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PARTISAN REVIEW
open area outside the brick fence of a rich family, where the big
willows would shade the viewers. The monkeys were born in
the mountains of Sichuan province, but their masters and
trainers were Henan peasants fleeing from the flooding Yellow
River. They were very resourceful, training the monkeys to beg
for money.
The show was great fun for the children. Last time, I had
seen a monkey dressed in a red costume and a hero's hat from
the Beijing opera, throwing somersaults forward and backward
under the direction of the master. Every now and then it would
snatch the gong from the master, pretend to refuse to perform,
and then turn the gong up as a plate to collect donations from the
circle of viewers.
The climax of the show had been sheepback riding, which
the trainer usually deferred until the end of the program when
the flow of donations slowed and the children grew tired of wait–
ing. I could imagine it: as soon as the monkey held the reins and
put one foot in the stirrup, the sheep would dash forward, not
waiting for the monkey to sit in the saddle . This would put the
monkey in a sorry position, and the children in the audience
would laugh heartily. The monkey was nimble, however, and it
laid its chest against the saddle like a circus stuntman. Finally,
the monkey brandished a whip, and once in a while pulled on
his hat to keep it from falling.
I wondered why the sheep didn't wait for the proper time to
gallop. Perhaps a sheep couldn't be trained as easily as a horse, or
perhaps the sheep wanted to defy the monkey as its second mas–
ter. Then I heard Father say to the women who praised me: ''Yes,
I am determined to support his study. If need be, I will willingly
crawl on the ground for that." His voice sounded like the crack of
a whip on a slack horse's back. It startled me from my day–
dream. I dipped the iron pen point in ink, hunched over my lit–
erature workbook, and continued to write out the ancient songs.
