WHAT ABOUT THE CAT?
What about the cat?” asked the little princess of her eldest maid.
“It is sitting on the sunny side of the garden wall, watching the butterflies. It meowed for three of the prettiest to fall into its mouth, and would you believe it, that is just what happened. A green, a blue, a pink shaded with gold, all went down pussy’s red throat.”
The princess smiled. “What about the cat?” she questioned her second maid.
“She is seated in your honorable father’s chair of state, and your honorable father’s first body-slave is scratching her back with your father’s own back-scratcher, made of the purest gold and ivory.”
The princess laughed outright. She pattered gracefully into another room. There she saw the youngest daughter of her foster-mother.
“What about the cat?” she asked for the third time.
“The cat! Oh, she has gone to Shinku’s duck farm. The ducks love her so that when they see her, they swim to shore and embrace her with their wings. Four of them combined to make a raft and she got upon their backs and went down-stream with them. They met some of the ducklings on the way and she patted them to death with her paws. How the big ducks quacked!”
“That is a good story,” quoth the princess.
She went into the garden and, seeing one of the gardeners, said: “What about the cat?”
“It is frisking somewhere under the cherry tree, but you would not know it if you saw it,” replied the gardener.
“Why?” asked the princess.
“Because, Your Highness, I gave it a strong worm porridge for its dinner, and as soon as it ate it, its white fur coat became a glossy green, striped with black. It looks like a giant caterpillar, and all the little caterpillars are going to hold a festival tonight in its honor.”
“Deary me! What a great cat!” exclaimed the princess.
A little further on she met one of the chamberlains of the palace. “What about the cat?” she asked.
“It is dancing in the ballroom in a dress of elegant cobwebs and a necklace of pearl rice. For partner, she has the yellow dragon in the hall, come to life, and they take such pretty steps together that all who behold them shriek in ecstasy. Three little mice hold up her train as she dances, and another sits perched on the tip of the dragon’s curled tail.”
At this the princess quivered like a willow tree and was obliged to seek her apartments. When there, she recovered herself, and placing a blossom on her exquisite eyebrow, commanded that all those of whom she had inquired concerning the cat should be brought before her. When they appeared she looked at them very severely and said:
“You have all told me different stories when I have asked you: ‘What about the cat?’ Which of these stories is true?”
No one answered. All trembled and paled.
“They are all untrue,” announced the princess.
She lifted her arm and there crawled out of her sleeve her white cat. It had been there all the time.
Then the courtly chamberlain advanced towards her, kotowing three times. “Princess,” said he, “would a story be a story if it were true? Would you have been as well entertained this morning if, instead of our stories, we, your unworthy servants, had simply told you that the cat was up your sleeve?”
The princess lost her severity in hilarity. “Thank you, my dear servants,” said she. “I appreciate your desire to amuse me.”
She looked at her cat, thought of all it had done and been in the minds of her servants, and laughed like a princess again and again.
THE WILD MAN AND THE GENTLE
BOY
Will you come with me?” said the Wild Man.
“With pleasure,” replied the Gentle Boy.
The Wild Man took the Gentle Boy by the hand, and together they waded through rice fields, climbed tea hills, plunged through forests and at last came to a wide road, shaded on either side by large evergreen trees, with resting places made of bamboo sticks every mile or so.
“My honorable father provided these resting places for the poor carriers,” said the Gentle Boy. “Here they can lay their burdens down, eat betel nuts, and rest.”
“Oh, ho,” laughed the Wild Man. “I don’t think there will be many carriers resting today. I cleared the road before I brought you.”
“Indeed!” replied the Gentle Boy. “May I ask how?”
“Ate them up.”
“Ah!” sighed the Gentle Boy. He felt the silence and stillness around. The very leaves had ceased to flutter, and only the soul of a bird hovered near.
The Wild Man had gigantic arms and legs and a broad, hairy chest. His mouth was exceeding large and his head was unshaved. He wore a sack of coarse linen, open in front with holes for arms. On his head was a rattan cap, besmeared with the blood of a deer.
The Gentle Boy was small and plump; his skin was like silk and the tips of his little fingers were pink. His queue was neatly braided and interwoven with silks of many colors. He wore a peach-colored blouse and azure pantaloons, all richly embroidered, and of the finest material. The buttons on his tunic were of pure gold, and the sign of the dragon was worked on his cap. He was of the salt of the earth, a descendant of Confutze, an aristocrat of aristocrats.
“Of what are you thinking?” asked the Wild Man.
“About the carriers. Did they taste good?” asked the Gentle Boy with mild curiosity.
“Yes, but there is something that will taste better, younger and tenderer, you know.”
He surveyed the Gentle Boy with glistening eyes.
The Gentle Boy thought of his father’s mansion, the frescoed ceilings, the chandeliers hung with pearls, the great blue vases, the dragon’s smiles, the galleries of glass through which walked his mother and sisters; but most of all, he thought of his noble ancestors.
“What would Your Excellency be pleased to converse about?” he inquired after a few minutes, during which the Wild Man had been engaged in silent contemplation of the Gentle Boy’s chubby cheeks.
“About good things to eat,” promptly replied the Wild Man.
“Very well,” politely replied the Gentle Boy. “There are a great many,” he dreamily observed, staring into space.
“Tell me about some of the fine dishes in your father’s kitchen. It is they who have made you.”
The Gentle Boy looked complacently up and down himself.
“I hope in all humility,” he said, “that I do honor to my father’s cook’s dishes.”
The Wild Man laughed so boisterously that the trees rocked.
“There is iced seaweed jelly, for one thing,” began the Gentle Boy, “and a ragout of water lilies, pork and chicken dumplings with bamboo shoots, bird’s-nest soup and boiled almonds, ducks’ eggs one hundred years old, garnished with strips of sucking pig and heavenly fish fried in paradise oil, white balls of rice flour stuffed with sweetmeats, honey and rose-leaves, candied frogs and salted crabs, sugared seaweed and pickled stars.”
He paused.
“Now, tell me,” said the Wild Man, “which of all things would you like best to eat?”
The Gentle Boy’s eye wandered musingly over the Wild Man’s gigantic proportions, his hungry mouth, his fanglike teeth. He flipped a ladybird insect off his silken cuff and smiled at the Wild Man as he did so.
“Best of all, honorable sir,” he slowly said, “I would like to eat you.”
The Wild Man sat transfixed, staring at the Gentle Boy, his mouth half open, the hair standing up on his head. And to this day he sits there, on the high road to Cheang Che, a piece of petrified stone.