Li Yu - The Carnal Prayer Mat

"Well, then, let me ask you this: do you prefer your women plump or slender?"

"A plump figure has its attractions, just as a slender one does. But a woman must not be so plump as to fill out her clothes or so slender as to look bony. So long as she is plump or slender within a suitable range, she'll appeal to me."

"In that case you'll find all three to your liking. Now let me ask you this: in matters of sex, do you prefer them passionate or prudish?"

"Why, passionate, of course. It's no fun having a prudish woman in bed with you. It's simpler sleeping on your own. I've always been dead scared of prudes."

The Knave shook his head. "In that case, none of these will be right for you."

"Tell me, brother, how do you know they're prudish?"

"As it happens, they all belong to the same school-supremely beautiful but lacking experience in lovemaking."

"But that's no obstacle! So long as the basic quality is there, passionate behavior can always be instilled. To be quite frank with you, my own wife was a prude at first, utterly ignorant about lovemaking she was; but it took me only a few days to educate her out of it. Now, believe it or not, she's almost too passionate. So long as these women really are beautiful, I have my own ways of changing them should they be a little on the prudish side."

"Well, that takes care of that. There's just one other question I have for you: do you need to take possession as soon as you meet, or are you willing to hold off for a few months while waiting for her to come to hand?"

"Frankly, brother, my desires are always at fever pitch. If I have to go a few nights without a woman, I'll have a wet dream. In all the time I've been away from home, I've not visited a brothel once, and by now I'm simply frantic. If I fail to meet a beautiful girl, I daresay I'll be able to scrape by, but if I do find one, and we have some feeling for each other, I don't think I could contain myself any longer."

"In that case let's confine ourselves to this one and ignore the other two. They belong to a rich and distinguished family and would be difficult to obtain at short notice. This one is the wife of a poor man and should be easy to get. I don't frequent poor people's houses, but the promise I made to you has been very much on my mind, and I've made a point of looking closely at every woman I saw, by day or night.

"One day I was walking along the street when I noticed this woman sitting in her doorway behind a bamboo curtain. Although I saw her only through the curtain and did not get a clear view, I was struck by the pink and white glow of her complexion, like some priceless pearl radiating light. When I looked again, this time at how graceful her figure was, she seemed like a great beauty's portrait hanging there inside the curtain and gently swaying in the breeze. The sight held me rooted to the spot, unable to walk on. I stood there opposite her house for a while and then noticed a man coming out, a coarse-looking character in shabby clothes who was taking a roll of silk to market. I went and asked the neighbors about them and learned that the man's surname was Quan, that due to his reputation for honesty he was known as Honest Quan, and that the woman was his wife. I was worried about not getting a close enough view of her through the curtain, so I went by a few days later, and there she was again, sitting in her doorway. Before she had time to do anything, I whipped the curtain aside, burst in, and told her that I had come to buy silk from her husband.

"'My husband is away,' she replied. 'But if it's silk you want, we have plenty of it. Let me get some out for you to look at.' But despite what she said, she made no move to get the silk. I talked her into getting some, just to see what her hands and feet were like. Her fingers were like lotus shoots, as delicate and tapering as you could possibly imagine. Her feet were less than three inches long, and she was not wearing high heels either, so there was no artifice involved. I had now seen her hands and feet, but not the rest of her, and I had no idea whether her skin was light or dark in tone, and so I came up with another ploy. Spying another roll of silk on the top of the case, I said, 'None of this is good enough. Could you get me down that roll from on top? I'd like to take a look at it.'

"She nodded, and raised her arms over her head to get it down. It was a hot day, you understand, and she was wearing nothing but an unlined silk dress. As she raised her arms, her loose sleeves fell all the way back to her shoulders, so that not only were her arms exposed, her breasts were faintly visible too. They were truly as white as snow, as smooth as a mirror, as fine as powder. No doubt about it, she belongs in the top group of all the women I have ever seen. I was embarrassed to be giving her so much trouble and felt obliged to buy a roll of silk. But before I go any further, let me ask you this, brother: do you like this woman and would you want her?"

"She sounds like perfection itself. Of course I do! But how can I see her and then, once I've seen her, how can I get her?"

"There's no problem there. It'll cost a little money, that's all. I'll go and get a few ingots now, and then we'll set off for her place and wait until her husband leaves home. We'll proceed as I did before, bursting in and asking for silk. You'll be able to tell at a glance whether she appeals to you. The only question is whether you like her, for I've no doubt that she'll like you. After facing that coarse-looking husband of hers day after day-honest he may be, but he has absolutely no appeal-she's bound to be aroused by the very sight of you. Give her the impression you're making advances and, if she doesn't take immediate offense, we'll come back and think how to proceed. I guarantee that within three days she'll be yours. Afterward, if you want to arrange a marriage, I'll see to that too."

"I'd be grateful to all eternity. But there is one thing that puzzles me. Since you possess such marvelous ingenuity and supernatural power, I should have thought there'd be nothing in the world you couldn't do. How is it that you can get me this one and not the other two? Is it really because a poor man is easy to take advantage of but you don't dare provoke the rich and mighty?"

In every other matter that's the case; the poor man is easier to take advantage of and the rich man more dangerous to provoke. But with adultery the opposite holds true."

"Why is that?" asked Vesperus.

"A rich man is sure to have several wives and concubines, and while he is sleeping with one of them, the others will be left on their own. As the old saying goes, 'Once you're well fed and clothed, your thoughts turn to sex.' Those women, being well fed and well dressed, have nothing else to think about but sex. When a woman like that is feeling frustrated and a man slips into her bed-a man, the very thing she has been longing for! — she is hardly going to push him out again. Even if her husband catches them in the act, although he may feel like seizing them and dragging them off to court, still, as a rich and distinguished man he will fear the resultant loss of face. Alternatively, although he may feel like killing them both on the spot, he won't want to give up such a beautiful girl, and if he can't bear to sacrifice her, how can he justify killing her lover? So he will usually suppress his anger and say nothing, playing deaf and dumb so as to give the lover a chance to escape.

"The poor man, on the other hand, has only one wife who sleeps in his arms every night. Forget that she is so preoccupied with worrying about hunger and cold that she would never have any lustful thoughts anyway. Even if she did, and tried to arrange a meeting with her lover, there'd be no place for them to have sex. If by some chance they did manage a furtive embrace and were caught in the act, her husband, as a poor man, wouldn't care about loss of face and would show them no mercy whatever. He'd either seize them and drag them off to court or else kill them both on the spot. That's why it's dangerous to provoke a poor man but easy to take advantage of a rich one."