My uncle-by-marriage, Chen Yongzhai, had topped the empire in the jichou year and was on leave returning south. He reached Tianshui Post; beside the road was a small village, green trees in thick shade, wild crabapple in bloom — and he delighted in it, and walked on alone, forgetting the distance.
At the village’s end he saw a bamboo fence half-framed, with a double black gate to the left, and a girl leaning by the gate, twisting wind-blown catkins in her palm, giggling foolishly. Chen eyed her, soul flown; he struck up talk. The girl neither angered nor answered, only called: “Mother, come.” Presently a hunchbacked old woman came and asked what the girl was doing. The girl said: “Don’t know where a boor came from — so tiresome!” Chen, abashed, falsely said he had come for water. The woman said: “A bowl can’t seat a guest. Xiaohui, bring a cup of cool water!” The girl cried and went in.
Chen said: “How old is your daughter?” The woman said: “I only know she was born in the year of the tiger; who knows her age now!” He asked: “Who is the son-in-law?” She said: “I am crippled; only this one daughter; I keep her by my knee and do not wish to send her to serve another.” Chen said: “A girl has a home; the knee is not a long plan.” As the girl brought the water she heard and cried to the woman: “This guest means no good; do not talk more!” The woman laughed: “Listen if you will; it is indeed up to me; why should the maiden be so fussy?”
Chen then boasted of being top graduate to move her. The woman pondered: “What is a top graduate?” Chen said: “Study makes you a 进士, your name tops the golden list, you enter the Hanlin, hold the edicts, adorn the realm with writing — first man under heaven; that is a top graduate.” The woman said: “Don’t know — the first man; how often does one appear?” Chen said: “Every three years.”
The girl, from the side, smiled: “I thought a top graduate was the first man through a thousand ages; turns out only one every three years! This kind of fellow, also babbling to people — a great oddity!” The woman chided: “Little demon-girl, frivolous mouth, always picks at people’s faults.” The girl said: “What’s it to me? The fool brings it on himself!” She laughed and left.
Chen, at a loss, then said to the woman: “If you do not disdain, I leave a modest bride-price.” He took two bars of fine gold from his pouch. The woman rubbed it: “Smells not fragrant, holds icy — what is it?” Chen said: “This is called gold. You get it, cold can be clothes, hunger can be food, truly a world treasure!” The woman said: “My family has a hundred mulberries and half an acre of field; not worried about cold or hunger. This thing has no use here; keep it for the top graduate to spend.” She threw it to the ground: “Pity the madman — not a trace of elegance, only bullying with wealth and power!” Finished, she closed the gate and went in. Chen stood dumb, sighed, and returned.
The Duo comment: Gold in a yellow mouth, a black-gauze cap of power. How many men, ancient and modern, have had their proud bones worn away by this — yet in the inner chambers there is such a humorous person! Beneath the pomegranate skirt, one should kowtow three thousand times.
