An
Account of a Visit to North Mountain at Xin-cheng Chao Buzhi
Thirty miles north of Xin-cheng,
we went ever deeper into the mountains, where the plants, trees, streams, and
rocks became increasingly isolated. At first we could still ride among the
teeth of the stones. On every side were huge pines, some bent over like the
awnings of carriages and others straight like parasols; those that stood
upright were like human beings, and those that lay down were like great
serpents. Among the grasses beneath the pines were streams bubbling up, then
disappearing until they fell into wells of stone with a ringing sound. Among
the pines were vines some twenty or so feet long, twisting around like great
eels. On the top there were birds, as black as mynah birds, with red crests and
long beaks, bobbing their heads up and down and pecking with a rapping sound.
A little farther west a single
peak rose abruptly to a prominence, and there was a path marking a division on
it, a path that could be traveled only on foot. We tied our horses to
outcroppings of stone and went up, helping each other along. When we looked up
through the bamboo, we could not see the daylight. We went on like this for
four or five leagues until we heard the sounds of barnyard fowl. Monks in
cassocks of pain cloth and slippers came out to greet us. As we talked with
them, they stared at us in wide-eyed amazement, like deer that could not be
touched. At the summit there was a building with twenty or so rooms, its balconied
outer hallways curving along the course of the cliff wall, twisting like the
course of a snail or a rat, after which we came out into the open again. There
doors and windows face one another. As we sat down, a howling gust of mountain
wind came, and all the chimes and clappers in the halls were set ringing. We
few looked around at one another in surprise, not knowing into what kind of
realm we had come. And when it was evening, we all went to bed.
It was then November; the heaven
were high and the dew clear, the mountains deserted and the moon bright. We
looked up at the stars, which together shed a great light, as if they were
right over us. Through the window twenty or so stalks of bamboo began tapping
against one another with an endless clacking. Among the bamboo, palm and plum
trees stood dark and ominous, looking like disheveled demons holding themselves
apart. And we few again looked around at one another, our spirits so shaken
that we couldn’t get to sleep. As it gradually grew light outside, we all left.
Several days after I returned
home, I was still in a daze as if I had encountered something, so I wrote this
account from memory. I never went there again, but I always see what occurred in
my mind’s eye.
（Stephen Owen 译） |
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