Читать книгу Chinese Fables - Lak-Khee Tay-Audouard - Страница 10

Stealing the Bell

When finally the city fell to its besiegers,the great House of Fan was vacated and left to looters. Master and servants packed what they could carry, buried the gold and fled.

Then the mobs came. Ordinarily law-abiding, the townsmen turned into rampaging hordes that emptied the abandoned mansion of everything: carved tables and chairs, inlaid screens and chests, rich carpets and tapestries, priceless garments, porcelains and ivories, every wok and kettle in the kitchens.

An outburst of plunder and looting seized the city until a proclamation from the new authorities halted the frenzy. Infractions, however minor, would be punishable by death. Quiet settled on the city.

Among the servants of the House of Fan was one Ch’in, a poor man always at the bottom of the domestic scale. He did not flee the city with his master but sneaked away to join the pillaging mobs. He saw a chance to start his fortune.

When Ch’in returned to the House of Fan, he saw the front gate fallen, the doors pried open, the house emptied. Nothing of value remained. But in a disused storeroom behind the empty tool house, Ch’in found to his joy a large bronze bell. It was so big his arms could barely encircle it, and it was too heavy for him to carry.

Poor Ch’in was torn with indecision. Here was the only thing of value left in the great House of Fan. Should he abandon it? Of course not_he had found it! Should he ask his wife’s brothers to help him? But they were a greedy lot, sure to demand more than their fair share. Should he borrow a cart? But this would mean traveling the streets, and discovery would mean death.

A brilliant thought slowly lit up his eyes. He would break up the bell into several pieces that could be secretly carried away piece by piece. Its value as a bell would be lost, but there would be the value of the metal. Of course!

Ch’in returned to the House late that afternoon with a sledgehammer he had taken from one of his wife’s brothers, and a bundle of rags for wrapping the pieces of bronze. Eagerly he set about his task of breaking up the bell.

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