spilled papers, sheets of smudged calligraphy, trails of spilled ink, glue, discarded pens, dog-eared books with sometimes deeply outlandish objects used as bookmarks, half-eaten meals with remnants of rice which were acquiring the constituency of cement or in the process of giving birth to entirely new and hitherto unknown species of mold, even the occasional broken shoe or bent belt buckle or torn quilted jacket that he had been in the process of repairing, straightening, or patching, and which had been simply discarded as a fresh idea occurred to him and he swept all else aside to set it down on paper.
“For someone who thinks that it’s his fate to save the world,” Sihuai would mutter in a long-suffering tone of voice as he picked up three of Iloh’s books off his bed or a sheaf of Iloh’s notes from his own immaculately tidy desk, “you can’t seem to keep your own nest tidy.”
“The world needs saving, and how!” Iloh would reply, with a self-mocking grin. “I wasn’t really planning on doing anything about it until after graduation, Sihuai… but if I were to start thinking about cleaning up the universe, sweeping rooms seems an awfully parochial way of going about it. ”
They were very different, but they got along well for all that—and the pair was quickly joined by Tang, who was a sort of bridge between the two of them, himself half Sihuai and half Iloh. He could understand both Sihuai’s aristocratic dignity and Iloh’s down-to-earth zeal with equal pragmatism—and it was he who launched the idea of a shared adventure in the summer of Iloh’s third year.
“A beggar’s holiday,” he said. “We take nothing except a change of clothes and a towel and a notebook to write a journal in. And we wander where the roads take us, and we live on what we are given by the people we meet.”
“But what would be the purpose of such a journey?” Sihuai asked, considering the idea with doubt and not a little distaste.
“Consider it a test of your ideas,” Tang said. “You and Iloh, you have such different ideas about people. Why not prove which of you is right? And besides—it is a study of power. You know what the old saying is—only a beggar knows what true liberty is. Give a man a chance to live free of obligation or responsibility, and I suspect few would choose even to be Emperor, after.”
“I’m in,” Iloh said, with his usual immediate and fiery enthusiasm at an idea that caught his imagination.
“So am I,” Sihuai said after a hesitation. He was still in two minds, but he could not allow himself to lose face by admitting his misgivings about the propriety of such an adventure to his friends.
The three of them met up at the school’s gate the day classes broke for the summer, dressed in old clothes and comfortable sandals, each carrying a bundle into which were folded the items that Tang has decreed they might bring. They wore their beggar’s garb with a sense of shining pride as they set out—but, inevitably, they were young scholars and they could not quite leave school behind. The discussion about power and the essays that they had written on the subject were still on their mind.
“Remember the ancient poet—‘I did not see those who came before me, and I will not know those who will follow’—a man can only be responsible for the days of his own life,” Sihuai argued as they walked, their bundles slung jauntily on their shoulders.
“If a man takes responsibility for others, then that is not true,” Iloh said. “Then he needs to know those who will follow. Look at Shiqai. He held it all in the palm of his hand and then he let it all shatter.”
“But that was in times of turmoil,” Tang said.
“Not so very long ago,” Iloh said thoughtfully. “It was only a few years before I was born.”
“The problem is that he tried to make new things with old tools,” Sihuai said. “He was part of the court,
“For someone who thinks that it’s his fate to save the world,” Sihuai would mutter in a long-suffering tone of voice as he picked up three of Iloh’s books off his bed or a sheaf of Iloh’s notes from his own immaculately tidy desk, “you can’t seem to keep your own nest tidy.”
“The world needs saving, and how!” Iloh would reply, with a self-mocking grin. “I wasn’t really planning on doing anything about it until after graduation, Sihuai… but if I were to start thinking about cleaning up the universe, sweeping rooms seems an awfully parochial way of going about it. ”
They were very different, but they got along well for all that—and the pair was quickly joined by Tang, who was a sort of bridge between the two of them, himself half Sihuai and half Iloh. He could understand both Sihuai’s aristocratic dignity and Iloh’s down-to-earth zeal with equal pragmatism—and it was he who launched the idea of a shared adventure in the summer of Iloh’s third year.
“A beggar’s holiday,” he said. “We take nothing except a change of clothes and a towel and a notebook to write a journal in. And we wander where the roads take us, and we live on what we are given by the people we meet.”
“But what would be the purpose of such a journey?” Sihuai asked, considering the idea with doubt and not a little distaste.
“Consider it a test of your ideas,” Tang said. “You and Iloh, you have such different ideas about people. Why not prove which of you is right? And besides—it is a study of power. You know what the old saying is—only a beggar knows what true liberty is. Give a man a chance to live free of obligation or responsibility, and I suspect few would choose even to be Emperor, after.”
“I’m in,” Iloh said, with his usual immediate and fiery enthusiasm at an idea that caught his imagination.
“So am I,” Sihuai said after a hesitation. He was still in two minds, but he could not allow himself to lose face by admitting his misgivings about the propriety of such an adventure to his friends.
The three of them met up at the school’s gate the day classes broke for the summer, dressed in old clothes and comfortable sandals, each carrying a bundle into which were folded the items that Tang has decreed they might bring. They wore their beggar’s garb with a sense of shining pride as they set out—but, inevitably, they were young scholars and they could not quite leave school behind. The discussion about power and the essays that they had written on the subject were still on their mind.
“Remember the ancient poet—‘I did not see those who came before me, and I will not know those who will follow’—a man can only be responsible for the days of his own life,” Sihuai argued as they walked, their bundles slung jauntily on their shoulders.
“If a man takes responsibility for others, then that is not true,” Iloh said. “Then he needs to know those who will follow. Look at Shiqai. He held it all in the palm of his hand and then he let it all shatter.”
“But that was in times of turmoil,” Tang said.
“Not so very long ago,” Iloh said thoughtfully. “It was only a few years before I was born.”
“The problem is that he tried to make new things with old tools,” Sihuai said. “He was part of the court,
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