Three Dreams

There are many dreams and dreamlike phenomena in the Liaozhai Zhiyi, my mother’s favorite collection from the Chinese genre called “strange tales,” some of which I incorporated into my work-in-progress, a speculative memoir with her at the center.  Here is one such dreams which is not in my memoir but I thought you might enjoy. The author’s name is Pu Songling.

Three Dreams
[“Feng Yang Shi Ren,” or “The Scholar from Feng Yang”]

This happened in Feng Yang, Anhui Province. A scholar took off on a trip with no more than a sack of books on his back, saying to his wife, “I’ll be back in six months.”

So, when, after ten months passed and she heard nothing from him, she was wracked with anxiety. That night, the moon was out, swaying on the tree branches, making shadows on the wind, and she had just laid her head on her pillow, trying not to wonder what had happened to him and why he was still not home when, between a toss and a turn, she saw a pretty lady open her bed curtains and stood before her. She had pearls in her hair and a red silk cape wrapped round her shoulders. She smiled at her and said, “My sister dear, didn’t you want to see your husband?” When she replied yes, the lady took her by the hand and led her outside. The wife hesitated as it was night and it might be too far for her to go, but the lady said not to worry and pulled her into the moonlight. 

Soon, the wife was lagging behind as the lady walked very fast and she had a hard time keeping up. She called to her to wait while she went back for a proper pair of walking shoes, whereupon the lady came and sat down next to her by the roadside, took off her own pair of shoes, and told her to put them on. The wife did as she was told and was happy to find that the shoes did not cramp her feet. They resumed their journey then and the wife found she could now walk just as swiftly and effortlessly as her guide.

In a while, her husband appeared on a white donkey. He was extremely surprised to see her and jumped off the donkey, asking, “Where are you going?” 

“Looking for you,” she replied. 

He then turned to look at the pretty lady and wanted to know who she was, and before his wife could say anything, the lady had put her hands up to cover her mouth and said with a giggle, “Never mind the questions. Your wife is tired from the long journey, and you yourselves, man and beast, must both be exhausted, riding under the moon and the stars half the night. My house is just around the corner. Come rest up first. There’s time enough to continue on when morning comes.” 

So they followed her to a village close by and entered a garden where the lady went and roused up a maid who had fallen asleep on a stone bench to come and see to the guests she had brought with her.  “The moon is out tonight,” she exclaimed, “there’s no need for lanterns. Make yourselves comfortable right here on the terrace,” and invited them to sit at a table with stone benches around it. The scholar tied up his donkey to one of the pillars and sat down as the lady said to his wife, “I’m afraid those shoes are too big for you. You must be so tired from all that walking. Don’t worry we’ll give you a ride home. If you don’t mind, I’ll take my shoes back now,” she said, as the wife thanked her kindly.

Meanwhile, wine and fruits were set out on the table, and the lady started pouring for them, saying, “Here’s just a little crude wine to celebrate our husband and wife reunion,” then, lifting her cup, she added, “to you, on this happy occasion!” The husband thanked her and responded in kind by drinking to their hostess’s health. 

Back and forth they went, exchanging pleasantries while under the table, shoes came off and a couple of pairs of feet were busy exchanging messages as well. The scholar couldn’t take his eyes off the lady and peppered his comments with flirtatious remarks and did not even bother to pretend to ask after his wife despite his long absence from her. The pretty lady too let her gaze linger on the husband and her words, too, were laden with double meanings and innuendos. The wife sat in mute silence and played the fool.

In a while, they were both quite drunk, and their words and actions became openly seductive and obnoxious. The lady was still pushing wine on the scholar, now exchanging the little cup for a large one, and when he said he couldn’t possibly drink any more, she leant hard on him till he said, “Okay, you sing me a song and I’ll drink up for you.” And she, indeed, started strumming with an ivory pick on a string instrument which she held on her lap, and sang:

Wiping off makeup at the end of the day,
Yellow the dusk falls yellow on my face.
Outside the gauze screen the west wind blows
Chilly, cold wind seeps through my window.
Listen to the banana leaves,
What a racket in the rain, pitter-pattering chatter,
But who is there left to chat with me?
Over the horizon, my eyes are drawn, looking,
Looking, longing for the sight of him . . .
Eyes filled with tears, falling, falling.
O how I want him and how I loathe him!
My red embroidered slippers I’ll toss in the air
Just to see if he is on his way home to me!* 

*If the shoes fall face up, the husband or lover will come soon, whereas, if they fall face down, he will be delayed.

She ended the song with a smile and said, “It’s a little ditty I heard in the streets, much too coarse for your refined ears I’m sure; just my way of keeping up with the times!” 

Her voice so titillating, her person so coy, so cloying, held him; he was totally under her sway. Feigning drunkenness, she left the table with him following close behind, and they disappeared to who knows where for the longest time.  

The exhausted maid servant had fallen asleep in a heap on the terrace, leaving the wife all alone, sitting there fuming and desperate, wondering what her next move should be. On the verge of tears, or fury, or both, she pondered her options. Could she just get up and leave to go home? But it was dark, and she didn’t know the way. 

So thinking and wondering, she got up and wandered towards the house. Before she even reached the window, she could hear the sounds of lovemaking and the voices of a man and a woman whispering nonsense, teasing and pleasing each other, and the man was saying the kinds of things her husband used to say to her when he was sweet on her. The wife’s hands shook, and her heart was pumping so hard she thought she would burst, so angry was she that her only thought was to plunge herself off into the depths of the stony cliffs and kill herself.

She was turning round to go do just that when she ran headlong into her brother, San Lang. He jumped off his horse and asked her what happened. She told him everything from beginning to end. 

San Lang flew into a rage and, dragging his sister along, led her right back to where she had come from. Outside the window, the pillow talk was as loud as ever before. San Lang picked up a large rock close by and heaved it through the window, smashing it, frame and all into several pieces. Inside, a loud scream was heard. “O no! His skull is cracked! What shall I do?” 

When the wife heard this she burst into uncontrollable weeping, turned on her brother and said, “Did I ask you to come murder my husband? What are you going to do now?” 

“What?!” He looked at her in wide-eyed disbelief, “You’re the one who came crying and weeping to me, wanting me to vent your anger and indignation, and now you’re siding with your man against your own brother? I am no woman’s man to be used by you women for whatever you please!” He turned to leave then but his sister grabbed his sleeve and said, “Aren’t you taking me with you? Where shall I go?” San Lang flung his arm backwards and pushed her off, turned, and left.  

She woke up with a start and realized it was all a dream. The next day, her husband did indeed come home, riding on a white donkey. The wife was amazed but said nothing. Then her husband told her about a dream he had the night before and every detail in it was exactly the same as in her dream. And just as they were remarking on this strange phenomenon, San Lang, having heard the news that his brother-in-law had come home, arrived, and in greeting him, said, “I had just had a dream about you last night, how strange that you should indeed come home today?”

“Luckily, I was not killed by that huge rock!” His brother-in-law said jokingly.

San Lang was stunned and asked why he said that, and when the scholar told him his dream, San Lang exclaimed in great wonder, “Why I also dreamt I ran into my sister who was weeping, and I threw that stone in a fit of rage!” 

So, the three of them dreamt the same dream, only no one knew who that pretty lady was.

photo by 齐云山 at Flickr
Mount Qiyun in Anhui Province