The Stream
Lü Yi

We walked hand in hand into the woods, where the stream seemed togreet our floating reflections upon the water, with her smiling dimples. Thestream, tender as a lovely maiden, somehow found herself imprisoned in theheavy greens, not knowing how she came into the deep forest.

Now she was unable to flash a cheerful smile to the rosy sun earlyin the morning, and to have a pleasant chat with the rippling moon deep atnight, so her crystal eyes were by soft degrees tinted with deep bluemelancholy and she appeared so depressed, with gloomy groans time and again, inthe season of summer.

After several autumn rains, the stream went up by boat poles; thegreen leaves fell off the withered parasols and catalpas; the golden eveningglow filtered through branches of the trees into the stream; the indigo watersurface was suffused with a rainbow of colors.

Now the stream regained her vivacity and mirth, going hastilyforwards, playing mischievously along the way with dead leaves, witheredbranches.

A small red leaf followed the advice of the smooth-talking west windand played truant for fun, with the carrying wind. And the wind stealthily tookback its carrying power and the leaf stumbled into the stream.

As she retained a high point of ecstasy, the stream led the poor,way-lost leaf in a subtle manner by push and jam, into the whirlpool where theleaf encircled, unable to move forwards or backwards, and was reduced to theverge of tears. The water let loose the leaf with a playful smile, and the leaflost no time in running away.

So the stream was wont to tease others, but she herself encounteredobstacles when she came to the dam. If your memory does not fail you, you oughtto remember there sat many huge stones at the bottom of the dam, posing a blockto the smooth course the stream was running along.

When she first came to the stones, the carefree stream had the cheekto importune the stones to let her pass, with crafty pettishness and craziness,but the stones remained inflexible, with the cold long face, as if deaf. Sheflew into a rage, and dashed desperately upon the stones. In her fierceconflict with the stones, she broke the light blue gauze and exposed thesnow-white arms and bosom, gasping for breath and roaring with anger, withsilver locks floating into all directions.

Pit-a-pat, feminine slaps constantly fell upon the deeply wrinkledcheeks of the stones — she was in genuine anger rather than pretendeddispleasure.

Who says that the stones could not melt his stubbornness? The slapswere just too merciless and the stones were forced to duck to avoid them. Sothe stream went over the obstacles, safe and sound.

Although she triumphed, she felt exhausted. She dragged away, withher light blue gauze loosely upon her, leaving on-and-off gasps all the wayalong.

Whenever we came to the woods, we would sit and watch the quarrelbetween the stream and the stones, for as long as an hour or two.