Ma Wei Slope полностью

“Now here is a realist,” the Emperor said, as he stopped the girls from their kotows with a gesture. “Today I am but a simple scholar, Madam—the Scholar of the Stream—and I beg of you to consider that this call is a short one, not made in accordance with custom, but merely from curiosity and an expectation of a more reasonable attitude than that of your husband. Han Im, here I find no new thing. Madam, accept my hopes.”

He led the way out and went back to his own room. Here he found the priest and Ah Lai, waiting for him. He dismissed Han Im and Father Peng, restrained Ah Lai and made him resume his seat, and addressed the priest, who was sitting on the floor.

“So you, at least, recognise that my appearance denotes a change,” he said.

The priest replied: “What matters is the heart.”

Ah Lai produced a list detailing the results of his activities amongst the officials in Chang-an who had worked for the rebels.

“Give it to Han Im,” the Emperor said. “I expect that he is talking with the old man. Go now and see.”

When they were alone, the priest repeated: “What matters is the heart.”

The Emperor said: “I know. But my heart is torn and perplexed, I seek everywhere for some sign that her presence left its mark, and there is no sign. Instead of what I expected, I find a family who have few common thoughts with me, desperately polite, but concerned only with their own way of life. The old man, I know, desires me to write poems with him. Peng Yeh desires only my going and his consequent return to his usual business. The others . . . need I go on?”

The priest replied: “That is what I meant when I said what matters is the heart. Had you really changed, you would not now selfishly be seeking balm for what you think your own tragedy. You would be seeing the tragedies of others, and striving to lessen the effects of those tragedies. The old man—what have you done to ease his sense of frustration, of ineffectual going to a predestined goal without its mattering greatly what he says or does in these, his last few days? Peng Yeh—what have you done to show him that, if no more, you know that the problems of the ordinary man exist, that to wrench a living from the reluctant earth is no problem-free, easy task? And the others, as you say? What have you done for them? Do you not think only of yourself?”

There was silence in the room. Outside, voices distantly, and the wind.

The Emperor said: “No—you are unfair. As a priest you are bound to believe that, after death, souls shall be reunited. It is for the peace of the soul of Yang Kuei-fei that I strive. I need reassurance that all her beauty has not passed wholly into dust, like the beauty of a tree, the beauty of a picture . . .”

“You need reassurance,” the priest replied. “You. It is not she with whom you are concerned.”

The Emperor countered: “Apply the argument to yourself. You have powers, but you will not use them. Do you remember in the Book of Poetry in the minor festal odes?

You have the power, I say. You can cross the highest hills and mountains of the after-land; you can plumb the deepest depths. Take her my message and bring me hers back.”

The priest smiled and said: “The rites are ended. What rites? Do you expect me to do what the old priests did without the payment of a sacrifice? The white bull, the black bull, wine and grain. . . . This is to take but part of the Ode and neglect the other part. Have you an answer to that?”

“Tell me what answer to give,” the Emperor replied.

The priest said: “Ah, the heart is changing. No longer does your Imperial Majesty assume that all men are wrong because you are right. Instead, the Scholar of the Stream asks. Yes, I can give you the answer. It was given before by the great Chuang Tzu, and we priests believe that our Founder himself said it. This is that answer.

There stands your answer. Since, therefore, you have with your scholars’ garments put on also the humility of a scholar, you shall not find yourself unrewarded. Now, go and please the old man. Busy yourself with small things. It is not on every day that he will share brushes with an Emperor.”

The Emperor started on a phrase of thanks, but cut it short in the middle and went out to Father Peng’s room.

“The dusk wind is rising,” Father Peng said. “It gives an overtone to one’s thoughts. I wonder how many poets have thought that thought before and not considered it worth writing down. Have you formed, as I have, the habit of putting down something on paper each day?”