In translating this novel I have felt unable to stick faithfully to any single text. I have mainly followed Gao E’s version of the first chapter as being more consistent, though less interesting, than the other ones; but I have frequently followed a manuscript reading in subsequent chapters, and in a few, rare instances I have made small emendations of my own. My one guiding principle has been to translate everything___ even puns. For although this is, in the sense I have already indicated, an unfinished novel, it was written (and rewritten) by a great artist with his very lifeblood. I have therefore assumed that whatever I find in it is there for a purpose and must be dealt with somehow or other. I cannot pretend always to have done so successfully, but if I can convey to the reader even a fraction of the pleasure this Chinese novel has given me, I shall not have lived in vain.