People-these weird creatures-are very vainglorious. As soon as you give them a little appreciation, or even just forgiveness, they swell with pride. They boast everywhere, giddy all the time, never sure where they are or where they belong. Most people are like this by nature. As I see it, the world is going to collapse at the hands of those who take pleasure in doing charitable works. They distribute their cheap sympathy without hesitation. They comfort anyone, encourage anyone. Because of them, unscrupulous people stand up again right after being punished and continue their evildoing. Because they were supported, they would do even worse. No, I can’t shake hands with you now. I don’t sympathize with you at all. My beloved cousin doesn’t sympathize with you, either. All our lives, the ones we’ve abhorred most are those who take pleasure in charitable works. If, after learning this painful lesson, you want to climb to a new beginning, if you take my advice, I can give you a thread of hope, but I am definitely not going to shake hands with you. If I did, you’d become even vainer and forget all the troubles you’re facing. You’d sink into complacency again and you’d become flighty again. That’s just the way people are. Go ahead and keep that thread of hope. I’ll be watching you closely and hoping for your success. Please keep in mind: even if you succeed, you mustn’t imagine that you can shake hands with me. I’ll point out many of your other shortcomings, and I’ll probably make you out to have no redeeming features. Only in this way will you improve. I loathe mediocrity. I have something else to declare: it’s about swallowing saliva. I hear that people on the street criticize me a lot for this, just as if it’s something indelicate they can’t bear to see. They also allege that I have to swallow saliva three times for every sentence I speak. You just heard what it’s really like. I talked for so long, and yet I didn’t interrupt myself even once to swallow. My self-control is astonishing. As I said, there isn’t anything I can’t do. Inferior people sling mud at me in secret. They think if they mention a certain tiny shortcoming of a certain person, they can then exclude this person from the ranks of the worthies forever. Please. Who doesn’t have shortcomings? The personages who made history often had shortcomings that broke through, but that didn’t affect their greatness. What matters is a person’s essence and inherent ability. Some idiosyncratic shortcomings are perhaps signs of being worthy people. I loathe mediocrity. A mediocre person without any shortcomings has absolutely no excuse for living in this world.’ ’’
Now we are ready to enter the core of the story. We couldn’t objectively narrate this in a routine way: Traditional styles wouldn’t work; we had to innovate. Otherwise, people might start fighting for position. The walls might get damaged and the houses collapse. They might do anything. Or-who knows? — they might start quacking in unison like ducks, so no one could hear anyone else-quack from morning to night, and from night to morning, until you’d go crazy and give up. Over a long period, the furtive personal relationship between X and Q had become the spiritual sustenance for everyone on Five Spice Street. On the surface, we disavowed this, even scorned it, but in fact-night after night-everyone was caught up in dreams. Each one took part in the game, imagining himself the leading actor. During the day, whenever they heard of something happening, they would rush to the scene and inspect it closely. They were collecting traces to fuel their imaginations. Such actions were always taken alone. Frequent small-group discussions always took place in a certain person’s house either with a dim light or with all the lights extinguished. It’s said that talking about such things in the dark was ‘‘even more dramatic.’’ The writer obtained his materials in just such a place.
After his big mistake, the writer was abandoned by his readers. Luckily the widow enlightened him, and once he won his readers over again, he regained his composure and became steadier. He no longer engaged in his art ‘‘by shutting himself in a small room,’’ but lost no time reimmersing himself in the crowd, ‘‘bending over their chests to listen to them breathe.’’ In this way, he promoted himself and became much more philosophical about himself and society, and much more confident.
