The more I said, the more spirited my wife became. Just when we were about to reach the place that was our objective, she jumped up and threw me to the ground. She said she wanted to experience this herself. She didn’t want me to seize the initiative. At this, my joy was ruined. I lost self-control. I performed the damned one-minute thing as if dead. The color drained from my face, and I was sweating all over. I couldn’t believe what had just happened to me! Women: what the hell are they? Where do they get such great strength? Why hadn’t I figured out ahead of time all that was going to happen and prepared for it? Why did I give her my trust from the bottom of my heart? Friends, I curse those one-minute quickies. I wish to become an ascetic forever. I will. Only through this will I have any hope, because I’ve already become a joke, I’ve already been nearly destroyed.
After the incident of the ten miles, someone behind me was actually furtively happy, wanting to see me make a spectacle of myself. My wife and her confederates privately judged me to be ‘‘a kiss- ass,’’ who kissed Madam X’s ass, a public enemy of the entire Five Spice Street community. Some days when I was dizzy in the morning and didn’t get up, they also crowded into my room, squatted at the foot of the bed, and declared that they needed to observe me and see ‘‘what acrobatics I performed under the covers.’’ I didn’t dare move. Unluckily, bedbugs also joined in the fun. All I could do was clench my teeth. Had I really been brought down? No. I had to turn my bad luck into momentum and struggle to demonstrate my existence to the world. On the third day after I had completely lost faith in the morals of these times, I began to pull myself together. I climbed to the roof of our thatched cottage and sat there cross-legged. I worked on summarizing all the lessons I’d learned in my lifetime. This included a new description of the high stage of sexual joy. I sat up there quietly, facing the firmament. Below were all the busy living things. I felt truly detached. I could hardly hear the sounds of the world. My thinking progressed steadily toward a high philosophical level. Days went by-both sunny days and rainy days. I’d become fossilized on the roof of the thatched cottage, or I had become a white-haired, omniscient old philosopher. I merged into the great universe and embraced the whole world. Humankind became adorable, even though their ways of having sexual intercourse were so absurd.
One day, in a gentle mood, while immersed in abstract thought and with a slight smile on my face, I felt unbearable pain in the soles of my feet. I almost fainted. My thoughts were interrupted. I heard loud shouting from below. With my wife in the lead, a group of people were jabbing me with sharpened bamboo poles. They were shouting, ‘‘Bring this pile of horseshit down from the roof.’’ They also said, ‘‘The smelly fart from the roof has gotten into the cooking pot.’’ The fart ‘‘was the smell of the public enemy of Five Spice Street’s people.’’ Their shouting grew louder and louder. It was impossible to defend against their assault. My neck, chest, and ass were hit several times. My blood streamed down. Seeing this, my wife and her followers were so frightened they threw the bamboo poles away and ran off. I heard them talking to each other and disclaiming responsibility. The disturbance had ended, and once more philosophical thoughts occupied my mind. I felt that I had become steadier than ever. A gigantic consciousness of self-confidence was obscurely nascent. Who was I? What was my mission? Why was I sitting alone on the roof while people all over the world were playing out the drama of life below me? After forty-nine days, or maybe sixty-four days (I had long since lost any sense of time), I finally came down from the roof, bringing with me a crystal-clear mind. When I walked into the dark room, all the elites present were filled with deep esteem: they shook with anxiety at each step I took.
Dear ones, probably you think I’m going to launch into a tirade or the summary of my thoughts on the roof of the thatched cottage? Hadn’t a torrential argument already accumulated in my mind? Wasn’t my incomparable eloquence already mature? I swept grim eyes over all the people in our community and then slowly sat down. The hoped-for event didn’t occur. Having seen me on the roof, who would dare speak nonsense, or recklessly spread generalities about experiences they had not had in order to temporarily satisfy their vanity? So all of them were waiting, looking with children’s eyes at my lips. They didn’t dare miss anything. I said just one thing, ‘‘This is a tragic time. Higher sexual joy can exist only in our illusions.’’ With that, I raised my eyebrows, sat cross-legged, and once more became the fossil on the roof. The room was silent. Everyone’s head drooped. The last rays of twilight fell. Night would soon descend, and the cold wind poured in from the broken window: the atmosphere in the meeting room was icy. What I’d already said summed up everything, and I didn’t say another word during the meeting.
Who else but the old philosopher who had spent forty-nine or sixty- four days cross-legged on the roof could have uttered these words?
Their impact was overwhelming. Their aloofness and worldly pessimism would have convinced any intellectual regardless of his experience. After the meeting broke up in silence, I can assure you that the intellectuals were no longer concerned with Madam X and Mr. Q. The little slights were all low level. This was not what we needed. ‘‘That day’’ will eventually come. The tide of history can’t be stopped. On a foggy morning, holding hands and shoulder to shoulder, we will sit by the street and sing a song: ‘‘That day is still far away. Everyone should wait quietly. In the silence comes the song of the lark. Life is this weighty. We moan in the midst of torment. Ah, we moan…’’ I’m also the writer of this philosophical song, now popular on our Five Spice Street. Even people like my wife are inspired by it. Once, at midnight, she suddenly rushed into the garden and belted it out. Then she started slapping herself.
Ever since I wrote the song, no one had paid attention to X and Q. Because of my curiosity and fantasies, I observed them but discovered that their little tricks were of no use to theoretical research. From the time I climbed up to the roof of the thatched cottage, I uncompromisingly expunged those two people from my research. I began considering the mutuality of elevation and popularization. X and Q still had a great influence on the crowds (though curling their lips, everyone secretly watched every move they made). But if I put the issue on the table or publicly debated it, I’d get caught in a dogfight, so all of my research would become obsolete. This would be a gross misstep, not in accord with my status. Dear ones, don’t worry: I didn’t engage in that nonsense. I squatted as steadily as Mt. Tai on the roof of the thatched cottage and considered a counter- measure-the popular song, whose profound pessimism would influence the crowds. I knew this wouldn’t be very useful, for while on the roof, I had given up all conceit. But I was determined to do it this way because I wanted to break the monopoly of X and Q in the realm of consciousness. As soon as I put this plan into effect, the elites would tacitly understand, and their understanding would turn around the consciousness of Five Spice Street.