Spring has returned and we can start leaving our windows open. Spring comes in through the window, and when people indoors get restless they go out through the door. Yet outside springtime is too cheap! The sun shines everywhere, but it never seems as bright as the ray of sunlight that penetrates a dark room. Languid, sunwarmed breezes blow all about, but they, too, lack the vitality of a gust of air stirring up the gloomy indoors. Even the chirping of birds seems lackluster without the indoor silence as its foil. So we come to appreciate that spring should be seen set in a window, just as a painting is mounted in a frame.
At the same time, we realize that doors and windows signify different things. Doors, of course, were made for people to go in and out of. But windows, too, are sometimes used as entrances and exits. In novels, for instance, we read about thieves and lovers making clandestine rendezvous—both are fond of climbing through windows. We can thus be certain that the fundamental difference between windows and doors is not simply whether or not people go in and out of them.
1 Apropos of enjoying springtime, one might say that if one has a door one
can go out, but with a window one doesn’t
need to go out. Windows bridge the lack of mutual understanding between nature and man, teasing in the wind and sun so that part of the room can share a bit of springtime. Instead of seeking spring outside we may sit and enjoy it where we are. Ancient poets like Tao Yuanming implicitly understood this essential quality of windows. One couplet in
The Return [
Gui qu lai ci] reads: “I lean on the southern window to express my pride / With just enough space for my knees, I find contentment.”
2 Doesn’t this amount to saying that even a tiny room can be livable, so long as one has a window to gaze out of? He also wrote: “In the leisure of the summer months, I recline under the northern window / Feeling the clear breeze, I imagine myself living in the age of Emperor Fuxi.”
3 In other words, a single window that lets in a breeze can transform a tiny room into a paradise. Even though Tao Yuanming was from Chaisang
4 and had Mount Lu nearby, he didn’t need to climb it to escape the summer heat. Thus, doors, which allow us to pursue things, signify desire, while windows, which allow us to dwell, signify enjoyment. This distinction applies not only to people living inside but also sometimes to visitors from outside. Whatever his request or inquiry might be, a visitor who knocks on and enters through the door is at most a guest who must await his host’s every decision. Conversely, he who makes his way in through the window, whether to pilfer property or steal affections, has already decided to supplant you temporarily as the decision maker and not wait for your say-so. Musset’s poetic drama À
quoi rêvent les jeunes filles [
Such Stuff as Young Girls Dream Of] has an apt phrase, the gist of which is basically that a father opens the door to welcome the material husband (
matériel époux), but that the ideal lover (
idéal) always enters and exits through the window.
5 Put another way, he who enters through the front door is the son-in-law in name only, because even if the father-in-law approves of him he has yet to capture the heart of the young lady herself. It is those who enter through the back window who are the true lovers to whom maidens surrender themselves body and soul. When entering through the front door, one must first be announced by the doorman, wait for the host to appear, and exchange a few pleasantries before explaining the purpose of one’s visit. What a waste of thought and time compared to the delightful expediency of coming in through the back window! It’s like using the index in the back of a book—a shortcut to learning that makes reading the main text from page one actually seem somewhat roundabout. This distinction, of course, is only relevant under normal social conditions. During extraordinary periods such as wartime one can scarcely talk about doors and windows when the room itself is in danger!
Every room in the world has a door, but some rooms are without windows. This indicates that windows represent a higher stage of human evolution than doors. For a room’s inhabitant a door is a necessity, whereas a window is to some extent a luxury. The basic idea of a room is akin to that of a bird’s nest or a beast’s cave: one comes home for the night, closes the door, and is protected. When the wall has a window to let in light and air, however, it obviates the need to go outdoors during daytime and lets us live inside with the door closed. A room thus takes on an extra layer of meaning for human existence, since it is no longer simply a place to sleep or avoid the elements. Now, furnished and hung with paintings, it also becomes the stage upon which we think, work, play, and act out the tragicomedy of human existence. Whereas doors are entrances and exits for humans, windows may be said to be entrances and exits for Heaven. Rooms were originally designed to shelter man from nature’s harm, but windows lured in a corner of the sky and tamed it for human use within the shelter, roping and domesticating it like a wild horse. Thenceforth, we were able to experience nature indoors. Instead of going out in search of light or a breath of fresh air, light and air could come to us. Windows thus represent one of man’s victories over nature. This type of victory, however—like a woman’s victory over a man—appears, on the surface, to be a retreat. When one opens a window, air and sunlight come in and occupy the space, but the occupiers end up being occupied by the space! We mentioned just now that a door is a necessity, but what constitutes necessity is not for man to decide. For example, one must eat when hungry and drink when thirsty. When someone knocks on the door, one is obliged to go open it. Who will it be? Perhaps it will be the youths a generation younger than you, described by Ibsen, who want to rush in. Perhaps, as De Quincey says in “On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth,” the bright light of day wants to invade the world of evil and darkness. Perhaps the prodigal son has returned home, or perhaps someone has come to borrow money (or demand its repayment). The more unwilling you are to open the door for fear of who it might be, the greater your desire to open the door and find out who it is. Even the postman’s daily knock fills you with apprehension and longing, since you both do and don’t know want to know what news he brings. To open the door or not is out of your hands. But a window? Rising early in the morning, you need only pull aside the curtain to discover what greets you outside—snow, fog, rain, or sun—to decide whether or not to open the window. Windows, as I have said, are luxuries, and people choose to consume more or fewer luxuries depending on their circumstances.
I’ve often thought that windows are like a building’s eyes. In
Explication of Names [
Shi ming], Liu Xi writes: “A window signifies wisdom. To peep out from inside is called intelligence.” This matches the opening lines of Gottfried Keller’s “Abendlied” [Evening Song]: “Eyes, my windows (
Fensterlein), my fond delight / Giving me a lifetime’s cherished light.”
6 He, too, tells only half the story. As windows to the soul, eyes let us see the outside world and at the same time allow others to see our inner thoughts. Our eyes change with our thoughts, which is why Mencius believed that the best way to know a man is through his eyes.
7 Lovers in Maeterlinck’s plays don’t close their eyes when they kiss so that they can see how many kisses the other wants to elevate from heart to mouth. This is why when we converse with people wearing dark glasses we always feel we can’t fathom their intentions, as if they were wearing a mask. According to Eckermann’s record of his April 5, 1830, conversation with Goethe, the latter detested all people who wear glasses, since they could make out all the wrinkles on his face while he was dazzled by the reflection from their lenses and couldn’t read their mood.
8 Windows let people on the outside look in while allowing people on the inside to look out, which is why people who live in busy places protect their privacy with curtains. In the evening, a visitor need only look for a light in the window to be able to guess whether or not the host is home; he need not open the door to ask. It’s like reading someone’s thoughts from his eyes before he opens his mouth. Closing the window, meanwhile, has the same effect as closing one’s eyes. Dreams, like many things in this world, can be seen only with the eyes closed. Should the voices and action outside one’s window grow too noisy, one may simply close the window to allow one’s soul to wander freely and be able to ponder in peace and quiet. Sometimes, closing the window and closing the eyes are linked. Suppose you feel dissatisfied with the mediocre world outside your window; or perhaps you wish to return to your hometown to see your long-lost friends and family. Sleep will take you there, but before you shut your eyes and seek them in your dreams, you get up and close the window. It’s only spring, after all, and the air is still chilly. Windows can’t be left open all night.
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