Wang Anyi - The Song of Everlasting Sorrow

It would be cruel to look too closely at the young lady’s bedchamber in the Shanghai longtang. Oleanders grow in other families’ courtyards and pink clouds fill their sky; outside her window is a lonely parasol tree. A sea of neon lights dyes the Shanghai skyline a crimson hue, while a single lamp burns in her room. The ticking clock seems to be counting away the years; the years are good, but they won’t stand up to being counted. The afternoons are like an autumn filled with impending catastrophes. There is a panicky kind of energy, like that of a man so hungry he no longer cares what he eats. This leads to ill-considered actions, where one fails to mind the consequences, like a moth throwing itself into the flame without the slightest regret. And so the afternoons lay traps — the more enticing, the more dangerous. The brilliance of the afternoon always has something ominous looming over it, as if it is playing some kind of trick. Tantalized by the wind and the shadows, you let your defenses down. On the phonograph, Zhou Xuan sings her “Song of the Four Seasons,” counting out all the beauties between spring and winter to poison and bewitch your mind — because only the nice things are mentioned. The pigeons are let loose to soar over the rooftops, but what has actually been released is the heart of the vestal bedchamber. Soaring high and looking down into the window with the flowery curtains, it seems to be reciting the ancient verses: “Easier to part than to reunite” and “It is cold and lonely in high places.”

The bedchamber in a Shanghai longtang is a place where anything can happen, where even melancholy is noisy and clamorous. When it drizzles, raindrops write the word “melancholy” on the window. The mist in the back longtang is melancholic in an ambiguous way — it unaccountably hastens people along. It nibbles away at the patience she needs to be a daughter, eats away at the fortitude she must have to conduct herself as a woman. It tells her that the arrow is on the bowstring, about to fly, that the gold pin is in the box, and all is ready. Every day is more difficult to endure than the last, but, on looking back, one rues the shortness of the time. Consequently, one is at a complete loss. The young lady’s bedchamber embodies the naiveté of the Shanghai longtang , passing in a single night’s time from being young and innocent to being worldly and wise, in a never-ending cycle, one generation after another. The vestal bedchamber is but a mirage thrown up by the Shanghai longtang . When the clouds open to reveal the rising sun, it turns to smoke and mist. The curtain rises and falls, one act follows another, into eternity.

Pigeons are the spirit of this city. Every morning see just how many pigeons soar into the sky over the billowing sea of endless rooftops! They are the only living beings that can look down upon this city. Who can observe this city more clearly and distinctly than they? They are witnesses to unsolved mysteries without number. How many secrets they must hold in their eyes! As they soar above the city with its countless buildings, they gather up the scenes in the windows — these, though only scenes from everyday life, by their sheer mass pile up into a soul-stirring vista. Actually the pigeons are the only ones who can appreciate the true essence of this city. By dint of leaving early and returning late every day, they learn much. On top of this, they all have phenomenal memories and never forget what they see — otherwise how can you explain their ability always to find their way? We cannot ever know just what symbols and landmarks they use to navigate their way through the city. They seem to be as familiar with every dark corner of this city as with the patterned feathers on their own wings. The highest point in the city that we spoke of a little while ago actually refers to their vantage point. Even when human beings climb to the highest summit, our point of view is still no match for that of the pigeons. For in two-legged beasts like us, which cannot move about freely, our hearts too are encumbered — making our horizons so narrow that it is almost pathetic. We live among our own kind and always see the same things, incapable of discerning anything new. Our hearts are empty of curiosity, as if everything is already understood. That is because we fail to see anything that is out of the ordinary. Pigeons are different. Every evening they return home loaded with new knowledge. Imagine how many pairs of eyes like this there are soaring in the sky above the city!

Street scenes are a common sight, replaying day in and day out. They are in part performances, and are therefore formulaic. Though iridescent with color and arresting to the eye, they follow conventional patterns. Everyone goes about on the street wearing a mask, as if attending an outdoor party. Their words and laughter are the politenesses exchanged at a dinner party; their behavior cannot even qualify as conventional, it is but the shell that surrounds convention.

The scenes in the longtang neighborhoods are the only real scenes. They are the complete opposite of the street scenes. On the outside they all appear to be the same: the rows of apartment buildings look identical — you can barely tell them apart; like street scenes they seem to be following the same conventional pattern. Look inside, however, and you will discover a world of infinite variety. Each and every one is different, leaving you groping about for the door. Neighbors divided by a single wall may as well be mountains apart; what goes on next door may as well be happening a million miles away. Who can ever know? The world of the longtang is rife with unsolved mysteries, one coming hard on the heels of another. These rumors are actually nothing but bluff and bluster; yet serious news does not count — in the end you are still left groping around in the dark. In the longtang of Shanghai everyone claims that his version is right and there is never room for arbitration. Even the truth is shrouded in darkness, so rumor becomes an even muddier affair. Thus from the outside the longtang appear orderly, but on the inside they are in complete chaos. The people on the other side of the windows — the protagonists — are the most confused of all; as time goes on they grow numb and unfeeling — they may as well be blind.

The only clear-seeing eyes belong to the flying creatures that pierce the clouds and penetrate the mist: there is no place they cannot go — they are truly free! Their freedom taunts men’s hearts. Passing over the street scenes as familiar sights, their sharp eyes focus on the most unusual occurrences. Their vision has the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood — they are masters at capturing meaning. Their senses are extraordinarily acute. Unconstrained by outmoded customs and habits, they are nature’s sole offspring in the city. They circle above the dense rooftops as if circling over the rubble of ancient ruins, the last survivors of a catastrophe. Wheeling back and forth in the sky, their flight is marked with a trace of desperation, and so the sights and colors that enter into their eyes cannot but take on a gloomy tint.

It should be noted that there is another creature in the skies of this city — the sparrow. Sparrows, however, are always fawning obsequiously. They never fly high, but aim only to perch on someone’s balcony or land in someone’s courtyard, pecking at the crumbs that have fallen into the cracks in the cement — they abase themselves to the lowest level. Although they are frequent visitors to the longtang neighborhoods, they are never welcome. They let people chase them hither and yon and have no self-respect. They are without wisdom, the most vulgar of the birds. Their powers of observation are even less than ours, because their innate ability is inferior and they lack the benefits of human civilization. One cannot mention them in the same breath as pigeons: pigeons are animals of the spirit, while sparrows are animals of the flesh. Their breed is especially suited to living in the back alleys of Shanghai — the longtang are their natural home. Petty and frivolous, they are always entangled in gossip. A part of the close atmosphere that overhangs the alleys, they foster vulgarity and baseness here.