Wang the Ninth

Wang the Ninth was born a few years before the end of the nineteenth century in a village called prosaically in the vernacular Ten Li Hamlet because it lay ten li or Chinese miles from the great imperial highway. He was the eighth child; that was why, according to immemorial custom, he was called the Ninth, since the numeral eight added to his patronymic signified that opprobrious epithet term "tortoise," a nickname which no Chinese could survive.

When he was little more than three and scarcely weaned (for the children of this land are suckled until they can run) he was unceremoniously put on a creaking wheelbarrow and trundled off into the unknown.

This inconsequential hegira was the beginning of his great adventures,-and was the natural aftermath of a curiously swift tragedy in an environment saturated with inaction.

Famine had suddenly descended on Ten Li Hamlet, and his brothers and sisters, having been leased or sold one after another to neighbours (you can use whichever expression you like), he and his father had become the last survivors in a disrupted family. For his mother, too, had tired of privation. She had sat ominously quiet for one whole week and had then slipped away with a travelling blacksmith, who had been working for a season not fifty feet from the family home of mud-bricks and who disappeared as he had come-like a wraith in the night.

It was this which had been the last straw for the father-not the hunger. For, he, too, was a blacksmith by trade. Added to the shame in his bosom for the beggarly condition to which he had been reduced, there had come a volcanic outburst of hurt professional pride. He was totally unable to reconcile himself to the idea that he had been abandoned in favour of another such as he-and for no better reason that there was want in the land. For there was always want; never could he remember a time when the people were not a-hungering, marching through the country in ragged bands, and spreading dismay wherever they camped.

So one dawn he had sullenly dragged out two baskets, put his last child into one, thrown on top of him some spare clothing, placed his few pots and pans and the implements of his trade (including the unwieldy bellows) in the other, and had marched down the rutted village road shouting curses on every one and declaring that he was shaking the dust of the poverty-stricken place for ever off his feet.

Thus had he gone angrily and vigorously, full of resolution, until he had covered the ten li which separated the village from the great highway. Then, when he had seen the broad road leading to the capital, and the carts and the travellers in their handsome clothing, and the long camel-trains with their rich loads of merchandise, a sense of unfamiliarity and loneliness had suddenly overwhelmed him, and he had sat down and wept loudly and unrestrainedly in the manner all Chinese will do.

Nobody had minded his weeping-not even the child in the basket who continued to sleep calmly and impassively, its pinched face turned in the direction of Heaven. Why indeed should any one mind? As far as the eye could reach there was nothing but brown country-the great Northern plains stretched into infinity and looked upon this evanescent emotion much as the Sphinx surveys the shifting desert sands. A little while you may weep, a little while you may laugh, they seemed to say; then the great silence which covers us all....

So presently the man had stopped and become angry once more. He rose to his feet, tightened his cord belt, and smearing the tears from his seamed face, surveyed the world indifferently. Somehow he would discover a brighter future.

In the basket the child lay in peace. The rising sun pushed golden fingers through the bamboo-work as if to caress its innocence. The father watched with eyes which saw and yet did not see; for he was too simple to know more than that a child is a great blessing, a jewel, because it is of one's flesh and a kind of indefinite prolongation of one's endeavours to conquer the devil. Disaster had been for him like a huge river in spate which had rushed down on him and left him marooned on a tiny rocking island in the very centre. Now he saw a causeway mysteriously growing out of these dread waters: and in his vague fancies he associated this with the presence of his child.

Presently as he sat gazing there was a thin cry. The little legs kicked with vigour, and the arms with their clenched fists sought to throw off the clothing.

"Ba-ba," wailed the eighth child who was called the Ninth, now thoroughly awake. "I am hungry. Give me to eat."

"Wait," said the father roughly yet kindly, brought back from his dreams. "Soon you shall eat."

He conjured up from the bottom of the other basket a big bowl half full of a sort of porridge made from little millet, which was cold and distasteful but which was all that he had. It was the work of a few minutes to light the tiny portable whiteclay stove which he had included in his salvage and which even the poorest in the land always possess. Soon his cooking was done and the child was eating and had become content.

"Ba-ba," it lisped again, struggling to get up. "Where do we go?"

"To the city," grumbled the father, beginning to pack up again. "To the city. Stay quiet. We have far to go."

Already he was off, trundling the wheelbarrow and still eating as he walked. The sun rose higher and higher and perspiration beaded his forehead, but now there was no question of turning back. He was following the mysterious causeway which led to his destiny. On and on he tramped, pushing the creaking wheelbarrow through the chasm of space and sometimes exchanging remarks with the passing muleteers and camel-drivers. Traffic was growing heavier as the city was approached and a veil of dust hung in the air. The highway was strung across the plain like a great frayed rope, which sometimes tightened to a rigid straight line, and sometimes was all knots and twists invented to dismay those who were weary and ill at ease.

In the middle of the day the man lay down and slept under a tree; but ere two hours had passed he was up again and pressing on.

The sun flared out; the stars twinkled brightly in the skies; and still he did not stop. Hardy as only a peasantry can be who know no comforts, he pressed on tirelessly-determined to reach his objective. The creaking wheel was a veritable lullaby to the child who slept as peacefully as if in its mother's arms, hardly stirring in spite of the bumping, always stretched motionless on its little back.

On and on in the darkness, one hour, two hours, three hours, four. Then at last in the middle of the night, when full forty miles had been covered, a low blaze of lights and the shadow of a great city-wall.

The man stopped abruptly and the jerk woke up the child.

"Ba-ba," came the inevitable cry.

He bent over it.

"The city," he exclaimed in his rude, guttural voice, "would you see the city?"

He picked up his son and holding him tightly in his arms, pointed with one finger.

"There, you see ... the lights and the city-wall. Beyond there is a great gate through which one passes but which is now closed."

The child no longer fretted: it was staring silently, drinking in everything as if its very life depended upon strict attention. The father felt its little body taut under the ragged blue clothes. Some new impulse possessed it. It leaned towards the city, as if a mysterious force were pulling.

"Well, what do you say?" inquired the father at last, feeling the need for a little talk.

"It is good," said the child very gravely, as only a very old nation can speak. "It is good," it repeated, nodding its head after the manner of its elders-"We shall find food."

Then it sank back content on the straw in the basket, and the father seizing the handles of the wheelbarrow pushed clumsily on.

* * *

In the morning the unaccustomed roar and noise of the city gate woke up the sleeping child. No comforting father's voice, however, answered its first stirrings and cries; so after a while the philosophic instinct of the race asserted itself and the boy lay quiet, his astonished eyes taking in everything around him.

In the small bare room there was no living thing save a cat of nondescript colour sitting on a box and licking its paws. The broken paper depending from the lattice-work of the windows, however, flapped to and fro cheerfully and briskly; and the rising sun which was peeping through the gaps in the paper seemed ready to invade the whole room. In one corner were the two baskets and the litter of blacksmith's tools which had travelled so far. Close by was a huge primitive musket and a belt stuffed full of the formidable cartridges of a forgotten period. But the wheelbarrow had vanished and so had the father.

Staring blankly at all this-particularly at the colossal firearm-the child finally half-rolled and half-tumbled to the earthen floor from the low k'ang on which it had been put to sleep the night before and began tottering towards the door.

This it managed to open. Then very fearfully it peeped out as if it had opened a veritable Pandora's box.

Instead of trouble, however, the child saw outside a bare waste, and beyond many people and many carts passing endlessly along a raised roadway on which were also posted all sorts of vendors loudly calling their wares. The rumble and clatter of the carts, and the cries of the vendors never ceased: they seemed a veritable brook of life which went on for ever. Enchanted by this animation little Wang remained stockstill, wondering what would happen next. Curiosity consumed him: he observed every detail with powers of observation only given to the exceptional. There was nothing that escaped his quick, tireless black eyes. What a wonderful world he had been brought to!

Presently an old man carrying a portable kitchen on a pole stopped quite close by; and depositing his paraphernalia started advertising what he had for sale in a thin raucous voice, putting one finger into an ear as he called so as to sense the quality of his tune from the vibrations. Children and women came slowly out of neighbouring houses; then, after a pause, one or two decided to eat and edged up to the old man with money in their hands.

Little Wang, nothing loth, cautiously joined them. He was so small that he stood there for a long time totally unobserved, looking at each disappearing mouthful with envious eyes, and wondering what he should do to be fed like these lucky ones. Presently the old man, having finished his work, turned to him.

"And you?" he inquired in a matter-of-fact way, treating the child as if he were a grown-up.

"I, too, am hungry," announced little Wang gravely.

At this everybody laughed spontaneously as if something very witty had been said; but the child only stood there frowning, showing traces of the resolute character which so quickly developed by not flinching at an inch.

"You are hungry!" echoed the old man quizzically, "well, well-that is as it should be. When one is small it is always so: only with age does the appetite lessen. And where is the money your mother gave you that I may feed you?"

Little Wang shook his head.

"I have no money and no mother," he replied. Then gaining courage he added brusquely. "But give me to eat?"

He held out a hand, watching the vendor narrowly.

"Oh, oh," laughed the old man, "you would eat free! Things are indeed coming to a pass when I who am poor beyond estimate am forced to feed all who come near me.... Still here-" With a flourish of his big copper ladle he dipped very deeply into his cauldron, as if generous feelings possessed him, bringing out notwithstanding the smallest possible amount of his hot mess by means of a quick turn of the handle. Then he partly filled a small coarse bowl, passing it to the child with the manner of the tradesman. Long experience had taught him that the farthing owed him would come back to him soon enough,-with much interest.

"Well, is it good?" he remarked approvingly when the sturdy child had swallowed down every drop with wolfish rapidity. "I see you could eat more. But I must have my money first. I, too, live from day to day." He turned to the others. "Whose child is this?"

A woman with a baby in her arms edged up:

"A man arrived, so I have heard, in the middle of the night and found a place to sleep with one of the militia. He had a child in a basket, it was also said. This must be him."

The small boy stood there crossly twisting his fingers because he was still hungry, and also because he hated being the object of such attentions. Everybody was looking at him now with curiosity, wondering at his independence and his lack of fear and asking questions.

Quickly he answered, hating to tell anything and concealing much. Presently, bending down on the ground, he began playing with some little stones, not paying any further attention to the scene around him. The other children observed his antics with curious eyes: this ugly, strong, tiny boy, who had appeared during the night and who seemed to belong to nobody, strangely fascinated them.

After a long interval one of them approached him, and a little timidly offered him a piece of flour-cake. Little Wang took it without a word of thanks and bolted it down like a savage young thing, resuming his playing as soon as he had finished.-Then another, not to be outdone, gave him a little from his little bowl of congee, and squatting down beside him tried to talk to him in small baby words. The women and the old man drifted away, but all the children remained and were joined by others, who imitated what the newcomer was doing. Little Wang was making a regular pattern on the ground with his stones, working out a design from something he had once seen and not forgotten, so absorbed that he paid no attention to anything else.

The others continued to imitate him-disputing who should have the place next to him. Little Wang, by reason of that mysterious quality which sets one man over others, was already beginning to assert his leadership which he soon made legendary in the neighbourhood.

* * *

Within three days his father had set up a forge inside this rude hut at the city gate and had commenced turning out quantities of coarse iron nails for the cart trade. The clang of his hammer sounded far into the night, and the child fell asleep to that jarring music just as he often awoke to it. The steady pant of the bellows-worked by a small boy who was paid three farthings a day for his labour-and the glowing heat of the charcoal, were as much part of his life as the sparrows chirping on the waste outside the door.

Very early he understood the trick of picking up live embers in his fingers as his father often did: if you are quick that is as easily done as putting your hand into ice-cold water.

There was food in plenty, too; the boy could eat all day long, and he grew stronger and bigger almost visibly. Not only was there food at home; there was plenty to be picked up along every foot of the stretch of highway leading to the frowning battlements of the city. No one would begrudge a child a bite when he announced as calmly as little Wang always did that he was hungry.

Soon he became friends with fifty men who gained their living by peddling cakes to the tide of traffic which endlessly swept in and out of the capital. When their baskets were sold out, it was always he whom they allowed to pick up the morsels from the bottoms until every crumb was gone. His quickness and his wisdom, in spite of his baby ways, delighted a people who see truth in common-sense.

Sometimes, too, he found money-those holed coins of infinitesimal value which the people used. He early discovered that if he searched carefully just beside the roadway, sooner or later coins which had been dropped by country bumpkins, coming out of the city the worse for their holiday-making, would be brought to light. He soon evolved a system of his own for working over the rutted roadway as a miner pans the gravel of a gold-bearing stream; and whenever he made a find his joy and excitement were amazing.

Each day and each month taught him something new. The other children of the city gate were filled with open admiration for everything he did: he learnt so fast every lesson from the great Book of Life spread before his eyes that he grew apace in wisdom. Always attentive and observant, nothing escaped him.

Especially remarkable was his power over animals. All living things seemed to claim relationship with him, and he never abused these ties. Before he was seven he knew how to catch rats with his bare hands, and how to approach vicious camels, who if you are not careful can display a savagery terrifying to all but their drivers. As for birds he had the strange power of talking to them until their fears were gone. Then, as warily as a cat he would pounce on them, catching fledgelings as easily as a man with a line will catch fish.

Everybody here kept birds and trained them to fly from their tasselled bird-sticks into the air and catch grain and seeds cast up to them. The whole population gave itself up to this sport. In the summer evenings a stream of men carrying cages or tasselled sticks, with their birds lightly tied to them, came out of the city with their pets, and there were great competitions with an amazing rivalry aroused, particularly in singing and grain-catching. Hooded falcons, with their cruel eyes looking sharply at everything, might also still be seen in numbers in those days; they were carried by richly-attired men far out into the country where they were cast at sparrows, the greatest zest being shown in this cruel sport.

In such surroundings the boy never lacked companionship; every hour had its adventures, just as every season had its especial delights. The cruel winters, with their fierce winds brought ice and snow, but then there was ice-sliding on a frozen pool in which he soon excelled. Summer, with its blinding sunlight, allowed him to run naked and discover teeming life in every stagnant pond. He knew that the first thunder-storm would magically turn the whisking tadpoles into croaking frogs. And after the thunder-storms would come the soft rains. Then, he would sit hunched up singing to himself a rude little rhyme which all the children sang in imitation of the frogs:

Qua-qua,

Chi'rh hsia

Mi'rh hai hsia:

Qua-qua,-

Which was simply:

"Today it rains, oh, frog;

Tomorrow it will rain also."

Sometimes he would sing this so long that he would lull himself to sleep by his music; and waking up with a start he would find that night had come....

In cursing, too, he became royally proficient. Before he was eight he could out-curse any camel-driver, often bringing a clumsy lout half-asleep between the humps of his beast to the ground frantic with rage at the insults hurled at him for no reason at all by his shrill treble. His father would then beat him if he happened to be near; but he was swift of foot and very nimble-and hard to catch.

Sometimes, too, unaccountable gloom would come upon him. That was mainly because his father, being tired of work, would drink heated wine in a little pewter cup until he was quite drunk and then sit taciturn day after day only bursting into words to upbraid his wife for her base desertion of him years ago. A sort of family loyalty and pride forbade the boy from mentioning this to any one, although the neighbourhood knew all about it. Indeed he would fight any one who brought up the subject: one day he attacked a giant of a man, who had made some remarks about his maternity, biting him on the knee so badly that he was picked up and thrown fully fifteen feet for his pains and nearly crippled from the experience.

And yet even that rude awakening never taught him prudence. For the whole region round the city gate was his domain and impelled him to adventures and combats. There were camels and temples and fields and encampments of armed men, and pilgrims and caravans-all the primitive bustle of the fourteenth century living on at the very threshold of the twentieth century and demanding his attention. Before he was nine he had seen a score of men publicly executed by a man in a red coat with a huge sword, and had watched with strangely staring eyes the stricken heads roll in the dust. Everything that happened was to him a phenomenon demanding inquiry; and on each and everything he bestowed the flexible methods of the empiricist, thereby gaining in natural wisdom. He insulted the schoolboys going to school with their school-books under their arms, because instinctively he believed that the knowledge they were acquiring was only a conceit which carried them away from the workings of nature around them; he insulted them in many ways and with many words until one day a youthful scholar who was tired of his tirade turned on him and called back: "You-do you know what category you belong to? To the animals who merely hunger and thirst and know no books-"

It was the ironical laughter of the passers-by which henceforth made him leave youthful scholarship alone.

He suddenly realized that there might be something in learning.

* * *