Five Spice Street

2. ‘‘… Last night, you once again flew from the mirror to the night sky. At the time, I was lost in thought when suddenly I heard a hu and knew it was you. I pricked up my ears and followed you with my imagination. Your bare feet stirred up a puff of cool wind that blew against my face. During the day, I heard that someone wanted to retaliate against you. (One of the teenage boys or girls?) He might lurk under the bed or behind the cupboard. You have to carefully check the places in the room where someone could hide, and sweep those spots with the broom I gave you. You’ll ridicule me again for being nervous. I know you’ll say, ‘I can’t sense that person. Generally it’s hard for me to sense other people. How can he hurt me?’ I can imagine how you’ll look as you say this. No matter what, I’ll patrol outside your room all night tonight. I’m afraid of that person-that desperado.’’

3. ‘‘You say you can ‘see clearly with your sensory organs’ for a long time: that’s because you know how to use those mirrors. When you sit down, you can immediately ‘enter a meditative state.’ I can only occasionally experience that state (for example, when I see you in the morning). Most days, I’m utterly confused…’’

From this letter, the widow drew several important conclusions: (1) She realized that Madam X had been faking all along; she hadn’t achieved anything at all. It was only a cheap trick played over and over again to fool people. She longed to monopolize all the world’s men (and even some women) and was keenly aware of their interest in novelty as well as their fragile nature, so she pretended to be learned and profound in order to hoodwink them until they were confused. (2) She confirmed one fact: a lot of people in the world were just like Madam X’s husband-a virgin with stunted sexual competence. For such people, the less reliable a woman was, and the more able she was to arouse their fleeting, misty daydreams, the more interested they were in her, and the easier it was for them to be ‘‘enchanted.’’ They were utterly ignorant of sex, yet always obstinately considered themselves right. It was easy to cure this mental illness: if a real woman entered their lives and they had a sexual relationship with her, then their fragile connection with Madam X would fall apart at once. Of course, she didn’t mean to say that this absurdity existed only because there was no real woman in the world. There were real women (the widow frowned), but they were few and far between and weren’t interested in sinking their claws into the kinds of virgins or androgynous trash who ‘‘were inept’’ and ‘‘unspeakably awkward.’’ Only because of these strange circumstances could our Madam X play her tricks; everyone could only watch helplessly as she carried out her deceptions.