Cat Country by Lao She

ground, I jumped down and ran over to them. But by the time I got there, the soldier was already lying on the ground and Scorpion was already issuing the order to bury him.
    A man who doesn’t fully understand the ways of thinking of those around him often hurts people out of the best of intentions, and so it was with me. When I jumped, the soldiers thought that I was about to begin unleashing bolts of lightning, and as I hit the ground I heard a number of thuds as they leapt down from the trees on all sides. The majority of them had probably suffered injury, for I heard them crying piteously. But I was too carried away by anger towards Scorpion to pay any attention. Scorpion probably thought that I had seen him punishing a soldier and had come down to help. Since I had been so tractable in every other way that morning, it was natural perhaps for him to assume that I would serve as his flunky in everything. Hence, he was taken completely aback when I grabbed him. He himself probably didn’t see anything at all wrong in killing a mere soldier. ‘Why did you kill him?’ I demanded.
    ‘Because he was eating the stem of a leaf behind our backs.’
    ‘Do you mean to say that you think simply because a man eats the stem of a leaf, you can . . .’ I didn’t bother to go on. I had forgotten for a moment that I was in the midst of Cat People, and that there’s no point in reasoning with them. I beckoned to the soldiers standing around and said, ‘ Tie him up! ’ They all looked at each other as though they didn’t understand what I meant. ‘Tie him up!’ I said again, more slowly and distinctly this time, but they still made no move. Their lack of initiative disheartened me. If ever I were to be given command of a body of troops like this, I’d probably never be able to get them to understand me. It was not out of affection for Scorpion that they dared not come forward, but rather because they simply didn’t understand me – that I might be doing all this to avenge the fallen soldier was totally beyond their comprehension. I’d gotten myself in another bind: if I let Scorpion off scot-free, he’d certainly lose all respect for me; but if I killed him, I wouldn’t have him around to help me during the many times in the future when I’d certainly need him. With regard to my future plans for taking in the sights on Mars – at least this part of the planet – he would certainly prove more useful than this motley crew of soldiers. Pretending to be calm, I asked, ‘Do you want to accept your punishment, or would you prefer me to sit up there on the scaffold and let the soldiers steal the leaves without doing anything about it?’
    When the soldiers heard me talk about permitting them to steal reverie leaves, they became so excited that a few of them misinterpreted my question as the go-ahead signal. While holding Scorpion in one hand, I had to kick two of them to the ground. The rest stopped dead in their tracks. Scorpion’s eyes had already narrowed into two tiny slits. I knew how, in his heart of hearts, he must hate me. He had personally invited me in as the representative of the Great Spirit, and now here I was, turning on him and disciplining him before his own troops – that must have been hard to take. Of course, it would never have occurred to him that, in killing a man for eating a piece of the stem of a reverie leaf, he had done anything wrong.
    In the end, he decided against calling my bluff and acknowledged my right to punish him. I asked him what compensation the soldiers got for harvesting the reverie leaves. He said that each man would get two small leaves. At this point, all around us, the soldiers’ ears pricked up. They probably thought I was going to punish Scorpion by forcing him to give them extra leaves. Instead, however, I told him to give each of them a regular meal after the harvest just like the one I had every evening. Upon hearing this, their ears all dropped flat against their heads