Creation (76 page)

I DID MY BEST TO BRING TOGETHER disgruntled sage and edgy dictator. At first I made little headway. For one thing, Confucius was still in mourning for both his son and Yen Hui; for another, his own health was deteriorating. Nevertheless, he continued to teach. He had also got interested in writing the history of Lu. “I think it might be useful,” he said to me, “to show how and why ten generations of dukes have been powerless.”

I asked him what
he
thought was the principal reason for the decline of ducal power and the rise of the hereditary ministers.

“It began when the early dukes farmed out tax collection to the nobility.” Confucius was always matter-of-fact in his analyses. “Eventually the nobles kept the taxes for themselves and, as everyone knows, whoever controls the treasury controls the state. It is also a fact that no dynasty lasts much longer than ten generations. It is also a fact that if power has passed to the barons”—the old man smiled his rabbit’s smile—“they can seldom maintain their rule for more than five generations. I have the impression that today, after five generations of power, the Chi, Meng and Shu families are no longer quite what they were.”

I did not dare deal directly with Confucius. Instead I cultivated Tzu-lu on the ground that he alone always spoke his mind to Confucius. “After all,” he said to me, “if I hadn’t stopped him, he’d have joined forces with the warden of Pi. He actually believed that scoundrel when he said he would make a Chou in the east. I told Confucius that he would be a fool to have anything to do with the warden. If there is ever a Chou in the east, it will come naturally and because the master has made it clear to everyone that such a thing is not only desirable but possible.”

By then Tzu-lu had agreed with me that the time had come for Confucius to make his peace with Baron K’ang. “Don’t worry,” said Tzu-lu, “I’ll handle him.”

After much negotiation, Confucius accepted an invitation to visit the baron in his so-called forest shack. On a bright day in summer, escorted by a company of Chi soldiers, we left the city in a light wagon, drawn by four horses.

“I hope,” the Baron had said to me when the final arrangements were being made, “that he won’t mind if I receive him in my father’s old hunting lodge. I can only pray that its rustic simplicity will appeal to his sense of proportion.” The baron’s egglike face betrayed, as usual, no emotion when he added, “You, Cyrus Spitama, honored guest, have done us a service that we shall not soon forget.”

The journey through the forest was pleasant. Birds of every sort were on the wing, newly arrived from the far south, while the trees were in early leaf and wild flowers filled the air with those delicate perfumes that make me sneeze uncontrollably.

The first night we dined royally on game and fish fresh-caught. We slept in tents. We saw no dragons, trolls or bandits. But we did meet, the next morning, a solitary hermit-sage; and like most solitary hermit-sages, he could not stop talking. There is nothing like a vow of silence to loosen the tongue.

The man’s hair and beard had not been cut or washed in years. He lived in a tree not too far from the forest trail. As a result, he was well known to travelers in that part of the world. Rather like an Indian monkey, he would dart about, taunting strangers. He enjoyed contrasting the simple perfection of his life with the worldliness of everyone else. Cathayan hermit-sages are every bit as tiresome as the ones to be found in the Gangetic plain; fortunately, they are not yet as numerous.

“Ah, Master K’ung!” he saluted Confucius, who had got down from the wagon in order, decorously, to relieve himself in a grove of wild mulberry trees.

Confucius greeted the man politely.

“Tell me, Master K’ung, is there a crime greater than having too many desires?”

“To have one
wrong
desire is a crime.” Confucius was mild. He was used to the insults of the hermit-sages. They wished, like the Buddha, to eliminate a world that he wanted only to rectify. They had withdrawn; he had not.

“Is there a disaster greater than not being constant?” asked the wild man.

“To be discontented with one’s proper role in life might be called a disaster.”

The hermit-sage was not at all pleased to have his rhetorical questions answered so literally. “Is there any misfortune greater than being covetous?”

“Doesn’t it depend on what is coveted? To covet what is good in heaven’s eyes is hardly a misfortune.”

“Do you know what heaven is?”

“For you who follow Master Li”—Confucius knew his enemy—“it is the Way, which may not be described in words. So I shall defer to Master Li and not describe it in words.”

The hermit-sage was not exactly delighted with this answer, either. “Master K’ung, you believe in the supreme importance of the ancestral sacrifice, as performed by the son of heaven.”

“Indeed I do.”

“But there is no longer a son of heaven.”

“There was. There will be. Meanwhile, the ancestral sacrifice still continues, if less than perfect in the absence of the lonely one.”

“What is the meaning of the ancestral sacrifice?”

I was surprised that Confucius was taken aback by what must have been for him that rarest of all things on this old earth, a new question. “What is the meaning of the ancestral sacrifice?” he repeated.

“Yes. How did it begin. What does it signify? Explain it to me, Master K’ung.”

“I cannot.” Confucius looked at the wild man as if he were a tree that had somehow fallen in his path. “Anyone who truly understood the sacrifice could deal with all things under heaven as easily as this.” And Confucius placed the forefinger of his right hand against the flattened palm of the left.

“Since you do not understand the most important of all our sacrifices, how can you begin to know heaven’s will?”

“I merely transmit the wisdom of the wise ancestors. Nothing more.” Confucius began, as it were, to walk around the tree in his way. But the hermit-sage was not about to let him go; he put his hand on the master’s arm. “This is not seemly,” said Fan Ch’ih, striking down the encroaching arm. As Confucius took his place in the wagon, the wild man’s expression was rather more close to hate than to the cool do-nothingness prescribed by the celebrators of the always-so.

I could not resist taunting him. “How,” I asked, “did all this come into existence? Who created the universe?”

For a moment I thought that the wild man had not heard me. He certainly did not look at me; his eyes were on Confucius’ bent back. But then, just as I was about to move on, he said or quoted, “The spirit of the valley never dies. This is called the mysterious female. The gateway of the mysterious female is called the root of heaven and earth. It is there within us all the while. No matter how much you draw upon it, it will never run dry.”

“Does that mean that we came from the waters of some primal womb?” My question was not answered. Instead, the hermit suddenly shouted at Confucius. “Master K’ung, is it your belief that evil should be repaid with, good?”

Although Confucius did not look at the man, he answered him. “If you repay ill with good, how on earth are you going to reward good? With ill?”

By this time I was in the wagon. I heard Confucius mutter under his breath, “The man’s an idiot.”

“Like Master Li,” said Tzu-lu.

“No.” Confucius frowned. “Master Li is clever. He is wicked. He has said that since the ancestral rites are wearing thin, loyalty and good faith are vanishing and disorder has begun. To my mind, he preaches a truly
dis
orderly doctrine.”

I do not think that I have ever in my life seen a private dwelling as beautiful as the forest shack of Baron K’ang’s father. Curiously enough, none of my companions had ever laid eyes on the estate that the old dictator had created for himself some fifty miles south of the capital.

In the midst of a large clearing in the forest, a series of terraces had been so constructed that, as one ascends the steps to the highest pavilion, one seems to be floating on what looks to be a vast green sea, bounded to the south by a range of violet island-mountains still covered with winter’s snow.

At the foot of the first terrace we were met by a chamberlain, who accompanied us to the highest level. The forest shack is a complex of rooms, halls, galleries and pavilions built on four artificial terraces at the center of a series of marvelous gardens. Wherever one stands, inside or out, one sees sky, flowers, trees. The gardens and the palace had been created by architects from Ch’u, a southern country on the Yangtze River, famed throughout the Middle Kingdom for its splendid buildings, gardens, women—and dragons, as the duke of Sheh discovered to his horror.

Ornamental ponds reflected the watery light of a pale-skied noon. Pale-green duckweed covered the surface of the water like a net in whose delicate meshes were caught lotuses. At water’s edge, yellow orchids bloomed like butterflies frozen on the wing. All the garden attendants were dressed in leopard skins. I don’t know why. I do know that the effect was not only bizarre but mysteriously beautiful and entirely typical, I was told, of a Ch’u garden.

At the ultimate level, there is a two-story building made of highly polished red stone. Cringing politely, the chamberlain showed us into a hall that was as high and as wide and as long as the building itself. We were all overwhelmed by the beauty and lightness of the interior—all, that is, except Confucius, who looked very grim indeed.

The highly polished gray-green stone of the interior makes a vivid contrast to the red exterior. At the hall’s center an enormous black marble column, sculpted to resemble a tree, supports a ceiling whose radial teakwood beams have been carved to resemble branches, heavy with every sort of gilded fruit.

Directly opposite the main door, an arras of kingfisher-blue hides the entrance to the palace proper. As we gaped, invisible hands or ropes drew the arras to one side, revealing Baron K’ang. Our host was dressed simply but correctly. As he saluted the premier knight correctly, if not simply, the head bobs, hand twitches, shoulder wriggles, breath hisses were endless. Plainly, this was to be a supremely formal and high and significant occasion.

After Confucius had given all the correct responses, the baron led us into a long gallery which overlooked a series of terraced gardens. Here we were served a banquet by a dozen astonishingly beautiful girls from Ch’u. They are an integral part of the furnishings if not the architecture, and we were all bedazzled except Confucius. He sat in the place of honor and made all the correct observances. But he kept his eyes averted from the servitors. None of us had realized that such luxury existed anywhere in Lu. Although the Chi family palace in the capital is a large building, it is suitably austere, as befits the administrative center of an impoverished state. For reasons of his own, the dictator had decided to show us an aspect of his life that few were ever privileged to see. We were highly impressed, as he meant us to be. Confucius was appalled—as the baron meant him to be? I am still not sure.

The banquet was delicious and we drank far too much honey-flavored jade-dark wine and ate course after course of dishes that were served us in the southern fashion. That is, bitter food alternates with salty food which alternates with sour which alternates with pepper which is succeeded by sweet. I recall seethed tortoise; goose in sour sauce; casseroled duck; roast kid with yam sauce; dried flesh of crane with pickled radishes—and the famed bitter-sour soup of Wu.

Except for Baron K’ang and Confucius, everyone gorged himself most disgustingly. The sage and the dictator ate sparingly and sipped rather than drank wine.

Between courses, young women performed the highly seductive dances of Cheng, to the accompaniment of zither, pipes, bells and drums. Then a fascinating beauty from Wu sang a series of love songs that even Confucius felt obliged to praise for their refinement—and antiquity. By and large, he detested all music that has been composed since the time of Chou.

I remember the conversation in bits and pieces, still illuminated and perfumed in my memory by the splendid day, food, music, women. At one point the baron turned to Confucius. “Tell me, Master, which of your disciples most loves learning?”

“The one who is dead, Prime Minister. Unfortunately, Yen Hui had a short life. Now,” said Confucius with a hard look at those of his disciples who were present, “there is no one to take his place.”

The baron smiled. “Naturally, you are the judge, Master. Even so, I would have thought Tzu-lu wise.”

“Would you?” Confucius bared the tips of his front teeth.

“I also think him a proper person to hold office in the state. Would you agree to that, Master?” Thus, not so delicately, was Confucius being bribed.

“Tzu-lu is efficient,” said Confucius. “Therefore, he should hold office.” Tzu-lu had the grace to look embarrassed.

“What about Jan Ch’iu?”

“He is versatile,” said Confucius flatly. “As you know, since he already holds office.”

“Fan Ch’ih?”

“He is able to get things done, as you already know.”

Jan Ch’iu and Fan Ch’ih had now ceased to enjoy the feast, as the baron amused himself at their expense. He was also communicating, in some secret way, with Confucius. “I am well served by your disciples, Master.”

“Would that goodness were equally well served, Prime Minister.”

The baron chose not to respond to this sharp response. “Tell me, Master. What is the best way to make the common people respectful and loyal?”

“Other than by example?” I was suddenly aware that not only was Confucius in a towering rage but even the frugal meal that he had made was beginning to disagree with him. The baron looked attentive, as if Confucius had not yet spoken. “Treat men with dignity.” Confucius frowned and belched. “Then they will respect you. Promote those servants of the state who are worthy and train those who are incompetent.”

“How beautifully true!” The baron affected delight with this banality.

“I am happy that you find it so.” Confucius looked more than ever sour. “Certainly the reverse must never be practiced.”

“The reverse?”