Читать книгу Tales of a Chinese Grandmother - Frances Carpenter - Страница 16

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THE GOD THAT LIVED IN THE KITCHEN

LITTLE PIG!"

"Greedy ox!"

The angry voices of the children rang loud across the courtyard. They did not often quarrel, and their cross tones sounded strange inside the peaceful gray walls that shut in the Ling homestead.

Old Wang Lai, their nurse, came hurrying out of their low house to see what the matter could be. At the same moment Huang Ying opened the door of the Old Old One's apartment.

"Old Mistress says Ah Shung and Yu Lang must come into her room," Huang Ying called out. The boy and the girl stopped their quarrel at once. As they crossed the veranda and entered their grandmother's room they looked sullenly at each other as if to say, "It was your fault."

"Sit down on that stool, Ah Shung, and you sit there, Yu Lang," the old woman said sternly as she laid her embroidery down on the bed where she was sitting. The day was cold, and she found its heated bricks the most comfortable seat.

"Now tell me what caused you to throw stones of unkindness into our calm stream of happiness?" she commanded, fixing her sharp black eyes upon the children.

"Ah Shung wanted my candied apricot, Lao Lao," Yu Lang began, hanging her head.

"She had more than she could eat, O Honorable Grandmother," Ah Shung said, shifting about on his stool.

"He pulled my hair," the little girl sobbed, and she held out the red cord with which her braid had been wound.

"She pulled my queue too," the boy said uneasily.

"Naughty children! You act like the dogs that slink through the streets and snarl at each other. Four horses cannot bring back cross words once they are spoken. Have you forgotten the God that lives in the Kitchen? This very night he flies up to heaven to make his report to the Emperor there. What tales he will tell about your behavior!"

The children looked frightened. They had indeed forgotten the Kitchen God whose picture hung in a nook up over the brick stove upon which the family cooking was done. They knew well that he watched everything that went on inside the red gate, in order to report to the Emperor of the Gods when he made his annual visit to heaven at this time of the Small New Year.

"I will tell you the story of the God of the Kitchen once more," said old Grandmother Ling. "Then perhaps you will not forget so quickly again. It was long, long ago that there lived in our land a very old man whose name was Chang Kung. Inside his family walls there dwelt his sons and his grandsons, his great-grandsons and their great-great-grandsons. So many people were there and so many houses that it was like a small city.

"But even with the hundreds of people living there together, all was quiet and peaceful. Never a quarrel was known. Never were there heard in the Chang courts cross voices such as those which we heard here today. Everyone was contented. The one hundred dogs that lived inside the Chang walls never ceased wagging their tails. Indeed, it is said that these dogs were so kind to each other that they would wait to begin eating if one of them was late for his dinner.

"The fame of this household spread as far and as wide over the land as the breezes blow in the springtime. And at last it reached the ears of the Emperor himself upon his Dragon Throne.

"Now it so happened that the Emperor was about to make his yearly journey to the great Eastern Mountain in order to send his prayers up to heaven from its high peak. So, having heard of Chang Kung, he decided to visit his remarkable household upon his way back.

"What a sight that must have been! The procession began with the Emperor's guards. Tall men they were, the tallest in all the land and also the bravest. In their costumes of blue and red, with their long bows and arrows, they looked fine indeed. Then came the mandarins, important men who belonged to the Emperor's court, with their gowns embroidered with golden birds and beasts, and with blue and green peacock feathers in their round hats. In the army of attendants that marched with the Emperor there were men to carry the huge red umbrellas, men to play music, and even cooks to prepare feasts for the imperial stomach.

"The Emperor came last, riding in a sedan chair whose curtains and sides of bright yellow silk were embroidered with dragons. The sturdy men who carried his imperial chair on their shoulders were clad in suits of red cloth. Never before had such visitors entered the gates of the Changs.

"The aged Chang Kung met his imperial guest upon his knees. He kowtowed before him and greeted him with polite words of welcome.

"'Very Excellent and Very Aged Sir,' said the Emperor, 'it is said that inside your walls no cross word has ever been spoken. Can that be true?'

"'Lord of Ten Thousand Years,' Chang Kung replied humbly, 'you do my poor house far too much honor. It is true that the unworthy members of my family do not quarrel. Soft words please the gods, and we are content here. It would bring blessings upon our roofs, Shining One, if you would consent to walk through our courts and judge for yourself!'

"So the Emperor made his way through the gates that led from one court into the other. He looked into the houses and questioned the people. He found that they lived together like those lovebirds to each of which the gods gave only one eye and only one wing so that they might fly in pairs, breast to breast, helping each other.

"In the great Chang Hall of Politeness the Emperor was served with food and drink to refresh him. As he sipped the pale tea from cups as thin as fine paper, he said to his host, 'Excellent One of Great Age, my messengers spoke truly. I find no ripple of discontent upon your sea of happiness. Even the dogs here are polite to one another. You must have discovered some golden secret in order to keep so many people living together in such order and peace. I should like to know that secret myself."

"Old Chang Kung called to his servants to bring forth the four precious gems of the library. They set forth on a table a tablet of smooth split bamboo, for in those days people did not know about paper, my children. Beside it they laid out the rabbit-hair brush, the ink stick and the ink stone with its small well of water. Chang Kung wet the black ink stick and rubbed its soft end on the flat stone. He dipped his brush into the ink paste. With delicate strokes he began to brush words on the tablet. One hundred words he wrote. Then with a low bow he placed the tablet in the hands of the curious Emperor.

"'You have written many words, but at the same time you have written only one word,' the Emperor exclaimed in surprise.

"'Ai, but that one word is the golden secret, O Son of Heaven,' Chang Kung said, slowly nodding his gray head up and down.

"What was the one word, Lao Lao?" Ah Shung asked as his grandmother paused.

"The word he had written one hundred times, my children, was 'kindness.'

"The Emperor was so pleased that he himself took up the brush and wrote. Upon a large tablet he set down his joy in finding such a household as that of Chang Kung's. He gave permission to have his words pasted upon the great gate, where everyone who came in or who went out might see them.

"You may be sure that the fame of Chang Kung grew even greater. People asked for his picture so that peace and happiness might rule in their homes as in his. It would be well, my naughty ones, if you should go to our kitchen. Get down on your knees. Make your kowtows toward the picture of Chang Kung up over the stove. Beg him to forget the cross words you have spoken."

The two children went with their nurse, old Wang Lai, to do as their grandmother bade them. The picture of the Kitchen God in his nook over the stove was smeared with smoke from the cooking fires. But the boy and girl looked up with respect at the old man in his red-and-blue robes. In this picture several children with smiling faces were shown gathered about him.

Ah Shung and Yu Lang always enjoyed the evening of the twenty-third of the Twelfth Moon when the Kitchen God flew away to spend seven days in the Heavenly Kingdom. The Old Old One herself entered the kitchen as evening came on. She set out with her own hands the steamed cakes and the wine and the other things that were to honor the messenger of heaven. Lao Lao's oldest son took the picture of the Kitchen God from its tiny palace over the stove. Then Grandmother Ling smeared the mouth of the picture with a sweet, sticky sirup.

"He will lick his lips," she said to the children. "He will taste the sweet sirup and surely he will remember only good things about us when he makes his report to the Emperor of the Sky."

A little sedan chair made of bamboo and paper was waiting to receive the picture of the Kitchen God. The whole Ling family followed as this was carried into the Courtyard of Politeness, where honored guests were received. There a bonfire had been made, and it crackled as the flames licked the edges of the dry straw.

Everyone bowed low as the picture of the Kitchen God in its paper chair was put on the center of the fire. As the gray smoke floated upward on the frosty air, the Lings were sure that the Kitchen God was mounting to the sky. They burned a paper horse for him to ride upon, and they poured cups of tea and wine on the ashes so that he should not be thirsty during his journey.

Ah Shung and his boy cousins were allowed to set off the red firecrackers which so please the gods. With glowing sticks of incense they lighted one after another. The popping filled the children with delight, for to them the sound of firecrackers always meant fun and feasting. For the Lings every important holiday began with the noise of bursting firecrackers. They believed that good spirits loved their din, but that bad spirits were frightened. Thus, the more firecrackers you set off, the safer you were.

In Grandmother Ling's apartment that evening the family feasted on the steamed cakes which had been made in honor of the Kitchen God's going away. Candied fruit and melon seeds were passed round, and the room was filled with chatter and laughter. The Old Old One seemed to have quite forgotten the unseemly behavior of Ah Shung and Yu Lang. As the children munched their sugared fruit they hoped very much that the Kitchen God, too, had forgotten their fault.