Five Spice Street

Her sex research made it possible for the widow to reach her own conclusions and form her own system. All of her inspiration comes from deep thought. People admire this. At the same time, Madam X has been exploring the same field, but her attitude is precisely the opposite: she speculates recklessly, resorts to trickery, makes a loud clamor, even lecturing to the crowds when she has nothing to contribute, and confuses people with her evil motivations. One is real gold; the other is rotten copper. The widow’s analogy hits the nail on the head even better: she comes right out and says that Madam X is a ‘‘counterfeit.’’ As to what kind of fake, she won’t say. She just ‘‘giggles’’ constantly, embarrassed to open her mouth. We surmise that she probably has the evidence in hand: clearly it relates to ‘‘sex.’’ In the past, the people on our Five Spice Street no doubt believed that X was a woman, but now even this certainty is gone. We must be prudent about everything having to do with Madam X: we can’t take anything on faith. Let’s listen to the hints the widow dropped:

‘‘Has any man tasted her sugarplum? No. Has any man reaped sensual pleasure from her body? No. Isn’t it impossible for a true woman to be a cloudy, misty thing? As lewd and depraved as she is, she can’t have been above doing the kind of things I did. There must have been some obstacles that prevented her from acting freely. Isn’t this clear if we carefully analyze her behavior?’’

It seems it isn’t so simple. If Madam X isn’t a ‘‘woman’’ and merely attracts throngs of men with witchcraft, then the widow’s hard work in her prolonged fight against her will soon expose her cheap tricks. As for the men, they must also be on guard and won’t easily take the bait. But up to now, there isn’t the slightest evidence that Madam X will fail. Those who consort with her (including a large group of teenagers) not only don’t guard against her, they depend on her more and more with each passing day and run over to her home for unknown reasons. As for the widow’s well-intentioned reminders, it’s as though they’re deaf: they don’t listen. Nor do they respect her. It’s as if the one with a sex problem isn’t Madam X but the widow. As for Madam X, most of them never approve of her conduct, and some spare no effort in tearing her down: they want to suppress her contagious evil influence. The widow evidently knows that only by employing her ‘‘real ability’’ can she achieve her goal. Yet she can’t, for that would destroy the ‘‘selfhood’’ the widow has cultivated for years. It appears that this deadly combat between her and Madam X will end in lasting stalemate. The widow can’t accept this result, because this would be tantamount to admitting that her research wasn’t complete-that it had no real worth, it was all malarkey. Our widow was up against an incalculably perilous future, yet without wavering, she chose the path filled with brambles and snares and pushed ahead. She was essentially a fanatical idealist unable to appreciate the life of philistines. Yearning for a pure and lofty life, she pursued her own goal.

Everyone knows that when our Madam X talks of sex, she is truly eloquent and long-winded. Everything she says is filled with dubious ardor. She never tires. The fact that she made the bizarre speech on the street proves that sex has always been her consuming issue. To put it simply, all of her activities-her work in the snack shop, looking into mirrors, observation of others’ eyes, relations with men-are motivated by this. To reach her goal requires superhuman energy and physical strength, so she lives her life systematically and rigorously. As others see it, except for her nighttime occupation and addiction to looking into mirrors, her daily life is identical to theirs. They don’t know it is a lie. Her real life is in her nighttime occupation and her looking into mirrors, both of which are directly related to sex. These matters consume all her strength: she’s continually high-strung and thin. It seems she can never put on weight.

People were shocked at hearing her opinions of sex: not only could the crowds on Five Spice Street not get it through their heads, but even her husband and her younger sister-even her lover Q- could understand only bits and pieces. What was she thinking? Did she have the same inborn self-confidence as the widow? The answer is definitely yes-and not only that: her self-confidence surpassed the widow’s and became a kind of wild arrogance. But the foundation of her arrogance was exactly the opposite of the foundation of the widow’s self-confidence: she completely ignored ‘‘physiological functions’’ and thought that her ‘‘sexual power’’ originated from the light waves in her sightless eyes. This was preposterous.

‘‘This is sexual power.’’ Blushing, she was drowning in narcissism. ‘‘My attention to my eyes gives me perpetual youth and preserves a high degree of acuity about novel things.’’