The Carnal Prayer Mat (Rou Putuan)

by Li Yu

  "There is no need to go into that," said Vesperus. "What I will say, though, is that it is not small."

  Seeing that Vesperus was not about to respond, the Knave shot out his hand and tugged at the crotch of his friend's trousers in an effort to free the object in question. Vesperus kept evading his reach, refusing to let him do so. "If that's the way things are," said the Knave, "I won't bother you anymore. Your stamina certainly can't be described as strong. If your endowment should be puny, too, and if by some chance you fail to stimulate the woman and she cries rape, think how terrible that would be! If you got into any trouble, I would be the one who had misled you, and that is something I cannot accept."

  Confronted with such vehemence from his friend, Vesperus could only smile gamely. "My endowment will certainly pass muster," he said, "but I do find it a little indelicate to have to produce it in front of a friend, and in broad daylight too. However, since you're so worried over nothing, I suppose I have no choice but to make a spectacle of myself."

  With that, he undid his belt and brought out a penis that was dainty in both size and texture. Weighing it in his hand, he continued, "Here is my modest endowment. Take a look at it by all means."

  The Knave approached and scrutinized it. This is what he saw:

  Body a pearly white,

  Head a crimson glow.

  Around the base thin grasses in dense profusion rise,

  Under the skin fine threads are faintly to be seen.

  Bounced in the hand, it makes no sound, being lighter than the hand itself;

  Touched with the fingers, it retains no trace, its muscles being so few.

  In length all of two inches;

  In weight a good quarter-ounce.

  Solid outside, hollow inside, easy to mistake for a schoolboy's brush handle.

  Sharp of head, tiny of eye, easy to confuse with a Tartar girl's pipe stem.

  A twelve-year-old virgin could accommodate it,

  A thirteen-year-old catamite would delight in it.

  Hard as iron before the event, resembling a very long dried razor clam;

  Bent like a bow when all is done, suggesting a very plump dried shrimp.

  The Knave examined it, looked Vesperus in the eye, contemplated for a long time, but said nothing. Vesperus assumed he was astonished at its size.

  "It is only like this when limp," he said. "When full of vigor it is even more spectacular."

  "If this is what it's like when limp," said the Knave, "I can well imagine what it's like when full of vigor. I've seen all I need to, thank you. Please put it away." Then, unable to contain himself any longer, he put his hand over his mouth and burst out laughing.

  "How can you be so ignorant of your own limitations, worthy brother? Your endowment is less than a third the size of other people's, and yet you propose to go off and seduce their wives! Do you imagine the women's shoes are too big for the lasts they have at home and that they need your little peg wedged in alongside? When I saw you looking about everywhere for women, I assumed you had a mighty instrument on you, something to strike fear into the hearts of all who saw it. That's why I hesitated to ask you to show it to me. I never dreamed that it would turn out to be a flesh-and-blood hair clasp, good for titillating a woman inside her pubic hair, perhaps, but useless in the really important place!"

  "It will serve at a pinch," protested Vesperus. "Perhaps yours is so massive that you tend to look down on everybody else's. I'll have you know that this unworthy instrument of mine has been much admired."

  "Admired?" said the Knave. "A virgin with her maidenhead intact or else some boy who has yet to make his debut-people like that would admire it. But apart from them, I'm afraid everyone else would find it as hard as I do to flatter your honorable instrument."

  "You mean to tell me that everybody's penis is bigger than mine?"

  "I see them all the time-I must have inspected a thousand or two, at least-and I don't think I've ever seen one quite as delicate as yours."

  "Let's leave other people's out of it. The husbands of those women-how do their members compare with mine?"

  "Not much bigger-only two or three times the size and length."

  Vesperus gave a laugh. "Now I know you're not telling me the truth!" he said. "This shows that you don't want the responsibility of helping me and are just looking for a way out. Let me ask you this: Perhaps you really did see the two men in that household as you robbed their houses at night, but as for the woman in the silk shop, you told me yourself that you visited her only once, in the daytime, and that you spoke only to her and never met the husband. How can you possibly be sure that his thing is two or three times as big as mine?"

  "I saw the other two with my own eyes," said the Knave. "This one I only heard about. The first day I met her, I went and asked the neighbors about her husband, and they told me his name. Then I asked them: 'Such a beautiful woman-I wonder how she manages to get along with her stupid clod of a husband?' 'Although the husband may look coarse,' they told me, 'he is fortunate enough to have an impressive endowment and that is why the two of them rub along without any actual quarrels.' I then asked, 'How large is his endowment?' Their reply was, 'We've never measured it, but in summer, when he strips down, we've noticed it swinging about in his pants the size of a laundry beater, so we know it's impressive.' I made a mental note of that at the time, which is what led me to ask to see yours today. Why else, for no reason whatever, would I want to inspect someone's penis?"

  At last it dawned on Vesperus that the Knave was telling him the truth, and he began to feel depressed. After pondering a while, he went on, "When a woman goes to bed with someone, it's not only from sexual desire, you know. It may also be because she admires his mind or is attracted by his looks. If neither his mind nor his looks amount to much, a man is forced to rely on his sexual prowess. Now I happen to be quite well endowed with looks and brains, and perhaps a woman will take that into account and be a little less demanding in the other department. I implore you to see this matter through for me. You mustn't ignore my many strong points because of a single shortcoming and abandon your idea of helping a friend."

  "Talent and looks," said the Knave, "are sweeteners for the medicine of seduction. Like ginger and dates, their flavor helps get the medicine inside, but once it's in there, the medicine alone has to cure the disease; the ginger and dates are of no further use. If a man goes in for seduction and has neither looks nor talent, he'll not be able to get a foot in the door, but once he is inside, his true powers are in demand. What are you planning to do with her under the quilt, anyway, write poems on her pelvis? If someone with a very limited endowment and stamina manages to get in by virtue of his looks and talent and then gives a disappointing display the first few times, he will very quickly get the cold shoulder. A fellow takes his life in his hands when he goes in for adultery, and he therefore hopes for a love affair that will last a long time. Why go to such trouble if all you have in mind is two or three nights' fun? We thieves think we have to steal five hundred or a thousand taels' worth of valuables in a break-in, just to make up for the stigma we incur. For a couple of items we might as well stay home, rather than incur the stigma and have nothing to show for it. But let's ignore for the moment the man's desire for long-time pleasure. A woman who deceives her husband and has an affair must take endless precautions and suffer innumerable alarms, poor thing, in order to get some real pleasure. All well and good if she enjoys it a few hundred or even a few dozen times. But if she gets no pleasure out of the affair at all, she's no better off than a hen mounted by a rooster. The hen scarcely knows what's going on inside her before it's over. The woman's life has been wasted and her reputation lost, all for nothing! Not an easy thought to live with! Forgive me for what I'm going to say, worthy brother, but while endowment and stamina like yours are all right for keeping your wife on the straight and narrow, they are not enough to sustain any wild ideas about debauching other men's wives and daughters. Luckily I was shrewd enough to measure
the customer before cutting the cloth. If I'd simply set to work without asking your measurements, the garments would have been far too big for you. What a waste of material! And apart altogether from the woman's resentment, I'm afraid you, too, would have blamed me in your heart for not acting in good faith but deliberately choosing someone too large for you so as to get myself off the hook. I'm a straightforward sort of fellow, and I put things crudely, but I hope you won't hold it against me. From now on if you need any money or clothing, I'm only too ready to provide it. But as to this other matter, I simply cannot do your bidding."

  From the forcefulness with which the Knave spoke, Vesperus realized that the affair was a lost cause. He knew, too, that the money and clothing would be stolen goods, and he was afraid of the trouble they could land him in.

  "I am in rather a difficult spot," he said, "but I haven't spent all my travel money yet, and I still have a few plain garments left. I would not want to put you to any expense."

  After saying a few things to comfort his friend, the Knave made as if to leave. Vesperus, his hopes dashed, could not find it in his heart to ask him to stay, and showed him to the gate.

  After this frustration did Vesperus curb his desires? Did he reform? The reader is not the only one who is perplexed over these issues; the author himself is not sure, either, and will have to continue into the next chapter before he resolves them. Thus far, although Vesperus's mind has been corrupted, his conduct is without blemish. He is still, believe it or not, a man who could lead a virtuous life.

  CRITIQUE

  Each passage of discourse is bound to contain several superb images that invariably delight the reader and cause him to burst out laughing. They are too numerous to list in full, but two examples may be cited: the likening of sex tonics to examination tonics and the comparison of talent and looks with medicinal sweeteners. Humorous though these remarks are, they also contain a profound truth. I don't know how many thousand apertures the author's mind possesses, to radiate such brilliance!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Complaining of his physical endowment, he laments with hand on groin; Hoping to rectify his failing, he prays on bended knee.

  Lyric:

  Men's desires, how hard to satisfy!

  They weep, who've never known adversity.

  And other unfortunates there are,

  Who in the midst of joy will heave a sigh:

  "I have no luck!" they'll cry,

  All because their desires are set too high.

  (To the tune "Dreamlike Song")

  Let us tell how Vesperus's joyous mood was swept clean away by what the Knave had said. After the latter's departure, he was like a dead man, unable to bring himself either to speak or to eat. He sat alone in his room, turning the following thoughts over and over in his mind: In the course of my twenty-odd years I've seen a great many things in this world, but I've rarely seen another man's penis. Ordinary people keep theirs tucked away under their clothes, where naturally they can't be seen. The only time anyone showed me his was when those nancy-boys took down their trousers and did it with me, but they were younger than I was and naturally their things were smaller than mine. Since the only ones I ever saw were smaller, mine appeared larger. When I was young and played the nancy-boy myself with my schoolmates, we did see each other's things, but we were all of an age and naturally we were about the same size. I came to regard that size as normal and assumed from my own experience that everybody's was much the same. But he claims he has never seen one as small as mine. If so, it's utterly useless! What good is it?

  There's one thing that puzzles me, though, Vesperus reflected. When I had sex with my wife, she enjoyed it every bit as much as I did. And in the days when I used to visit courtesans and seduce maids, they would cry out with passion and spend, too, which they never would have done if this thing hadn't brought them pleasure! If it's so useless now, why wasn't it useless then? Why has it become useless all of a sudden? Obviously he must have been deceiving me in order to get out of his commitments.

  Thus a moment of suspicion was followed by a moment of wild hope, after which Vesperus suddenly awoke to the truth: No, that's not it, he said to himself. My wife's vagina was quite unformed before I developed it. Now its dimensions match my own exactly-a perfect fit, with no room to spare, between my shortness and thinness and her smallness and shallowness, which is why she enjoys it. It's like cleaning your ears. If a tiny cleaner is inserted in a tiny ear and twiddled about, it gives a pleasant sensation, whereas in a large ear it may have little or no effect.

  The Knave told me the other day that women have ways of faking their cries. Who knows whether the maids and courtesans I slept with may not have felt obliged to flatter me after accepting my money and presents? In fact perhaps they didn't even want to give any cries at all, but just faked them to deceive me. And if their cries can be faked, why not their spending too? The things he told me may not be entirely reliable, but they can't simply be dismissed either. From now on, whenever I meet someone, I'll make a point of looking at his penis to see if it bears out what the Knave says.

  Henceforth, whenever he attended a literary gathering and one of his friends went out to relieve himself, Vesperus would follow along and do likewise, glancing first at his friend's penis and then back at his own. It was true; everybody's was more impressive than his. Even when he was going along the road and noticed someone relieving himself outdoors, he would be sure to scrutinize the man's organ out of the corner of his eye.

  Nothing in the world is proof against self-doubt. Before, when he thought he had a large penis, even if he had met up with a Xue Aocao, he would have concluded his was better because Xue's was mainly for show and might be of no practical use. [50] But now that he was consumed with fears about his own size, even if he had seen a boy's, he'd have felt, The boy's is better than mine, for even if mine is the same size, it may not be as firm as his.

  For these thoughts, gentle reader, you must not laugh at him. This was a golden opportunity to purge himself of evil and lay a foundation for cultivating his virtue and reforming his conduct. Who knows, perhaps Lu Nanzi, who shut his door against an importunate widow, and Liuxia Hui, who kept his self-control with a girl on his knee, may have shared these very thoughts of his, thoughts that have made them the leading paragons of all time.

  After Vesperus had completed his comparative studies, his desires began to slacken and he became less and less inclined to run risks for the sake of sex. Although the Knave's advice was harsh medicine, he thought, I shall just have to swallow it. At least he is a man! I felt like hiding my face in shame when he laughed at me, but think how I'd have felt if I'd been having sex with a woman and right in the middle she had come out with some scathing remark! What should I have done then, stopped and withdrawn, or stayed on until I was ejected? From now on, I'm going to give up all thought of seduction and devote myself wholeheartedly to my proper task. If I can succeed in the examinations, I'll put up some money and buy a couple of virgins as concubines. Theirs will be smaller than mine, and naturally I'll earn their appreciation rather than their contempt. Why waste my energy on all these religious exercises?

  After this decision, he gave up his frivolous pursuits and concentrated on his studies. If he noticed any women coming to burn incense, he no longer rushed off to look at them. In fact, if he met any outside the temple, he would duck inside to avoid them, lest they discern his contours through his unlined summer gown and have a private snicker at his expense. Needless to say, if he met a woman in the street, he would hang his head and pass quickly by.

  However, because he was a young man in his prime, a certain tumescence made itself felt after a week or two of this harsh regime. His answer was to add a cummerbund to hide this one shortcoming of his from women's prying eyes. As for his other, outstanding features, he was still more than willing to flaunt them.

  One day while walking along one of the streets, he observed a young woman open her door curtain and start chatting with a nei
ghbor across the street, revealing her profile as she did so. Seeing this from a distance, he at once shortened his pace and advanced very slowly to listen to her voice and look at her face. Her enunciation was as clear, sweet, and perfectly cadenced as the sound of a panpipe or a flute; every word she uttered left an echo lingering in the ear. On reaching her doorway, Vesperus looked closely at her face and figure. She bore a strong resemblance to the woman the Knave had described: her face was like a priceless pearl radiating light while her figure was like a great beauty's portrait swaying in the breeze behind the curtain. "Perhaps she is the one he mentioned," he surmised.

  After a moment's observation, he walked past a few more houses and then asked a bystander, "Is there a silk merchant here by the name of Honest Quan? You wouldn't happen to know where he lives, I suppose?"

  "You've just passed his house," said the bystander. "Inside that curtain there, where the woman is talking-that's his place."

  His hunch confirmed, Vesperus turned around and took another good look at her before going back to his lodgings. When the Knave described her beauty to me, he thought, I didn't believe him. I felt that, although he claimed to be a connoisseur, he might not be the best judge of quality. I never dreamed he'd have such a marvelous eye! Since he judged this one so perfectly, it goes without saying that his judgment of the other two will be equally reliable. To think that such classic beauties are available and such an extraordinary gallant stands ready to help, and yet I'm missing out on three heaven-sent chances just because this thing of mine has let me down! Oh, the frustration of it all!