Creation (72 page)

“Is that a proverb, Master?”

“No, honored guest, a joke.” And he showed the length of his two front teeth in a smile. Like so many people whose teeth are distorted, he suffered from stomach trouble—for which he was greatly admired. In Cathay, constant loud disturbances in that region of the body signify a superior mind forever at work.

Confucius discussed the poverty of the state. “Only yesterday Duke Ai asked me what he should do. So I asked him if the state had collected all of this year’s tithes and he said yes, but the war had cost so much that there was nothing left.”

“All the tithes will have to be increased,” I said, recalling the glum figure of the baron at work in the Long Treasury.

“But that would be most unwise,” said Confucius, “and unfair. After all, if in
good times the ruler is willing to share in the plenty, then in bad times he should be willing to accept the fact that he is not going to have as much to spend as he would like to have.”

I reported this comment to the baron because I thought that it might mean that Confucius was eager to weaken the state in the event of an attack from Key. The baron thought this possible but unlikely. “He has always taken that view. He thinks the people owe the state a fixed part of their income and no more; and he is angry whenever a government alters what he regards as a sacred contract.”

Confucius told me of a wise man whom he had known in his youth. Apparently this statesman—he was the prime minister of one of the least powerful duchies—assembled and conformed all the laws of the Middle Kingdom and had them inscribed on bronze, much the way Darius did when he gave us our law code. The sage—Tzu-Ch’an by name—also worked out a new series of economic arrangements, to the horror of the conservatives. But his reforms proved to be so effective that today he is one of the most admired of modern Cathayans. Certainly, Confucius was generous in his praise of his mentor. “Tzu-Ch’an had the four virtues of the perfect gentleman.” A fish tugged at the master’s line. Delicately he flicked his pole downstream; then, more sharply, upstream. “He’s hooked,” he said happily.

“What are the four virtues?” I asked. Everything is numbered east of the Indus River.

As Confucius cautiously pulled in his line he listed these precious qualities: “The perfect gentleman is courteous in private life. He is punctilious in his dealings with the prince. He gives the common people not only their due but more. Finally, he is entirely just in dealing with those who serve him, and the state.”

“Tzu-Ch’an sounds like a divine sage.” I was polite. Actually, the wise man sounded to me like one of those masters of the commonplace who are always quoted at such length by the dull.

Confucius let the fish weary itself at the river’s edge. “I doubt if we shall ever see a divine sage in our time. But we can always hope to find a perfect gentleman.”

“You are considered to be that, Master. If not more.” I spoke to him as if to a ruler.

But Confucius seemed not to take himself for granted in quite the same way that most eminent men do. “What I am considered to be and what I am are two different things. Like the fish, which is one thing in the water and another on the plate. I am a teacher because no one will allow me to conduct the affairs of a state. I’m like the bitter gourd: they hang me on the wall as a decoration, but I am not used.” He said this without any apparent bitterness. Then he landed the fish, a sizable perch. With swift gestures he unhooked the fish, threw it into the wicker basket, prepared the hook once more with bait and cast his line—all this in the time it takes an ordinary person to phrase the response to a question whose answer he knows.

When I complimented Confucius on his expertness as a fisherman, he laughed and said, “I don’t hold high office. That’s why I have so many skills.”

“It is said that the duke of Key offered you high office.”

“That was the old duke. And that was many years ago. Lately, I have talked to his son. Duke Chien is a serious man. But I have no influence in Key.”

“That is plain, Master.” I began to fulfill Baron K’ang’s commission. Simultaneously, I hooked a fish.

“Why is that so plain, honored guest?” Confucius was one of the few wise men who actually asked questions in order to find out what he did not know. As a rule, this world’s sages prefer to bait the listener with carefully constructed questions in order to elicit answers that will reflect the wise man’s immutable views. This is a very easy thing to do, as you observed the other day, Democritus, when I obliged Socrates to answer
my
questions. In this darkness, where I perpetually sit, I can
hear
you smile. Well, you’ll see that I’m right one day. Wisdom did not begin in Attica, though it may yet end here.

“Because of the recent war, Master, which you would have opposed.”

“I was not in Key when the war began.” Confucius looked at my taut line. “Downstream, but easily,” he advised. I moved the pole but not easily; and lost the fish. “Too bad,” he said. “It takes the lightest touch. But then, I’ve fished this river all my life. I know the current. I’m surprised that anyone would think that I might have encouraged the war.” Confucius knew exactly what
I
was fishing for. One could not fool him on his own ground, and I did not try.

I was to the point. “It is thought that you wanted the warden of Castle Pi to restore the duke to power.”

Confucius nodded; and let out his line. “It’s quite true that I’ve spoken to the warden. It’s true that he offered me office. It’s true that I said no. He is an adventurer, and not serious.” The old man looked at me suddenly. The eyes were paler than those of most Cathayans. “It is also true that there shall never be a proper balance between heaven and earth until we restore the old ceremonies, music, manners and dynasty. We live in evil times because we are not good. Tell that to Baron K’ang.” It did not disturb him that I had been assigned to spy on him. In fact, he used me as a means of communicating with the prime minister. “What is goodness, Master?”

“Whoever submits himself to ritual is good.” A cloud of gnats gathered about us. “Don’t stir,” he said. “They’ll move on.” We sat very still. They did not move on. I found myself breathing in gnats. But the master was oblivious to them. “A gentleman or a ruler”—Confucius again showed his front teeth in a smile—“the two can be the same, you know—must do nothing in defiance of ritual. He should treat everyone in the same courteous way. He should never do anything to anyone that he would not like them to do to him.”

“But surely, when a ruler puts a man to death for a crime he is doing something that he would not like anyone to do to him.”

“Presumably, the man who is put to death has defied ritual. He has committed evil in the eyes of heaven.”

“But suppose he is serving his country in a war?” By now both Confucius and I were fighting off the gnats. He used his fan; I used my wide-brimmed straw hat. Finally the gnats began to depart in groups, like military units.

“War involves a different set of rituals. It is when a nation is at peace that the good ruler must be on his guard, must avoid the four ugly things.”

Again the numbers! Since I was expected to ask what these four ugly things were, I did. Meanwhile, the last of the definitely ugly gnats had moved on.

“First, putting a man to death without having taught him what is right; that is called savagery. Second, to expect a task to be completed at a certain date without having given the worker warning; that is oppression. Third, to be vague in the orders you give while expecting absolute punctiliousness; that is being a tormentor. Finally, to give someone his due in a grudging way; that is contemptible and petty.”

Since one could hardly deny the ugliness of these things, I made no comment. He expected none. “What exactly do you mean by ritual, Master?” The word for ritual is constantly used in Cathay and means much more than mere religious observance.

“The ancient rites of Chou purify us while the sacrifice to the ancestors binds earth to heaven in perfect harmony
if
the ruler is good and the rites are accurately performed.”

“At Loyang I watched the ancestral ceremonies. I’m afraid that I found them confusing.”

Confucius had hooked another fish. The bamboo pole bent in an arc. The fish was heavy but the angler’s hand was light. “Anyone who understood all of the ancestral sacrifices could deal with everything under heaven as easily as I ... catch—” With a powerful jerk, Confucius flipped the pole upward and a fat bream sailed over our heads. We both laughed with pleasure. It is always agreeable to see something done marvelously well. “—this fish.” As Confucius completed the sentence the fish fell into a lilac bush. I retrieved it for the master, who said, “AH the ancestral ceremonies are a bit like catching fish. Too hard a tug and you break your line or pole. Too soft a tug and you’ll lose the fish—the pole, too.”

“So to be good is to act in accordance with heaven’s Will.”

“Of course.” The old man put away his latest conquest.

“What,” I asked, “is heaven?”

Confucius took rather longer than usual in baiting his hook. He did not answer until the line was once again cast. I noticed that the daytime moon had vanished. The sun was now aslant in the white sky.

“Heaven is the dispenser of life and death, good fortune and bad.” He was aware that he had not answered my question. I said nothing. He continued, “Heaven is where the original ancestor dwells. When we make sacrifice to heaven, we make sacrifice to him.”

I caught an eel. I thought that my wriggling eel was an excellent representation of Confucius on the subject of heaven. He was not specific—for the excellent reason that he did not believe in heaven any more than he believed in the so-called supreme ancestor.

Confucius was an atheist. I am certain of that. But he believed in the power of ritual and ceremony as conceived by the long-dead Chou dynasty because he was devoted to order, balance, harmony in human affairs. Since the common people believe in all sorts of star gods and since the ruling class believe in their direct descent from a series of celestial ancestors who watch them closely from heaven, Confucius strove to use these ancient beliefs in order to create a harmonious society. He emphasized the Chou dynasty because—aside from the charm of Duke Tan’s admonitions—the last son of heaven was a Chou. Therefore, to create a united Middle Kingdom, it was necessary to find a new son of heaven, preferably from that family. But since Confucius rightly feared the emergence of the wrong sort of ruler, he constantly emphasized what he claimed to be the virtues of the old dynasty. Although I am fairly certain that he made up a good deal of what he said, Fan Ch’ih swore to me that Confucius did nothing but interpret actual texts. To which I answered, “Then he interprets them only to suit present occasions.” Fan Ch’ih saw nothing wrong with that.

When I told him Confucius’ joke about the tortoise shell, he frowned. “That was unseemly.”

“Why?”

“The art of divination originates with the ancestors. They also gave us
The Book of Changes
,
which the master venerates.”

“Yet he smiled.”

Fan Ch’ih looked unhappy. “It is no secret that the master is not as interested in divination as he ought to be. In fact, he is said to have said that a man makes his own future by complying with the laws of heaven.”

“Which he does not believe exists.”

Fan Ch’ih was shocked. “If you think that, you’ve not understood him. Of course, you’re a barbarian.” He grinned. “You serve that very peculiar god who created evil so that he would have an excuse to torture his other creations.”

I did not dignify this blasphemy with an answer. As far as I know, Confucius was the only Cathayan who had no interest at all in ghosts or demons or the spirit world. One might almost think that he did not believe in them. I questioned him several times on the subject, but never got a very satisfactory answer.

I do remember that just as I was trying to get the eel off my hook, I asked Confucius, “What of the dead? Where do they go? Are they judged? Do they rise again? Or are they born again?” The eel’s twisting made it impossible for me to get the hook out of its jaw. “Is there not
some
merit in doing good which will be rewarded in heaven? And if not, then why—”

“You’d better let me unhook that eel,” said the master. With a skilled gesture, the old man flipped the eel from the line to the basket. Then he dried his hands on the grass. “How well,” he asked, “do you know life?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean. I know my own life. I’ve traveled in strange lands, met all sorts of people ...”

“But you’ve not met all races, all men?”

“Of course not.”

“Then, honored guest, since you do not yet understand life, how can you understand death?”

“Do you understand life, Master?”

“Of course not. I know a few things. I love learning. I have tried to understand this world. I listen to everyone. I put to one side what seems doubtful and I’m cautious about the rest.”

“You do not believe in divine revelation?”

“Such as?”

I told him of the time that I heard the voice of the Wise Lord. I also described the vision of Pythagoras, the enlightenment of the Buddha, the other-worldly experiences of our own Magians—admittedly haoma-induced, but still true vision. The old man listened, and smiled—or gave that impression: the tips of the two front teeth were always visible. As a result, Confucius’ usual expression was one of gentle amusement.

When I finished, Confucius drew in his line and neatly put away his tackle. I did the same, less neatly. For a moment I thought he had forgotten what we had been talking about. But as he got to his feet, with some help from me—he had brittle joints—the master said, most casually, “I’ve heard many stories like the ones you’ve told me and I used to be tremendously impressed by them. So much so that I, finally, decided that the time had come for me to try meditation. I spent a whole day without food, a whole night without sleep. I was entirely concentrated. And then what do you think happened?” For the first time he addressed me informally. I had been accepted.