The Tragedy of Ah Qui and Other Modern Chinese Stories/Con Y Ki
he taverns in the market town of Lu were arranged in a very unusual manner: on the roadside was set up a broad, square-shaped counter, behind which was kept hot water, to warm up the wine as customers might wish. As evening came on, after their work, the workmen used to come there and drink, as they leaned up against the counter, a bowl of very hot wine, which refreshed them; this cost four cash—that was the price more than twenty years ago, now it is ten times as much. For another cash one could break one's fast with a plate of bamboo buds cooked in salt, or beans done in fennel; and, for ten cash, there was a splendid dish of meat. . . . But most of the customers wearing the short jacket, could not dream of offering themselves such a luxury as that. None but the long robes entered a room next door, and there, seated at their ease, this class of customers used to order wine and dishes which they ate with all dignity.
From the time I was twelve, I was waiter in the tavern of Han-Heng. The landlord had said to me: "You are too stupid, you don't know how to serve the customers in long robes, you go and look after the bar." The customers in jackets were not, as he supposed, less difficult; most of them were very talkative and bad-tempered; they often wanted to see the wine coming out of the jar with their own eyes, to examine closely whether there was any water at the bottom of the tankard, to watch over the hot-water operations . . . so that I had neither leisure nor skill to dilute the wine. A few days later the landlord, after scolding me for my stupidity, did not dismiss me at once, out of consideration for my protector, but reduced my work; I was to spend my whole time in warming up the wine.
From that time I used to stand all day behind the bar, chained to my monotonous task, by the side of my scowling-faced master, in front of the angry-voiced customers; when luckily the arrival of a certain Con y Ki brought me the opportunity and the liberty to laugh to my heart's content. He is a man whom I always recollect with pleasure.
Con y Ki was the only long-robed customer who drank standing. Very tall, he had a sallow face on which scars were marked by wrinkles; his beard was grey and shaggy. His robe, robe though it was, was so dirty, so worn, that it seemed to have known neither wash-tub nor mending for a good ten years. When he spoke, his mouth was crammed with the phrases of Confucian rhetoric which people could hardly understand. As his family name was Con, he was nick-named Con y Ki, since these three characters happened to be placed next each other in all the elementary copy-books, but this too was hardly understood by anyone. When Con y Ki drew near the bar, all the drinkers used to laugh in his face; some would cry out:—"Con y Ki, have you had any fresh scars on your phiz, eh?" He did not answer, but said quietly to the bar-men: "Two bowls of warm wine and a dish of beans in fennel!" and he spread out nine big cash on the table.
The others twitted him loudly:—
"Have you been scrounging again somewhere?"
Con y Ki, his eyes wide open, answered:
"Don't slander an honest man!"
"Oh! honest man! the day before yesterday I saw you pilloried and beaten for stealing some books belonging to the Hos . . . eh!"
Then, red-faced, the blue veins in his forehead swelling, Con y Ki protested:—
"Stealing books is not stealing. . . . . Stealing books—that's a learned man's business: is that a theft?"
Then followed a flood of Confucian maxims: "The wise wise man strengthens himself in poverty . . ." and an endless rigmarole which made us all shout with laughter; and gaiety filled the tavern.
Con y Ki, they said, had really studied, but had never managed to pass the preliminary examination. Knowing nothing of the art of living, he became poorer and poorer and was on the border-line of destitution. Luckily he was still a very good writer; and by copying books for other people, he earned his bowl of rice. But an evil genius had got hold of him; he drank a great deal and worked very little. Often, book, paper, brushes, ink—all vanished. And his customers began to leave him. Con y Ki was reduced of necessity to stealing occasionally little things which the Wise Man ought to disdain. But, in our tavern, his behaviour was always correct: he never let his debts run on for more than a month. Before that time had gone, one was sure of being able to cross off from the white slate the three characters Con y Ki.
When Con y Ki had half-emptied his bowl, his face, momentarily flushed, became sallow again; and someone asked him:
"Con y Ki, is it a fact that you know the alphabet?"
Without answering, Con y Ki contented himself with casting a look of contempt at his questioner.
"If you really do know the letters, then why didn't you pick up the tiniest scrap of a mark at the exam.?"
At, these words, Con y Ki seemed much distressed. He looked all round with an empty gaze, his face was covered with invisible ashes, while from his mouth poured quivering words of rhetorical characters (Che, fu, ye Che . . . ) this time totally unintelligible. Then everyone burst out laughing, and the tavern was invaded by gaiety. At such moments I could laugh at my ease, without having my ears boxed by the landlord. Often he himself put questions like that to Con y Ki, and gave the signal for laughter.
Con y Ki, seeing his words were out of place in such surroundings, preferred to address himself to children. One day, he asked me:
"Have you studied?"
I nodded slightly in answer.
"You have studied! . . . Look, I am going to examine you a little. How do you write the word fennel?"
I thought: "Is a man who looks like a beggar worthy to examine me?" and turned away my head.
"You don't know?" he continued, in a pleading tone. "See, I am going to teach you. It's well worth while to keep these characters in your head; they will help you to keep your accounts, when you are a landlord."
I felt like laughing and getting cross, considering the vast distance which divided my work from the position of the landlord, and also because the last-named never put down beans with fennel in his accounts. I muttered an answer:
"Who needs your instruction? That character is written in ten strokes, like this! . . ."
Con y Ki was overjoyed, and, tapping the counter with his long nails said, nodding his head:
"Quite right, quite right! . . . The character is written in four ways: do you know them?"
I was at the end of my patience; and ran off, with a grimace. Con y Ki, dipping his nails in his wine, prepared to write on the counter; and, seeing my lack of enthusiasm, he gave vent to a long sigh full of pity.
Sometimes, children, attracted by our shouts of laughter, gathered round Con y Ki. He distributed a bean to each of them. And they, after eating, did not leave him at once, but stood with their eyes glued to the plate.
Con y Ki, in alarm, covered his plate with his five fingers and leaning towards the little ones:
"I haven't much more, I haven't much more," he said. Then, drawing himself up to his full height, and looking lovingly at his beans, he declaimed in Confucius' manner:
"Not much, not much! Then there are many? Now, there are not many."
And the crowd of children scattered with shrieks of laughter.
Con y Ki was the life and soul of our party: but no one was worried by his absence.
One day, a little before or after the mid-autumn festival (the 15th of the 8th moon), my landlord, who was making up his accounts, unhooked the white slate and said:
"It's a long time since Con y Ki stopped coming: he still owes me nineteen cash!"
I was surprised that I had not noticed it sooner. One of the drinkers said:
"How could he come? He has a broken leg."
"Ah!" said the landlord.
"Con y Ki has no luck; he met the hob-nails of Ting the M.A.[1] (Ting = hob-nail.) Blind indeed must the man be who tries to pilfer the tiniest bit of straw from the Ting family."
"And what happened then?"
"Then? First, he made a written confession, then he was beaten, beaten until mid-night, and his leg was smashed up . . ."
The landlord, asking no more details, remained plunged in his figures.
After mid-autumn, the north wind, blowing colder and colder, brought on the winter. I was not very cold, since I had put on my cotton overcoat, and was always near the fire. One afternoon, when there were not many customers I was sitting dozing, when suddenly I heard a voice say "Warm up a bowl of wine." It was a very low voice, but familiar. I looked: no one there. I got up, and glanced outside. Con y Ki was sitting beneath the counter, on the ground, in front of the threshold. His blackened, wasted face gave him a pitiful appearance; he wore a torn double robe, which no longer covered his bare legs which were crossed on a mattress attached to his shoulder by string. Seeing me, he repeated:
"Warm up a bowl of wine!" And my master, leaning over the counter, said:
"Con y Ki, you still owe me nineteen cash."
Con y Ki, raising his piteous face, replied:
"Oh, that—next time! But today it's ready money. Some good wine."
"Con y Ki, have you been scrounging again?" added my master, joking as usual.
Con y Ki no longer obstinately denied the charge; he answered simply:
"Don't tease."
"But this isn't a jest: how did you break your leg?"
"I fell, I fell . . . " replied Con y Ki in a low voice, with imploring eyes which tried to say: "don't insist."
Meantime a crowd was gathering there, and laughing with my master. I brought him some warm wine and put him on the door-step. He took out of his pocket all in holes four big cash and passed them into the hollow of my hand. His hands were covered with mud: they served as feet nowadays. A moment after, having had his drink, he went away on his hands, amidst the laughter of the spectators.
We did not see Con y Ki again. At the end of the year, the landlord unhooked his white slate and said:
"Con y Ki still owes me nineteen cash!"
At Yoan-Yang (the festival of the fifth moon), in the following year, he said again:
"Con y Ki still owes me nineteen cash!"
At the mid-autumn feast he insisted no longer. At the end of the year Con y Ki had still not appeared again. And to this day he has not appeared again.
Perhaps Con y Ki is really dead.
- ↑ There is no English equivalent for "agrégé," which is the final examination for teachers in France and in China. (Note of translator.)