The Legend of the Mosquito

On a summer night, when the cicadas have gone quiet and the whole household is asleep, a tiny sound sometimes still winds its way through the dark. It is a hum as fine as a thread, circling the rim of an ear, now near, now far, coming from nowhere anyone can tell. Almost everyone knows that sound. It is a small mosquito, flying in and flying off, hovering close to people and never willing to leave.

Long ago, people lay listening to mosquitoes in the night and wondered. They wondered why that tiny creature kept seeking out people and landing on their skin to take a little blood. They wondered why it then lifted such a sad, sighing whine, as if it were lamenting something. To answer, the old folk told a story, handed down from one generation to the next.

This is a Vietnamese folktale. The story has no dates and no named places. There is only a faithful husband, a wife who was easily swayed, and three drops of blood given out of love.

Once upon a time, a husband and wife lived together under a small roof. The husband was named Ngọc Tâm. He was gentle and hardworking, toiling from dawn to dusk without a word of complaint. He loved his wife with all his heart. Whatever was tasty he saved for her, and whatever was heavy he insisted on doing himself. The wife was named Nhan Diệp. She was lovely, with a graceful walk, and everyone who saw her turned to look again. Her heart, though, liked to dream of faraway things. She loved silk, face powder and rouge, and anything that glittered. Deep down, she quietly wished for something better than their plain thatched house.

Even so, the days passed peacefully. Then one day, misfortune struck. Nhan Diệp suddenly collapsed. Very quickly, she gently closed her eyes and was gone, like a lamp blown out by the wind. It all came so suddenly.

Ngọc Tâm bowed over his wife, grieving without end. He could not bear to part from her, nor to leave her lying alone in the cold earth. So he sold everything he owned and bought a boat. He laid her in it peacefully, as if she were only asleep. Then he let the boat drift on the water, on and on, still hoping for some kind of miracle.

As the tale tells it, heaven took pity on the faithful husband. One early morning, the boat drifted to the foot of a mountain sweet with the scent of plants and flowers. Ngọc Tâm went ashore, climbed the mountain, and met an immortal with snow-white hair and beard. He fell to his knees and begged the immortal to bring his wife back to life. The immortal was moved with compassion. He told the husband there was one way to call his wife back. It was not a charm, and it was not a jewel. It was the husband's own blood. The immortal taught him to prick his fingertip and let three drops of his own blood fall on his wife. He told him that this was a part of his own life, and that he would be sharing it with her.

Ngọc Tâm did not hesitate for a moment. He pricked his fingertip and let three warm drops of blood fall on his wife. As if by a miracle, her skin grew warm again, and her chest gently rose and fell. Then, slowly, she opened her eyes. She looked around in bewilderment, as if waking from a long dream. Nhan Diệp was alive again. Before taking his leave, the immortal told her always to remember her husband's faithful love. Weeping with joy, Ngọc Tâm helped his wife up, and together they set off for home by boat.

One evening, the boat put in at a river landing. Ngọc Tâm left his wife on board and went ashore to buy a little food for the two of them. Right beside them, a large trading boat lay at anchor, and it belonged to a rich merchant. While Ngọc Tâm was away, the merchant caught sight of the beautiful Nhan Diệp. He drifted over, struck up a conversation, and invited her onto his boat for tea. Her heart had always dreamed of glittering things, and his sweet invitation stirred her. Before Ngọc Tâm could make it back, the trading boat had raised its sails. It slipped quietly downstream, carrying her far away.

Ngọc Tâm returned to find his own boat empty. He understood what had happened, and his heart ached as if it had been cut. Still, he never stopped looking for his wife. He gave up food and sleep and followed the trail of the boat day and night. He searched for a whole month, until at last he found the place where Nhan Diệp was living. She now lived among silks and velvets. She was no longer the poor wife of the old thatched house.

Ngọc Tâm stepped forward and gently called his wife by name, hoping she would know him. But Nhan Diệp had grown used to her new life. Her heart had changed, and she looked at him as if he were a stranger. At that, Ngọc Tâm no longer begged her to come home. Sadly, he asked for just one small thing. He asked for the three drops of blood he had once given to bring her back to life. That blood had been his own life, and he had given it with all his heart. Since she was no longer his wife, he asked only that she return that blood to him.

Nhan Diệp listened and felt nothing at all. To her, they were only three tiny drops of blood, so she might as well give them back. She hurriedly pricked her fingertip to return them. But the very moment the drop left her hand, Nhan Diệp grew faint and closed her eyes. Those three drops had been the very life that her husband had given her. They were the fragile thread that was keeping her in this world. Once the blood was given back, she slipped away along with it, and this time it was forever.

But the story does not end there.

The old tale says that the soul of Nhan Diệp still lingered. It clung to some regret she had never managed to put a name to, and it could not find peace. She became a tiny mosquito. From then on, night after night, that mosquito has flown toward people, humming around their ears. She keeps trying to find the blood she lost, the bit of life she was once given but never knew how to keep. The whine of the mosquito sounds small and sad, like a soft lament. It is like a regret that came too late, still ringing on through the night.

People of old said that this is why the mosquito keeps coming to people to take a few drops of blood. And that, they said, is why its humming sounds so thin and so sad in the stillness of a summer night.