The Carnal Prayer Mat (Rou Putuan)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Poem:

Before setting off, Vesperus paid a farewell call on the Knave and asked him to watch over the family during his absence.

"Looking after someone's family is not something to be taken on lightly," said the Knave. "Children are easy enough. It's wives that are the problem. I'm a rough and ready sort of fellow, and all I can see to are the daily necessities; I can't stand guard over your women's quarters for you. If there's anything your wife needs in the line of food, firewood, or money, she has only to ask for it; but I can't give much of a guarantee about other matters. You'll have to go home and instruct her yourself."

"The daily necessities are my only concern," said Vesperus. "I've already spoken to her about the other matters. Anyway she's an experienced woman, quite different from when she was first married. A potential seducer with any practical qualifications would surely be no better endowed than Honest Quan, and she found him inadequate and married me instead. I doubt that there's another man like me anywhere, so there's really no cause for worry."

"You're right. Just so long as you can trust her. In that case I don't mind taking it on."

Vesperus took his leave, then wrote four love poems and sent them secretly to Flora and her nieces as a farewell message. Finally, after several nights of love with Fragrance, he set off.

Arriving in his hometown after days of travel, he made his way to Iron Door's house, where he knocked for a long time without response. He was rather pleased. So the household really is strictly run, he thought. I doubt that any outsider has been in; it wouldn't have mattered if I'd stayed away months longer.

After knocking until dark, he finally glimpsed someone peeping at him through the crack in the door. Vesperus realized it must be the Master and addressed him: "Father-in-law, open up. It's your son-in-law."

The Master hastily opened the door and let him in. Vesperus went through into the hall, greeted him formally, and then sat down and began asking after the family, first about his father-in-law's health and then about his wife's.

The Master heaved a sigh. "I keep fairly well myself, with no ailments to speak of, but my daughter suffered a terrible misfortune. After you left, she came down with an illness that prevented her from either sleeping or eating. Finally she fell into a depression, and in less than a year she passed away." He began to sob bitterly.

"How could that happen!" exclaimed Vesperus, as he began to beat his chest, stamp his feet, and accompany the Master in his sobbing. "Where is her coffin? Has she been buried yet?" he asked, after sobbing awhile.

"It has been kept in the cloister. I wanted you to see it before the burial."

Vesperus had the cloister opened and, prostrating himself on the coffin, wept again before eventually composing himself.

Where do you suppose the coffin came from? When the Master found out that his daughter had run off with a lover, he could not bear to tell anyone, partly because he was afraid of the neighbors' ridicule, and partly because he feared the day his son-in-law came looking for her. His solution was to buy a coffin, seal it up, and give out that his daughter had died of an illness and that he was keeping her coffin at home for the time being. In this way he could stop the news getting out and also deter his son-in-law from trying to find her.

Since his father-in-law was normally the soul of honesty, Vesperus readily accepted the explanation. Moreover, his own departure had come right in the middle of his wife's sexual awakening, and it seemed entirely plausible that, with her torrid sexual desires suddenly denied an outlet, the resulting depression might have brought on an illness. Thus his suspicions were not in the least aroused. In fact quite the contrary; in a mood of bitter self-reproach, he called in priests to hold services for three days and nights to commend her soul to immediate rebirth, lest she resent his lechery from her place in Hell and become so jealous as to emulate the dead wife who snatched Wang Kui from the living. [89]

After the services, on the pretext of seeking further education, he again took leave of the Master and set off for the capital to learn the technique of revitalization.

Arriving in the capital after a laborious journey, he deposited his luggage and went in search of the beautiful courtesan. He found out where she lived and went to see her, but as bad luck would have it, she had been invited out a few days before by a certain gentleman who was loath to let her return. The Maid reported as much to Vesperus, who departed crestfallen.

He waited another day or two in his lodgings before paying a second visit. "I had a note from her yesterday," said the Maid, "to say that she would not be back until this evening but that if there was a guest here, I could ask him to wait."

Delighted, Vesperus handed over a thirty-tael retainer, enough for a stay of several nights. He had also brought several private gifts that he planned to give her in person.

"It's still quite early," said the madam, taking charge of the retainer. "If you have other business, sir, by all means attend to it and come back later. If you have nothing better to do, of course you are most welcome to stay."

"I did not think a thousand li too far to come to see your daughter. No, I have no other business."

"In that case you may sit in my daughter's room and read a book or take a nap, as you wish, while you wait for her to join you. There are things I need to attend to and I'm afraid I'll not be able to keep you company."

"Don't let me hold you up. Please feel free to go on with your work."

The Maid showed Vesperus into the room and told a young prostitute to burn incense and make tea and attend on him as he read. But Vesperus was interested only in building up his vital energies for his sexual encounter that night, so he lay down and rested from noon to dusk. At dusk he arose and, picking up an idle book, was leafing through it when he saw a strikingly beautiful woman peer in at him through the window and then rush off. The young prostitute was in the room at the time. "Who was that who looked in just now?" he asked.

"That was my elder sister," she replied.

From the beautiful courtesan's behavior, Vesperus was afraid that she meant to reject him, and he hurried out to intercept her before she could get inside.

Jade Scent had recognized her husband at first glance and leaped to the conclusion that he had come to have her arrested. Panic-stricken, she rushed in to ask the Maid for some way of escape, but before she had time to explain, she realized that Vesperus was coming after her. This alarmed her even more. She did not know what to do and just said, This man is someone I cannot possibly meet. You mustn't let him see me," then dashed into the Maid's room, shut the door, and lay down trembling on the bed without another word. The Maid had no idea what Jade Scent meant, but simply assumed that she disliked the man and would refuse to come out and meet him.

"I've had another note from my daughter to say she has been kept on and won't be back today," she told Vesperus. "In fact not for another couple of days. I hardly know what to suggest."

"Your daughter's back already! Why are you telling me this? Is it because my retainer was too small and you want an increase?"

The Maid continued to dissemble. "She's not back, and that's all there is to it. I assure you I have no such thought in mind."

Vesperus's face hardened. "But I saw her just now, as clear as day, peering at me through the window and then darting off to avoid me. Why are you telling me these lies? It's only because my retainer wasn't big enough that she won't receive me! But, as the saying goes, 'Keep your reproaches to yourself.' What's the harm in meeting somebody? She can still take her leave of me with a few parting words. Why does she have to cut me off so cruelly? Does she think she'll make a big impression on me if I just see her once?"

The Maid stuck to her story, her jaw set firm.

"Look here, just now I saw a woman run into your bedroom and hide. Since your daughter isn't back, let me search the room. If she's not there, I'll leave just as I am, without a woman and without my money. What do you say?"

His words cut too close to the truth. The Maid thought it would be embarrassing if he found Jade Scent and brought her out, so she tried to disarm him. "To tell you the truth, sir, she is back. She's keeping out of sight because some vicious lout drained her energies for several nights in a row, and she's such a wreck she'll need a night or two to recover before receiving anyone else. But since you're so determined to see her, let me call her out. There's no need to search the room."

"Then let me ask her myself," said Vesperus, "so that she won't think me insincere and use that as an excuse for not seeing me." He followed hard on the Maid's heels as she went up to the door and began to plead.

"Child," called the Maid, "this gentlemen is absolutely determined to see you. Won't you come out and meet him?"

She repeated her request several times, but heard nothing in reply. "Try once more," said Vesperus, "and if she still won't open up, I shall have to use force."

Inside the room Jade Scent saw little hope for herself. Vesperus would surely insist on taking her to court, where she would be tortured and die, by one means or another. Far better to die now, before he saw her, and spare herself all the misery. She undid the silken cord from her waist, strung it over a low beam, and hanged herself.

When Vesperus forced his way into the room, she had already been dead for some time. His one thought, on seeing the tragedy he had caused, was to escape, and he had no time to look at her closely. He had turned and was about to flee, when the Maid saw that he had driven Jade Scent to her death and held him in a firm grip. "Where do you think you're going?" she screamed. "You and I have no feud from a previous life and there's no bad blood between us in this one, so why did you drive her to her death, the one person I had to depend on in my old age?"

At the height of the commotion, a number of customers came up. They were all young noblemen, clients of Jade Scent's who had been deprived of her company for the past few days and now, on learning of her return, had hurried to the house and chanced to arrive together. Hearing she had been driven to her death, they were even more distraught than if their own wives had been murdered. Bristling with fury and consumed with hatred for the murderer, they promptly ordered the house stewards to attack Vesperus. The stewards pinned him to the ground and rained hundreds of blows on him with their clubs, avoiding those places where a blow might have been fatal, but leaving the rest of his body black and blue. Then they put him in chains and locked him up beside the dead woman until the constables could make their inspection and take the next of kin to court to press charges.

Up to this point Vesperus had been so intent on escaping that he had not even glanced at the dead woman. But now, with his bones broken and his muscles torn, he could scarcely move and, shackled as he was, he abandoned all hope of getting away. There was nothing left to do but look at her and find out what nemesis this was that had done him such grievous harm. But when he approached the corpse and examined its face, he was aghast.

She's the image of my dead wife, he thought. How can there be any two faces so exactly alike?

He looked at her and pondered, and the more he looked and pondered, the more closely she resembled his wife, until finally it occurred to him that the story of her dying of an illness had been suspect from the beginning. Perhaps, he reflected, Jade Scent ran off with someone and my father-in-law was too embarrassed to tell me about it-even bought a coffin to deceive me? What's more, if this woman had nothing to be ashamed of, why would she try to hide from me? Finally, when she realized she couldn't hide, why else would she take her life?

At this stage in his thoughts he felt fairly certain, but the possibility nagged at him that it might still be a case of identical women. He needed to think of some unique feature of his wife's that would clinch the matter. Recalling that she had a cauterizing scar on the crown of her head where the hair had not grown back, he undid the dead woman's chignon and parted her hair. On her crown he found a patch of bare skin the size of a fingertip.

Just as he arrived at his conclusion, the constables burst into the room and began asking him about the cause of death for their report on the incident.

"The dead woman is my first wife," Vesperus told them, who was abducted and sold to the Maid to entertain clients. I came here to visit the courtesan in complete ignorance of all this, and she hanged herself because she was too ashamed to meet me. It wasn't until I was locked in here with her that I looked at her closely and recognized her. I shall certainly protest this injustice to the authorities. I wish to be taken there at once so that I can be set free. I have nothing further to say."

The constables then questioned the Maid. In fact she knew nothing about it, but they suspected her of trying to lie her way out of trouble. "Who sold this woman to you?" they asked. "If it was a dealer, he must have brought several women along, not just this one. Since the dead woman can't tell us anything, we shall need to question the others."

"I bought her together with her maid, who is here now. Let me call her out."

But when she went to call her, Ruyi was nowhere to be found. The Maid assumed she had run away, but in fact she had merely hidden herself under the Maid's bed, where she was soon found. On seeing her former master, she had been terrified and had fled into the Maid's room together with Jade Scent. Then, when she saw her mistress hang herself and Vesperus force his way into the room, she knew there would be trouble and wriggled under the bed, where she had lain all this time, wondering what to do. To her surprise she was discovered and dragged out.

The constables asked if she knew Vesperus. Ruyi meant to deny it, but her face and voice gave her away. The constables understood and threatened her until she confessed. She told them in great detail how Jade Scent had committed adultery with someone at home and gotten pregnant, and then, for fear her father would condemn her to death when he found out, had been forced to elope, taking Ruyi along with her. Her lover, however, had betrayed her and sold her into prostitution.

Now that they were in possession of the facts, the constables urged the parties to settle the case out of court. Someone who drove his wife to her death would surely not have to answer for it with his life, they felt, and someone who bought a woman in good faith for the entertainment of her clients could hardly be convicted of kidnapping.

All that remained was the question of Ruyi's future. Did her former master want her or not? If he did, he should buy her back. If not, she should stay where she was. By this time Vesperus, who had given himself up for dead, no longer cared about his own life; in fact he wanted to die, and the sooner the better. What use did he have for a maidservant?

"By rights," he said, "I ought to take the case to court and request an investigation, if only to relieve my anger. But I'm afraid the story will get bandied about and give me an unsavory reputation. So I'll suppress my feelings and do as you gentlemen suggest. As for the maid, since she has been a prostitute; it would be awkward to take her back. Let her stay."

On hearing him speak so honestly, the Maid concluded she would have nothing to fear from him in the future and, at the constables' suggestion, she unlocked his chains, gave him back his retainer, and sent him on his way. Before he could get out, however, he was punched by the other clients and cursed as a cuckold. By the time he reached his lodgings, the pain of the beatings had intensified, and all he could do was lie on his bed and bemoan his fate.

I used to believe I had a right to sleep with other men's wives, he thought, but that my wife could never under any circumstances sleep with anyone else, so I spent all my time lusting after women and taking advantage of every woman I met. I never dreamed that the principle of retribution would work with such amazing speed. While I was down there sleeping with their wives, they were up here sleeping with my wife, but whereas my affair was secret, theirs was carried on in public, and while I took a man's wife and made her my concubine, someone took my wife and turned her into a prostitute. In the light of my experience, adultery is something to be avoided at all costs. I remember Abbot Lone Peak pleading with me three years ago to join the Buddhist order. When I kept refusing, he tried to persuade me by explaining in great detail what the retribution for adultery would be, but I continued to argue that not every adultery would necessarily be punished. I see now that every last one of those debts has to be paid. I doubt that the Lord of Heaven holds a special grudge and reserves all his harshness for me while letting everybody else off lightly!

He continued his self-examination: I also argued that a man's own wife and concubines are limited in number while there is an infinite supply of women in the world, so that if he seduces an infinite number of women and pays for it only with a wife or concubine, he is making a huge profit and certainly not taking a loss. But, by my calculations, I have slept with only five or six women in the course of my entire life, whereas my wife, after taking up this business, has slept with thousands or at least hundreds. Has any debt ever been repaid at a higher rate of interest?

Lone Peak also told me that since his words had failed to convince me, I would have to gain my enlightenment on the carnal prayer mat. I've spent enough time on that mat these past few years and tasted every drop of honey and gall it has to offer. If I am ever to see the light, now is the time! The humiliation I suffered today was more than just the beating and the cursing. Obviously it was Abbot Lone Peak working through others to administer a blow and a shout to force me to repent! [90] Even if I don't repent, I shall never have the face to return home. Far better to beat a retreat and write a candid letter to the Knave asking him to arrange a match for Fragrance and marry her off. The twins can go with her, if she wishes, or else stay with the Knave and be raised by him. I myself will go off on my own to Mount Guacang to look for Abbot Lone Peak and do penance for my sins with a hundred and twenty ringing kowtows. Then I'll beseech him to point out where I have gone astray and guide me back to the path of enlightenment. Capital!

Now that Vesperus had decided what to do, he sat down to write the letter to the Knave, but his hands had been so badly hurt in the beatings that he couldn't write. Only after a month of recuperation was he able to write again. By an odd coincidence, just when he was beginning his letter, a letter arrived from the Knave. On opening it, he learned of a crisis at home that required his immediate return, but he was not told its nature. "The only possibility is that my wife is ill or that something has happened to one of the children," he speculated. When questioned, the messenger at first said nothing; only when pressed did he reveal the truth-that Vesperus's second wife had taken a leaf out of his first wife's book and run off with a lover.

Vesperus asked who the man was. "I don't know," replied the messenger. "In fact, not even her maid knows. All she can say is that she heard the bed creaking every night before the mistress went off, but when she got up in the morning, there was never a trace of anyone there. After a dozen nights like that, she got up one morning to find the doors wide open and the mistress nowhere to be found. The head of the house set off to catch them and at the same time sent me here to urge you to return at once."

Vesperus sighed. This letter is just another blow and shout! Obviously, he thought, adulterous debts must never be incurred, for they need to be paid back a hundredfold. I realize now that my debts cannot be repaid and that, so long as there are any women left in my family, they will have to go on paying my debts off. In the light of this, I ought not to think too kindly even of those two mites of mine. How do I know that they're not potential redeemers themselves? But I can't worry about any of that. I'll wait until I have consulted Lone Peak about the future.

He ground up some ink and wrote a letter of farewell to the Knave:

The elopement of my wanton concubine should come as no surprise, for what is ill gotten will be ill lost. This is a constant principle in life, and the recent events at home are just another illustration of it. I am well aware that the cup of my sins has run full and that I deserve this retribution. However, the day evil influences are exorcised is the same day that the spirit of penitence emerges. Instead of returning East of the River, I shall go home to the Pure Land of the West. [91] My sole regret is that the womb of disaster has not been destroyed, but that I continue to clasp these twin nemeses to my breast. Let me trouble my old friend to extend their lives for the moment. When I have seen the buddha, I shall borrow the sword of wisdom and dispatch them. In haste.

He sent off the letter and packed his bags for departure. He had intended to take Satchel with him, to serve him as a novice. But on reflection, he feared that having a catamite with him might only stimulate his lust again. Better not risk distraction by setting eyes on any object of desire. In the end he sent him back with the messenger and started off alone, an action that is summed up in the proverb "A man bitten by a snake will be frightened of an old rope for years thereafter."