Why are men so heartless?
The Story of Yingying (803-806 C.E.) by Yuan Zhen (779-831 C.E.)
During the Zhenyuan period (785-804 C.E.) there lived a young man named Zhang. He was agreeable and refined--and good-looking--but firm and self-contained, and capable of no improper act. When his companions included him in one of their parties, the others would all be brawling as though they would never get enough, but Zhang would just watch tolerantly without ever taking part. In this way he had gotten to be twenty-two years old without ever having had relations with a woman. When asked about this by his friends, he explained, "Deng Tuzi was no lover, but a lecher. I am the true lover--I just never happened to meet the right girl. How do I know this? Because all things of outstanding beauty never fail to make a permanent impression on me. This shows I am not without feelings." His friends took note of what he said.
Not long afterward Zhang was traveling in Pu, where he lodged a few miles east of the city in a monastery called the Temple of Universal Salvation. It happened that a widowed Mrs. Cui had also stopped there on her way back to Chang'an. She had been born a Zheng; Zhang's mother had been a Zheng, and when they worked out their common ancestry, this Mrs. Cui turned out to be a rather distant aunt on his mother's side.
This year Hun Zhen died in Pu, and the eunuch Ding Wenya proved unpopular with the troops, who took advantage of the mourning period to mutiny. They plundered the citizens of Pu, and Mrs. Cui, in a strange place with all her slaves and chattels, was terrified, having no one to turn to. Before the mutiny Zhang had made friends with some of the officers in Pu, and now he requested a detachment of soldiers to protect the Cui family. As a result, they all escaped harm. In about ten days the Imperial Commisioner of Enquiry Du Que arrived with the full power of the throne and restored order among the troops.
Out of gratitude to Zhang for the favor he had done her family, Mrs. Cui invited him to a banquet in the central hall. She addressed him, "Your widowed aunt with her helpless children would never have been able to escape alive from these rioting soldiers. It is no ordinary favor you have done us; it is rather as though you had given my son and daughter their lives, and I want to introduce them to you as their elder brother so that they can express their thanks." She summoned her son Huanlang, a very attractive child of ten or so. Then she called her daughter, "Come out and pay your respects to your brother, who saved your life." There was a delay; then word was brought that she was indisposed and asked to be excused. Her mother exclaimed in anger, "Your brother Zhang saved your life. You would be a slave if it were not for him--how can you give yourself airs?"
After a while she appeared, wearing an everyday dress and no makeup on her smooth face, except for a remaining spot of rouge. Her hair coils straggled down to touch her eyebrows. Her beauty was extraordinary, so radiant it took the breath away. Startled, Zhang gave her a deep bow as she sat down beside her mother. Because she had been forced to come out against her will, she looked angrily straight ahead, as though unable to endure the company. Zhang asked her age. Mrs. Cui said, "From the seventh month of the fifth year of the reigning emperor to the present twenty-first year, it is just sixteen years."
Zhang tried to make conversation with her, but she would not respond, and he had to leave after the meal was over. From this time on Zhang was infatuated, but he had no way to make his feelings known to her. She had a maid named Hongniang with hom Zhang had managed to exchange greetings several times, and finally he took the occasion to tell her how he felt. Not surprisingly, the maid was alarmed and fled in confusion. Zhang was sorry he had said anything, and when she returned the next day he made shamefaced apologies without repeating his request. The maid said, "Sir, what you said is something I would not dare repeat to my mistress or let anyone else know about it. But you know well who Miss Cui's relatives are; why don't you ask for her hand in marriage, as you are entitled to do because of the favor you did them?"
Zhang said, "From my earliest years I have never been one to make an improper connection. Whenever I have found myself in the company of young women, I would not even look at them, and it never occurred to me that I would be trapped in any such way. But the other day at the dinner I was hardly able to control myself, and in the days since, I walk without knowing where I am going and eat without hunger--I am afraid I cannot last out another day. If I were to go through a regular matchmaker, taking three months and more for the exchange of betrothal presents and names and birth dates--you might just as well look for me among the dried fish in the shop. Can't you tell me what to do?"
The maid replied, "Miss Cui is so very strict that not even her elders could suggest anything improper to her. It would be hard for someone in my position to say such a thing. But I have noticed she writes a lot. She is always reciting poetry to herself and is moved by it for a long time after. You might see if you could seduce her with a love poem. That is the only way I can think of."
Zhang was delighted, and on the spot he composed two stanzas of Spring Verses that he handed over to her. That evening Hongniang came back with a note on colored paper for him, saying, "By Miss Cui's instructions."
The title of her poem was "Bright Moon on the Night of the Fifteenth":
I await the moon in the western chamber
Where the breeze comes through the half-opened door.
Sweeping the wall the flower shadows move:
I imagine it is my lover who comes.
Zhang understood the message: that day was the fourteenth of the second month, and an apricot tree was in bloom next to the wall east of the Cuis' courtyard. It would be possible to climb it.
On the night of the fifteenth Zhang used the tree as a ladder to get over the wall. When he came to the western chamber, the door was ajar. Inside, Hongniang was asleep on a bed. He awakened her, and she asked, frightened, "How did you get here?"
"Miss Cui's letter told me to come," he said, not quite accurately. "You go tell her I am here."
In a minute Hongniang was back, "She's coming! She's coming!"
Zhang was both happy and nervous, convinced that success was his. Then Miss Cui appeared in formal dress, with a serious face, and began to upbraid him, "You did us a great kindness when you saved our lives, and that is why my mother entrusted my young brother and myself to you. Why then did you get my silly maid to bring me that filthy poem? You began by doing a good deed in preserving me from the hands of ravishers, and you end by seeking to ravish me. You substitute seduction for rape--is there any great difference? My first impulse was to keep quiet about it, but that would have been to condone your wrongdoing, and not right. If I told my mother, it would amount to ingratitude, and the consequences would be unfortunate. I thought of having a servant convey my disapproval, but feared she would not get it right. Then I thought of writing a short message to state my case, but was afraid it would only put you on your guard. So finally, I composed those vulgar lines to make sure you would come here. It was an improper thing to do, and of course I feel ashamed. But I hope that you will keep within the bounds of decency and commit no outrage."
As she finished speaking, she turned on her heel and left him. For some time Zhang stood, dumbfounded. Then he went back over the wall to his quarters, all hope gone.
A few nights later Zhang was sleeping alone by the veranda when someone shook him awake. Startled, he rose up to see Hongniang standing there, a coverlet and pillow in her arms. She patted him and said, "She is coming! She is coming! Why are you sleeping?" And she spread the quilt and put the pillow beside his. As she left, Zhang sat up straight and rubbed his eyes. For some time it seemed as though he were still dreaming, but nonetheless he waited dutifully. Then there was Hongniang again, with Miss Cui leaning on her arm. She was shy and yielding, and appeared almost not to have the strength to move her limbs. The contrast with her stiff formality at their last encounter was complete.
This evening was the night of the eighteenth, and the slanting rays of the moon cast a soft light over half the bed. Zhang felt a kind of floating lightness and wondered whether this was an immortal who visited him, not someone from the world of men. After a while the temple bell sounded. Daybreak was near. As Hongniang urged her to leave, she wept softly and clung to him. Hongniang helped her up, the first light of dawn Zhang got up, wondering, was it a dream? But the perfume still lingered, and as it got lighter he could see on his arm traces of her makeup and the teardrops sparkling still on the mat.
For some then days afterwards there was no word from her. Zhang composed a poem of sixty lines called "An Encounter with an Immortal," which he had not yet completed when Hongniang happened by; he gave it to her for her mistress. After that she let him see her again, and for nearly a month he would join her in what her poem had called the "western chamber," slipping out at dawn and returning stealthily at night. Zhang once asked what her mother thought about the situation. She said, "She knows there is nothing she can do about it, and so she hopes you will regularize things."
Before long Zhang was about to go to Chang'an, and he let Miss Cui know his intentions in a poem. She made no objections at all, but the look of pain on her face was very touching. On the eve of his departure he was unable to see her again. Then Zhang went off to the west. A few months later he again made a trip to Pu and stayed several months with Miss Cui.
She was a very good calligrapher and wrote poetry, but though he kept begging to see her work, she would never show it. Zhang wrote poems for her, challenging her to match them, but she paid them little attention. The thing that made her unusual was that, although she excelled in the arts, she always acted as though she were ignorant, and although she was quick and clever in speaking, she would seldom indulge in repartee. She loved Zhang very much, but would never say so in words. At the time she was subject to moods of profound melancholy, but she never let on. She seldom showed on her face the emotions she felt. On one occasion she was playing her cither alone at night. She did not know Zhang was listening, and the music was full of sadness. As soon as he spoke, she stopped and would play no more. This made him all the more infatuated with her.
Some time later Zhang had to go west again for the scheduled examinations. It was the eve of his departure, and though he had said nothing about what it involved, he sat sighing unhappily at her side. Miss Cui had guessed that he was going to leave for good. Her manner was respectful, but she spoke deliberately and in a low voice, "To seduce someone and then abandon her is perfectly natural, and it would be presumptuous of me to resent it. It would be an act of charity on your part if, having first seduced me, you were to go through with it and fulfill your oath of lifelong devotion. But in either case, what is there to be so upset about in this trip? However, I see you are not happy and I have no way to cheer you up. You have praised my cither playing, and in the past I have been embarrassed to play for you. Now that you are going away, I shall do what you so often requested."
She had them prepare her cither and started to play the prelude to the "The Rainbow Robe and Feather Skirt." After a few notes, her playing grew wild with grief until the piece was no longer recognizable. Everyone was reduced to tears, and Miss Cui abruptly stopped playing, put down the cither, and ran back to her mother's room with tears streaming down her face. She did not come back.
The next morning Zhang went away. The following year he stayed on in the capital, having failed the examinations. He wrote a letter to Miss Cui to reassure her, and her reply read roughly as follows:
"I have read your letter with its message of consolation, and it filled my childish heart with mingled grief and joy. In addition you sent me a box of ornaments to adorn my hair and a stick of pomade to make my lips smooth. It was most kind of you; but for whom am I to make myself attractive? As I look at these presents my breast is filled with sorrow.
"Your letter said that you will stay on in the capital to pursue your studies, and of course you need quiet and the facilities there to make progress. Still it is hard on the person left alone in the far-off place. But such is my fate, and I should not complain. Since last fall I have been listless and without hope. In company I can force myself to talk and smile, but come evening I always shed tears in the solitude of my own room. Even in my sleep I often sob, yearning for the absent one. Or I am in your arms for a moment as it used to be, but before the secret meeting is done I am awake and heartbroken. The bed seems still warm beside me, but the one I love is far away.
"Since you said goodbye the new year has come. In the spring Chang'an is a city of pleasure with the chance for love everywhere. I am truly fortunate that you have not forgotten me and that your affection is not worn out. Loving you as I do, I have no way of repaying you, except to be true to our vow of lifelong fidelity.
"Our first meeting was at the banquet, as cousins. Then you persuaded my maid to inform me of your love; and I was unable to keep my childish heart firm. You made advances, like that other poet, Sima Xiangru; I failed to repulse them as the girl did who threw her shuttle. When I offered myself in your bed, you treated me with the greatest kindness, and I supposed, in my innocence, that I could always depend on you. How could I have foreseen that our encounter could not possibly lead to something definite, that having disgraced myself by coming to you, there was no further chance of serving you openly as a wife? To the end of my days this will be a lasting regret--I must hide my sighs and be silent. If you, out of kindness, would condescend to fulfill my selfish wish, though it came on my dying day, it would seem a new lease of life. But if, as a man of the world, you curtail your feelings, sacrificing the lesser to the more important, and look on this connection as shameful, so that your solemn vow becomes dispensable, still my true love will not vanish though my bones decay and my frame dissolve: in wind and dew it will seek out the ground you walk on. My love in life and death is told in this. I weep as I write, for feelings I cannot express. Take care of yourself, a thousand times over, take care of your dear self.
"This bracelet of jade is something I wore as a child: I send it to serve as a gentlemen's belt pendant. Like jade may you be invariably firm and tender; like a bracelet may there be no break between what came before and what is to follow. Here are also a skein of tangled thread and a tea roller of mottled bamboo. These things have no intrinsic value, but they are to signify that I want you to be true as jade and your love to endure unbroken as a bracelet. The spots on the bamboo are like the marks of my tears, and my unhappy thoughts are as tangled as the thread: these objects are symbols of my feelings and tokens for all time of my love. Our hearts are closed, though our bodies are far apart and there is no time I can expect to see you. But where the hidden desires are strong enough, there will be a meeting of spirits. Take care of yourself, a thousand times over. The springtime wind is often chill; eat well for your health's sake. Be circumspect and careful, and do not think too often of my unworthy person."
Zhang showed her letter to his friends, and in that way word of the affair got around. One of them, Yang Juyuan, a skillful poet wrote a quatrain on "Young Miss Cui."
For clear purity jade cannot equal his complexion,
On the iris in the inner court snow begins to melt.
A romantic young man filled with thoughts of love.
A letter from the Xiao girl, brokenhearted.
Yuan Zhen of Henan wrote a continuation of Zhang's poem, "Encounter with an Immortal," also in thirty couplets:
Faint moonbeams pierce the curtained window,
Fireflies glimmer across the blue sky.
The far horizon begins now to pale,
Dwarf trees gradually turn darker green.
A dragon song crosses the court bamboo,
A phoenix air brushes the well-side tree.
The silken robe trails through the thin mist,
The pendant circles tinkle in the light breeze.
The accredited envoy accompanies Xi wang mu,
From the cloud's center comes Jade Boy.
Late at night everyone is quiet,
At daybreak the rain drizzles.
Pearl radiance shines on her decorated sandals,
Flower glow shows off the embroidered skirt.
Jasper hairpin: a walking colored phoenix.
Gauze shawl: embracing vermilion rainbow.
She says she comes from Jasper Flower Bank
And is going to pay court at Green Jade Palace.
On an outing north of Luoyang's wall
By chance he came to the house east of Song Yu's.
His dalliance she reject a bit at first,
But her yielding love already is disclosed.
Lowered locks put in motion cicada shadows,
Returning steps raise jade dust.
Her face turns to let flow flower snow.
As she climbs into bed, silk covers in her arms.
Love birds in a neck-entwining dance,
Kingfishers in a conjugal cage.
Eyebrows, out of shyness, contracted;
Lip rouge, from the warmth, melted.
Her breath is pure: fragrance of orchid buds;
Her skin is smooth: richness of jade flesh.
No strength, too limp to lift a wrist;
Many charms, as she likes to draw herself together.
Sweat runs: pearly drop by drop;
Hair in disorder: black luxuriance.
Just as they rejoice in the meeting of a lifetime,
They suddenly hear that the night is over.
There is no time for lingering;
It is hard to give up the wish to embrace.
Her comely face shows the sorrow she feels.
With fragrant words they swear eternal love.
She gives him a bracelet to plight their troth,
He ties a lovers' knot as sign their hearts are one.
Tear-borne powder runs before the clear mirror,
Around the flickering lamp are nighttime insects.
Moonlight is still softly shining
As the rising sun gradually dawns.
Riding on a wild goose she returns to the Luo River,
Blowing a flute he ascends Mount Sung.
His clothes are fragrant still with the musk perfume,
The pillow is slippery yet with the red traces.
Thick thick, the grass rows on the dyke;
Floating floating, the tumbleweed yearns for the isle.
Her plain cither plays the Resentful Crane Song;
In the clear milky Way she looks for the returning wild goose.
The sea is broad and truly hard to cross;
The sky is high and not easy to traverse.
The moving cloud is nowhere to be found--
Xiao Shi stays in his chamber.
All of Zhang's friends who heard of the affair marveled at it, but Zhang had determined on his own course of action. Yuan Zhen was especially close to him and so was in a position to ask him for an explanation. Zhang said, "It is a general rule that those women endowed by Heaven with great beauty invariably destroy themselves or destroy someone else. If this Cui woman were to meet someone with wealth and position, she would use the favor her charms gain her to be cloud and rain or dragon or monster--I can't imagine what she might turn into. Of old, Emperor Xin of the Shang and King You of the Zhou were brought low by women, in armies were scattered, their persons butchered, and down to the present day their names are the objects of ridicule. I have no inner strength to withstand this evil influence. That is why I have resolutely suppressed my love."
At this statement everyone present sighed deeply.
Over a year later Cui was married, and Zhang for his part had taken a wife. Happening to pass through the town where she was living, he asked permission of her husband to see her, as a cousin. The husband spoke to her, but Cui refused to appear. Zhang's feelings of hurt showed on his face, and she was told about it. She secretly sent him a poem:
Emaciated, I have lost my looks,
Tossing and turning, too weary to leave my bed.
It's not because of others I am ashamed to rise,
For you I am haggard and before you ashamed.
She never did appear. Some days later when Zhang was about to leave, she sent another poem of farewell:
Cast off and abandoned, what can I say now,
Whom you loved so briefly so long ago?
Any love you had then for me
Will do for the one you have now.
After this he never heard any more about her. His contemporaries for the most part conceded that Zhang had done well to rectify his mistake. I have often mentioned it among friends so that, forewarned, they might avoid doing such a thing, or if they did, that they might not be led astray by it. In the ninth month of a year in the Zhenyuan period (785-804 C.E.) when an official, Li Shen, was passing the night in my house in Jing'an Street, the conversation touched on the subject. He found it most extraordinary and composed a "Song of Yingying" to commemorate the affair. Cui's child-name was Yingying, and Li Shen used it for his poem.