BAF 64 - Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat, page 25
part #64 of Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series
“To confess a former error is but a way of saying that exactness now prevails beneath one’s housetop,” remarked the philosopher auspiciously. “Owing to the misreading of an obscure symbol, this deficient person had hastily assumed that matter originally began as Everything and would ultimately resolve itself into Nothing. He now perceives, on a closer perusal of your inspired thesis, that its first principle was Voidity and that the determinate consummation will be a state of Allness. In addition to being a profound thinker, you have competently performed an exacting test.” Here Kuo Tsun pushed Chou slightly forward. “Take, therefore, the agreed but wholly inadequate reward.”
“Yet, munificence,” urged Yan diffidently, “this meagre hut—”
“All that has been suitably provided for by the justice-loving System under which we live,” replied Kuo Tsun. “During your absence the decayed Ah-mong has Passed Beyond, and as he was a person of notoriously corrupt views, I invoked my own authority as District Censor to depossess his band and to transfer your Ancestral Tablets to his tower.”
“It is well said, The Destinies arrange, but under our benevolent government all must help themselves,’” commented Yan, after he had suitably referred to Kuo Tsun’s undoubted service. “Yet what was the nature of Ah-mong’s Out-passing?”
“An element of vagueness shrouds the incident,” confessed Kuo Tsun. “It is whispered that a mysterious Being appeared among the gang and, proving his authority by the precision of his knowledge, enticed Ah-mong with the promise of a certain way to gain his end. This consisted of a stupendous javelin, having bamboo cords attached, with which it was proposed to transfix the great sky light and draw it down to earth. In the end the contrivance proved so unwieldy that the cloven-footed outlaw fell upon its point from off his lofty tower, when there was none but the Being near. Thus and thus—”
“This concerns Mow, the subtle dwarf,” thought Yan, but he said nothing then, being desirous of keeping the full recital until he could compose it as a song, to give Chou gladness at some winter fire. He had, indeed, arranged an opening antithesis when Kuo Tsun’s voice recalled him.
“By a complexity of circumstances, rare in this belated person’s experience of the Province, very little appears to be wanting to create a scene of ideal felicity,” the venerable sage was remarking. ’The Ch’hiang River, for probably the first time in history, is neither in flood nor completely evaporated; an almost poetical verdure has suddenly appeared where no vegetation was ever known before; several of the rare kinds of feathered creatures have raised their harmonious voices, and now and then it is quite possible to see the great-grandfather of the sky above the mists. If only a company of musicians could be inspired…”
Even as he spoke, a band of village dwellers of the younger sort began to pass that way. The maidens carried ropes of flowers which they had gathered at some toil, but many of the most powerful of the other kind had iron gongs and hollow metal tubes, sonorous ducks and fish of wood or stone, and a variety of implements capable of producing sound, with which they beguiled the time. Chou’s many-sided interest in the welfare of all had raised her in their esteem and Yan’s unassuming virtuous life was a byword far and wide. When the leaders of the band grasped how the position stood, they covered the two with whose involvements this threadbare narrative has largely been concerned with sprays and garlands and set out with diem upon a joyful path, the minstrels, urged to a more tenacious vigour, leading the way. Thus, at the conclusion of their exacting trial, Yan and peerless Chou were brought in some triumph to the strong tower of the turbulent Ah-mong that was henceforth to be their home.
For several aeons after these commonplace events, the comb was a venerated relic among the descendants of Yan and Chou, but during the insurrections of a later age it passed into undiscriminating hands, and being then much worn and broken, it was thrown aside as useless. It fell in the Province of Kan Su and became the Yue-kwang range. It is for this reason that the upper peaks and passes of those sacred heights are always clothed with brightness, while at certain periods of the year the lustre they reflect equals the splendour of the great sky light itself.
PART THREE
Bringer of Good News
Chapter Eleven
WHEREBY THE ANGLE AT WHICH EVENTS PRESENT THEMSELVES MAY BE VARIED
It was still the habit of Kai Lung to walk daily in his garden and to meditate among the shady walks of the orchard grove beyond; but in this exertion he was prone to rely increasingly on the support of a well-tried staff, and even with this assistance Hwa-mei was disinclined to encourage him to go unless Valiant Strength, Worthy Phoenix, or some other supple branch of his now spreading tree was at hand to sustain his elbow.
“Revered,” exclaimed Hoo Tee, who thus attended on the occasion with which this pointless relation is concerned; “behold, there approach along the stone path nine persons of distinction and with them one of official rank. Would it not be fitting that I, on whom their high-minded conversation would certainly be lost, should serve a useful end by bringing forth an assortment of choice food to refresh their weary throats?”
“Restrain your admitted zeal in that direction,” replied Kai Lung, “until they have declared themselves. Should they come with expectation in their step, whatever you could offer might fall short of their desire; should they have no such purpose it would equally prove too much. Your pigtail has still some length to grow, Hoo Tee.”
When the nine wayfarers drew near they disclosed themselves as three philosophers of the district round, three young men of literary tastes, and three who without any particular qualification or degree were in the habit of attaching themselves to whatever seemed to offer a prospect of reward. In their midst was the stranger who displayed a badge.
“Greeting, venerable Kai Lung,” remarked the leader of the band. “May your meritorious Line increase like the sprouting of a vigorous ear of corn in the season of Much Rain.”
“May all your virtuous tribe be no less favoured,” replied Kai Lung, with a desire to be courteous but not yet convinced of the necessity for any special effort. “Are your constituents well balanced?”
As they slowly passed along the conveniently arranged ways of Kai Lung’s flower-strewn garden, with a due regard to the ceremonial precedence accorded to their age, the nature of the occasion was presently made dear.
“He whom we have guided was in the out-paths seeking the house that bears your worthy sign,” explained the chief of the philosophers. “Plainly the occasion would seem to merit our felicitations.”
“My superfluous task,” enlarged the one thus pointed out, “is to be a Bringer of Good News, and in this pursuit I take my daily stand before the Official List board of our provincial city. There your pleasant-sounding name is honourably displayed, Kai Lung, and in accordance with the immemorial right of our exclusive guild I have hastened hither to be the first to reach your grateful ear.”
At this agreeable announcement, the nine neighbours of Kai Lung shook hands with themselves effusively, and several admitted that it was what they had long foreseen, but the story-teller himself did not at once step into the full lustre of the moment.
“What,” he inquired, with a rather narrow-minded precision, “is the nature of the title, and are the initiatory expenses set forth in detail?”
“The latter part of the subject would appear to have been overlooked,” replied the other, after glancing at his tablets. “The distinction carries with it the privilege of unrolling your mat and relating one of your inimitable tales before any member of the Imperial House who strays within three-and-thirty li of your Domestic Altar—providing that you are able to reach his exalted presence and that he is not at the time engaged on serious public business. It also entitles the holder to style himself ‘Literary Instructor to the Shades of Female Ancestors’ in all official pleas.”
“It is doubtful if so exceptional an honour was ever bestowed before,” passed from lip to lip among them, though one of the less worthy added beneath his voice, “It is more profitable to step upon an orange skin before a cloyed official than to offer pearls of wisdom to a company of sages.”
The venerable story-teller, however, continued to shake his head with supine misgivings, nor did the added prospect of having to compose a deferential ode in answer tend to restore his spirits.
“Tou-fou and Li-tai-pe were not distinguished in their lifetimes, nor was a crown of leaves ever offered to Han Yu,” he demurred. “Why then should I, who only stumble in their well-made footsteps, be thus acclaimed? The ungainly name of ‘Kai’ is easily mistaken and ‘Lungs’ greet one on every side: the brush of some underling has, perchance, blundered to this arisement…Yet, which of my negligible productions was singled out for mention?”
“Munificence,” replied the expectant messenger, “the quality to which you owe your distinctive popularity would not appear to have been specifically of a literary trend—”
“The frustration of Ming-shu’s detestable rebellion might certainly have been deemed a notorious public service, by a too-indulgent eye,” continued Kai Lung more cheerfully. “The delay of some twoscore years in extending recognition is not unusual in a State Department connected with—”
“Truth adorns each word,” interposed the Bringer of Good news, not in any way desirous of becoming involved in a speculative discourse, “but your flattering reputation does not stand on that foot either. Rest assured, benignity, that it is wiser not to test a coin found by the roadside but to spend it.”
“Speak frankly,” urged the invidious voice that had already murmured. “We being all friends here, one among another,” and he looked pleasurably forward to hearing something of an offensive nature.
“A wet robe is - more becoming than a borrowed umbrella,” was Kai Lung’s tolerant pronouncement as he signified assent that the stranger should proceed. “Withhold nothing.”
“However dubious the soil, the rice conveys no taint,” aptly replied the other. “But, since you persist, the unexpressed part of the occasion is as follows. A rumour has of late sprung up, esteemed, that you have been miraculously endowed with the unusual gift of being able to walk on the side of a house, or in any other upright place, with the superior agility over our own race possessed by all winged insects. ‘If,’ the analogy has thence continued, ’the one in question (of whom we have never previously heard) is so remarkably conformed, it necessarily follows that his inspired productions must possess a very unusual blend.’ Within a moon, benevolence, you have thus become what among those who put forth the printed leaves is termed a ‘leading cash-enticer.’ Seeing this, it behoved authority to move, ’For,’ flowed the rhythm of their thoughts, ‘inasmuch as flowers turn their faces to the sun and all men, when untrammelled, seek the highest, he who can claim the greatest number of adherents in any walk of life is necessarily the worthiest of his kind, and for our own repute we must profess acquaintance with his works and do him honour.’”
“Alas,” exclaimed Kai Lung, when he understood that he was thus indebted to a fallacious comparison with an illiterate insect, “how shall I meet the shades of Tou-fou and Han Yu hereafter? In our highly favoured land of unparalleled refinement is it essential to a just appreciation of his literary style that an unassuming relater of imagined tales must stand upon one foot for a record span of time, or be secretly conveyed to an unknown spot by a providential dragon, or consort with apes upon a trackless desert, or by some other barbarian wile appeal to the trite and superficial?”
“Who shall ordain in what form the deities bestow their gifts or question the wording of the inscription upon the outer wrapper?” asked the philosopher Wan Fo—he who in earlier life had provided for a virtuous old age by arranging competitions. “The husk which in the case of the salubrious nut protects the desired food is, when we turn to the equally nutritious date, itself similarly surrounded—clearly with the humane intention both of warning mankind against hasty generalities and of exercising the teeth diversely. That which—as may be demonstrated with a coin—is round when looked at from above, is flat when seen edgewise—”
“Besides, O instructor,” interposed one of the studious youths (less, perchance, with the desire of assuaging Kai Lung’s umbrage than of deflecting the profuse Wan Fo), “have you ever yet attempted to progress upon an upright wall in the manner indicated?”
’This one has never bent his commonplace feet to so grotesque an essay,” replied Kai Lung, with an appreciable distance in his manner.
“Then for all that an ordinary person can declare you may be gifted to that extent, and as you are certainly now too patriarchal to put the contention to a test, it will never be possible to gainsay the achievement. How then,” concluded the disciple, “can you logically reject a distinction which in addition to being founded on an admitted merit may even in its circuitous process be exact?”
To this plea the others joined their voices, especially the Bringer of Good News, who foresaw no certain gain if the one whom he had come to apprise maintained a stubborn outline. Therefore, as they slowly trod the walks and admired the ingenious vistas—being prompted thereto by a Whisper in his ear that he might thus induce Kai Lung to forget resentment—he approached the story-teller more directly.
“Beguiler of men’s leisure,” he remarked astutely, “it is asserted out among the more trodden Ways that in your time you have framed stratagems, led armies, and fought battles. How is it possible for one who has thus controlled events to have passed his later life in a state of unbroken ease, plying his simple calling?”
Before replying, Kai Lung led his guests among the remoter outskirts of his orchard where, on a few neglected trees, a shrivelled after-growth of fruit still lingered. These he laboriously sought out and pressed on each in turn, with hospitable insistence.
“Had we been earlier here, the fare might have been more full-flavoured,” was his mild extenuation. “But who shall blame the tree that has already of its nature yielded crops when autumn finds it wanting?” Then turning to the Bringer of Good News he added, “Since you put it in that way, it will be necessary for me to explain matters by relating for you, to the best of my decayed proficiency, the Story of Ching-kwei.”
THE STORY OF CHING-KWEI AND THE DESTINIES
I
The Manner of His Setting Forth, His Encounter by the
Way, and the Nature of His Reception at Wang Tae’s Hostile Door
Not idly is the warning given, “Destiny writes with an iron spear upon a marble stele; how then shall a merely human hand presume to guide her pen?”
This concerns Ching-kwei of the dwindling Line of Ying, Wang Tae the dauntless warrior, and the philosopher Ah-Yew; no less also Shen Che, known later as the Poising
Butterfly from the graceful lightness of her movements, and her sister Mei to whom no other name was ever given. It involves . likewise the aged grandmother of Ching-kwei, the sorcerer who dwelt beneath the rugged tower of Ya, Shang king of the upstart power of Tsun, certain friends, associates and relatives of those chiefly engaged, warriors and captains of the various armies raised, usurpers and upholders of the dynasty, sages and historians, merchants and artificers, holy men, outlaws, and peasants, and a great variety of persons of the ordinary sort for whom no particular description here is necessary.
Ching-kwei was of the age of manhood when he first beheld Shen Che. Thereafter he marked the day with a special sign (binding a knotted cord about his-wrist), so that on it he might initiate any great enterprise on which his mind was fixed. It was the thirteenth of the Month of Peach Blossom, and on that day he united with Wang Tae in the Compact of the Cedar Grove, led the assault on the walled city of Hing-foo, and, last of all, turned home again.
“Truly art thou thy father’s very son!” exclaimed his grandmother one day, at a period before any of these things had come to pass. “Are we to starve by slow degrees? Here are but nineteen goats where yesterday a score responded to my call. Pursue the misshapen recreant with all speed before another shall have killed and eaten it. Take with you rice sufficient for a lengthy search, and if, in the course of your wanderings, you should fall in with a reputable magician sitting by the wayside, do not neglect to traffic a portion of it with him for a written charm against this person’s pestilential cramps.”
“Venerable one,” replied Ching-kwei dutifully, “your spoken Word is my unwritten law. Yet how, encountering a recluse of this description, may it be assumed with confidence that he is all you would desire and not an unscrupulous impostor?”
“Commiserate with him upon the malignity of his own afflictions. If he enlarges on the subject, pass him by.”
“Your words enshrine the essential germ of wisdom,” agreed Ching-kwei. “Although,” he added sombrely, “to one whose forefathers bore banners in the van of many famous wars, the pursuit of an erratic four-legged creature across a precipitous land is an enterprise neither dignified nor heroic.”
“Those who cover themselves with martial glory frequently go in need of any other garment,” replied the ancient capably. “Be content that by peaceful industry you have goats to pursue.”
Being of a docile and obedient nature—and also because no adequate retort occurred to him—Ching-kwei respectfully withdrew and at once made his simple preparations for the search. In this he was assisted by the praiseworthy honesty of that region, for so humiliating was it felt to be that the animals of one family should ingratiate themselves into the herds and flocks of an unsuspecting neighbour and enjoy his confidence that to render this contingency as remote as possible it had become the time-honoured custom for each household to stain all its removable possessions with a distinctive dye. Thus Ching-kwei’s inquiries tended to a definite end.
