Yang / Simon Dream Garden

A Novel
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5439-2531-9
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet/DL/kein Kopierschutz

E-Book, Englisch, 244 Seiten

In Dream Garden, eighteenth and nineteenth century Chinese culture and civilization are glimpsed through the interwoven stories of two princesses - in love with peace, both loved unconditionally by their fathers and one by a missionary, the other by an emperor's son - that unfold in a garden of unparalleled scale and beauty, a garden borne of peaceful intent, a veritable Dream Garden.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Yang, Lei

Simon, John

Leseproben

I didn’t know I’d lose my soul and chase after you in dream. Except the moon on the sky’s brink, no one else knows this. – WEI ZHUANG T COULD HAVE BEEN THE SAME SMILE. But the lips that formed it were of different ages — and worlds. Those of the student whose sixteen years had been lived entirely within the borders of the vast garden from which father and emperor Kang oversaw the one-third of the world that, by virtue of obeisance to the “Son of Heaven,” was “civilized,” whose mis-stroke was meant to provoke her teacher, expressed infatuation and coquetry. Those of the Italian Jesuit nearly twice her age who corrected the errant stroke, whose sufferance within those same borders owed as much to his precursors’ and contemporaries’ profound knowledge of mathematics and science as to his own facility with a brush, expressed bemusement born of a remarkable wisdom and singular devotion cultivated in the relatively brief span of three decades. And yet not a little affection, for Giuseppe Castiglione was man as well as monk, and the emperor’s daughter had captured as much of his heart as was not owned by his god. The favorite of her father’s twenty daughters, Girl-Girl had been but an infant when Giuseppe, at nineteen already a masterful painter, was taking the vows of Holy Orders in Genoa. When, after a two-year sojourn at the Jesuit monastery in Coïmbra, necessitated by the requirement that all missions be carried on Portuguese ships, he happily found himself among those Jesuits preeminent in their fields of endeavor being dispatched to China, he left behind, in the chapel of the novices in Genoa, two illustrations of the life of Saint Ignatius, and in the chapel of the College of Coïmbra, murals and portraits of young princes. As further strokes began to hint at a sense of perspective, the princess’s slender fingers disappeared under a hand twice the size of hers. She lifted her head and her eyes met his. “Shih-ning,” in a level voice with the petulance permitted a princess, she addressed him in the name bestowed by her father — who had, upon his initial introduction to the young monk, declaring Giuseppe Castiglione to be unpronounceable, directed that he henceforward be called Lang Shih-ning, or Person Calm Life — “You paint this way. Why can’t I?” “You know why, Princess. Because your father forbids it.” Shih-ning lifted his hand from Girl-Girl’s, stepped quickly back when she swiped at him with her brush. Girl-Girl’s smile now was playful, that of a young girl indulging her whimsy. “But I want to paint like you do,” she insisted in a monosyllabic singsong. “Your paintings look like the real world,” her voice softened, “like you could step into them.” The reference to a mural he had painted in a room of one of her father’s palaces, which had elicited on her part no small amount of surprise and discomfort when she had tried to do precisely that, elicited a tender smile that transformed first into an apologetic laugh, then a look of bemusement. “Strike me with your brush” — Giuseppe dropped onto one knee and bowed his head — “fairest of all the princesses, for deceiving you with mine, for painting a world that your beautiful essence could not enter.” “My father’s laugh when I walked into the painted wall was not as soft as yours just now.” Girl-Girl paused, reflected on the last words of Shih-ning’s apology. “Paint me,” she commanded, “my ‘beautiful essence’.” Had he not closed them after lifting his head and gazing briefly at her, Giuseppe’s eyes would have betrayed him. “And how am I to paint the princess I am commanded to instruct in painting?” “I will accompany you to your apartments when the lessons are finished. I will sit for a portrait.” “Impossible.” The word was a barely audible statement of fact: that portrait painting was permitted the Jesuits only on “rest days,” and then only at the emperor’s discretion, and that the house Giuseppe and the other Jesuits shared, being outside the garden walls, was no less inaccessible to Girl-Girl than would have been the moon. And then there were the eunuchs, he thought, glancing from one to another of those ever present minions driven by jealousy to exploit any and every opportunity to diminish the emperor’s high esteem for the missionaries. Although she understood as fully as Giuseppe the truth of his pronouncement, Girl-Girl persisted: “Paint my portrait. The princess…your princess…commands it.” Then she laid her brush gently on the unfinished painting, turned on her heel, and left the studio. Giuseppe did not gaze long at the back of the silk garment that rustled with each of Girl-Girl’s close, purposeful steps. Before she had exited the room he had turned, lifted the brush off the canvas, and set both aside for tomorrow’s lesson. Much remained to be done in the hours left in this day, but already Giuseppe, her visage clearly fixed in his mind, had resolved to comply with Girl-Girl’s wish, and when he departed the studio at five o’clock with the others who labored for the glory of the “Son of Heaven,” not only painters, but other skilled artisans including clockmakers, enamellers, and carvers of ivory and precious stones, secreted in his flowing gown were a rolled canvas, brushes, and paints. Giuseppe commenced that evening, from memory, the portrait of Kang’s favored daughter. If she noticed, during lessons on subsequent days, her instructor observing her more closely than her work, Girl-Girl gave no sign. Indulged by her father since childhood — after her first exposure to the room in which the painters worked, it was rare for Kang to visit the studio without one or both of his daughter’s small hands gripping his, her eyes wide with amazement — Girl-Girl’s fascination with painting had evolved into devotion. As had her captivation by Western-style painting. Although not unimpressed with the effects that could be achieved by the incorporation of perspective and shadow — trompe-l’œil paintings executed by the French Jesuit Gherardini adorned the inside of the dome of the church of Pei-t‘ang in Peking — the emperor insisted for the most part that the Europeans accommodate themselves to, and demanded that his daughter be taught, the Chinese style. Giuseppe could not deny the princess, nor could the princess displease her father. So Girl-Girl diligently practiced the Chinese style, Giuseppe indulged, with discretion, her insistence on learning Western techniques, and her father was shown only what he expected to see. It was only a matter of days before Girl-Girl was shown what she expected to see. “Shih-ning!” Girl-Girl gasped, when Giuseppe lifted the piece of silk covering the canvas. “Shih-ning,” she repeated, softly, “it’s like looking into a mirror!” “It is but a humble attempt to hint at the beauty of the emperor’s daughter,” Giuseppe replied, “but I am glad that it pleases the princess.” Girl-Girl lifted the canvas with both hands, studied it, then clasped it to her breast. “We are beautiful!” she exclaimed. Then, softly, “Thank you, Shih-ning.” Again, the Jesuit’s smile mirrored the princess’s, but this time Giuseppe did not lower his head and Girl-Girl saw in his eyes what was in her own. The word he had breathed when she had demanded the portrait, “impossible,” intruded on her thoughts, but she quickly suppressed it. “Thank you, Shih-ning,” Girl-Girl repeated tenderly, “I must show it to father.” “Girl-Gir…” Giuseppe caught himself. “Princess. No.” But she had already turned away, and the rustle of silk dissipated quickly this time with her rapid steps. Girl-Girl was gone. TURNING FROM THE YOUNG MAN seated beside him at his daughter’s sudden appearance in the entry to his chamber, Kang smiled. Here together were the princess who owned his heart and the prince he’d chosen to be his successor, his second surviving son by his first spouse. “Father!” Girl-Girl was breathless, the portrait still clasped to her breast. Their curiosity picqued, Kang and Qian looked expectantly at Girl-Girl. “Well,” intoned the emperor, “you have a painting to show us? We are most eager to see it, my talented princess.” Girl-Girl took several steps into the chamber, to within a few feet of her father and brother, before turning the canvas around and extending it towards them. Qian was smiling broadly when he turned to discover his...