The Three Leaps of Wang Lun by Alfred Döblin

with his two friends and three beggars in the inn and discussed with them what to do. He brandished his two open hands in front of his face in the way he had and said: “Su-ko is an upright man. His relatives and friends are not here, they’re already headless. Su-ko shall not remain in prison.”
    The one-eyed beggar told how he had heard in the Taot’ai’s yamen that the provincial judge from Kuangp’ing-fu would arrive in three or four days to sit in judgement on the Su’s. Wang pumped him with excited questions: who’d said it, how many had heard,were preparations already in hand to receive the Nieht’ai, the judge, how many would come with the Nieht’ai. When he heard it was an old judge, appointed specially for this case and unknown in the town, his narrow eyes gleamed scornfully; then he grinned, after a pause laughed out loud so that the chopsticks fell off the table and the other five laughed too, punched one another, melodiously echoed each others’ laughter. A huddle of heads, rapid exchanges of words, frequent furious insistence from Wang. Each went his way.
    In two days every yamen runner in Chinan-fu, and thus the whole town, knew that the Nieht’ai coming to give judgement at the pending political trials would arrive the following day, sooner than expected.
    Wang Lun and twenty idlers and ruffians he had quickly rounded up in the town had rendered impassable no fewer than three bridges that the envoy would have to cross, had hired formal dress for himself and his accomplices from a pawnshop that owed him and T’o a favour for several cheaply acquired items, and on the given day marched with exaggeratedly stem features into the great city through the same gate that he had passed through a few months before, alone, smiling, with a familiar greeting to the fat gate guard, as if he were just back from one of the many small tea pavilions outside the walls frequented by poets and young gallants.
    On this hot morning in the eighth month gongs clashed ceaselessly before him, demanding reverence. Two of the ruffians, halberds at the ready, rode in front on rickety bays, unsteady in the saddle. Behind them marched two gong beating youths with menacing frowns, four minor officials with freshly lacquered insignia of judicial dignity. And in the blue palanquin, concealed by drawn curtains, a venerable dreaming ancient with a white beard that hung in thick tassels left and right from cheeks and chin onto the shiny black silk robe, almost covering the beautiful breast badge with itsembroidered silver pheasant: Wang Lun himself. The round black mandarin’s hat was ornamented with the sapphire button.
    A small troop headed by an officer brought up the rear, soldiers of the provincial Green Banner regiment. Across squares and crowd jammed marketplaces, his erstwhile haunts, Wang rode between walls of dumbstruck citizenry. The doors of the yamen stood wide open.
    The Nieht’ai stayed only half a day in the prefecture. He resolved not to sentence the political prisoners of the Su clan at once, but to take them back to Kuangp’ing and there await the Emperor’s response to his report.
    Without even lodging overnight in the town, towards evening the exalted bluebutton departed from the fluttering town; on a cart guarded by the soldiers of his train stood a narrow wooden cage. In it, their necks held in a single collar of wood, sat Su and his two sons.
    At evening on the following day the runners of the authentic Nieht’ai arrived, conveying complaints from the judge about the poor state of the roads and the police in the district. The monstrous news, becoming known, filled the whole town with horror.
    The highest judicial authorities had been made game of. The Taot’ai and all his staff were lost; the Mohammedan inhabitants faced summary justice: the perpetrators must have come from among them. It was quite likely that Imperial displeasure would deny the town for years the right to take part in the