The River God

There was an old ferryman called Liu, who had plied his boat for thirty years, awaiting passengers at the ford each night. Beside the ford lay some acres of reed, which sighed in the night wind; his boat lay moored on the wild water, with only the stars and moon for company. When the autumn floods were swelling, one misty evening he heard the water raging and a knocking upon the gunwale. He looked out: an old man stood upon the waves, clad in a reed-coat, his face marked with the grain of water, and not sinking. Liu was aghast and asked his wish. The old man said: "I have governed these waters long. Yesterday a youth was drowned here, and his body is not yet returned. His mother leans at the gate and watches; her eyes are near spent. This night at the third watch a great storm shall come, and the body will drift back upon the waves to shore—do thou guide it in." So saying, he vanished into the mist. Liu marveled and lay hidden in the hold to wait. At the third watch the thunder indeed came, and rain poured as from a basin. Soon the waves swelled, and a corpse came upstream, stopping at the shallow strand. Liu drew it in with his pole; it was the youth, his face as living. The next day the youth's mother came seeking, and wept to find him. Liu told of his nightly encounter, and she bowed her thanks. Thereafter, on misty nights, Liu would see the reed-clad elder standing in the heart of the waves, bowing once toward the ferry, then sinking away. Moved by the spirit's deed, Liu would on every anniversary of the youth's death pour wine upon the waves in offering. The Chronicler of the Strange remarks: Water itself is without feeling, yet its keeper may have feeling. The River God's charge to a single boat—merely to guide a corpse back to its mother—was a trifling thing. Yet the trifling things under heaven are often what hang upon them a man's hope of life and death. Those who sit in high places and hold the lives of the people in their hands—are they not, after all, less mindful of the widow and orphan than a god of the waters?