The Bell-Tower of P'an-ku
By John Brangwyn
Illustrations by B. Y.
Morrison
The Century Magazine, April
1918; digitized by Doug Frizzle March 2012.
IT was in the Tien-shan Mountains, called
"Celestial," that I sought out a Chinese temple, one of the oldest, built half-way up a peak that reared its
snowcapped head twenty thousand feet above sea-level. I had come there in search of an old painting on woven silk of
which I had heard when I was in Lan-chau-fu. The difficulties of the journey, of which I had also heard, had not kept
me from climbing, with my Chinese secretary and servants, along a deserted road
where for want of inns or taverns we had for several days been forced to camp.
We met no travelers; for only now and then
do a few of the art-loving Chinese
make the journey up this twisting,
rocky road for sight of the
painting, the extreme age of which
is even yet undetermined.
I am not a scholar; it was
not on any scientific research that I came here. I had lived ten years in China,
and had come to feel myself less strange than some Europeans who had lived there longer, perhaps because I went upon pilgrimages
like this into the less well-known
provinces.
At one point along the mountain road on which I had been lured by the recounted beauty of this old painting we could
catch a glimpse of the Chinese Wall,
built here in the third century
before Christ to keep out the
Tartars. But how modern it seemed in comparison with these
hoary-headed mountains that looked to me like the
ruins of some gigantic prehistoric temple! Upon these
ruins the verdure was like moss; and
we, moving in and out through the
forest, clinging to its side, were but so many insects, moving, however, with a
human purpose.
When we reached the gray old temple I did not wait for the sun to set before sleeping. So it was that at
dawn, before my companions had awakened, I entered the
inclosure and found the caretaker, a
Chinese priest, old and wrinkled. I spoke to him in mandarin and told him that
now, in this quiet hour before I had eaten, I wanted to see the painting.
He understood, and took me
into a room through the eastern
window of which came the soft glow
of a rising sun. But before he unrolled the
painting he brought to me in a white jade cup tea such as I had never tasted.
The perfume rising from the cup
seemed to have in it the same
exquisite subtlety as did the gentle
light from the east. I asked its
name, for in China
teas are known by their names as
roses elsewhere. It was the
"Tea from the Tower of
P'an-ku."
I sat and watched the bent old man take from its resting-place the roll of silk. He laid it before me and left me,
for I had brought to him a letter which promised that I would hold this old
painting as sacred as he did. I unrolled it.
The colors were still clear
and deep. Not far from a mountain-top was a city. Upon the many-hued roofs and upon the snow-covered
peak there was no shadow and no mist. The air seemed vibrant. The radiant
sunlight streaming down from above was full of color until lost in the abyss of the
gorge that lay below.
In the
streets and the squares of the city were moving a people who seemed happy and
bird-like. Their flowing garments might have been wings. And they, like their
houses, were bathing themselves in
radiance, recalling to me that mystical phrase of the
Taoist poet Chuang-tse, "drowning oneself, in light."
Above the
city was a tower, but not of any period of Chinese architecture that I could
recognize. It had a look of age despite its brilliant colors. Under the hood-shaped roof there
hung a bell so faintly drawn, so evanescent, that it seemed some ethereal symbol.
Part of the joy that I felt in looking at this painted city
hanging there in mid-air I ascribed
to the beauty of the hour in which I was seeing it and to the contents of the
little jade cup. But that joy gave way, as the
painting unrolled itself before me, to sadness and then
to horror. The Tiger of the Earth
had leaped upon the Dragon of the Air and torn it with claws, so that the very essence of joy flowed out and left me in a
fright which, as I look back upon it now, could not have been due entirely to
what I saw in the painting. Some
hidden bond between me and that pictured combat had pulled at me, drawing me
into its shadows out of myself.
When I finally lifted my
eyes, the sun was overcast, and the old attendant stood watching me. He seemed
excited, curious, and touched with awe. He did not speak, but put into my hand
another cup of tea. Whatever magic
it might hold, I did not hesitate to drink it. With it came strength to
question him.
Many who had seen that
painting, he said, had gone away without question. By that he knew that they had not really seen. He appeared to marvel that
I, who was not Chinese, had had no veil before my eyes, but had been given the vision, for so he claimed it was. And then without a word he brought me another silken roll of age-old writing and again left
me.
I could not read the ancient Chinese characters painted so beautifully
by some old temple priest. But there
went with it a translation into the
modern written language. I read the
story more than once. And although the
day was a day of fasting in the
presence of beauty, I did not sleep that night until I had written down, as
well as I could remember, what I had read.
At that time when the memory of P'an-ku, the
first man, was still green, there
was in the kingdom of Hai-fu
a great city perched aloft upon a mountainside whose peaks reached into
celestial heights. The people of this kingdom were very brave and very strong
and very happy. The king was of the
Sun. He had brought to the city
where he lived wise men and rich merchants. He had no need of going to war, for
his neighbors all knew him as just. They would not have dared to invade his
kingdom or cheat his merchants who went out among them.
The only conflicts were among the
wise men as to what was the chief
virtue of mankind, and among the
artists as to which was most beautiful, the
blossom of the apricot, the petals of the
peony, or the sturdy growth of the pine-tree. These conflicts only served to make the people happier, since every wise man had to
utter words of wisdom to prove his point, and every artist to paint beautifully
the thing of his choice.
Many were the treasures of the
kingdom, but the most prized was a
bronze bell that had been cast by him who was called the
"greatest of the
Kau-shih." This bell hung higher than all the
rest of the city in the tower which had stood there,
so it was believed, from the time of
P'an-ku. The sun lighted it up from the
moment it rose above the plain in the east until it sank in the
west. It rang out the hours and the quarters. And whenever it was heard, joy seemed
to descend upon the people of the kingdom, and they
lifted their heads to listen, and their eyes would be upon the
far blue spaces where dwells the
Dragon of the Air, he who makes
blessed the lives of all the people of earth.
But one day the king in a moment of weariness, desired that there should be a contest among the bell-makers, that he might discover one whose
bell should be even more musical than this one of the
Kau-shih. Word went forth. It brought to the
heart of Yen-huan, the youngest
bell-maker in the kingdom, great
hope. He had lived in the forests
and he had lived upon the plains. He
had listened to the rushing waters
as they leaped down the sides of the
mountain. In his sleep at night he had heard the
booming of the waves upon distant
shores. And out of all these sounds
he had conceived the note of a bell
which, he believed, was the most
beautiful that had ever been heard.
When the
day came for the contest, he saw his
bell hung, and waited with rapture to be called the
greatest bell-maker of the kingdom.
But it was not to be. His ears alone, it seemed, caught the
beauty of the tones that rang forth.
All the others
and the king, too, found them too gentle or too loud, too high or too low.
For they were not like the tones to which the
people of the kingdom had grown
used.
Then Yen-huan went forth
alone from the city, leaving his
bell to the mercy of the people, who gave it no thought whatever. As he
went down the side of the mountain, a cold wind went with him and drove
him along into the kingdom of a
neighbor. Through this, too, he passed, and after him flew bats and evil birds,
for he had breathed curses as he passed out into an unknown world. The curses
were against the king and the kingdom and the
unhearing people.
Years after, when the king had grown old, he wished to have a still
greater bell to hang in the tower of P'an-ku. He sent out his messengers into
all the neighboring kingdoms to
proclaim that to him who should make the
great bell would be given the hand
of his daughter and a palace upon the
mountain-side.
All the
bell-makers of the world came to
Hai-fu. For four days the birds flew
to cover and the winds kept quiet
and the waterfalls hushed their music while the
bell-makers rang their bells and
those who were to judge sat silent, fanning themselves
and listening.
On the
fifth day there was consternation,
for no one dared to say which bell was most beautiful. The wise men came to the king to warn him that to give honor to the bell-maker who came from the
kingdom on the east would be to
offend the ruler of the country on the
west; and to choose the bell from
among those who came from the north
kingdom would be to make an enemy of the
king whose land lay on the south.
But, worst of all, to choose the
bell of the Kau-shih would be to
anger all the neighboring kingdoms.
By his desire for a new thing, the wise men pointed out, the king had made it
impossible to keep on peaceful terms with his neighbors. There was gloom in the council-room and in the
hearts of the wise.
Suddenly a shout went up from
the street outside. A peasant had
come into the city with news of a
great procession on its way up the
mountain-side. The king, gladdened, went to greet the
new-comer, who was preceded by a guard of soldiers dressed more gorgeously than
any who had ever come into the city.
They accompanied a chariot bearing the
bell. Its shape could be discerned under the
cloth of moon-colored velvet. White elephants dragging the
chariot were harnessed with silver. Upon a camel, the
trappings of which had in them all the colors of the
night, rode the bell-maker himself.
His face was hidden in the hood of a
white cloak of a kind that no one in the
city had ever seen before.
When the
camel had knelt and he had alighted, the
stranger bowed low to the king, who
gave the command that the bell should be hung at once. At sunset all the people of the
city thronged into the narrow
streets that led toward the tower of P'an-ku. There was no merriment. Although
the sun had not yet set, the dusk was creeping stealthily up from the valley, carried along by a chill wind. The crowd
shivered and waited impatiently.
As the
first note of the bell rang out, it
seemed to lift the hearts of all who
listened in an appeal that they
could not understand. The second note was higher and clearer, and the soundless appeal in the
hearts of the crowd rose with it,
bursting into tears that could never be shed. And then—they thanked their
gods for it—the third note released them a little from the
spell, but they knew they were still enthralled, and every man among them prayed for the
fourth note to ring out. Yet when it came, they
wished, in despair, to throw themselves
upon the earth. But they no longer had the
strength to move. This was the
striking of the first quarter of the hour.
The crowd looked each man at the other,
wondering if he, too, had felt the
torment of those sounds. Yet not one had the
courage to ask. And although they
wished to go, they stood waiting.
The first note of the second quarter was that one which they had just heard. It prostrated their souls and bowed their
heads. But it was not so fearful as the
one which followed; for that was like a question which no man can answer. The
third note struck; it made them
ashamed; they did not know why. The
fourth made them want to hide their shame.
In the
silence that followed the king dared
not look at his daughter, although he could hear her crying as she sat there on her little throne beside him. She had
nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of; so she cried for no reason at all
except for the weight that the bell had dropped upon her spirit. In a moment
she would have been happy again had not the
first note of the third quarter
struck.
There was something very
sweet in its sadness, like the grief
that follows a forbidden joy. The throng of people listening took breath in
self-pity. How much more they were
losing by their virtues than they had ever lost by the
fair vice of their youth!
The second note of the third quarter was a chain upon their limbs; and the
desire of the flesh which the bell had just wakened became lust of the spirit. They looked, each one and all of them, toward the
king's daughter. But she fled in fear that she could not understand.
The third note struck. No one
in the crowd heard it, so deep had
each one entered into himself on the
trail of the Tiger that was
stirring. The fourth note was a blessing upon all that was evil.
In the
silence that fell before the last
quarter struck they stood bound. No
one of them cared any longer what
his neighbor might think or say. Was not each man alone in his struggle? So it
came that none
of them heard the
four strokes of the last quarter
except the king's daughter, who had
run far up the mountain-side beyond the tower of P'an-ku.
But the
stroke of the hour! That was heard
all over the kingdom. The women
stayed their work in the fields. The shepherds saw the
sun set in anger. The old men prayed in their
hearts for the generations that were
to come. The children cried bitterly and could not be comforted. The crowds in the
city listened to the strokes in terror that the end had come. Life had been cut
in two by the bell that a. stranger had brought.
When the
last echo had died away, night had fallen. The king once more called his wise
men to make a decision. But no one wanted to be the
first to speak. At last there arose
one who was famous for his upright life, the
only man there who was not afraid.
"Let us hang up once
more in the tower
of P'an-ku
the bell of the
Kau-shih," he said, "and send our apologies to all the kingdoms. Let the
bell we have just heard be delivered to its maker before midnight. And let him
be set upon his homeward journey."
But the
other wise men were afraid of giving
offense. The clamor of their voices,
as they went again and again over the dangers from the
north and the south, the east and the
west, soon drowned the memory of
those moments when they had suffered
and sinned in thought. And so, just before midnight, the
king went out below the tower of P'an-ku,
and in the light of the lanterns he told the
people that he was giving his daughter's hand and the
honor of being bell-maker of the
kingdom to the unknown, the one who had come that day.
As the
king went forward toward the
bell-maker, the first stroke of
midnight rang out upon the dark
spaces above the tower
of P'an-ku.
He felt overcome with sadness. He could not move. But with each stroke the bell-maker came a stride nearer to the king. As the
last of the fearful notes dropped
heavily upon the night, he threw
back the white hood of his cloak and
lifted his face.
It was old and wrinkled. He
let the lanterns light it up. But there was no outcry of recognition. The crowd did
not know him. They did not acclaim Yen-huan. When the
king asked his name, he said:
"Call me 'the Bell-maker of Hai-fu.' That will be name enough
for one who has the honor of having
his bell in the tower
of P'an-ku
and the hand of your daughter in
marriage."
The king shuddered. He did
not wish to give his daughter to one so old and wrinkled. Yet it had to be
done, and he sent his messengers for her. She was not to be found.
Until now time had passed
very lightly over this kingdom, but from the
moment when Yen-huan hung his bell in the
tower over the city, everything
seemed to change. Whenever the
quarters struck, the people of the kingdom would pause to listen. And they felt each time, as they
had at first, weakness and desire and shame. A great lassitude crept into the very heart of the
king himself. He no longer rejoiced in the
strength and the bravery and the happiness of his people. It was as though the bell, each time it rang out, sucked up into its
bronze cavern a little more of the
virtue of the kingdom.
A spell had been cast upon them. They forgot what they
had formerly honored. They no longer taught their
children to reverence the past, to
work hard, to observe thrift, and to be just to their
neighbors. When a cause was to be decided, the
king gave his verdict to that man he liked rather
than to the man who was right. In the old days the
people had lifted their faces
whenever the bell in the tower of
P'an-ku
called to them that time was
passing; they had paused in the joy of the
moment, and their eyes had followed the path of the
Dragon of the Air. But now when the note of the
bell rang out, they bowed their heads and hurried each upon his own path in the fear that death would come upon them before they
could gain all the pleasure that
life might hold.
As I had unrolled the painting that morning in the
temple I had seen this second picture of the
city. It was full of shadows, and the
people were creeping about, scurrying like tiny beasts across streets that were
no longer radiant, but had become crevasses of danger. Mist now hung about the snow-capped peak of the
mountain. From the tower
of P'an-ku
shadows descended upon the roofs of the city. They were drenched, as with the tears of the
gods.
The story in the script that I was reading ran on. It told of the gradual weakening of the
whole people, as though the sounds
of the bell were poison, but poison
that they cherished. Yen-huan was
given more honor than the king, who
had become indifferent to all things except soft and seductive beauty, and had
quite forgotten Yang-gui-fe, his daughter, who, unknown to him, had taken
refuge in a convent, where she spent her days in tears, holding her little
hands over her ears, that even the
echo of the bell might not reach
her.
The border-countries, no
longer afraid of offending a sense of justice and hearing how wickedness had
taken the city by its throat, began
to trespass upon the outermost parts
of the kingdom. Then the wise men came to the
king and begged him to call the
people to defend their land against their neighbors. But the
king only laughed.
What I had seen in the third part of the
painting was now described: the
mountain-side riven by lightning; the
tower of P'an-ku black as night; thunderous clouds over the
forests; and below, in the depths of
the gorge, the
green eyes of the Tiger, and its
grinning fangs; while away into the
blue spaces swept the Dragon of Air,
tormented as by gnats with the
wicked desires and petty hopes of the
people. There was only one ray of light, and that flashed above the convent hidden deep in the
forest.
On that day, read the script, a great battle was waged. But the battle-ground was within each man and not upon the borders of the
country. There the trespassers had
pitched their tents, waiting for the storm to pass that they
might march upon the city and fling
out their flag from the tower of
P'an-ku.
The storm hung above the
many-colored roofs of the City of the Sun, and the
thunders shook the foundations of
rock. The people were afraid, for in the
midst of it all, the bell in the tower rang out the
quarters of what they believed would
be their last hour.
But, creeping along the rain-soaked path of the
forest, came Yang-gui-fe, the
daughter of the king. In her hand
she carried a knife wrapped in silk. No one saw her when she entered the city, for all were hiding. Groans and curses
came out of every house, and from the
king's palace, lamentation; for the
king was dying.
The princess made her way
through the narrow streets, up and
up to the tower of
P'an-ku.
While the thunders rolled over the top of the mountain and crashed along the
rock-bound abysses, she climbed the slender ladder to the hood-like roof
wherein hung the bell of Yen-huan. As she reached the
top the last quarter was striking.
The sound deafened her and terrified her. Looking down, she saw the crouching Tiger of the
Gorge. It seemed waiting to spring at her. In terror she lifted her head; her
eyes rested upon the Dragon of the Air, who had turned his mighty gaze upon her as
he fled on the path of the winds.
Then she took her knife and
she cut the rope that held the bell. Before it could strike the first note of the
hour it had dropped with a tremendous noise into the
well at the bottom of the tower. The waters hissed and steamed as though the bell had been fire.
The people, hearing the noise, believed that the
end of the world had come. They
rushed out of their houses and fell upon their knees. Had they looked down at that moment upon the earth, the
battle would have been lost, for the
Tiger could then have sprung upon them. But Yang-gui-fe cried out; they raised their
heads and looked, as in the days of
old, toward the tower
of P'an-ku
and toward the starry spaces beyond.
They saw at the same moment the princess and the
Dragon of the Air, who felt their eager eyes upon him. He turned once more to do
battle, and the Tiger of the Gorge crept down and down into the caverns of the
earth.
The storm ceased. The little
princess came down the slender
ladder and went to pray by the side
of her father. The people of the kingdom all looked at one another as though they
had wakened from a strange sleep. The rains had washed clean the colored tiles of the
roof. The noonday sun was filling all the
crevices with radiance. The empty belfry of the
tower told the story. With a great
shout, they turned upon the palace
of Yen-huan
to destroy him.
He heard them coming. In fear he hurried to the inmost room, which was at the
very bottom of his palace. Here, behind a dusty mound, he hid himself. But one
after another the
palace doors were torn open, until finally the
people reached him. Then, as they
would have torn him limb from limb, the
man who had brought death upon the
kingdom and upon the king, the man who had wakened them
to evil and to shame, they fell one
after the other
upon the mound behind which he was
hiding.
Strange sounds issued forth.
To one it seemed that he was hearing all the
birds of the forest, and hate died
out of him; to another it sounded
like a waterfall in the home of his
childhood, and tears of pity sprang to his eyes; to the
third it was the sweet sighing of
spring in the branches, and his
heart beat fast.
Yen-huan himself heard the booming of the
waves of an unseen ocean. He threw himself down and tore away from the mound its dust-covered wrappings; it was a bell,
the bell he had made of his hopes, the bell whose notes might have given courage to a
whole world had it been hung in the
tower of P'an-ku. And he, too, wept, and his wrinkled face smoothed out until those who had come to seize him
recognized the friend of their youth, the
one whose voice, as it had cried out in his work, they
had not heeded. They took the bell
and carried it into the midst of the crowd that was still surging about the palace. And then,
with a mighty rush, they carried it
up to that place above the city
where had rung the knell of their virtue. They fastened it high in the tower of
P'an-ku.
So sweet was its sound that the people could not breathe,
knowing that this mountain was but a strand of mist in the
reality of space, the radiance of
which even now was driving back the
shadows of the gorge and sweeping
out the hearts of the people.
Yen-huan stood beneath the tower, his face full of the
light of youth. Once more he heard the
singing of birds and the plashing of
cascades and the winds of summer and
the mighty echoes of the ocean. The princess, coming up the path to the
tower of P'an-ku,
slipped her hand into his as a sign that she would keep the
promise her father had made. As they stood there
they saw, winding away from the city, a strange cortege; it was returning to the place where Yen-huan had passed the days of his manhood, making the bell of his revenge. The white elephants were
harnessed with silver. The camel had trappings of the
color of the night. But he strode
along unmounted, passing with the
sunset over the borders of the country into the
hidden kingdom of hate.
When I rose from my reading, the sunset light filled this room of the temple. Once more I unrolled the painting. This time, as I looked at it, the radiant city at the
beginning and the shining city at the end were like two mountain peaks bathed in color, while the
storm and the shadowed conflict were
like a mighty gorge of evil.
"Through which we must
all pass," said the wrinkled
old man, who had come once more to my side.
Again he offered me tea in the little jade cup, and I went out of the temple strengthened.
I had looked deep within the soul of
an artist many centuries dead. But so great had he been that he gave me his
colors to carry with me. Or perhaps I should say that his colors had torn from
my eyes a veil, and left me free to look now upon this mountain where stood the temple, as I had been looking upon that one he
had painted.
The day before, as we had
climbed up its side, I had been oppressed by its bleakness, by the solid gray of its rocks. Now as I looked,
everywhere I saw colors as mystical as those of the
Chinese painter whose name no one knows.
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And now for the
first story:
And now for the
first story:
