[LX.
THE GAMBLER’S TALISMAN.]
A Taoist priest, called Han, lived at the T‘ien-ch‘i temple, in our district city. His knowledge of the black art was very extensive, and the neighbours all regarded him as an Immortal.[342] My late father was on intimate terms with him, and whenever he went into the city invariably paid him a visit. One day, on such an occasion, he was proceeding thither in company with my late uncle, when suddenly they met Han on the road. Handing them the key of the door, he begged them to go on and wait awhile for him, promising to be there shortly himself. Following out these instructions they repaired to the temple, but on unlocking the door there was Han sitting inside—a feat which he subsequently performed several times.
Now a relative of mine, who was terribly given to gambling, also knew this priest, having been introduced to him by my father. And once this relative, meeting with a Buddhist priest from the T‘ien-fo temple, addicted like himself to the vice of gambling, played with him until he had lost everything, even going so far as to pledge the whole of his property, which he lost in a single night. Happening to call in upon Han as he was going back, the latter noticed his exceedingly dejected appearance, and the rambling answers he gave, and asked him what was the matter. On hearing the story of his losses, Han only laughed, and said, “That’s what always overtakes the gambler, sooner or later; if, however, you will break yourself of the habit, I will get your money back for you.” “Ah,” cried the other, “if you will only do that, you may break my head with a pestle when you catch me gambling again.” So Han gave him a talismanic formula, written out on a piece of paper, to put in his girdle, bidding him only win back what he had lost, and not attempt to get a fraction more. He also handed him 1000 cash, on condition that this sum should be repaid from his winnings, and off went my relative delighted. The Buddhist, however, turned up his nose at the smallness of his means, and said it wasn’t worth his while to stake so little; but at last he was persuaded into having one throw for the whole lot. They then began, the priest leading off with a fair throw, to which his opponent replied by a better; whereupon the priest doubled his stake, and my relative won again, going on and on until the latter’s good luck had brought him back all that he had previously lost. He thought, however, that he couldn’t do better than just win a few more strings of cash, and accordingly went on; but gradually his luck turned, and on looking into his girdle he found that the talisman was gone. In a great fright he jumped up, and went off with his winnings to the temple, where he reckoned up that after deducting Han’s loan, and adding what he had lost towards the end, he had exactly the amount originally his. With shame in his face he turned to thank Han, mentioning at the same time the loss of the talisman; at which Han only laughed, and said, “That has got back before you. I told you not to be over-greedy, and as you didn’t heed me, I took the talisman away.”[343]
[LXI.
THE HUSBAND PUNISHED.]
Ching Hsing, of Wên-têng, was a young fellow of some literary reputation, who lived next door to a Mr. Ch‘ên, their studios being separated only by a low wall. One evening Ch‘ên was crossing a piece of waste ground when he heard a young girl crying among some pine-trees hard by. He approached, and saw a girdle hanging from one of the branches, as if its owner was just on the point of hanging herself. Ch‘ên asked her what was the matter, and then she brushed away her tears, and said, “My mother has gone away and left me in charge of my brother-in-law; but he’s a scamp, and won’t continue to take care of me; and now there is nothing left for me but to die.” Hereupon the girl began crying again, and Ch‘ên untied the girdle and bade her go and find herself a husband; to which she said there was very little chance of that; and then Ch‘ên offered to take her to his own home—an offer which she very gladly accepted. Soon after they arrived, his neighbour Ching thought he heard a noise, and jumped over the wall to have a peep, when lo and behold! at the door of Ch‘ên’s house stood this young lady, who immediately ran away into the garden on seeing Ching. The two young men pursued her, but without success, and were obliged to return each to his own room, Ching being greatly astonished to find the same girl now standing at his door. On addressing the young lady, she told him that his neighbour’s destiny was too poor a one for her,[344] and that she came from Shantung, and that her name was Ch‘i A-hsia. She finally agreed to take up her residence with Ching; but after a few days, finding that a great number of his friends were constantly calling, she declared it was too noisy a place for her, and that she would only visit him in the evening. This she continued to do for a few days, telling him in reply to his inquiries that her home was not very far off. One evening, however, she remarked that their present liaison was not very creditable to either; that her father was a mandarin on the western frontier, and that she was about to set out with her mother to join him; begging him meanwhile to make a formal request for the celebration of their nuptials, in order to prevent them from being thus separated. She further said that they started in ten days or so, and then Ching began to reflect that if he married her she would have to take her place in the family, and that would make his first wife jealous; so he determined to get rid of the latter, and when she came in he began to abuse her right and left. His wife bore it as long as she could, but at length cried out it were better she should die; upon which Ching advised her not to bring trouble on them all like that, but to go back to her own home. He then drove her away, his wife asking all the time what she had done to be sent away like this after ten years of blameless life with him.[345] Ching, however, paid no heed to her entreaties, and when he had got rid of her he set to work at once to get the house whitewashed and made generally clean, himself being on the tip-toe of expectation for the arrival of Miss A-hsia. But he waited and waited, and no A-hsia came; she seemed gone like a stone dropped into the sea. Meanwhile emissaries came from his late wife’s family begging him to take her back; and when he flatly refused, she married a gentleman of position named Hsia, whose property adjoined Ching’s, and who had long been at feud with him in consequence, as is usual in such cases. This made Ching furious, but he still hoped that A-hsia would come, and tried to console himself in this way. Yet more than a year passed away and still no signs of her, until one day, at the festival of the Sea Spirits, he saw among the crowds of girls passing in and out one who very much resembled A-hsia. Ching moved towards her, following her as she threaded her way through the crowd as far as the temple gate, where he lost sight of her altogether, to his great mortification and regret. Another six months passed away, when one day he met a young lady dressed in red, accompanied by an old man-servant, and riding on a black mule. It was A-hsia. So he asked the old man the name of his young mistress, and learnt from him that she was the second wife of a gentleman named Chêng, having been married to him about a fortnight previously. Ching now thought she could not be A-hsia, but just then the young lady, hearing them talking, turned her head, and Ching saw that he was right. And now, finding that she had actually married another man, he was overwhelmed with rage, and cried out in a loud voice, “A-hsia! A-hsia! why did you break faith?” The servant here objected to his mistress being thus addressed by a stranger, and was squaring up to Ching, when A-hsia bade him desist; and, raising her veil, replied, “And you, faithless one, how do you dare meet my gaze?” “You are the faithless one,” said Ching, “not I.” “To be faithless to your wife is worse than being faithless to me,” rejoined A-hsia; “if you behaved like that to her, how should I have been treated at your hands? Because of the fair fame of your ancestors, and the honours gained by them, I was willing to ally myself with you; but now that you have discarded your wife, your thread of official advancement has been cut short in the realms below, and Mr. Ch‘ên is to take the place that should have been yours at the head of the examination list. As for myself, I am now part of the Chêng family; think no more of me.” Ching hung his head and could make no reply; and A-hsia whipped up her mule and disappeared from his sight, leaving him to return home disconsolate. At the forthcoming examination, everything turned out as she had predicted; Mr. Ch‘ên was at the top of the list, and he himself was thrown out. It was clear that his luck was gone. At forty he had no wife, and was so poor that he was glad to pick up a meal where he could. One day he called on Mr. Chêng, who treated him well and kept him there for the night; and while there Chêng’s second wife saw him, and asked her husband if his guest’s name wasn’t Ching. “It is,” said he, “how could you guess that?” “Well,” replied she, “before I married you, I took refuge in his house, and he was then very kind to me. Although he has now sunk low, yet his ancestors’ influence on the family fortunes is not yet exhausted;[346] besides he is an old acquaintance of yours, and you should try and do something for him.” Chêng consented, and having first given him a new suit of clothes, kept him in the house several days. At night a slave-girl came to him with twenty ounces of silver for him, and Mrs. Chêng, who was outside the window, said, “This is a trifling return for your past kindness to me. Go and get yourself a good wife. The family luck is not yet exhausted, but will descend to your sons and grandchildren. Do not behave like this again, and so shorten your term of life.” Ching thanked her and went home, using ten ounces of silver to procure a concubine from a neighbouring family, who was very ugly and ill-tempered. However, she bore him a son, and he by-and-by graduated as doctor. Mr. Chêng became Vice-President of the Board of Civil Office,[347] and at his death A-hsia attended the funeral; but when they opened her chair on its return home, she was gone, and then people knew for the first time that she was not mortal flesh and blood. Alas! for the perversity of mankind, rejecting the old and craving for the new?[348] And then when they come back to the familiar nest, the birds have all flown. Thus does heaven punish such people.
[LXII.
THE MARRIAGE LOTTERY.]
A certain labourer’s son, named Ma T‘ien-jung, lost his wife when he was only about twenty years of age, and was too poor to take another. One day when out hoeing in the fields, he beheld a nice-looking young lady leave the path and come tripping across the furrows towards him. Her face was well painted,[349] and she had altogether such a refined look that Ma concluded she must have lost her way, and began to make some playful remarks in consequence. “You go along home,” cried the young lady, “and I’ll be with you by-and-by.” Ma doubted this rather extraordinary promise, but she vowed and declared she would not break her word; and then Ma went off, telling her that his front door faced the north, etc., etc. In the evening the young lady arrived, and then Ma saw that her hands and face were covered with fine hair, which made him suspect at once she was a fox. She did not deny the accusation; and accordingly Ma said to her, “If you really are one of those wonderful creatures you will be able to get me anything I want; and I should be much obliged if you would begin by giving me some money to relieve my poverty.” The young lady said she would; and next evening when she came again, Ma asked her where the money was. “Dear me!” replied she, “I quite forgot it.” When she was going away, Ma reminded her of what he wanted, but on the following evening she made precisely the same excuse, promising to bring it another day. A few nights afterwards Ma asked her once more for the money, and then she drew from her sleeve two pieces of silver, each weighing about five or six ounces. They were both of fine quality, with turned-up edges,[350] and Ma was very pleased and stored them away in a cupboard. Some months after this, he happened to require some money for use, and took out these pieces; but the person to whom he showed them said they were only pewter, and easily bit off a portion of one of them with his teeth. Ma was much alarmed, and put the pieces away directly; taking the opportunity when evening came of abusing the young lady roundly. “It’s all your bad luck,” retorted she; “real gold would be too much for your inferior destiny.”[351] There was an end of that; but Ma went on to say, “I always heard that fox-girls were of surpassing beauty; how is it you are not?” “Oh,” replied the young lady, “we always adapt ourselves to our company. Now you haven’t the luck of an ounce of silver to call your own; and what would you do, for instance, with a beautiful princess?[352] My beauty may not be good enough for the aristocracy; but among your big-footed, burden-carrying rustics,[353] why it may safely be called ‘surpassing.’”
A few months passed away, and then one day the young lady came and gave Ma three ounces of silver, saying, “You have often asked me for money, but in consequence of your weak luck I have always refrained from giving you any. Now, however, your marriage is at hand, and I here give you the cost of a wife, which you may also regard as a parting gift from me.” Ma replied that he wasn’t engaged, to which the young lady answered that in a few days a go-between would visit him to arrange the affair. “And what will she be like?” asked Ma. “Why, as your aspirations are for ‘surpassing’ beauty,” replied the young lady, “of course she will be possessed of surpassing beauty.” “I hardly expect that,” said Ma; “at any rate three ounces of silver will not be enough to get a wife.” “Marriages,” explained the young lady, “are made in the moon;[354] mortals have nothing to do with them.” “And why must you be going away like this?” inquired Ma. “Because,” answered she, “we go on shilly-shallying from day to day, and month to month, and nothing ever comes of it. I had better get you another wife and have done with you.” Then when morning came, she departed, giving Ma a pinch of yellow powder, saying, “In case you are ill after we are separated, this will cure you.” Next day, sure enough, a go-between did come, and Ma at once asked what the proposed bride was like; to which the former replied that she was very passable-looking. Four or five ounces of silver was fixed as the marriage present, Ma making no difficulty on that score, but declaring he must have a peep at the young lady.[355] The go-between said she was a respectable girl, and would never allow herself to be seen; however it was arranged that they should go to the house together, and await a good opportunity. So off they went, Ma remaining outside while the go-between went in, returning in a little while to tell him it was all right. “A relative of mine lives in the same court, and just now I saw the young lady sitting in the hall. We have only got to pretend we are going to see my relative, and you will be able to get a glimpse of her.” Ma consented, and they accordingly passed through the hall, where he saw the young lady sitting down with her head bent forward while some one was scratching her back. She seemed to be all that the go-between had said; but when they came to discuss the money, it appeared the young lady only wanted one or two ounces of silver, just to buy herself a few clothes, etc., at which Ma was delighted, and gave the go-between a present for her trouble, which just finished up the three ounces his fox-friend had provided. An auspicious day was chosen, and the young lady came over to his house; when lo! she was hump-backed and pigeon-breasted, with a short neck like a tortoise, and boat-shaped feet, full ten inches long. The meaning of his fox-friend’s remarks then flashed upon him.