Love Whispers of the Couple Peaks
Descending along the rear gate of Huangshizhai (Yellow Stone Fortress) and passing by such scenic spots as Yellow Crane Rock, Eagle Beak, and "Linger a While," then continuing forward through Whip Shop, one can glimpse Wanglang Peak (Gazing-for-Husband Peak) in the distance. Resembling a slender, graceful woman, the stone peak gazes intently ahead, naturally awaiting the return of her sweetheart or husband. One cannot help but think of all the lonely men and women throughout history, separated by vast distances under boundless skies, enacting countless tales of bittersweet partings and reunions—some lingering and tender, others stirring and soul-stirring! As the saying goes, meeting is hard and parting sorrow is bitterest; and all this bitterness stems from just one word: love...
Walking forward while frequently looking back, as the angle shifts, the young woman gradually becomes a middle-aged woman enduring hardship; after a few more steps, the middle-aged woman is replaced by an elderly woman weathered by the vicissitudes of life.
Then one is left speechless with astonishment. Then one deeply sighs that time is ruthless and the prime of youth is most easily cast away. Years ago, at the China Art Gallery, I once saw an oil painting titled "The Former Queen of the Ball." Facing the figure in the painting—her forehead and face covered in wrinkles, her white hair like a clump of wild grass under the harsh frost of late autumn—I scarcely had the courage to imagine the dazzling glory of her prime, when she was ripe as a peach. Now, as Wanglang Peak condenses and displays the entire life journey of a woman, I suddenly think of how a brief life is spent in an endless wait—black hair turning white, time turning to stone—and my heart cannot help but shudder and tremble, adding infinite emotion and desolation.
Like the Goddess Peak of the Yangtze's Three Gorges, the Ashima of Yunnan's Stone Forest, and the Waiting-for-Husband Rocks scattered across scenic mountains and rivers, Zhangjiajie's Wanglang Peak actually embodies a culture. Throughout history, how many "Wanglang Peaks" have, for waits worthy or unworthy, enacted stories of women living as widows or virtual widows, sadly clinging to their homes. Waits like "Pity the bones by the Wuding River, still the dreamers in spring chambers" can be called tragic. That pipa player who "before the tune was formed, already had feeling," pained by "the merchant values profit and lightly parts," who "comes and goes at the river mouth, guarding an empty boat"—can be called full of hidden grief. As for Yi'an Jushi's "guarding the window, alone, how can one endure till dark"—that desolation, that helplessness, how could a single word "sorrow" contain it all? Then I recall the line "If love between both sides can last for aye, why need they stay together night and day?" Lovers whose hearts are entwined, beloved partners living apart, in patient waiting keeping faith and devotion, keeping a quality of emotion that "surpasses countless in the mortal world"—this is indeed deeply admirable; yet how many waits in life are originally unworthy or utterly hopeless, and how can they not leave one sighing and uneasy?
While gathering folk material along the Lishui River, I once heard this story: sixty years ago, on his wedding night, a young man eloped with a village girl he deeply loved. Not long after, the village girl was accidentally caught by men sent by her father, while he, wandering, joined the Red Army. Many years later he became a general and married a virtuous, beautiful military doctor. But in his heart he always remembered that village girl whose fate was unknown. Finally he found a chance to secretly return to his hometown, only to learn that the village girl had all along been living in seclusion in the old place where they had eloped, waiting for his return. The village girl's life had been saved, barely, by his nominal wife. When the village girl learned from the guards of his current situation, and saw that her former sweetheart still held such deep affection for her, she was content. In 1955, his mother passed away, and the general returned to the village. The wedding chamber was exactly as before; the red silk flower from twenty-two years ago still sat upright on the dressing table. He sighed with boundless emotion, for himself and for this "wife" who had lived as a virtual widow for over twenty years. There was a local custom: to test whether an unmarried girl was still chaste, a layer of fine plant ash was spread on a clay jar, and the girl, naked, sat on it and sneezed three times; if the ash remained undisturbed, she was deemed still a virgin. The wife bolted the door, drew the curtains tight, and solemnly brought out a new clay jar from under the bed. After completing everything, she fastened her belt, carefully held up the jar with both hands for him to inspect, and told him she was still chaste and had not shamed him. Then, finally unable to hold back, she wept bitterly. The next morning, the general, his heart heavy as lead, was still sound asleep when his elder brother ran over in terror to tell him: his sister-in-law had hanged herself during the night!
The village girl and the wife, both waiting bitterly for the same man, are shrouded in deep tragedy. If the village girl at least still clung to a devoted, lovesick longing, then what was the wife—never acknowledged by her husband—clinging to? Twenty-two years, the finest years of a life, endured and waited away for a man who never loved her from the very beginning, fading in gloom for a lifetime—was it worth it? Even for the village girl, dedicating her whole life in solitude to a man she could never be united with—was it worth it? If such situations occurred only with the general's wife and the village girl, one could dismiss them as old-style women adhering to feminine virtue, sacrificed to a slave culture due to limited education, not worth taking as a lesson. The problem is, things are far from so simple: there was an intellectual woman who saw through both the world of men and the world of women with perfect clarity, who during the Cultural Revolution fell in love with and married a man suffering immense tribulation and humiliation, bearing hardships beyond what ordinary women or men could endure, and using all her love to nourish and sustain that man who might be devoured by suffering at any moment. When the suffering ended and her husband, returning from exile in northwestern Hunan to the city, became a celebrity, he indulged daily in romantic affairs beyond remedy, and the two finally parted ways. For a woman, the greatest blow is to have painstakingly molded a man, only to lose him. She thought of death many times, showing how deeply she had loved him. She sorrowfully realized: when a woman loves a man, she does not stop loving him because he has many faults or even because he betrayed her. This woman also entertained such thoughts from time to time: just as twenty years ago, when society no longer needed him, she helped him up from the gutter; in the future, if no woman in the world wanted him anymore, she would go care for him... This reminds me of the old woman in "The Pupil" who stood on the shore of life her entire life, waiting for the lover who had left her sixty years ago. In her view, for the one you love, even if he has utterly betrayed you, you must wait forever, forever keeping a place for him in your heart, even if you must drink to the dregs all the loneliness of the world and exhaust your life's blood and sweat, with no regret.
Call it tragedy if you will, call it nobility if you will, call it incomprehensible or earth-shaking—as a man, facing these women of utmost passion and purity, what more could one demand beyond complete trembling of the soul and deep gratitude? Yet, as a man, I cannot help but feel aggrieved and pained for these women of utmost passion and purity... By ordinary standards, love should mean being together day and night, sharing wind and rain; or loving passionately to the point of death and rebirth, turning heaven and earth upside down. Who would have thought that such a lonely, ascetic love buried deep in time and deep in the heart could also possess such extraordinary intensity and brilliance!
After a while, I feel as though men are all wanderers far from home, gazing at Wanglang Peak in their hearts, suddenly overwhelmed by a summons and longing for return, and hurriedly setting off...
From Wanglang Peak past the forest farm guesthouse, a few hundred meters away is "Husband-and-Wife Rock," one of Zhangjiajie's three great wonders. Two giant peaks resembling a man's and a woman's heads, with bright eyes and white teeth, every hair and beard distinct, leave visitors marveling. This sight often astonishes me and even baffles me: why is it that all the states of existence in the human world can be reproduced so identically in nature?
There are quite a few poems praising Husband-and-Wife Rock, mostly extolling the marital ideal of mutual respect and growing old together. For this reason, I once commented in a work: the fine wish of growing old together, inherited over thousands of years, undoubtedly has its commendable side; however, once people's mode of thinking becomes fixed like Husband-and-Wife Rock, it inevitably gives rise to a negative effect. For a long time, people have regarded "marrying once and staying faithful till death" as the model of marriage. Growing old together in mutual love is of course most desirable; the question is, what about marriages without love? Should loveless unions that last till death be affirmed and praised for thousands of years without change? Some evaluate China's marital state as "low quality, high stability," which is undoubtedly a mockery of growing old together. Looking around at the multitudes, maintenance marriages and makeshift marriages are indeed numerous. Yet traditional Chinese moral concepts instinctively condemn divorce, instinctively excluding emotion in favor of preserving the family. So much so that some people live in order not to divorce, and live for the sake of not divorcing. However, the capriciousness and mutability of love, in the face of marriage's singularity and immutability, always seem hot-blooded and aggressive. The motley, bewildering world of emotion leaves one dazzled and at a loss.
So then, this great couple before us, for whom visitors linger endlessly—do they belong to the category of loving and devoted companions, or the category of seeming together but actually apart, sharing a bed while dreaming different dreams? Do they live in inseparable intimacy? Or barely make do? Or truly cannot go on? Mr. Guo Feng has keen eyes: he judged the woman to be over sixty, with a smile on her face, her feelings simple and pure, revealing a sense of trust in the things of the world; the man seems a philosopher, wrapped in a large windbreaker, the dawn illuminating his wise forehead. Looking carefully, indeed one cannot find any hidden troubles between their brows. So this old couple must indeed be a harmonious, loving pair growing old together. "With words we pledge, with words we suit. With words we drink, together we age. Lute and zither at hand, all is tranquil and good." A loving family and married life embody virtue and happiness, naturally aspired to and admired by people. Therefore, many tourists come in pairs to worship before Husband-and-Wife Rock, silently offering blessings, praying that their own marriage will be as happy as this loving couple. It is said that couples formerly at odds, after visiting here, grow fonder day by day; couples already on good terms become even more devoted; and even men and women who had already parted came here for a commemorative divorce trip, only to reunite after paying respects to Husband-and-Wife Rock...
Yet I do not wish for it to be deified. In my eyes, it is simply one of the countless old couples who have accompanied each other through decades of life's journey. All the joys and sorrows, partings and reunions, the seven emotions and six desires that humans possess—they possess equally. Perhaps in his youth his heart also "roamed wild" once or several times; perhaps life inevitably had its share of bumps and friction. But bathed in the clear sunlight of life's late autumn, all unpleasant memories melt away, and one gains a deeper savor of life and living, and a broader understanding of one's partner...
In truth, happy marriages have no fixed model. From feudal arranged marriages to today's freedom to marry is undoubtedly a tremendous advance in the marriage system. But as individual marriages, those united through free love do not necessarily taste the nectar of happiness; families formed through matchmakers do not necessarily fail to brew the fine wine of love. I once read an article titled "Love After Marriage," recounting how the author and his wife, in the long years of loving after marrying, were separated for twenty-four years because the author was implicated in the Hu Feng case. During that time the husband survived countless brushes with death, while the wife, to support her husband in prison and raise five hungry children, in desperation sold her blood at the hospital... Love nourished and tempered by suffering is deeper and more substantial than suffering itself, more transcendent of the physical body and more spiritual. When they finally reunited after weathering the storms, the love life of the two, now advanced in years, became ever purer and more sacred, ever more inseparable. So much so that the two secretly fretted over who would depart first: dying before the other, they could not bear to leave the other alone; dying after the other, they could not bear to let the other go first—truly not knowing what to do.
To be a couple to this degree is to enter a state of ultimate perfection. Then I recall the Irish poet Yeats's poem "When You Are Old." Savoring the lines "How many loved your moments of glad grace / And loved your beauty with love false or true / But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you / And loved the sorrows of your changing face," I think with surging passion: to still love with undivided devotion a partner whose face is covered in wrinkles—whether loving or being loved, one has entered a rare realm, radiating the brilliance of happiness throughout. Maintenance marriages and makeshift unions need not be mentioned; even those marriages that loved with abandon in youth but gradually became as bland as tea diluted by repeated additions of water should feel ashamed before such a realm.
Today, when the tremendous stability of marriage and the tremendous fluidity of emotion frequently collide, facing Husband-and-Wife Rock, I weigh the heavy significance of the three words "quality of marriage" while the Tang poet Qian Qi's imagery—"Bamboo is loveliest after new rain, mountains are dearest at sunset"—rises before me. Some regard these two lines as the best footnote to the views on love in youth and old age: in youth, "drunk in the spring breeze," full of romance; in old age, "facing each other, words forgotten," full of Zen. On reflection, how many in this world can truly enter such a realm? Probably not too many at present.
In Zhangjiajie's sandstone peak forest, there are other rock peaks named after themes of love between the sexes, including "Meeting After a Thousand Miles" by Golden Whip Stream and "Lovers' Tryst" on Tianzi Mountain.
One is truly amazed at nature's divine craftsmanship. Look at "Meeting After a Thousand Miles": the brother in armor and sword arrives dusty from travel, the sister who dines on flowers and drinks dew arrives full of tender feeling, with no time to shake off the frost covering their brows, no time to wipe away the mist wreathing their cloud-like hair... The Creator is nothing less than a master photographer, freezing the most moving instant into eternity. So it is with "Meeting After a Thousand Miles," and so it is with "Lovers' Tryst": love lets time slip away, but time has not let love slip away—when clouds come, they meet in the clouds; when rain comes, they meet in the rain. That ardor, that surprise, that shyness bring to mind the Miao "border market," the eloping wild mandarin ducks, and the many heart-wrenching yet breathtaking stories spun from them... For how many centuries have women been regarded as nature's masterpiece, the highest achievement of human civilization, praised as the embodiment of love and beauty. A woman's life seems prepared for love alone; if in a lifetime she possesses one single, unforgettable love, she can disregard gain and loss, brave hardship, and even go through fire and water without regret. In Mr. Shen Congwen's writing, Xiaoxiao, for meeting and carrying on an illicit affair, was nearly bound to the clan's millstone and sunk into the deep pool; and Cuicui in "Border Town," lovely as a little wild creature, who spent her days with the yellow dog, the white pagoda, the flowing water, the ferryboat, and the love songs that once set her heart ablaze—would she take a blue bundle and head downstream to find her beloved No. 2, meeting him "after a thousand miles" like the couple before us? Wanglang Peak, Husband-and-Wife Rock, Meeting After a Thousand Miles, Lovers' Tryst—whether these or others, rather than saying their lifelike forms evoke aesthetic pleasure, it is more accurate to say that people use these stone peaks as vessels, endowing them with their own thoughts and emotions. Thus in people's eyes they become flesh-and-blood beings who laugh and cry, living bodies full of life—a specific cultural phenomenon. As a work reflecting the emotional world of middle age puts it, Earth's appearance in the universe is an accident, and humanity's appearance on Earth is also an accident. It is precisely a passionate longing that endows Earth with consciousness and personality that has impelled humanity, since Genesis, to be entwined with love, endlessly generating life.
To gaze at the peaks is to gaze at the multitudes of humanity.
To converse earnestly with the peaks is to converse earnestly with the world of emotion.
I ask "Wanglang Peak," I ask "Husband-and-Wife Rock," I ask "Meeting After a Thousand Miles," I ask "Lovers' Tryst," I ask the great sandstone peak forest that encompasses all these rock peaks: when will ideal love and happy marriage, like the moon and the stars, shine together in the sky of every heart?
1994