Part 13 (1/2)

[62] RESIGNATION

Keep off your thoughts from things that are past and done; For thinking of the past wakes regret and pain.

Keep off your thoughts from thinking what will happen; To think of the future fills one with dismay.

Better by day to sit like a sack in your chair; Better by night to lie a stone in your bed.

When food comes, then open your mouth; When sleep comes, then close your eyes.

YuAN CHEN

[_A.D. 799-831_]

[63] THE STORY OF TS'UI YING-YING

During the Cheng-Yuan[1] period of the T'ang dynasty there lived a man called Chang.[2] His nature was gentle and refined, and his person of great beauty. But his deeper feelings were resolutely held in restraint, and he would indulge in no license. Sometimes his friends took him to a party and he would try to join their frolics; but when the rest were shouting and scuffling their hardest, Chang only pretended to take his share. For he could never overcome his shyness. So it came about that though already twenty-three, he had not yet enjoyed a woman's beauty. To those who questioned him he answered, ”It is not such as Master Teng-t'u[3] who are true lovers of beauty; for they are merely profligates. I consider myself a lover of beauty, who happens never to have met with it. And I am of this opinion because I know that, in other things, whatever is beautiful casts its spell upon me; so that I cannot be devoid of feeling.” His questioners only laughed.

[1] A.D. 785-805.

[2] I.e., Yuan Chen himself.

[3] Type of the indiscriminate lover, fourth century B.C.

About this time Chang went to Puchow. Some two miles east of the town there is a temple called the P'-u-chiu-ssu, and here he took up his lodging. Now it happened that at this time the widow of a certain Ts'ui was returning to Ch'ang-an.[4] She pa.s.sed through Puchow on her way and stayed at the same temple.

[4] The capital of China at that time; now called Hsi-an-fu.

This lady was born of the Cheng family and Chang's mother was also a Cheng. He unravelled their relations.h.i.+p and found that they were second-cousins.

This year General Hun-Chan[5] died at Puchow. There was a certain Colonel Ting Wen-ya who ill-treated his troops. The soldiers accordingly made Hun Chan's funeral the occasion of a mutiny, and began to plunder the town. The Ts'ui family had brought with them much valuable property and many slaves. Subjected to this sudden danger when far from home, they had no one from whom they could seek protection.

[5] B. A.D. 735; d. 799. Famous for his campaigns against the Tibetans and Uighurs.

Now it happened that Chang had been friendly with the political party to which the commander at Puchow belonged. At his request a guard was sent to the temple and no disorder took place there. A few days afterwards the Civil Commissioner Tu Chio was ordered by the Emperor to take over the command of the troops. The mutineers then laid down their arms.

The widow Cheng was very sensible of the service which Chang had rendered. She therefore provided dainties and invited him to a banquet in the middle hall. At table she turned to him and said, ”I, your cousin, a lonely and widowed relict, had young ones in my care. If we had fallen into the hands of the soldiery, I could not have helped them.

Therefore the lives of my little boy and young daughter were saved by your protection, and they owe you eternal grat.i.tude. I will now cause them to kneel before you, their merciful cousin, that they may thank you for your favours.” First she sent for her son, Huan-lang, who was about ten years old, a handsome and gentle child. Then she called to her daughter, Ying-ying: ”Come and bow to your cousin. Your cousin saved your life.” For a long while she would not come, saying that she was not well. The widow grew angry and cried: ”Your cousin saved your life.

But for his help, you would now be a prisoner. How can you treat him so rudely?”

At last she came in, dressed in everyday clothes, with a look of deep unhappiness in her face. She had not put on any ornaments. Her hair hung down in coils, the black of her two eyebrows joined, her cheeks were not rouged. But her features were of exquisite beauty and shone with an almost dazzling l.u.s.tre.

Chang bowed to her, amazed. She sat down by her mother's side and looked all the time towards her, turning from him with a fixed stare of aversion, as though she could not endure his presence.

He asked how old she was. The widow answered, ”She was born in the year of the present Emperor's reign that was a year of the Rat, and now it is the year of the Dragon in the period Cheng-yuan.[6] So she must be seventeen years old.”

[6] I.e., A.D. 800.