The Willow LandscapeClark Ashton SmithThe picture was more than five hundred years old; and time had not changed itscolors, unless to touch them with the mellow softness of ancient hours, with thegathering morbidezza of bygone things. It had been painted by a great artist ofthe Sung dynasty, on silk of the finest weave, and mounted on rollers of ebonytipped with silver. For twelve generations it had been one of the most cherishedpossessions of the forefa-thers of Shih Liang. And it was equally cherished byShih Liang himself, who, like all his ancestors, was a scholar, a poet, and alover of both art and nature. Often, in his dreamiest or most meditative moods, hewould unroll the painting and gaze upon its idyllic love-liness with the feelingof one who retires to the seclu-sion and remoteness of a mountain-warded valley.It consoled him in a measure for the bustle and blare and intrigue of the imperialcourt, where he held an of-ficial post of no small honor; since he was notaltogether native to such things and would have preferred, like the olden sages,the philosophic peace of a leaf-embowered hermitage.The picture represented a pastoral scene of the most ideal and visionary beauty.In the background arose lofty mountains rendered vague by the slow withdrawal ofmorning mists; in the foreground there ran a little stream, descending 'm mimicturbulence to a tranquil lake, and crossed on its way by a rustic bridge ofbamboo, more charming than if it were made of royal lacquer. Beyond the stream andaround the lake were willows of vernal green more lovely and delicious thananything that was ever beheld except in vision or mem-ory. Incomparable was theirgrace, ineffable their waving: they were like the willows of Shou Shan, the TaoistParadise; and they trailed their foliage as leaning wom-en trail their unboundhair. And partly hidden among them was a tiny hut; and a maiden dressed in peonypink and white was crossing the little bamboo bridge. But somehow the picture wasmore than a painting, was more than a veritable scene: it possessed theenchantment of far-off things for which the heart has longed in vain, of years andof places that are lost beyond recall. Surely the artist had mingled with its huesthe diviner iris of dream or of retrospect, and the wine-sweet tears of anostalgia long denied.Shih Liang felt that he knew the landscape more intimately than any actual scene.Each time that he gazed upon it, his sensations were those of a return-ingwanderer. It became to him the cool and sequestered retreat in which he found anever-failing refuge from the weariness of his days. And though he was of anascetic turn and had never married nor sought the com-pany of women, the presenceof the peony maiden on the bridge was by no means exceptionable: in fact, her tinyfigure, with its more than mortal charm, was somehow an essential part of thecomposition and was no less important to its perfection than the stream, thewillows, the lake, and the far-off mountains with their riven veils of mist. Andshe seemed to companion him in the visits and sojournings of reverie, when hewould imagine himself repairing to the little hut or roaming beneath the delicatefoliage.In truth, Shih Liang had need of such refuge and of such companionship, illusorythough they were. For, aside from his younger brother, Po Lung, a boy of six-teen,be was alone and without living relatives or com-rades; and the fortunes of thefamily, declining through several generations, had left him the heritor of manydebts and little cash or property, except a number of priceless art-treasures. Hislife was increasingly sad, and oppressed by ill-health and poverty; for much ofthe stipend from his secretarial post at the court was necessarily devoted to thecanceling of inherited obliga-tions; and the remainder was barely enough for his
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