by Robert Wexelblatt

One of the remarkable things about the Sui period poet Chen Hsi-wei is the way fame caught up with him.  He began life in a poor village near the capital, was selected as a courier to the south during the wars, returned alive, turned down the money, land, and women he was offered, asking instead to be educated.  A hard master was ordered to take the boy on. To improve his pupil’s weak calligraphy, Shen Kuo put Hsi-wei to copying the ancient masters.  Almost without willing it, the boy began to emulate these poets, composing new verses of his own.  Seeking to promote himself, Shen Kuo circulated his pupil’s poems at court as curiosities, like the tricks of a trained dog.  Never before had China seen a peasant-poet.  Then Hsi-wei fell in love with the young widow, Tien Miao, who returned his love but was being courted by a rich friend of her late husband.  To spare Miao from being attached to a penniless poet of no family and with no prospects, Hsi-wei took to the road, supporting himself by making straw sandals and leaving behind him a trail of verses.  These poems proved popular; they were copied and spread across the country.  So the time came when Hsi-wei’s name was known to people in many of the towns into which he wandered and even some of the small villages.  If they got wind of Hsi-wei’s arrival the leading gentry were quick to offer him hospitality.  He was no longer a novelty but a figure whose presence conferred a measure of prestige on his hosts.  Yet he continued his vagabond life just the same as when he was unknown, fashioning his straw sandals and poems.

            During his travels through the province of Chiennan, Hsi-wei arrived in Hongchun, a town that was prospering under the peace of Emperor Wen.  As was his custom, he made his way to the marketplace and set up his sign advertising sandals.  On this occasion, however, he had two competitors, neither of whom was about to welcome a third.  These men hated one another.  Only the month before they had brawled and knocked over the dumpling stand of a Mrs. Chin.  For this they were fined and sternly warned by Peng Chaoxiang, the local magistrate.  As a result, the sandal-makers were cautious about the best way to drive out this new competitor in the dusty clothing.  They approached each other with hesitation but soon made common cause, put their heads together and prudently decided—though it went against their nature—to try a friendly line.

            Hsi-wei stood up as the two came over, thinking they might be customers.

            “How do you do, young fellow?  I can see you’re a traveler,” said the first.

            “Yes, welcome to Hongchun,” said the other with a forced smile.

            Hsi-wei thanked them for their welcome.  “Do you gentlemen want new sandals?  My price is good.”

            Indeed, the price Hsi-wei quoted was half theirs.

            “No,” said the first, “we don’t want any sandals.”

            “You see, we’re sandal-makers ourselves.  We supply all of Hongchun.”

            “Oh,” said Hsi-wei, grasping the situation.

            “Yes.  And so, as you can see, there’s no point in your sticking around,” said the second, who was unable to keep a threatening tone from his speech.

            “Yes, we recommend you be on your way.  But we’re reasonable men,” said the first with a show of affability.  “No doubt you could do with a few coins for your journey.”

            Hsi-wei politely decline the offer.

            At this the second man drew himself up and clenched his fists.  “Look, if you don’t clear out, I’ll see you regret it.”

            At that moment, Constable Ying, who was in the market buying radishes for his wife, saw what was about to happen and strode over.

            “Enough,” he said.  “Have you two already forgotten what Magistrate Peng told you?”

            “He only warned us about fighting with each other,” said the second man truculently.

            “Don’t split hairs with me,” retorted Constable Ying, then turned to Hsi-wei.

            “You.  What’s your name.”

            “Chen Hsi-wei, sir.”

            “You’re obviously not from around here. Where are you from?”

            Hsi-wei pointed down the road.

            “A vagrant, eh?  A trouble maker?  I think I’d better take you to the magistrate.”

            “With respect, sir, the trouble isn’t being made by me,” Hsi-wei pointed out.

            “No matter.  You’re the occasion of it,” said Ying, pleased with his own perspicacity.

            And so Hsi-wei took down his sign and up his bundle and was conducted by Constable Ying to the office of Magistrate Peng.

            “What is it this time, Ying?” said the magistrate impatiently from behind his desk.  Peng was a substantial man in middle age with sharp eyes and a rather pleasing face, despite the frown he had turned on his officious constable.

            “A vagrant, Your Honor.  A sandal-maker, or so he claims.  Showed up from nowhere in the marketplace and made trouble with those two men you fined and cautioned last month.”

            “And so,” snapped Peng, “you concluded it’s the man I didn’t fine or caution who created the disturbance?” 

            Ying didn’t know what to say to this and so said nothing.

            The magistrate addressed Hsi-wei.  “Your name, please.”

            “Chen Hsi-wei, Your Honor.”

            Magistrate Peng’s eyebrows went up, then he rose from his desk.  “And you travel about making sandals?”

            “That’s true, Your Honor.  Good sandals at a good price.”

            “No doubt a better one than those two louts charge.”

            “I couldn’t say, sir.”

            “Do you by any chance also make something else?  Poems, for instance?”

            Hsi-wei, to whom this was not yet a common experience, expressed his surprise.

            “Go away, Ying,” ordered the magistrate and watched the constable do so.  Then he called for a servant and ordered her to bring tea.

            “Chen Hsi-wei, please put down your bundle.  Have a seat.”

            Hsi-wei laid down his things and sat on the pillows indicated by the magistrate.

            “‘Yellow Moon at Lake Weishan.’  My younger daughter sings it, you know, and rather well, if I say so myself.  Our town is a bit out of the way, Mr. Chen, but we are not such provincials that we don’t know of your poems.  We even know your story, at least the part about your head being shaved and inscribed with the message to General Fu.  That was you, wasn’t it?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “Well, it’s an honor to have you here in Hongchun,” said Peng warmly.  “Have you just arrived?”

            “This morning, Your Honor.”

            “You haven’t yet found a place to say?”

            “No.”

            The magistrate clapped his hands.  “Excellent.  If you will be so kind as to accept, you shall be my guest. My family will be thrilled.  Please do accept my inadequate hospitality, Mr. Chen.”

            “You are very gracious, sir.  A corner of the stable will do for me.  But I must first find a few customers.”

            Peng laughed.  “Oh, we can do better than the stable.  As for money,” Peng waved his hand, “never mind about that.  I’ll happily make good your loss by buying sandals for my whole family—that’s five pairs—and we can avoid any more incidents in the marketplace.  Will that do?”

            And so Hsi-wei became the guest of Magistrate Peng.  While he left to buy straw, Peng sent an order to his villa that a storage room be cleared for him, the room well swept, a bed moved in and a small desk.  It was quite cozy.

            Chu-hua, the magistrate’s wife was a plump, sympathetic woman neither too humble nor too proud. The elder daughter, Hua, was twenty, round-faced, cheerful, and soon to be married.  The younger daughter was almost eighteen, more delicate than her sister, with a refined, pensive face. Hsi-wei guessed the magistrate and his wife kept trying for a boy and were rewarded.  Their son, Hu-lin, the youngest child, was a vigorous, restless boy of thirteen. 

            The conversation at dinner was brisk.  Everybody had questions for Hsi-wei. Peng wanted to hear about conditions in the provinces through which he had trekked.  Were all of them doing as well under Wen’s rule as Chiennan?  Chu-hua asked about Hsi-wei’s way of life—didn’t he find it lonely, traveling by himself?  The elder daughter, Hua, asked about what sort of clothing women wore in the larger cities—was silk as popular as ever and was its price dropping?  Hu-lin bubbled with questions about Hsi-wei’s adventures, particularly his trip to the south.  “Were you my age or older?  Did you have any narrow escapes?  Was General Fu astonished to see you?  Do you know what the precious secret message was?  Did you carry a sword or a dagger?  Did you ever steal a horse?”  All these questions Hsi-wei did his best to answer clearly and with the minimum of fuss.  They were easy questions.  Yenay, who could sing ‘Yellow Moon at Lake Weishan,’ being the youngest daughter, spoke last.  She asked only one question and it was not easy to answer.  As she posed it she looked straight at the poet, addressing him as “Master Hsi-wei,” then cast her eyes down shyly, as if she were a little awed at meeting him.

            “Master Hsi-wei, you have endured many hardships and seen so much of the empire.  You’ve been to the south, lived in the capital, have walked through all varieties of landscapes and met all sorts of people.  Your admirable poems—writing them must have been a glorious experience as well.  Please tell me, if you would, of all your experiences which was the most beautiful?”

            Hsi-wei was quiet for a few moments then spoke directly to the girl. 

            “My Lady, I suppose it’s true that in an outward sense a man on the move sees more than one who stays put. Still, it’s easy to overestimate such thing.  You’re right to say that there have been hardships and I am touched that you include among my experiences the writing of poems.  That has been a sort of an adventure too, an inward one.  But as to the most beautiful of my experiences—it would be like choosing the best verses from the Chuci masters or deciding who was the finest poet from among the three Caos.”

            “Then I apologize for asking such a silly question,” said Yenay, flushing.

            “No, no.  The question isn’t silly at all, just one I’ve never asked myself before.”

            Hsi-wei paused and considered.

            “I will tell you about one experience I had.  It stands out in my memory the way the most beautiful experiences do, I mean outside of normal time, though this one occurred the winter before last in the Hong mountains of Luncyu.”

            Hu-lin mumbled that he would prefer a battle story.  Hua said she hoped it was going to be a tale of love.

            “I’m afraid this is about neither war nor romance.  It may not even seem to you beautiful.  In fact, it was only the lady Yenay’s question that made me think it so.”

            “Please tell the story,” said Yenay in a soft voice.

            “Yes, do,” said her mother more imperatively.

            “It will take some time,” cautioned Hsi-wei.

            “Then we’ll make ourselves comfortable,” said Magistrate Peng and looked at his fidgeting son.  “Hu-lin, you can go if you wish.”  The boy didn’t wait to be told twice.

            Hsi-wei began.

            I was on my way to Shan.  I had heard many fine things about the young duke and wanted to see his capital.  To get to Shan I had to cross the Hong Mountains.  I thought little of it as a shepherd had shown me the track I should follow; the sun was bright and the air bracing.  I was well up on the mountainside when the weather suddenly turned, as can happen in high country.  The sky seemed to fall on my head, the wind blew up, and snow began to fall like sheets of frozen milk.  I could hardly see and the track was soon covered.  As I picked my way across the side of the mountain I saw a dark indistinct globe to my right and made for it.  It was an old man struggling under a huge bundle of sticks.  He was thin and bent; I was astonished that he could even dream of bearing such a load and on such a narrow track, too.  As I drew near, he fell on his side and the wood tumbled from his back.  I hurried toward him and grabbed his arm fearing he might roll down the mountain.  He did not seem surprised to see me.  He merely pointed upwards and grunted, “There.”  I hefted his bundle of fire wood and, holding fast to his arm, dragged him as gently as I could up the mountain.  It was hard going but at last we came to a hut, tiny and very old but stoutly built.  I kicked the snow away from the door and we were safe.  The hut was sparsely furnished, just what you would imagine of a hermitage.

            “Tea,” gasped the old man and pointed to a kettle, a jar of water, and a box of tea leaves.

            After he got some tea into him, the old man told me his name was Bao Sying.  He said gruffly that he was unused to speaking and did not enjoy it.  In fact, he spoke in short bursts, returning to silence with evident relief.  Bao Sying expressed no curiosity about me but during the night I managed to satisfy mine about him.  I learned he had been born into a household that was not poor but overcrowded.  His father had two wives and nine children.  He was the youngest.

            “We are all stuffed in these bags of skin but at the same time our species is a social one.  So each of us seeks his own balance between solitude and society.  It’s because of that crowded childhood that I have always yearned to be alone, I suppose.  As I was a third son, my father didn’t object when I begged permission to become a monk.  You see, I felt out of balance in my family home and imagined I’d find a better in the monastery.  And so I did, for a while.”

            He showed me a half dozen precious Buddhist texts.

            “They gave these to me when I left.  Three acolytes were given the task of copying them out for me and they resented it.  The young scoundrels knew I didn’t like them so they put in little messages to me.”

            He asked if I could read and when I assured him I could, he opened The Consecration of the Lamp and pointed to where one of the copyists had written Honorable Bao Sying, I send you this in my own voice which I hope you will find as annoying as ever.

            “They also put in foolish jokes.  Look here.”

            In the middle of a commentary on the Eightfold Way the acolyte had interpolated a story:   The Emperor summons a famous holy man from the monastery of Keishan.  When the monk arrives and bows before him, the Emperor asks what he would do if he were Emperor and the Emperor a monk.  The monk replies ‘ I would summon you and ask what you would do if you were the Emperor and I only a humble monk.’

            “Exactly the sort of silly tale Chiang used to tell.”

            Even though Bao did not want to talk any more, neither was he able to go to sleep.  I expect my presence in his hut disturbed him and prompted him to return to his fixed idea about the balance between solitude and companionship.

            “At first, I desired the good opinion of my fellow monks, all of whom were older than I was.  I behaved punctiliously in fulfilling my duties and was submissive to all.  I studied the texts in our library and twice was trusted to go to the west to buy more.  In the course of time I was tasked with instructing the acolytes.  But as I became older the balance shifted.  I found my students lazy and the habits of the older monks exasperating.  All I could see were their faults, which I knew inside and out.  I began to find the monastery as overpopulated as my family home, full of rascals like these copyists. It’s not possible to be a hermit in a monastery.”

            “You’ve certainly found a remote spot,” I couldn’t help pointing out.  “The view must be magnificent, and empty of people.”

            “This mountain has always been a place for hermits.  When the last tenant of this hut died the villagers down below were out of sorts.  They were so pleased when I showed up.  Evidently, the peasants hereabout have their own notion of balance and it includes hermits on their mountain.”

            I sympathized and admitted that I too sought a balance that leaned toward solitude.  “But I could never be a hermit,” I confessed, “because people interest me more than vistas.  Still, my vagabond life leaves me mostly to myself.  Traveling from place to place I’m often among people yet never belong with any of them.”

            “You need people,” the hermit said, “but you also need to leave them.  It’s a ghost’s life.”

            “I’m not a ghost.”

            “What then?”

            “A sandal-maker.”

            “And nothing else?”

            “A poet.”

            “Ah, a poet.”  The old man smiled.  “Put some more wood on the fire, recite a poem for me, and then we can both go to sleep.  On second thought, forget about the poem.”

            Hua asked to be excused.  Magistrate Peng and his lady wife did not chide their daughter; they sat with frozen smiles.  Yenay alone seemed still attentive, but then it was her question that had set Hsi-wei off.

            “The beautiful part comes next,” he promised, “ and it is brief to tell.”

            In the morning the storm had passed leaving a heavy load of snow on the mountain.  I was therefore surprised to hear a knock at the door.  It was another old man, all wrapped up in furs.   He was not so old as Bao Sying, who still lay in bed, all covered up with rags, but almost.

            The man was surprised to see me.

            “Luo Nianzu,” he said with just the hint of a bow. 

            “Luo,” Bao grunted from his pallet. 

            Luo Bao nodded toward Bao.

            I  hoped Bao Sying could stand the crush; there wasn’t room to turn around.

            And so the mountain could boast of two hermits.  The villagers down below must have felt good about that.

            I made tea.  The two sages said not one more word.   No, not a single word passed between them and yet—this is what I found beautiful—they said everything needful.  Luo  had come to see if Bao had made it through the storm and Bao was touched.  He rose from his bed.  Luo seemed to accept my presence as natural.  I handed them cups of tea and the two old men took up positions knee to knee in that overcrowded little hut.  They looked at one another.  With me, Bao had spoken and now I felt somehow ashamed of that.  With Luo, who had given me only the three syllables of his name, talk was unnecessary.  I kept the fire going and my mouth shut.  After about an hour Luo Nianzu rose and left.  It is difficult to explain but that hour of silence seemed loud, full of unheard music, banging tanggu and sweet sanxian.

            “A poet who finds silence more beautiful than words, that’s unusual,” declared Magistrate Peng and ended the evening with a yawn. 

            The household retired. 

            The next day Hsi-wei spent making five pairs of sandals and that night, commanded by her father, Yenay shyly sang “Yellow Moon at Lake Weishan.”  The next morning, Hsi-wei thanked the family for their hospitality and presented them with their sandals.  As he departed he handed Yenay a rolled up piece of paper.  On it he had written the poem which has become known as “The Silence of Hermits.”

One winter morning I watched two hermits sitting together.

Luo Nianzu had come to pay a visit to Bao Sying. 

I prepared tea. For a serene hour they faced each other

on the cold dirt floor, sipping tea, saying not one word.

I recall it as a beautiful hour, lovely, full and

still as Lake Weishan when the dawn mist lifts.

I learned how much can be said by saying nothing.

Silence may be noisy with gossip, jokes, endearments

when the silent are in perfect accord.  That’s how it is

with lovers, likewise those whose lives have brought them

to the same wisdom—lovers linked by feeling, sages by thought.

Such silences surpass even the verses of Qu Yuan.

Note:

Hsi Wei and the Hermit is not the first piece Eastit has published by Robert Wexelblatt. A Previous Hsi Wei story, Hsi Wei’s Last Poem was published in the August issue of Easlit.