The Cloud Dream of the Nine by Kim Man-Choong (spiritual books to read txt) 📖

signs of her. He beat the table with impatient hand, saying: “The day is beginning to dawn and yet there is no Chang-yo.” He put out the lights and tried to sleep, when suddenly he heard someone crying outside his window, and then a voice speaking which was no other than Chang-yo’s. She was saying: “The Master wears upon his head a demoniacal charm, placed there by this woeful professor. I dare not approach him. I know it was not accepted of your own free will, but still it is done now, and it indicates that our destiny is finished, and this [p99] dire creature has found his delight. My one wish is that the dear Master may be protected safe and sound from all harm. I say my last and final farewell.”

Yang gave a great start of alarm, opened the door to see, but there was no trace of her. A piece of folded paper only remained on the doorstep. This he opened and read. Two verses that she had written on it ran thus

“To fill our lot as God intends, We rode the gilded clouds together, You poured the fragrant wine as friends, Before my grave upon the heather.

Ere you had time my heart to see, We’re parted wide as gods and men, I have no fault to find with thee, But with a man called three and ten.”

The Master read it over in a state of woeful astonishment. He felt his head and there under his topknot was, sure enough, a charm against spirits. He roared out against it: “This miserable demon of a creature has upset my plans,” so he tore it all to pieces and flew into a towering rage. He again took up Chang-yo’s letter, read if through, and suddenly recollected, saying: “This word ‘three and ten’ indicates that her resentment is directed against Thirteen. He’s at the back of this, and while his part may not be the wicked one that Too’s is, he has interfered with what is good. The rascal! I’ll give him a piece of my mind when I meet him.” Then following the rhyme characters of Chang-yo’s verses, he wrote a reply and put it in [p100] his pocket, saying: “I have written my answer, but by whom shall I send it?”

It ran thus:

“You mount the speeding wind, You ride upon the cloud; Don’t tell my soul you dwell In the gruesome, secret shroud.

The hundred flowers that blow, The moonlight soft and clear, Are born of you, where will you go, My soul, my life, my dear?”

He waited till the morning and then went to pay a call on Thirteen, but Thirteen had gone for a walk and was not to be seen. On three successive days he went again and again, looking for him but failed each time to find him. Even the very shadow of Thirteen seemed to have disappeared. He visited Cha-gak Pavilion in the hope of meeting Chang-yo, but he found that it was a difficult thing to meet a disembodied spirit at will. There was no one to whom he could unburden his heart. Filled with distress, little by little his sleep failed him and his desire for food fell away.

Justice Cheung and his wife took note of this and in their anxiety prepared special dainties, had him called, and while they talked and partook together the Justice said: “Why is it, Yang my son, that your face looks so thin and worn these days?”

Yang replied: “Thirteen and I have been drinking too much. I expect that is the cause.”

Just at this point Thirteen came in and Yang, with [p101] anger in his eye, gave him a side glance but said nothing. Thirteen spoke. “Brother, is it because you are so taken up with affairs of state that you seem disturbed in heart? Are you homesick or feeling unwell? What is the reason, I wonder, for your dejected looks and unhappy frame of mind?”

Yang made an indefinite answer: “A man who is away from home, knocking about in strange places, would he not be so?”

The Justice then remarked: “I hear the servants say that you have been seen talking to some pretty girl in the park pavilion. Is that so?”

Yang replied: “The park is enclosed, how could anyone get in there? The person who said that is crazy.”

“Brother,” said Thirteen, “with all your experience of men and affairs, why do you blush and act so like a bashful girl? Although you sent off Too with such dispatch, I can still see by your face that there is something you have concealed. I was afraid that you would get yourself bemused and not see the danger ahead, and so I, unknown to you, placed Too Jin’s charm against evils under your topknot. You were the worse for drink and unaware of what I did. That night I hid myself in the park and took note of what passed, and, sure enough, some female spirit came and cried outside your window and then said her good-bye. She cleared the wall at a bound and was gone. I know by this that Too Jin’s words were true, and so my faithfulness has saved you. You have not thanked me for it, however, but on the other hand have seemed angry. What do you mean by such conduct?” [p102]

Yang could no longer conceal the matter, and so said to the Justice: “Your unworthy son’s experience is indeed a very strange and remarkable one. I shall tell my honourable father all about it.” And so he told him everything. He said finally: “I know that Thirteen has done what he did in my interests, but still the girl Chang-yo, even though you say she is a disembodied spirit, is firm and substantial in form, and by no means a piece of nothingness. Her heart is true and honest, and not at all of evil or deceptive make-up. She would never, never do one a wrong. Though I am a contemptible creature, still I am a man and could not be so taken in by a devil. Thirteen, by his misplaced charm, has broken into Chang-yo’s life with me, and so I cannot but feel resentment toward him.”

The Justice clapped his hands and gave a great laugh: “Yang, my boy,” said he, “your taste and elegance are equal to that of Song-ok [24]. You have already called up the fairies; how can you fail to know the law by which it is done? I am not joking now when I say to you that when I was young I met a holy man, and I learned from him the law by which spirits are called up, and I shall now for the sake of my son-in-law call forth Chang-yo, have her forgive your sin, and comfort your troubled heart. I wonder if this would suit you?”

“You are making sport of me,” said Yang. “Even though Song-ok called up the spirit of Lady Yoo, the law by which he did so has been lost for many generations; I cannot believe what you say.”

Then Thirteen broke in: “Brother Yang called up the spirit of Chang-yo without making a single effort, [p103] and I drove her away by means of one small charm. When we think of this it surely proves that there is such a thing as calling up spirits; why do you lack faith so?”

At this moment the Justice struck the screen behind him with his fan and called: “Chang-yo, where are you?”

Immediately a maiden stepped forth, her face all sunshine and wreathed in smiles. She tripped gently forth and went and stood behind the lady Cheung.

Yang gave one glance at her, and lo! it was Chang-yo. He was in a state of inexpressible astonishment and entirely unable to understand.

The Justice and Thirteen looked at him in a questioning way, and asked: “Is this a spirit or a living person? How can it come forth thus into the broad light of day?”

The Justice and the lady Cheung laughed gently, while Thirteen simply rolled in fits of merriment. All the servants likewise were convulsed with laughter.

The Justice then went on: “Now I’ll tell you, my son, how it all came about. This girl is neither a disembodied spirit nor a fairy, but Ka See, who was brought up in our home and whose name is Choon-oon or Cloudlet. We thought of you living by yourself in the park pavilion, so lonely, and sent this girl, telling her to see to your home and to comfort you. This was a kind thought on the part of us two old people. But the young folks came in at this point and arranged a practical joke that has gone beyond all bounds and limits, and put you to no end of discomfort, and yet a laughable enough joke in its way.”

Thirteen, at last getting himself under control, said: [p104] “Your meeting the fairy twice was a favour accorded you by me. You have not been thankful to me as a go-between, but have, on the other hand, treated me as an enemy. Evidently you are a man with no gratitude of heart.”

Here Yang laughed and said: “My father it was who sent her to me, and Thirteen it was who played the trick between us; what possible favour have I to thank him for?”

Thirteen replied: “I am unmoved by your reprimand for the joke. The whole plan of it, and the directions for the carrying of it out, belong to another person. I bear only the smallest part in the blame.”

Then Yang laughingly looked at the Justice and said: “Can it be true, did you, my father, play this joke on me?”

The Justice said: “By no means. I am already an old, grey-headed man. Why should I indulge in the sport of children? You have made a mistake in so thinking.”

Then Master Yang looked at Thirteen and said: “If you are not at the back of it I’d like to know who is?”

Thirteen made answer: “The sage says, ‘What comes forth from me returns to me again.’ Think, brother, where this could come from. Who did you once play a trick upon and deceive? If a man can become a woman, why can’t a woman become a fairy, or again a fairy become a disembodied spirit? What is there so strange about it?”

Then it was that the Master understood. He laughed and said to the Justice: “I see it now, I see it now. I played a trick once upon the young lady of this house and she has never forgotten it.” [p105]

The Justice and his wife both laughed, but said nothing in reply.

Master Yang then turned to Cloudlet and said: “Cloudlet, you are indeed a bright and clever girl, but for you to undertake, first of all, to deceive the man you intend to serve, is hardly the law that governs husband and wife, is it?”

Cloudlet knelt down and made her reply: “Your humble servant heard only the general’s orders, not the commands of her king.”

Yang sighed and said: “In olden times fairies in the morning were clouds and in the evening they became rain, but, Cloudlet, you became a fairy in the morning and a disembodied spirit in the evening. Though clouds and rain differ they were one and the same fairy, and though the fairy I saw and the spirit differed they were one and the same Cloudlet [25]. Yang Wang understood it to be one and the same fairy in the trick of the rain and the clouds. I, too, understood it to be Cloudlet now, so why talk about fairy or spirit? Still when Yang Wang saw a cloud he didn’t call it a cloud but a fairy, and when he saw the