The Thunder God

South of the Wei there lived a young man of the Wang family, violent of temper and no friend to his mother. The old woman, poor and widowed, he would revile and beat; the neighbors looked askance but dared not remonstrate. On a summer night black clouds bore down upon the hills and the thunder rolled deep. His mother, who feared the thunder, cowered within the door; but Wang said to her, The thunder smites the wicked—what is that to me? and, taking up an umbrella, walked out to shelter beneath the ancient locust in the court, thinking the thunder-fire would not reach the shade. Presently the thunder circled the tree thrice, and the lightning came like a serpent, close and burning. Wang, shaking, threw himself to the ground and waited to be struck. Yet the thunder drew off; the locust split down the middle, fire leaping from its heart, a smell of scorched wood filling the court—and Wang was unharmed, not a hair singed. Upon the blistered bark there showed, as if written in fire, these words: The thunder splits the tree, not your body; the tree dies in your stead, your mother trembles in your place. Can you bear to save yourself alone? Return! Wang read them and broke in a sweat; he started up, cast down his umbrella, and ran home. There he found his mother still huddled in her quilt, shivering. He knelt before her, clasped her feet, and wept, confessing his sin. From that day he mended his ways, attending her at dusk and dawn, till the village spoke well of him. The Chronicler of the Strange remarks: The thunder can split the tree, but not the heart; only when the heart is split does goodness spring. Heaven's punishment needs no fire—a single twinge of shame suffices. And they who shelter from the thunder beneath a tree—know they that the thunder's mercy lies precisely where it withholds the blow?