The Shop

(The articles sold here are to be burned at funerals for the use of the dead in the spirit world.)

The master of the shop is a pious man, in good odor with the priests. He is old and honorable and his white moustache droops below his chin. Mencius, I think, looked so.

The shop behind him is a mimic world, a world of pieties and shams—the valley of remembrance—the dwelling place of the unquiet dead. Here on his shelves are ranged the splendor and the panoply of life, silk in smooth gleaming rolls, silver in ingots, carving and embroidery and jade, a scarlet bearer-chair, a pipe for opium.... Whatever life has need of, it is here, And it is for the dead.

Whatever life has need of, it is here. Yet it is here in sham, in effigy, in tortured compromise. The dead have need of silk. Yet silk is dear, and there are living backs to clothe. The rolls are paper.... Do not look too close.

The dead I think will understand. The carvings, too, the bearer-chair, the jade—yes, they are paper; and the shining ingots, they are tinsel. Yet they are made with skill and loving care! And if the priest knows—surely he must know!— when they are burned they'll serve the dead as well as verities. So living mouths can feed.

The master of the shop is a pious man. He has attained much honor and his white moustache droops below his chin. "Such an one" he says "I burned for my own father. And such an one my son will burn for me. For I am old, and half my life already dwells among the dead."

And, as he speaks, behind him in the shop I feel the presence of a hovering host, the myriads of the immortal dead, the rulers of the spirit in this land....