Five-Paragraph Writing (1250 words)

Pu, Songling. "A Disembodied Friend." 1766. Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Volumes I and II). By Pu Songling. Translated by Herbert Giles. London, Thos. De La. Rue & Company, 1880. Link to Project Gutenberg. Accessed 11 February 2019.

“A Disembodied Friend” (1766)1

Pu Songling

Mr. Chen, M.A., of Shuntian, when a boy of sixteen, went to school at a Buddhist temple. There were a great many scholars besides himself, and, among others, one named Chu, who said he came from Shandong. This Chu was a very hard-working fellow; he never seemed to be idle, and actually slept in the school- room, not going home at all. Chen became much attached to him, and one day asked him why he never went away. “Well, you see,” replied Chu, “my people are very poor, and can hardly afford to pay for my schooling; but, by dint of working half the night, two of my days are equal to three of anybody else’s.” Thereupon Chen said he would bring his own bed to the school, and that they would sleep there together; to which Chu replied that the teaching they got wasn’t worth much, and that they would do better by putting themselves under a certain old scholar named Lü. This they were easily able to do, as the arrangement at the temple was monthly, and at the end of each month anyone was free to go or to come. So off they went to this Mr. Lü, a man of considerable literary attainments, who had found himself in Shuntian without a cash in his pocket, and was accordingly obliged to take pupils. He was delighted at getting two additions to his number and, Chu showing himself an apt scholar [“so teacher Lü regarded him more highly. Chen and Chu formed an intimate friendship, sharing the same study table by day, and the

1 A more accurate translation of the title is probably Sidney L. Sondergard’s “A Scholar Chu.” I have modernized Giles’s spelling of Chinese names and places and cut his footnotes. In the brackets, I have substituted more recent and more direct translations of some of the story’s language. I note the source in these instances.

same bed by night” (Sondergard 1519).] At the end of the month Chu asked for leave of absence, and, to the astonishment of all, ten days elapsed without anything being heard of him. It then chanced that Chen went to the [“Heavenly Tranquility monastery” (Sondergard 1519), and there he saw Chu under one of the verandahs, occupied in cutting wood for lucifer-matches [a kind of torch]. The latter was much disconcerted by the arrival of Chen, who asked him why he had given up his studies; so the latter took him aside, and explained that he was so poor as to be obliged to work half a month to scrape together funds enough for his next month’s schooling. “You come along back with me,” cried Chen, on hearing this, “I will arrange for the payment,” which Chu immediately consented to do on condition that Chen would keep the whole thing a profound secret. Now Chen’s father was a wealthy tradesman, and from his till Chen abstracted money wherewith to pay for Chu; and by-and-by, when his father found him out, he confessed why he had done so. Thereupon Chen’s father called him a fool, and would not let him resume his studies; at which Chu was much hurt, and would have left the school too, but that old Mr. Lü discovered what had taken place, and gave him the money to return to Chen’s father, keeping him still at the school, and treating him quite like his own son. So Chen studied no more, but whenever he met Chu he always asked him to join in some refreshment at a restaurant, Chu invariably refusing, but yielding at length to his entreaties, being himself loth to break off their old acquaintanceship.

Thus two years passed away, when Chen’s father died, and Chen went back to his books under the guidance of old Mr. Lü, who was very glad to see such determination. Of course Chen was now far behind Chu; and in about six months Lü’s son arrived, having begged his way in search of his father, so Mr. Lü gave up his school and returned home with a purse which his pupils had made up for him, Chu adding nothing thereto but his tears. At parting, Mr. Lü advised Chen to take Chu as his tutor,

and this he did, establishing him comfortably in the house with him. The examination was very shortly to commence, and Chen felt convinced that he should not get through; but Chu said he thought he should be able to manage the matter for him. On the appointed day he introduced Chen to a gentleman who he said was a cousin of his, named Liu, and asked Chen to accompany this cousin, which Chen was just proceeding to do when Chu pulled him back from behind, and he would have fallen down but that the cousin pulled him up again, and then, after having scrutinized his appearance, carried him off to his own house. There being no ladies there, Chen was put into the inner apartments; and a few days afterwards Liu said to him, “A great many people will be at the gardens to-day; let us go and amuse ourselves awhile, and afterwards I will send you home again.” He then gave orders that a servant should proceed on ahead with tea and wine, and by-and-by they themselves went, and were soon in the thick of the fête. Crossing over a bridge, they saw beneath an old willow tree a little painted skiff, and were soon on board, engaged in freely passing round the wine. However, finding this a little dull, Liu bade his servant go and see if Miss Li, the famous singing-girl, was at home; and in a few minutes the servant returned bringing Miss Li with him. Chen had met her before, and so they at once exchanged greetings, while Liu begged her to be good enough to favour them with a song. Miss Li, who seemed labouring under a fit of melancholy, forthwith began a funeral dirge; at which Chen was not much pleased, and observed that such a theme was hardly suitable to the occasion. With a forced smile, Miss Li changed her key, and gave them a love-song; whereupon Chen seized her hand, and said, “There’s that song of the Huang He river, which you sang once before; I have read it over several times, but have quite forgotten the words.” Then Miss Li began—

“Eyes overflowing with tears, she sits gazing into her glass,

Lifting the bamboo screen, one of her comrades approaches;

She bends her head and seems intent on her bow-like slippers,

And forces her eyebrows to arch themselves into a smile.

With her scarlet sleeve she wipes the tears from her perfumed cheek,

In fear and trembling lest they should guess the thoughts that o’erwhelm her.”

Chen repeated this over several times, until at length the skiff stopped, and they passed through a long verandah, where a great many verses had been inscribed on the walls, to which Chen at once proceeded to add a stanza of his own [which were the lines from the song]. Evening was now coming on, and Liu remarked that the candidates would be just about leaving the examination-hall; so he escorted him back to his own home, and there left him. The room was dark, and there was no one with him; but by-and-by the servants ushered in some one whom at first he took to be Chu. However, he soon saw that it was not Chu, and in another moment the stranger had fallen against him and knocked him down. “Master’s fainted!” cried the servants, as they ran to pick him up; and then Chen discovered that the one who had fallen down was really no other than himself. On getting up, he saw Chu standing by his side; and when they had sent away the servants the latter said, “Don’t be alarmed: I am nothing more than a disembodied spirit [“a ghost. I was reincarnated a long while ago, but I’m procrastinating like this because I couldn’t forget our great friendship, and in order to repay you, I took your body to write your examination” (Sondergard 1522)] The three bouts are over, and your ambition will be gratified.” Chen then inquired if Chu could assist him in like manner for his [metropolitan examination]; to which the latter replied, “Alas! the luck descending to you from your ancestors is not equal to that. They were a niggardly lot, and unfit for the posthumous honours you would thus confer on

them.” Chen next asked him whither he was going; and Chu replied that he hoped, through the agency of his cousin, who was a clerk in Purgatory, to be born again in old Mr. Lü’s family. They then bade each other adieu; and, when morning came, Chen set off to call on Miss Li, the singing-girl; but on reaching her house he found that she had been dead some days. He walked on to the gardens, and there he saw [“that the lines he had inscribed were still there, but the ink was faint and almost illegible, as though the words were about to be effaced entirely. Only at that moment did he realize that inscriber of the lines had actually been a disembodied soul” (that is him!; Zeitlin 9). Towards evening Chu re-appeared in high spirits, saying that he had succeeded in his design, and had come to wish Chen a long farewell. Holding out his open palms, he requested Chen to write the word Chu on each; and then, after refusing to take a parting cup, he went away, telling Chen that the examination-list would soon be out, and that they would meet again before long. Chen brushed away his tears and escorted him to the door, where a man, who had been waiting for him, laid his hand on Chu’s head and pressed it downwards until Chu was perfectly flat. The man then put him in a sack and carried him off on his back. A few days afterwards the list came out, and, to his great joy, Chen found his name among the successful candidates; whereupon he immediately started off to visit his old tutor, Mr. Lü. Now Mr. Lü’s wife had had no children for ten years, being about fifty years of age, when suddenly she gave birth to a son, who was born with both fists doubled up so that no one could open them. On his arrival Chen begged to see the child, and declared that inside its hands would be found written the word Chu. Old Mr. Lü laughed at this; but no sooner had the child set eyes on Chen than both its fists opened spontaneously, and there was the word as Chen had said. The story was soon told, and Chen went home, after making a handsome present to the family; and later on, when Mr. Lü went [to take the imperial exam (Sondergard 1524)] and stayed at

Chen’s house, his son was thirteen years old, and had already matriculated as a candidate for literary honours.

[The collector of these strange tales remarks, "Old Lü taught his students, but didn't teach his own son. Ah! Doing good deeds for another person, and evoking the blessings of heaven for oneself, happen simultaneously! Though Scholar Chu didn't have a mortal body to use to repay his teacher, he employed his spirit to help his friend, with a will so powerful that it crossed from one world to another-and how can we not acknowledge that he was able to accomplish this noble deed precisely because he was a ghost!" (Sondergard 1524)]

References Pu, Songling. “A Scholar Chu.” Strange Tales from Liaozhai, Volume IV. By Pu Songling. Translated by Stephen Sondergard. Jain Publishing Company, 2010.

Zeitlin, Judith T. Historian of the Strange: Pu Songling and the Chinese Classical Tale. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993.