Part 3 (1/2)
But the father pressed him, ”I've already made the mistake of agreeing to fetch the peaches. It's too late for regret. I must trouble you to take the trip. Don't complain, and if we can get away with the fruit, we are sure of a reward of a hundred silver pieces-enough to find you a lovely wife.”
And so the boy took the rope and began to squirm up it. As he s.h.i.+fted his hands, his feet followed, the way a spider moves along its web, until he had slowly made his way into the emptiness of cloudy s.p.a.ce and could be seen no more.
After a long while, a peach the size of a bowl dropped to earth. Delighted, the performer took it and presented it to the officials. They took their time pa.s.sing it around for inspection; they seemed uncertain whether it was a real fruit or a fake one.
Suddenly the rope fell to the ground. Alarmed, the performer said, ”We're ruined! Someone up there has cut the rope. Where will my son find safety?”
Moments later, something landed on the ground. He looked: it was the boy's head! In tears the man held it up in both hands and cried out, ”The theft of the peach must have been discovered by the watchmen! My son is done for!” A moment later a foot dropped from the skies. In another instant the limbs fell down this way and that, until all the pieces were scattered on the ground. In great sorrow the performer picked up each piece and put it into his bamboo box. When he was done he closed the lid.
”I am an old man who had only this one son, and he traveled by my side all my days. Little did I dream, when he took my order, that such a bizarre fate would befall me. Now I must carry him to his resting place.” Having spoken thus, the performer ascended the steps of the hall and kneeled. ”For the sake of a peach,” he said, ”I have lost my son. If you would pity this humble soul and contribute something to the funeral expenses, I will be ever vigilant to repay you-even from the beyond.”
The awed officials each gave some money, which the performer took and tied to his waist. Then he knocked on the bamboo box and shouted, ”You can come out, sonny boy, and thank the donors.” A tumbleweed head lifted the cover as a lad emerged and kowtowed to the officials. It was the same boy!
I learned later that the White Lotus Sect could perform this strange trick, and it would not surprise me if the two performers were descended from them.
-P'u Sung-ling.
TALES OF FOLLY AND GREED.
The Magic Pear Tree.
A farmer came from the country to sell his pears in the market. They were juicy and fragrant, and his sales were booming, when a Taoist priest wearing tattered scarves and coa.r.s.e cotton clothes appeared at the wagon and begged for some fruit. The farmer shooed him away, but he refused to leave. The farmer's voice rose until he was screaming and cursing.
”Your wagon holds hundreds of pears,” said the priest, ”and I ask for only one. That's no great loss, sir; why get so angry?”
The crowd tried to persuade the farmer to part with a bruised pear and be rid of the man, but the farmer indignantly refused. At last a market guard saw that the uproar was getting out of hand and put up a few coins for a piece of fruit to throw to the priest.
Hands clasped above his head, the priest thanked the guard. Then he turned to the crowd and said, ”We who have left the world find man's greed hard to understand. Let me offer some choice pears to all you good customers.”
”Now that you have your pear,” someone said, ”why don't you eat it yourself?”
”All I needed was a seed for planting,” replied the priest. And holding the fruit in both hands, he gobbled it up. Then he took the little shovel that he carried on his back and dug several inches into the ground. He placed the seed in the hole and covered it with earth.
The priest called for hot water, and a bystander with a taste for mischief fetched some from a nearby shop. The priest poured the water over the seed he had planted. Every eye was now on him.
Behold! a tiny shoot appeared. Steadily it increased in size until it became a full-grown tree, with twigs and leaves in unruly profusion. In a flash it burst into bloom and then into fruit. Ma.s.ses of large, luscious pears filled its branches.
The priest turned to the tree, plucked the pears, and began presenting them to the onlookers. In a short while the fruit was gone. Then with his shovel the priest started to chop the tree. ”Teng! Teng!” the blows rang out in the air until finally the tree fell. Taking the upper part of the tree onto his shoulders, the priest departed with a relaxed gait and untroubled air.
During all this the farmer had been part of the crowd, gaping with outstretched neck and forgetting his business. But when the priest departed the farmer noticed that his wagon was empty. And then the suspicion came to him that it was his own pears which had been presented to the crowd. Looking more carefully, he saw that a handle had been chopped off the wagon. In vexation he searched until he found it lying discarded at the foot of a wall. And now he realized that the pear tree he had seen cut down was the handle of his wagon.
Of the priest there was no sign at all, but the marketplace was in an uproar of laughter.
-P'u Sung-ling.
The Wine Well.
The temple named after Lady w.a.n.g is in a nook of the Hofu hills, which stand some ten miles to the west of my own county. When she lived is no longer known, but the elders have pa.s.sed down the following story.
The old woman made her living brewing wine. Once when a Taoist priest stayed at her home, she served him freely-giving him as much to drink as he asked for. Eventually he drank several hundred jars without paying, but the old woman never mentioned it.
Then one day the priest said to the woman, ”I have been drinking your wine without having the money to pay you, but allow me, if you would, to dig a well for you.” He set to and constructed the well, and a stream of the purest wine gushed forth. ”This is to repay you,” said the priest. And he went his way.
After that Lady w.a.n.g no longer brewed wine; she simply took what flowed from the well to satisfy her customers. And since it was far finer than her previous brews, customers came in droves. Within three years she earned tens of thousands of coppers, and her household became wealthy.
Unexpectedly the Taoist priest returned. The old woman thanked him profoundly. ”Was the wine satisfactory?” asked the priest. ”Good enough,” replied the woman, ”but it left no dregs to feed my pigs.” The priest smiled and wrote these lines on the wall: The heavens may be great,
But greater is man's greed.
He made the well, she sold the wine,
But said, ”No dregs for feed.”
Then he left, and the well ran dry.
-Chiang Ying-k'e.
Gold, Gold.
Many, many years ago there was a man of the land of Ch'i who had a great pa.s.sion for gold. One day at the crack of dawn he went to the market-straight to the gold dealers' stalls, where he s.n.a.t.c.hed some gold and ran. The market guards soon caught him. ”With so many people around, how did you expect to get away with it?” a guard asked.
”When I took it,” he replied, ”I saw only the gold, not the people.”
-Lieh Tzu.
Stump Watching.
A farmer of Sung saw a rabbit dash into a tree trunk standing in the middle of his field. The rabbit broke its neck and died. From that day, the farmer left his plowing and kept watch by the tree trunk in hopes of getting another rabbit. The farmer never got another rabbit, but he did become the laughingstock of Sung.
-Han Fei Tzu.
Buying Shoes.
There was a man of Cheng who was going to buy himself shoes. First he measured his foot; then he put the measurements away. When he got to the market he discovered that he had left them behind. After he found the shoes he wanted, he went home to fetch the measurements; but the marketplace was closed when he returned, and he never got his shoes. Someone asked him, ”Why didn't you use your own foot?” ”I trusted the measurements more than my foot,” he replied.