IN the province of
Kuang-si there lived a scholar of some reputation, named Sun
Tzu-ch'u. He was born with six fingers, and such a simple fellow was
he that he readily believed any nonsense he was told. Very shy with
the fair sex, the sight of a woman was enough to send him flying in
the opposite direction; and once when he was inveigled into a room
where there were some young ladies, he blushed down to his neck and
the perspiration dripped off him like falling pearls. His companions
laughed heartily at his discomfiture, and told fine stories of what a
noodle he looked, so that he got the nickname of Silly Sun.
In the town where our hero resided, there was a rich trader whose
wealth equalled that of any prince or nobleman, and whose connections
were all highly aristocratic. He had a daughter, A-pao, of great
beauty, for whom he was seeking a husband; and the young men of
position in the neighbourhood were vying with each other to obtain
her hand, but none of them met with the father's approval. Now Silly
Sun had recently lost his wife; and some one in joke persuaded him to
try his luck and send in an application. Sun, who had no idea of his
own shortcomings, proceeded at once to follow this advice; but the
father, though he knew him to be an accomplished scholar, rejected
his suit on the ground of poverty. As the go-between was leaving the
house, she chanced to meet A-pao, and related to her the object of
her visit. "Tell him," cried A-pao, laughing, "that if
he'll cut off his extra finger, I'll marry him." The old woman
reported this to Sun, who replied, "That is not very difficult;
"and, seizing a chopper, cut the finger clean off. The wound was
extremely painful and he lost so much blood that he nearly died, it
being many days before he was about again. He then sought out the
go-between, and bade her inform Miss A-pao, which she did; and A-pao
was taken rather aback, but she told the old woman to go once more
and bid him cut off the " silly " from his reputation. Sun
got much excited when he heard this, and denied that he was silly;
however, as he was unable to prove it to the young lady herself, he
began to think that probably her beauty was overstated, and that she
was giving herself great airs. So he ceased to trouble himself about
her until the following spring festival, when it was customary for
both men and women to be seen abroad, and the young rips of the place
would stroll about in groups and pass their remarks on all and
sundry. Sun's friends urged him to join them in their expedition, and
one of them asked him with a smile if he did not wish to look out for
a suitable mate. Sun knew they were chaffing him, but he thought he
should like to see the girl that had made such a fool of him, and was
only too pleased to accompany them. They soon perceived a young lady
resting herself under a tree, with a throng of young fellows crowding
round her, and they immediately determined that she must be A-pao, as
in fact they found she was. Possessed of peerless beauty, the ring of
her admirers gradually increased, till at last she rose up to go. The
excitement among the young men was intense; they criticised her face
and discussed her feet, Sun only remaining silent; and when they had
passed on to something else, there they saw Sun rooted like an
imbecile to the same spot. As he made no answer when spoken to, they
dragged him along with them, saying, "Has your spirit run away
after A-pao?" He made no reply to this either; but they thought
nothing of that, knowing his usual strangeness of manner, so by dint
of pushing and pulling they managed to get him home. There he threw
himself on the bed and did not get up again for the rest of the day,
lying in a state of unconsciousness just as if he were drunk. He did
not wake when called; and his people, thinking that his spirit had
fled, went about in the fields calling out to it to return. However,
he shewed no signs of improvement; and when they shook him, and asked
him what was the matter, he only answered in a sleepy kind of voice,
"I am at A-pao's house; "but to further questions he would
not make any reply, and left his family in a state of keen suspense.
Now when Silly Sun had seen the young lady get up to go, he could not
bear to part with her, and found himself first following and then
walking along by her side without anyone saying anything to him. Thus
he went back with her to her home, and there he remained for three
days, longing to run home and get something to eat, but unfortunately
not knowing the way. By that time Sun had hardly a breath left in
him; and his friends, fearing that he was going to die, sent to beg
of the rich trader that he would allow a search to be made for Sun's
spirit in his house. The trader laughed and said, "He wasn't in
the habit of coming here, so he could hardly have left his spirit
behind him; "but he yielded to the entreaties of Sun's family,
and permitted the search to be made. Thereupon a magician proceeded
to the house, taking with him an old suit of Sun's clothes and some
grass matting; and when Miss A-pao heard the reason for which he had
come, she simplified matters very much by leading the magician
straight to her own room. The magician summoned the spirit in due
form, and went back towards Sun's house. By the time he had reached
the door, Sun groaned and recovered consciousness; and he was then
able to describe all the articles of toilette and furniture in
A-pao's room without making a single mistake. A-pao was amazed when
the story was repeated to her, and could not help feeling kindly
towards him on account of the depth of his passion. Sun himself, when
he got well enough to leave his bed, would often sit in a state of
abstraction as if he had lost his wits; and he was for ever scheming
to try and have another glimpse at A-pao. One day he heard that she
intended to worship at the Shui-Yueh temple on the 8th of the fourth
moon, that day being the Wash-Buddha festival; and he set off early
in the morning to wait for her at the roadside. He was nearly blind
with straining his eyes, and the sun was already past noontide before
the young lady arrived; but when she saw from her carriage a
gentleman standing there, she drew aside the screen and had a good
stare at him. Sun followed her in a great state of excitement, upon
which she bade one of her maids to go and ask his name. Sun told her
who he was, his perturbation all the time increasing; and when the
carriage drove on he returned home. Again he became very ill, and lay
on his bed unconscious, without taking any food, occasionally calling
on A-pao by name, at the same time abusing his spirit for not having
been able to follow her as before. Just at this juncture a parrot
that had been long with the family died; and a child, playing with
the body, laid it upon the bed. Sun then reflected that if he was
only a parrot one flap of his wings would bring him into the presence
of A-pao; and while occupied with these thoughts, lo! the dead body
moved and the parrot flew away. It flew straight to A-pao's room, at
which she was delighted; and catching it, tied a string to its leg,
and fed it upon hemp-seed. "Dear sister," cried the bird,
"do not tie me by the leg: I am Sun Tzu-ch'u." In great
alarm A-pao untied the string, but the parrot did not fly away.
"Alas!" said she, "your love has engraved itself upon
my heart; but now you are no longer a man, how shall we ever be
united together?" "To be near your dear self," replied
the parrot, "is all I care about." The parrot then refused
to take food from anyone else, and kept close to Miss A-pao wherever
she went, day and night alike. At the expiration of three days,
A-pao, who had grown very fond of her parrot, secretly sent some one
to ask how Mr. Sun was; but he had already been dead three days,
though the part over his heart had not grown cold. "Oh! come to
life again as a man," cried the young lady, "and I swear to
be yours for ever." "You are surely not in earnest,"
said the parrot, "are you?" Miss A-pao declared she was,
and the parrot, cocking its head aside, remained some time as if
absorbed in thought. By-and-by A-pao took off her shoes to bind her
feet a little tighter; and the parrot, making a rapid grab at one,
flew off with it in its beak. She called loudly after it to come
back, but in a moment it was out of sight; so she next sent a servant
to inquire if there was any news of Mr. Sun, and then learnt that he
had come round again, the parrot having flown in with an embroidered
shoe and dropped down dead on the ground. Also, that directly he
regained consciousness he asked for the shoe, of which his people
knew nothing; at which moment her servant had arrived, and demanded
to know from him where it was. "It was given to me by Miss A-pao
as a pledge of faith," replied Sun " I beg you will tell
her I have not forgotten her promise." A-pao was greatly
astonished at this, and instructed her maid to divulge the whole
affair to her mother, who, when she had made some inquiries, observed
that Sun was well known as a clever fellow, but was desperately poor,
and "to get such a son-in-law after all our trouble would give
our aristocratic friends the laugh against us." However, A-pao
pleaded that with the shoe there as a proof against her, she would
not marry anybody else; and, ultimately, her father and mother gave
their consent. This was immediately announced to Mr. Sun, whose
illness rapidly disappeared in consequence. A-pao's father would have
had Sun come and live with them; but the young lady objected, on the
score that a son-in-law should not remain long at a time with the
family of his wife, and that as he was poor he would lower himself
still more by doing so. "I have accepted him," added she,
"and I shall gladly reside in his humble cottage, and share his
poor fare without complaint. The marriage was then celebrated, and
bride and bride-groom met as if for the first time in their lives.
The dowry A-pao brought with her somewhat raised their pecuniary
position, and gave them a certain amount of comfort; but Sun himself
stuck only to his books, and knew nothing about managing affairs in
general. Luckily his wife was clever in that respect, and did not
bother him with such things; so much so that by the end of three
years they were comparatively well off, when Sun suddenly fell ill
and died. Mrs. Sun was inconsolable, and refused either to sleep or
take nourishment, being deaf to all entreaties on the subject and
before long, taking advantage of the night, she hanged herself. Her
maid, hearing a noise, ran in and cut her down just in time: but she
still steadily refused all food. Three days passed away, and the
friends and relatives of Sun came to attend his funeral, when
suddenly they heard a sigh proceeding forth from the coffin. The
coffin was then opened and they found that Sun had come to life
again. He told them that he had been before the Great Judge, who, as
a reward for his upright and honourable life, had conferred upon him
an official appointment. "At this moment," said Sun, "it
was reported that my wife was close at hand, but the Judge, referring
to the register, observed that her time had not yet come. They told
him she had taken no food for three days; and then the Judge, looking
at me, said that as a recompense for her wifely virtues she should be
permitted to return to life. Thereupon he gave orders to his
attendants to put to the horses and see us safely back." From
that hour Sun gradually improved, and the next year went up for his
master's degree. All his old companions chaffed him exceedingly
before the examination, and gave him seven themes on out-of-the-way
subjects, telling him privately that they had been surreptitiously
obtained from the examiners. Sun believed them as usual, and worked
at them day and night until he was perfect, his comrades all the time
enjoying a good laugh against him. However, when the day came it was
found that the examiners, fearing lest the themes they had chosen in
an ordinary way should have been dishonestly made public, took a set
of fresh ones quite out of the common run in fact, on the very
subjects Sun's companions had given to him. Consequently, he came out
at the head of the list; and the next year, after taking his doctor's
degree, he was entered among the Han-lin Academicians. The Emperor,
too, happening to hear of his curious adventures, sent for him and
made him repeat his story; subsequently, summoning A-pao and making
her some very costly presents.
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