Five Spice Street

Outsiders had no way to resolve this question, so we could appeal only to the superior knowledge of others. Another with inside information is Madam X’s younger sister, who claims she’s twenty-eight or twenty-nine. It just takes someone asking about Madam X’s nighttime occupation, and this sister becomes emotional for no reason, sniveling and sobbing until her eyes are tiny and swollen. Let’s listen to her incoherent narrative: ‘‘My sister used to be a charming, gentle little girl. The peach blossoms were brilliantly red. Then, suddenly, she threw Mother’s spectacles into the mountain stream. Afterwards, we ran and ran until she leapt into the air, and I heard only her footsteps-tita, tita-overhead. In private, Papa and Mama said she had two calcium carbide lamps for eyes. Sometimes, her slender fingers would turn into a hawk’s talons-very sharp and truly frightening. Mama was always grabbing her and cutting her nails until her fingers bled.’’ She told us her older sister was the first person she’d heard of who could leap into the air and fly. Consequently, everything she did was utterly correct and unquestionable. She frequently went several days without eating or drinking, and after becoming as light as a feather, she flew out the window. She flew so high that when her younger sister saw her solitary silhouette drifting to and fro, she couldn’t hold back tears. As she spoke, this sister left reason further and further behind, and the more unreasonable she became, the more excited she was and the more blind was her faith and adoration. Her thoughts were a mess, a hodgepodge; she was completely spineless. (This also leads us to think of her divorce case many years later: you could see that this woman’s sole motivation was to keep up with the fads-she was a clumsy copycat.)

Although we didn’t get anywhere close to the nub of the issue with Madam X’s sister, we did obtain bits and pieces about Madam X’s youth that were helpful in analyzing her temperament. It seems that ever since childhood, Madam X had fostered a deep-seated hatred not unrelated to her parents’ neglect, for which, in truth, she had to bear much responsibility. (Some fathers-well-intentioned old papas-have romantic views of their children; they have a relaxed attitude and don’t take charge of anything. The old mamas merely remember little things like cutting their children’s fingernails.) In later years, the toxin of this hatred must have penetrated every capillary and hardened her heart. She became strange and saw everyone as her enemy. She slipped down a muddy slope into an incurable condition. Not only was she very complacent, but she also kept trying to drag everyone else down with her. Her means of alluring and abetting were unique: in the end, those who had been affected appreciated her greatly, as if they’d won new leases on life. We may well ask: if a person has had a murderous bent since childhood (to a child, throwing her mother’s spectacles into a stream would be the same as murder), what kind of destructive instincts would she have as an adult? If these destructive instincts were constrained by objective conditions (Madam X has unfortunately never been able to freely act out her exceptionally strong lust), what kind of bizarre transformation would occur?

The circumstances we’ve analyzed make us increasingly pessimistic about Madam X’s gloomy future. We have to say that on the rainy night years ago, it would have been better if her mother hadn’t given birth to this ball of flesh so incompatible with the natural environment, world order, and peace. Although Madam X’s parents have already passed away and are silent inside their urns in a graveyard, we couldn’t help but curse them whenever we discussed this. If they hadn’t irresponsibly brought Madam X into this world and fostered her murderous inclination through their unrealistic, utopian worldview, how could she have caused such a series of events? (Here, the writer inserts a sentence: the writer is characterizing Madam X in much the same manner as the people of Five Spice Street at the beginning of the story. This description wasn’t immutable, as we’ll see later.) There were reasons for the guarded mentality of the crowds on Five Spice Street. They were all sharp-eyed, sober, and capable people. Before anything occurred, they could instinctively sniff out any danger and take precautions. So we needn’t worry too much about them: they have their own ways to deal with outside menaces. Although at present they haven’t made any headway in their investigation, they have perfect preventive measures in reserve: when the time comes, they will certainly bring them out in full force. And so we can rest easy and wait quietly for things to develop.