徐念慈：新法螺先生譚

New Tales of Mr Braggadocio

By Xu Nianci

Translated by Nathaniel Isaacson

JUEWO says: In the summer of 1904, my friend Tianxiao of Wumen

[Bao Tianxiao, 1876–1973] showed me his translation of Iwaya

Sazanami’s two-volume work, ‘Mr Braggadocio, A Farcical Tale’.

Reading it, I was struck by its oddness and in order to escape the summer

heat I secretly borrowed it and gathered with some fellow townsmen,

sitting down and idly chatting with them about it. Some found it to be

quite novel: at turns surprising, at others humorous; we never tired of

it and talked of it for three days. On the next night even more people

gathered. I could not turn down their invitation to talk more, and made

a ludicrous attempt at imitation, in order to entertain my neighbours.

I dare not deny its imperfections, but I have appended it to the original

nonetheless. Perhaps gentlemen of elegance can forgive me for this.

MR NEW BRAGGADOCIO says: Ah, gentlemen! Do you know my history, its

strange and bizarre events, such unbelievable twists and turns—that are even

more outlandish than those of Mr Braggadocio? Gentlemen, try not to gasp

aloud, and listen to me tell the story.

In my youth, I was rather inclined to the words of religious superstition, and

believed sincerely in ‘Heaven and Hell’. I assumed that in a world so big, what

reason was there that they should not exist? Scientists, relying only on the

evidence provided by the phenomena and research of mineralogy, botany, and

zoology, believe that all things and all principles are limited to these. If this

were really so, then there would be nothing we call knowledge that would fall

outside of the purview of science, and there would be no further discovery. And

if experimentation were to disprove this notion, then what? Having lit upon this

question, the more I pondered the more I wondered, and the more I wondered

the more I pondered, at which point I blurted out: can I be so constrained by

the fetters of sophistry? If I cannot transcend this, nor enlighten the horizons of

vision, nor expand it with unprecedented methods, then I will be no more than a

slave of learning, which I cannot, will not be!

Although this was the case, and I had already taken up the charge, wherever

I started I felt it would inevitably lead nowhere, so I spent two years in a languid

trance. I ruminated upon the weakness of my own abilities, blaming and

censuring myself, my brain in a muddle, and thus lost control of my faculties,

electing to flee, seeking refuge atop a high mountain peak. This mountain stood

at some 360,000 feet above sea level, and there was no atmosphere there. At the

time, my mind was fully absorbed and by the time I set off I had long forgotten

the breath in my lungs, so even in this place with no atmosphere I felt no

discomfort. Suddenly, a great gust of wind blew from millions of feet above me. It

blew at a speed of 1 million feet per second from high to low and then from low to

high again, to the east, then south, then west, then north. By careful observation

I knew this was no ordinary atmospheric motion; it was in truth generated by

the gravitational force of the stars—some big, some small, some vertical, some

horizontal—all woven together. The summit I had come to was indeed the centre

of this immense gravitational field. Standing unaided in its midst, what means

of control did I have? For just as I came to a halt, there was a great rushing

sound and I was sent somersaulting tail over tea-kettle, flying swift as a meteor

as if I had been cast a whirlpool, gyrating like a spinning-wheel. Thoughts

a-jumble and mind a-muddle, in indescribable peril, I thereupon slipped

unconsciousness.

My encounter with this great wind did not merely result in my body being

tossed about; some of its elements were mixed up and recombined while others

were torn asunder by the force. At the rate of 100 times per second the processes

of destruction, construction, and disintegration occurred simultaneously. From

the moment my body came this gravitational field, I had been unconscious

for only twenty-four hours when my senses were restored and I could immediately

sense that the immaterial part of my vital energy had been separated one

distinct unit. I have no word for it, but it could be referred to in the common

language of religion as the ‘soul’. The material portion was separated out

another unit, which I also have no name for, but it could be described in the

common parlance of religion as the ‘body’.

How strange! Seeing that my single being had seemingly been transformed

two left me in a state of disbelief. When you hear of my soul-self you won’t be

able to help laughing out loud: it was a ball an inch in diameter, composed of gas,

and only by using a microscope of ten quadrillion times magnification could you

discern its true appearance. Its weight was one one-hundredth that of hydrogen.

Though it had neither eyes, ears, nose nor tongue, its sight was doubly clear and

hearing doubly acute. Its sense of smell was doubly keen and palate doubly true.

It had neither hands nor feet, yet its grip was doubly sure, and moreover its pace

was doubly quick. Within this being there was neither a circulatory, respiratory,

digestive, nor nervous system, and yet no function went unperformed. At this

moment, I could not help but feel elated, thinking that a thorough investigation

of all phenomena could now be readily undertaken. As it happened, there was

one difficulty, namely that I was now so light that I could not stay steady in the

atmosphere, and I could not predict where this being would float off to. Would I end

up revolving about in the heavens like the planets? Or would I be drawn in by some

great force and left forever moored to the same spot and permanently immobile?

These thoughts aroused a great fear in me. As luck would have it, however, my

soul being was repelled by gravity, and eventually came to rest; these two selves

landed at the same time on the summit of Mt. Everest in the Himalayas.

The question which my good gentlemen are surely anxious to hear answered

is what happened to my corporeal body? Its ears, eyes, nose, tongue, hands and

feet were little changed from before; its systems of circulation, respiration, and

digestion were likewise unchanged. It was only that great and wondrous head

which lacked one thing—a brain. I thought that since I lacked this one thing

henceforth I should be unable to think or move and thus I should be no different

from a dead man. Though I had this soul-self, the bodily-self was now useless and

therefore all of my previous experiences were illusions, all that I had previously

thought was irrational imagination, and my body was more or less a corpse, so I

began to cry aloud.

A long time passed, and after twenty-four hours I put a halt to my tears,

though their tracks still covered my face. At this moment it was as if I was struck

by something and suddenly became overjoyed—if my bodily-self was already

dead, then how could I cry, and from whence did these streaming tears come? My

previous experiences were indeed real, and how could I say that they were illusory?

How could I say that they were irrational imaginings? At this moment I clearly had

two selves, one my soul-self and the other my bodily-self, and in the future I could

make good use of these two selves to study all the world’s phenomena, and invent

all manner of things. I was but one, but my contributions would be far greater

than those of any single person. The fortune of anyone ancient or contemporary,

Chinese or foreign would be incomparable to mine and I would take advantage

of it. Unconsciously, I grew overjoyed and began to laugh out loud, chortling

uncontrollably. By the time I had finally regained my composure, yet another

twenty-four hours’ time had passed and I thus began to regret the piteous fact of

having forgotten the preciousness of time and having wasted forty-eight hours at

this laughing and crying. How truly absurd I was, absurd beyond compare!

After this, I attained great capacities. What abilities had my experiment on

the summit of Mt. Everest brought forth? I could take my bodily-self and my soul?self and combine them as one or I could separate them in two; furthermore, I could

take my soul-self and divide it in two, and send half of it my body; I could

also separate my bodily-self in two, wrap half of it around my spirit, and still it

would not lose the slightest bit of function. I thought, because this mountain is

the ancestor of all mountains, highly regarded in the world as the summit of all

mountains, a place where ordinary men cannot easily tread, and since I want to

foster mercy and exercise my spiritual powers, no place would be better than this

peak. Gentlemen! Do you still remember twelve years ago on the thirtieth day of

the tenth lunar month, which was the winter solstice, when a light shone all over

the world as brightly as if it were noontide? That was the first time I tested my

powers.

The first question that I investigated on the summit was whether or not the

human body could emanate light. At the time, my two selves worked together

in the investigation, forgetting to eat or sleep for almost a month, and forged my

soul-self a wondrous source of light. Its radiance was 10,000 times stronger

than the sun, and 20 billion times stronger than the moon. Having attained

success on that that thirtieth day of the tenth month, I had my body-self face east,

my back to the west, and stood on the summit, delicately holding my soul-self up

over its head. My soul-self emanated a most powerful light, covering the entire

world in its radiance. I then made a comparison between the light I emanated

and the light of the sun and I found that my own light was superior in three

ways. I believe that you gentlemen will also find this to be so.

1. Solar light travels in a straight line and when it reaches the

Earth, the portion which faces the Sun has day and the portion

facing away has night. My light can bend, so the entire face of

the planet, even the side opposite the point of emanation can be

reached by its brilliance.

2. Because sunlight is too intense, people cannot look directly at it.

But my light is distributed more evenly, and therefore one can

look directly at it without the eye suffering from the glare.

3. Sunlight mixes with all other particles, which Occidental people

refer to as ‘energy’, but actually once energy has been released

in light, it disappears. The effect of my combinatory light upon

the places it reached was in no way inferior to that of the sun,

but the most curious effect was that it allowed substances it

came in contact with to retain their glow. So though my own

light had only shone for one hour, the world was illuminated


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