The Rat Wedding

The old custom held that the seventeenth night of the first month was the day the rats married off their daughter. On that night every house put out its lamps and went early to bed, nor pounded nor pestled, lest they disturb the rat's wedding and earn its spite. The custom was an old one. The village elders said that long ago a family that would not believe, and still pounded rice that night, found their granary emptied by rats within days, and every jar and vat gnawed through. After that the villagers feared and kept the rite, and it passed into law. The elders also said that on this night the whole nest came forth with lanterns and bright trimmings to send the girl from the door; if men made a noise, the bride would not rest at her new home, and the year to come the rats would gnaw the clothes and bore the jars all the worse.

The villagers kept this custom most devoutly; even the little children dared not make a sound that night, for fear of offending. Should some stranger from abroad not know, and light his lamp and make merry, the next day he would find the bottom of his rice-jar empty and his shoes and socks gnawed. As the years deepened the custom stood firm as law, and none dared break it.

The granary-keeper, Old Gou, was a hard man who believed in no such thing. He had watched the grain all his life, from the days as a youth shouldering hemp-sacks he had warred with the rats, and they had carried off he knew not how many measures; he hated them to the bone. He would say, "A rat is a thief; what god is there in it?" On this night he would not sleep. He took his watch-clapper and walked the granary, resolved to catch them in the act, and so wake the village from its folly.

The seventeenth came after snow, the first clear night, the moon white as washed stone, and icicles hung in a line from the eaves. When night fell the village was indeed silent, even the dogs still; only the snow-grains whispered where the wind passed. Old Gou wrapped in his fur sat under the granary eave and fixed his eyes on the three rat-holes at the wall's foot, the clapper warm in his grip. Near the second watch, two tiny red lanterns no bigger than beans crept out of a hole, swaying, their flames like beans yet casting a halo on the snow; and after them a line of gray shapes in two rows — lantern-bearers before, chair-bearers behind. The chair was half a melon-seed shell, red-lacquered and gilt, borne on the shoulders of four rats, their steps fine and even, and grains of rice studded the shell like nails. Before the chair walked a rat in a high cap and broad girdle, seeming the master of ceremonies, bearing a thing like a grain of rice tipped with red, perhaps a bridal ornament. The followers carried little banners or tiny bridal boxes, all rats, of differing coats, but all solemn and soundless, only their footfalls fine as rain on sand.

Old Gou rubbed his eyes, thinking it a drunken vision, yet the cold wind struck his face, clear as clear. The procession reached the stone roller before the granary and stopped. The master of ceremonies turned and bowed deep, toward where Old Gou hid, his sleeve brushing the snow with no trace. Old Gou was aghast and shrank still. The rats set the seed-shell chair gently down; the curtain stirred, as if the bride peeped out, half showing a small and clever face. A moment, and from the chair something dropped to the snow — three round grains, full and smooth, not the lean and shriveled sort he knew in the granary, and a faint warmth upon them.

Old Gou had never met such a thing in all his life, and felt at once dread and wonder. He had always prided himself on his courage, yet this night he cowered under the eave and watched the red lanterns dwindle, unable to speak for a long while. He recalled that when as a youth he first took the granary key, he had seen rats in the granary bottom march off in line with stalks of grain in their mouths, and had thought it a trick of the eye; only now did he understand: there are many things in the world that must not be lightly scorned, and men simply do not know them.

Old Gou took them home and did not sleep. Next day he weighed them: each was thrice the weight of common grain. He boiled and tasted — a fragrance and glutinous sweetness beyond the usual. His family ate, and for ten days were not hungry. He had meant to tell the village and prove the tale absurd, but he thought of that snowy bow, and in the end said nothing. From then, Old Gou still walked his granary, but on the seventeenth night he would leave three fresh grains upon the stone roller, sweep a clear patch of snow, and put out his lamp and go to bed early.

After, the rat-trouble in the village eased, and the granary filled. Some said Old Gou's heart had softened; he only said, "That snowy night, they married their daughter, and their rites were more orderly than men's." And he would say no more, but each year on that night left grain upon the roller.

The years passed and Old Gou's hair went white. The village children still hear, on the seventeenth night, faint tiny lanterns moving by the granary wall, and the old say: that is the rat's daughter going to her marriage, and the keeper has made his peace.