Subsequent to these events Mr. Chu tried three times for his doctor’s degree, but each time without success, and at last he gave up the idea of entering into official life. Then when thirty years had passed away, Judge Lu appeared to him one night, and said, “My friend, you cannot live for ever. Your hour will come in five days’ time.” Chu asked the Judge if he could not save him; to which he replied, “The decrees of Heaven cannot be altered to suit the purposes of mortals. Besides, to an intelligent man life and death are much the same.[103] Why necessarily regard life as a boon and death as a misfortune?” Chu could make no reply to this, and forthwith proceeded to order his coffin and shroud;[104] and then, dressing himself in his grave-clothes, yielded up the ghost. Next day, as his wife was weeping over his bier, in he walked at the front door, to her very great alarm. “I am now a disembodied spirit,” said Chu to her, “though not different from what I was in life; and I have been thinking much of the widow and orphan I left behind.” His wife, hearing this, wept till the tears ran down her face, Chu all the time doing his best to comfort her. “I have heard tell,” said she, “of dead bodies returning to life; and since your vital spark is not extinct, why does it not resume the flesh?” “The ordinances of Heaven,” replied her husband, “may not be disobeyed.” His wife here asked him what he was doing in the infernal regions; and he said that Judge Lu had got him an appointment as Registrar, with a certain rank attached, and that he was not at all uncomfortable. Mrs. Chu was proceeding to inquire further, when he interrupted her, saying, “The Judge has come with me; get some wine ready and something to eat.” He then hurried out, and his wife did as he had told her, hearing them laughing and drinking in the guest chamber just like old times come back again. About midnight she peeped in, and found that they had both disappeared; but they came back once in every two or three days, often spending the night, and managing the family affairs as usual. Chu’s son was named Wei, and was about five years old; and whenever his father came he would take the little boy upon his knee. When he was about eight years of age, Chu began to teach him to read; and the boy was so clever that by the time he was nine he could actually compose. At fifteen he took his bachelor’s degree, without knowing all this time that he had no father. From that date Chu’s visits became less frequent, occurring not more than once or so in a month; until one night he told his wife that they were never to meet again. In reply to her inquiry as to whither he was going, he said he had been appointed to a far-off post, where press of business and distance would combine to prevent him from visiting them any more. The mother and son clung to him, sobbing bitterly; but he said, “Do not act thus. The boy is now a man, and can look after your affairs. The dearest friends must part some day.” Then, turning to his son, he added, “Be an honourable man, and take care of the property. Ten years hence we shall meet again.” With this he bade them farewell, and went away.

Later on, when Wei was twenty-two years of age, he took his doctor’s degree, and was appointed to conduct the sacrifices at the Imperial tombs. On his way thither he fell in with a retinue of an official, proceeding along with all the proper insignia,[105] and, looking carefully at the individual sitting in the carriage, he was astonished to find that it was his own father. Alighting from his horse, he prostrated himself with tears at the side of the road; whereupon his father stopped and said, “You are well spoken of. I now take leave of this world.” Wei remained on the ground, not daring to rise; and his father, urging on his carriage, hurried away without saying any more. But when he had gone a short distance, he looked back, and unloosing a sword from his waist, sent it as a present to his son, shouting out to him, “Wear this and you will succeed.” Wei tried to follow him; but, in an instant, carriage, retinue, and horses, had vanished with the speed of wind. For a long time his son gave himself up to grief, and then seizing the sword began to examine it closely. It was of exquisite workmanship, and on the blade was engraved this legend:--“Be bold, but cautious; round in disposition, square in action.”[106] Wei subsequently rose to high honours, and had five sons named Ch‘ên, Ch‘ien, Wu, Hun, and Shên. One night he dreamt that his father told him to give the sword to Hun, which he accordingly did; and Hun rose to be a Viceroy of great administrative ability.

FOOTNOTES:

[93] Every Chinese man and woman inherits a family name or surname. A woman takes her husband’s surname, followed in official documents by her maiden name. Children usually have a pet name given to them soon after birth, which is dropped after a few years. Then there is the ming or name, which once given is unchangeable, and by which the various members of a family are distinguished. But only the father and mother and certain other relatives are allowed to use this. Friends call each other by their literary designations or “book-names,” which are given generally by the teacher to whom the boy’s education is first entrusted. Brothers and sisters and others have all kinds of nick-names as with us. Dogs and cats are called by such names as “Blackey,” “Whitey,” “Yellowy,” “Jewel,” “Pearly,” &c., &c. Junks are christened “Large Profits,” “Abounding Wealth,” “Favourite of Fortune,” &c., &c. Places are often named after some striking geographical feature; e.g., Hankow--“mouth of the Han river,” i.e., its point of junction with the Yang-tsze; or they have fancy names, such as Fuhkien--“happily established;” Tientsin--“Heaven’s ford;” or names implying a special distinction, such as Nanking--“southern capital;” Shan-tung--“east of the mountains,” &c.

[94] The name given by foreigners in China to the imitation of the ten torture-chambers of purgatory, as seen in every Ch‘êng-huang or municipal temple. The various figures of the devil-lictors and the tortured sinners are made either of clay or wood, and painted in very bright colours; and in each chamber is depicted some specimen of the horrible tortures that wicked people will undergo in the world to come. I have given in the Appendix a translation of the “Yü-li-ch‘ao,” a celebrated Taoist work on this subject, which should at any rate be glanced at by persons who would understand the drift of some of these stories.

[95] To heat the wine, which is almost invariably taken hot.

[96] In token of their mutual good feeling.

[97] The Chinese as a nation believe to this day that the heart is the seat of the intellect and the emotions.

[98] The heart itself is supposed to be pierced by a number of “eyes,” which pass right through; and in physical and mental health these passages are believed to be clear.

[99] See No. XII., note 87.

[100] The Hsi-yüan-lu, a well-known work on Chinese medical jurisprudence, and an officially-authorised book, while giving an absurd antidote against a poison that never existed [see my Chinese Sketches, p. 190], gravely insists that it is to be prepared at certain dates only, “in some place quite away from women, fowls, and dogs.”

[101] It was almost a wonder that she got a second fiancé, few people caring to affiance their sons in a family where such a catastrophe has once occurred. The death of an engaged girl is a matter of much less importance, but is productive of a very curious ceremony. Her betrothed goes to the house where she is lying dead and steps over the coffin containing her body, returning home with a pair of the girl’s shoes. He thus severs all connection with her, and her spirit cannot haunt him as it otherwise most certainly would.

[102] Held annually on the 15th of the first Chinese month--i.e., at the first full moon of the year, when coloured lanterns are hung at every door. It was originally a ceremonial worship in the temple of the First Cause, and dates from about the time of the Han dynasty, or nearly two thousand years ago.

[103] It was John Stuart Mill who pointed out that the fear of death is due to “the illusion of imagination, which makes one conceive oneself as if one were alive and feeling oneself dead” (The Utility of Religion).

[104] “Boards of old age” and “Clothes of old age sold here” are common shop-signs in every Chinese city; death and burial being always, if possible, spoken of euphemistically in some such terms as these. A dutiful son provides, when he can afford it, decent coffins for his father and mother. They are generally stored in the house, sometimes in a neighbouring temple; and the old people take pleasure in seeing that their funeral obsequies are properly provided for, though the subject is never raised in conversation. Chinese coffins are beautifully made; and when the body has been in for a day or two, a candle is closely applied to the seams all round to make sure it is air-tight,--any crack, however fine, being easily detected by the flickering of the flame in the escaping gas. Thus bodies may be kept unburied for a long time, until the geomancer has selected an auspicious site for the grave.