Creation (78 page)

Confucius had surrendered not so much to the prime minister as to time. At the forest shack he had accepted the fact that he would never lead the state. He still hoped that he would be used in some way. But the dream of putting to rights his native land was at an end.

THE REST OF THE SUMMER WAS TAKEN up with preparations for departure. Lu merchants who wanted to trade with India were told to assemble their goods at the central warehouse. I met all the merchants and made myself as useful as possible. I promised to obtain at Magadha what privileges I could for this or that raw material or manufacture. Although trade with India was still not common, the Cathayan merchants had a very shrewd understanding of what Indians value. I have always thought that each race has a memory quite apart from that of its spoken or written annals. From father to son, certain kinds of information are passed on. Despite the fact that three centuries had passed since there was regular trade between east and west, most Cathayan merchants seem to know at birth that silk and pearls and furs, feather screens and jade and dragon’s bone are valued in the west, where the gold and rubies and spices that easterners so much desire can be found in abundance.

The master of the expedition was a marquis from Key. In the course of the summer, he paid me a visit. I saw to it that he was deeply impressed by my connection with Ajatashatru, who was now, according to the latest news, master of all the Gangetic plain except for the Licchavi republic. At the marquis’s request, I agreed to act as liaison between the expedition and the government of Magadha. Whether or not I was still in favor with my tempestuous father-in-law was a question that I thought unwise to raise. For all I knew, Ambalika and my sons might be dead. Ajatashatru might be insane. Certainly, if he were so minded, he could put me to death for desertion—or for his own amusement. He was always referred to in worried tones by knowledgeable Cathayans.

“There has never been such a bloody king,” said Fan Ch’ih. “In the last few years, he’s burned to the ground a dozen cities, slaughtered tens of thousands of men, women, children.”

Since I knew Ajatashatru to be even worse than the Cathayans suspected, I made him out to be far better than they feared. In any case, we would simply have to take our chances. Besides, I was reasonably certain that he would want the silk road opened to regular traffic. Therefore, he would not want to inhibit trade by robbing and murdering legitimate merchants. Or so I told myself—and the nervous marquis of Key.

Shortly after our return from the forest shack, Confucius took to his bed. A week later, word began to spread throughout the Middle Kingdom that the divine sage was dying.

As soon as we heard the news, Fan Ch’ih and I hurried to the master’s house. The street in front of the house was crowded with silent, watchful, sad young men. Tzu-lu had given orders that only the original disciples could attend the deathbed. I was admitted only because I was with Fan Ch’ih.

In the outer room, thirty disciples were gathered. They were dressed in mourning. I could smell the smoke from the aromatic leaves that were being burned in the bedroom. Although the smell is not unpleasant to men, it is sickening to evil spirits—or so the Cathayans believe. Inside the bedroom a dirge was being sung.

When Fan Ch’ih heard the singing, he began to weep. “This means he really is dying. That song is sung only when the spirit is leaving the body.”

In Cathay, if one does not pray both to heaven and earth to look after a dying man, he will come back and haunt those who were not willing to placate, on his behalf, the two halves of the original egg. Cathayans believe that each man has two spirits inside him. One is a life spirit, which ends when the body dies. The other is a personality spirit, which continues to, exist as long as it is remembered and honored with sacrifices. If the remembered spirit is not correctly honored, the ghost’s revenge can be horrendous. Even at that sad moment, I could not help but think how confused every religion is. Confucius himself did not believe in spirits or ghosts. Presumably, his disciples did not believe in them either. Yet at the moment of his death, Tzu-lu insisted that all the old outmoded ceremonies be performed. It would be as if my grandfather at the moment of
his
death had asked the devil-goddess Anahita to intercede for him with the keepers of the Aryan home of the fathers.

The disciples in the courtyard joined in the dirge. I felt uncomfortable and out of place. I was also genuinely saddened, for I had come to admire the wise, unyielding old man.

Then the singing stopped. Tzu-lu appeared in the outer room. He looked ghastly, almost as if he were the one who was doing the dying. Jan Ch’iu stood behind him.

“The master is unconscious. It is nearly over.” Tzu-lu’s voice cracked. “But if he should regain his senses, we must do him honor.” Tzu-lu motioned to one of the disciples who held in both arms a large bundle. “Here are the robes that are worn by the retainers of a great minister. We must put them on. Quickly!”

Tzu-lu, Jan Ch’iu, Fan Ch’ih and four other disciples pulled on the ill-fitting robes. Then they filed into the bedroom, singing the praises of the great minister of state. Since no one stopped me, I followed them.

Confucius lay on a simple mat, head to the north—where the dead reside. He was very pale; and his breathing was irregular. In a brazier, aromatic leaves burned.

As Tzu-lu and the other retainers began to sway and moan, Confucius opened his eyes. He looked startled; like a man awakened from normal sleep. “Tzu-lu!” The voice was surprisingly strong.

The disciples stopped their keening, and Tzu-lu said, “Great Minister, we are here to serve you in death as in life. We have performed the rites of expiation. We have called upon the sky-spirits above and the earth-spirits below ...”

“My expiation began long ago.” The pale face began to darken with returning strength. “I need no rites. Either what I have done in my life is good in the eyes of heaven or it is not. All this is ... superfluous.” The old man blinked his eyes; became aware of the costumes that the disciples were wearing. “What on earth are you got up as?”

“Retainers of a great minister,” said Tzu-lu tearfully.

“But I am not a great minister.”

“You are minister of state ...”

“That is nothing, as we all know. Only a great minister can have retainers who wear such clothes.” Confucius shut his eyes. “This is travesty, Tzu-lu.” Then the eyes opened again; they had become bright and alert. The voice was stronger, too. “When you pretend that I’m something that I’m not, whom do you fool? The court? They know better. Heaven? No! I prefer to die”—there was a slight trace of a smile at the corners of his mouth—“according to my humble station.”

Tzu-lu said nothing. Jan Ch’iu filled in the awkward silence. “Master, I have brought you a special medicine.” Jan Ch’iu offered the old man a small stoppered bottle. “It is a gift from Baron K’ang, who prays for your recovery.”

“Thank him for the prayers. And for the medicine.” With some effort Confucius raised one hand as if to take the bottle. But when Jan Ch’iu tried to put it in Confucius’ hand, he made a fist and said, “Since I don’t know what’s in the bottle, I don’t dare take it. Besides”—and the front teeth were revealed at last in the famed rabbit’s smile—“the prime minister must know that a gentleman cannot take medicine from any doctor whose father and grandfather have not previously served his family.”

Confucius did not die. By late summer he had applied to Baron K’ang for a proper ministry. When he was told that none was immediately available, he realized that the bitter gourd was now on the wall for good.

With apparent good grace, Confucius proceeded to divide his time between the study of the Chou texts and his students. It is said that Confucius’ private school was the first in all the Middle Kingdom that was not connected with a noble family. Confucius himself had been educated in the private school of the Meng family. Now he was the educator of the entire knightly class, as well as a number of nobles. More important, he was a maker of gentlemen. Before Confucius, no one below the level of knight could aspire to the rank—no, not rank—the quality of a gentleman. Confucius said that anyone who followed the proper way with diligence could become a gentleman. The dispossessed Shang scholars were pleased. The Chou nobility was not.

Confucius also devoted a good deal of time to sorting out the annals of Lu. He thought it important to know exactly what happened during those years when the dukes lost their power. He spent many happy, dusty hours with the annals, made available to him by Duke Ai. In Cathay, only the great families possess books in any quantity. According to Confucius, most of these books are an absolute hodge-podge because the writing—which is up and down rather than from side to side—is done on strips of bamboo that are then bound together by a leather thong which goes through a hole at the top of each strip. In time the thongs wear out. When they do, the order of the strips often gets jumbled. It was Confucius’ dream to put in proper order as much of the Chou literature as possible. This meant separating ancestral hymns from court songs, and so on. All in all, a prodigious undertaking. I have no idea if he lived long enough to complete the task. I should doubt it.

I saw him for the last time back of the rain altars. He was walking with a number of young students. When he saw me, he smiled. I joined the group; and I listened for a while. Although he said nothing to them that I had not heard before, it was always interesting to observe the way in which he adapted his wisdom to different men and situations. He particularly disliked those who simply repeated smugly what they had memorized, like so many Indian birds. “To learn and not to think over what you have learned is perfectly useless. To think without having first learned is dangerous.” On the other hand, he did not take well to eel-wrigglers. I remember once listening to a young man turn Confucius’ own words back on him. The master took this cleverness with apparent serenity. But as we walked away, he groaned, “How I hate glibness!” He would not have liked Athens.

I think, Democritus, that even your teacher Protagoras would agree with Confucius’ strictures on how necessary it is to examine what you’ve learned. Confucius also thought that a teacher must always be able to reinterpret the old in terms of the new. This is obvious. Unfortunately, it is also obvious that few teachers are able to do anything but repeat, without interpretation, old saws. For Confucius, true wisdom is to know the extent of what you don’t know quite as well as you know what you do know. Try that on your friend Socrates—or that demon he likes to talk to. Democritus thinks me unfair to Socrates. If I am, it is because I have known great and wise men of a sort not to be found in this place—or epoch.

When Confucius and the disciples reached the river’s edge, I said, “Master, I am leaving. I want to say good-by.”

Confucius turned to the disciples. “Go home, little ones.” Then he put an arm through mine, a gesture of intimacy he seldom made even with Tzu-lu. Together we walked to the exact spot where we had first fished together three years before. “I hope that you will sometimes think of us here when you are—there.” He was too polite to refer to there by its proper Cathay an name: land of the barbarians.

“I shall. Often. I have learned many things from you, Master.”

“Do you think so? I would be pleased, of course, if you had. But we are so different.”

“The same heaven covers both Persia and Cathay.” I was sincere in my affection for him.

“But the
decrees
are not the same.” The old man showed the rabbit’s teeth. “That is why you still believe in the Wise Lord and the day of judgment and all that fiery ... terminus to things.”

“Yes. But even so, the way of righteousness for us—on earth—is your way, too.”

“Heaven’s way.” He corrected me. We were at the river’s edge. This time he sat on the rock where I had first sat. I knelt beside him. “I no longer fish,” he said. “I’ve lost the skill.”

“Does that ever go?”

“What does not? Except the idea of goodness. And ritual. I know you laugh secretly at our three thousand three hundred observances. No, don’t deny it. I understand you. That is why I would like you to understand us. You see, without ritual, courtesy becomes tiresome. Caution becomes timidity. Daring becomes dangerous. Inflexibility becomes hardness.”

“I never laugh at you, Master. But I’m sometimes puzzled. Even so, you’ve taught me what a true gentleman is—or ought to be. And that is what you are.”

The old man shook his head. “No.” The voice was sad. “The true gentleman is good. Therefore, he is never unhappy. He is wise. Therefore, he is never perplexed. He is brave. Therefore, he is never afraid. Much of my life has been spent in fear, perplexity, unhappiness. I am not what I would want to be. That is why, to tell the truth, I have failed.”

“Master, you are a famous teacher ...”

“A passable charioteer is more famous than I. No. I am not known. But I don’t blame heaven, or even men.” He pushed a strand of white hair off the bulbous forehead. “I like to think that in heaven men get credit for how they live and what they’ve aspired to be. If this is true, I am content.”

We listened to the cries of birds from nearby orchards; to the cries of women as they drove away the hungry birds. “Master, do you believe in heaven?”

“Earth is a fact.” The old man tapped the moss-covered ground.

“Is heaven a fact?”

“So we have been taught by the Chou, and before the Chou by the Shang.”

“But aside from their teachings, their rituals, do you believe?”

“Years ago when I was first in Key, I heard and saw the succession dance. I was stunned. I had never before realized what perfect beauty was, what perfect goodness was. For three months afterward, I was in a daze. At last I understood what heaven must be like because on earth I had been so close to perfection, to goodness.”

“But where did this music come from? Who created it?”

As Confucius folded his hands, the long thumbs crossed each other. “If I tell you from heaven, you will ask me who created heaven. And I will not answer that question because there is no need to know what we cannot know. There is so much for us to deal with here. In heaven’s
name
,
we have created certain rituals which make it possible for us to transcend ourselves. In heaven’s name, we are obliged to observe certain customs, manners, ways of thought that make for harmony, for righteousness, for goodness. Words which are not ever easily defined.” The old man frowned. “The single great obstacle in my own way—in every man’s way—is that of the language. Important words are cloudy with too many meanings and non-meanings. If I had the power, I would redefine every word.” He paused, then smiled mischievously. “So that it would conform with its original Chou meaning.”