Kai Lung’s Golden Hours - Ernest Bramah (the reading strategies book .TXT) 📗

said Pe-lung, becoming most offensively amused. IX The Propitious Dissension Between Two Whose General Attributes Have Already Been Sufficiently Described

When Kai Lung had related the story of Chang Tao and had made an end of speaking, those who were seated there agreed with an undivided voice that he had competently fulfilled his task. Nor did Shan Tien omit an approving word, adding:

“On one point the historical balance of a certain detail seemed open to contention. Accompany me, therefore, to my own severe retreat, where this necessarily flat and unentertaining topic can be looked at from all round.”

When they were alone together the Mandarin unsealed a jar of wine, apportioned melon seeds, and indicated to Kai Lung that he should sit upon the floor at a suitable distance from himself.

“So long as we do not lose sight of the necessity whereby my official position will presently involve me in condemning you to a painful death, and your loyal subjection will necessitate your wholehearted cooperation in the act, there is no reason why the flower of literary excellence should wither for lack of mutual husbandry,” remarked the broad-minded official tolerantly.

“Your enlightened patronage is a continual nourishment to the soil of my imagination,” replied the story teller.

“As regards the doings of Chang Tao and of the various other personages who unite with him to form the fabric of the narrative, would not a strict adherence to the fable in its classical simplicity require the filling in of certain details which under your elusive tongue seemed, as you proceeded, to melt imperceptibly into a discreet background?”

“Your voice is just,” confessed Kai Lung, “and your harmonious ear corrects the deficiencies of my afflicted style. Admittedly in the story of Chang Tao there are here and there analogies which may be fittingly left to the imagination as the occasion should demand. Is it not rightly said: ‘Discretion is the handmaiden of Truth’? and in that spacious and well-appointed palace there is every kind of vessel, but the meaner are not to be seen in the more ceremonial halls. Thus he who tells a story prudently suits his furnishing to the condition of his hearers.”

“Wisdom directs your course,” replied Shan Tien, “and propriety sits beneath your supple tongue. As the necessity for this very seemly expurgation is now over, I would myself listen to your recital of the fullest and most detailed version⁠—purely, let it be freely stated, in order to judge whether its literary qualities transcend those of the other.”

“I comply, benevolence,” replied Kai Lung. “This rendering shall be to the one that has gone before as a spreading banyan-tree overshadowing an immature shrub.”

“Forbear!” exclaimed a discordant voice, and the sour-eyed Ming-shu revealed his inopportune presence from behind a hanging veil. “Is it meet, O eminence, that in this person’s absence you should thus consort on terms of fraternity with tomb-riflers and grain-thieves?”

“The reproach is easily removed,” replied Shan Tien hospitably. “Join the circle of our refined felicity and hear at full length by what means the ingenious Chang Tao⁠—”

“There are moments when one despairs before the spectacle of authority thus displayed,” murmured Ming-shu, his throat thickening with acrimony. “Understand, preeminence,” he continued more aloud, “that not this one’s absence but your own presence is the distressing feature, as being an obstacle in the path of that undeviating justice in which our legal system is embedded. From the first moment of our encountering it had been my well-intentioned purpose that loyal confidence should be strengthened and rebellion cowed by submitting this opportune but otherwise inoffensive stranger to a sordid and degrading end. Yet how shall this beneficent example be attained if on every occasion⁠—”

“Your design is a worthy and enlightened one,” interposed the Mandarin, with dignity. “What you have somewhat incapably overlooked, Ming-shu, is the fact that I never greet this intelligent and painstaking young man without reminding him of the imminence of his fate and of his suitability for it.”

“Truth adorns your lips and accuracy anoints your palate,” volunteered Kai Lung.

“Be this as the destinies permit, there is much that is circuitous in the bending of events,” contended Ming-shu stubbornly. “Is it by chance or through some hidden tricklage that occasion always finds Kai Lung so adequately prepared?”

“It is, as the story of Chang Tao has this day justified, and as this discriminating person has frequently maintained, that the one in question has a story framed to meet the requirement of every circumstance,” declared Shan Tien.

“Or that each requirement is subtly shaped to meet his preparation,” retorted Ming-shu darkly. “Be that as it shall perchance ultimately appear, it is undeniable that your admitted weaknesses⁠—”

“Weaknesses!” exclaimed the astonished Mandarin, looking around the room as though to discover in what crevice the unheard-of attributes were hidden. “This person’s weaknesses? Can the sounding properties of this ill-constructed roof thus pervert one word into the semblance of another? If not, the bounds set to the admissible from the taker-down of the spoken word, Ming-shu, do not in their most elastic moods extend to calumny and distortion.⁠ ⁠… The one before you has no weaknesses.⁠ ⁠… Doubtless before another moon has changed you will impute to him actual faults!”

“Humility directs my gaze,” replied Ming-shu, with downcast eyes, and he plainly recognized that his presumption had been too maintained. “Yet,” he added, with polished irony, “there is a well-timed adage that rises to the lips: ‘Do not despair; even Yuen Yan once cast a missile at the Tablets!’ ”

“Truly,” agreed Shan Tien, with smooth concurrence, “the line is not unknown to me. Who, however, was the one in question and under what provocation did he so behave?”

“That is beyond the province of the saying,” replied Ming-shu. “Nor is it known to my remembrance.”

“Then out of your own mouth a fitting test is set, which if Kai Lung can agreeably perform will at once demonstrate a secret and a guilty confederacy between you both. Proceed, O storyteller, to incriminate Ming-shu together with yourself!”

“I proceed, High Excellence, but chiefly to the