A Husband for Kutani

By Frank Owen

First published in 1938, this is a collection of four Oriental tales, including ‘Five Merchants Who Met in a Tea-House,’ and ‘Doctor Shen Fu,’ a tale of a Chinese alchemist who possesses the elixir of life.

These beautiful and exotic series of Oriental fantasies, set in a China of the imagination, are brought to life by author Frank Owen’s brilliant descriptive passages that embroider his tales.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Muriwai Books
• Release date: Feb 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781787209596

Frank Owen

Frank Owen (April 20, 1893 - October 13, 1968) was an American author, novelist and anthologist. He wrote some ten novels in the 1930s under the pseudonym Roswell Williams, but is best known for his oriental fantasy short stories, many of which appeared in the magazine Weird Tales. Own also co-wrote several children’s collections with his sister, Ethel Owen (1890-1946), including Coat Tales from the Pockets of the Happy Giant (1927), and published three anthologies: Murder for Millions (1946), Fireside Mystery Book (1947) and Teen-age Mystery Stories (1948). He also wrote under the pen names Richard Kent and Hung Long Tom. Owen was born in 1893 in Kings County, New York, the second son and youngest of nine children of Welsh immigrants Henry Owen, a real estate broker, and Henrietta Owen. He was married to Lillian Owen, a native Pennsylvanian and the couple made their home in Brooklyn, New York. Frank Owen passed in 1968 at the age of 75 and is interred at the Long Island National Cemetery in Suffolk County, New York.

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Text originally published in 1938 under the same title.

© Muriwai Books 2017, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

A HUSBAND FOR KUTANI

BY

FRANK OWEN

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

A HUSBAND FOR KUTANI 4

1 4

2 7

3 11

4 14

5 17

6 19

7 22

8 24

9 26

DOCTOR SHEN FU 30

THE BOOK OF LOVE 44

1 44

2 49

3 55

4 59

5 64

FIVE MERCHANTS WHO MET IN A TEA-HOUSE 67

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 73

A HUSBAND FOR KUTANI

1

KUTANI WAS BORN UPON A MOUNTAINTOP ONE NIGHT in spring. Her mother had climbed the mountain that she might be delivered of her child in a spot that was drenched in beauty. All alone she had crept from her garden and scaled the dangerous paths. She had carried a few bare necessities; a tiny silk-quilted blanket which she had embroidered with her own hands to receive the little form that was to be so precious to her, a porcelain bottle containing a potent draught for her to swallow afterward to replenish her depleted strength. It was utterly still on the mountaintop. Not a sound disturbed the tranquillity except the occasional sigh of the wind. The sky was cloudless, a tapestry of blue glory embroidered with stars. The moon was at the full. It plunged down upon the countryside in silver splendour. Tears rose in the eyes of Yueh Nu, not because she feared the pains of labour but because there was so much beauty it intoxicated her.

So on the mountaintop Kutani was born. Her feeble cry, echoing with the voices of the wind, rose up to meet the moon. And the moon understood what was in the heart of that Chinese mother, for it climbed down the blue stairs of the sky and stood by the side of that grass couch. It wrapped the body of the babe in its radiance. It bathed the inert form of the mother with a soothing unguent that assuaged all pain. And when the silk blanket had been rolled about the tiny form, it chanted lullabies, soft-cadenced, tender.

Yueh Nu felt scarcely any pain. She seemed to be in a vague region that was neither sleeping nor waking. She was resting, peacefully. Her child had been born in beauty. In beauty it would live. She longed for her baby to be happy even though she herself had seldom been happy.

Yueh Nu was the second wife of the renowned Mandarin, Tsiang Ling. She had not been consulted about her passage into thraldom. During her life she had never been consulted about anything, for she was a girl. The very food she ate was chosen for her. Her own mind had no part in directing the course of her activities.

Tsiang Ling was fat and gross. He ate lustily, smacking his lips loudly, and gurgling in satisfaction when the food was savory. He gloated over preserved limes and water chestnuts as though they were jewels beyond price. Tsiang Ling was fabulously wealthy. His money was invested in rice, in tea, in shipping enterprises and in silk. It mattered little how much money he squandered on a whim. And the greatest of his whims was eating. He employed a famous chef for his kitchen who in turn had three assistants. They studied the cuisine of the whole world that they might find new designs for his banquets.

In his affections, food came first, His wives and his four concubines were next in importance. Often while he dallied on his nuptial couch, he nibbled almonds and luscious grapes. Even in his amours he could not entirely break away from the shackles of food that enslaved him so delightfully.

Although Yueh Nu was his second wife, she was less happy than the least of his concubines. She had been sold into this marriage by her parents. Every detail of the transaction had been carried out without her cognizance. Not till she had been delivered in marriage to the Mandarin, did she behold his bloated face. He was repulsive to her. Despite his smile, she shrank from him. He had just risen from a feast and there were still signs of grease about his mouth.

The fingernails of Tsiang Ling were several inches long and he was inordinately proud of them. As he came toward Yueh Nu on their wedding night with hands extended, his fingers looked like the claws of a ravenous bird reaching for her golden-ivory flesh. Night of love. A travesty of devotion. Yueh Nu closed her eyes and permitted him to maul her at will. She no longer was able to do as she wished. She was more a chattel than a wife. When she was utterly exhausted, Tsiang Ling allowed her to rest.

In the meantime, he summoned a servant and had a tray of food brought that he might re-establish his depleted strength. He enjoyed his round of food far more than his numerous rounds of love. The love was simply a prelude to adventure; the food itself was the adventure.

And Yueh Nu lay with closed eyes, breathing faintly. She was thinking of the young Japanese artist, Yama-mato, who created fragile porcelain vases in that vast alley where rare jewels were displayed. For several years he had wooed her gently. Sometimes at night she had crept to his shop and remained with him until the moon melted into the dawn. She had worshipped Yama-mato. To her he was a god. How was she to know that Yama-mato was as promiscuous in his loves as the Mandarin, that each new girl was a bit of porcelain that he attempted to mold to his will? Yama-mato was an artist. His Kutani-ware was famous. His porcelains were much sought after by collectors because they were without flaw. Without flaw, too, was the love which he shared with many women.

As Yueh Nu had walked through the Street of Porcelain, she had waited breathlessly for his words of greeting.

Kutani-ware, he would say, the red from your lips and the gold of the sunlight in your eyes. Greater than all other ware is Kutani, greater than all other love is my love for you. My porcelains reflect your beauty. Some day, if the gods are kind, in the furnace of everlasting love we will create a vase together.

After Yueh Nu was married to the Mandarin, she could not forget Yama-mato. Her soul cried out for him as she walked listlessly through the vast gardens of the palace. Through a mist of tears she beheld the blurred outlines of moon-bridges, gingko trees, marble pavilions, chrysanthemums and willows. Lilies floated on the ponds and streams and gorgeous carnations lifted their faces to the sun. It was a garden of beauty and color, of perfume and music. Purple thistle trees, orioles in the deep of the sky, flamingoes and pelicans near the water’s edge. The pink of peach blossoms. A gay pageant of glory and color, but to Yueh Nu it was drab, for the garden was without love.

Then one night as she walked through the garden, she heard someone calling to her. Her heart commenced to beat wildly, for she recognised the voice of Yama-mato. He had risked his life to come to that garden for one final rhapsody of love.

She drew his head against her breast. And now there was music once more in that garden, echoes of love songs of wandering minstrels through the ages.

I long to let your loveliness drown in my soul, he whispered.

Gently he led her to a spot in the shadows of the trees where the earth was soft with moss, soft as a velvet bed with the cool night dew upon it.

I will hold you here in my arms, he told her, until the river swallows the moon.

Languid night, soft-murmuring of the willows caught in the wind’s embrace.

And Yama-mato whispered, Always at sunset I think of Yueh Nu, and I say, ‘Because of its longing, the sun is sad. All alone it creeps over the far hills to die.’

His speech was gallant but futile. Nor did he tell her that on the morrow he was returning to his native Nippon, to the shadow of Fusiyama to be married to a girl of his mother’s choosing, who came of a family of great wealth. Henceforth he would be independent, nor would his new status interfere with his taste for philandering. But he had truly cared a great deal for the lovely Yueh Nu and he wished once more to possess her before shaking the dust of China from his feet, perhaps forever. After that final rendezvous, he had no intention of ever returning to her. Poet though