The Studio

> Yuyang County Office, Taiyuan Prefecture. Case file.

> Matter: Death of Wang, a licentiate of Taiyuan.

> Case number: Kangxi Guihai year, Criminal, No. 18.

> Deposition V: continued testimony of the servant Afu; further testimony of the doorkeeper Old Li; fifth supplementary statement of Wang. With an extract from the record of the coroner's inspection.

> — Liu, chief clerk, respectfully noted.

**【Deposition · the servant · Afu · continued · the third】**

Your honor asks what the lady Zhang did in the study by day. I answer: she never came out by day.

From the day she moved in, the door was shut in the daytime. The first few days one leaf stood open for air; after that it was closed, and locked—barred from inside, so it would not push open from without. I carried her meals and tea to the door, knocked once, and called, "Lady Zhang, the tea is by the door," and she would answer from inside, "I know," and I would go. The teacup was set on the outer side of the threshold; when I came back the second time it was empty, set on the flagstone of the doorstep, stacked up neat.

Once, carrying her midday meal, I came to the study door and heard a sound inside—"shua—shua—shua—" stroke after stroke, very slow, very even. I stood still and listened. It was like something being dragged back and forth across paper. The sound broke off, then took up again, the same measure.

I plucked up my courage and called: "Lady Zhang, the meal is by the door."

The sound inside stopped. After a moment the voice said, "I know." It sounded the same as always, mild.

I set down the bowl, took two steps, and turned back. I cannot say why I turned back. I squatted by the wall, two paces from the door, and stayed there half a long while. The sound began again—not fast, not slow, stroke after stroke, as if someone were bent over the desk, drawing something back and forth across paper.

Your honor asks what the sound was like. I answer: like a brush. Like a big brush dragged across paper. But I had waited on the young master's study for three years, and seen him write; a brush on paper makes no such heavy sound—this was the sound of a whole brush handle pressed to the paper and dragged, and it carried low.

I squatted by the wall and did not dare move. The sound went on about the space of one joss-stick, then stopped. The room fell still. I waited a little longer, then tiptoed away.

There is one thing more I have told no one. On the seventh day of the ninth month I carried tea to the door; the door stood ajar, not barred. I peeped through the crack and saw only a corner of the room: she was bent over the desk, her back to the door, her shoulders still, only her wrist moving. On the desk was spread something large, white, laid out flat, covering most of the tabletop—like paper, and yet not like paper; no paper comes in a sheet that size. I dared not look longer. I drew back, coughed, and said, "The tea is by the door." There was no answer from inside. I set the tea down and went. When I had gone a dozen paces I looked back; the door was shut again. I had not heard it close.

I spoke of it later to Old Li, one word. Old Li said he had heard it too.

**【Marginal note of the clerk】** This deposition of Afu answers to his earlier testimony of "shua-shua sounds by night" (the night of the third of the ninth month). Afu says the sound was "like a brush, yet heavy, the handle pressed to the paper"; compare with what the doorkeeper Old Li heard, below.

**【Deposition · the doorkeeper · Old Li · further testimony】**

Your honor asks Old Li about the sounds from the study. I answer: I have heard them—by night, and by day too.

I have kept the gate of the Wang house twelve years. The back garden is not my beat, but one round at night is part of my duty. On the night of the third of the ninth month I made my round to the back garden and heard a sound in the study—"shua—shua—" in long, long strokes. At the time I thought nothing of it; I supposed the young master was reading late and turning pages.

After that I kept my ears open. The sound came every night, and by day too, muffled through a wall. One day, passing the back garden in daylight, I heard it, stopped, and listened; the longer I listened the more it was wrong.

Your honor asks what was wrong. I answer: it was not like turning pages, and not like a brush writing either. In my youth I worked two years in a butcher's house. When a butcher kills a pig and scalds off the hair, he scrapes the hide with a knife—the back of the blade pressed to the skin, stroke after stroke, scraping off the grease; that is the sound. "Shua—shua—," I say; that is the sound.

When I had said it I startled myself. Your honor asks whether I heard it clear. I answer: I worked in the butcher's house two years, and heard the scraping of hides for two years; I cannot be wrong.

I add one thing more: in the young master's study, where would a hide come from?

**【Marginal note of the clerk】** Afu says "like a brush, heavy"; Old Li says "like a knife scraping a hide"; Wang has yet another account (below). One door, one sound, three men, three accounts. The interrogating official had paper and a brush brought, and bade Afu and Old Li each set down the sound in writing: Afu wrote "sha-sha," Old Li wrote "sha—la—sha—la"; the two notations differ as well. Filed, to be checked against the later inspection.

**【Deposition · Wang · fifth supplementary statement】**

Your honor asks me of the lady's locking the door by day. I answer: she locked it to copy scriptures.

After she moved in, she said she wished to copy a Diamond Sutra, to pray for my mother's long life. I said good. She locked the door each day and copied in the room. When I asked why she locked it, she said: "Copying scripture needs a quiet heart. I fear disturbance."

I believed her. I had seen her copy—the desk held a scroll of sutra, the paper yellow, the inkstone freshly ground. Her grip on the brush was very correct, stroke by stroke, even and upright. I looked and thought her devout.

Your honor asks whether I ever saw her finish a page. I answer: no. Every time I went in, she was only just laying out the paper.

One day I came home early. Before I reached the study I heard the "shua-shua" sound within. I pushed the door—it was not locked. I stepped in and saw her bent over the desk; at the sound of the door she started up, snatched the things from the desk into the cabinet, snatched them up very fast—not put away, snatched.

I stood in the doorway, dumbstruck. When she had done she turned her face, smiling, and said, "You are back, sir." I asked, "What are you putting away?" She said, "Spoiled paper." I looked at the corner of the desk; there half a sheet of paper edge showed, the edge fuzzy, not like a spoiled sutra sheet. I said, "Copying a sutra, why so much paper?" She said, "I spoil it, and wad it up."

I asked no more. That day I left the study and stood in the courtyard a while. A voice inside me said, over and over: copying a sutra does not call for a locked door.

(Here the deponent paused, and added:) Your honor may judge: when I went out that day I looked back—she stood before the desk, not seated, her eyes on my back, her lips pressed, as if she were waiting for me to be gone so she could open the cabinet door again.

(He spoke further:) I reckoned the sum of it afterward. She copied scripture not quite a month, and I bought paper at the shop twice—one ream the first time, one ream the second. One ream copies a sutra and leaves some over. Two reams would copy twenty. I asked the shopkeeper whether the paper could be cheaper; he looked at me oddly and said, "Your house uses paper so sparingly now?" I did not answer; I paid and left. Back at the study I looked at the cabinet—the door shut, locked. I wanted to ask, "The spoiled paper, where is it wadded up to?" but the words stuck in my throat. I feared her answer. I feared her silence more.

**【Marginal note of the clerk】** In this statement, "snatched, not put away" answers against his own earlier "I had seen her copy," by which his seeing went no further than "just laying out the paper." The interrogating official asked Wang: does copying a sutra require a locked door? Wang was long silent.

(At the end of the roll is an extract from the clerk's copy of the inspection record, in the same form as before:)

A desk of boxwood in the study, one; on its face no trace of writing things. A cabinet, one; its door ajar; empty. Window paper newly pasted, pasted tight. Beneath the desk a paper wad; taken up and smoothed, no writing on it; the edges fuzzy, as if cut by a sharp blade.

**【Marginal note of the clerk】** No writing things on the desk, the cabinet empty, the wad beneath the desk without a single character. She who copied scriptures—where is her sutra? where her ink and stone? Filed, to be questioned.