Читать книгу Go Ask the River - Evelyn Eaton - Страница 13

III

THE SUN WAS STILL FAR FROM SETTING when the Governor’s answer came, confirming the expected arrival of a tutor named T’ien Chu, requesting further details of the young man’s present situation in the house of his old and honored friend, and asking, mildly, but with legitimate curiosity, when the teaching of his sons would begin.

T’ien Chu begged Magistrate Wu-tsung to proceed with the investigation which should clear him of the charges against him and set him free to take up his duties as the Governor desired. He pleaded that they might set out for the Inn at once. Everything, he insisted, would be explained to everyone’s satisfaction, as soon as they could get there and question the Lady of the House. Then, he was certain, it would be clearly shown that he was the innocent victim of some strange but natural circumstance.

He was not at all certain of this, or of anything, except that he could not endure to sit for another moment, politely answering questions about his home, his education, and, to prove his scholarship, discuss pedantic niceties of the more obscure classics with this tedious old man. He was trying to conceal the anxiety racking him, his desperate need to see the Chance Met Lady, to ask forgiveness, to set things straight, above all to find out what the catastrophe was. Wild thoughts went chasing through his head. He even imagined the sudden return of the Governor himself to the sleeping pavilion, but if that were so, he would hardly have sent a mild message of inquiry and endorsement to Magistrate Wu-tsung about the young man caught in his Flower’s bed…unless the Flower’s servants had managed to dump the young man out in time…

It might be that, but he did not believe it. There had been no hesitation in her manner, no suggested need for concealment. She moved proudly free. But he must find out.

He hoped that the old man’s eyes were not too shrewd, that he saw in his restless prisoner only a young man eager to assume new office, not this burned-up fool of a poet, hopelessly in love.

They set off at last, the magistrate in his litter, drawn by two white oxen, with T’ien Chu walking beside it and an escort of armed servants clearing the way before them, toward the East Gate.

Long before they came within sight of the distant city walls, T’ien Chu was scanning the left-hand side of the road for the first sight of the Inn.

He did not find it as soon as he expected. He was still searching when suddenly they reached the gate itself. He looked up, startled.

“Was the Inn outside the gate?” Magistrate Wu-tsung asked.

“No, no. It was well inside, a li or half a li at least.”

“You have missed it. Turn back. Search again.”

They returned from the gate toward the city and were almost at the magistrate’s house before T’ien Chu would admit that he was lost.

“I must have come through another gate.”

“There is none, unless you cross the city to the West Gate. But you came from the east and you did not cross the city?”

“No, not last night. Not until this morning, with the soldiers, as far as your house…but then…but then it must be there! Let us go back…”

“Very well.”

The Inn was not to be found. When they reached the East Gate for the third time, Magistrate Wu-tsung said:

“T’ien Chu, there is one thing you should know. There has never been an inn or a teahouse in the city of Cheng-tu near either of the gates.”

“But I tell you…”

“It is because you told me, insistently, that such an inn existed, that I came with you to find it. Where is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was it perhaps a private villa?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps. It isn’t here.”

“You were drunk. Did you dream or invent the story?”

“I was drunk on the wine I drank there. I had no other wine. I did not invent the story. I did not dream.”

“Would you recognize the place where you were found?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps.”

“Is it over there?” He pointed to a gateway marked by a small stone arch. “Is it this place?” He climbed out of his litter and took T’ien Chu by the arm. “Come here. There is something I want you to see. Read the inscription over the gate.”

“P’i-pa Gateway, to the Villa Pi-chi-Fang.” He turned inquiringly toward Wu-tsung. Then he saw something else and cried out in surprise: “Look, look, there she is! It is her perfect likeness!” He was staring at a dark stone tablet let into the wall, with the deeply incised figure of a woman holding a sheaf of paper.

“Read the inscription,” the older man said, a little grimly.

“‘Hung Tu, the laureate of Shu, who went down to the Terrace of Night at the age of seventy-two, in the T’ao Period of the reign of Wen Tsung, of the Tang Dynasty’… Tang Dynasty… but that’s…”

“Four hundred years ago. Go on, finish the inscription.”

“‘Offering her famous Hsueh T’ao Poem Pages to the centuries…’ Those are the very sheets of the scroll, the pine and plum-blossom paper…this must be the ancestress of the Chance Met Lady.”

“Hung Tu had no descendants, T’ien Chu.”

“Then…then…but the likeness…”

“This is the site of the Villa Pi-chi-Fang, built for her by the Silk River, where she poured wine for her friends and harmonized poems. Where she also entertained many guests for the Governors of Shu. It was here that she invented and manufactured paper known by her family name, Hsueh T’ao. And…here is her handwriting, on this bronze plaque, T’ien Chu.”

T’ien Chu leaned forward to peer at the columns of bold script. Then he fumbled in his sleeve and brought out the scroll. His fingers shook as he unrolled it and held it beside the plaque. He began to compare the writing. Suddenly he sighed deeply, the world turned about him, he fell to the ground.

They carried him home in the litter, his head in the magistrate’s lap, the scroll in his hand, rising, falling to the turning of the wheels behind the white oxen.

That night when the moon was high and he was somewhat recovered, lying on a mat in the magistrate’s room, watching Wu-tsung’s face as he examined the scroll, T’ien Chu said, “One thing troubles me…”

“One? You are fortunate.”

“Hung Tu was old when she died. That inscription said seventy-two. The Chance Met Lady is young…young…”

“So was Hung Tu’s likeness on the plaque. You recognized her at once.”

“But…”

“Is it not probable, T’ien Chu, that fragrant ghosts beckoned back choose what age they will assume when they pour wine for new friends?”

“But…”

“T’ien Chu, do not persist. Remember the saying ‘if you see an uncanny thing and do not regard it as such, its uncanniness will disappear.’ You are fortunate. Not only did the great Shu laureate come back to harmonize a poem with you, but she left you a scroll to prove it, a literary masterpiece, which will make you rich and famous.”

“I will never sell it.”

“No, I imagine not.” Magistrate Wu-tsung sighed. “Still you have it there, in her handwriting and yours. Men will believe what they are forced to concede.”

“Sir,” T’ien Chu said, “you have been very patient with the ravings of this stupid person from the beginning.”

“I said you were fortunate. You came before the one official who might hear you sympathetically. I too…in my day…when I was young…harmonized a poem with the Chance Met Lady. But my verses were bad. We destroyed the scroll.”

After a long pause T’ien Chu said reflectively, “One thing…”

“Another?”

“I remember that she said she would give me some of the paper when I came back. And she said again, or she agreed when I said it, I don’t remember exactly…”

“So soon?”

“I was very drunk,” he said defensively. “But I think she said that I would come back and harmonize more poems… Did she…?”

“Yes, she also said that to me. I think of it sometimes. And so will you, T’ien Chu.”