“Give it to Han Im,” the Emperor said. “I expect that he is talking with the old man. Go now and see.”
When they were alone, the priest repeated: “What matters is the heart.”
The Emperor said: “I know. But my heart is torn and perplexed, I seek everywhere for some sign that her presence left its mark, and there is no sign. Instead of what I expected, I find a family who have few common thoughts with me, desperately polite, but concerned only with their own way of life. The old man, I know, desires me to write poems with him. Peng Yeh desires only my going and his consequent return to his usual business. The others . . . need I go on?”
The priest replied: “That is what I meant when I said what matters is the heart. Had you really changed, you would not now selfishly be seeking balm for what you think your own tragedy. You would be seeing the tragedies of others, and striving to lessen the effects of those tragedies. The old man—what have you done to ease his sense of frustration, of ineffectual going to a predestined goal without its mattering greatly what he says or does in these, his last few days? Peng Yeh—what have you done to show him that, if no more, you know that the problems of the ordinary man exist, that to wrench a living from the reluctant earth is no problem-free, easy task? And the others, as you say? What have you done for them? Do you not think only of yourself?”
There was silence in the room. Outside, voices distantly, and the wind.
The Emperor said: “No—you are unfair. As a priest you are bound to believe that, after death, souls shall be reunited. It is for the peace of the soul of Yang Kuei-fei that I strive. I need reassurance that all her beauty has not passed wholly into dust, like the beauty of a tree, the beauty of a picture . . .”
“You need reassurance,” the priest replied. “You. It is not she with whom you are concerned.”
The Emperor countered: “Apply the argument to yourself. You have powers, but you will not use them. Do you remember in the Book of Poetry in the minor festal odes?
You have the power, I say. You can cross the highest hills and mountains of the after-land; you can plumb the deepest depths. Take her my message and bring me hers back.”
The priest smiled and said: “The rites are ended. What rites? Do you expect me to do what the old priests did without the payment of a sacrifice? The white bull, the black bull, wine and grain. . . . This is to take but part of the Ode and neglect the other part. Have you an answer to that?”
“Tell me what answer to give,” the Emperor replied.
The priest said: “Ah, the heart is changing. No longer does your Imperial Majesty assume that all men are wrong because you are right. Instead, the Scholar of the Stream asks. Yes, I can give you the answer. It was given before by the great Chuang Tzu, and we priests believe that our Founder himself said it. This is that answer.
There stands your answer. Since, therefore, you have with your scholars’ garments put on also the humility of a scholar, you shall not find yourself unrewarded. Now, go and please the old man. Busy yourself with small things. It is not on every day that he will share brushes with an Emperor.”
The Emperor started on a phrase of thanks, but cut it short in the middle and went out to Father Peng’s room.
“The dusk wind is rising,” Father Peng said. “It gives an overtone to one’s thoughts. I wonder how many poets have thought that thought before and not considered it worth writing down. Have you formed, as I have, the habit of putting down something on paper each day?”
The Emperor replied: “I have formed no habits; perhaps it would have been better for me if I had done so. Seeing oneself thus, in the mirror of one’s own words, it might be possible to avoid some of the mistakes. But, if that is so, it is probable that I have interrupted you in the course of your work.”
Father Peng said: “No, you have not interrupted me, for I have just finished. I was revising and, I hope, improving a poem which I wrote long ago, when I was a young official enjoying his first leave. I called it Returning Home.”
“Might I be permitted to inspect it?” the Emperor asked, and the old man gave him a piece of paper.
He read:
The Emperor replied: “Yes. It is the poem of a young man with the added polish of experience. I see that you refer to your wife.”
“She has been dead a long time,” the old man answered.
They both sat silently for a little while, thinking. Then the Emperor continued: “Your poem bears the marks of being a true experience, truly rendered. I have seldom been so fortunate as to catch the moment upon the tip of my brush and then find the result so well worth preserving. In the atmosphere of official circles, you must know, we tend to greater fragility and less real content. I remember a little thing—though I cannot possibly say why I remember it—a little thing which I wrote presumably to record a temptation which I desired to experience. Since you have been good enough to show me yours . . .” He recited:
After they had rolled it on their tongues, he continued: “A whimsy, you see, possessing form but no content.”
The old man smiled and rose to his feet. “What you have just suggested,” he said, “about form without content makes me realise that the sun sets early in this month and that, while we both still have some claim to form, the evening meal is not for another good hour, and that, being hungry, I am not content to lack content. This is the time, I think, to reveal to you that my literary store has other uses.” From the box he took out wine and cups. “A rather special one,” he said.
They settled down to a period of appreciation, and each managed to remember a number of other poems.