In our house-boat we pass under it. The boatman
with the rat-like face twists the long broken-backed
oar, churning the yellow water, and we creep forward
steadily.
On the bridge the village is assembled. Foreign devils
are a rarity.
The gold-brown faces are not unfriendly, merely curious.
They peer in rows over the rail with grunts
of nasal interest.
Tentatively, experimentally, as we pass they spit down
upon us. Not that they wish us ill, but it can be
done, and the temptation is too great.
We retire into the house-boat.
The roof scrapes as we pass under the span of the
Bridge of the Eight Scholars.
Pa-tze-kiao
The Shop
(The articles sold here are to be burned at funerals for the use of the dead in the spirit world.)
The master of the shop is a pious man, in good odor with the priests. He is old and honorable and his white moustache droops below his chin. Mencius, I think, looked so.
The shop behind him is a mimic world, a world
of pieties and shams—the valley of remembrance—the
dwelling place of the unquiet dead.
Here on his shelves are ranged the splendor and the
panoply of life, silk in smooth gleaming rolls, silver
in ingots, carving and embroidery and jade, a
scarlet bearer-chair, a pipe for opium….
Whatever life has need of, it is here,
And it is for the dead.
Whatever life has need of, it is here. Yet it is here in sham, in effigy, in tortured compromise. The dead have need of silk. Yet silk is dear, and there are living backs to clothe. The rolls are paper…. Do not look too close.
The dead I think will understand. The carvings, too, the bearer-chair, the jade—yes, they are paper; and the shining ingots, they are tinsel. Yet they are made with skill and loving care! And if the priest knows—surely he must know!— when they are burned they'll serve the dead as well as verities. So living mouths can feed.
The master of the shop is a pious man. He has attained much honor and his white moustache droops below his chin. "Such an one" he says "I burned for my own father. And such an one my son will burn for me. For I am old, and half my life already dwells among the dead."