Shan Sa

“Heroes are damned. No mortal conquers Death.”

“I had lost some of my naivete and gained strength. These women with their pointless scheming could not contain me, and I watched the volatile world of the gynaeceum with a detached eye. The Forbidden City had buried my youth, and in the monastery, I had died and come back to life. Friends, enemies and mistresses had all disappeared. I was a ghost from a lost world, still going from one season to the next and still living for one man alone.”

“She died a few days later, and her death buried once and for all the intrigues between the Precious Wife, the Gracious Wife, and all the Imperial favorites. Rivalries and alliances, loathing and attraction had been dissolved. Their existence had been a pointless tragedy, just as the talent of one prodigious poetess had been.”

“I succeeded in using my charms like a weapon; I learned to play with other's hearts and to master my own desires.”

“In the closed world of the gynaeceum, despite the gardens and parkland extending beyong the horizon, despite the insurmountable walls separating pavillions and palaces, the tangled web of our fate was inescapable. Why did these women love each other to the point of madness? Why did they loathe one another so vehemently, and why did sworn enemies feel such horror and fascination for one another? Why should furious hate become obsession, then intoxication and the very reason to live?Because love and hate were the two heads of the demon.”

“To other women the choice of clothes was a form of ingenious exhibition, a shameless seduction. To me, dresses were like a breastplate that I put on to set off to war against this life.”

“- Как можеш да разбереш дали наистина си влюбен? Какво чувстваш?- Най-напред забравяш за света около теб. Семейството, приятелите стават невидими. Ден и нощ мислиш само за един мъж. Когато го видиш, той изпълва очите ти със светлина. Когато не го виждаш, образът му разяжда сърцето ти. Непрекъснато се питаш какво прави той, къде се намира. Измисляш си свой живот, живееш единствено за него: очите ти гледат за него, ушите ти слушат за него.Лунна перла отпива от чая си и продължава:- През този първи етап всеки от двамата не знае за чувствата на другия. Това е най-болезненият момент. Сетне те разтварят сърцата си и за момент изпитват безумно щастие.Сестра ми оставя ръкоделието и погледът се зарейва в пространството:- Но след хубавото време идва бурята. Изведнъж влюбените попадат в мрак. Бродят из него пипнешком, пълзейки. Остаряват. Ще видиш, сестрице. Когато бъдеш обичана и обичаш, ще откриеш болката от живота върху нажежена до бяло скара. Вече в нищо няма да бъдеш сигурна.”

“The strength of the snow and the fire has turned you into a traveling magician. You heal people by holding their hands between yours, you make them forget the cold, hunger, sickness, and war.”

“Sự si mê của đàn ông tàn lụi nhanh hơn nhan sắc đàn bà”

“would you dare to love me?”

“The winter light, tinted by the bright colors in the street, plays on the go-board. All these festivities cut me off from the rest of the world. My loneliness is like a bolt of crimson silk stowed in the bottom of a wooden chest.”

“Eventually I fall asleep, savoring the melancholy pleasures of victory. I wake with a start to a muffled sound: the wolves could not wait for us to withdraw; they are already devouring the bodies.”

“I am like them-I want life. I want to go back to Manchuria, to find my house and my go table. I will return to the Square of a Thousand Winds and wait for my Stranger. I know he will come ... one afternoon ... as he did that first time.”

“. . . I have witnessed the strength of our people driven from their own land. The tenacious march south is like a silent protest against death. In this tidal wave of men and woman a hatred mingles with hope. And this furious force of will that has infected me too will carry me to the very end of my own lonely progress.”

“It has taken many years for the game of go to initiate me into the freedom of slipping between yesterday, today, and tomorrow. From one stone to the next, from black to white, the thousands of stones have ended up building a bridge far into the infinite expanse of China.”

“Love has been buried forever under the leaves at my feet. I lie down on the ground and rest my head on my bag. The grass tickles my arms where I bend the stalks under my neck.I want to sleep.”

“The trees part before her slender form and close in again behind me. The roads weave a vast labyrinth, and I am lost.”

“When I get out of the rickshaw I walk slowly towards the school building, taking small steps. All around me girls are running: in the morning the young are as noisy as a flock of sparrows.”

“I am terrified by the dizzying pleasure of it: I am both here and over there; I am be and I am no longer me!Am I already dead?”

“Dying is so simple. A fleeting moment of suffering. In the blink of an eye you are over the threshold, into another world. No more pain, no more fears. You sleep so well there.Dying is like rubbing snow together, setting fire to a whole winter of cold and ice.”

“I notice the silvery hair at his temples with a tinge of sadness. Why do parents grow old? Life is a castle of lies slowly dismantled by the passage of time. I regret not spending more time looking at the people I love.”

“Tomorrow we will be nothing but earth and dust.Who will remember the love a soldier once knew?”

“I must go live at the ends of the earth and have my child there while I wait for Min and Jing to be freed.That happy day will come: two men making their way towards a little cottage lost in the open countryside.The door opens . . .”

“Inside its crumbling walls the house is riddled with bullet holes, and in its garden only the crimson dahlias still hold their heads high. Jing is lying on a chaise longue [sic] playing with his bird.'I thought you were in prison.'He looks up, his eyes filled with hate and desire.'You are my prison.”

“I splash my head with ice-cold water and turn to face the mirror. When my image appears I instinctively look away.Is there a truth on the other side that we do not want to see?”

“Out on the street I start to run; I need to breathe in this life, the trees, the warmth of my town. I will be able to control my own fate and I will know how to be happy. Happiness is something you lay siege to, it is a battle . . .”

“I hand the cage to him and he takes it firmly in his arms.'Your hankie smells nice,' he says, almost in a whisper.”

“Every man has to die. Choosing oblivion is the only way of triumphing over this.”

“I reply with a letter as brief as his: 'My brother, after my first battle the only thing I now worship is the sun, a star that represents death's constancy. Beware of the moon, which reflects our world of beauty. It waxes and wanes, it is treacherous and ephemeral. We will all die some day . . . .”

“Years have passed and how I am anxiously watching the twilight of my childhood, quietly sinking, never to rise again.”

“Happiness is something you lay siege to, it is a battle like a game of go. I will take hold of all the pain and snuff it out.”

“The world in which we live is no more real than a moon beam reflected in water drawn from the palm of the hand...”

“I have been brought up in a world dominated by honor. I have known neither crime, poverty, nor betrayal, and here I taste hatred for the first time: it is sublime, like a thirst for justice and revenge."-the girl who played go”

“Endless moons, an opaque universe, thunder, tornadoes, the quaking earth. Rare moments of peace; forehead up against my knees, arms around my head, I thought, I listened, I longed not to exist. But life was there, a transparent pearl, a star revolving slowly on its own axis.”

“The moon in all her immaculate purity hung in the sky, laughing at this world of dust. She congratulated me for my carefully considered maneuvers and invited me to share in her eternal solitude.”

“I envied these women I saw before me, their beauty still intact. Life has its revenge of life. Untimely death is the secret of eternal youth.”