Читать книгу Tales of a Chinese Grandmother - Frances Carpenter - Страница 14

III

THE SISTERS IN THE SUN

AS GRANDMOTHER LING finished the story of Pan Ku she called for her water pipe. Her maid, Huang Ying, fetched the pipe and set it down on a low stool beside the Old Mistress. She lighted the tobacco in its little bowl. The Old Old One drew in her breath. She liked the taste of the tobacco smoke that passed through the water in the body of the pipe on its way to her mouth.

"Who lives in the sun, Lao Lao?" Ah Shung asked his grandmother as she puffed away at her pipe.

"No one knows but the gods in the sky, Little Bear," the old woman replied. "Some say it is a golden raven, and that that is why our sign for the sun is that bird inside a circle. But the sun is not like the moon, my children. We can sometimes see the people who live in the moon. You yourself have seen the Moon Rabbit and the toad on the moon's face. And I have often thought I could see the Moon Lady, Heng O. But who can look at the sun? Ai, there is a tale about that. Would you like to hear it?" Grandmother Ling looked about the circle. Everyone was listening to her with the greatest of interest.

"Ah, Excellent One of Great Age and Wisdom," her oldest son said, "brighten our dark minds with the light of your learning. Tell us more."

"Well then, my old nurse used to say that in ancient days a young man lived in the sun, while his two younger sisters dwelt in the moon. The two maidens were beautiful, more beautiful even than the fairest blooms in our garden. Slender as the bamboo they were, and as graceful as willow branches swayed by the breeze. Their faces were shaped like the oval seed of a melon, and the black of their eyes was circled with white as pure as new snow. Their eyebrows were like the clear outline of some distant mountain, and their feet were as small as the buds of the lily.

"These two sisters were clever with the embroidery needle. With their thin pointed fingers they stitched the flowers and the dragons, the birds and the butterflies, that adorned their silk robes. They covered each of their tiny shoes with twenty thousand fine stitches. All night they could be seen in their palace garden, stitching away by the light of the moon.

All night the two sisters could be seen in their palace garden, stitching away by the light of the moon

"The fame of the beauty of the sisters in the moon spread over the land. Each clear night people gathered in their gardens and climbed the high mountains to gaze up at the moon for a sight of their loveliness. From their palace in the sky the moon sisters could see clearly what went on upon the earth so far down below them.

"Now these sisters knew well the rules for maidenly conduct. Like all Chinese girls they had been taught that it was not fitting that men should gaze upon them. Each night, as more and more people stared up at the moon, they became more and more unhappy.

"'We cannot stay here, my sister,' said one of the moon maidens at last.

"'I have thought of a plan,' said the other as she embroidered the tail of a dragon on the front of her new robe. 'We shall go away from here. We shall change homes with our brother. He shall live here in the moon and we shall take his place in the sun.'

"The moon maidens put on their handsomest red robes and went to seek help from their brother in the sun.

"'O Venerable Brother,' they said when they came to his shining palace, 'we are in great trouble and only you can help us. Each night, down on earth, people gaze up at the moon and their eyes fall upon us. That should not be. We are very unhappy.'

"The brother who lived in the sun was as distressed as his sisters, but he laughed when they told him they wished to live in the sun.

"'Silly creatures,' he scoffed, 'in the daytime when the sun shines in the sky there are a hundred times more people abroad than there are in the night, when the moon can be seen. You will have more eyes than ever upon you if you change places with me.'

"'Ai-yah, Honorable Brother,' they cried, 'if you will but change with us, indeed all will be well. Into our unworthy minds the gods have sent a plan which we are sure will succeed.'

"The maidens wept. The brother was fond of his sisters and at last he agreed to change places with them. He left his palace in the sun and took up his abode in the moon. Joyfully the sisters gathered together their beautiful robes and their other belongings. They did not forget to pack in a shining red chest their embroidery silks and their seventy needles. In less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea they were comfortably settled in the sun palace.

"Down on the earth when men could no longer see the sisters in the moon, they wondered. 'The moon princesses have disappeared!' they exclaimed. 'A man sits there in their place. Where can they have gone?' Then somehow or other the word went around that the beautiful maidens now lived in the sun.

"But the sisters' plan worked. They were safe at last from the eyes of the people on earth. For as soon as anyone turned his gaze full on the sun he felt tiny pricking pains in his eyes. Some said that it was only the strong rays of the sun. But my nurse always declared that it was the seventy embroidery needles of the two beautiful sisters, who pricked the eyes of any person who was so bold as to stare at them."

Ah Shung and Yu Lang looked at each other. Only that day they had dared each other to gaze straight at the sun. They had found out for themselves what the pricking of the sun sisters' needles felt like in their eyes.

"Ai, the sun is our friend," Grandmother Ling told her grandchildren between her puffs at her bubbling water pipe. "I remember one time when the Heavenly Dog almost ate the sun up. How frightened we were! I was about the age of Yu Lang when it happened, but I can still see it all with the mirror of my mind."

The old woman was remembering a day when the moon passed between the sun and the earth and for a few minutes shut off its light. We should call that an eclipse, but the Chinese believed that the sky dog which lived upon a certain star was trying to swallow the sun.

"The Son of Heaven, our Emperor, sent forth a warning from his dragon throne," said the Old Old One. "From the soothsayers he had learned that the sun was to be eaten, and he told us what to do. Well I remember the day. All the servants inside our walls, and indeed in all the courts of the city, brought forth drums and brass cymbals, rattles and pans. We kept watch, and as soon as the sun began to disappear down the throat of the wicked dog of the sky they beat on the drums. They whirled the rattles and they knocked on the pans. They clashed the brass cymbals together. What a noise they did make! I grew frightened and cried and hid behind my old nurse. Ai-yah, the sky dog almost succeeded in swallowing the sun that time. It grew very dark, and only a rim of light showed in the heavens. The servants beat the drums harder. The cymbals clashed louder. At last the sky dog took fright. He coughed up the sun, which shone bright again in its place overhead in the sky."