The Kindly Magician

There was once a man named Du Dsi Tschun. As a young man he was a spendthrift who never looked after what he owned; he loved drinking and idleness. When he had wasted every coin, his relatives turned him out. One winter day he was tramping barefoot through the city, hungry and in rags. Night was falling and he still had found nothing to eat. He drifted aimlessly around the marketplace, starving and almost unable to bear the cold, until he lifted his face to the sky and began to wail.

All at once a very old man leaning on a staff stood in front of him. “What do you lack, that you complain like this?” he asked.

“I am dying of hunger,” said Du Dsi Tschun, “and no one will take pity on me.”

“How much money would you need to live in comfort?” asked the old man.

“Fifty thousand coppers would do,” said Du Dsi Tschun.

“That would not be enough.”

“A million, then.”

“Still too little.”

“Three million, then!”

“Now you are talking,” said the old man. He took a thousand coppers out of his sleeve. “That is for tonight. Look for me tomorrow at noon in the Persian Bazaar.”

Du Dsi Tschun went at the appointed hour, and there was the old man, who handed him three million coppers and then disappeared without telling his name.

With money in his hands, Du Dsi Tschun’s old love of extravagance woke up. He rode pampered horses, dressed in the finest furs, took to wine again, and lived so lavishly that the money slowly ran out. Brocade gave way to cotton, his horse gave way to his own feet, and in the end he was barefoot and ragged once more, with no idea where his next meal would come from. Again he stood sighing in the marketplace. But the old man was already there. He took his hand and said, “Back where you started already? How odd! Still, I will help you one more time.”

Du Dsi Tschun was ashamed and did not want to accept, but the old man insisted and led him to the Persian Bazaar. This time he gave him ten million coppers, and Du Dsi Tschun thanked him with a burning face.

Now he tried to make the money grow and to save so that he would become truly rich. But old habits are hard to root out. Bit by bit he started tossing his money about, giving in to every desire, until his purse was empty. Within a couple of years he was as poor as ever.

When he came upon the old man a third time, he was so ashamed that he covered his face as he went by. But the old man caught his arm. “Where are you off to? I will help you yet again. This time I will give you thirty million. But if you do not change after that, no one can help you.”

Du Dsi Tschun bowed low, full of gratitude. “When I was poor, my rich relatives never came looking for me,” he said. “You alone have helped me three times. I swear that the money you give me today will not be wasted. I will spend it on good works to repay your great kindness, and when that is done I will follow you, even through fire and water if I must.”

“That is right,” said the old man. “When you have put your affairs in order, ask for me at the temple of Laotsze, under the two mulberry trees.”

Du Dsi Tschun took the money to Yangdschou. There he bought a hundred acres of the best land and built a tall house with hundreds of rooms beside the highway, and he let widows and orphans live in it. He bought a burial ground for his ancestors and supported his poor relations. Countless people owed their living to him.

When everything was done, he went to the temple of Laotsze to look for the old man. He found him sitting in the shade of the mulberry trees, playing the flute. The old man led him off to the cloudy peaks of the sacred mountains in the West. When they had gone about forty miles into the mountains, Du Dsi Tschun saw a clean and beautiful dwelling wrapped in clouds of many colors, with peacocks and cranes flying around it. Inside stood an herb-oven nine feet tall, burning with a purple flame whose light flickered over the walls. Nine fairies stood beside the oven, and a green dragon and a white tiger crouched next to it.

Evening came. The old man no longer looked like an ordinary person; he wore a yellow cap and wide, flowing robes. He dropped three pellets of White Stone into a jug of wine and gave it to Du Dsi Tschun to drink. Then he spread a tiger-skin against the west wall of the inner room and told him to sit on it facing east. “Now take care not to say a single word,” he warned, “whatever happens to you. You may meet mighty gods or dreadful demons, wild beasts or ogres, every torment of the underworld, or even your own family in pain. All of these are only lying visions and cannot hurt you. Keep my words in mind and let your soul stay calm.” And with that he vanished.

Now Du Dsi Tschun saw nothing in front of him but a big stone jar full of clear water. The fairies, the dragon and the tiger were gone. Suddenly a tremendous crash shook heaven and earth. A man more than ten feet tall appeared, calling himself the great captain, he and his horse covered in golden armor. More than a hundred soldiers surrounded him, bows drawn and swords swinging, and they halted in the courtyard. “Who are you?” the giant roared. “Get out of my way!”

Du Dsi Tschun did not budge, and he did not answer. The giant flew into a rage and thundered, “Cut off his head!” Still Du Dsi Tschun did not stir, and the giant stormed away.

Next came a raging tiger and a venomous snake, roaring and hissing. They lunged as if to bite him and sprang over his head, but his spirit stayed untroubled, and after a while they melted away.

Then rain came down in torrents. Thunder and lightning never stopped, until his ears rang and his eyes were dazzled; it seemed the house would collapse. In moments the water rose into a flood and surged up to where he sat. Du Dsi Tschun did not move or take any notice, and after a time the water drained away.

Then a huge ox-headed demon set up a cauldron of boiling oil in the middle of the courtyard. He caught Du Dsi Tschun by the neck with an iron fork. “Tell me who you are, and I will let you go!” Du Dsi Tschun closed his eyes and kept silent. The demon lifted him on the fork and threw him into the cauldron. He bore the pain, and the oil did him no harm. At last the demon hauled him out and dragged him down the steps before a red-haired, blue-faced figure who looked like the prince of the underworld.

“Bring in his wife!” cried the prince. After a while Du Dsi Tschun’s wife was led in, chained, her hair torn loose, weeping bitterly. The demon pointed at Du Dsi Tschun. “Say your name and we will let her go!” He said nothing. The prince of evil had the woman tormented in every kind of way. “I have been your wife for ten years,” she begged. “Won’t you say one small word to save me? I cannot bear any more!” Tears poured from her eyes; she screamed and cursed him. Still he did not speak.

“Cut her down!” shouted the prince, and before Du Dsi Tschun’s eyes it seemed that she was truly being killed. But he did not move.

“This scoundrel has gone too far,” cried the prince of evil. “He shall live no longer. Off with his head!” And so they put him to death, and it seemed to him that his soul left his body. The ox-headed demon dragged him down into the underworld, where he suffered every punishment there in turn. But he remembered the old man’s words, and even the tortures seemed bearable, so he neither screamed nor spoke.

He was brought before the prince of evil again. “For his stubbornness,” said the prince, “let this man be born on earth as a woman.” The demon dragged him to the wheel of life, and he came back into the world as a baby girl.

The girl was often sick and had to take medicine constantly, and she was pricked and burned with hot needles. Yet she never made a sound. In time she grew into a beautiful young woman, but because she never spoke, people called her the silent maid. At last a scholar married her, and they lived together kindly and peacefully. A son was born to them, and by the age of two he was wise and clever beyond measure.

One day the father was carrying the boy in his arms. Teasing his wife, he said, “When I look at you, I don’t believe you are really mute. Won’t you say one little word to me? How lovely it would be if you became my speaking rose!” She stayed silent. However he coaxed her and tried to make her smile, she gave no answer.

Then his face changed. “If you will not speak to me, you must despise me. In that case your son means nothing to me either!” And he seized the child and hurled him against the wall.

Because Du Dsi Tschun loved that little boy so dearly, he forgot the old man’s warning and cried out, “Oh! Oh!”

Before the cry had faded, he woke as if from a dream and found himself sitting in his old place, with the old man beside him. It must have been around the fifth hour of the night. Purple flames were leaping wildly out of the oven and up toward the sky, and the whole house caught fire and blazed like a torch.

“You have betrayed me!” cried the old man. He grabbed Du Dsi Tschun by the hair and plunged him into the jar of water, and in a moment the fire went out. “You conquered joy and anger, grief and fear, hatred and desire,” the old man said, “but you had not driven love out of your soul. If you had not cried out when the child was thrown against the wall, my elixir would have taken shape and you would have become immortal. At the very last moment you failed me. Now it is too late. I must start brewing my elixir of life all over from the beginning, and you will stay an ordinary mortal.”

Du Dsi Tschun saw that the oven had burst open, and that instead of the philosopher’s stone it held only a lump of iron. The old man threw off his robes and hacked the lump apart with a magic knife. Du Dsi Tschun took his leave and went home to Yangdschou, where he lived in great wealth. When he was old, he was sorry he had not finished his task, and he climbed the mountain to search for the old man. But the old man had disappeared without a trace.

About this story

“The Kindly Magician” is chapter XXXVIII of Richard Wilhelm’s The Chinese Fairy Book, translated by Frederick H. Martens (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1921), the last of his “Tales of Saints and Magicians.” Martens’s preface singles it out for the “weird sorceries” it unfolds.

Wilhelm’s note explains the background. The “Persian Bazaar” reflects the lively trade between Tang China and the West, when such markets were common in the capital, Si-An-Fu. The herb-oven is the tripod kettle used to brew the elixir of life, and the master needs a helper of perfect endurance, which is why he first made Du Dsi Tschun his debtor through kindness. The note connects the underworld ruler Yan Wang with Yama, a figure shared across religious traditions. Wilhelm adds that the flames that wreck the oven are made by the one feeling Du Dsi Tschun could not conquer: a mother’s love. This retelling preserves the sequence of trials, including violence toward a wife and child. These remain disturbing even though the story calls them visions.

Read the original: The Chinese Fairy Book (Project Gutenberg)

For older readers: deprivation, visions of torture and execution, domestic violence, an attack on a child and rebirth as a woman framed as punishment. That gender hierarchy belongs to the old narrative, not to a judgment of women’s worth.

Reading the story closely

The old man’s first gifts appear unconditional, but the later task makes his investment in Du Dsi Tschun useful to his own pursuit of immortality. The title ‘Kindly’ becomes harder to accept when he grabs his helper by the hair and treats love for a child as betrayal. Du’s earlier use of wealth to house vulnerable people offers a different measure of achievement from the failed elixir.

Compare the two standards of success: practical help at Yangdschou and perfect detachment in the mountain room. List what each requires him to notice or ignore. The ending says he later regrets failing, but the narrative also gives readers reasons to value the cry that interrupted the test. His regret need not be the reader’s verdict.

Questions to ask

• Why does the old man give Du Dsi Tschun money three times? What finally changes Du Dsi Tschun?
• How does the final vision differ from the earlier threats, and what does the magician’s reaction reveal about his priorities?
• The old man calls love a failure. Do you agree that Du Dsi Tschun failed?

You may also like

• Old Dschang — the Wilhelm chapter just before this one, another strange magician
• The King of Huai Nan — a prince who seeks the elixir of life
• Black Arts — another Wilhelm tale of a student of magic