a moon gate offers the sense of distance no space within a garden is too narrow to be shaped, thought about, used
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different eras bring different fashions—windows shaped like caltrop flowers give way to windows shaped like willow leaves, yet each has its own particular beauty
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one should feel a sense of motion within it yet be far from worldly concerns (did the scholar take care of his own garden, or did his servants do it for him?)
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a garden is the larger natural world in microcosm all paths must lead to quietude, humility (my friend, where has yours led you?)
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let there be no single vista, no central point of view, all aspects will reveal themselves over time and from differing angles
(Red Inkstone, again: maybe there will be no settled version)
NAMES OF GARDENS
Master of the Fishing Nets Garden this includes the Pavilion for
the Advent of the Moon, also
the Ribbon-Washing Pavilion
Garden of Harmonious Interest
Green Vine Studio
Lingering Garden
The Humble Administrator’s Garden
Garden of Perfect Brightness
Warm Garden
Outlook Garden
Lion Grove
Garden of Autumn Vapors
Could-be Garden
Thatched Hut of the Abundant Stars
My friend, what would you name your garden? Would you keep it secret, or would you tell me?
but no wall will ever be solid enough and the red laughter through the wall
but the walls are so strong
no wall will ever
My Friend,
I feel the space of you growing narrower and narrower, walls closing in. There are so few letters left so very few and I feel cold suddenly and suddenly coldly afraid. “No space is too narrow to be thought about or used,” Ji Cheng wrote in his book on gardens. And one can build a moon window, he said, a way for the distance to open and come in. Yet the walls moved as your sister moved, they walked beside her. Now I feel them walking beside me. They hover, press in. I can’t feel the smoke trees on the hillside or the way the distance opens.
There are no more notes of Cao Xueqin’s to translate. Often in my mind I hear Red Inkstone’s words, “there will be no settled version.” Of you, myself, or anyone, our hours in Aosta, your sister, these months I’ve read your letters. Something in me resists this even as I know it’s true.
In Xu Yuan Garden, in Nanking, there’s a guesthouse named Tongyin Guan which means music-from-the-tong-tree. It’s named for Bo Ya who, almost 2000 years ago, played a qin made from tong tree wood. Legend says he played more beautifully than anyone ever had. He traveled on government assignments but went off alone whenever he could. One day heading back from a mission he moored his boat among reeds. From behind the trees an impoverished woodcutter stopped to listen to him playing. When Bo Ya played of high mountains the woodcutter saw high mountains, when he played of water the woodcutter murmured, “how vast are the rivers and oceans.” Whatever Bo Ya played, the woodcutter never failed to understand. Though he’d lived for decades as a hermit, he stepped out of the woods and the two became close friends. “Your heart and mine are the same,” Bo Ya said, promising to come back within the year. But when he returned his friend had been dead for one hundred days. At this news, Bo Ya smashed his instrument and never played again.
When I touch the door do I touch the same wood Cao Xueqin touched? When I sit at the table is this his table? Do I wash my cup and bowl in the sink that was his sink?
You write that you feel cold all the time, that there are burns on your leg you don’t understand. Your garden shines with red flowers. There are words that grow red inside my mind: excision, infiltration. Cattle stumble in red dust, our faces are covered with red dust. There’s a garden near here named Sufficiency Garden. I wish we could go there, you and I. It’s said that even the smallest garden path, if made properly, can form a path for the eyes that’s longer than a hundred miles—
For days Clerval adds other gardens to his list: Lotus Garden, Half-mu Garden with its Chamber for the Appreciation of Stones and its collection of zithers. Garden for Solitary Pleasure, Hundred Plant Garden. There are paths, moon windows, the Hall of Cloud Shade with its roof that seems almost to float. Every now and then he rests his head on the rough table. There’s only one letter left