Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Volumes 1 and 2)
出版:Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Volumes 1 and 2)
Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Volumes 1 and 2)-1
Please read the Transcriber's Note at the end of this electronic text.
STRANGE STORIES
FROM A
CHINESE STUDIO.
STRANGE STORIES
FROM ACHINESE STUDIO.
TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED
BY
HERBERT A. GILES,
Of H.M.’s Consular Service.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
THOS. DE LA RUE & CO.
110, BUNHILL ROW.
1880.
PRINTED BY
THOMAS DE LA RUE AND CO., BUNHILL ROW,
LONDON.
TO MY WIFE AND OUR CHILDREN:
BERTRAM,
LIONEL,
VALENTINE,
LANCELOT.
CONTENTS.
Introduction.
Vol. I., pp. xiii-xxxii.
STORIES.
Vol. I.
PAGE
Vol. II.
PAGE
Adulteration Punished
—
332
Alchemist, The
—
313
Boat-girl Bride, The
—
149
Boatmen of Lao-lung, The
—
348
Boon Companion, The
165
—
Bribery and Corruption
—
170
Buddhist Priest of Ch‘ang-ch‘ing, The
22
—
Buddhist Priests, Arrival of
—
231
Butterfly’s Revenge, The
—
289
Carrying a Corpse
—
181
Cattle Plague, The
—
253
Censor in Purgatory, The
—
238
Chang Pu-liang
—
177
Chang’s Transformation
237
—
Chou K‘o-ch‘ang and his Ghost
—
106
Clay Image, The
—
276
Cloth Merchant, The
—
127
Collecting Subscriptions
—
220
Considerate Husband, The
158
—
Country of the Cave Men, The
397
—
Courage Tested
—
116
Cruelty Avenged
—
267
Dead Priest, The
—
247
Death by Laughing
352
—
Disembodied Friend, The
—
119
Dishonesty Punished
—
279
Doctor, The
—
290
Donkey’s Revenge, The
—
64
Dr. Tsêng’s Dream
387
—
Dreaming Honours
—
327
Dutch Carpet, The
—
179
Dwarf, A
224
—
Earthquake, An
—
263
Elephants and the Lion, The
—
343
Engaged to a Nun
262
—
Examination for the Post of Guardian Angel
1
—
Faithful Dog, The
—
261
Faithful Gander, The
—
342
Faithless Widow, The
—
39
Feasting the Ruler of Purgatory
—
284
Fêng-shui
—
322
Fight with the Foxes, The
251
—
Fighting Cricket, The
—
17
Fighting Quails, The
66
—
Fisherman and his Friend, The
—
197
Flood, A
350
—
Flower-nymphs, The
285
—
Flying Cow, The
—
249
Foot-ball on the Tung-t‘ing Lake
408
—
Foreign Priests
343
—
Fortune-hunter Punished, The
—
272
Forty Strings of Cash, The
—
211
Friendship with Foxes
—
300
Gambler’s Talisman, The
419
—
Grateful Dog, The
—
308
Great Rat, The
—
303
Great Test, The
—
310
Hidden Treasure, The
—
345
His Father’s Ghost
—
142
Hsiang-ju’s Misfortunes
225
—
Husband Punished, The
422
—
Incorrupt Official, The
—
358
Infernal Regions, In the
—
95
Ingratitude Punished
—
138
Injustice of Heaven, The
—
111
Invisible Priest, The
—
235
Jen Hsiu, The Gambler
196
—
Joining the Immortals
53
—
Jonah, A Chinese
—
176
Judge Lu
92
—
Justice for Rebels
—
184
Killing a Serpent
—
190
King, The
257
—
Life Prolonged
—
273
Lingering Death, The
—
325
Little Chu
143
—
Lo-ch‘a Country and the Sea Market, The
—
1
Lost Brother, The
203
—
Mad Priest, The
—
282
Magic Mirror, The
—
114
Magic Path, The
—
36
Magic Sword, The
124
—
Magical Arts
47
—
Magnanimous Girl, The
160
—
Making Animals
—
265
Man who was changed into a Crow, The
278
—
Man who was thrown down a Well, The
365
—
Marriage Lottery, The
428
—
Marriage of the Fox’s Daughter, The
26
—
Marriage of the Virgin Goddess, The
—
257
Master-thief, The
347
—
Metempsychosis
—
207
“Mirror and Listen” Trick, The
—
251
Miss Chiao-no
33
—
Miss Lien-hsiang, The Fox-girl
168
—
Miss Quarta Hu
152
—
Miss Ying-ning; or, the Laughing Girl
106
—
Mr. Tung; or, Virtue Rewarded
—
244
Mr. Willow and the Locusts
—
242
Mysterious Head, The
—
135
Painted Skin, The
76
—
Painted Wall, The
9
—
Performing Mice, The
218
—
Perseverance Rewarded
186
—
Picture Horse, The
—
286
Pious Surgeon, The
—
351
Planchette
—
295
Planting a Pear-tree
14
—
Playing at Hanging
354
—
Priest’s Warning, The
—
205
Princess Lily, The
—
56
Princess of the Tung-t‘ing Lake
—
43
Quarrelsome Brothers, The
313
—
Raising the Dead
—
318
Rat Wife, The
355
—
Resuscitated Corpse, The
—
193
Rip van Winkle, A Chinese
—
85
Roc, The
—
340
Salt Smuggler, The
—
215
Saving Life
—
213
Sea-serpent, The
—
113
Self-punished Murderer, The
345
—
She-wolf and the Herd-boys, The
—
330
Shui-mang Plant, The
136
—
Singing Frogs, The
217
—
Singular case of Ophthalmia
—
102
Singular Verdict
—
307
Sisters, The
336
—
Smelling Essays
—
139
Snow in Summer
—
294
Solomon, A Chinese
—
335
Solomon, Another
—
355
Spirit of the Hills, The
—
137
Spirits of the Po-yang Lake, The
—
109
Spiritualistic Séances
—
131
Stolen Eyes, The
—
233
Strange Companion, A
—
130
Stream of Cash, The
—
110
Supernatural Wife, A
—
166
Taking Revenge
—
25
Talking Pupils, The
5
—
Ta-nan in Search of his Father
296
—
Taoist Devotee, A
—
183
Taoist Miracles
—
226
Taoist Priest, A
246
—
Taoist Priest of Lao-shan, The
17
—
Theft of the Peach
—
186
Three Genii, The
214
—
Three States of Existence, The
—
90
Thunder God, The
413
—
Tiger Guest, The
330
—
Tiger of Chao-ch‘êng, The
219
—
Tipsy Turtle, The
—
28
Trader’s Son, The
85
—
Two Brides, The
—
158
Unjust Sentence, The
—
80
Virtuous Daughter-in-law, The
374
—
Wei-ch‘i Devil, The
—
268
Wine Insect, The
—
259
Wolf Dream, The
—
73
Wolves
—
305
Wonderful Stone, The
306
—
Young Gentleman who couldn’t spell, The
326
—
Young Lady of the Tung-t‘ing Lake, The
271
—
Appendix
A
„
B
—
361
—
389
INTRODUCTION.
I.—Personal.—The public has, perhaps, a right
to be made acquainted with the title under which
I, an unknown writer, come forward as the translator
of a difficult Chinese work. In the spring of
1867 I began the study of Chinese at H.B.M.’s
Legation, Peking, under an implied promise, in a
despatch from the then Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, that successful efforts would be
rewarded by proportionately rapid advancement
in the service of which I was a member. Then
followed a long novitiate of utterly uninteresting
and, indeed, most repellent labour,—inseparable,
however, from the acquisition of this language,
which throughout its early stages demands more
from sheer memory than from the exercise of any
other intellectual faculty. At length, in the spring
of 1877, while acting as Vice-Consul at Canton, I
commenced the translation of the work here
offered to the English reader. For such a task
I had flattered myself into the belief that I
possessed two of the requisite qualifications: an
accurate knowledge of the grammatical structure
of the language, and an extensive insight into the
manners, customs, superstitions, and general social
life of the Chinese. I had been variously stationed
at Peking, Tientsin, Takow, and Taiwan Fu (in
Formosa), Ningpo, Hankow, Swatow, and Canton,
from the latter of which I was transferred—when
my task was still only half finished—to Amoy. I
had travelled beyond the Great Wall into Mongolia;
and I had made the journey overland from
Swatow to Canton, a distance of five hundred
miles; besides which, in addition to my study of
the language, my daily object in life had always
been to familiarise myself as much as possible
with Chinese sympathies and habits of thought.
With these advantages, and by the interesting
nature of the subject-matter, I hoped to be able
on the one hand to arouse a somewhat deeper
interest than is usually taken in the affairs of
China; and, on the other, to correct at any rate
some of the erroneous views, too frequently palmed
off by inefficient and disingenuous workers, and
too readily accepted as fact. And I would here
draw attention to one most important point;
namely, that although a great number of books
have been published about China and the Chinese,
there are extremely few in which the information
is conveyed at first hand; in other words, in which
the Chinese are allowed to speak for themselves.[1]
Hence, perhaps, it may be that in an accurately-compiled
work such as Tylor’s Primitive Culture,
allusions to the religious rites and ceremonies of
nearly one-third of the human race are condensed
within the limits of barely a dozen short passages.
Hence, too, it undoubtedly is that many Chinese
customs are ridiculed and condemned by turns,
simply because the medium through which they
have been conveyed has produced a distorted
image. Much of what the Chinese do actually
believe and practise in their religious and social
life will be found in this volume, in the ipsissima
verba of a highly-educated scholar writing about
his fellow-countrymen and his native land; while
for the notes with which I have essayed to make
the picture more suggestive and more acceptable
to the European eye, I claim only so much authority
as is due to the opinion of one qualified
observer who can have no possible motive in
deviating ever so slightly from what his own personal
experience has taught him to regard as the
truth.
II.—Biographical.—The barest skeleton of a
biography is all that can be formed from the very
scanty materials which remain to mark the career
of a writer whose work has been for the best part
of two centuries as familiar throughout the length
and breadth of China as are the tales of the
“Arabian Nights” in all English-speaking communities.
The author of “Strange Stories” was a
native of Tzu-chou, in the province of Shan-tung.
His family name was P‘u; his particular name
was Sung-ling; and the designation or literary
epithet by which, in accordance with Chinese
usage, he was commonly known among his friends,
was Liu-hsien, or “Last of the Immortals.” A
further fancy name, given to him probably by
some enthusiastic admirer, was Liu Ch‘üan, or
“Willow Spring;” but he is now familiarly spoken
of simply as P‘u Sung-ling. We are unacquainted
with the years of his birth or death; however, by
the aid of a meagre entry in the History of Tzü-chou
it is possible to make a pretty good guess at
the date of the former event. For we are there
told that P‘u Sung-ling successfully competed for
the lowest or bachelor’s degree before he had
reached the age of twenty; and that in 1651 he
was in the position of a graduate of ten years’
standing, having failed in the interim to take the
second, or master’s, degree. To this failure, due, as
we are informed in the history above quoted, to his
neglect of the beaten track of academic study, we
owe the existence of his great work; not, indeed,
his only production, though the one par excellence
by which, as Confucius said of his own “Spring
and Autumn,” men will know him. All else that
we have on record of P‘u Sung-ling, besides the
fact that he lived in close companionship with
several eminent scholars of the day, is gathered
from his own words, written when, in 1679, he laid
down his pen upon the completion of a task
which was to raise him within a short period to
a foremost rank in the Chinese world of letters.
Of that record I here append a close translation,
accompanied by such notes as are absolutely
necessary to make it intelligible to non-students
of Chinese.
AUTHOR’S OWN RECORD.
“‘Clad in wistaria, girdled with ivy;’[2] thus sang
San-lü[3] in his Dissipation of Grief.[4] Of ox-headed
devils and serpent Gods,[5] he of the long-nails[6] never
wearied to tell. Each interprets in his own way the music
of heaven;[7] and whether it be discord or not, depends
upon antecedent causes.[8] As for me, I cannot, with my
poor autumn fire-fly’s light, match myself against the
hobgoblins of the age.[9] I am but the dust in the sunbeam,
a fit laughing-stock for devils.[10] For my talents
are not those of Yü Pao,[11] elegant explorer of the records
of the Gods; I am rather animated by the Spirit of Su
Tung-p‘o,[12] who loved to hear men speak of the supernatural.
I get people to commit what they tell me to
writing, and subsequently I dress it up in the form of
a story; and thus in the lapse of time my friends from
all quarters have supplied me with quantities of material,
which, from my habit of collecting, has grown into a
vast pile.[13]
“Human beings, I would point out, are not beyond
the pale of fixed laws, and yet there are more remarkable
phenomena in their midst than in the country of those
who crop their hair;[14] antiquity is unrolled before us, and
many tales are to be found therein stranger than that of
the nation of Flying Heads.[15] ‘Irrepressible bursts, and
luxurious ease,’[16]—such was always his enthusiastic strain.
‘For ever indulging in liberal thought,’[17]—thus he spoke
openly without restraint. Were men like these to open
my book, I should be a laughing-stock to them indeed.
At the cross-roads[18] men will not listen to me, and yet I
have some knowledge of the three states of existence[19]
spoken of beneath the cliff;[20] neither should the words
I utter be set aside because of him that utters them.[21]
When the bow[22] was hung at my father’s door, he dreamed
that a sickly-looking Buddhist priest, but half-covered
by his stole, entered the chamber. On one of his breasts
was a round piece of plaster like a cash;[23] and my father,
waking from sleep, found that I, just born, had a similar
black patch on my body. As a child, I was thin and
constantly ailing, and unable to hold my own in the
battle of life. Our home was chill and desolate as a
monastery; and working there for my livelihood with
my pen,[24] I was as poor as a priest with his alms-bowl.[25]
Often and often I put my hand to my head[26] and exclaimed,
‘Surely he who sat with his face to the wall[27]
was myself in a previous state of existence;’ and thus
I referred my non-success in this life to the influence
of a destiny surviving from the last. I have been tossed
hither and thither in the direction of the ruling wind,
like a flower falling in filthy places; but the six paths[28]
of transmigration are inscrutable indeed, and I have no
right to complain. As it is, midnight finds me with an
expiring lamp, while the wind whistles mournfully without;
and over my cheerless table I piece together my
tales,[29] vainly hoping to produce a sequel to the Infernal
Regions.[30] With a bumper I stimulate my pen, yet I
only succeed thereby in ‘venting my excited feelings,’[31]
and as I thus commit my thoughts to writing, truly I am
an object worthy of commiseration. Alas! I am but
the bird that, dreading the winter frost, finds no shelter
in the tree: the autumn insect that chirps to the moon,
and hugs the door for warmth. For where are they who
know me?[32] They are ‘in the bosky grove, and at the
frontier pass’[33]—wrapped in an impenetrable gloom!”
From the above curious document the reader
will gain some insight into the abstruse, but at the
same time marvellously beautiful, style of this
gifted writer. The whole essay—for such it is,
and among the most perfect of its kind—is intended
chiefly as a satire upon the scholarship of
the age; scholarship which had turned the author
back to the disappointment of a private life, himself
conscious all the time of the inward fire that
had been lent him by heaven. It is the key-note
to his own subsequent career, spent in the retirement
of home, in the society of books and friends;
as also to the numerous uncomplimentary allusions
which occur in all his stories relating to official
life. Whether or not the world at large has been
a gainer by this instance of the fallibility of competitive
examinations has been already decided in
the affirmative by the millions of P‘u Sung-ling’s
own countrymen, who for the past two hundred
years have more than made up to him by a posthumous
and enduring reverence for the loss of
those earthly and ephemeral honours which he
seems to have coveted so much.
III.—Bibliographical.—Strange Stories from
a Chinese Studio, known to the Chinese as the
Liao-Chai-Chih-I, or more familiarly, the Liao-Chai,
has hardly been mentioned by a single
foreigner without some inaccuracy on the part of
the writer concerned. For instance, the late Mr.
Mayers states in his Chinese Reader’s Manual,
p. 176, that this work was composed “circa A.D.
1710,” the fact being that the collection was
actually completed in 1679, as we know by
the date attached to the “Author’s Own Record”
given above. It is consequently two
centuries, almost to the day, since the first
appearance of a book destined to a popularity
which the lapse of time seems wholly unable
to diminish; and the present may fairly be considered
a fitting epoch for its first presentation
to the English reader in an English dress. I
should mention, however, that the Liao-Chai was
originally, and for many years, circulated in manuscript
only. P‘u Sung-ling, as we are told in a
colophon by his grandson to the first edition, was
too poor to meet the heavy expense of block-cutting;
and it was not until as late as 1740, when
the author must have been already for some time
a denizen of the dark land he so much loved to
describe, that his aforesaid grandson printed and
published the collection now so universally famous.
Since then many editions have been laid before
the Chinese public, the best of which is that by
Tan Ming-lun, a Salt Commissioner, who flourished
during the reign of Tao Kuang, and who in 1842
produced, at his own expense, an excellent edition
in sixteen small octavo volumes of about 160 pages
each. And as various editions will occasionally be
found to contain various readings, I would here
warn students of Chinese who wish to compare my
rendering with the text, that it is from the edition
of Tan Ming-lun, collated with that of Yü Chi,
published in 1766, that this translation has been
made. Many have been the commentaries and
disquisitions upon the meaning of obscure passages
and the general scope of this work; to say nothing
of the prefaces with which the several editions have
been ushered into the world. Of the latter, I have
selected one specimen, from which the reader will
be able to form a tolerably accurate opinion as to
the true nature of these always singular and usually
difficult compositions. Here it is:—
T‘ANG MÊNG LAI’S PREFACE.
“The common saying, ‘He regards a camel as a horse
with a swelled back,’ trivial of itself, may be used in
illustration of greater matters. Men are wont to attribute
an existence only to such things as they daily see with
their own eyes, and they marvel at whatsoever, appearing
before them at one instant, vanishes at the next. And
yet it is not at the sprouting and falling of foliage, or at
the metamorphosis of insects that they marvel, but only
at the manifestations of the supernatural world; though
of a truth, the whistling of the wind and the movement
of streams, with nothing to set the one in motion or give
sound to the other, might well be ranked among extraordinary
phenomena. We are accustomed to these, and
therefore do not note them. We marvel at devils and
foxes: we do not marvel at man. But who is it that
causes a man to move and to speak?—to which question
comes the ready answer of each individual so questioned,
‘I do.’ This ‘I do,’ however, is merely a personal consciousness
of the facts under discussion. For a man can
see with his eyes, but he cannot see what it is that makes
him see; he can hear with his ears, but he cannot hear
what it is that makes him hear; how, then, is it possible
for him to understand the rationale of things he can
neither see nor hear. Whatever has come within the
bounds of their own ocular or auricular experience men
regard as proved to be actually existing; and only such
things.[34] But this term ‘experience’ may be understood
in various senses. For instance, people speak of something
which has certain attributes as form, and of something
else which has certain other attributes as substance;
ignorant as they are that form and substance are to be
found existing without those particular attributes. Things
which are thus constituted are inappreciable, indeed, by
our ears and eyes; but we cannot argue that therefore
they do not exist. Some persons can see a mosquito’s
eye, while to others even a mountain is invisible; some
can hear the sound of ants battling together, while others
again fail to catch the roar of a thunder-peal. Powers
of seeing and hearing vary; there should be no reckless
imputations of blindness. According to the schoolmen,
man at his death is dispersed like wind or fire, the origin
and end of his vitality being alike unknown; and as
those who have seen strange phenomena are few, the
number of those who marvel at them is proportionately
great, and the ‘horse with a swelled back’ parallel is very
widely applicable. And ever quoting the fact that Confucius
would have nothing to say on these topics, these
schoolmen half discredit such works as the Ch‘i-chieh-chih-kuai
and the Yü-ch‘u-chi-i,[35] ignorant that the Sage’s
unwillingness to speak had reference only to persons of
an inferior mental calibre; for his own Spring and
Autumn can hardly be said to be devoid of all allusions
of the kind. Now P‘u Liu-hsien devoted himself in his
youth to the marvellous, and as he grew older was
specially remarkable for his comprehension thereof; and
being moreover a most elegant writer, he occupied his
leisure in recording whatever came to his knowledge of a
particularly marvellous nature. A volume of these
compositions of his formerly fell into my hands, and
was constantly borrowed by friends; now, I have another
volume, and of what I read only about three-tenths was
known to me before. What there is, should be sufficient
to open the eyes of those schoolmen, though I
much fear it will be like talking of ice to a butterfly.
Personally, I disbelieve in the irregularity of natural
phenomena, and regard as evil spirits only those who
injure their neighbours. For eclipses, falling stars, the
flight of herons, the nest of a mina, talking stones, and
the combats of dragons, can hardly be classed as
irregular; while the phenomena of nature occurring
out of season, wars, rebellions, and so forth, may
certainly be relegated to the category of evil. In my
opinion the morality of P‘u Liu-hsien’s work is of a very
high standard, its object being distinctly to glorify
virtue and to censure vice, and as a book calculated to
elevate mankind may be safely placed side by side with
the philosophical treatises of Yang Hsiung which Huan
Tan declared to be so worthy of a wide circulation.”
With regard to the meaning of the Chinese
words Liao-Chai-Chih-I, this title has received
indifferent treatment at the hands of different
writers. Dr. Williams chose to render it by “Pastimes
of the Study,” and Mr. Mayers by “The
Record of Marvels, or Tales of the Genii;” neither
of which is sufficiently near to be regarded in the
light of a translation. Taken literally and in
order, these words stand for “Liao—library—record—strange,”
“Liao” being simply a fanciful name
given by our author to his private library or studio.
An apocryphal anecdote traces the origin of this
selection to a remark once made by himself with
reference to his failure for the second degree.
“Alas!” he is reported to have said, “I shall now
have no resource (Liao) for my old age;” and
accordingly he so named his study, meaning that
in his pen he would seek that resource which fate
had denied to him as an official. For this untranslatable
“Liao” I have ventured to substitute
“Chinese,” as indicating more clearly the nature of
what is to follow. No such title as “Tales of the
Genii” fully expresses the scope of this work,
which embraces alike weird stories of Taoist
devilry and magic, marvellous accounts of impossible
countries beyond the sea, simple scenes of
Chinese every-day life, and notices of extraordinary
natural phenomena. Indeed, the author once had
it in contemplation to publish only the more
imaginative of the tales in the present collection
under the title of “Devil and Fox Stories;” but
from this scheme he was ultimately dissuaded by
his friends, the result being the heterogeneous mass
which is more aptly described by the title I have
given to this volume. In a similar manner, I too
had originally determined to publish a full and
complete translation of the whole of these sixteen
volumes; but on a closer acquaintance many
of the stories turned out to be quite unsuitable for
the age in which we live, forcibly recalling the
coarseness of our own writers of fiction in the last
century. Others again were utterly pointless, or
mere repetitions in a slightly altered form. Of
the whole, I therefore selected one hundred and
sixty-four of the best and most characteristic
stories, of which eight had previously been published
by Mr. Allen in the China Review, one by
Mr. Mayers in Notes and Queries on China and
Japan, two by myself in the columns of the
Celestial Empire, and four by Dr. Williams in a
now forgotten handbook of Chinese. The remaining
one hundred and forty-nine have never before,
to my knowledge, been translated into English.
To those, however, who can enjoy the Liao-Chai in
the original text, the distinctions between the
various stories of felicity in plot, originality, and
so on, are far less sharply defined, so impressed as
each competent reader must be by the incomparable
style in which even the meanest is arrayed.
For in this respect, as important now in Chinese
eyes as it was with ourselves in days not long gone
by, the author of the Liao-Chai and the rejected
candidate succeeded in founding a school of his
own, in which he has since been followed by hosts
of servile imitators with more or less success.
Terseness is pushed to its extreme limits; each
particle that can be safely dispensed with is scrupulously
eliminated; and every here and there
some new and original combination invests perhaps
a single word with a force it could never have
possessed except under the hands of a perfect
master of his art. Add to the above, copious
allusions and adaptations from a course of reading
which would seem to have been co-extensive with
the whole range of Chinese literature, a wealth
of metaphor and an artistic use of figures generally
to which only the chef-d’œuvres of Carlyle form an
adequate parallel; and the result is a work which
for purity and beauty of style is now universally
accepted in China as the best and most perfect
model. Sometimes the story runs along plainly
and smoothly enough; but the next moment we
may be plunged into pages of abstruse text, the
meaning of which is so involved in quotations from
and allusions to the poetry or history of the past
three thousand years as to be recoverable only
after diligent perusal of the commentary and much
searching in other works of reference. In illustration
of the popularity of this book, Mr. Mayers
once stated that “the porter at his gate, the boatman
at his mid-day rest, the chair-coolie at his
stand, no less than the man of letters among his
books, may be seen poring with delight over the
elegantly-narrated marvels of the Liao-Chai;” but
he would doubtless have withdrawn this judgment
in later years, with the work lying open before
him. Ever since I have been in China, I have
made a point of never, when feasible, passing by a
reading Chinaman without asking permission to
glance at the volume in his hand; and at my
various stations in China I have always kept up a
borrowing acquaintance with the libraries of my
private or official servants; but I can safely affirm
that I have not once detected the Liao-Chai in the
hands of an ill-educated man. Mr. Mayers made,
perhaps, a happier hit when he observed that
“fairy-tales told in the style of the Anatomy of
Melancholy would scarcely be a popular book in
Great Britain;” though except in some particular
points of contact, the styles of these two writers
could scarcely claim even the most distant of relationships.
Such, then, is the setting of this collection of
Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, many of
which contain, in addition to the advantages of
style and plot, a very excellent moral. The
intention of most of them is, in the actual words
of T‘ang Mêng-lai, “to glorify virtue and to censure
vice,”—always, it must be borne in mind,
according to the Chinese and not to a European
interpretation of these terms. As an addition to our
knowledge of the folk-lore of China, and as an
aperçu of the manners, customs, and social life of
that vast Empire, my translation of the Liao-Chai
may not be wholly devoid of interest. The amusement
and instruction I have myself derived from
the task thus voluntarily imposed has already
more than repaid me for the pains I have been at
to put this work before the English public in a
pleasing and available form.
STRANGE STORIES
FROM A
CHINESE STUDIO.
[36]
My eldest sister’s husband’s grandfather, named Sung
Tao, was a graduate.[37] One day, while lying down from
indisposition, an official messenger arrived, bringing the
usual notification in his hand and leading a horse with
a white forehead, to summon him to the examination for
his master’s degree. Mr. Sung here remarked that
the Grand Examiner had not yet come, and asked
why there should be this hurry. The messenger did
not reply to this, but pressed so earnestly that at length
Mr. Sung roused himself, and getting upon the horse
rode with him. The way seemed strange, and by-and-by
they reached a city which resembled the capital
of a prince. They then entered the Prefect’s yamên,[38]
the apartments of which were beautifully decorated;
and there they found some ten officials sitting at the
upper end, all strangers to Mr. Sung, with the exception
of one whom he recognised to be the God of War.[39]
In the verandah were two tables and two stools, and
at the end of one of the former a candidate was already
seated, so Mr. Sung sat down alongside of him. On
the table were writing materials for each, and suddenly
down flew a piece of paper with a theme on it, consisting
of the following eight words:—“One man, two men;
by intention, without intention.” When Mr. Sung had
finished his essay, he took it into the hall. It contained
the following passage: “Those who are virtuous by
intention, though virtuous, shall not be rewarded.
Those who are wicked without intention, though wicked,
shall receive no punishment.” The presiding deities
praised this sentiment very much, and calling Mr. Sung to
come forward, said to him, “A Guardian Angel is wanted
in Honan. Go you and take up the appointment.” Mr.
Sung no sooner heard this than he bowed his head and
wept, saying, “Unworthy though I am of the honour
you have conferred upon me, I should not venture to
decline it but that my aged mother has reached her
seventh decade, and there is no one now to take care
of her. I pray you let me wait until she has fulfilled
her destiny, when I will hold myself at your disposal.”
Thereupon one of the deities, who seemed to be the
chief, gave instructions to search out his mother’s term
of life, and a long-bearded attendant forthwith brought
in the Book of Fate. On turning it over, he declared
that she still had nine years to live; and then a consultation
was held among the deities, in the middle of
which the God of War said, “Very well. Let Mr.
graduate Chang take the post, and be relieved in nine
years’ time.” Then, turning to Mr. Sung, he continued,
“You ought to proceed without delay to your post; but
as a reward for your filial piety, you are granted a furlough
of nine years. At the expiration of that time you
will receive another summons.” He next addressed
a few kind words to Mr. Chang; and the two candidates,
having made their kotow, went away together. Grasping
Mr. Sung’s hand, his companion, who gave “Chang Ch‘i
of Ch‘ang-shan” as his name and address, accompanied
him beyond the city walls and gave him a stanza of
poetry at parting. I cannot recollect it all, but in it
occurred this couplet:—
“With wine and flowers we chase the hours,
In one eternal spring:
No moon, no light, to cheer the night—
Thyself that ray must bring.”
Mr. Sung here left him and rode on, and before very
long reached his own home; here he awaked as if from
a dream, and found that he had been dead three
days,[40] when his mother, hearing a groan in the coffin,
ran to it and helped him out. It was some time before
he could speak, and then he at once inquired about
Ch‘ang-shan, where, as it turned out, a graduate named
Chang had died that very day.
Nine years afterwards, Mr. Sung’s mother, in accordance
with fate, passed from this life; and when the funeral
obsequies were over, her son, having first purified himself,
entered into his chamber and died also. Now his wife’s
family lived within the city, near the western gate; and
all of a sudden they beheld Mr. Sung, accompanied by
numerous chariots and horses with carved trappings and
red-tasselled bits, enter into the hall, make an obeisance,
and depart. They were very much disconcerted at this,
not knowing that he had become a spirit, and rushed
out into the village to make inquiries, when they heard
he was already dead. Mr. Sung had an account of his
adventure written by himself; but unfortunately after
the insurrection it was not to be found. This is only an
outline of the story.
At Ch‘ang-ngan there lived a scholar, named Fang
Tung, who though by no means destitute of ability was
a very unprincipled rake, and in the habit of following
and speaking to any woman he might chance to meet.
The day before the spring festival of Clear Weather,[41]
he was strolling about outside the city when he saw a
small carriage with red curtains and an embroidered
awning, followed by a crowd of waiting-maids on horseback,
one of whom was exceedingly pretty, and riding
on a small palfrey. Going closer to get a better view,
Mr. Fang noticed that the carriage curtain was partly
open, and inside he beheld a beautifully dressed girl of
about sixteen, lovely beyond anything he had ever seen.
Dazzled by the sight, he could not take his eyes off her;
and, now before, now behind, he followed the carriage
for many a mile. By-and-by he heard the young lady
call out to her maid, and, when the latter came alongside,
say to her, “Let down the screen for me. Who is this
rude fellow that keeps on staring so?” The maid
accordingly let down the screen, and looking angrily
at Mr. Fang, said to him, “This is the bride of the
Seventh Prince in the City of Immortals going home
to see her parents, and no village girl that you should
stare at her thus.” Then taking a handful of dust, she
threw it at him and blinded him. He rubbed his eyes
and looked round, but the carriage and horses were
gone. This frightened him, and he went off home, feeling
very uncomfortable about the eyes. He sent for a
doctor to examine his eyes, and on the pupils was found
a small film, which had increased by next morning, the
eyes watering incessantly all the time. The film went
on growing, and in a few days was as thick as a cash.[42]
On the right pupil there came a kind of spiral, and as no
medicine was of any avail, the sufferer gave himself up to
grief and wished for death. He then bethought himself
of repenting of his misdeeds, and hearing that the
Kuang-ming sutra could relieve misery, he got a copy
and hired a man to teach it to him. At first it was very
tedious work, but by degrees he became more composed,
and spent every evening in a posture of devotion, telling
his beads. At the end of a year he had arrived at
a state of perfect calm, when one day he heard a small
voice, about as loud as a fly’s, calling out from his left
eye:—“It’s horridly dark in here.” To this he heard a
reply from the right eye, saying, “Let us go out for
a stroll, and cheer ourselves up a bit.” Then he felt
a wriggling in his nose which made it itch, just as
if something was going out of each of the nostrils; and
after a while he felt it again as if going the other way.
Afterwards he heard a voice from one eye say, “I hadn’t
seen the garden for a long time: the epidendrums are
all withered and dead.” Now Mr. Fang was very fond
of these epidendrums, of which he had planted a great
number, and had been accustomed to water them
himself; but since the loss of his sight he had never
even alluded to them. Hearing, however, these words,
he at once asked his wife why she had let the epidendrums
die. She inquired how he knew they were dead,
and when he told her she went out to see, and found
them actually withered away. They were both very
much astonished at this, and his wife proceeded to
conceal herself in the room. She then observed two
tiny people, no bigger than a bean, come down from her
husband’s nose and run out of the door, where she lost
sight of them. In a little while they came back and
flew up to his face, like bees or beetles seeking their
nests. This went on for some days, until Mr. Fang heard
from the left eye, “This roundabout road is not at all
convenient. It would be as well for us to make a door.”
To this the right eye answered, “My wall is too thick;
it wouldn’t be at all an easy job.” “I’ll try and open
mine,” said the left eye, “and then it will do for both of
us.” Whereupon Mr. Fang felt a pain in his left eye as
if something was being split, and in a moment he found
he could see the tables and chairs in the room. He was
delighted at this and told his wife, who examined his eye
and discovered an opening in the film, through which she
could see the black pupil shining out beneath, the
eyeball itself looking like a cracked pepper-corn. By
next morning the film had disappeared, and when his
eye was closely examined it was observed to contain two
pupils. The spiral on the right eye remained as before;
and then they knew that the two pupils had taken up
their abode in one eye. Further, although Mr. Fang
was still blind of one eye, the sight of the other was
better than that of the two together. From this time
he was more careful of his behaviour, and acquired
in his part of the country the reputation of a virtuous
man.[43]
A Kiang-si gentleman, named Mêng Lung-t‘an, was
lodging at the capital with a Mr. Chu, M.A., when one
day chance led them to a certain monastery, within
which they found no spacious halls or meditation
chambers, but only an old priest in deshabille. On
observing the visitors, he arranged his dress and went
forward to meet them, leading them round and showing
whatever there was to be seen. In the chapel they saw
an image of Chih Kung, and the walls on either side
were beautifully painted with life-like representations of
men and things. On the east side were pictured a
number of fairies, among whom was a young girl whose
maiden tresses were not yet confined by the matron’s
knot. She was picking flowers and gently smiling,
while her cherry lips seemed about to move, and the
moisture of her eyes to overflow. Mr. Chu gazed at
her for a long time without taking his eyes off, until at
last he became unconscious of anything but the thoughts
that were engrossing him. Then, suddenly, he felt
himself floating in the air, as if riding on a cloud, and
found himself passing through the wall,[44] where halls and
pavilions stretched away one after another, unlike the
abodes of mortals. Here an old priest was preaching
the Law of Buddha, surrounded by a large crowd of
listeners. Mr. Chu mingled with the throng, and after
a few moments perceived a gentle tug at his sleeve.
Turning round, he saw the young girl above-mentioned,
who walked laughing away. Mr. Chu at once followed
her, and passing a winding balustrade arrived at a small
apartment beyond which he dared not venture further.
But the young lady, looking back, waved the flowers she
had in her hand as though beckoning him to come on.
He accordingly entered and found nobody else within.
Then they fell on their knees and worshipped heaven
and earth together,[45] and rose up as man and wife, after
which the bride went away, bidding Mr. Chu keep quiet
until she came back. This went on for a couple of
days, when the young lady’s companions began to smell
a rat and discovered Mr. Chu’s hiding-place. Thereupon
they all laughed and said, “My dear, you are now
a married woman, and should leave off that maidenly
coiffure.” So they gave her the proper hair-pins and
head ornaments, and bade her go bind her hair, at
which she blushed very much but said nothing. Then
one of them cried out, “My sisters, let us be off.
Two’s company, more’s none.” At this they all giggled
again and went away.
Mr. Chu found his wife very much improved by the
alteration in the style of her hair. The high top-knot
and the coronet of pendants were very becoming to her.
But suddenly they heard a sound like the tramping of
heavy-soled boots, accompanied by the clanking of
chains and the noise of angry discussion. The bride
jumped up in a fright, and she and Mr. Chu peeped
out. They saw a man clad in golden armour, with a
face as black as jet, carrying in his hand chains and
whips, and surrounded by all the girls. He asked,
“Are you all here?” “All,” they replied. “If,” said
he, “any mortal is here concealed amongst you, denounce
him at once, and lay not up sorrow for yourselves.”
Here they all answered as before that there
was no one. The man then made a movement as if he
would search the place, upon which the bride was
dreadfully alarmed, and her face turned the colour of
ashes. In her terror she said to Mr. Chu, “Hide
yourself under the bed,” and opening a small lattice in
the wall, disappeared herself. Mr. Chu in his concealment
hardly dared to draw his breath; and in a little while
he heard the boots tramp into the room and out again,
the sound of the voices getting gradually fainter and
fainter in the distance. This reassured him, but he still
heard the voices of people going backwards and forwards
outside; and having been a long time in a
cramped position, his ears began to sing as if there
was a locust in them, and his eyes to burn like fire.
It was almost unbearable; however, he remained quietly
awaiting the return of the young lady without giving a
thought to the why and wherefore of his present
position.
Meanwhile, Mêng Lung-t‘an had noticed the sudden
disappearance of his friend, and thinking something was
wrong, asked the priest where he was. “He has gone
to hear the preaching of the Law,” replied the priest.
“Where?” said Mr. Mêng. “Oh, not very far,” was
the answer. Then with his finger the old priest tapped
the wall and called out, “Friend Chu! what makes you
stay away so long?” At this, the likeness of Mr. Chu
was figured upon the wall, with his ear inclined in the
attitude of one listening. The priest added, “Your
friend here has been waiting for you some time;”
and immediately Mr. Chu descended from the wall,
standing transfixed like a block of wood, with starting
eyeballs and trembling legs. Mr. Mêng was much terrified,
and asked him quietly what was the matter.
Now the matter was that while concealed under the
bed he had heard a noise resembling thunder and had
rushed out to see what it was.
Here they all noticed that the young lady on the
wall with the maiden’s tresses had changed the style
of her coiffure to that of a married woman. Mr. Chu
was greatly astonished at this and asked the old priest
the reason.
He replied, “Visions have their origin in those who
see them: what explanation can I give?” This answer
was very unsatisfactory to Mr. Chu; neither did his
friend, who was rather frightened, know what to make
of it all; so they descended the temple steps and
went away.
A countryman was one day selling his pears in
the market. They were unusually sweet and fine flavoured,
and the price he asked was high. A Taoist[46]
priest in rags and tatters stopped at the barrow and
begged one of them. The countryman told him to go
away, but as he did not do so he began to curse and
swear at him. The priest said, “You have several
hundred pears on your barrow; I ask for a single one,
the loss of which, Sir, you would not feel. Why then
get angry?” The lookers-on told the countryman to
give him an inferior one and let him go, but this he
obstinately refused to do. Thereupon the beadle of
the place, finding the commotion too great, purchased
a pear and handed it to the priest. The latter received
it with a bow and turning to the crowd said,
“We who have left our homes and given up all that
is dear to us[47] are at a loss to understand selfish niggardly
conduct in others. Now I have some exquisite
pears which I shall do myself the honour to put before
you.” Here somebody asked, “Since you have pears
yourself, why don’t you eat those?” “Because,” replied
the priest, “I wanted one of these pips to grow them
from.” So saying, he munched up the pear; and when
he had finished took a pip in his hand, unstrapped a
pick from his back, and proceeded to make a hole in
the ground, several inches deep, wherein he deposited
the pip, filling in the earth as before. He then asked
the bystanders for a little hot water to water it with,
and one among them who loved a joke fetched him
some boiling water from a neighbouring shop. The
priest poured this over the place where he had made
the hole, and every eye was fixed upon him when
sprouts were seen shooting up, and gradually growing
larger and larger. By-and-by, there was a tree with
branches sparsely covered with leaves; then flowers,
and last of all fine, large, sweet-smelling pears hanging
in great profusion. These the priest picked and handed
round to the assembled crowd until all were gone, when
he took his pick and hacked away for a long time at
the tree, finally cutting it down. This he shouldered,
leaves and all, and sauntered quietly away. Now, from
the very beginning, our friend the countryman had been
amongst the crowd, straining his neck to see what was
going on, and forgetting all about his business. At the
departure of the priest he turned round and discovered
that every one of his pears was gone. He then knew
that those the old fellow had been giving away so freely
were really his own pears. Looking more closely at the
barrow he also found that one of the handles was missing,
evidently having been newly cut off. Boiling with
rage, he set out in pursuit of the priest, and just as he
turned the corner he saw the lost barrow-handle lying
under the wall, being in fact the very pear-tree that the
priest had cut down. But there were no traces of the
priest—much to the amusement of the crowd in the
market-place.
There lived in our village a Mr. Wang, the seventh
son in an old family. This gentleman had a penchant
for the Taoist religion; and hearing that at Lao-shan
there were plenty of Immortals,[48] shouldered his knapsack
and went off for a tour thither. Ascending a peak of
the mountain he reached a secluded monastery where he
found a priest sitting on a rush mat, with long hair
flowing over his neck, and a pleasant expression on his
face. Making a low bow, Wang addressed him thus:—“Mysterious
indeed is the doctrine: I pray you, Sir,
instruct me therein.” “Delicately-nurtured and wanting
in energy as you are,” replied the priest, “I fear you
could not support the fatigue.” “Try me,” said Wang.
So when the disciples, who were very many in number,
collected together at dusk, Wang joined them in making
obeisance to the priest, and remained with them in the
monastery. Very early next morning the priest summoned
Wang, and giving him a hatchet sent him out
with the others to cut firewood. Wang respectfully
obeyed, continuing to work for over a month until his
hands and feet were so swollen and blistered that he
secretly meditated returning home. One evening when
he came back he found two strangers sitting drinking
with his master. It being already dark, and no lamp or
candles having been brought in, the old priest took some
scissors and cut out a circular piece of paper like a
mirror, which he proceeded to stick against the wall.
Immediately it became a dazzling moon, by the light of
which you could have seen a hair or a beard of corn.
The disciples all came crowding round to wait upon
them, but one of the strangers said, “On a festive
occasion like this we ought all to enjoy ourselves together.”
Accordingly he took a kettle of wine from the
table and presented it to the disciples, bidding them
drink each his fill; whereupon our friend Wang began to
wonder how seven or eight of them could all be served
out of a single kettle. The disciples, too, rushed about
in search of cups, each struggling to get the first drink
for fear the wine should be exhausted. Nevertheless, all
the candidates failed to empty the kettle, at which they
were very much astonished, when suddenly one of the
strangers said, “You have given us a fine bright moon;
but it’s dull work drinking by ourselves. Why not call
Ch‘ang-ngo[49] to join us?” He then seized a chop-stick
and threw it into the moon, whereupon a lovely girl
stepped forth from its beams. At first she was only a
foot high, but on reaching the ground lengthened to the
ordinary size of women. She had a slender waist and a
beautiful neck, and went most gracefully through the
Red Garment figure.[50] When this was finished she sang
the following words:—
“Ye fairies! ye fairies! I’m coming back soon,
Too lonely and cold is my home in the moon.”
Her voice was clear and well sustained, ringing like the
notes of a flageolet, and when she had concluded her
song she pirouetted round and jumped up on the
table, where, with every eye fixed in astonishment
upon her, she once more became a chop-stick. The
three friends laughed loudly, and one of them said,
“We are very jolly to-night, but I have hardly room for
any more wine. Will you drink a parting glass with me
in the palace of the moon?” They then took up the
table and walked into the moon where they could be
seen drinking so plainly, that their eyebrows and beards
appeared like reflections in a looking-glass. By-and-by
the moon became obscured; and when the disciples
brought a lighted candle they found the priest sitting in
the dark alone. The viands, however, were still upon
the table and the mirror-like piece of paper on the wall.
“Have you all had enough to drink?” asked the priest;
to which they answered that they had. “In that case,”
said he, “you had better get to bed, so as not to be
behindhand with your wood-cutting in the morning.”
So they all went off, and among them Wang, who was
delighted at what he had seen, and thought no more of
returning home. But after a time he could not stand it
any longer; and as the priest taught him no magical arts
he determined not to wait, but went to him and said,
“Sir, I travelled many long miles for the benefit of your
instruction. If you will not teach me the secret of Immortality,
let me at any rate learn some trifling trick, and
thus soothe my cravings for a knowledge of your art. I
have now been here two or three months, doing nothing
but chop firewood, out in the morning and back at
night, work to which I was never accustomed in my own
home.” “Did I not tell you,” replied the priest, “that
you would never support the fatigue? To-morrow I will
start you on your way home.” “Sir,” said Wang, “I
have worked for you a long time. Teach me some
small art, that my coming here may not have been
wholly in vain.” “What art?” asked the priest.
“Well,” answered Wang, “I have noticed that whenever
you walk about anywhere, walls and so on are no
obstacle to you. Teach me this, and I’ll be satisfied.”
The priest laughingly assented, and taught Wang a
formula which he bade him recite. When he had
done so he told him to walk through the wall; but
Wang, seeing the wall in front of him, didn’t like to
walk at it. As, however, the priest bade him try, he
walked quietly up to it and was there stopped. The
priest here called out, “Don’t go so slowly. Put your
head down and rush at it.” So Wang stepped back a
few paces and went at it full speed; and the wall
yielding to him as he passed, in a moment he found
himself outside. Delighted at this, he went in to thank
the priest, who told him to be careful in the use of his
power, or otherwise there would be no response, handing
him at the same time some money for his expenses on
the way. When Wang got home, he went about bragging
of his Taoist friends and his contempt for walls in
general; but as his wife disbelieved his story, he set
about going through the performance as before. Stepping
back from the wall, he rushed at it full speed with
his head down; but coming in contact with the hard
bricks, finished up in a heap on the floor. His wife
picked him up and found he had a bump on his forehead
as big as a large egg, at which she roared with
laughter; but Wang was overwhelmed with rage and
shame, and cursed the old priest for his base ingratitude.
At Ch‘ang-ch‘ing there lived a Buddhist priest of exceptional
virtue and purity of conduct, who, though
over eighty years of age, was still hale and hearty. One
day he fell down and could not move; and when the
other priests rushed to help him up, they found he was
already gone. The old priest was himself unconscious
of death, and his soul flew away to the borders of the
province of Honan. Now it chanced that the scion of
an old family residing in Honan, had gone out that very
day with some ten or a dozen followers to hunt the hare
with falcons;[51] but his horse having run away with him
he fell off and was killed. Just at that moment the soul
of the priest came by and entered into the body, which
thereupon gradually recovered consciousness. The
servants crowded round to ask him how he felt, when
opening his eyes wide, he cried out, “How did I get
here?” They assisted him to rise, and led him into
the house, where all his ladies came to see him and
inquire how he did. In great amazement he said, “I
am a Buddhist priest. How came I hither?” His
servants thought he was wandering, and tried to recall
him by pulling his ears. As for himself, he could make
nothing of it, and closing his eyes refrained from saying
anything further. For food, he would only eat rice,
refusing all wine and meat; and avoided the society of
his wives.[52] After some days he felt inclined for a stroll,
at which all his family were delighted; but no sooner
had he got outside and stopped for a little rest than he
was besieged by servants begging him to take their
accounts as usual. However, he pleaded illness and
want of strength, and no more was said. He then took
occasion to ask if they knew the district of Ch‘ang-ch‘ing,
and on being answered in the affirmative expressed
his intention of going thither for a trip, as he
felt dull and had nothing particular to do, bidding them
at the same time look after his affairs at home. They
tried to dissuade him from this on the ground of his
having but recently risen from a sick bed; but he paid
no heed to their remonstrances, and on the very next
day set out. Arriving in the Ch‘ang-ch‘ing district, he
found everything unchanged; and without being put to
the necessity of asking the road, made his way straight
to the monastery. His former disciples received him
with every token of respect as an honoured visitor; and
in reply to his question as to where the old priest was,
they informed him that their worthy teacher had been
dead for some time. On asking to be shewn his grave,
they led him to a spot where there was a solitary mound
some three feet high, over which the grass was not yet
green. Not one of them knew his motives for visiting
this place; and by-and-by he ordered his horse, saying
to the disciples, “Your master was a virtuous priest.
Carefully preserve whatever relics of him you may have,
and keep them from injury.” They all promised to do
this, and he then set off on his way home. When he
arrived there, he fell into a listless state and took no
interest in his family affairs. So much so, that after a
few months he ran away and went straight to his former
home at the monastery, telling the disciples that he was
their old master. This they refused to believe, and
laughed among themselves at his pretensions; but he
told them the whole story, and recalled many incidents
of his previous life among them, until at last they were
convinced. He then occupied his old bed and went
through the same daily routine as before, paying no attention
to the repeated entreaties of his family, who
came with carriages and horses to beg him to return.
About a year subsequently, his wife sent one of the
servants with splendid presents of gold and silk, all of
which he refused with the exception of a single linen
robe. And whenever any of his old friends passed this
monastery, they always went to pay him their respects,
finding him quiet, dignified, and pure. He was then
barely thirty, though he had been a priest for more than
eighty years.[53]