The Wine Wormtranslated from the Japanese

It was a heat such as had not been known for years. Wherever one looked, the roof-tiles of the houses, set hard with mud, threw back the sunlight dully, like lead, and even the swallows' nests hung beneath them seemed, at this rate, likely to steam the chicks and eggs inside them alive where they lay. Still more, every field that was a field, whether hemp or millet, hung its head limply in the reek of the earth, and there was not one thing that, green as it was, was not wilted. The sky seen above those fields, perhaps stricken with the closeness of these past days, though fair, hung thick and turbid in the air near the ground, and here and there mere shapes of towering cloud, like hail parched in a roasting pan, floated in lumps. — The tale of the "wine worm" begins with three men who have gone out of their way into the threshing-yard in the blazing sun in such weather.

Strangely, one of them lay naked, on his back upon the bare ground. What was more, for some reason, his hands and his feet were wound round and round with thin cord. Yet the man himself showed no particular sign of minding it. He was a short man, of good colour, somehow giving a sense of dull heaviness, fat as a pig. Then a handy unglazed jar stood at this man's pillow, but what was inside that, too, was not to be known.

Another was a monk in a yellow robe, with a small bronze ring hung from his ear, of a strangely antique visage at first sight. His skin was dark beyond the common, and, to see the curl of his hair and beard, he seemed a man come from somewhere west of the Congling. For some time he had been patiently waving a red-handled fly-whisk to drive off the horseflies and flies that would fasten upon the naked man, but, grown a little tired at last, as it seemed, he had now come beside that same unglazed jar and squatted there with pompous self-importance, like a turkey.

• west of the Congling: The Congling, the Onion Range, is the mountains west of China. To come from beyond them is to come from Central Asia, far outside China.

The last stood far apart from the other two, under the eaves of a thatched hut in the corner of the threshing-yard. This man grew on the tip of his chin, as a mere token, a beard like a rat's tail, and his get-up was a black-cloth gown long enough to hide his heels, with a tea-brown sash whose knot hung slack. From the careful way he plied from time to time a fan made of white birds' feathers, he was probably a Confucian scholar or something of the sort.

All three alike kept their mouths shut as if by agreement. Nor did they so much as stir, as though they took some uncommon interest in whatever was about to happen, and for that held their breath.

It must have been exactly noon. The dogs too, perhaps sunk in their midday doze, were not heard to bark once. The hemp and millet ringing the threshing-yard shone their green leaves in the sun and stood hushed and perfectly still. And the sky seen beyond them, all stifling heat, trailed a shimmering haze, so that one might have doubted whether even the towering clouds were panting in this drought. Look where one would, nothing seemed to breathe but these three men. And those three kept their silence like the clay images enshrined in the Guandi Temple. . . .

Of course, this is no tale of Japan. — It is what happened one summer on the threshing-yard of the Liu family at a place called Changshan in China.

The man lying naked in the blazing sun was the master of this threshing-yard, surnamed Liu and named Dacheng, one of the leading men of fortune in Changshan. This man's one indulgence was drink, and from morning on he was scarcely ever parted from the cup. And that, "whenever he drank alone, he finished a whole jar," was a capacity beyond ordinary men. Though, as already said, "three hundred mu of fields by the city wall, half planted with millet," so there was not the least fear that drink would burden his estate.

• three hundred mu of fields by the city wall: A mu is a Chinese measure of field area. Three hundred mu means a large landed estate.

"What, Hodoji?" So saying, Liu blinked his small eyes as if dazzled, and then, heaving up his fat body, hot-looking in itself, ordered, "Then show him in here." Then, with a glance at Sun Sensei's face, he added, "It must be that monk, I suppose."

The monk lodging at Hodoji was a barbarian monk come from the Western Regions. As he both practised medicine and administered the arts of the bedchamber, his repute stood high in these parts. For instance, rumours all but miraculous were going round in full force, that Zhang San's black cataract had suddenly taken a turn for the better, that Li Si's byouen had been healed on the spot. — Both men had heard these rumours. With what business could that barbarian monk now have gone out of his way to come to Liu's house? Of course Liu had no recollection at all of having sent to fetch him.

• Li Si's byouen: An obscure ailment of the private parts. The original names it without explaining it.

Let it be said in passing that Liu was not, by nature, a man who delighted in visitors. But when he already had one guest with him, and a new visitor came, he would generally receive him readily enough. He had what might be called a childish vanity, as if to boast before his guest of having guests. Besides, today's barbarian monk was just now talked of wherever one went. By no means a visitor to be ashamed of meeting. — Liu's motive in proposing to meet him lay much in this direction.

"What can his business be?"

"Begging, most likely. He will be asking us to bestow some alms, I suppose."

While the two were talking such matters over, presently there entered, led by the maidservant, as they looked, a strange-formed monk, tall and with eyes like faceted amethyst. He wore a yellow robe, his grown-out curling hair hanging heavily, as if a nuisance, over his shoulders. Fly-whisk with its red handle in hand, he planted himself heavily in the middle of the room. He offered no greeting and said not a word.

Liu hung back for a while, but as the silence grew somehow uneasy, he ventured, "Have you some business with me?"

At which the barbarian monk said, "You are the one, are you not, who is fond of drink."

"Indeed." The question came so abruptly that Liu gave a vague answer, looking toward Sun Sensei as if seeking rescue. Sun Sensei, with a composed face, went on placing stones on the board by himself. He showed no disposition whatever to take part.

"You are afflicted with a rare disease. Are you aware of it?" The barbarian monk said this as if to press the point. Hearing of a disease, Liu wore a dubious look, stroking the bamboo wife as he did so—

"A disease— is it?"

"It is."

"No, ever since I was a child . . ." As Liu was about to say something, the barbarian monk cut him off.

"Drink as you may, you never get drunk, do you?"

" . . ." Liu stared hard at the other's face and shut his mouth. In fact, drink as he might, this man had never been drunk.

"That is the proof of the disease," the barbarian monk went on with a faint smile. "There is a wine worm in your belly. Unless it is removed, this disease will not be cured. This poor monk has come to cure your disease."

"Can it be cured?" Liu let out the words in an uncertain voice before he knew it. And he was ashamed of himself for it.

"It is because it can be cured that I have come."

Then Sun Sensei, who until now had listened in silence to the exchange, suddenly put in a word.

"Will you be using some medicine?"

"No, there will be no need to use anything like medicine," the barbarian monk answered curtly.

Sun Sensei, to begin with, despised the two teachings of Dao and Buddha with scarcely any reason. So even when thrown together with a Daoist priest or a monk, he had very rarely exchanged a word. That he should now suddenly feel moved to speak was wholly because the words "wine worm" had caught his interest; fond of wine himself, on hearing this he had grown a little uneasy lest there be a wine worm in his own belly too. When he heard the barbarian monk's grudging answer, however, he suddenly felt as if he had been made a fool of, so with a slight frown he began once more, in silence as before, to place his stones. And at the same time, inwardly, he thought his host Liu a fool for meeting with so insolent a monk.

For his part, Liu of course paid no mind to any such thing.

"Then will you use needles?"

"What, it is a far simpler matter than that."

"Then is it an incantation?"

"No, nor is it any incantation."

After repeating such exchanges, the barbarian monk briefly explained his cure to them. — According to it, he had only to strip naked and lie still in the sun. To Liu this seemed a very easy thing. If he could be cured by that much, there was nothing better than to be cured. Moreover, without himself knowing it, he was a little moved by curiosity at the point of submitting to the barbarian monk's treatment.

So at last Liu was the first to bow his head, and it came to his saying, "Then let me ask you to cure me." — There is such a history behind Liu's lying naked in the threshing-yard in the blazing sun.

Then, telling him not to move, the barbarian monk wound Liu's body round and round with thin cord. Then he bade one of the servants bring an unglazed jar filled with wine to Liu's pillow. That Sun Sensei, good friend of the wine mound, should in the course of things have come to stand witness to this strange cure goes without saying.

What sort of thing a wine worm is, what becomes of a man when it is no longer in his belly, what the jar of wine at his pillow is meant for, no one knows but the barbarian monk. Put so, Liu, going out naked into the blazing sun knowing nothing, may seem very heedless, but when ordinary men go through schooling and the like, in truth they are mostly doing much the same thing.

Hot. Sweat welled up prickling on his brow, and no sooner had it beaded than it ran lukewarm toward his eyes. As ill luck would have it, he was bound with thin cord, so of course he could not put out a hand to wipe it away. When he tried moving his neck to turn the sweat from its course, he felt at that instant a violent dizziness coming on, so to his regret he gave up that plan too. Meanwhile the sweat unceremoniously wet his eyelids and ran by the side of his nose and round his mouth to under his chin. Exceedingly nasty.

Until then he had lain with his eyes open, staring hard at the sky scorched white and the hemp field with its drooping leaves, but once the sweat began to run unchecked he had to give even that up. It was then that Liu learned for the first time that sweat stings when it gets in the eyes. So with the face of a sheep in the slaughterhouse, he meekly shut his eyes and lay baking in the sun, and presently he began to feel a certain pain in the skin of every upturned part of him, face or body alike. Over the whole surface of the skin, forces seemed to be at work pulling in every direction, while the skin itself had not an ounce of elasticity to answer them. Everywhere prickled — that perhaps best describes the pain. This was not the misery of merely sweating. Liu began to find it a little hateful that he had taken the barbarian monk's cure.

Yet, to think it over afterwards, this was still the part that was not so hard to bear. — Presently his throat grew thirsty. Liu too knew the story of how Cao Mengde or someone cured his soldiers of thirst by telling them there was a plum grove ahead. But now, however he called to mind the sweet-sour of plums, his thirst was none the less for it. He worked his chin and bit his tongue, but the inside of his mouth still held its heat. Even that would surely have been somewhat easier to bear if it had not been for the unglazed jar at his pillow. From the jar's mouth a rich scent of wine came without interruption, assailing Liu's nose. And, perhaps it was only fancy, but he felt the scent grow stronger with every minute. Thinking at least to look at the jar, Liu opened his eyes. Glancing upward with his eyes alone, all that came in sight were the mouth of the jar and perhaps half of its amply bulging body. That was all that came in sight, but at the same time there rose in Liu's imagining the sight of wine brimming undisturbed in the dim interior of the jar, the colour of gold. Before he knew it he licked his cracked lips all round with his dry tongue, but there was no sign at all of spittle welling up. Even his sweat by now had been dried out of him by the sun, and no longer ran as before.

• there was a plum grove ahead: A well-known Chinese anecdote: the general Cao Cao, on a thirsty march, told his men a plum grove lay ahead, and the thought of sour plums made their mouths water.

Then a fierce dizziness came on, two or three times running. The headache had not let up since some time before. In his heart Liu resented the barbarian monk more and more. And he thought, too, why a man such as himself should have let himself be talked round by such a fellow into bearing such witless suffering. Meanwhile his throat grew thirstier still. His chest turned strangely queasy. He could no longer bear to lie still. At last, resolved, he opened his panting mouth, meaning to ask the barbarian monk at his pillow to call the cure off. —

At that very instant. Liu began to feel some unnameable lump creeping little by little from his chest up toward his throat. At one moment it seemed to writhe like an earthworm, at another to edge itself along little by little like a gecko. In any case, a soft thing, soft as it was, came squirming and pressing its way up the gullet. And at last, when it had forced its way past below the Adam's apple, it suddenly slipped out of the dark, slimy like a loach or something, and flew outwards with force.

With that, from the familiar unglazed jar, there came a faint plip, as of something dropping into the wine.

At that the barbarian monk suddenly lifted the haunches he had settled and began to undo the thin cord wound about Liu's body. The wine worm was out, he said, so Liu might set his mind at rest.

"Is it out?" Liu said as if groaning, lifting his swimming head, and from mere curiosity, forgetting even his thirst, crawled naked as he was to the side of the jar. At the sight, Sun Sensei too came hurrying toward the two, warding off the sun with his white-feather fan. When all three peered together into the jar, a thing like a small salamander, the colour of its flesh like red mud, was swimming in the wine. It may have been about three sun long. It had a mouth, it had eyes. Somehow, as it swam, it seemed to be drinking the wine. When Liu saw this, his stomach turned suddenly....

• about three sun long: A sun is a traditional unit of length, about three centimetres. Three sun is roughly nine centimetres long.

The barbarian monk's cure showed itself at once. From that day Liu Dacheng abruptly became unable to drink wine. Now, he says, he dislikes even the smell of it. Yet strangely, from that time Liu's health began little by little to fail. This year makes three years since he spat out the wine worm, and nowhere remains a trace of the round, fat figure of former years. Skin of poor lustre, still oily, wraps the harsh bones of his face, and frost-touched locks linger only faintly above his temples, and there is said to be no counting how many times in the year he now takes to his bed.

But Liu's health was not the only thing that failed after that. Liu's fortune too has declined with gathering speed, and now the fields by the city wall, counted at three hundred mu, have for the most part passed into other hands. Liu himself, of necessity, has taken a plough in unpractised hands and lives out his wretched days, day by day.

Since he spat out the wine worm, why did Liu's health fail? Why did his fortune decline — once the spitting of the wine worm and Liu's later ruin are set side by side as cause and effect, this is a question that readily occurs to anyone. Indeed this question has been repeated by people of every occupation living in Changshan, and from their mouths answers of every kind have been given. The three answers given here are in truth no more than the most representative chosen from among them.

The first answer. The wine worm was Liu's fortune, and not Liu's disease. By chancing to meet an ignorant barbarian monk, he willingly brought about the loss of this heaven-given fortune.

The second answer. The wine worm was Liu's disease, and not Liu's fortune. For to empty a whole jar at a single drinking is quite beyond what an ordinary man can conceive. Had the wine worm not been removed, Liu must undoubtedly have died before long. Seen in this light, poverty and sickness arriving each in turn should rather be called happiness for Liu.

The third answer. The wine worm was neither Liu's disease nor Liu's fortune. Liu from of old did nothing but drink. If wine were taken away from Liu's life, nothing would remain behind. Seen in this light, Liu is the wine worm, and the wine worm is Liu. Hence Liu's casting off the wine worm was the same as killing himself. That is to say, from the day he became unable to drink, Liu is Liu and yet is not Liu. If Liu himself were already gone, then it is entirely natural, and only to be expected, that the health and fortune of the Liu of former days should have been lost.

— Fourth month of the fifth year —