Between the Mountains and the Bright Moon: A Story of the Tang Dynasty
Nakajima Atsushi
Li Zheng was a learned and precocious youth; he took the civil service examination at a young age and moved from his native central China to take a low-ranking position in Jiangnan to the south. But proud by nature, Li Zheng thought himself above such work. Not long after resigning his post, he returned to his native Longxi, severed his social connections, and devoted himself fully to the art of poetry. No longer would he be forced to prostrate himself before base higher-ranking officials! Instead he would write his name into the very annals of history!
But literary fame was not easily won, and Li Zheng’s life grew more difficult day by day. Before long he succumbed to his own impatience. His body had withered along with his literary ambitions; he was all skin and bones. The only sign of life left in him was the futile glint in his eyes. There was nothing left of the fresh-faced youth who had passed the civil service examination.
After several years, deep in poverty and lacking even the funds to feed and clothe his family, Li Zheng gave in and once again headed east, this time to take a job in local government. This was one reason. The other being, of course, that Li Zheng had half given up on his poetic career. Li Zheng was forced to take orders from the very people he had sat his exams with, who, in his absence, had climbed the ranks of the civil service to become chiefs and ministers. It is easily to imagine how injurious it was to Li Zheng’s pride to be bossed around by the dunces he had once disregarded. His life was lacking in any joy whatsoever, and he found it harder and harder to act with proper conduct. It was a year later that Li Zheng finally went mad. He was in an inn on the banks of the Ru Shui after a business trip, and in the middle of the night, he suddenly leapt up from his bed, his complexion transformed, and ran off into the darkness screaming something unintelligible. He never returned. Though a search was conducted of the surrounding wilds, no trace of him was ever found. No-one knows what became of Li Zheng after that.
The following year, an imperial inspector by the name of Yuan Can, of Chenjun, was dispatched to Lingnan. He stopped in Shangyu for the night. Though he intended to set out before dawn, he was informed at a checkpoint that travelers were not allowed to leave before midday, as there had been reports of a man-eating tiger on the road ahead. “It is so early,” the officer said. “What is another few hours?” But Yuan Can had faith that the size of his retinue would dissuade any predator. As they made their way through a sparse forest with only the light of the moon to guide them, a ferocious tiger leapt out of the bushes. With a flash of movement it pounced towards Yuan Can, but then just as quickly retreated to its bushes.
“This is a dangerous place. This is a dangerous place.” The words were coming out of the bushes.
It was a voice that Yuan Can had heard before. Though he was still struggling to get his wits about him, Yuan Can remembered the voice, and he called out: “Li Zheng? Is that you, my friend?” Yuan Can had joined the civil service at the same time as Li Zheng, and he was one of the few friends the latter man had made. Though Yuan Can’s gentle disposition was an ill fit for Li Zheng’s severity, the two had never clashed.
There was no reply from the bushes, just intermittent sobbing. After some time, the weak voice replied: “I am indeed Li Zheng of Longxi.”
His fear forgotten, Yuan Can descended from his horse and approached the undergrowth, apologizing for neglecting to call on Li Zheng. He asked his old friend why he stayed concealed in the bushes.
“I have taken on a wretched shape,” Li Zheng answered. “How can I appear before my friend like this? You would only recoil in dread. And yet, this chance encounter with you is so wonderful that I forget my embarrassment. I beg of you, forget my current predicament for just a little while and share a few words with your old friend, Li Zheng.”
It may seem odd now, but Yuan Can was fearless in the face of this supernatural occurrence. He ordered his retinue to a halt and stood by the bushes, conversing with the unseen voice. Li Zheng congratulated Yuan Can on his current appointment; he had heard that his old friend had been climbing the ranks. The companions talked for a while of their younger days, and once they had exhausted that topic, Yuan Can asked how Li Zheng had come to be in his current predicament. From within the bushes, Li Zheng replied thusly:
“It was about a year ago, when I was staying at an inn on the banks of the Ru Shui. I had barely just gotten to sleep when I heard a voice calling my name. So I went outside, and it just kept calling out to me from the darkness. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had started to run mindlessly towards the voice. The road I was running along led up to a mountain forest, and before I knew it I was running on all fours. It felt like there was so much more power coursing through my body. I was leaping up rocks like it was nothing. When I came to, there was fur on my palms and my elbows. By the time it was light enough to see my reflection in the stream, I was already a tiger. At first I couldn’t believe my eyes. And then I thought that I must be dreaming; I’ve always been a particularly vivid dreamer. But at last I had to accept that this was no dream. I was dumbfounded. And then I became afraid. So afraid that absolutely anything could happen to me. I have no idea why this has befallen me. So I press on in ignorance, go on living in ignorance.
“At first I considered ending my life. But no sooner did the thought cross my mind than a rabbit ran across my path, and the man in me vanished. When he returned, my mouth was smeared with the blood of the rabbit, and its fur was scattered all about me. That was my first experience as a tiger. I cannot bear to tell you of the deeds I have done since then. My humanity returns to me for a few hours a day. During that period, I can speak and form complex thoughts, just as I could as a man. I can even recite Confucian philosophy! But that is the most miserable and terrifying time of my life: when I reflect on the aftermath of the brutal acts I commit as a tiger. And that period of self-awareness grows shorter day by day. Until now I have wondered why I became a tiger; now I ponder why I was once a man. It frightens me! I fear that it will not be long before the man inside me is totally subsumed by the beast, like how a road, over time, can be buried by dirt and sand. If that happens—if I forget my past self—I would prowl the lands as a tiger. Were I to meet you on the road, I would not see you as an old friend; I would see only prey. I would tear the flesh from your bones without a single regret. Once, as both a man and a beast, I understood that I had been something else. But now I am beginning to forget. Was I not always a beast? It is of no importance. Were the man inside me to fade away, I daresay he would be happier. But that is also what he fears most of all. Oh, how pitiable, how miserable! To forget my memories of humanity! If only there was someone who could understand how I feel!”
Yuan Can was listening with bated breath. The voice continued:
“Oh, of course. Before my humanity fades away fully, I would ask a request of you. I wanted to attain fame as a poet, and when this fate befell me, I left that task unfinished. At one point I had amassed several hundred poems. They never saw publication, and what became of those manuscripts is unknown to me. However, I can still recite some of them from memory. I would like to dictate these poems to you. Do not take this for my desire to wear a poet’s hat one last time. It has nothing to do with the quality of the compositions. I gave birth to these poems. I am obsessed with these poems. And I cannot rest easy until I know they will be preserved for posterity.”
Yuan Can consented to his subordinate’s request and took up a brush, ready to record. Li Zheng’s voice rang out. The thirty or so poems that Li Zheng performed were more than enough to convince Yuan Can that the world was going to lose a superb poet. The exquisite verses spoke to his friend’s genius. And yet, even as he admired the poetry Yuan Can was skeptical. No, there could be no doubt that the poet’s abilities were of the highest order. But despite that fact (and this is a very fine distinction), the poems themselves, perhaps, were not quite top notch.
His performance finished, Li Zheng took on a self-effacing tone.
“Though I am loath to admit it, I have dreamed that one day volumes of my poems will lay open on the desks of men of taste in Chang’an. As I reclined deep in a cave I dreamt this! Oh, the least you can do is laugh for poor old me, a failed poet turned into a tiger!”
With a heavy heart, Yuan Can recalled the self-deprecating Li Zheng of his youth. The voice continued:
“I’ve no longer any pretensions to protect, so I’m going to recite something for you extempore. To prove that within this tiger there remains something of Li Zheng.” The voice commanded Yuan Can to again take up his brush.
Unheralded madness, and the body of a tiger
Struck by disaster, and unable to retreat
Now too-well armed with claws and teeth to fear
When I was a man I was a man of renown and achievement
Now as a tiger I live in the weeds
But you are now a man of wealth and prestige
Tonight, between the mountains and the bright moon
Mere growls issue from where once came poetry
The heralds of the morning had arrived: the cold light of the waning moon, dew glistening on the ground, and chilly wind blowing between the trees. The men had forgotten the strangeness of the event and now only grieved for the misfortune of this lost poet. Li Zheng again began to speak.
“Before I claimed that I had no idea why I had been made to suffer this fate. But upon reflection, this is not entirely true. When I was a man, I avoided contact with other men as much as possible. They called me arrogant, pompous. But what they did not know is that it was shame. I was the smartest boy in my hometown, so of course I was not lacking a sense of pride. But it was a cowardly pride! Even though I aspired to fame as a poet, I did not seek out a teacher, nor did I look for a partner with whom to grow my skills. I was too proud to associate with the masses. These were acts borne out of cowardly pride and haughty shame. I started to worry that I was not quite the golden boy I had always thought I was, but I did not work to better myself; instead, I only believed that lie more strongly. Gradually I became more detached from the world; I shirked human contact and allowed my cowardly pride to grow fat on my feelings of anger and resentment. ‘Every man can tame a beast, but that beast is a reflection of the man.’ My haughty shame was a beast, a tiger. I have injured myself, distressed my family, and wounded my friends, and so at last I have an outer form that matches my inner. I squandered the scant talent available to me. I tossed around bon mots like ‘an empty life goes on for far too long; a fulfilled life is all too short,’ but I was never willing to put in the work to better myself. I was too afraid that I might let slip my lack of talent. There are so many people out there less able than I am who have honed their meager skills and become marvelous poets. I can see that now that I wear a tiger’s skin. The thought leaves me with smoldering feelings of regret. I cannot live as a man. Even if I were to conceive of some great verse, how would I communicate it? And furthermore, each day I become more and more bestial. What ought I do? My past is squandered. I cannot bear my present. At times like this I climb to the mountain’s peak and bay at the moon. I cannot keep the sadness smoldering within me to myself. But the other beasts who hear my voice simply cower before me. They know only the raging, roaring tiger in the mountains, in the trees, in the mists, under the moon. Even when I leap into the air and collapse in a sobbing fit, there is not one man who grasps how I feel. Just as how when I was still a man, no-one understood my too-easily impugned heart. It is not just the evening dew that makes my fur damp.”
The darkness about them was beginning to fade. Somewhere a lonely bugle heralded the dawn.
“It is time for me to bid you farewell,” Li Zheng said. “I can feel the intoxication coming over me. But before that I have one more favor to ask of you. My wife and children are still in Longxi. They have no way of knowing what became of me. When you go back up north, tell them that I am dead. I would like you to keep secret what has occurred today. I know it is beyond my station to ask this of you, but if you could simply arrange it so that they are not cold and starving out on the street, I would die happy.”
After he had finished, a wounded wail came out of the bushes. Eyes welled up with tears, Yuan Can agreed to Li Zheng’s request. But Li Zheng’s voice once again re-acquired its self-pitying tone.
“Maybe if I were still human I would have asked this of you sooner. It is for the very reason that I placed my poetic ambitions over the well-being of my family that I am in this position.”
Li Zheng made one last request: that Yuan Can avoid the southern ridge road on his way back, as that was Li Zheng’s hunting grounds and in his stupor he might not recognize his old friend. “And finally, I ask that when you leave, climb to the top of that hill about a hundred paces in front of you, and look back at me. I shall allow you a glimpse of my current form. This is not a boast; I want to make you see the true wretchedness of my body, so that you will not ever be tempted to return here.”
With some kind words of farewell, Yuan Can turned away from the bushes and got back on his horse. Again he heard an anguished moaning coming from the bushes. Yuan Can kept making blurry glances back at the bushes as he rode away.
Once the retinue had ascended the hill, they did as Li Zheng had said and looked back at the distant grove. They watched as a tiger suddenly leapt out of the brush onto the road. The tiger looked up at the waning moon, howled up at it a few times, and then, just as suddenly, leapt back into the brush. They did not see it again.