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Page 61
"The story of Kai Lung!" exclaimed Wang Yu. "Why not the story of
Ting, the sightless beggar, who has sat all his life outside the
Temple of Miraculous Cures? Who is Kai Lung, that he should have a
story? Is he not known to us all here? Is not his speech that of this
Province, his food mean, his arms and legs unshaven? Does he carry a
sword or wear silk raiment? Frequently have we seen him fatigued with
journeying; many times has he arrived destitute of money; nor, on
those occasions when a newly-appointed and unnecessarily officious
Mandarin has commanded him to betake himself elsewhere and struck him
with a rod has Kai Lung caused the stick to turn into a deadly serpent
and destroy its master, as did the just and dignified Lu Fei. How,
then, can Kai Lung have a story that is not also the story of Wang Yu
and Hi Seng, and all others here?"
"Indeed, if the refined and enlightened Wang Yu so decides, it must
assuredly be true," said Kai Lung patiently; "yet (since even trifles
serve to dispel the darker thoughts of existence) would not the
history of so small a matter as an opium pipe chain his intelligent
consideration? such a pipe, for example, as this person beheld only
today exposed for sale, the bowl composed of the finest red clay,
delicately baked and fashioned, the long bamboo stem smoother than the
sacred tooth of the divine Buddha, the spreading support patiently and
cunningly carved with scenes representing the Seven Joys, and the
Tenth Hell of unbelievers."
"Ah!" exclaimed Wang Yu eagerly, "it is indeed as you say, a Mandarin
among masterpieces. That pipe, O most unobserving Kai Lung, is the
work of this retiring and superficial person who is now addressing
you, and, though the fact evidently escaped your all-seeing glance,
the place where it is exposed is none other than his shop of 'The
Fountain of Beauty,' which you have on many occasions endowed with
your honourable presence."
"Doubtless the carving is the work of the accomplished Wang Yu, and
the fitting together," replied Kai Lung; "but the materials for so
refined and ornamental a production must of necessity have been
brought many thousand li; the clay perhaps from the renowned beds of
Honan, the wood from Peking, and the bamboo from one of the great
forests of the North."
"For what reason?" said Wang Yu proudly. "At this person's very door
is a pit of red clay, purer and infinitely more regular than any to be
found at Honan; the hard wood of Wu-whei is extolled among carvers
throughout the Empire, while no bamboo is straighter or more smooth
than that which grows in the neighbouring woods."
"O most inconsistent Wang Yu!" cried the story-teller, "assuredly a
very commendable local pride has dimmed your usually penetrating
eyesight. Is not the clay pit of which you speak that in which you
fashioned exceedingly unsymmetrical imitations of rat-pies in your
childhood? How, then, can it be equal to those of Honan, which you
have never seen? In the dark glades of these woods have you not chased
the gorgeous butterfly, and, in later years, the no less gaily attired
maidens of Wu-whei in the entrancing game of Kiss in the Circle? Have
not the bamboo-trees to which you have referred provided you with the
ideal material wherewith to roof over those cunningly-constructed pits
into which it has ever been the chief delight of the young and
audacious to lure dignified and unnaturally stout Mandarins? All these
things you have seen and used ever since your mother made a successful
offering to the Goddess Kum-Fa. How, then, can they be even equal to
the products of remote Honan and fabulous Peking? Assuredly the
generally veracious Wang Yu speaks this time with closed eyes and
will, upon mature reflexion, eat his words."
The silence was broken by a very aged man who arose from among the
bystanders.
"Behold the length of this person's pigtail," he exclaimed, "the
whiteness of his moustaches and the venerable appearance of his beard!
There is no more aged person present--if, indeed, there be such a one
in all the Province. It accordingly devolves upon him to speak in this
matter, which shall be as follows: The noble-minded and proficient Kai
Lung shall relate the story as he has proposed, and the garrulous Wang
Yu shall twice contribute to Kai Lung's bowl when it is passed round,
once for himself and once for this person, in order that he may learn
either to be more discreet or more proficient in the art of aptly
replying."
"The events which it is this person's presumptuous intention to
describe to this large-hearted and providentially indulgent
gathering," began Kai Lung, when his audience had become settled, and
the wooden bowl had passed to and fro among them, "did not occupy many
years, although they were of a nature which made them of far more
importance than all the remainder of his existence, thereby supporting
the sage discernment of the philosopher Wen-weng, who first made the
observation that man is greatly inferior to the meanest fly, inasmuch
as that creature, although granted only a day's span of life,
contrives during that period to fulfil all the allotted functions of
existence.
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