Go Ask the River. Evelyn Eaton
maids, must be the Innkeeper, the Lady of the House, magnificent in green and gold, from the high comb in her hair to the jade shoes on her feet, glimmering as she moved and her jewels caught the light.
When she drew near enough for him to see her face clearly, he was pleasantly surprised. From the stately way she walked and the deference paid to her, he expected her to be old. This was a young woman, very beautiful.
“I am sorry I was not here to pour the first wine.” Her voice was as lovely as her face. “I hope you were well entertained?”
“Like the King of Yueh, when he had conquered Wu.”
She smiled.
“The King of Yueh got very drunk,” he said, “and so did I.”
“The King of Yueh said, if I remember well, ‘Fill my glass and let it glow in amber.’”
“The King of Yueh had a stronger head than mine.”
“I do not think so. Probably you were tired, or the first wine was to blame. This wine will not hurt you.” She beckoned. The servants hurried forward with new flagons, bowls of fruit, cakes and sweetmeats, baskets of dates and nuts. He began to worry again, not only about getting drunk, but about the reckoning. He cleared his throat and was searching for the right words to explain the slimness of his purse, when she puzzled him by saying:
“The Governor is unable to greet you tonight. He charged me with his regrets and with the honor of offering you his hospitality.”
“The Governor?” he repeated stupidly. “How did he know I would come here?”
“Is he not expecting you?”
“Well, yes, at his Palace,” he muttered. “But still, I don’t understand…”
Now she looked perplexed, and he thought, “I am not the guest she expected,” and then, “Most men I suppose would seize the opportunity…” He said hurriedly:
“I am delighted. It is only that…let me explain…my name is T’ien Chu…”
“T’ien Chu,” she repeated. “It is a well-shaped name, but is it any reason why you cannot drink the Governor’s wine?”
She was laughing at him.
“You don’t understand,” he plowed on. “I am a poor scholar, a tutor for the Governor’s sons.”
She rebuked him.
“Scholars, rich or poor, and they are seldom rich, T’ien Chu, are particularly welcome, and educators honored here. The Governor’s Ya Men will be diminished that T’ien Chu rejects his hospitality, at the hands of this poor shadow, for such a reason.”
“No, no,” he said hastily. “I do not reject it…for any reason… I just wanted you to know who I was, in case you expected another… As you see, I am drinking the wine.” He lifted his bowl. “To the Governor’s fragrant shadow.”
She did not reveal her name, and he did not feel that he should press for it, curious though he was. She was beginning to attract him strongly, with her lilting voice, her painted, heart-shaped face, the charm of her gestures…all the subtle enchantment emanating from her.
He tried to remind himself that she must be a trained and skillful performer in the seductive arts, to be the Governor’s official Hostess in this inn, where apparently he paid the reckoning for any man who came. No doubt she was the Governor’s favorite Flower-in-the-mist, and nothing she did could be sincere. But he did not believe this in his heart, and with every word she said, and everything they shared, every glance, every smile, every sipping of the wine together, in the smooth, swift passing of time suspended between them, on this strange and fortunate night, he was drawn more deeply toward her.
Presently she took up her guitar and began to sing, small haunting songs, in the style he was beginning to think of as the music of Cheng-tu.
The four musicians, shadowy in the background, accompanied her softly in a tune he recognized, a very ancient love song, half rueful, half humorous:
“I will knock down the Yellow Crane House for you, with a hammer. You may upset the Parrot Island too for my sake.”
The second was unfamiliar:
“The Mountains of Tsang-wu may crumble, the River Hsiang go dry, our tears on the bamboo leaves will not fade forever.”
The third he knew well, it always moved him, and he caught in his breath to hear it now:
“Go ask the river which are longer, its eastward-flowing waters or the thoughts that fill us…”
The thoughts that fill us. His must be evident to her.
“T’ien Chu,” she said, “shall we sing together some song that you know?”
“I have no voice,” he muttered.
She put down the guitar.
“Then shall we harmonize a poem together, composing alternate lines?”
“Willingly.”
She clapped her hands. A servant came out of the shadows with brushes and a sheaf of large fine sheets of paper. He took up a sheet to look at the design of pine and plum blossom woven through it.
“How beautiful the texture is,” he said, fingering it. “I have never seen a paper as smooth and strong as this. It invites the brush.”
She smiled. “Do you like fine paper, T’ien Chu?”
“Yes. Because I am a poet.” He shrugged.
“I will give you some. It is made here at our Hundred Flowers Pool. The water at this bend of the Silk River has a special quality. Each of these sheets has been separately dipped into the stream.”
“It is beautiful,” he repeated.
He was thinking, “If I compose the first line I will introduce the theme of love and the passing of time and then I can sing to her of the new turmoil in my heart. But if she begins…”
She smiled as though she caught his thought.
“You first, T’ien Chu.”
“Very well.”
He wrote down the title:
“‘Harmonizing a poem with the Chance Met Lady.’”
He thought for a long moment.
“Loveliness and compassion cannot be grasped.”
He brushed the column down strongly, with bold, thick strokes. Then he pushed the paper toward her. She leaned over his shoulder to brush in the next line:
“The turning year shakes the earth, petals drift…” Her script was like her music, complex, detailed, ordered, each glyph complete, a miniature picture, perfect in itself, even without the poem’s meaning. No slovenly short cuts or concessions. Few scholars wrote like this today. He wondered how she had acquired the patience and the skill. She was a challenging poet. She had taken the general statement in his line and made it concrete with “shakes the earth” and “petals.” Petals blown on the wind, petals from the flowering trees. He would make it harder for her than this. He would put those fallen petals in a specific place and bring her in obliquely…
“flinging a crimson pathway for satin-slippered feet.” What would she do with that?
“or cover the ground like frost.”
Oh, clever, to bring in the frost, to make loveliness of death, and turn his lament for the fallen into a triumph of escape! But this was leading them a little off the track. He returned to the passing of time, and the need to seize upon love…
“All that is exquisite and frail is evanescent…”
She