eye upon me. I saluted it with the rhymes, as one should, and off it flew. Had I neutralized its malice? What ill can one suffer beyond the grave? It was glossy and cocky, and it strutted boldly and offensively in my sight. Magpies are baby-stealers and jewel-snatchers. A gathering of magpies heralded the death of Prince Sado.
Prince Sado himself was deeply superstitious, despite his strict indoctrination into Confucian rationalism, and he consulted all manner of charlatans who nursed and encouraged his growing illness. In the year of the measles epidemic, there was a great storm, remembered in the countryside for many years, and it was at this period that Sado began to succumb to his terror of thunder. I know that many weak mortals fear thunder and lightning, and not without some cause, but in Sado the fear became utterly irrational. I am no mathematician, but I do know that one’s chances of dying in a thunderstorm are, in ordinary circumstances, remote. But Sado dreaded the thunder. He thought it was the voice of vengeance. It was at this time that he became obsessed by that dangerous and pornographic book, The Jade Pivot . This was in our day a very popular work, which described the god of thunder and the various punishments he inflicted upon sinning mortals. The god of thunder is a hideous blue creature, winged and clawed, furnished with a chisel and a mallet, and his role is to punish undetected crimes. This book was full of horrifying images and vivid descriptions of tortures and torments in various particularly violent forms of hell. It was a stupid book, fit only for superstitious simpletons amongst the common people, but Sado took it with a deadly seriousness. He began to tremble at any loud noise, and he imagined that he saw people that were not there. He thought that people were watching him, and would send his servants out to arrest these ghosts.
He also developed a fear of objects made of jade, which of course was in our culture (even more than in most cultures) a much-prized precious stone.
The August Personage of Jade rules the Court of Heaven. He is the father figure and emperor of the palace of the higher world. Or so the vulgar believe.
I did not fear jade. One of my favourite possessions in my life on earth was a beautifully carved jade duck, carrying in its beak a lotus bloom: I was fond of this solitary duck of soft green and russet tints. I liked the subtle colours of jadestone – the creams, the pale greys, the mauves, the browns and, above all, the greens. Apple green, spinach green, lettuce green, seaweed green, sage green. Jade was considered a lucky stone, and it was said to have healing properties. It would cure complaints of the kidney. In some countries it was known as the colic stone, or lapis nephriticus . I did not myself believe in its curative powers, but I was fond of my jade duck.
But Sado had quite other thoughts and fears. The very sight of the Chinese character that means ‘jade’ made him wince and cover his eyes in horror. At first I thought this was a pretence, an exaggerated reaction against the Confucian rigour of pragmatic, this-worldly rationalism, but I began to see that, even though it might have begun as a game, a real fear had taken a deep hold on his poor brain. There was a period when he avoided contact with all jade objects. When he had to handle one, or found that he had handled one inadvertently, he would then go through elaborate washing and cleansing procedures.
His father was not without some oddities in this direction – he was forever washing his ears and rinsing out his mouth after speaking to certain disfavoured family members – but in him the fear of such pollution had not reached the stage of an obsessive phobia, as it did with Prince Sado. But maybe Sado inherited the tendency. It may have been a genetic fluke, a family tic. I am ignorant about these matters. Most people are ignorant about them. These issues remain unresolved. The long march of
Prince Sado himself was deeply superstitious, despite his strict indoctrination into Confucian rationalism, and he consulted all manner of charlatans who nursed and encouraged his growing illness. In the year of the measles epidemic, there was a great storm, remembered in the countryside for many years, and it was at this period that Sado began to succumb to his terror of thunder. I know that many weak mortals fear thunder and lightning, and not without some cause, but in Sado the fear became utterly irrational. I am no mathematician, but I do know that one’s chances of dying in a thunderstorm are, in ordinary circumstances, remote. But Sado dreaded the thunder. He thought it was the voice of vengeance. It was at this time that he became obsessed by that dangerous and pornographic book, The Jade Pivot . This was in our day a very popular work, which described the god of thunder and the various punishments he inflicted upon sinning mortals. The god of thunder is a hideous blue creature, winged and clawed, furnished with a chisel and a mallet, and his role is to punish undetected crimes. This book was full of horrifying images and vivid descriptions of tortures and torments in various particularly violent forms of hell. It was a stupid book, fit only for superstitious simpletons amongst the common people, but Sado took it with a deadly seriousness. He began to tremble at any loud noise, and he imagined that he saw people that were not there. He thought that people were watching him, and would send his servants out to arrest these ghosts.
He also developed a fear of objects made of jade, which of course was in our culture (even more than in most cultures) a much-prized precious stone.
The August Personage of Jade rules the Court of Heaven. He is the father figure and emperor of the palace of the higher world. Or so the vulgar believe.
I did not fear jade. One of my favourite possessions in my life on earth was a beautifully carved jade duck, carrying in its beak a lotus bloom: I was fond of this solitary duck of soft green and russet tints. I liked the subtle colours of jadestone – the creams, the pale greys, the mauves, the browns and, above all, the greens. Apple green, spinach green, lettuce green, seaweed green, sage green. Jade was considered a lucky stone, and it was said to have healing properties. It would cure complaints of the kidney. In some countries it was known as the colic stone, or lapis nephriticus . I did not myself believe in its curative powers, but I was fond of my jade duck.
But Sado had quite other thoughts and fears. The very sight of the Chinese character that means ‘jade’ made him wince and cover his eyes in horror. At first I thought this was a pretence, an exaggerated reaction against the Confucian rigour of pragmatic, this-worldly rationalism, but I began to see that, even though it might have begun as a game, a real fear had taken a deep hold on his poor brain. There was a period when he avoided contact with all jade objects. When he had to handle one, or found that he had handled one inadvertently, he would then go through elaborate washing and cleansing procedures.
His father was not without some oddities in this direction – he was forever washing his ears and rinsing out his mouth after speaking to certain disfavoured family members – but in him the fear of such pollution had not reached the stage of an obsessive phobia, as it did with Prince Sado. But maybe Sado inherited the tendency. It may have been a genetic fluke, a family tic. I am ignorant about these matters. Most people are ignorant about them. These issues remain unresolved. The long march of
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