Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/364

352 he was glad to make his way back again; and when he rejoined a friend who had been waiting for him, they noticed that the girl in the picture now wore her hair done up as a married woman.

There is a Rip van Winkle story, with the pathetic return of the hero to find, as the Chinese poet says—

There is a sea-serpent story, and a story of a big bird or rukh; also a story about a Jonah, who, in obedience to an order flashed by lightning on the sky when their junk was about to be swamped in a storm, was transferred by his fellow-passengers to a small boat and cut adrift. So soon as the unfortunate victim had collected his senses and could look about him, he found that the junk had capsized and that every soul had been downed.

The following is an extract from a story in which a young student named Liu falls in love with a girl named Feng-hsien, who was the daughter of a fox, and therefore possessed of the miraculous powers which the Chinese associate with that animal:—

"'But if you would really like to have something that has belonged to me,' said she, 'you shall.' Whereupon she took out a mirror and gave it to him, saying, 'Whenever you want to see me, you must look for me in your books; otherwise I shall not be visible;' and in a moment she had vanished. Liu went home very melancholy at heart; but when he looked in the mirror, there was Feng-hsien standing with her back to him, gazing, as it were, at some one who was going away, and about