The Cloud Dream of the Nine | Page 9

as other
women. The Swallow gave him a parting talisman and some sound
advice and then "sprang into the air and was gone."
As astounding also was General Yang's love affair with White-cap, the
daughter of the Dragon King. This lady helped Yang in his military
career by means of magic. Her love-making took place in a grotto

under a mountain lake, where she was in hiding in the form of a
mermaid. "I am Pak Neung-pa," said White-cap, giving her full name.
"When I was born my father was having an audience with God
Almighty."
She then explained how she had been dowered from birth with
superhuman abilities and had incurred the hatred of a neighbouring
King because she refused to listen to the wooing of his undesirable son.
She had sought Yang because her affinity with him had been divinely
disclosed. White-cap went on: "I have already made promise to you of
this humble body, but there are three reasons why I ought not to be
mated to your Excellency. First, I have not told my parents; second, I
can accompany you only after changing this mermaid form of mine. I
still have scales and fishy odours with fins that would defile my lord's
presence. Third, there are spies of my unwelcome royal suitor all
around us. Our meeting will arouse their anger and cause disaster." The
General waived all the objections. "Your ladyship was a fairy in a
former life," he said, "and you therefore have a spiritual nature.
Between men and disembodied spirits intercourse may be carried on
[pxxxi] without wrong, then why should I have aversion to scales and
fins? Why should we miss this opportunity to seal our happy contract?"
So they "swore the oath of marriage and found great delight in each
other." After this encounter Yang's military victories were more
glorious than ever and he returned home the greatest man of the age.
On Yang's return to the capital the highest honour had been prepared
for him that can fall to the lot of an Imperial subject. A marriage had
been arranged between him and the lovely Princess of the Imperial
family, Princess Orchid, and he became a Prince in rank. How this
marriage was arranged, and Yang's marriage with Justice Cheung's
daughter, Jewel, who was raised to Imperial rank by adoption, was
consummated, and how the reunion took place with Cloudlet and Chin
See, the reader is told with many thrilling and humorous details.
Yang's aged mother was brought with great ceremony to the capital.
Honours and gifts were showered upon her. The two Princesses bowed
before her as dutiful daughters-in-law, and the six secondary wives also

delighted in giving her honour. Yang's princely household was so great
that palaces, halls, galleries and pagodas were requisitioned. His life
with his eight wives, their children and his aged mother, was a
revelation of earthly bliss and wondrous grandeur. The Emperor's reign
was also a notable time of peace and prosperity. Even in old age Yang
and his ladies had beauty and the power of enjoyment.
But a day came when the Master heard "faint voices calling from
another world." "Slowly his spirit withdraws from earthly delights."
[pxxxii]
One day, while sitting in a high tower from which there was a view of
Chin River stretching in silvery reaches for a hundred miles, he drew
forth his green stone flute and played for his ladies a "plaintive air as
though heaped-up sorrows and tears had broken forth upon them." The
two Princesses asked why he should suggest such sorrow in the midst
of their exceeding happiness with "golden flowers dropping petals" at
his feet, and "our loving hearts around you?" The Master pointed to
distant ruins of palaces that had held famous men and their women folk.
He spoke of his boyhood as a poor scholar and the wonderful triumphs
of his career and their nine rare affinities. "Children who gather wood
or feed their cattle on the hillside," he said, "will sing their songs and
tell our mournful story, saying, 'This is where Master Yang made merry
with his wives and family. All his honours and delights, all the pretty
faces of his ladies are gone for ever.'" Hearing the Master's words the
ladies were moved and knew that he "was about to meet the
Enlightened One."
Then there appeared an old man leaning upon a staff. His "eyebrows
were an ell long and his eyes were like the blue waves of the sea." He
was the aged priest of Lotus Peak who had come to summon Yang. He
conversed with Yang, who did not at first recognise him--and in a little
while Yang woke to find himself in a small cell in a monastery on a
mountain side. He looked at himself and