I
It was the hottest it had been for years. On every hand the roof tiles
of the stone-floored houses reflected the sunlight dully like lead, and
it seemed that, if this kept up, the little swallows and eggs in the
nests under them must be steamed to death. In addition, in every field,
the hemp and millet plants all hung their heads limply in the radiation
from the soil, and there was not one, though they were still green,
that did not droop. And the sky above the fields, probably because of
the hot weather, seemed dull, although the sun was shining bright, and
cloud masses floated here and there like bits of rice cake puffed up in
an earthen pan. This story of the wine worm begins with three men out
deliberately on a blistering flailing floor under the burning sun.
Strange to say, one of them not only was lying naked on his back on the
ground, but, for some reason or other, had his hands and his feet bound
up in a long cord. However, he seemed not to be greatly troubled about
it. He was a short and sanguine man, fat as a pig, who somehow gave an
impression of dullness. An unglazed jar of moderate size stood by his
head, but it was impossible to say what was in it.
The second was a man in a yellow robe with little rings of bronze in
his ears, who at a glance was recognizable as an eccentric Buddhist
priest. From his exceptionally dark skin and his frizzled hair and
beard, he seemed certainly to be from west of T’sung-ling. He had for
some time been moving a whip of long white hairs with a red handle
patiently back and forth to drive away the horse-flies and common
house-flies that swarmed about the naked man, but now seeming naturally
to have grown a little tired, he had come to the unglazed jar and was
squatting solemnly beside it like a turkey cock.
The remaining man was standing under the eaves of a thatched house in a
corner of the flailing floor far from the other two. He had on the tip
of his chin a mere excuse for a beard like a rat’s tail and was dressed
in a long black gown reaching to the ground, tied with an untidily
knotted brown sash. Since he now and then fanned himself importantly
with a fan of white feathers, he was, of course, a Confucian scholar or
something of the kind.
All three held their tongues as if by agreement. Moreover they did not
even move freely, and it seemed as if, deeply interested in something
that was about to happen, they were all holding their breath.
It seemed to be just noon. Not a dog’s bark was to be heard, doubtless
because the dogs were all taking their midday naps. The hemp and millet
plants around the flailing floor stood still and motionless, with their
green leaves shining in the sunlight. In all the sky beyond them, a
sultry mist floated stiflingly hot, and it seemed that even the cloud
masses were gasping for breath in this drought. As far as eye could
see, the only things that seemed to be alive were these three men. And
they kept silent like the clay figures in the shrines of Kwanti.
Of course this is not a Japanese story. It is an account of what
happened one summer’s day on the flailing floor of a man named Liu at
Changshan in China.