Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/131



die early, to succeed or fail, to be honoured or despised, to become rich or remain poor? How am I to know?"

Pei-kung Tzŭ said to Hsi-men Tzŭ, "You and I are contemporaries, and you have succeeded in life. We belong to the same clan, and you are held in honour. We have both the same cast of features, and you are generally popular. We are both able to speak, and you, in this respect, have only ordinary abilities. We both take an active part in public affairs, and you are no more than commonly honest. We are both in office, and your post is an honourable one. We both cultivate our fields, and you have grown rich. We both engage in commerce, and you make large profits. As for me, I dress in coarse rustic clothes, and my food is of the poorest and commonest; my dwelling is a thatched hut; and when I go out I walk on foot. But you! Your clothes are of embroidered silk; you dine on dainty viands; you live in pillared halls; and when you go out you drive in a chariot-and-four. At home you lead a proud and merry life, and treat me with contempt; at Court your manners are abrupt, and your bearing towards me is haughty; while, if we have occasion to go out, you will never walk in my company. Now, this has gone on for years; pray, do you consider yourself a more meritorious person than I?"

"Really," replied Hsi-men Tzŭ, "I cannot go into such details as these. All I know is, that whatever you turn your hand to fails; whatever I do succeeds; and here you have the experimental proof of it. And yet you say that we are equals in every respect. Such audacity is simply unheard-of!"

Pei-kung Tzŭ was silenced; and, greatly confused at the snubbing he had received, went home. On the road he met the teacher Tung Kuŏ, who said, "Where have you been, that you are walking all alone and looking so mortified?" So Pei-kung Tzŭ told him all that had happened; to which Tung Kuŏ rejoined, "Never mind; I will cure you of your soreness.