| OBVIOUSLY I had no intention of accompanying that coffin to the palace of the Ancestress in Tsingtao. The barge docked in Ch'in, where I was to hire a ship for the last stage of the journey, and in Ch'in they collected shipping taxes on everything, including corpses. As I was waiting in the warehouse I saw a tantalizing sight indeed: an enormously fat merchant was paying an emperor's ransom to ship a collection of wooden cases, and those cases were guarded by a small army of grim-visaged soldiers who were armed to the teeth. |
1 |
| I had to find out what those cases contained. |
2 |
| I followed the fat merchant to the best restaurant in town and watched with growing excitement as he consumed a light lunch which began with four tureens of pimento and dumpling soup, and proceeded with three bowls of mussel stew, a pound of pickled mallows, a pound of pickled snails, three servings of soft shelled crabs which were gently steamed in rare spices and sweet rice wine, sweetmeats, fruit, honey cakes, and a gallon of green tea flavored with walnuts and pine kernels. |
3 |
| No one is easier to fleece than a glutton. It took but a few minutes to find an unscrupulous alchemist who was willing to sell me some knockout drops and a vile concoction called the Elixir of Eighty Evil Essences, and when the fat merchant waddled back inside the warehouse a truly pathetic scene met his eyes. An Innocent boy with a guileless and grief-stricken face was draped artistically over a coffin, and the boy's servants were sprawled and snoring all over the place. |
4 |
| "Woe!" I wailed. "Woe! Woe! Woe! My beloved bride is dead! My servants are dying! I am feeling rather fragile myself! A million maledictions upon the chef who persuaded me to serve porcupine at our wedding feast!" |
5 |
| The merchant was at my side in an instant. |
6 |
| "Porcupine? Did you say porcupine?" |
7 |
| "Porcupine," I sobbed. |
8 |
| "But my dear tragic boy, did you not know that porcupine can be fatal unless properly prepared?" |
9 |
| "I supervised the preparations myself," I wailed. "Every single step was taken according to the instructions of the great Li Tsening!" |
10 |
| "Surely not! Li Tsening wrote the Book of Porcupine Cookery!" the merchant cried. |
11 |
| I refrained from mentioning that the sweet little girl in the coffin had insisted that Confucius wrote the Book of Porcupine Cookery. Instead I brushed the merchant away and continued my heartbroken howls. |
12 |
| Porcupine is considered to be the delicacy of all delicacies, although rather dangerous, and the merchant's gluttonous eyes glazed, and saliva flowed in streams. But his self-control was admirable, and it was a full minute before he lunged forward, grabbed my shoulders, shook me vigorously, and yelled: |
13 |
| "Was it young, fresh, porcupine?" |
14 |
| I looked up startled from my pious bereavement. |
15 |
| "Barely a year old, and trapped the day before," I said. |
16 |
| A mighty spasm shook the merchant's frame. "From Yushan?" he whispered. |
17 |
| "Straight from the river," I sniffled |
18 |
| The poor fellow tottered over to his armed guards and collected a large sack. He extracted a pickled carp, devoured it noisily, and staggered back. |
19 |
| "The paste!" he gasped. "The porcupine paste was made one year before?" |
20 |
| "Precisely," I sniffled. "And only the purest yellow beans were used." |
21 |
| "You are positive that all black and brown beans were removed? The slightest trace of such imperfection can be fatal!" |
22 |
| "All black and brown beans and those with purple markings were removed by hand, and the remainder sifted fifteen times and carefully scrutinized!" I said huffily. "I was aware of the danger!" |
23 |
| "My dear boy, I am not accusing you," the merchant said contritely. "But I need scarcely point out that some mistake must have...ah...your poor bride...and now your servants...and you say you are feeling somewhat fragile?" |
24 |
| "More so every minute," I moaned. |
25 |
| "Is it possible that rice flour was used?" |
26 |
| "Rice flour would have killed every single guest at our banquet!" I said angrily. "Only the purest Hua wheat flour was used, mixed with a little salt and exposed precisely six hours to the sun--" |
27 |
| "With a veil to keep out the dust? Dust can be fatal!" |
28 |
| "With a veil to keep out the dust. Then placed into a jar which was in turn covered by an earthenware basin and sealed with lime, and I need scarcely mention that all washing was done with pure river water, for the slightest trace of well water would have been fatal." |
29 |
| "I cannot understand it," the merchant whispered. "Everything done properly...wait! What month was it?" |
30 |
| "Do you take me for a fool?" I snarled. "To prepare porcupine paste in any month but June is to commit suicide." |
31 |
| "Extraordinary! Everything done according to the instructions of the great Li Tsening, yet the porcupine proved fatal after all." |
32 |
| It was dawning on the merchant that if no flaw could be found then he himself could never again safely enjoy the delicacy of all delicacies. |
33 |
| "We must find the error!" he wailed. "My dear boy, I beg you to describe the precise method by which your chef cooked the porcupine itself." |
34 |
| "He began by removing the eyes, stomach, internal organs, and embryos, if any were present," I said solemnly. "Then he slashed the spines and cleaned out all the blood. While he cut the meat into pieces I myself cleaned any remaining clot of blood from each piece with a pin. Then he boiled the meat in pure river water--" |
35 |
| "With the skin still attached7" |
36 |
| "With the skin still attached. He then removed the meat and placed it upon a cutting board--" |
37 |
| "A wooden cutting board?" |
38 |
| "I am perfectly aware of the fact that a metal or ceramic cutting board can prove fatal," I said coldly. "Then he picked out every quill and bristle with fine pinchers, cut the flesh and skin into smaller pieces - and I assure you that they were square pieces - and sautéed them in pork fat. Then and only then did he mix in the bean paste and fry the mixture in hot oil. He took infinite care to keep dust from the pot, and when the meat was done he dipped a paper roll into the sauce and held it to the flame of a candle. Only when the paper caught fire easily did he remove the porcupine from the pot and serve it to the guests." |
39 |
| Not a flaw. Not one single error. The merchant's gluttonous world was crashing down around his ears, and he buried his ashen face in his hands. |
40 |
| "How many died?" he sobbed. |
41 |
| "Only my poor bride!" I wailed. "She alone among two hundred! And I myself supervised the preparations! It was I who selected the porcupines! It was I who picked off the remaining clots of blood with a pin! It was I who selected the choicest piece to present to my bride! It was I---" |
42 |
| "Wait!" screamed the merchant. "When you cleaned off the blood, what kind of pin did you use?" |
43 |
| "What kind of...why, I don't remember." |
44 |
| "But you must remember, dear boy! Was it or was it not a silver pin?" |
45 |
| "Yes it was," I said thoughtfully. "Now I remember clearly. It was a pin of the purest silver, although as I came to the final piece of meat the pin slipped and fell to the floor, so I had to use another pin." |
46 |
| "Silver?" |
47 |
| "Gold." |
48 |
| Actually that merchant was quite a decent fellow. His own world had just been saved, but he had it in him to pity the disaster of others. Tears trickled down his cheeks; his vast belly shook with sobs: |
49 |
| "Oh my boy, my poor tragic boy, the slightest contact between porcupine and gold is fatal! And by the curse of some evil spirit you lovingly chose the one contaminated piece of meat, and placed it upon the plate--" |
50 |
| "Of my bride!" I shrieked. "Woe! Woe! My stupidity has slain the woman I loved!" |
51 |
| I fell across the coffin in a dead faint. This allowed me to slyly open the jar that contained the Elixir of Eighty Evil Essences, which I had concealed on the other side. When I regained consciousness I was overcome with the horror of what I had done. |
52 |
| "To think that I myself was responsible for such a ghastly death!" I whispered. |
53 |
| "I have often heard of porcupine poisoning, but I must confess that I have never seen It. Is it very terrible?" the merchant said in hushed tones. |
54 |
| I noticed with satisfaction that the merchant's guards and the customs officials had gathered around. |
55 |
| "She began by breaking out in bright red spots, which spread until every inch was covered," I whimpered. "Then the redness began to turn green. Ghastly glaring green." |
56 |
| The Elixir of Eighty Evil Essences was performing splendidly. As the fumes reached the nostrils of the guards and customs officials they began to turn as green as the supposed victim in the coffin. |
57 |
| "Come to think of it," I added, "my poor servants began to turn green while carrying my beloved's coffin, and then they collapsed." |
58 |
| "Gllgghh!" gagged the Chief of Customs. |
59 |
| "The smell that began to exude from my dear one - I dare not describe that ghastly smell!" I wailed. "And then the glaring green color of her skin began to turn black!" |
60 |
| "Black?" the merchant choked. |
61 |
| "Well, it was a greenish-purplish black which tended to run at the edges," I said thoughtfully. The Elixir was performing magnificently, and the guards began staggering out to the pier and vomiting over the rail. "The hideous smell of my bride grew even worse!" I shrieked. "Guests began to run for their lives! I reached out to touch my dear one, and I cannot describe my horror when my fingers actually entered her beloved body! For her supple skin had become soft oozy jelly from which thick green and yellow corruption spurted, and the smell...the smell...the smell..." |
62 |
| For some reason I seemed to be alone. |
63 |
| After five or ten minutes I staggered out and joined the others at the rail - allow me to inform you that the Elixir of Eighty Evil Essences can make a stone vomit - and when the others had sufficiently recovered they voted to toss me and my cursed coffin into the sea before the corruption killed them all. I appealed to their patriotism by pointing out that if they dumped that coffin into the sea they would destroy the Chinese fishing industry for at least three thousand years, and a compromise was reached. I was provided with a wheelbarrow for the coffin, a shovel, the directions to the lepers' cemetery, and a terrified priest who led the way banging a gong and bellowing: "Unclean! Unclean!" |
64 |
| At the cemetery the priest took to his heels. I gazed back toward the port and saw the merchant and his precious cases hastily sailing away, and I waved gaily and yelled" |
65 |
| "Farewell, Fainting Maid!" |
66 |
| Of course I had used the time when I was alone in the warehouse to switch the funeral decorations from the coffin to one of the wooden cases. I eagerly pried the lid open and gazed with disbelief at a small bag of pins lying on top of a canvas cover. |
67 |
| "Pins?" I muttered. "Why on earth was he guarding cheap iron pins?" |
68 |
| I pulled back the canvas cover and very nearly had a heart attack. Compasses. At least five hundred Chinese magnetic compasses for which barbarians will sell their very souls. |
69 |
| "Ten pins!" I prayed. "Buddha make them pure enough to hold ten pins!" |
70 |
| Eight...nine ... ton... eleven... twelve... thirteen...fourteen... fifteen...sixteen...seventeen! I had five hundred compasses so pure that each could hold a chain of seventeen inch-long iron pins attached end to end. The value could scarcely be measured in gold. I was not rich, I was the wealthiest young man in China, and I was standing on the outskirts of the most luxurious pleasure city in the world! |
71 |
| I will confess to a slight qualm as I looked up at the great gray shape of the Castle of the Labyrinth, but I was not going to get involved with the Duke of Ch'in was I? Of course not. I reached into the chest and ran my fingers over wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. |
72 |
"NAMO KUANSHIYIN BODHISATTVA MAHASATTVA!" I roared, since that is the Buddhist way of bellowing hallelujah.
|
73 |