Eighteen Springs is?a tragic romance set in 1930s
Shanghai. The author is Eileen Chang.?
It was eighteen years since he got to know Manzhen. The
realization startled Shijun, who immediately felt he was getting
old. His romance with her had only lasted a couple of years, but
they seemed to have gone through all the sorrows and joys that life
can hold.
Shijun met Manzhen through Shuhui, his pal at the engineering
college. Shuhui had graduated earlier than Shijun and started
working at a factory in Shanghai. Manzhen was Shuhui's colleague.
Shijun joined Shuhui at the factory after his own graduation and
the three often ate their meals together.
Shijun gradually started to realize he often blushed before he
saw Manzhen and he felt annoyed when Shuhui hinted Manzhen had a
dark secret, a skeleton in her cupboard.
She did in fact have a secret and she revealed it later to
Shijun.
Her older sister worked as a high-class escort. Her family were
deeply ashamed of her job but desperately needed the income it
generated. Manzhen's father had passed away early, leaving his wife
with six little kids and an aged mother to look after, a burden too
heavy for a domesticated housewife. So the load shifted onto the
tender shoulders of Manlu, the oldest child in the family. She quit
school, stopped her engagement with her fiancee and became a
nightclub girl at the age of 16. She was as fresh and pretty as a
blooming flower. Her fame as a high-class escort grew quickly.
But as she grew older and her beauty dimmed, she had less and
less suitors. In the end, a man named Zhu Hongcai became her last
straw.
Manlu finally married him, even though her brother described him
as like a cat when he was laughing and like a mouse when he was
serious.
Meanwhile Shijun was falling head over heels in love with the
pretty, upright and industrious Manzhen, who tried to support her
family with all her might after her sister moved out. She even took
two extra jobs and kept working after dinner.
Manzhen was also falling in love with the honest and easy to
approach Shijun. When she went to work as a tutor in the evening,
Shijun waited for her at a nearby coffee shop, so he could escort
her home after work. They never seemed to have enough time to spend
together because Manzhen was always too busy trying to earn a
living. But the minutes they grabbed between the hours of waiting
were the happiest moments of their lives.
One day, Manlu fell ill and Manzhen went to visit her. Zhu
Hongcai didn't even try to hide his lust for Manzhen. He asked
Manlu to try to persuade her sister to marry him and become his
third wife, as he already had a second wife in his home
village.
Manlu was furious, saying "The cheek on you! That'll never
happen! Tell you what, even if she agrees, I won't. – I've
sacrificed myself to support her through a good education, to
become a girl who can support herself with her own hands. She will
never become a concubine for any man. Don't you ever think all the
girls from my family will become concubines like me."
But Manlu felt her future was becoming more and more shaky
because her beauty was fading and Zhu Hongcai's feelings for her
were slipping away with it. After some time, she decided a child
would probably help stabilize her position. Unfortunately, doctors
had already told her she wouldn't be able to bear any children.
Suddenly, she had a horrible idea. "I must be getting crazy!" she
told herself.
While Manlu was plotting, Shijun took Manzhen to Nanjing to
visit his family. But his family rejected Manzhen because of her
sister's background. He told her when they returned to Shanghai and
they fought over Manlu. Then Shijun went back home to take care of
some family affairs.
By this time, Manlu had formulated a malicious plot against her
own sister. She cheated Manzhen into visiting her by pretending to
be seriously ill. Then she kept her sister at her house by claiming
she needed her care and attention. One night, she let Zhu Hongcai
rape Manzhen and lock her up, hoping her sister would accept the
reality and agree to be her husband's concubine. She hoped
Manzhen's youth and beauty would stop her husband from deserting
her.
When Shijun came back to Shanghai, he found Manzhen had
disappeared. He looked for her everywhere and his search finally
took him to Manlu's residence. Manlu intentionally mislead him into
thinking Manzhen had married another man. Believing it to be true,
the heart-broken Shijun returned to his home in Nanjing. Not long
after, he married a girl his mother had arranged for him.
But both the bride and groom regretted their decision as soon as
they were married, because Shijun still loved Manzhen and the girl
too, loved another man.
Nonetheless, they lived a decent life - first in Nanjing, then
in Shanghai.
While all this was happening, Manzhen gave birth to a baby boy,
the son of the evil Zhu Hongcai. She managed to escape from the
hospital. She found her common friend with Shijun, Shuhui and
learned he had married three days before. All her hope
vanished.
A few years later, Manlu finally found Manzhen. Manlu had
contracted TB and her days were numbered. She begged Manzhen to
marry Zhu Hongcai so she could take care of her own child. Manzhen
refused but she later found she was forced to take care of the
child when Manlu died and the kid fell seriously ill.
Her motherly love for the child forced her to agree to marry Zhu
Hongcai. But she divorced him a few years later, when she
discovered Zhu Hongcai still had another wife.
Manzhen and Shijun met each other again eighteen years later
when they accidentally crossed paths at Shuhui's home. They told
each other what they had been through. Manzhen was very calm as she
told her story and Shijun listened quietly, though his face turned
paler and paler. They didn't say a word for quite a long time after
she finished her story. Finally they learned the truth that
confused and pained them for so many years. They couldn't change
anything now, but knowing what had really happened made a
difference to them -- At least Manzhen now knew Shijun had loved
her wholeheartedly, and he knew she'd always been loyal to him.
Knowing this brought them both a little wistful satisfaction.
(CRI.com November 29, 2006)
