Li Yu - The Carnal Prayer Mat

"But you have a wife! How can you be over all the time? I'll be quite satisfied so long as you're not as heartless as you were before."

"I don't know what scandalmonger has been filling your ears with gossip and leaving me without a chance to defend myself. You're still saying I'm heartless. If I knew who it was that told you, I'd go and have it out with him!"

"To tell you the truth," said Cloud, "it was those three women."

"This is getting stranger and stranger! They should have been offended to hear such a nasty remark! How can they be so shameless as to repeat it?"

"To be frank with you, it all began with my telling them. We belong to the same family, and I call the two younger ones sister and the older one aunt. We are all on good terms, and the two sisters and I are particularly close, as close as real sisters, and keep no secrets from each other. Well, that day after I got back from the temple I told them how handsome you were, how you kept stealing glances at me, and how I fell in love with you and left you my fan. They said, 'Since he's so much in love with you and knows you fancy him, he's bound to come looking for you. How are you going to send him away?' I, too, fully expected you to come looking for me, and I waited at the gate for ten days without a sign of you.

"Then, on their return from the temple, they came to visit me and asked, 'What did he look like, that man you saw the other day? What was he wearing?' I gave them a detailed description. 'In that case,' they said, 'we've just met the man you love.' Then they asked, When he fell for you, did he kowtow, by any chance?' I replied, He had to keep his feelings hidden, of course. How could he possibly kowtow in front of all those people?' They said nothing, just looked at each other and smiled in a smug, secretive sort of way. That aroused my suspicions, and I questioned them closely until they told me in great detail, smiling all the while, how you had kowtowed to them.

"There was something awfully superior about their attitude that upset me for days. This is how my thoughts went: 'He was meeting them for the first time too. Why was he so afraid of scandal when he saw me that he didn't even bow once, whereas with them he went wild and kowtowed quite brazenly? Obviously my looks don't compare with theirs and, equally obviously, my luck doesn't equal theirs either.' If you were going to seek anyone out, you'd seek out the ones you'd kowtowed to. You wouldn't come looking for me!

"So I cut my love for you out of my heart and never went back to the gate. But I was constantly on the lookout to see if you came searching for them. Normally we are the closest of sisters, but because of this incident I began to resent them, and that was why, when we met today and you said you had waited six months before paying any attention to me, I couldn't help suspecting them. Only when you swore all those terrible oaths did I realize that nothing of the kind had occurred. This whole comedy was kowtowed into existence by you. Tell me: do you think you were right to do it?"

"With this injustice on your mind," said Vesperus, "no wonder you flared up. But since they're your sisters, they must be my sisters-in-law, and you ought to let me see them. All I have in mind is to address them as sisters-in-law and let them know that you and I are lovers. They put you down with their story about my kowtowing, so let me return the favor by putting them down, not just with these kowtows but with our lovemaking as well. How does that appeal to you?"

"There's no need for that. We're not only sisters, we've also sworn to share each other's fortunes, for better or for worse. If they had deceived me about this, they would be at fault. But since they didn't break their vow, if I now break mine and keep you for my own enjoyment, I will be the one at fault, and I couldn't bear that. When I see them, I shall have to explain things and impress on them that they mustn't forget the fish trap once they've caught the fish and try to one-up me or make me jealous. After that I'll bring you out and introduce you, to let them know that this marvelous creature is here for everyone's appreciation. That's what is meant by the saying, 'The treasures of the world ought to be shared with the people of the world.'

"There is just one thing. I want to impress on you that once you have those women, you're not to go changing your feelings for me. You must go on being just as loving to me as you were tonight. You must swear me another oath that you'll never switch."

Jubilant, Vesperus somersaulted off the bed and addressed an even more terrible oath to Heaven and Earth, then climbed back in and began making love all over again. It was as if the two wedding receptions had been rolled into one and both the matchmaker and the in-laws invited. Don't you suppose the matchmaker got drunk and the ladies ate their fill? After the lovers had finished, they slept entwined in each other's arms until dawn, when Cloud sent Vesperus home over his wooden bridge. From then on they met every day and slept together every night, and their love was deeper than that of husband and wife.

We do not yet know when the two sisters will fall into his hands. But enough has been said of Vesperus's infatuation with sex, all the way from Chapter Two onward. Let us now pause for the space of a chapter or so and take up a different subject altogether. Of course after another scene or two of this comedy have been played out, the male lead will reappear on stage.

CRITIQUE

There is nothing in fiction more remarkable than The Carnal Prayer Mat and nothing in The Carnal Prayer Mat more remarkable than this chapter. When you first read of Cloud's outburst, you are upset; you have no idea of its cause and you suspect the author of deliberately piling up difficulties and dangers in order to make the reader nervous. Only when you reach the final part do you realize that the previous section was perfectly reasonable and logical and not in the least contrived.

Before Cloud became Vesperus's lover, she was consumed by a baseless envy and so, after sharing her bed with him, should she not have felt a justifiable jealousy? This is a common characteristic of women and a familiar gambit in fiction. But not only is she not jealous, she even takes pride in playing the celestial matchmaker and bringing three remarkable destinies together.

By this time the reader is so far along the Shanyin road that he would not have time even to accept a summons from the Palace! [66]Just see what triumphs Vesperus is enjoying!

Poem:

As the

Spring and Autumn Annals

stressed revenge, [68]

Let us tell how Honest Quan gave up work after the sale of his wife, partly because he was seething with rage and partly because he could no longer face the public. Instead he spent his days sitting morosely at home, grilling the eleven-year-old maid as to when his wife had begun sleeping with the big fellow and whether anyone else had assisted him.

At first the maid was too afraid of her mistress's spite to tattle, but now that her mistress had been sold and would presumably not be returning, she revealed everything, from the dates when Fragrance and her lover had begun and ended their affair to the fact that the ugly neighbor had come over and slept with the lover too. She also revealed that it was not the big fellow who was the lover, but a handsome young man instead. In fact the big fellow had been assisting the young man, rather than the other way around.