Original Text
Before I had passed the county examination, I went to Jinan to take the prefectural exam, and it happened to coincide with the Spring Festival. According to old custom, on the day before the Beginning of Spring, merchants and shopkeepers from all trades would erect colorful archways and, beating drums and gongs, proceed to the provincial treasurer's yamen to offer congratulations—this was called "Welcoming Spring." I followed some friends to watch the festivities.
On that day, there were many sightseers, crowding around like walls on all sides. They saw four officials in red robes seated in the main hall, facing each other from east and west. At that time I was still young and did not know what offices they held; I only felt the clamor of the crowd and the thunderous din of drums and gongs, deafening to the ears. Suddenly, a man led a child with disheveled hair, carrying a pole over his shoulder, and came forward, kneeling as if to speak a few words. The noise of the crowd was so great that nothing could be heard, but the officials in the hall laughed, and a man in blue robes loudly ordered them to perform a trick. The man assented, rose, and asked, "What trick shall I perform?" The officials consulted briefly and sent a clerk down to inquire what tricks he was skilled in. He replied, "I can produce things that grow out of season." The clerk reported this back to the hall, and soon came down again, ordering the man to produce a peach.
The conjurer agreed. He took off his coat and covered a square bamboo basket, deliberately putting on a look of complaint, saying, "Your Excellency is truly unreasonable; the thick ice has not yet melted—where am I to find peaches? If I do not search, I fear I will incur the wrath of the officials. What is to be done?" His son said, "Father has already given his word; how can he now refuse?" The conjurer pondered with a worried expression for a while, then said, "I have thought it over for a long time. In this icy, snowy early spring season, where on earth can one find peaches? Only in the Heavenly Queen Mother's peach garden in the heavens do fruit trees never wither through the four seasons—perhaps there might be some there. I must go up to heaven and steal them; only then will it work." His son exclaimed, "Ha! Can one climb up to heaven by steps?" His father replied, "I have my arts." He then opened the bamboo basket, took out a coil of rope, some several tens of zhang in length, and, drawing out one end, threw it into the sky. The rope immediately hung suspended in the air, as if caught on something. Before long, the rope rose higher and higher, gradually extending into the ethereal clouds, until the rope in his hand was entirely spent. Then the man called to his son, saying, "Come here, child! I am old and weak, my body heavy and clumsy—I cannot climb; you must go instead." With that, he handed the rope to the boy, saying, "Grasp this, and you can climb up." The son took the rope, his face full of reluctance, and complained, "Father, you are too foolish! Such a thin thread of a rope, and you want me to climb ten thousand zhang into the sky on it. If it should break halfway, where would I find my bones?" The father forced a soothing tone, coaxing him, "I have already spoken rashly, and regret is too late. I must trouble you to go up. Child, do not complain; if you can steal the peaches, the official will surely reward us with a hundred taels of silver, and I will find you a pretty wife." Only then did the son grasp the rope and spiral upward, his hands moving and feet following, like a spider climbing on its thread, gradually rising higher and higher until he vanished into the clouds and could no longer be seen.
After a long while, a peach descended from the sky, as large as a bowl. The conjurer, overjoyed, took it and presented it before the court. The officials passed it around for some time, unable to determine whether it was real or false. Suddenly, the rope fell to the ground, and the conjurer cried out in alarm, "How perilous! Someone above has cut my rope—how can my boy come down now?" After another moment, something dropped, and upon inspection, it was his son's head. The man clutched the head and wailed, "Surely he was discovered by the guards while stealing the peach—my son is lost!" Soon after, a foot fell as well, followed by limbs and torso, piece by piece, until nothing more remained. The conjurer, in deep grief, gathered the fragments one by one into his bamboo box, closed the lid, and said, "I, an old man, have but this one son, who followed me north and south every day. Now, obeying the magistrate's command to fetch the peach, he has met such a tragic end! I must carry him back for burial." He then knelt again before the court and said, "For the sake of a peach, my son has been slain! If the honorable officials take pity on me and help with his burial, I shall repay your kindness in the next life, even as a grass-bound ring or a straw-woven knot." The officials, greatly shocked, each bestowed silver upon him. The conjurer took the money, wound it around his waist, then tapped the bamboo box and said, "Eight-eight, why do you not come out and thank the officials for their bounty? What are you waiting for?" Suddenly, a tousle-haired child pushed open the box lid and crawled out, kowtowing toward the northern hall before the officials—it was the conjurer's son.
Because this conjurer's magic arts were so extraordinary, I still remember the matter to this day. Later I heard that the White Lotus Sect could also perform such tricks, and I wondered whether that father and son might have been descendants of the White Lotus Sect.
Commentary
Recollections of one's youthful days are often both tender and vivid.
"Stealing Peaches" is one of the very few autobiographical pieces in "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio." Pu Songling passed the county, prefectural, and circuit examinations with top honors at the age of nineteen, becoming a xiucai in 1658. In "Stealing Peaches," he writes, "When I was a child, I went to the prefectural examination," which likely refers to that time. Because it is a recollection of his own experience, "Stealing Peaches" is also one of the rare stories in "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" told from a limited perspective.
Leaving his hometown to "take the prefectural examination" during the Spring Festival, the author naturally encountered many amusing sights amidst his travels, especially since "the crowd of onlookers was like a wall." Yet the author's entry into the main narrative is remarkably concise: he describes the surroundings as "only hearing the clamor of voices and the din of drums and pipes," and the prelude to the magic trick as "a thousand sounds surged and stirred, but one could not discern what was being said"—all deliberately muted by the author, much like a skilled guide who directly leads the reader's focus to the spectacle of the "theft of the peach" illusion.
"Stealing Peaches" is a plot-driven illusion performed by a father and his son. The author not only uses dialogue to recreate the entire process of that day's "peach theft," the killing, and the plea for reward, vividly portraying the showman's suspense, twists, and appeals for recompense, but especially describes the peach-stealing illusion with meticulous realism, stirring shock and awe: the rope thrown into the ethereal clouds is "suspended in midair, as if something held it"; the child climbing the rope is "moving hands and feet in tandem, like a spider following its thread"; the scene of the child being killed is "after a while, something fell, and looking, it was the child's head. Holding it and weeping, he said: 'This must be because the peach theft was discovered by the overseer. My son is done for!' After another while, a foot fell. Soon, limbs fell in succession, leaving nothing remaining." The depiction of objects and scenes is lifelike, vivid and distinct, startling and horrifying. The author indeed "because of the strangeness of the art, still remembers it to this day," and readers several hundred years later also feel as if they are experiencing it themselves.