Literature

The Mandarin Ducks

Ramón Lay Mazo*

It is said that a rich old mandarin had a very beautiful daughter called Li-Chi. Although she was of a marriageable age, she was still single because her father, determined to marry her off to a rich and powerful gentleman, was finding it difficult to select a suitable suitor for her.

But what the mandarin least suspected in his worries over the marriage was that the young Li-Chi had already selected the man she wanted for her husband. She loved Chang, a kind, attractive youth who worked as her father's secretary. He lived in a simple house, separated from the gardens of the manor house by a bridge arched over a delightful, but deep, river.

As they were both head over heels in love, the young man decided to request Li-Chi's hand in marriage from the mandarin. However, not only was his request harshly turned down but he was also dismissed from his employment. After this, the mandarin did his best to try to get his daughter married to Ta-Hin, a rich proprieter who had presented himself as a suitor. The daughter was told and in vain she wept and begged her father to change his decision. So the wedding day was put off until the peach tree which grew in front of the young girl's rooms came into blossom, for the mandarin knew that this was her favourite tree.

From this day on, sad and fearful, Li-Chi began to contemplate the peach tree which she had loved so much before, hoping against hope that it would never show any sign of the flowers which would announce her fate. In her despair she spent her days on a terrace overlooking the river, sighing and thinking of Chang who seemed to have forgotten her. He must have found out about the wedding. There was nobody, either inside or outside the house, who did not know about it.

One afternoon as she was sleepily contemplating the river, she caught sight of a coconut shell with a little white sail slipping over the gentle waters and making its way slowly across to her terrace. Suspecting that it could be for her, she ran to the river bank and brought the fragile little boat towards her with the aid of a twig.

Inside, she found a little tube of paper. The message which it held filled her with joy and excitement: it was from Chang!

With the deepest sadness, he lamented the fact that when the peach tree blossomed, she would leave him forever. Timidly he suggested that if she wanted to marry him, they had no alternative but to elope.

In a great state of alarm, the young girl ran to reply to her sweetheart. She pulled an ivory decoration off her dress and quickly wrote her answer on it. She placed it in the same improvised boat and watched as it set off towards the other bank, hoping that it would fall into Chang's hands.

But... the days went by and with them there came no news from him. Her hopes faded as fast as the branches of the tree became covered in buds telling her that the date was drawing near. Finally, one morning she got up and as she leant out of the window she was filled with anxiety when she saw the buds had opened. The moment of truth had arrived. Then, her father ordered her to his side and commanded her to get ready to leave the following day for her fiancé's home where the nuptuals would be celebrated before the altar of the groom's ancestors.

Like any obedient daughter, Li-Chi silently bent under her father’s will and withdrew to her rooms, her eyes brimming over with tears. She stayed up all night weeping. At dawn, her hair was arranged and she was dressed in a beautiful red silk tunic embroidered with two phoenixes. She put delicate embroidered shoes on her feet making them as pretty as two gilded lilies.

While the servants were running to and fro preparing the trousseau, the door to the room where Li-Chi was with her faithful maid opened suddenly and a beggar swathed in patched together rags appeared in the doorway.

Li-Chi's eyes lit up with joy. Underneath the disguise she recognized Chang! He asked only if she was prepared to elope with him. Li-Chi did not hesitate and turning towards her maid, she ordered her to go and collect her personal jewellery. The maid reappeared a few moments later and covered her glittering wedding dress with a brown tunic. She handed Li-Chi's jewellery box to Chang as it was the custom for the bride to take all her jewels with her when she had to travel to another place to marry.

They left quickly before anyone noticed. In great haste they crossed the garden and headed for the bridge. Li-Chi, whose little feet were not used to such strenuous exercise, began to lag behind. Chang stopped to encourage her but the bride's tiny shoes made her hobble and stumble all the more. Even so, they were just reaching the bridge when they caught sight of the old mandarin. Boiling over with a terrible fury, he was hot on their trail, brandishing a whip.

When the furious mandarin reached them, the two lovers looked at each other in desperation. Paralysed with fear they embraced each other in the middle of the bridge. Just when they were about to be lashed by the mandarin's whip, they threw themselves into the river.

When the benevolent river gods who had so often received offerings from Chang saw them fall in, they took pity on them and changed them into a pair of mandarin ducks. The father, in his fury, continued to shout and crack his whip, impotent in the face of the happy, free couple who, in loving union, floated on the gentle waters, getting further and further away until they slipped out of sight.

The legend ends by saying that thanks to this transformation the sweet Li-Chi became a humble little brown duck and her loyal Chang a bright, colourful duck and this was how the lovers achieved immortality.

Translated from the Portuguese

by Marie Imelda Macleod

*Sinologist who lived for thirty years in China and twelve in Macau, author of several essays and translations in publication.

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