The Celebrated Cases
of
Judge Dee
by
Robert Van Gulik
Scribner
Preface
This translation is chiefly a product of the Pacific War years, 1941-1945, when constant travel on various war duties made other more complicated Sinological research impossible. Preface, postscript and notes were added later, during my stay in Washington D.C.
I wish to express my gratitude to my friend Karl H. Bachmeyer, whose serious turn of mind did not prevent him from reading and correcting the manuscript and who offered many useful suggestions.
R.H.vG.
JUDGE DEE
Translator’s Preface
I.
For many years, Western writers of detective novels have time and again introduced the “Chinese element” in their books. The mysteries of China itself or of the Chinatowns in some foreign cities, were often chosen as a means of lending a weird and exotic atmosphere to the plot. Super-criminals like Sax Rohmer’s Dr. Fu Manchu, or super-detectives like Earl D. Biggers’ Charlie Chan, have become nearly as familiar to our readers as the great Lord Lister, or the immortal Sherlock Holmes himself.
As the Chinese have been so often represented—and too often misrepresented!—in our popular crime literature, it seems only just that they themselves be allowed to have their own say for once in this field. All the more so because this branch of literature was fully developed in China several centuries before Edgar Allan Poe or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were born.
Short stories about mysterious crimes and their solution have existed in China for over a thousand years, and master-detectives have been celebrated in the tales of the public story teller and in theatrical plays for many centuries. The longer Chinese detective novel started later, about 1600, and reached its greatest development in the 18th and 19th centuries. The longer crime and mystery stories were and still are very popular in China. Even to-day the names of the great detectives of olden times are household words all over the country, familiar to old and young alike.
As far as I know, none of these Chinese detective stories has ever been published in a complete English translation. Occasionally extracts or translations of fragments have appeared in sinological journals, and a few years ago Vincent Starrett published a brief but well-written survey of a few of the better-known of these novels (in his “Bookman’s Holiday,” New York 1942). It cannot be denied, therefore, that Western students have treated the Chinese detective novel in a very stepmotherly way; all the less since most of the famous Chinese historical novels and “romans de moeurs” are available in excellent complete translations.
The reason for this state of affairs must be that most of these Chinese crime novels, although as a rule well written and quite interesting to the student of “things Chinese,” are not very palatable to the Western public in general. During its long history the Chinese detective novel has developed a character of its own. These novels are, of course, completely satisfactory to the Chinese. But the Chinese conception of the requirements a crime story should answer differs so much from our own, that such novels cannot be of interest to those of us who read detective novels for their relaxation values.
Chinese detective stories have five main characteristics that are foreign to us.
In the first place, the criminal is, as a rule, introduced formally to the reader at the very beginning of the book, with his full name, an account of his past history, and the motive that led him to commit the crime. The Chinese want to derive from the reading of a detective novel the same purely intellectual enjoyment as from watching a game of chess; with all the factors known, the excitement lies in following every move of the detective and the counter measures taken by the criminal, until the game ends in the unavoidable check-mate of the latter. We, on the other hand like to be kept guessing, the identity of the criminal remaining shrouded in mystery till the last page of the book. Thus in most Chinese crime novels the element of suspense is missing. The reader knows the answer to what to us is the basic question of “Who done it?” after the first few pages.
Second, the Chinese have an innate love for the supernatural. Ghosts and goblins roam about freely in most Chinese detective stories; animals and kitchen utensils deliver testimony in court, and the detective indulges occasionally in little escapades to the Nether World, to compare notes with the judges of the Chinese Inferno. This clashes with our principle that a detective novel should be as realistic as possible.
Third, the Chinese are a leisurely people, with a passionate interest for detail. Hence all their novels, including detective stories, are written in a broadly narrative vein, interlarded with lengthy poems, philosophical digressions, and what not, while all official documents relating to the case are quoted in full. Therefore, most Chinese detective novels are bulky affairs of a hundred and more chapters, and each of them would, when translated, fill several printed volumes.
Fourth, the Chinese have a prodigious memory for names and a sixth sense for family relationships. An educated Chinese can reel off without the slightest effort some seventy or eighty relatives, each with his name, surname and title, and the exact grade of relationship, for which, by the way, the Chinese language possesses an amazingly rich special vocabulary. The Chinese reader likes his novels well-populated, so that the list of dramatis personae of one single novel usually runs into two hundred or more characters. Our contemporary crime novels have mostly only a dozen or so main characters, and yet editors have found it necessary of late to add a list of these at the beginning of the book, for the reader’s convenience.
Fifth, the Chinese have quite different ideas as to what should be described in a detective novel, and what may well be left to the reader’s imagination. Although we insist on knowing in minute detail how the crime was committed, we are not interested in the details of the punishment finally meted out to the criminal. If he does not crash his plane into the sea, or hurtle his car over a cliff, or is not removed from the scene in some other tidy way, we leave him at the end of the book, with some dark hints, to the hangman or the electric chair. The Chinese, however, expect a faithful account of how the criminal was executed, with every gruesome detail. Often also the Chinese author throws in as an “extra” a full description of the punishment the unfortunate criminal received, after his execution, in the Chinese Inferno. Such an ending is necessary to satisfy the Chinese sense of justice, but it offends the Western reader, since it reminds him too much of beating a man who is already down.
If, in addition to the above, it is remembered that the Chinese author as a matter of course takes it for granted that his reader is thoroughly familiar with the working of the law in China, and Chinese manners and customs, it will be clear that translating a Chinese detective novel for the general Western public implies rewriting it from beginning to end, and even then the pages of such a translation would be bristling with footnotes. It is true that an occasional footnote lends an air of dignity and veracity to a detective story, as in Van Dine’s novels describing Philo Vance’s exploits, but one can hardly expect the reader to like a lengthy footnote on every other page.
Thus, in setting out to present to the Western lover of crime literature a complete translation of a Chinese detective novel, my main problem was to find one that combines a maximum of undiluted detection and of general human interest, with a minimum of the peculiarly Chinese features discussed earlier.
I think I have found these requirements in the Dee Goong An, a Chinese detective novel written in the 18th century by an anonymous author.
This novel conforms to our accustomed standards in that it does not reveal the criminal at the very beginning, l
acks the more fantastic supernatural element, has a limited number of dramatis personae, contains no material that is not germane to the plot, and is relatively short. At the same time the plot is quite ingenious, and the novel is well written, with all our familiar tricks to keep the reader in suspense, and with a judicious mixture of tragedy and comedy. It is even up to modern Western standards in so far that, next to being treated to the detective’s mental “tours de force,” we also follow him when actually engaged in some dangerous exploits. And in one respect this novel introduces a new literary device that, as far as I know, has not yet been utilised in our popular crime literature, viz. that the detective is engaged simultaneously on three different cases, entirely independent of each other, each with its own background and dramatis personae.
Further, the author of the Dee Goong An exercises remarkable restraint as regards moralising lectures. As a matter of fact, there occurs only one such digression, and that at the very beginning, in the author’s introductory remarks. And it would have been an unforgivable offense against an age-old Chinese literary tradition if some moralistic reflections had been missing in that particular place.
Its weakest point, to our taste, is still the supernatural element. This, however, is only introduced twice in this particular novel, and both instances are not entirely unacceptable as they concern phenomena of a kind that is frequently discussed in Western parapsychological literature. Moreover neither of them is a decisive factor in the solution of the crime, because they merely confirm the detective’s previous deductions, and stimulate his attempts at analysing the cases. The first instance concerns a manifestation of the spirit of a murdered man near his grave. Even in Western countries a wide-spread belief exists that the soul of a person done violently to death remains near its dead body, and may, in some way or other, make its presence known. The second instance is a dream which visits the detective at the time when he is most perplexed and worried over two cases. The dream confirms his suspicions, and enables him to see several known factors in their proper relation. This passage, occurring in Chapter XI, will be of some interest to our students of dream psychology.
In this novel we find some rather gruesome descriptions of torture inflicted on prisoners during sessions of the tribunal. The reader will have to take these as they are. The scene on the execution ground, in the last chapter, on the other hand, is more brief and more matter-of-fact than in many other Chinese detective novels.
Special attention must be drawn to the brief interlude, that occurs halfway in the novel, between Chapter XV and XVI; at first sight, this interlude has absolutely nothing to do with the story. This is a very interesting feature, common to most of the shorter Chinese novels. Such an interlude is always written in the form of one scene of a Chinese theatrical play: a few actors appear, and engage in a dialogue, interspersed with songs, as usual on the Chinese stage. These actors are indicated only by the technical stage terms for their role, such as “young man,” “père noble,” etc. It is left to the reader’s ingeniousness to find out which characters of the novel they represent. The interesting point is that in such an interlude we are given an insight directly into the subconscious mind of the main characters. They have cast off all their inhibitions and restraint. Thus these Chinese interludes are, in a way, the counterpart of the psychological character sketches of our modern novels. Ancient Chinese novels never indulge in a psychological analysis of the characters they describe, but grant the reader glimpses of the innermost thoughts and emotions of the characters either through such theatrical interludes, or through dreams. This device of “a dream in a dream,” or “a play in a play” also was utilised by our ancient Western writers, for instance, such a famous example as Act II, scene 2, in “Hamlet.”
Although some peculiar Chinese features are less pronounced in this novel than in other Chinese stories, the Dee Goong An is still thoroughly Chinese. In addition to giving a faithful description of the working methods of ancient Chinese detectives, and of the problems they are confronted with when trying to solve a crime, and of the ways and byways of the Chinese underworld, this story at the same time gives the reader a good idea of the administration of justice in ancient China, acquaints him with the main provisions of the Chinese Penal Code, and, finally, with the Chinese way of life in general.
As to its content, this novel describes three criminal cases. The first might be called “The Double Murder At Dawn.” This is a crude murder, committed for gain. This case introduces us to the hazardous life of the traveling silk merchants. They buy raw silk cheaply during the season in Kiangsu Province, and then sell it for a profit along the highways of the northern provinces. These itinerant merchants are tough customers, shrewd businessmen and good fighters, familiar with all the dangers and pitfalls of the Chinese highways. This case takes the reader up and down the famous silk roads of Shantung Province, and acquaints him with wily managers of silk depots, inn keepers, robber gangs, and all the other types of people that make their living from the road.
The scene of the second case, “The Strange Corpse,” is laid among the population of a small village. It is a crime of passion, which proves uncommonly hard to solve. Here a most realistic portrait is drawn of the woman who is suspected of having committed the murder. Although she is but the wife of a small shopkeeper, her iron will and great force of character remind one of the formidable Empress Dowager of the last years of the Empire, and of other Chinese women who have played a predominant role in Chinese history. We also learn about the duties and the worries of the village warden; we enter the public bathhouse, which serves as a club for the local people, and we assist at a full-fledged exhumation and the subsequent autopsy.
The third case, “The Poisoned Bride,” concerns the local gentry. The lovely young girl that meets with a horrible death on her wedding night is the daughter of a Bachelor of Arts, and the bridegroom the son of an old prefect, who lives retired in a spacious mansion, with countless courtyards and galleries. To complete this dignified picture, the suspect is a Candidate of Literature.
Thus this novel presents, as it were, a cross-section of Chinese society. But all three cases have one factor in common, and that is that they occur in one and the same district, and are solved by the same detective.
This novel Dee Goong An is offered here in a complete translation. Possibly it would have had a wider appeal if it had been entirely re-written in a form more familiar to our readers. Then, however, much of the genuine Chinese atmosphere of the original would have disappeared, and in the end both the Chinese author, and the Western reader would have been the losers. Some parts may be less interesting to the Western reader than others, but I am confident that also in this literal translation the novel will be found more satisfactory than the palpable nonsense that is foisted on the long-suffering public by some writers of faked “Chinese” stories, which describe a China and a Chinese people that exist nowhere except in their fertile imaginations.
The central figure, the master-detective of this novel is, as in all Chinese detective stories, a district magistrate. From early times until the establishment of the Chinese Republic in 1911, this government official united in his person the functions of judge, jury, prosecutor and detective.
The territory under his jurisdiction, a district, was the smallest administrative unit in the complicated Chinese government machine; it usually comprised one fairly large walled city, and all the countryside around it, say for sixty or seventy miles. The district magistrate was the highest civil authority in this unit, he was in charge of the town and land administration, the tribunal, the bureau for the collection of taxes, the register-office, while he was also generally responsible for the maintenance of public order in the entire district. Thus he had practically full authority over all phases of the life of the people in his district, who called him, therefore, the “father-and-mother official.” He was responsible only to the higher authorities, viz. the prefect or the governor of the province.
It was in hi
s function of judge that the district magistrate displayed his talents as a detective. In Chinese crime literature, therefore, we find the master-minds that solve baffling crimes never referred to as “detectives,” but always as “judges.” The hero of our present story, who bears the surname Dee, is always called Dee Goong, “Judge Dee.” In Chinese a criminal case is called an, thus the original title of this novel, Dee Goong An, in literal translation means “Criminal Cases Solved by Judge Dee.”
This is the stereotype title of all Chinese detective novels. We have the Bao Goong An “Criminal Cases Solved by Judge Bao,” the Peng Goong An “Criminal Cases Solved by Judge Peng,” and so on.
The anonymous author of the Dee Goong An evidently at some time or other in his career himself occupied the function of district magistrate. This need not astonish us, since most writers of novels were retired officials, who wrote them for their own amusement, and preferred to remain anonymous because formerly all novels were considered as inferior literature in China. The Chinese word for “novel” is hsiao-shwo, “small talk,” and novels should never be mentioned together with works on history, philosophy, poetry and other instructive subjects. As it is, this novel shows that the author was thoroughly familiar with judicial procedure, and with the Chinese Penal Code. I have checked the conduct of the cases as described here with the provisions of the code, and found it correct in all details; those interested are referred to the “Translator’s Postscript” at the end of this book, where the pertinent laws are quoted.
This novel clearly shows the comprehensive duties of the magistrate in his quality as presiding judge of the district tribunal. Crimes are reported directly to him, it is he who is expected to collect and sift all evidence, find the criminal, arrest him, make him confess, sentence him, and finally administer to him the punishment for his crime.
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