The Forty Strings of Cash by Pu Songling
After dreaming of a man demanding forty strings of cash, a wealthy steward believes his newborn son has come to collect the debt and reserves that amount for the child's care. The child dies when the fund is nearly spent, and the balance pays for his funeral. A second anecdote presents a Buddhist priest's explanation of good sons as debt repayments and bad sons as creditors.
By Pu Songling · Genre: Short Story, Supernatural Fiction, Cautionary Tale · 363 words
First lines
Mr. Justice Wang had a steward, who was possessed of considerable means. One night the latter dreamt that a man rushed in and said to him, "To-day you must repay me those forty strings of cash. " The steward asked who he was; to which the man made no answer, but hurried past him into the women's apartments. When the steward awoke, he found that his wife had been delivered of a son; and, knowing at once that retribution was at hand, he set aside forty strings of cash to be spent solely in food, clothes, medicines, and so on, for the baby. By the time the child was between three and four years old, the steward found that of the forty strings only about seven hundred cash remained; and when the wet-nurse, who happened to be standing by, brought the child and dandled it in her arms before him, he looked at it and said, "The forty strings are all but repaid; it is time you were off again. " Thereupon the child changed colour; its head fell back, and its eyes stared fixedly, and, when they tried to revive it, lo! respiration had already ceased. The father then took the balance of the forty strings, and with it defrayed the child's funeral expenses -- truly a warning to people to be sure and pay their debts.
Genres
- Short Story — A brief prose narrative follows a steward's dream, his son's birth, the spending of a reserved fund, and the child's death.
- Supernatural Fiction — The steward interprets his son's birth as a creditor's return, and the child dies immediately after he declares the debt nearly repaid.
- Cautionary Tale — The narrator explicitly presents the child's death and funeral expenses as a warning to repay debts.
Tags
debts · reincarnation · dreams · child death · Buddhist beliefs
What this Textopian page supports
The Forty Strings of Cash is listed on Textopian as a short story by Pu Songling, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Short story
- Author: Pu Songling
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Short Story, Supernatural Fiction, Cautionary Tale
- Length: 363 words
- Structure: 1 section, 3 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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