heard it and it made their mouths water. Now I owe something to the plums and we will pay it to-day. I ordered the servants to heat some wine very hot and sent to invite you to share it.”
Yüan-tê was quite composed by this time and no longer suspected any sinister design. He went with his host to a small summer house, where the wine cups were already laid out and green plums filled the dishes. After a goblet of wine had been swallowed they sat down to a confidential talk and enjoyment of their wine.
As they drank the weather gradually changed, clouds gathering and threatening rain. The servants pointed out a mass of cloud that looked like a dragon hung in the sky. Both host and guest went to the window and leaned over the rail looking at it.
“Do you understand the evolutions of dragons?” asked Ts‘ao of the guest.
“Not in detail.”
“A dragon can assume any size, can rise in glory or hide from sight. Bulky, it generates clouds and evolves mist; attenuated, it can scarcely hide a mustard stalk or conceal a shadow. Mounting, it can soar to the empyrean; subsiding, it lurks in the uttermost depths of the ocean. This is the mid-spring season and the dragon chooses this moment for his transformations, like a man realising his desires and overrunning the world. The dragon among animals compares with the hero among men. You, O Yüan-tê, with your experience must know who are the heroes of the present day and I wish you would say who they are.”
“How can a dullard like me know such things?”
“Do not be so modest.”
“Thanks to your kindly protection I have a post at Court. But as to heroes I really do not know who they are.”
“You may not have looked upon their faces, but you have heard their names.”
“Yüan Shu, with his resources; is he one?”
His host laughed, “A rotting bone in a graveyard. I shall put him out of the way shortly.”
“Well, Yüan Shao then. The highest offices of State have been held in his family for four generations and his clients are many. He is firmly posted in Ichou and he commands the services of many able men. Surely he is one.”
“A bully, but a coward; he is fond of grandiose schemes, but is devoid of decision; he makes for great things but grudges the necessary toil. He loses sight of everything else in view of a little present advantage. He is not one.”
“There is Liu Ching-shêng. He is renowned as a man of perfection, whose fame has spread on all sides. Surely he is a hero.”
