曹植：不能拥有
Cao Zhi: What Cannot Be Held
一、七步
公元二二零年，或者二二一年，史书没有写清楚。
地点是洛阳——不是后来的洛阳，是汉末三国之交那个还在战火里恢复的洛阳。
魏文帝曹丕在大殿上。他刚继位不久。三十多岁。穿着皇帝的礼服。他下面跪着一个人——他的同母弟弟，曹植。
曹植那时候三十岁左右。他比曹丕小五岁。两个人是同一个母亲（卞夫人）生的。两个人小时候在同一个屋檐下长大。两个人小时候一起读书，一起骑马，一起跟着父亲曹操打仗。两个人是一辈子见过对方睡觉的样子的兄弟。
曹丕看着跪在自己面前的弟弟。
他知道这张脸。
他从小看这张脸。这张脸跟他自己的脸有相似的地方——眉骨，下巴，鼻梁的形状。母亲生的两个儿子。父亲一直更喜欢这个弟弟。父亲一度想把这张脸所属的人立为太子，让他继承曹魏的天下。
最后没立。最后立的是他，曹丕。
但是这张脸还在。
只要这张脸还在，曹丕就睡不安。
他下了一个命令。
"你给我七步内作一首诗。作不出来，按罪论处。"
曹植站起来。
他开始走。
第一步。第二步。
到第七步的时候，他停下，开口——
"煮豆燃豆萁，豆在釜中泣。本是同根生，相煎何太急。"
四句。二十个字。
煮豆子用的柴是豆子的茎。豆子在锅里哭。我们本来是同一根上长出来的，你为什么要急着煎熬我。
大殿上安静了一会儿。
曹丕听完没有杀他。
也没有放他。
后面的十二年，曹丕和曹丕的儿子曹叡（魏明帝），用一种比死更慢的方式处理这个弟弟——把他贬到一个偏远的封地，过几年再换一个偏远的封地，不许他参与朝政，不许他跟兄弟来往，不许他自由出行。每一次贬黜的诏书都说"恩待"，每一次贬黜的实际效果都是把他往更深的孤立里推。
曹植死的时候四十一岁。死因是抑郁加营养不良。一个王侯活活被囚禁到死。
七步成诗那一天保住了他的命。 但他后来的十二年，一天比一天，证明保住命不是被放过。
二、争储
要明白曹丕为什么不能放过这个弟弟，得回到他们小时候。
曹操有很多儿子。但能继承大位的有两个候选——曹丕和曹植。
曹丕是长子（嫡长子曹昂在更早的战役里死了），合法的继承人。但曹操更喜欢曹植。
为什么？
曹植聪明。聪明到一种让父亲惊讶的地步。
十岁出头的曹植已经能背诵《诗经》、《论语》、辞赋几十万字。他能下笔成文，不需要打草稿。曹操有一次写了一篇文章，让曹植看，问他能改进哪里。曹植看完直接说出几处可以更精炼的地方。曹操惊讶。
更让曹操印象深的是曹植的奔放。
曹丕是稳的人。从小学规矩，懂分寸，能控制自己。曹植是放的人——他喜欢喝酒，他写的诗有一种少年的飞扬，他敢在父亲面前放肆地表达自己的想法。
曹操是一个开创天下的人。开创天下的人喜欢有魄力的儿子。
那几年——大概是建安十几年到二十几年——曹植在父亲面前的位置一直在升。曹操甚至几次召见群臣讨论"立植不立丕"的可能性。
然后曹植自己把这个机会丢了。
有一次他喝醉了，半夜驾着马车从司马门冲出去——那是只有皇帝才能走的门。这个事件让曹操彻底失望。一个连基本规矩都不能守的人，怎么能托付天下？
还有一次——曹仁（曹操的堂弟，重要将领）在襄樊被关羽围困。曹操命令曹植去救。曹植那天又喝醉了，醒不过来，错过了出兵的时机。曹操震怒。
这两件事之后，曹操不再考虑立曹植。
公元二一七年，曹丕被立为魏王世子。
公元二二零年，曹操死。曹丕继位，几个月后篡汉建魏。
曹丕成了皇帝。曹植从一个差点是皇帝的人，变成了一个皇帝的弟弟——而且是一个曾经差点取代了这个皇帝的弟弟。
我们今天回头看那两件事——司马门，襄樊——可以说是曹植自己作的。是他的放纵让他失去了机会。
但也可以问另一个问题：一个真的想做皇帝的人，会做这两件事吗？
曹植聪明到一种程度，他不可能不知道这两件事意味着什么。他不可能不知道这两件事会让父亲失望。
可能有一种解读：他根本就不想做皇帝。他想要的是父亲对他的喜爱，而不是皇位。但是他在政治结构里——一个差点被立为太子的次子，无法逃避哥哥的怀疑。一旦他出现在那个位置上，无论他自己想不想要，他都已经成了哥哥的威胁。
他用司马门和襄樊证明自己不是皇帝的料。但他证明得太晚了。哥哥已经记住了他作为威胁的样子。
哥哥不会忘记。
三、黄初
公元二二零年。曹丕改元黄初。
黄初元年，曹丕封曹植为安乡侯。一年之后改封鄄城侯。再一年改封鄄城王。
每一次改封听起来是升迁——侯到王。但每一次实际效果都是把曹植从一个地方挪到另一个地方，让他不能在任何一个地方扎下根。
更深一层是另一种东西。曹丕给他派了"监国谒者"——名义上是协助治理，实际上是监视。监国谒者每年向朝廷上报曹植的言行。曹植的每一封信，每一次出门，每一次跟人见面，都要被记录。
曹植自己写过一些上表——他想为国家做点事，他想带兵打仗，他想去边疆守土。每一次都被驳回。曹丕给他的待遇是养着，不是用着。
养着的逻辑是——你存在，但你不影响。你拿俸禄，住王府，有妻妾，有奴仆。但你做不了任何事。
这是中国传统对待皇室异己的标准方式。
它不需要杀。
它只需要让你存在，而你的存在被限制到一种你跟死了差不多的程度。你每天起床，吃饭，看书，喝酒，写字。你不能做任何会影响政治的事。你也不能做任何会让人记得你的事。你慢慢地从历史的中心位置滑到历史的边缘。然后某一天你死了，你的死是一个一般的注脚。
曹植在这种处境里活了十二年。
他没有疯。
他做了一件事——他写。
他在每一个被限制的封地里继续写。他写诗。他写赋。他写表（向皇帝的奏疏）。他用写让自己不消失。
他写的东西里有大量是给哥哥看的——上表，谢恩文章，劝诫的奏疏。这些东西的语气小心翼翼，每一个字都怕用错。一个聪明绝顶的人写给一个把他当作威胁的人的信，每一个字都是在走钢丝。
但是他写的东西里也有另一些是不给哥哥看的。他给自己写。他给空气写。他给历史写。他给那些看不见的读者写——那些几百年后能读懂他写的东西的人。
那些不给哥哥看的东西里，藏着他的真话。
四、洛水
公元二二二年。曹植从京城回鄄城（在今天的山东西部）的封地。
他一路骑马。他经过洛水。
洛水是一条不大的河，从洛阳南面流过。在中国传统神话里，洛水有一个女神，名字叫宓妃，是伏羲的女儿。
曹植在洛水边停下。他想到了这个传说。
他后来写了一篇赋——《洛神赋》。中国文学史上最有名的赋之一。
赋的开头交代背景：他从京城回封地的路上，到了洛水，停下来休息。他的随从指着水面对他说，那里有洛神。
他看过去。
赋的中段几乎全是对洛神的描述。
他描写她的形貌——
"翩若惊鸿，婉若游龙。荣曜秋菊，华茂春松。仿佛兮若轻云之蔽月，飘飖兮若流风之回雪。"
她像受惊的鸿雁飞起，像游动的龙转身。她的光彩像秋菊。她的茂盛像春松。她有时候像一片轻云遮过月亮，有时候像一阵风吹动雪花。
这些比喻每一个都不是日常的比喻。每一个都把洛神的形象推到一种超过人类的境地。
他描写她的动作——
"凌波微步，罗袜生尘。"
她踏在水波上轻轻地走，她的罗袜生出尘埃。
——这一句是中国文学里写女性最有名的一句之一。她踩在水上不沉。她的罗袜在水上行走的时候生出像在地上行走的尘埃。她的存在违反物理规律。她不属于这个世界。
曹植看着她。
他写他和她之间发生了什么——
他想接近她。她也注视他。两个人之间有一种相互的吸引。他想用玉佩送给她（古代男子向女子表达情意的方式）。她也好像有所回应。
但是。
她是神，他是人。
赋的后段是分别。
她退回到水里。她的随从——其他洛水的水神——围绕着她，慢慢离去。
曹植站在岸上看。
赋的最后一段是他独自的悲伤——
"恨人神之道殊兮，怨盛年之莫当。 抗罗袂以掩涕兮，泪流襟之浪浪。 悼良会之永绝兮，哀一逝而异乡。 无微情以效爱兮，献江南之明珰。 虽潜处于太阴，长寄心于君王。"
我恨人和神的道是不一样的，我怨我正在最好的年华却不能跟她在一起。 我用罗袖遮住眼泪，泪水流到衣襟上像一阵雨。 我哀痛我们美好的相会永远断绝了，她去了一个我去不了的地方。 我没有什么实在的东西可以表达我的爱，只有把江南的明珠献给她。 她虽然回到了水的深处，但她的心永远会留在我这里。
他骑上马继续往封地走。
赋写完了。
我们读这篇赋一千八百年，所有人都看到了同一件事——
曹植不是真的在写洛神。
或者说，他是在写洛神，但洛神不只是洛神。洛神是一种他渴望但不能拥有的东西的形象化。
历代注释家有不同的解读。
有的说洛神是甄妃——曹丕的妻子，传说曹植年轻时候喜欢过她。这个说法在文学批评史上很热闹，但缺乏有力的证据。
有的说洛神是曹植的政治理想——他想拥有的那个施展才华的位置。他失去了它。
有的说洛神是某种更抽象的东西——美本身，自由本身，一种不能被这个世界容纳的存在。
我们这一篇不站这些解读的队。
我们只说一件事：
不管洛神具体指什么，《洛神赋》是一个人写自己不能拥有什么的最深的一篇文章。
他能描写她到极致。他能写出她每一个动作的美。他能写出他自己渴望她的程度。但他不能拥有她。
她是他者。
不是因为她是神而他是人——这个区分是赋里的语言。是因为任何真正的他者，对你来说都是这样的：你能看见她，你能为她惊讶，你能渴望她，但你不能拥有她。一旦你拥有了她，她就不再是她——她变成了你的一部分，你的对象。
曹植在洛水边那一刻，他做的事是——
他承认了他不能拥有。
他没有跳进水里去抓住洛神。他没有发誓自己不爱她。他不否认渴望，他也不要求满足。他承认这两件事都是真的——他确实渴望，他也确实不能拥有。
承认这两件事都是真的，这件事本身就是一种为他者留位置的方式。
她是她。他是他。中间的距离是真的。距离不是悲剧。距离是他者作为他者的真实形态。
五、白马王彪
公元二二三年。
曹丕召集几个兄弟到京城朝见——曹植，任城王曹彰，白马王曹彪。
兄弟三个一起到了洛阳。
曹彰在洛阳期间突然死了。
正史里说是病死。
民间和野史里说是被曹丕毒死的。北魏的《魏氏春秋》记载了一个具体的故事——曹丕邀请曹彰下棋，给他吃毒枣，曹彰当场暴亡。这个故事的真实性争议了一千八百年。
我们不去站任何一边的队。
我们只知道一件事——曹彰死了。曹植和曹彪埋了哥哥。然后他们要回各自的封地了。
按礼节，兄弟应当一起走一段路。
但是曹丕下了一道命令——曹植和曹彪不许同行。两个人必须分两路走。
这个命令是没有解释的。
曹植和曹彪只能服从。
分别的那一天，曹植给曹彪写了一首长诗——《赠白马王彪》。
这首诗有七段，每段一个题目，从分别的痛苦开始，到他对哥哥曹彰的悲悼，到对未来的预感，到他自己活下去的勇气。
中间有一段是他跟曹彪说的告别——
"丈夫志四海，万里犹比邻。 恩爱苟不亏，在远分日亲。 何必同衾帱，然后展殷勤。 忧思成疾疢，无乃儿女仁。"
大丈夫的志向应该是放眼天下，万里之外的人也可以像近邻。 只要恩爱不减，距离再远，关系反而更亲。 何必非要同盖一床被子，才显得感情深厚。 忧伤过度变成病，那就成了小儿女的小气。
这一段是他给曹彪的安慰——也是给他自己的安慰。
但是诗的最后一段是不能再安慰的——
"苦辛何虑思，天命信可疑。 虚无求列仙，松子久吾欺。 变故在斯须，百年谁能持。 离别永无会，执手将何时。 王其爱玉体，俱享黄发期。 收泪即长路，援笔从此辞。"
苦难和艰辛都不必再多想了，连天命都让人怀疑。 追求虚无的神仙之道，赤松子之类的传说骗了我太久了。 人的变故就在一瞬间，谁能保证活到一百岁。 这一别永远不会再相会了，下次握手不知道要等到什么时候。 你要爱护你自己的身体，希望我们都能活到老。 擦干眼泪上路，写完这首诗就告别了。
"离别永无会，执手将何时。"
这十个字。
两个亲兄弟，被自己的亲哥哥用一道命令分开，知道这次分开很可能是这一辈子最后一次见面。
他们都猜对了。曹彪后来再也没有见过曹植。
曹丕在做什么？
曹丕在用最小的、最克制的、最不显眼的方式，把他的兄弟们从他自己的世界里推开。他不杀曹植——杀了会留下杀弟的名声。他不让曹植自由——自由的曹植可能成为政治威胁。他不让兄弟们彼此见面——见了面他们可能联合。他用一道又一道的小命令，把每一个兄弟孤立起来。每一道命令都不大。每一道命令加起来是终身监禁。
曹丕看见过他们的面容。 他从小看着这些面容长大。 他知道得清清楚楚他在压制谁。
但他选择了。
这跟一个看不见他者的人不一样。一个看不见他者的人在做出消灭他者的决定时，他可能不知道自己在做什么。曹丕不是。曹丕看见过曹植的脸——年轻的曹植，喝醉酒的曹植，写诗的曹植，跪在他面前求恩典的曹植。每一张脸他都看过。
他知道。
然后他选了。
R6 这一轮里，海德格尔在讲台上举手的那一刻，是一个看见过他者面容的人选择转身。曹丕在皇帝座上发出每一道贬黜命令的那一刻，是同一个结构在不同的场景里——看见过弟弟的脸的人选择把弟弟推到一个慢死的位置。
这些不是同一种事件。海德格尔是公共政治选择。曹丕是家庭权力选择。但结构是同构的——
看见了面容仍然选择压制的人，知道自己在做什么。
这种知道不会让他们停下来。 这种知道也不会让他们更轻松。
他们走在一条路上。那条路上每一步都伴随着对自己在做什么的清楚知道。 那条路通向手段王国。 他们到了那里之后，他们也变成了那个王国里的另一个手段——曹丕的儿子曹叡继位之后继续压制曹植，曹叡之后的政变，曹魏王朝在司马家手里被取代。曹丕用来压制弟弟的权力机器，最后也压制了曹丕自己的子孙。
那个王国的天气对所有走在那条路上的人都一样。
六、囚徒王侯
曹植在他生命最后的十二年里，做的最重要的事不是他的诗，不是他的赋，是他没有崩溃。
他被反复贬黜。从安乡侯到鄄城侯到鄄城王到雍丘王到东阿王到陈王。每隔几年换一个地方。每个地方都是偏远的，资源少的，远离权力中心的。
他被监视。监国谒者每年报告他的言行。他的每一句话都可能被记录下来。
他不能见他的兄弟。他不能去自己想去的地方。他不能做任何对国家有用的事。
他向哥哥反复上表。他说他想去打仗，想去边境守土，想为国家做事。每一次都被以各种委婉的理由驳回。
他在三十多岁的时候已经知道——他这辈子不会被用了。
一般人在这种处境里，会变成一种被毁掉的人。或者酗酒成废，或者愤恨疯狂，或者干脆自杀。
曹植没有。
他每天起床。他读书。他写。他跟很少几个还能跟他来往的人通信。他研究音乐——他对乐律很有研究，写过《鞞舞歌》等乐府诗。他在自己被允许的范围内尽量做他能做的事。
他没有把自己变成一个怨天尤人的人。
他的诗里有怨——他不否认怨。"高树多悲风，海水扬其波。利剑不在掌，结友何须多" 这样的句子表明他知道自己处境的真相。但他的诗里更多的是其他东西——对自然的观察，对友人的思念，对历史人物的评论，对人生的思考。
他活成了一个虽然被囚禁但保留了自己面容的人。
囚禁可以剥夺一个人的自由，可以剥夺一个人的资源，可以剥夺一个人的政治位置。但囚禁不能剥夺一个人的面容——除非那个人自己放弃。
很多被囚的人最终自己放弃了。他们变成了悲惨的标本——一个曾经有过抱负的人变成了一个连自己都看不见自己的废墟。
曹植没有。他活到死那一天还在写。他四十一岁死的时候，旁边放着没写完的诗稿。他死的过程是身体的衰竭，不是精神的崩溃。
他用他那十二年证明了一件事——
手段王国对一个有面容的人也下雨。但下雨不能消除他的面容，除非他自己放弃。
曹丕用他能想到的一切方式压制曹植。他没有杀他——杀会留下污点。但他用了一个比杀更慢的方式。他想让曹植从一个有面容的人变成一个没有面容的影子。
曹植没有让他得逞。
不是因为曹植有什么超人的力量。是因为他做了一件具体的事——他每天写字。
写字这件事，是一个有面容的人在做的事。一个人写字的时候，他在确认自己作为一个有意识、有判断、有审美的存在——他在用最微小的动作维持着自己的面容。
只要他还在写，他就还是他自己。 只要他还是他自己，曹丕就没有完全赢。
曹丕一辈子知道这一点。这是为什么曹丕到死都不放心曹植——这是为什么他死之前留下遗诏，要他儿子曹叡继续压制这个叔叔。
一个没有面容的人不需要被反复压制。曹丕反复压制曹植，是因为他知道曹植还有面容。他对那张面容的存在不能忍。
七、不能拥有
曹植一辈子写的所有东西，都在写不能拥有。
他不能拥有洛神——人和神的道不一样。 他不能拥有兄长的信任——兄长选择把他当威胁。 他不能拥有政治抱负——朝廷不让他参与。 他不能拥有自由——他被监视和囚禁。 他不能拥有跟兄弟在一起的权利——曹丕下令分路。 他不能拥有他想要的友情——他能信任的人很少。
每一件事都是不能拥有。
他怎么对待这件事？
他没有否认渴望。
这很关键。
很多人面对不能拥有的时候，反应是把渴望本身否认掉。"我本来也不想要"，"那个东西其实不重要"。这是把"不能拥有"转换成"不渴望"——通过取消主体的渴望来回避对面的他者性。
曹植没有这样做。
他在《洛神赋》里把渴望写到极致。"虽潜处于太阴，长寄心于君王" ——洛神虽然回到水里，但她的心永远会留在他这里。这一句的语气不是否认渴望，是承认一种永恒的不能完成的渴望。
他在《赠白马王彪》里也是这样。"离别永无会，执手将何时" ——他不假装这次分别没什么。他承认这是永别。
他在他的政治表里也是这样。他不假装自己不想做事。他反复地说自己想做事，知道每次都会被驳回。他没有放弃说自己想做事这件事——哪怕说也没用。
承认渴望但承认不能拥有，这件事很难。
容易的是两个极端——要么否认渴望（"我不要"），要么否认距离（"我一定要拿到"）。
承认两边都是真的——既渴望，又不能——这是中间最难走的路。
但这条路有一个特点：
走这条路的人，他渴望的对象保持着作为他者的真实性。
如果他否认渴望，那个对象就降格为"不重要的东西"——不再是真正的他者，是一个被取消了重量的对象。 如果他否认距离，那个对象就降格为"我必须拿到的东西"——不再是真正的他者，是一个被吸纳到他自己欲望系统里的工具。
只有在"渴望但不能拥有"的状态里，那个对象才作为完整的他者向他显现。
曹植一辈子在做这件事。他渴望他不能拥有的——洛神，兄长的信任，政治抱负，自由——并且承认这些渴望和不能拥有都是真的。这就是他的诗的力量来源。一千八百年后我们读他还感到那种力量，因为那种力量不是关于他的具体不幸，是关于一个普遍的人的处境——人活着就是面对很多不能拥有的他者，承认这件事是为他者留位置的最深层。
我们在这一轮前面几篇讲他者的时候，多用伦理的语言，关系的语言，哲学的语言。
曹植给了我们另一种语言——
渴望的语言。
他者不只是我们应当为之留位置的伦理存在。他者也是我们渴望但不能拥有的存在。这两件事是同一件事的两面。
为他者留位置就是承认我不能拥有。 承认我不能拥有就是为他者留位置。
康德说人是目的不是手段。 列维纳斯说看见他者的面容。 布伯说重新进入"我-你"。 曹植说承认我渴望但不能拥有。
四种语言。同一个方向。
那个方向上有一种风。一种温和的风。
八、桥头
曹植走过来的时候，是夜里。
他个子不高。他穿着王侯的袍子——但袍子很旧，磨损过几次重新缝过。他的腰带没有扣紧。他的鞋是普通的布鞋。
他手里拿着一卷东西。
不是金属做的工具——他不像希帕蒂娅有星盘，不像柏格森有拐杖。
他手里拿的是一卷竹简，或者绢帛——上面有他写的字。
他走得不快。他四十一岁就死了，但他的姿态像更老一点——一个被囚禁了十二年的人的姿态，眼睛里有一种知道自己被看着但不在乎的安静。
他到了桥的中段。
希帕蒂娅在那里。星盘在她手里。 阿奎那在另一边，手里没有东西。 柏格森拄着拐杖。 列维纳斯站着。 布伯站在不远处。
桥的中段不止这五个人。桥上是几代几代累积下来的人——画方程的，看玉米的，写诗的，读星图的，写小说的，画图纸的，蹲着记笔记的，坐着发呆的，跟旁边人小声谈话的。
曹植看了一圈。
他不认识他们当中的大多数。他活的时候没有读过他们当中任何一个人的书——希帕蒂娅比他晚一百多年，阿奎那比他晚一千年，其他几个晚一千几百年。他甚至不认识康德是谁——康德要等一千五百年以后才出生。
但他看见了一件事——
他们在做的事，他懂。
他们在他自己一辈子做的那件事的延长线上。他不需要听他们的语言，不需要读他们的字。从他们站在桥上的姿态，他看出他们做的是同一类事——为不能拥有的他者留位置。
他对他们点了点头。
他们也对他点了点头。
他没有走过去深谈。他在桥的中段找了一个位置站下。他把手里的卷子放在身边——那是他写的诗赋。他不需要拿在手里。这些字已经写完了。它们留在世界上一千八百年。已经在做它们该做的事。
桥头远处那一头，康德站着。今晚的康德比之前更清楚一点——能看见他大致的轮廓，他的头发的颜色。
桥外那条路上——能看见暗的天空，雷光。
那条路上有人在走。
走得最远的那些已经看不见了。 近处那个穿教授袍子的人——海德格尔——又走远了一些。
曹植朝那条路看了一眼。
他认出那条路。
那条路在他自己活着的时候也存在。那条路上有过他的哥哥。他的哥哥从京城的宫殿一步一步往那条路上走——每一道压制弟弟的命令都是一步。曹丕死的时候四十岁，比曹植早走九年。曹丕死前留下遗诏让儿子继续压制曹植。曹叡照做了。曹叡死后他自己的政权在司马家手里被推翻。曹魏王朝从兴起到灭亡只用了四十六年。
曹植朝那条路看了一眼，没有特别难过。
他知道每一个走那条路的人是自己选的。他的哥哥选了。他的哥哥那一边的所有人都选了。他们到了那个王国里，他们也变成了那个王国的天气。那场暴风骤雨从来不饶过任何人——即便是站在最高位置发布命令的人，最终也是雨里的一个被淋湿的人。
曹植转回身。
希帕蒂娅手里的星盘在风里反着月光。
他对希帕蒂娅微微一笑。希帕蒂娅笑了一下。两个人语言完全不通——曹植不会希腊语，希帕蒂娅不会汉语。但他们都看见了对方手里的工具。星盘和竹简。两件不同时代的工具，做的是相似的事——让人看见星星，让人看见字，让人看见一些他们看不见但应该看见的东西。
阿奎那从另一边走过来。他用拉丁语说了一句什么。曹植听不懂。但是阿奎那的语调里有一种他熟悉的东西——一个写过很多字然后停下来的人的语调。曹植自己也是写过很多字的人。曹植对阿奎那点了点头。
布伯走近一点。布伯穿着深色的长袍，手里也没有工具。布伯看了曹植一眼。两个人都被自己最亲近的人深深伤害过——布伯三岁时母亲离开，曹植被亲哥哥囚禁到死。他们没有说话。但有一种相互的认出。
桥的中段人群里月光是温和的。
桥头最远那一头那个一直看着远方的人，看了希帕蒂娅，看了阿奎那，看了柏格森，看了列维纳斯，看了布伯。
这次他看的是曹植。
曹植和那个人的目光交汇了一瞬间。
曹植没有低头。他不是一个会向远方致敬的人——他活的时候已经向皇帝低过太多头，他死了之后不再低头。
但是他的眼睛里有一种承认。
他在说——我看见你在那里。我懂你站的那个位置。我活着的时候没有听过你的语言，但是我做的事和你指的方向是一回事。
那个一直看着远方的人也轻轻点了点头。
曹植站在桥的中段。他活着的时候没有拥有他想拥有的任何东西。他死了之后他写的字活下来了。他写的洛神，他写的白马王彪，他写的对不能拥有的承认——这些字穿过一千八百年，到了二十一世纪还有人读。
他做的是无限的。 他知道无限不是他能完成的。 他做了。[1][2]
I. Seven Steps
The year was 220 or 221 — the histories do not agree.
The place was Luoyang. Not the Luoyang of later ages. The Luoyang at the seam of the Han and the Three Kingdoms, still being rebuilt out of the wars.
Emperor Wen of Wei — Cao Pi — was on the great hall of his palace. He had only recently taken the throne. He was in his thirties. He wore the ceremonial robes of an emperor. Below him, on the ground, knelt a man — his younger brother by the same mother, Cao Zhi.
Cao Zhi was around thirty. He was five years younger than Cao Pi. The two of them had been born of the same mother, Lady Bian. They had grown up under the same roof. As children they had read together, ridden horses together, gone to war together with their father Cao Cao. They were the kind of brothers who had seen each other sleeping, all their lives.
Cao Pi looked at the brother kneeling in front of him.
He knew this face.
He had known this face from boyhood. There were similarities to his own face — the brow, the chin, the line of the nose. Two sons of the same mother. Their father had always favored this younger one. Their father had once thought of making the man with this face the heir, of giving him the throne of Wei.
In the end he had not. In the end the heir had been him, Cao Pi.
But this face was still here.
As long as this face was here, Cao Pi could not sleep at peace.
He gave an order.
"Compose a poem within seven steps. If you cannot, you will be punished."
Cao Zhi rose to his feet.
He began to walk.
One step. Two steps.
By the seventh step he stopped, and spoke —
"Beans being cooked, with bean-stalks for fuel — The beans inside the pot weep. We grew from the same root. Why are you so urgent to burn me?"
Four lines. Twenty Chinese characters.
The fuel beneath the pot of cooking beans is the stalks of the bean. The beans inside the pot are weeping. We grew from the same root. Why are you so urgent to burn me?
The hall was quiet for a moment.
Cao Pi heard him out, and did not kill him.
He also did not let him go.
For the next twelve years, Cao Pi and then Cao Pi's son Cao Rui (Emperor Ming of Wei) handled this brother by something slower than killing — exiling him to a remote fief, then a few years later to another remote fief, never letting him take part in court politics, never letting him meet his other brothers, never letting him travel freely. Each successive edict of demotion spoke of "favor and grace"; the actual effect of each edict was to push him deeper into isolation.
Cao Zhi died at forty-one. The cause was a long melancholy compounded by malnutrition. A prince of the imperial blood, kept alive only to be slowly worn out.
The poem in seven steps had saved his life that day.
But the next twelve years, day by day, proved that having his life saved was not the same as being let go.
II. The Succession
To understand why Cao Pi could not let his brother go, one has to go back to their boyhood.
Cao Cao had many sons. But two were the real candidates for succession — Cao Pi and Cao Zhi.
Cao Pi was the elder (the firstborn legitimate son, Cao Ang, had died in an earlier campaign), the legitimate heir. But Cao Cao preferred Cao Zhi.
Why?
Cao Zhi was brilliant. Brilliant in a way that astonished even his father.
By his early teens Cao Zhi could recite the Book of Songs, the Analects, and tens of thousands of words of rhapsodies. He could compose finished pieces without drafts. Cao Cao once wrote an essay and gave it to Cao Zhi to read, asking him where it could be improved. Cao Zhi read through and named several places that could be tightened. Cao Cao was startled.
What impressed Cao Cao even more deeply was Cao Zhi's openness.
Cao Pi was the steady one. From boyhood he learned the rules, knew the proportions, controlled himself. Cao Zhi was the unrestrained one — he loved wine; his poems had the flight of youth; he dared to express his thoughts, in front of his father, without restraint.
Cao Cao was a man who had founded a state out of war. A man who founds a state out of war prefers a son with daring.
For several years — roughly through the late 200s into the 210s of the third century — Cao Zhi rose in his father's eyes. Cao Cao even, on several occasions, called in his ministers to debate the possibility of "establishing Zhi rather than Pi."
Then Cao Zhi himself threw the chance away.
One night, drunk, Cao Zhi drove his carriage out through the Sima Gate — the gate reserved for the emperor alone. The incident shook Cao Cao's confidence completely. A man who could not keep even basic protocol — how could he be entrusted with the empire?
Another time — Cao Ren, Cao Cao's cousin and one of his most important generals, was besieged by Guan Yu at Xiangfan. Cao Cao ordered Cao Zhi to lead troops to relieve him. Cao Zhi was drunk again that day, could not be roused, and missed the time of the deployment. Cao Cao was furious.
After these two events, Cao Cao no longer considered making Cao Zhi the heir.
In 217, Cao Pi was named Heir of the King of Wei.
In 220, Cao Cao died. Cao Pi succeeded him as King of Wei. A few months later, he forced the abdication of the last Han emperor and founded the Wei dynasty.
Cao Pi became emperor. Cao Zhi went from being a man who had nearly become emperor to being the brother of an emperor — and a brother who had once nearly displaced him.
Looking back, those two episodes — the Sima Gate, Xiangfan — can be read as Cao Zhi's own doing. His unrestraint cost him the chance.
But one can also ask another question. Would a man who really wanted to be emperor have done these two things?
Cao Zhi was brilliant enough to know what these episodes meant. He could not have been unaware of how badly they would disappoint his father.
One reading is possible: he never actually wanted the throne. He wanted his father's affection, not the throne. But he was inside a political structure — a younger son who had nearly been named heir cannot escape his elder brother's suspicion. Once he was placed in that position, whether he wanted it or not, he had become his elder brother's threat.
He used the Sima Gate and Xiangfan to prove that he was not made for the throne. But he proved it too late. His elder brother had already fixed the image of him as a threat.
His elder brother would not forget.
III. Huangchu
220 CE. Cao Pi changed the era name to Huangchu.
In the first year of Huangchu, Cao Pi enfeoffed Cao Zhi as Marquis of Anxiang. A year later, the title was changed to Marquis of Juancheng. Another year, to Prince of Juancheng.
Each new title sounded like a promotion — marquis to prince. But the actual effect of each was to move Cao Zhi from one place to another, never letting him settle anywhere.
Beneath that was something deeper. Cao Pi sent him a Supervising Imperial Envoy — nominally an aide for governance; in fact a watcher. The Supervising Imperial Envoy reported to the court each year on Cao Zhi's words and movements. Every letter he wrote, every time he went out, every meeting he had — was recorded.
Cao Zhi himself wrote several memorials — he wished to do something for the state, he wished to lead troops, he wished to go to the borders to defend them. Each was rejected. The treatment Cao Pi gave him was to keep him, not to use him.
The logic of "keeping" was: you exist, but you do not affect anything. You receive your stipend, you live in a palace, you have wives and concubines, you have servants. But you do nothing. Anything that might affect politics, you cannot do. Anything that might make people remember you, you cannot do. Slowly you slide from the center of history to the edge of history. Then one day you die, and your death is a footnote.
This is the standard Chinese imperial way of handling a dissident of the imperial blood.
It does not require killing.
It only requires letting you exist, and constraining your existence to the point that it differs little from death. You wake up each day, eat, read, drink, write. You can do nothing of political consequence. You can do nothing memorable. You drift.
Cao Zhi lived in this condition for twelve years.
He did not break.
He did one thing — he wrote.
He kept writing, in each constrained fief. He wrote poems. He wrote rhapsodies. He wrote memorials (formal addresses to the emperor). He used writing to keep himself from disappearing.
A great deal of what he wrote was for his elder brother to see — memorials, expressions of gratitude, careful counsel. The tone of these is small-cautious; every word is afraid of being the wrong word. A brilliant man writing to a man who treats him as a threat: every word is walking a wire.
But there were other things he wrote that were not for his elder brother to see. He wrote for himself. He wrote for the air. He wrote for history. He wrote for the readers he could not see — the readers, centuries later, who could read what he had written.
In the things not for his elder brother to see, his real word was kept.
IV. The Luo River
222 CE. Cao Zhi was traveling back from the capital to his fief at Juancheng (in what is today western Shandong).
He rode horseback. He passed the Luo River.
The Luo River is not large, flowing south past Luoyang. In Chinese tradition, the Luo has a goddess named Mi Fei, said to be the daughter of the legendary Fuxi.
Cao Zhi paused beside the river. He thought of the legend.
He later wrote a rhapsody — Rhapsody on the Luo Goddess, Luoshen fu. One of the most famous rhapsodies in the history of Chinese literature.
The rhapsody opens by setting the scene. He was on the road back from the capital. He stopped to rest at the Luo. His attendant pointed at the water and told him: there is a goddess there.
He looked.
Most of the middle of the rhapsody is description of her.
Of her form —
"Light as a startled wild goose taking flight, sinuous as a coiling dragon. Bright as autumn chrysanthemums, flourishing as spring pines. At moments, like a soft cloud veiling the moon; at moments, drifting, like wind-driven snow."
Each of these comparisons is not an everyday comparison. Each pushes the image of the goddess to a place beyond the human.
Of her movement —
"She walks with light steps on the waves, her silken stockings stirring dust."
This is one of the most famous lines in Chinese writing about a woman. She walks on the waves and does not sink. Her silken stockings, walking on water, raise dust as if walking on earth. Her existence violates physical law. She does not belong to this world.
Cao Zhi watches.
He writes what passes between them —
He wishes to come closer. She, too, watches him. Between the two there is a mutual draw. He thinks of giving her a jade pendant (the way an ancient man would express affection for a woman). She seems to respond.
But.
She is a goddess. He is a man.
The end of the rhapsody is parting.
She withdraws into the water. Her attendants — the other water-deities of the Luo — gather around her, and slowly leave.
Cao Zhi stands on the bank, watching.
The final passage is his solitary grief —
"I hate that the way of human and god is different; I grieve that, in the prime of life, we cannot meet. I lift my silken sleeve to cover my tears; they flow down my collar like rain. I mourn that our beautiful meeting is severed forever; I sorrow that with a single departure, she goes to a country I cannot reach. Having no real thing to offer my love, I send her the bright pearls of the south. Though she returns to dwell in the deep, her heart will, forever, stay with this prince."
He mounts his horse and continues toward his fief.
The rhapsody is finished.
Across eighteen hundred years, every reader has seen the same thing —
Cao Zhi is not really writing about the goddess.
Or rather, he is writing about her, but she is not only the goddess. The goddess is the figure of something he longs for and cannot hold.
Generations of commentators have read it differently.
Some say the goddess is Empress Zhen — the wife of Cao Pi, whom Cao Zhi was rumored, in his youth, to have loved. This reading has had a vigorous life in literary criticism but lacks strong evidence.
Some say the goddess is Cao Zhi's political ideal — the place from which he could have used his gifts. He lost that.
Some say the goddess is something more abstract — beauty itself, freedom itself, an existence the world cannot contain.
This essay does not take a side among these readings.
It says only one thing —
Whatever the goddess specifically is, the Rhapsody on the Luo Goddess is the deepest piece a man has ever written about what he cannot hold.
He can describe her to the limit. He can write each gesture of her beauty. He can write the depth of his own longing. But he cannot hold her.
She is other.
Not because she is goddess and he is man — that distinction is the rhapsody's own language. Because every real other is, for you, like this: you can see her, you can be astonished by her, you can long for her, but you cannot hold her. The moment you hold her, she is no longer her — she has become a part of you, your object.
Cao Zhi, beside the Luo River, did the thing he did —
He acknowledged that he could not hold her.
He did not jump into the water to seize the goddess. He did not swear that he did not love her. He did not deny the longing, and he did not demand fulfillment. He acknowledged that both were true — that he longed, and that he could not hold.
To acknowledge that both are true is itself a form of leaving a place for the other.
She is she. He is he. The distance between is real. The distance is not tragedy. The distance is the real form of the other as other.
V. To Cao Biao, Prince of Baima
223 CE.
Cao Pi summoned several brothers to the capital — Cao Zhi; the Prince of Rencheng, Cao Zhang; and the Prince of Baima, Cao Biao.
The three brothers arrived in Luoyang together.
Cao Zhang died suddenly while in Luoyang.
The official histories say he died of illness.
Folk tradition and unofficial histories say he was poisoned by Cao Pi. The Northern Wei Spring and Autumn of the Wei records a specific story — Cao Pi invited Cao Zhang to a game of go and gave him poisoned dates; Cao Zhang collapsed on the spot. The truth of this story has been disputed for eighteen hundred years.
We do not take a side.
We know only one thing — Cao Zhang was dead. Cao Zhi and Cao Biao buried their brother. Then they were to return to their fiefs.
By custom, brothers should travel some part of the road together.
But Cao Pi gave an order — Cao Zhi and Cao Biao were not permitted to travel together. The two had to take separate roads.
The order came with no explanation.
Cao Zhi and Cao Biao could only obey.
On the day of parting, Cao Zhi wrote a long poem to Cao Biao — To Cao Biao, Prince of Baima.
The poem has seven sections. Each section has its own subhead. From the pain of parting, to the mourning for Cao Zhang, to the foreboding of what was coming, to the courage to keep living.
In the middle, there is a section that is what Cao Zhi says to Cao Biao in farewell —
"A great man's ambition reaches the four seas; ten thousand miles is no farther than next door. If our love is undimmed, distance only makes us closer. Why must we share the same coverlet to express our affection? To grieve until grief becomes illness would be the small-mindedness of a child."
This passage is his comfort to Cao Biao — and his comfort to himself.
But the last section can no longer be comforted —
"What is the use of dwelling on suffering and toil? Even the mandate of heaven seems doubtful now. The pursuit of empty immortality — Master Red Pine and his kind have deceived me too long. A change of fortune comes in an instant; who can hold a hundred years? This parting will never be undone. When will I take your hand again? My prince, take care of your jade body. May we both reach white-haired age. Wipe away the tears, set out on the long road, take up the brush and end the poem here."
This parting will never be undone. When will I take your hand again?
Two brothers, by the same mother, separated by a single order from their elder brother. They knew this parting was very likely the last meeting of their lives.
They were right. Cao Biao never saw Cao Zhi again.
What was Cao Pi doing?
Cao Pi was using the smallest, most restrained, least visible means to push his brothers out of his world. He did not kill Cao Zhi — to kill would leave a name as the killer of a brother. He did not free Cao Zhi — a free Cao Zhi could become a political threat. He did not let the brothers see each other — if they did, they might combine. By a series of small orders, he isolated each brother. None of the orders were large. The orders together amounted to lifelong imprisonment.
Cao Pi had seen these faces. He had grown up looking at these faces. He knew, perfectly well, whom he was suppressing.
But he chose.
This differs from a person who cannot see the other. A person who cannot see the other, when he makes a decision to destroy the other, may not know what he is doing. Cao Pi was not such a person. Cao Pi had seen Cao Zhi's face — the face of the young Cao Zhi, the drunk Cao Zhi, the Cao Zhi who wrote poems, the Cao Zhi who knelt before him asking for grace. He had seen each of those faces.
He knew.
And then he chose.
In Round Six, the moment when Heidegger raised his arm on the lectern was a moment when a person who had seen the other's face chose to turn away. Cao Pi, on his throne, issuing each order of demotion, was the same structure in a different scene — a person who had seen the face of his brother chose to push his brother into a place of slow death.
These are not the same kind of event. Heidegger was a public political choice. Cao Pi was a domestic-power choice. But the structure is the same —
A person who has seen the face and still chooses to suppress, knows what he is doing.
This knowing does not make them stop. This knowing does not make them lighter.
They walk a road. On that road, every step is accompanied by a clear knowledge of what they are doing. The road leads to the kingdom of means. Once they arrive, they too become a means in that kingdom — Cao Pi's son Cao Rui continued the suppression of Cao Zhi after Cao Pi died; after Cao Rui came the coups; the Wei dynasty was, in the end, replaced by the Sima clan. The machinery of power Cao Pi used to suppress his brother, in the end, suppressed Cao Pi's own descendants.
The weather of that kingdom is the same for everyone walking on that road.
VI. A Prince in Captivity
In the last twelve years of his life, the most important thing Cao Zhi did was not his poetry, was not his rhapsodies, was not breaking.
He was demoted again and again. From Marquis of Anxiang to Marquis of Juancheng to Prince of Juancheng to Prince of Yongqiu to Prince of Dong'e to Prince of Chen. Every few years a new place. Each place remote, sparse in resources, far from the center of power.
He was watched. The Supervising Imperial Envoy reported each year on his words and movements. Every sentence he spoke could be recorded.
He could not see his brothers. He could not go where he wanted. He could do nothing of use to the state.
He repeatedly addressed memorials to his elder brother. He said he wished to fight, to defend the borders, to be of use to the state. Each was rejected, with various polite reasons.
By his thirties he already knew — in this life he would not be used.
Most people, in such a condition, become a destroyed sort of person. They drink themselves into ruin, or hate themselves into madness, or simply kill themselves.
Cao Zhi did not.
He woke each morning. He read. He wrote. He kept up correspondence with the few people who would still write to him. He worked on music — he had real knowledge of musical structure, and wrote yuefu poems including the Song of the Drum-Dance. Within the limits permitted to him, he did what he could.
He did not turn into a man of complaint and resentment.
His poems contain resentment — he does not deny it. Lines like "A tall tree has many sorrowful winds; the sea raises its waves. With no sharp sword in my hand, what good is a great roster of friends?" make clear that he saw the truth of his condition. But his poems contain more than this. Observations of nature. Thoughts of friends. Reflections on figures of the past. Reflections on the human life.
He lived as a man whose face was kept, even in captivity.
Captivity can take a person's freedom, can take a person's resources, can take a person's political position. But captivity cannot take a person's face — unless the person himself gives it up.
Many of those who are captive eventually give up their faces. They become wretched specimens — a person who once had ambition reduced to a ruin where even he himself can no longer see himself.
Cao Zhi did not. He was still writing on the day he died. At forty-one his death came with unfinished poems beside him. The process of his dying was bodily exhaustion, not psychological collapse.
In those twelve years he proved one thing —
The kingdom of means rains on a person with a face also. But the rain cannot wear away the face, unless the person himself gives it up.
Cao Pi used every means he could think of to suppress Cao Zhi. He did not kill — killing would leave a stain. But he used a method slower than killing. He wanted to turn Cao Zhi from a person with a face into a faceless shadow.
Cao Zhi did not let him succeed.
Not because Cao Zhi had some superhuman strength. Because he did one specific thing — he wrote, every day.
To write is what a person with a face does. When a person writes, he confirms himself as a conscious, judging, aesthetic existence — through the smallest gesture, he is keeping his face.
As long as he kept writing, he was still himself. As long as he was still himself, Cao Pi had not fully won.
Cao Pi knew this all his life. This is why Cao Pi, even at the end, was not at peace about Cao Zhi. This is why before he died he left in his will the order that his son should continue to suppress this uncle.
A faceless person does not need to be suppressed again and again. That Cao Pi suppressed Cao Zhi again and again — is because he knew Cao Zhi still had a face. And the existence of that face was something he could not bear.
VII. What Cannot Be Held
Everything Cao Zhi wrote, all his life, was about what cannot be held.
He could not hold the Luo Goddess — the way of human and god is different. He could not hold his elder brother's trust — his elder brother chose to treat him as a threat. He could not hold his political ambition — the court would not let him take part. He could not hold his freedom — he was watched and confined. He could not hold the right to be with his brothers — Cao Pi ordered them to take separate roads. He could not hold the friendships he wanted — there were few he could trust.
Each was something that could not be held.
How did he meet this?
He did not deny longing.
This is the key.
Many, faced with what they cannot hold, respond by denying the longing itself. I never wanted it anyway. That thing was not really important. This converts "cannot hold" into "do not long" — by canceling the subject's longing, evading the otherness of what stands across.
Cao Zhi did not do this.
In Rhapsody on the Luo Goddess he wrote longing to its limit. Though she returns to dwell in the deep, her heart will, forever, stay with this prince. The tone of this line is not denial of longing; it is acknowledgment of an eternal, uncompletable longing.
In To Cao Biao, Prince of Baima it is the same. This parting will never be undone. When will I take your hand again? He does not pretend the parting is light. He acknowledges that it is final.
In his political memorials it is the same. He does not pretend he does not want to do something. He says again and again that he wishes to do something, knowing each time that the request will be rejected. He does not give up saying so — even when saying so is useless.
To acknowledge longing while acknowledging that one cannot hold — this is hard.
The easy paths are the two extremes — either deny longing ("I do not want"), or deny the distance ("I must have it"). To acknowledge that both are true — that one longs, and that one cannot — is the hardest middle road.
But this road has one feature:
The one who walks this road, the object of his longing keeps its reality as other.
If he denies longing, the object becomes "the unimportant thing" — no longer a real other, an object whose weight has been canceled. If he denies the distance, the object becomes "the thing I must have" — no longer a real other, a tool absorbed into his own system of desire.
Only in the state of "longing and unable to hold" does the object appear to him as a complete other.
Cao Zhi did this all his life. He longed for what he could not hold — the Luo Goddess, his brother's trust, his political ambition, his freedom — and he acknowledged that both the longing and the inability were real. This is the source of the strength of his poetry. Eighteen hundred years later we still feel the strength when we read him, because the strength is not about his particular misfortune; it is about a universal human condition — to live is to face many others one cannot hold, and to acknowledge this is the deepest layer of leaving a place for the other.
In the previous essays of this round we have spoken of the other in the language of ethics, the language of relation, the language of philosophy.
Cao Zhi gives us another language —
The language of longing.
The other is not only the ethical existence for which we should leave a place. The other is also the existence we long for and cannot hold. These are two faces of one thing.
To leave a place for the other is to acknowledge that one cannot hold. To acknowledge that one cannot hold is to leave a place for the other.
Kant said: the human is an end, not a means. Levinas said: see the face of the other. Buber said: re-enter the I-Thou. Cao Zhi said: acknowledge that I long, and that I cannot hold.
Four languages. The same direction.
In that direction there is a wind. A mild wind.
VIII. The Bridge
When Cao Zhi walked up, it was night.
He was not tall. He wore a princely robe — but the robe was old, mended several times where it had worn through. His sash was not pulled tight. His shoes were ordinary cloth shoes.
He carried something in his hand.
Not a metal instrument — he did not have an astrolabe like Hypatia, did not have a cane like Bergson.
What he carried in his hand was a roll of bamboo slips, or of silk — written with his own hand.
He walked unhurriedly. He had died at forty-one, but his bearing was that of a slightly older man — the bearing of a person who had been in captivity for twelve years, the eyes carrying a quiet that knows it is being watched and does not care.
He reached the middle of the bridge.
Hypatia was there. The astrolabe in her hand. Aquinas, on the other side, his hands empty. Bergson, leaning on his cane. Levinas, standing. Buber, standing not far off.
The middle of the bridge was not just these five. The bridge held people accumulated from generation to generation — those drawing equations, those watching corn, those writing poems, those reading star charts, those writing novels, those sketching diagrams, those crouching aside taking notes, those sitting and looking into the distance, those speaking quietly with their neighbors.
Cao Zhi looked around.
He did not know most of them. In his lifetime he had read the writings of none of them — Hypatia was more than a hundred years later, Aquinas more than a thousand, the others more than a thousand and several hundred. He did not even know who Kant was — Kant would not be born for another fifteen hundred years.
But he saw one thing —
What they were doing, he understood.
They were on the line of work he himself had spent his life doing. He did not need to hear their language. He did not need to read their words. From the way they stood on the bridge, he could see that what they did was the same kind of work — leaving a place for the other one cannot hold.
He nodded to them.
They nodded back.
He did not approach for further talk. He found a place in the middle of the bridge and stood. He set the scroll beside him — those were his poems and rhapsodies. He did not need to hold them. The words had been written. They had been in the world for eighteen hundred years. Doing the work they were meant to do.
At the far end of the bridge, Kant stood. Tonight Kant was a little clearer than before — you could see his rough outline, the color of his hair.
Across from the bridge, on that road, the sky had darkened. Lightning.
There were people on that road, walking.
The ones farthest along were no longer visible. That man in the professor's robe — Heidegger — had walked further than last time.
Cao Zhi glanced once toward that road.
He recognized the road.
The road had existed in his own time too. On that road his elder brother had once walked. From the palace in the capital, step by step, his elder brother had walked along it — each order suppressing his younger brother was one step. Cao Pi died at forty, nine years before Cao Zhi did. Before he died Cao Pi left in his will the order that his son should continue to suppress Cao Zhi. Cao Rui carried it out. After Cao Rui died, his regime was overthrown by the Sima clan. The Wei dynasty lasted forty-six years from rise to fall.
Cao Zhi looked toward that road, and was not particularly sad.
He knew that everyone who walked that road had chosen for himself. His elder brother had chosen. Everyone on his elder brother's side had chosen. They had arrived in that kingdom; they had also become that kingdom's weather. The storm spared no one — even the one at the highest position, issuing the orders, was, in the end, one of the rain-soaked figures inside the storm.
Cao Zhi turned back.
The astrolabe in Hypatia's hand caught the moonlight.
He smiled at her, slightly. Hypatia smiled back. The two could not understand one another's languages — Cao Zhi did not know Greek, Hypatia did not know Chinese. But they each saw the instrument the other carried. An astrolabe and a scroll of bamboo slips. Two tools from different times, doing similar work — making people see the stars, making people see the words, making people see something they cannot otherwise see but should.
Aquinas walked over from the other side. He said something in Latin. Cao Zhi did not understand. But there was something in the tone of Aquinas's voice that he recognized — the tone of a man who has written many words and then stopped. Cao Zhi was such a man too. He nodded back.
Buber drew closer. Buber wore a dark robe, also without instrument. Buber looked at Cao Zhi for a moment. They had each been deeply hurt by those closest to them — Buber by his mother who had left when he was three, Cao Zhi by his elder brother who had kept him in captivity to his death. They did not speak. There was a mutual recognition.
The middle of the bridge — many people, and the moonlight was mild.
The figure who had always been looking into the distance, the one at the far end of the bridge, looked at Hypatia, at Aquinas, at Bergson, at Levinas, at Buber.
This time he looked at Cao Zhi.
Cao Zhi's eyes met the eyes of that figure for an instant.
Cao Zhi did not lower his head. He was not a man who would bow toward the distance — in his lifetime he had bowed his head before emperors too many times; in death he did not bow again.
But there was an acknowledgment in his eyes.
He was saying: I see that you are there. I recognize the place where you stand. In my lifetime I never heard your language, but the work I did and the direction you point are one work.
The figure who had always been looking into the distance nodded, lightly.
Cao Zhi stood in the middle of the bridge. In his lifetime he had not held any of the things he had wanted to hold. After his death the words he had written had lived. The Luo Goddess he had written, the To Cao Biao, Prince of Baima he had written, the acknowledgment of what cannot be held that he had written — these words had crossed eighteen hundred years and people in the twenty-first century still read them.
What he had done was infinite. He knew the infinite was not something he could complete. He had done it anyway.[1][2]