moon

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A Disillusioned Moon within Reach. On that day when “the enormous lunar disk no longer seemed the same as before: it had become much smaller, it kept contracting”(P. 12), and “the night poured a river of emptiness”(P. 12), Qfwfq then drowned “in dizziness and alarm”(P. 12). Into this landscape of sensual incandescence and out of a close community rife with steamy intrigue, Qfwfq cleverly arranged for Mrs. Vhd Vhd and himself to be left on the moon for a month. When crying out his wish: “I’ll be the one to stay with you for a month! Or rather, On you! .. On you for a month!”(P. 13) Qfwfq was not only eager to stay with Mrs. Vhd Vhd, but also to stay on the moon. To be stranded with the object of his passions in this titillating landscape might seem an adolescent daydream, but the moment they were cut off from the earth, the sensual bonds dissolved, as is said by Qfwfq himself:
I should have been happy: as I had dreamed, I was alone with her, that intimacy with the Moon I had so often envied my cousin and with Mrs. Vhd Vhd was now my exclusive prerogative, a month of days and lunar nights stretched uninterrupted before us, ... and everything exceeded my most luminous hopes, and yet, and yet, it was, instead, exile.(P. 13-14)
There was no distance between Qfwfq and the moon, between Qfwfq and Mrs. Vhd Vhd. Love, moon and self are united at the same moment. But the moon was no longer the alluring one as it was before. It was perhaps more enjoyable before than after. To Qfwfq’s great disappointment, this was not Heaven, but a total loss. Qfwfq found to his dismay that no desire remained and he was as indifferent to his loved one as she had been throughout to him; just like the remorseful Chang’e, Qfwfq’s every yearning thought w...

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...a thousand different vistas, she who makes the Moon the Moon and, whenever she is full, sets the dogs to howling all night long, and me with them. (P. 16)
Along with the dog, what kept howling at the moon, is Qfwfq’s heart, his longing for the remote lover and the moon. As the moon swirled farther and farther away, Qfwfq could just make out Mrs. Vhd Vhd's body, already taking on the color of the moon. Just like the forever tainted body of little Xlthlx. In renouncing her selfhood by uniting with the Moon, Mrs. Vhd Vhd became the symbol for a completely lost self. The absorption of her soul into the soul of moon, were due to the lack of distance.
Here the narration of this story broke off. But it had not only answered the question, but also enriched the folklore about Chang’e. Besides Chang’e and Qfwfq, the parallel figures also include Houyi and the Deaf One.

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