One penalty for remaining single is to be childless; and in the nar-
rator’s cultural milieu, a childless state carries some element of danger,
inflicting on her unspecified damages. But time for marriage is running
out: the narrator sees herself aging in her mirror, which is loyal in that
it is always there but loathsome in that it reveals the harsh truth. The
officious matchmaker busies herself, “ever coming and going, with a
serious expression on her face.” Given the alternatives, the narrator
gives into social pressure and surrenders her will to fate:
Here and now, I walk among ÂH, 我Õ在Ö着k×的 "\
those people in their proper 袖ÙÍÚ, ÛÜÝ打ß
attire àáâã的啄木æ咄咄è
Hands tucked into my sleeves,
在, h嘲:
I brush past, dressed up like a 如奢ë的nì, 1如í«
good citizen
The spitting image of a wary
woodpecker tut-tutting
officiously
Living in this world, mocking
myself:
At this over-ripe age, it’s best
to get married
While Zhai Yongming explores the broader social context and reper-
cussions of marriage, it is the marriage ceremony itself that is played out
in Xia Yu’s poem, “Ventriloquy” îï術(Xia 1991: 9). “Ventriloquy”
vividly illustrates the psychic splitting experienced by a bride on her
wedding day:
I walked into the wrong room 我Õñ間
And missed my own wedding. ñóôhi的«õ。
Through the one crack in the 在牆øù的隙û\, 我üý
wall, I see 切進ÔQ。Ö色的外衣
The perfection of all of the 她捧著 , 儀,
proceedings. He’s wearing ,
a white jacket 著!: , 我的îï術
She’s holding flowers in her (匹 暖的 獸!"地
hands, ceremony, 在##的 $%\蠕')
Vows, kiss 獸(: ]的, 我願C。
I’ve turned my back to it: fate,
the ventriloquy I’ve practiced
so painstakingly
(that warm aquatic animal,
the tongue tamely
110 Andrea Lingenfelter