Kim ManChoong - The Cloud Dream of the Nine

These maidens were messengers sent by a Queen of the genii who had become a Taoist by divine command and had settled on one of the mountain peaks with a company of angelic boys and fairy girls. While Song-jin was at the palace of the Dragon King, these eight fairy girls were calling on the Master of the monastery with greetings and offerings from their heavenly Queen. They had rested on the bridge to admire the scenery and had dallied there fascinated by their own reflections in the stream below.

Song-jin greeted them ceremoniously and told them that he was a humble priest returning to his home in the monastery. “This stone bridge is very narrow,” he said, “and you goddesses being seated upon it block the way. Will you not kindly take your lotus footsteps hence and let me pass?” The fairies bowed in return and teased the young man. They quoted the Book of Ceremony to the effect that “man goes to the left and woman to the right,” but they refused to budge and recommended that Song-jin cross by some other way. They laughingly challenged him: if he were a disciple of the Teacher Yook-kwan he could follow the example of the great Talma who “crossed the ocean on a leaf.” At this Song-jin also laughed, and answered their challenge by throwing before them a peach blossom that he carried in his hand. The blossom immediately became four couplets of red flowers and these again were transformed into eight jewels. The fairies each picked up a jewel, then they looked towards Song-jin, laughed delightedly and “mounted on the winds and sailed through the air.”

There followed a period of darkness and misery for Song-jin. He tried to justify himself to the Master for his long tarrying, but though he tried to rein in his thoughts when he retired to his cell the lure of earth was strong. “If one study diligently the Confucian classics,” said the tempter to him, “one may become a General or a Minister of State, one may dress in silk and bow before the King and dispense favours among the people. One can look on beautiful things with the eyes and hear delightful sounds with the ears, whereas we Buddhists have only our little dish of rice and spare flask of water, many dry books to learn and our beads to say over till we are old and grey. The vacant longings that are never satisfied are too deep to express. When once the spirit and soul dissipate into smoke and nothingness, who will ever know that a person called Song-jin lived upon this earth?”

The young priest was tormented by visions of the eight fairy maidens, his ears ringing with sweet voices until he became like one “half insane or intoxicated.” He burnt incense, knelt, called in all his thoughts, counted his beads, and recalled to his consciousness the thousand Buddhas who could help him. But in the middle of the night the Master called him and, refusing all excuse, condemned him to Hell.

The young Song-jin pleaded with tears and many eloquent words, saying: “I came to you when only twelve. Our love is as between an only son and a father. My hopes are all here. Where shall I go?”

To Song-jin's appeal for mercy the Master said: “While your mind remains unpurified, even though you are here in the mountains, you cannot attain to the Truth. But if you never forget it and hold fast, you may mix with the dust and impurities of the way and your return is sure. If you ever desire to come back here I will go to bring you. You desire to go; that is what makes me send you off. You ask, 'Where shall I go?' I answer, 'To the place where you desire to go.'”

Song-jin descended into Hell, and the King of that region was so surprised and perplexed by his coming that he sent to the Buddhist God of the Earth for advice about punishing him.

At the same time the eight fairy maidens arrived in Hell, and the King after hearing their story commanded nine of his messengers, “in a low voice,” to “take these nine and get them back as soon as possible to the world of the living.”

So a great wind arose, tossed and carried the nine through space, and after whirling them to the four ends of the earth, finally landed them on solid ground. They were all born into different families, and as human beings knew nothing of their former existence nor guessed that their present experience was an expiation.

Song-jin was born again as the only child of a hermit and his wife. They loved him greatly, for they saw that he was a heavenly visitor. The father, who was originally of another world, when he recognised his son to be a “Superior Man,” said good-bye to his wife whom he had faithfully loved, content now to leave her in the care of their son, and he returned to his friends the genii on a famous mountain.

There follows the story of Song-jin's earthly life and his eight-fold love story. Each fairy maiden having an affinity with Song-jin was destined to serve him as wife or mistress. Song-jin bore the name of his hermit father, Yang, and the name given him at birth.

Master Yang, as we shall now know him, was a child of such beauty and a youth of such wisdom that the governor of his county called him the “Marvellous Lad” and offered to recommend him to the Court. His physical strength, learning and ability in the Classics and composition, his marvellous knowledge of astronomy and geomancy, his military prowess—he was a wonder of skill in tossing the spear and fencing with the short sword—were only equalled by his filial piety. He “deftly solved the mysteries of life as one would split the bamboo.”

While still in his teens Yang expressed his desire to go forth to compete at the Government Examination so that he should “for ever establish the reputation and honour” of his family. His faithful mother stifled her fears for the long journey, for she saw that his “spirit was awake and anxious.” By selling her few treasures she was able to supply means for his travels.

Master Yang set out on his adventure accompanied by a little serving-lad and a limping donkey. As he had a long and leisured way before him he was able to linger over the beauties of the scenery through which he passed.

The story unfolds with fascinating perplexity the love drama of nine. The maidens are all peerless in beauty, virtue, talent, goodness and charm. So generous is the flame of Master Yang's affection that he enshrines each love with apparently equal and unabated warmth. Of the eight maidens, seven openly declared their choice of Yang as their master and one was sought deliberately by him. No shade of jealousy mars the perfect affinity of the nine.

Yang easily won the highest place in the Government Competitive Examination and became a master of literary rank. This raised him from obscurity to fame and from poverty to wealth. “His name shook the city. All the nobility and peers who had marriageable daughters strove together in their applications through go-betweens.”

But Yang had already decided to offer marriage to the only daughter of a certain Justice Cheung. Disguised as a Taoist priestess, he had gained entry into the inner court of the Cheung household some days before the examination. In the presence of the ladies of the family he had played on his harp and had sung with a voice of unearthly sweetness certain songs that had been taught to him by genii.

The young lady sat attentively listening while she identified in turn each song, “Feathery Robes,” “The Garden of Green Gems and Trees,” “The Distant Barbarian ” and others. She defined one as “the supreme expression of all music,” the thought of which ran, she said, “He travelled through all the nine provinces and found no place in which to rest his heart.” The young lady so amazed Yang by her accuracy and skill in divining and revealing the nature and history of the rare music that finally, “kneeling, he cast more incense on the fire and played the famous 'Nam-hoon Palace of King Soon.'“ On which she quoted, “The south wind is warm and sweet and bears away on its wings the sorrows of the world.” “This is lovely,” the young lady said, “and fills one's heart to overflowing. Even though you know others I have no desire to hear them.”

She would have left the apartment, but the disguised Yang humbly begged permission to play and sing one other. He straightened the bridge of his harp and “the music seemed far distant at first, awakening a sense of delight and calling the soul to a fast and lively way. The flowers of the court opened out at the sound of it; the swallows in pairs swung through their delightful dancings; the orioles sang in chorus to each other. The young mistress dropped her head, closed her eyes and sat silent for a moment till the part was reached which tells how the phoenix came back to his native land gliding across the wide expanse of sea looking for his mate. She looked at the pretended priestess, the red blushes mounted to her cheeks and drove even the pale colour from her brow. She quietly arose and went into her own apartment.”

Neither her mother nor any of the attendants understood why the young mistress had retired, nor could they persuade her to return. But in the privacy of her chamber, Jewel, for that was the name of the young lady, spoke to her adopted sister, Cloudlet.

“Cloudlet, my dear, you know I have been careful of my behaviour as the Book of Rites requires, guarding my thoughts as pearls and jewels, and that my feet have never ventured outside the middle gates. . . . I, an unmarried girl of the inner quarters, have sat for two full hours face to face with a strange man unblushingly talking to him. When I heard the song of the phoenix seeking her mate I looked closely into the priestess's face. Assuredly it was not a girl's face at all. Did anyone ever hear such a thing in the world before? I cannot tell this even to my mother.”

Cloudlet pleaded for the young man whose beauty and powers were so unusual. But Jewel was not to be moved, and when later Master Yang formally called on Justice Cheung and proposed marriage and the Justice was honoured by his proposal and delighted to accept it, Jewel's scruples were hard to overcome. She felt that the young man must be punished, and to “save her face” determined to carry out a scheme of revenge on her affianced. Her plan needed the help of her beloved adopted sister Cloudlet, who, as we have seen, had conceived a partiality for the bold lover Yang. According to custom Yang was invited to stay at a guest house in the grounds of the Cheung residence, and was treated as a loved son by the Justice and his lady. The lady Cheung herself supervised his food and clothing. Jewel proposed to her mother that Cloudlet, who was skilful as well as beautiful, should be appointed to oversee Master Yang's comfort so as to save her mother. The mother protested. “Your father desires,” said the lady Cheung, “that a special husband should be chosen for Cloudlet that she may have a home of her own. When you are married Cloudlet could not go with you as a servant; her station and attainments are superior to that. The only way open to you in accord with ancient rites would be to have her attend as the Master's secondary wife.”

Jewel's answer to her mother was: “Master Yang is now eighteen. He is a scholar of daring spirit who even ventured into the inner quarters of a Minister's home and made sport with his unmarried daughter. How can you expect such a man to be satisfied with only one wife? Later when he becomes a Minister of State and gets ten thousand rice bags as salary, how many Cloudlets will he not have to bear him company?”

But Jewel's mother was not satisfied, and when the Justice was appealed to, she said ” To appoint a secondary wife before the first marriage is something I am quite opposed to.” The mother was overborne, however, and the Justice entered with amusement into his beloved daughter's plan of revenge.