Rice Papers

by Hugh Leigh Norris

Lao was thunderstruck at this awful catastrophe. He took no further interest in his affairs or the affairs of his country, and after the first numbness at his loss had worn off, he decided to write to the “Son of Heaven,” petitioning permission to retire from office.

However, before even the ink had been rubbed upon the stone or the rabbit-hair brush dipped in the dead-black, sweet-smelling liquid known to barbarians as “Indian ink,” other events happened to prevent Lao from inditing his petition to the ruler of the Middle Kingdom. In this wise: The news of the death of the peerless Mah Su had instantly spread through Sung Ying Fu, and had furthermore been noised through the surrounding districts by itinerant merchants and travellers. As a result of this, before Lao had had any time to indulge his grief, he found dozens of poor but sympathetic relations arriving at his house with children, coolies, luggage, mules, and much wailing and lamentation. Lao, as befitted his station, suitably entertained and housed all, with their servants and cattle. Aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins many times removed, all came with their servants and hangers-on. Lao was a rich man, and his house was large, but it soon became necessary to hire other extra apartments for his guests. In addition to this, the house was rendered doubly uncomfortable by the presence of numerous professional mourners. All day and night the house was filled with the squeaking of fiddles, crying of mourners, howling of relations’ babies, wrangling of relations’ coolies in the courtyards, and squealing of relations’ ponies and mules. Between looking after his unbidden guests, arranging for suitable funeral ceremonies, and indulging his own genuine grief at his bereavement, Lao naturally neglected his duties to the State.

At last the heavy lacquered coffin was built, and all seemed ready for the interment when the question of a suitable site for the grave arose. Soothsayers were called in to assist in the decision. The wisest soothsayers that Sung Ying Fu and district could supply were requisitioned. They consulted the stars, ate eagerly of everything in the house, but still failed to come to any decision. As soon as one would find a suitable hillside, another would learn by the stars that that particular site possessed a certain malign influence on all of the house of Lao. These procrastinations and disappointments were admirably borne by the aunts, cousins, cousins many times removed, and other relations of Lao. With true Oriental self-sacrifice they all said they were quite indifferent as to how long they stayed with the honourable Lao, provided everything connected with the funeral was done properly and in order. The hired mourners, soothsayers, and others who were paid by the day, also showed an admirable fortitude under the circumstances, the universal opinion being that no risks should be taken, but that all should be done in order and according to the decision that would eventually be arrived at by a due and careful study of the heavenly omens.

These continued searchings for celestial guidance in the choice of a burial-place, and other duties in the matter of his unbidden guests, so occupied the distracted Lao’s mind, that many evil persons found opportunities of practising their nefarious callings in the district without let or hindrance from the magistrate. The tao-tai’s district surrounding the city of Sung Ying became more and more lawless, until the numerous bands of robbers that roamed unchecked throughout the land became a positive scandal.

At last, to the tao-tai’s unbounded relief, a decision was arrived at by the experts, who had eventually settled on the propitious spot for the interment of the all-too-soon deceased Mah Su. The funeral preparations were, therefore, hurried forward, and everything was prepared on the most lavish and expensive scale. The relations of all degrees of remoteness ordered the most expensive robes at Lao’s expense, and it really seemed as if Lao’s troubles were about to end. The blue sky, however, still held a bolt for the unfortunate tao-tai. Just as everything was complete, one of the most learned of the soothsayers discovered that a propitious day for the ceremony had not yet been decided on. This terrible oversight struck everyone, except possibly Lao, with astonishing force. The aunts, uncles, cousins, etc., were unanimous in their praises of the astute savant who had saved them from making what might have proved an irremediable faux pas. Again everyone was resigned to waiting until the all-knowing stars should reveal their decision.

The next crushing blow came, not from heaven, but from the Viceroy, in the form of a letter to the tao-tai. This admirably worded screed set forth that it having come to the ears of the most exalted Viceroy that the country on which the honourable Lao Ng Tau held jurisdiction was in a very disturbed state owing to the presence of certain lawless bands, which bands plundered the subjects of the Son of Heaven, the honourable Lao Ng Tau was herewith ordered to suppress the same and send the heads of their leaders to Peking pour encourager les autres. The order concluded with a mild suggestion that the tao-tai’s own head might possibly adorn a spike in the Imperial city should the rebels not be suppressed within the month.

With so much to worry him in his private affairs, Lao was nearly distracted by this order, but as an officer of the State he realised that private grief must give way to Imperial demands. So he hastened to equip a military force to engage and subdue the bands of robbers which now formed such a menace to the peace of Sung Ying Fu.

Starting with a gay band of troops, armed with banners, umbrellas, matchlocks, singing birds in cages, and other deadly weapons affected by the Chinese soldier, Lao proceeded against the rebels. At the first brush with the enemy the tao-tai’s glittering rabble deserted to a man to the opposing force. Lao, after a gallant resistance, was himself overpowered and taken prisoner and carried by his captors to the hills.

He learnt from his captors that during his absence on this punitive expedition his relations had held high revels in his house, and were entertaining continuously on a lavish scale, and that the would-be star-gazers were so continually in a state of intoxication that the discovery of a lucky day on which to bury Mah Su was likely to be indefinitely postponed.

The news of Lao’s capture soon reached the Viceroy, who at once informed the Government, with the result that the vermilion pencil issued an edict that Lao Ng Tau, late tao-tai of Sung Ying Fu, was to be beheaded, his head to be forwarded to Peking, his property confiscated, his house razed to the ground, and the land on which it stood to be ploughed up to a depth of two feet, and that should his schoolmaster be still alive, that that miserable individual should receive one hundred blows with a bamboo. The worst punishment of all, however, was the final one, namely, that Lao’s great-grandfather, dead some sixty years, should be degraded from the rank of mandarin of the first to mandarin of the third class.