Creation (73 page)

“I don’t know, Master.”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. My mind was a perfect blank. I saw nothing at all. I understood nothing at all. That is why I think it is better to study real things in a real world.”

We walked slowly through the trees just back of the altars. Confucius was recognized and saluted by all the passers-by; he responded benignly, courteously, distantly.

In front of the altars a loutish knight suddenly appeared. “Master!” He greeted Confucius rapturously.

“Tzu-Kung.” The master’s greetings were correct; but no more.

“I have great news!”

“Tell us.”

“You remember when I asked you if there was any one precept that I could and should act upon all day and every day?”

Confucius nodded. “I remember, yes. I told you, ‘Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you.’ ”

“That was more than a month ago and now, thanks to you, Master, what I do not want others to do to me I have no desire—believe me!—no desire at all to do to them!”

“My dear,” said Confucius, patting Tzu-Kung’s arm, “you have not quite got to that point yet.”

I REPORTED TO BARON K’ANG. I don’t know what impression my account of that first conversation with Confucius made. He listened gravely; then asked me to remember everything that had been said about the former warden of Pi. He seemed more interested in him than in the duke of Key.

When I ventured to say that I thought it most unlikely that a man like Confucius would ever try to overthrow a state, Baron K’ang shook his head. “You do not know this great man as well as we do. He disapproves of the current order. You heard what he said about my revered father, the hereditary prime minister: ‘If this man can be endured, anything can be endured.’ That was said openly, before the first exile.”

“Why didn’t your father put him to death?” The baron made a rolling gesture with one hand. “Because he is Confucius, we put up with his bad temper. Also, he knows heaven’s way. So we must honor him. But we must also keep a watchful eye on him.”

“At
seventy
,
Lord Baron?”

“Oh, yes. The annals of the Middle Kingdom are crowded with wicked old men who tried to tear the state to pieces.” Then the baron told me that I was to teach the state metalworkers how to smelt iron. I was also to see Confucius as often as possible, and make regular reports. The baron granted me daily access to his person, which meant that I could attend his court whenever I chose. For some reason I was never accepted at the levees of either the Meng or Shu family. But I was always welcome at the ducal court.

I was provided with a modest salary, a pleasant if chilly house near the foundry, two servants and two concubines. Cathayan women are easily the most beautiful on earth, and the most subtle when it comes to pleasing men. I became inordinately fond of both girls. When Fan Ch’ih told Confucius about my venery, the master laughed and said, “All my life I have searched for a man whose desire to build up his moral power was as strong as his drive for sex. I thought that perhaps our barbarian was he. Now I must go on looking.”

Generally speaking, Confucius did not laugh much in the time that I knew him. Quite soon after his return, things started to go very wrong. I was present at the court when Duke Ai announced, “My dearly beloved cousin the duke of Key has been murdered.”

Despite protocol, there was an audible gasp in the room. Although the premier knight did not gasp or move or do anything unseemly, he did turn very pale.

Apparently a baronial family in Key had decided to seize power in much the same way that the Chi family had taken power from the dukes of Lu, The friend and patron of Confucius was murdered in front of his own ancestral temple. When Duke Ai had finished speaking, Confucius asked permission, as premier knight, to address the throne.

When permission was granted, he said, “I beg forgiveness for not first bathing my head and limbs, as becomes a suppliant. But I did not know that I would find myself in such a situation on this dreadful day.” Although the old man’s voice kept cracking with tension, he made an eloquent speech to the effect that the murder of a lawful monarch is an affront to heaven, and must be punished. “In fact, if the murder is not promptly avenged, all the nations are apt to forfeit heaven’s sympathy.”

The duke’s response was dignified. “I share the premier knight’s horror at my cousin’s murder. I will do what
I
can to avenge him.” The duke looked properly fierce, as befits a man without power. “Now I suggest that you take this matter up in council with the Three.”

Confucius went straight to Baron K’ang, who told him bluntly that there was nothing anyone in Lu could do about a murder in Key. Confucius was furious; he was also helpless.

That evening Fan Ch’ih came to my house at the foundry. As the two girls served us fried rice cakes—we lived frugally in those postwar days—Fan Ch’ih told me, “We’ve expected this ever since the war.”

“The murder of the duke?”

Fan Ch’ih nodded. “He wanted to restore all power to Duke Ai. But when he lost the war, he lost the support of his own barons. And so, with a degree of help from outside, they killed him.”

“Help from outside?” Suddenly I remembered what Baron K’ang had said about certain events that were in train.

Fan Ch’ih put his finger to his lips. I motioned for the girls to withdraw. When we were alone, Fan Ch’ih told me that Baron K’ang had conspired with the barons in Key to kill the duke. This explained why the baron had been so eager for me to find out not only what Confucius might do or want to do but, more important, to what extent Jan Ch’iu and Fan Ch’ih would be influenced by Confucius’ predictable anger at the murder of a prince who was also a personal friend. Not unreasonably, Baron K’ang’s constant fear was treason. Certainly, he had every reason to be apprehensive. In his lifetime, a Chi servant had made himself dictator of Lu; the warden of his own castle had gone into rebellion; and the duke of Key had invaded the realm. If the baron was a deeply suspicious man, who could blame him?

“I’ve tried to put his mind at rest,” I said. “But I don’t think that the baron takes me very seriously.”

“He might. You are from outside.”

“When do you think that I’ll be able to go—
in
side?” Although my days were pleasant in that charming if somewhat dangerous land, I was often overwhelmed with loneliness. I still recall most vividly the sense of strangeness that engulfed me one morning in autumn. The first girl had wanted me to go early to market and look at a pair of expensive pheasants. I remember how cold the dawn was. I remember that the night mist was still in the air. I remember that the market itself was—is—a constant delight. During the night, wagons and carts roll into the city with produce. Vegetables and edible roots are then exquisitely arranged, according not to price but to color, size and beauty. Round tubs contain live fish, both freshwater and salt-water, as well as octopuses, prawns and crabs. Exotic and costly delicacies are also available: bear’s paws, gelatinous bird’s nests, the fins of sharks, the livers of peacocks, buried eggs from the time of the Yellow Emperor.

Just as the sun rises over the market and the mist begins to burn away, the buying and selling is at its most intense. The scene is delightful and I was usually a contented part of it. But that particular morning, standing in front of a row of wicker cages filled with bronze-colored pheasants, I was suddenly overwhelmed with loneliness. I have never felt so out of the real world. There I stood, surrounded by people of an alien race whose language I barely understood, whose culture was so remote from anything that I had ever known. Should there actually be an Aryan home of the fathers or a Hades, I am sure that one would feel in that limbo rather the way that I felt, looking at pheasants through eyes blurred with tears. I was reminded of that passage in Homer where the ghost of Achilles mourns for his old life in the world beneath that sun which he will never see again. At that moment I would rather have been a shepherd in the hills back of Susa than the son of heaven. Although such moments of weakness were rare, they were no less excruciating when they did come. I still dream sometimes that I am surrounded by yellow people in a marketplace. When I try to escape, cages filled with pheasants bar my way.

Fan Ch’ih was consoling. “We’ll go together. Soon. The baron likes the idea. And he should. After all, I’ve found what I think must have been the original silk road to India. We could start tomorrow except ...”

“No money?”

Fan Ch’ih nodded. “It’s worse than you think. The Chi treasury’s almost empty. The ducal treasury is permanently empty.”

“What about the Meng and Shu families?”

“They’re suffering, too. Last year’s harvest was bad. The war was disastrously expensive, and we gained nothing except Lang, the poorest town in Key.”

“You said that there are no bankers here but surely there must be wealthy merchants who are willing to lend money to the state.”

“No. Our rich pretend to be poor. As a result, no one lends money because ... well, life is so fragile here.”

No more fragile than anywhere else, I thought. But it is true that the long periods of relative peace and stability at Babylon and even Magadha had made complex banking procedures possible. The Middle Kingdom is too fragmented for any very elaborate system of borrowing and lending.

“Tomorrow”—Fan Ch’ih looked unhappy, despite the presence before him of the dish of the four seasons which the girls had taken four days to prepare, a dish that one would like to contemplate and savor for yet another four days—“Baron K’ang will announce new taxes. They are to be levied on everyone. No one is to be exempt. It’s the only way we’ll be able to pry the money from the rich.”

“And ruin everyone else.” I was alarmed. The war tax had been levied a few months before, to the dismay of every citizen. At the time, Confucius had warned the government that the tax was excessive. “Worse,” he had said, “by taking so much for the state, you reduce everyone’s ability to create more wealth. Even the bandit in the forest never takes more than two thirds of a merchant’s caravan. After all, it is to the bandit’s interest that the merchant prosper so that there will always be something for him to steal.” I asked Fan Ch’ih if Confucius had been consulted.

“No. Baron K’ang does not want another lecture. Jan Ch’iu is going to post the proclamation on the wall of the Long Treasury. Then he and his soldiers will go from house to house and collect what they can.”

“I hope that the baron knows what he is doing.”

“He knows what he has to do.” Fan Ch’ih was not at all happy. Aside from the public unrest that the new taxes would create, the entire government was concerned with Confucius’ reaction. I always marveled at the awe in which this powerless old man was held. Although no ruler would give him the office he wanted or heed his advice either political or religious, every official wanted his benediction. I still do not understand how a single scholar without political power or wealth could have established such a position for himself. Doubtless, heaven had given him a decree when no one was looking.

The day that the new taxes went into effect, I was at the house of Confucius. A dozen of the disciples were arranged in a semicircle about the master, who sat with his back against the wooden column that supported the ceiling to the inner room. The old man’s back seemed to bother him for he would press first one shoulder blade, then the other against the hard surface of the wood. No one mentioned the latest tax assessment. Confucius’ views on the subject were too well known. Instead we spoke, not unfittingly, of funerals and mourning, of the dead and what was owing to them. Tzu-lu sat on the master’s left. Yen Hui sat on the master’s right. In another part of the house, Confucius’ son was dying. Death was in the air.

“Certainly,” said Confucius, “one cannot be too strict when it comes to mourning. We owe that much to our memory of the dead. I would even adhere to the old rule that a man who has wailed in the morning at a funeral should not raise his voice in song that night.”

Although everyone agreed that one could not be too punctilious in observing funeral rites—for instance, one must never sacrifice to the dead after eating garlic or drinking wine—there was some disagreement about how long one ought to mourn a parent as opposed to one’s child, friend or wife.

A young disciple said, “I am convinced that a year’s mourning is quite enough for one’s father; yet the master insists on a full three years of mourning.”

“I
insist
on nothing, little one. I simply conform to custom.” Although Confucius was his usual mild self, I could not help but notice the somewhat anxious looks that he would direct to the sickly Yen Hui.

“But isn’t it customary to suspend all ordinary business when you mourn for your father?”

“That is the custom,” said Confucius.

“But, Master, if a gentleman does not practice all the rites of religion for three years, the rites will decay. If he makes no music, he will lose the art. If he doesn’t plant his fields, there will be no harvest. If he doesn’t whirl the drill in the wood, there’ll be no new fire when the old fire burns out. Surely, a year without doing these necessary things is more than enough.”

Confucius shifted his gaze from Yen Hui to the young disciple. “After only a year of mourning,” he asked, “would you feel comfortable eating the best rice and wearing fine brocades?”

“Yes, Master, I would.”

“In that case, do so. By all means. Only remember”—and the soft voice rose slightly—“if the true gentleman hears music at a time of mourning, the music will sound harsh to his ears. Good food will have no taste. A comfortable bed will be like a stony field. That’s why he finds it easy, and proper, to abstain from such luxuries. But if you really feel at ease indulging yourself, why, go right ahead!”

“I knew that you would understand, Master.” Much relieved, the disciple excused himself.

When the youth had gone, Confucius shook his head. “How very inhuman! That young man’s father has been dead for only a year and now he wants to stop all mourning. Yet when he was a child he spent his first three years in the arms of his parents. One would think that the least he could do would be to mourn his father for the same length of time.”