins, with whom, in fact, Pao-yü spent most of the time he ought to have devoted to his books. He was always running across to see either one or other of these young ladies, or meeting both of them in general assembly at his grandmother’s. It was at a tête-à-tête with Pao-ch’ai that she made him show her his marvellous piece of jade, with the inscription, which she read as follows: —

“Lose me not, forget me not,Eternal life shall be thy lot.”

The indiscretion of a slave-girl here let Pao-yü become aware that Pao-ch’ai herself possessed a wonderful gold amulet, upon which also were certain words inscribed; and of course Pao-yü insisted on seeing it at once. On it was written —

“Let not this token wander from thy side,And youth perennial shall with thee abide.”

In the middle of this interesting scene, Tai-yü walks in, and seeing how intimately the two are engaged, “hopes she doesn’t intrude.” But even in those early days the ring of her voice betrayed symptoms of that jealousy to which later on she succumbed. Meanwhile she almost monopolises the society of Pao-yü, and he, on his side, finds himself daily more and more attracted by the sprightly mischievous humour of the beautiful Tai-yü, as compared with the quieter and more orthodox loveliness of Pao-ch’ai. Pao-ch’ai does not know what jealousy means. She too loves to bandy words, exchange verses, or puzzle over conundrums with her mercurial cousin; but she never allows her thoughts to wander towards him otherwise than is consistent with the strictest maidenly reserve.

Not so Tai-yü. She had been already for some time Pao-yü’s chief companion when they were joined by Pao-ch’ai. She had come to regard the handsome boy almost as a part of herself, though not conscious of the fact until called upon to share his society with another. And so it was that although Pao-yü showed an open preference for herself, she still grudged the lesser attentions he paid to Pao-ch’ai. As often as not these same attentions originated in an irresistible impulse to tease. Pao-yü and Tai-yü were already lovers in so far that they were always quarrelling; the more so, that their quarrels invariably ended, as they should end, in the renewal of love. As a rule, Tai-yü fell back upon the ultima ratio of all women – tears; and of course Pao-yü, who was not by any means wanting in chivalry, had no alternative but to wipe them away. On one particular occasion, Tai-yü declared that she would die; upon which Pao-yü said that in that case he would become a monk and devote his life to Buddha; but in this instance it was he who shed the tears and she who had to wipe them away.

All this time Tai-yü and Pao-ch’ai were on terms of scrupulous courtesy. Tai-yü’s father had recently died, and her fortunes now seemed to be bound up more closely than ever with those of the family in which she lived. She had a handsome gold ornament given her to match Pao-ch’ai’s amulet, and the three young people spent their days together, thinking only how to get most enjoyment out of every passing hour. Sometimes, however, a shade of serious thought would darken Tai-yü’s moments of enforced solitude; and one day Pao-yü surprised her in a secluded part of the garden, engaged in burying flowers which had been blown down by the wind, while singing the following lines: —

“Flowers fade and fly,and flying fill the sky;Their bloom departs, their perfume gone,yet who stands pitying by?And wandering threads of gossameron the summer-house are seen,And falling catkins lightly dew-steepedstrike the embroidered screen.A girl within the inner rooms,I mourn that spring is done,A skein of sorrow binds my heart,and solace there is none.I pass into the garden,and I turn to use my hoe,Treading o’er fallen gloriesas I lightly come and go.There are willow-sprays and flowers of elm,and these have scent enow,I care not if the peach and plumare stripped from every bough.The peach-tree and the plum-tree toonext year may bloom again,But next year, in the inner rooms,tell me, shall I remain?By the third moon new fragrant nestsshall see the light of day,New swallows flit among the beams,each on its thoughtless way.Next year once more they’ll seek their foodamong the painted flowers,But I may go, and beams may go,and with them swallow bowers.Three hundred days and sixty makea year, and therein lurkDaggers of wind and swords of frostto do their cruel work.How long will last the fair fresh flowerwhich bright and brighter glows?One morn its petals float away,but whither no one knows.Gay blooming buds attract the eye,faded they’re lost to sight;Oh, let me sadly bury thembeside these steps to-night!Alone, unseen, I seize my hoe,with many a bitter tear;They fall upon the naked stemand stains of blood appear.The night-jar now has ceased to mourn,the dawn comes on apace,I seize my hoe and close the gates,leaving the burying-place;But not till sunbeams fleck the walldoes slumber soothe my care,The cold rain pattering on the paneas I lie shivering there.You wonder that with flowing tearsmy youthful cheek is wet;They partly rise from angry thoughts,and partly from regret.Regret – that spring comes suddenly;anger – it cannot last,No sound to herald its approach,or warn us that ’tis past.Last night within the gardensad songs were faintly heard,Sung, as I knew, by spirits,spirits of flower and bird.We cannot keep them here with us,these much-loved birds and flowers,They sing but for a season’s space,and bloom a few short hours.Ah! would that I on feathered wingmight soar aloft and fly,With flower spirits I would seekthe confines of the sky.But high in airWhat grave is there? 45No, give me an embroidered bagwherein to lay their charms,And Mother Earth, pure Mother Earth,shall hide them in her arms.Thus those sweet forms which spotless cameshall spotless go again,Nor pass besmirched with mud and filthalong some noisome drain.Farewell, dear flowers, for ever now,thus buried as ’twas best,I have not yet divined when Iwith you shall sink to rest.I who can bury flowers like thisa laughing-stock shall be;I cannot say in days to comewhat hands shall bury me.See how when spring begins to faileach opening flow’ret fades;So too there is a time of ageand death for beauteous maids;And when the fleeting spring is gone,and days of beauty o’er,Flowers fall, and lovely maidens die,and both are known no more.”

Meanwhile, Pao-yü’s father had received an appointment which took him away to a distance, the consequence being that life went on at home in a giddier round than usual. Nothing the old grandmother liked better than a picnic or a banquet – feasting, in fact, of some kind, with plenty of wine and mirth. But now, somehow or other, little things were always going wrong. In every pot of ointment the traditional fly was sure to make its appearance; in every sparkling goblet a bitter something would always bubble up. Money was not so plentiful as it had been, and there seemed to be always occurring some unforeseen drain upon the family resources. Various members of one or other of the two grand establishments get into serious trouble with the authorities. Murder, suicide, and robbery happen upon the premises. The climax of prosperity had been reached and the hour of decadence had arrived. Still all went merry as a marriage-bell, and Pao-yü and Tai-yü continued the agreeable pastime of love-making. In this they were further favoured by circumstances. Pao-ch’ai’s mother gave up the apartments which had been assigned to her, and went to live in lodgings in the city, of course taking Pao-ch’ai with her. Some time previous to this, a slave-girl had casually remarked to Pao-yü that her young mistress, Tai-yü, was about to leave and go back again to the south. Pao-yü fainted on the spot, and was straightway carried off and put to bed. He bore the departure of Pao-ch’ai with composure. He could not even hear of separation from his beloved Tai-yü.