The Swordsman

> Ning Caichen's night journal at Lanruo Temple

> Autumn of the Guihai year, Kangxi; twelfth day of the ninth month, written at Lanruo Temple, north of Jinhua city

**Day**

I told no one of last night's affair.

At dawn I opened the door and looked first at the ground before it. Where the bare feet had passed last night—the mud of the gallery held two shallow marks, like water-dried stains. I crouched and looked: the edges were uneven, no print of a human foot that I could read. I measured with my hand; smaller than my foot.

One mark was deeper, one shallower. The deep one as if made standing; the shallow one as if made passing. Between the two, a clean stretch of mud, no third mark anywhere.

I straightened, shut the door, opened it again, and went to the water jar as if nothing were the matter.

The east wing's door stood open today.

Yan Chixia sat in the doorway, a sword across his knees, black scabbard, no pattern on it. He was polishing it, the cloth passing once, twice, from hilt to point, very slowly. I passed with the bucket; he raised his eyes to me.

His look was not the look of other days.

"You look well today," he said.

"I slept soundly," I said.

He set the sword down, cloth across his knee, and looked at me a long while. Sunlight slanted through the gallery and lay on his face; his eyes narrowed, as one weighing something.

"Last night," he asked, "did you hear anything?"

"No," I said.

He looked at me without speaking. I looked back and did not look away. The weighing light in his eyes flickered once, and went out. After a moment he said:

"The temple's wild cats are restless at night too. Whether you hear them or not, and still sleep—that is your own doing."

When he had said it he took up the cloth and bent to the sword, not looking at me again. I stood without leaving at once. He polished slowly; at the point he paused, wrapped the point in the cloth, and gathered it in.

I stood with the bucket a moment, then went back to my room.

After the noon meal I sat in the gallery reading. A stick of incense later the east wing's door opened again. Yan Chixia came out, this time without the sword, holding a bowl of rice. He crouched under the eaves and scattered the rice grain by grain.

Sparrows flew down from the roof and pecked. He crouched watching them, with great interest. I crouched down too, and watched the sparrows.

"You said yesterday this temple is unclean," I said.

He glanced at me and bent to the sparrows again: "Unclean, and you still stay."

"Five days, and I have seen nothing unclean."

"Not seeing it is your luck." He paused, scattered a few more grains. "How long do you mean to stay?"

"I am waiting for the year's examinations—half a month, at most a month."

"Oh," he answered, and said nothing more.

I asked him: "And you? How long will you stay?"

He raised his head and looked at me, quite level, nothing to be read in it. He said: "Until the time comes when I need not stay." When he had said it he bent to the rice again, and did not look up.

The sparrows finished the rice and flew off. He stood up, brushed the rice dust from his hands, and went toward the east wing. At the door he stopped, without turning:

"If you hear something at night, do not open the door."

"All right," I said.

"Once it is open, it will not close again."

I stood in the gallery watching his back. He went in; the door closed; no lamp was lit; the room behind it lay dark.

After noon I read a while more. When the sun leaned west I went behind the hall and looked at the weeds. The insect sound was not yet up; the leaves stood still. The white poplar stood beyond the temple gate, its leaf-shadow falling on the wall, beating once, once, like something behind the tree, breathing once, once.

I stood at the foot of the wall watching that leaf-shadow a long while, and made out nothing. But I knew there was something under that tree. The turned earth of days past, the burnt paper money, and the mound raised like a new grave—all under the white poplar.

I drew my eyes back and went in.

The sky darkened. I lit the lamp, read until I was weary, blew out the light, and lay down.

**Night journal · the sixth night**

Tonight I did not sleep.

I lay open-eyed, listening. The temple was still—still enough to hear the insect sound in the weeds behind the hall, one note, then another. I listened a long while; nothing came. The insects chirred as yesterday, as the day before. I counted their notes; at some hundreds, they stopped.

I lay without moving. Outside the window the moonlight was thin, across the paper; the old scratch on the paper showed faintly in it, running down and stopping halfway. I looked at that scratch a while, and thought—the one who made it, did she stand outside this window last night too, watching me through the paper?

I turned over, facing the wall.

After I do not know how long, the east wing's door sounded once.

The sound of a door opening—very light, as if someone pushed it a crack, and drew it to again.

I lay without moving. After a moment I heard footsteps, coming from the east wing across the flagstones of the gallery, one step, one step, to my window, where they stopped.

Beyond the window paper, a shadow.

Not a man's shadow—a blackness, long against the paper, like a person standing sideways, and unlike one. It stood at my window a long while. The moonlight that came through the paper was cut by half.

I lay open-eyed, watching it. I made no sound. I counted my own breaths; past ten, it had not moved; past twenty, still it had not moved. It stood there, like a door shut.

The shadow moved. It did not walk; it shifted, as if dragged, toward the back of the hall. Very slowly, without a sound. It passed my window-corner, passed the pillar under the eaves, and hid itself in the darkness behind the hall, where it could not be seen.

As it moved away the moonlight on the paper came back, patch by patch. First the corner, then the whole sheet, blank and white, as if it had never been. I watched the light return, and felt no relief—only a hollow, as when a thing is carried away and you know at last that it had been standing there.

I lay there, hearing my own heartbeat.

After a long while I sat up slowly, put on my gown, went to the window, and lifted a corner of the paper to look out.

The gallery was empty. Moonlight lay on the flagstones, blank white. The east wing's door was shut; through the seam of the door a thread of light showed—he had not slept.

The thread of light was very thin, like a candle-flame leaking through the seam. I watched it a long while. It was there, burning all the while. I looked again toward the back of the hall—the moonlight did not reach there; it was black, and nothing could be seen.

I let the paper down, went back to the bed, and lay down. Through the paper I could still see a little of that thread of light. I watched it a long while, and at last shut my eyes.

I lay a long while; near dawn the east wing's door sounded once more. This time it was the sound of a door closing, closed very softly.

I turned over and pretended to be asleep.

When it was light I rose, opened my door, and stood in the gallery. The east wing's door was shut; the thread of light in the seam was gone. I stood a while; in the water jar the fish rose and sank again. The temple at morning was another temple—sun on the moss, one drop of dew after another falling from the eaves, sparrows beating about the roof. Last night's shadow, weighed in daylight, had gone blurred, as through water.

I crouched by the jar and looked a long while.

Of the shadow at my window last night, I told no one. When Yan Chixia asked, I said "no." Whether he believed it, I do not know. I know only that he said, "Once it is open, it will not close again"—and last night I lay in my room, the bar across the door, and never once went to touch it.

**Tonight I record this**: Yan Chixia found me alive and thought it strange; his words, "once it is open, it will not close again," fell after the shadow of the night before—a blackness stood at my window and was dragged away toward the back of the hall, without a sound; and the thread of light in the east wing's door burned all night. The swordsman knows something. He does not say it.