There was a merchant who was on good terms with a fox and often
visited his house on incitation. The house looked nothing out of the ordinary,
but if the man turned to look after walking out the gate, it would no longer
be there. One evening the fox invited him home to drink wine and had his
wife fill the cups for them. She was exceedingly beautiful. A bit drunk,
the merchant lost his head and put out his hand to pinch her on the wrist.
The fox-woman threw a glance at her husband, who smiled and went on chatting
as if he were not in the least offended.
After that the merchant returned to his inn. One early morning
his wife suddenly arrived on a donkey, with a house servant holding the
halter. She had traveled overnight on this borrowed donkey after getting
an urgent message about him suffering a stroke. The astonished merchant
concluded an acquaintance of his must have been playing a prank on him.
As there was no room at the inn to put up his wife, he wanted to have the
servant take her back, but found out the servant had already left. There
was less than a day’s trip to his home, so he decided to take his wife
home on the donkey himself. On their way a young man passing them on the
road stroked the woman on her foot. When she swore at him angrily, he apologized
with a lascivious leer and went on the make some lewd remarks. Incensed,
the merchant engaged him in a fistfight. As the startled donkey ran down
a side road and disappeared into a sorghum field, the merchant let go of
the young man to run in pursuit of his wife. After going for a distance
he found the donkey caught in a mud pool, but his wife was out of sight.
He searched up and down the place until daybreak, when he rode the donkey
home, intending to think up a way to find his wife on his return. He had
gone only a few li when someone at the roadside called out, “The thief
is here!” This was a crowd from a nearby village hunting for a donkey stolen
the night before. The merchant was caught, tied up and given a sound beating.
Thanks to an acquaintance that pleaded on his behalf, the merchant was
set free at last. Crestfallen, he returned home to find his wife spinning
threads. When asked about what had happened the night before, she stared
at him blankly, not knowing what he was talking about. It dawned upon him
that the woman, the house servant and the young man on the road had all
been the fox in disguise; only the donkey had appeared to him in its true
identity. Though the fox was rather vindictive in his retaliation, the
merchant could blame no one but himself. |
