Original Text
Ma Tianrong, a young man from a farming family, was over twenty years old. After his wife died, he could not remarry due to poverty. One day, while weeding in the fields, he saw a finely dressed young woman stepping through the rice seedlings as she crossed the ridge. Her face was flushed, and her manner was quite alluring. Ma Tianrong suspected she was lost, and seeing no one around, he approached her with flirtatious advances. The young woman did not seem to refuse. Ma Tianrong then sought to have an illicit encounter with her in the open fields. The young woman smiled and said, "In broad daylight, how could one do such a thing? Go home, leave your door ajar, and wait for me. I will surely come to you in the dead of night." Ma Tianrong was skeptical, but the young woman swore solemn oaths. He told her the exact location of his home, and she departed. At midnight, the young woman indeed arrived. They shared a bed, delighting in each other's company. Ma Tianrong found her skin exceptionally smooth and tender. When he lit a lamp to look, her skin was red and thin, like that of a newborn infant, and her entire body was covered in fine downy hair. Ma Tianrong found this very strange. Moreover, he suspected her origins were unclear, wondering if she might be a fox spirit. So he jokingly asked if she was a fox immortal, and the young woman frankly admitted it.
Ma Tianrong said, "Since you are an immortal, naturally you can obtain whatever your heart desires. Now that I have been favored by your affection, why not procure a few taels of silver to relieve my present poverty?" The young woman agreed. The next night, when she came, Ma Tianrong asked her for the silver. The young woman feigned surprise and said, "How unfortunate, I forgot." As she was leaving, Ma Tianrong again urged her not to forget to bring the silver next time. When she arrived the following night, Ma Tianrong asked her, "I suppose you have not forgotten the matter I begged of you?" The young woman smiled and asked him to wait a few more days. After several days, Ma Tianrong pressed her again for the silver. The young woman then laughed and drew from her sleeve two ingots of silver, estimated to be five or six taels in weight. The edges of the ingots were curled up and inlaid with fine patterns, elegant and lovely. Ma Tianrong was overjoyed and stored them in a casket. Half a year later, when Ma Tianrong happened to be in urgent need of money, he took out the ingots to show others. One person said, "This is tin." He then bit down hard with his teeth, and a piece immediately broke off. Ma Tianrong was greatly startled, picked up the two tin ingots, and returned home. That night, when the young woman came, Ma Tianrong angrily accused her of deceiving him. The young woman, however, smiled and said, "Your fate is shallow; if I had given you real silver, I fear you would not have the fortune to enjoy it." Then she gave a charming smile and glossed over the matter.
Ma Tianrong said, "I have heard that fox spirits are all of breathtaking beauty, surpassing the ordinary, but it seems that is not always the case." The young woman replied, "We fox spirits transform ourselves according to the person we consort with. You do not even have the fortune to enjoy a single tael of silver; if I were to present you with a beauty who could make fish sink and geese fall, how could you bear such a blessing? With my ugliness and foolishness, I am certainly not fit for the company of the elite, yet compared to a woman with a hunched back and large feet, I might be considered a peerless beauty." After a few months, the young woman suddenly produced three taels of silver and gave them to Ma Tianrong, saying, "You have repeatedly asked me for silver, but I have withheld it because your fate is too meager to hoard wealth. Now you are about to take a wife, so I give you this money for the betrothal gift, and also as a farewell offering." Ma Tianrong protested that he had no intention of marrying. The young woman said, "Within a day or two, a matchmaker will surely come to your door." Ma Tianrong asked, "What will the bride you speak of look like?" The young woman replied, "If you desire a beauty of national renown, then naturally she will be such." Ma Tianrong said, "I truly dare not hope for a beauty of that caliber. But how can three taels of silver buy a woman?" The young woman answered, "This is arranged by the Old Man under the Moon; it is not something human effort can achieve." Ma Tianrong then asked, "Why are you suddenly taking leave of me?" The young woman said, "I come and go under the stars and moon every day, which is no lasting arrangement. You have your own wife; what point is there in my lingering on?" At dawn, the young woman departed in haste. Before leaving, she handed Ma Tianrong a small pinch of yellow powder, saying, "After we part, I fear you may fall ill; take this powder, and it will cure you."
The next day, a matchmaker indeed arrived to propose a marriage. Ma Tianrong first inquired about the young woman's appearance, and the matchmaker replied, "Her looks are neither fair nor foul." Ma then asked, "What bride price is required?" The matchmaker answered, "About four or five taels of silver." Ma said the sum was no issue, but he insisted on seeing the woman himself. The matchmaker worried that a respectable maiden would not wish to show her face in public. Finally, they agreed to go together to the woman's village, and the matchmaker instructed Ma to act discreetly and not reveal himself. Upon reaching the village, the matchmaker went ahead, leaving Ma to wait outside. After a long while, the matchmaker returned and said, "All is arranged. I have a cousin who lives in the same courtyard as the woman. Just now I went to their home and saw the woman sitting inside. You may pretend to visit my cousin, and as you pass her door, you can steal a glance." Ma followed the matchmaker's instructions. He indeed saw the woman sitting inside, leaning over a bed while someone scratched her back. As Ma hurried past her door, his eyes swept quickly over her face, and he found her appearance exactly as the matchmaker had described. When they discussed the bride price, the woman's family did not haggle over the amount, only asking for one or two taels to buy her some new clothes and see her married. Ma bargained a little and then produced the silver. In the end, the bride price, along with the fees for the matchmaker and the scribe who wrote the marriage contract, came to exactly three taels, not a single coin more. But when the auspicious day arrived and Ma welcomed the woman into his home, he saw clearly that she had a chicken breast and a hunched back, her neck was drawn in like a turtle's, and beneath her skirt, her feet were as large as a boat, a full foot in length. Only then did Ma realize that the fox maiden's earlier words had all been spoken with reason.
The Chronicler of the Strange remarks: The fox fairy's appearance changes according to the beholder—perhaps this is the fox maiden's self-deprecating jest about her own visage; yet, the principles of fortune she expounds are truly convincing and worthy of belief. I have often said: Without the cultivation of several generations of ancestors, one cannot attain high office; without the cultivation of one's own past lives, one cannot marry a beautiful wife. Those who believe in the law of cause and effect will surely not deem these words of mine as pedantic or hard to accept!
Commentary
The romantic tales of ghosts and fox-spirits in "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" generally depict scholars, but "The Hairy Fox" is a rare instance of a story about a farmer. Although it involves ghosts and fox-spirits, it truthfully reflects the marriage and love circumstances of peasants during the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as some of Pu Songling's own views.
In Pu Songling's writings, the romantic unions between scholars and fox spirits or ghosts could be tender, sorrowful, passionate, or even decorous, but the courtship of peasants was quite primal: Ma Tianrong, upon seeing a hairy fox, immediately "wished to engage in wild union," echoing Lu Xun's Ah Q who, upon seeing Wu Ma, declared "I want to sleep with you"—a parallel sentiment. The peasant Ma Tianrong's lover, the hairy fox, had "a ruddy complexion" and "a body covered in fine hair," while his marital partner was "large-footed and hunchbacked," with "a neck retracted like a turtle's," which, though tinged with mockery and absurdity, seemed the inevitable outcome of impoverished rural marriages among the lowest classes. Of course, Pu Songling's attribution of the inability to "obtain a beauty" to karmic retribution from past lives carried a bias; in terms of marriage costs, the peasant Ma Tianrong's expenditure was quite low, requiring only "three pieces of gold." If we compare this to the requirement in "The Dream of Gong Mengbi" where the Huang family demanded Gong Mengbi "return with a hundred pieces of gold," then during the Ming-Qing transition, the difference in marriage costs between a land-rich gentry and a poor peasant was nearly thirty-fold!
Not only does the story diverge greatly from the romantic marriages of scholars, but this piece also possesses a linguistic style imbued with the rustic charm of peasant life—simple yet not shallow, even carrying aesthetic significance. For instance, the words of the Fur Fox: "You long for a national beauty, so naturally you should have a national beauty." "With my dull and homely appearance, I am certainly not fit for the upper class; yet compared to those with large feet and hunched backs, I am indeed a national beauty." This, amidst its teasing, offers much food for thought.