‘‘All of a sudden, the writer grasped the truth: he was suddenly enlightened. After writing this section, his head was clear and his body relaxed. He was so pleased that he started humming a song, ‘The Golden Sun Rises in the East.’ That night, when the writer’s document was read and discussed in the large hall, the writer was full of confidence as he sat beneath the stage and listened to someone read it aloud. He began sobbing when he heard the best part, he was so amazed by his own talent. After the person finished reading aloud, the sound of furtive whispers immediately arose, and then became hushed-frighteningly quiet. Something was wrong: it was as though everyone was holding his breath. And then, at some point, these people scooted away from the meeting one by one. The writer finished crying, massaged his bloodshot eyes, and went up to the stage. In a hoarse voice he told the crowd how his opus was born. As he talked, he looked down and saw row after row of empty chairs, and so he sat down dejectedly on the floor. The crowd’s emotions were hard to get hold of. This was a head-on blow! What was an artist if he lost his dear readers all at once? Wasn’t he utterly worthless? Hadn’t he sunk to being a tramp? A flower bloomed beautifully, although without its stem and root, it was weird, ghostly. The artist could become sublime and his inspiration could flow uninterruptedly only when he was taken into the readers’ warm and generous embrace. But if the readers abandoned him, he became an orphan and his talent dried up. Art was also isolated from him. This is common sense; everyone knows it. Where on earth had the writer failed and made such an irreparable error? Why had a wall been erected between him and his readers? Could it be that, just as his writing had a period of growth, now it had been cut off at the waist by some demon, and everything was finished? Could his brilliant artistic career be ended like this for some unknown reason? What the hell kind of subtle relationship did the damn X and Q have with the crowds on Five Spice Street? The writer’s freewheeling imagination, his inflated adjectives, and his artistic conceptions had evidently provoked the sensitive people, and so the document itself had to be abandoned. Why couldn’t the writer understand this relationship by empathizing with others? Had his ideology begun to petrify? With great pain, the writer engaged repeatedly in self-criticism. With misty, tear-filled eyes, he also examined the part the readers had found offensive three times, and finally made up his mind that he would take the blame and go door to door, apologizing in person. The writer felt that taking this step wouldn’t indicate inferiority, but rather would show his splendid individuality. Someday the crowds would understand genius and come to stand next to genius. Maybe they were looking out their windows and expecting his arrival. And maybe they were already feeling sorry for him and were opening their generous hearts, waiting for him to throw himself on their mercy! Maybe they already realized that they had simply overreacted.
