New Liaozhai: The Umbrella
A widow's oil-paper umbrella shelters a traveler from more than rain; each plum-rain season it remembers him, and in the grave only the umbrella remains.
New Liaozhai: The Umbrella
In the land south of the Yangtze it rains often. A widowed merchant's daughter of Kuaiji, surnamed Shen, made her living crafting oil-paper umbrellas — all of them plain, undyed.
A traveling merchant named Liu passed through Kuaiji in a downpour and bought one. Shen told him: "This umbrella wakes when wet. Simply open it; do not ask what it shields you from." Liu laughed at the fancy, but admired the work and took it.
Days later he lodged at a roadside inn. Past midnight a storm broke the roof and water poured through. Liu opened the umbrella and sat on his bed — not a drop touched him, while the other travelers lay soaked in their sleep. He marveled, then weary, slept in his clothes.
At dawn the rain cleared. Folding the umbrella, Liu found a slip of plain paper caught in the ribs, inscribed in small characters: "I am Shen; the umbrella is my body. Think of me, and each plum-rain season I shall shelter you." Liu was struck with fear; he looked, and indeed a faint trace of powder marked the paper, as if freshly wiped.
Liu went home, and every plum-rain season thereafter carried this umbrella. People saw no rain fall beneath it and thought it strange; Liu said nothing.
When Liu grew old he was buried with the umbrella. Villagers opened the grave and found the coffin empty but for a yellowed oil-paper umbrella, the slip still in its ribs, the writing fresh as the day it was set.
It is said: the deepest devotion need not wear a human face. Even a humble umbrella knows to shield the one it remembers.