Читать книгу Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat - Bramah Ernest - Страница 5

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The story of Wan and the Remarkable Shrub is commendable in that it shows how, under a beneficent scheme of government, such as that of our unapproachably enlightened Empire admittedly is, impartial justice will sooner or later be accomplished. When a contrary state of things seems to prevail, and the objectionable appear to triumph while the worthy are reduced to undignified expedients, it will generally be found that powerful demoniacal influences are at work or else that the retributive forces have been counter-balanced by an unfortunate conjunction of omens acting on the lives of those concerned. If neither of these causes is responsible, it may be that a usurpatory and unauthorized dynasty has secured the sacred dragon throne (a not unusual occurrence in our distinguished history), and virtue is thereby for a time superseded from its function; or, possibly, a closer scrutiny will reveal that those whom we had hitherto regarded as tending toward one extreme were not in reality such as we deemed them to be, and that the destinies meted out to them were therefore both adequate and just. Thus, whatever happens, it is always more prudent to assume that the integrities have been suitably maintained all round and that the inspired system initiated by the Sages ten thousand years ago continues even today to enshrine the highest wisdom of mankind and is yet administered by the most scrupulous body of officials in what is still the best possible among the nations of the earth.

For this reason the story of Wan and his associates, badly told and commonplace as it must inevitably sound when narrated by this incompetent person, is appropriate for the mental nourishment of the young and impressionable, while even the ill intentioned and austere may be discreetly influenced along a desired path by its opportune recital at convenient intervals.

At a period so remote that it would be impious to doubt whatever happened then, a venerable and prosperous philosopher, Ah-shoo by name, dwelt at the foot of a mountain in a distant province. His outward life was simple but reserved, and although he spent large sums of money on fireworks and other forms of charity, he often professed his indifference to wealth and position. Yet it must not be supposed that Ah-shoo was unmindful of the essentials, for upon it being courteously pointed out to him, by a well disposed neighbour who had many daughters of his own, that in failing to provide a reliable posterity he was incurring a grave risk of starvation in the Upper World, he expressed a seemly regret for the oversight and at once arranged to marry an elderly person who chanced at the time to be returning his purified wearing apparel. It was to this incident that the one with whom this related story is chiefly concerned owned his existence, and when the philosopher's attention was diverted to the occurrence, he bestowed on him the name of Wan, thereby indicating that he was born toward the evening of his begetter's life, and also conveying the implication that the achievement was one that could scarcely be expected to be repeated. On this point he was undoubtedly inspired.

When Wan reached the age of manhood, the philosopher abruptly Passed Above without any interval of preparation. It had been his custom to engage Wan in philosophical discussion at the close of each day, and on this occasion he was contrasting the system of Ka-ping, who maintained that the world has suspended from a powerful fibrous rope, with that of Ta-u, who contended that it was supported upon a substantial bamboo pole. With the clear insight of an original and discerning mind, Ah-shoo had already detected the fundamental weakness of both theories.

"If the earth was indeed dependent on the flexible retention of an unstable cord, it is inevitable that, during the season of Much Wind, it must from time to time have been blown into a reversed position, with the distressing result that what was the east when we composed ourselves to sleep would be the west when we awoke from our slumber, to the confusion of all ordinary process of observation and the well-grounded annoyance of those who, being engaged upon a journey, found themselves compelled to return and set out again in the opposite direction. As there exists no tradition of this having ever happened, it is certain that the ingenious Ka-ping did not walk in step with the verities."

"Then the system of the profound Ta-u is the one to be regarded?" inquired Wan respectfully.

"'Because Hi is in the wrong, it does not automatically follow that Ho is necessarily right,'" quoted Ah-shoo, referring to the example of two celebrated astrologers who were equally involved in error. "The ill-conceived delusion of the obsolete Ta-u is no less open to logical disproval than the grotesque fallacy of the badly informed Ka-ping. If a rigid and unyielding staff of wood upheld the world it is obvious that when the ground became dry and crumbling the upper end of the pole would enlarge the socket in which it was embedded, and the earth, thus deprived of a firm and stable basis, would oscillate with every considerable movement upon its upper side. Even more disturbing would be the outcome of a season of continuous flood, such as our agreeable land frequently enjoys, for then, owing to the soft and pliant nature of the soil, and the ever increasing weight of the impending structure, the pole would continue to sink deeper and deeper into the mass, until at length it would protrude upon the upper side, when the earth, deprived of all support, would slide down the pole until it plunged into the impenetrable gloom of the Beneath-Parts."

"Yet," suggested Wan with becoming deference, "if the point of the staff concerned should have been resourcefully embedded in a a formidable block of stone--?"

"The system of the self-opinionated Ta-u contains no reference to any such block of stone," replied Ah-shoo coldly, for it was not wholly agreeable to his sense of the harmonies that the one who was his son should seek to supply Ta-u's deficiency. "Furthermore, the difficulty of hewing out the necessary incision for the head of the pole to fit into, in view of the hardness of the rock and the inverted position in which the workers must necessarily toil, would be insuperable. Consider well another time, O Wan, before you intervene. 'None but a nightingale should part his lips merely to emit sound.'"

"Your indulgent censure will henceforth stimulate my powers of silence," declared the dutiful Wan in a straightforward voice. "Otherwise it would have been my inopportune purpose to learn of your undoubted omniscience what actually does support the earth."

"The inquiry is a natural one," replied Ah-shoo more genially, for it was a desire to set forth his own opinion on the subject that had led him to approach the problem, "and your instinct in referring it to me is judicious. The world is kept in its strict and inflexible position by--"

Who having found a jewel lifts his voice to proclaim the fact, thereby inviting one and all to claim a share? Rather does he put an unassuming foot upon the spot and direct attention to the auspicious movements of a distant flock of birds or the like, until he can prudently stoop to secure what he has seen. Certainly, the analogy may not be exact at all its angles, but in any case Ah-shoo would have been well advised to speak with lowered voice. It is to be inferred that the philosopher did not make a paper boast when he spoke of possessing the fundamental secret of the earth's stability, but that the High Powers were unwilling, at that early stage of our civilization, for the device to become generally understood. Ah-shoo was therefore fated to suffer for his indiscretion, and this took the form of a general stagnation of the attributes, so that although he lingered for a further period before he Passed Above he was unable to express himself in a coherent form. Being deprived of the power of speech, he remembered, when too late, that he had neglected to initiate Wan into any way of applying his philosophical system to a remunerative end, while it so happened that his store of wealth was unusually low owing to an imprudently generous contribution to a scheme for permanently driving evil beings out of the neighbourhood by a serious of continuous explosions.

It is no longer necessary to conceal the fact that throughout his life Ah-shoo had in reality played a somewhat two-faced part. In addition to being a profound philosopher and a polite observer of the forms he was, in secret, an experienced magician, and in that capacity he was able to transmute base matter into gold. For this purpose he kept a variety of coloured fluids in a shuttered recess of the wall, under a strict injunction. Having now a natural craving to assure Wan's future comfort, he endeavoured by a gesture to indicate this source of affluence, confident that the one in question would not fail to grasp the significance of anything brought to his notice at so precise a moment, and thus be led to test the properties of the liquids and in the end to discover their potency. Unfortunately, Ah-shoo's vigour was by this time unequal to the required strain and his inefficient hand could not raise itself higher than to point toward an inscribed tablet suspended at a lower level upon the wall. This chancing to be the delineation of the Virtues, warning the young against the pursuit of wealth, against trafficking with doubtful Forces, and so forth, Wan readily accepted the gesture as a final encouragement toward integrity on the part of an affectionate and pure-minded father, and dutifully prostrating himself, he specifically undertook to avoid the enticements described. It was in vain that the distracted Ah-shoo endeavoured to remove this impression and to indicate his meaning more exactly. His feeble limb was incapable of more highly sustained effort, and the more desperately he strove to point, the more persistently Wan kow-towed acquiescently and bound himself by an ever increasing array of oaths and penalties to shun the snare of riches and to avoid all connection with the forbidden. Finally, this inability to make himself understood engendered a fatal acridity within the magician's throat, so that, with an expression of scarcely veiled contempt on his usually benevolent features, he rolled from side to side several times in despair and then passed out into the Upper Region.

It was not long before Wan began to experience an uncomfortable deficiency of taels. The more ordinary places of concealment were already familiar to his investigating thumb, but even the most detailed search failed to disclose Ah-shoo's expected hoard. When at length very little of the structural portion of the house remained intact, Wan was reluctantly compelled to admit that no such store existed.

"It is certainly somewhat inconsiderate of the one to whom my very presence here is due, to have inculcated in me a contempt for riches and a fixed regard for the Virtues, and then to have Passed Away without making any adequate provision for maintaining the position," remarked Wan to the sharer of his inner chamber, as he abandoned his search as hopeless. "Tastes such as these are by no means easy to support."

"Perchance," suggested Lan-yen, the one referred to, helpfully, "it was part of an ordered scheme, thereby to inspire a confidence in your own exertions."

"The confidence inspired by the possession of a well-filled vault of silver will last an ordinary person a lifetime," replied Wan, with an entire absence of enthusiasm. "Further, the philosophical outfit, which so capably enables one to despise riches in the midst of affluence, seems to have overlooked any system of procuring them when destitution threatens."

"Yet are there not other methods of enrichment?" persisted the well-meaning but not altogether gracefully animated one in question.

"Undoubtedly," replied Wan, with a self-descriptive smile, "the processes are many and diffuse. There are, to example them, those who remove uncongenial teeth for the afflicted; others who advance the opposing claims of the litigiously inclined; and forecasters of the future. But in order to succeed in these various enterprises, it is desirable to be able to extract an indicated fang, to entice the confidence of the disputations, or to be able to make what has been predicted bear some recognizable semblance to what has come to pass. Then there are merchants in gems and precious stones, builders of palaces, and robbers in the Ways, but here again it is first advantageous to possess the costly traffic of a merchant's stall, to have some experience in erecting palaces, or to be able to divest wayfarers of their store in the face of their sustained resistance. Still endeavouring to extract the priceless honey from the garden of your inspired suggestion, there are those who collect the refuse of the public streets, but in order to be received into the band it is necessary to have been born one of the Hereditary Confederacy of Superfluity Removers and Abandoned Oddment Gatherers. Aspire to wisdom, O peerless one, but in the meanwhile emulate the pattern of the ruminative ox. This person will now proceed to frequent the society of those best acquainted with the less guarded moments of the revered ascended, and endeavour to learn perchance something more of his inner business methods."

With this resolve, Wan sought out a body of successful merchants and the like whose custom it was to meet together beneath the Sign of Harmonious Ease, where they chiefly spoke in two breaths alternatively of their wealth and their poverty, and there strove to attach himself to the more leisurely inclined. In this he experienced no difficulty, it being for the most part their continual despair that none would give heed to their well-displayed views on things in general, but when he spoke of the one for whom he dressed in white and endeavoured to ascertain by what means he had earned his facile wealth, even the most sympathetic held out no encouraging hope.

"The same problem has occasioned this person many sleepless nights," admitted the one on whose testimony Wan had placed the most reliance. "In a spirit of disinterested friendship he strove, by every possible expedient that a fertile and necessity-driven imagination could devise, to inveigle your venerated sire into a disclosure of the facts but to the end he maintained a deluded and narrow-minded silence. The opinion of some here was that he secretly controlled a band of river pirates; others held that he associated with ghouls who despoiled the hidden treasure of the earth. My own opinion was that he had stumbled upon some discreditable fact connected with the past life of one now high in power. Properly developed, any of these three lines of suggestion should lead you to an honourable competence, but if the one whose foresight we are discussing has neglected to provide you with the essential clue before he Journeyed Hence, the line you incautiously chose might leave you suspended in quite another position. Your obvious policy would therefore tend toward neglecting to sacrifice for him the commodities of which he must now stand most in need. Under this humane pressure, his distinguished preoccupation may perhaps be brought to an enlightened end, and in the form of a dream or through the medium of an opportune vision he may find a means to remedy his omission."

"It is easy to close a door that none is holding open," replied Wan freely, for the period had already come when it was difficult for him to provide for the maintenance of his own requirements, "and the course that you suggest is like Ho Chow's selection in the analogy that bears his name."

"It is always a privilege to be able to counsel the young and inexperienced," observed the other, rising and shaking hands with himself benevolently as the beating of a gong announced that the evening rice was laid out near at hand. "Do not hesitate to bend your inquiring footsteps in the direction of my receptive ear whenever you stand in need of intellectual sustenance. In the meanwhile, may your capacious waist-cloth always be distended to repletion."

"May the pearls of wisdom continue to germinate in the nutritious soil of your well-watered brain," replied Wan no less appropriately, as he set out on a homeward path.