“I also learned from the fellow that my new master was in every way most excruciatingly funny himself, that his retainers suffered agonies daily from suppressed amusement at his humorous remarks, and that to smile at them was a grave offence, but to laugh was a crime punishable by death. His latest jest had been to build a superb summer-house in his grounds, and when completed he had taken his mother-in-law to see it. When asked her opinion of the structure she had, womanlike, offered criticisms and suggested improvements. The magistrate feigned to agree with her, and flattered her into making a suggestion as to how the building might be rendered perfect. She thereupon suggested some sculpture or figurehead in the centre of the roof as a fitting rounding-off of the structure. The magistrate concurred in her opinion with enthusiasm, and suggested her own head as a suitable finish-off of the concern. In vain his mother-in-law protested that she possessed insufficient beauty for such an honour, and suggested her daughter’s head—his wife’s—as being eminently more suitable. He carefully argued the matter out with her, and so wittily withal that she shook with uncontrollable merriment till the moment the executioner’s sword curtailed her giggles.
“In spite of these stories I slept well, and felt ready to meet my new master the next morning with a befittingly lugubrious exterior. Everything passed off well at the first interview, the extreme thinness of my face and my general starved condition making a picture sufficiently unmirthful in the magistrate’s eyes; but as my condition under good living improved, so I found my powers as an actor more and more taxed to maintain my gravity in my master’s presence. I would lie awake all night screaming with laughter, hoping thereby to relieve my feelings of the strain caused by the previous day’s gravity. My master never seemed at a loss for a witty remark or humorous suggestion, and these were always delivered with a Buddha-like impassivity that rendered them the more ridiculous. One after another of his servants I saw degraded for levity, until I stood first in his favour; however, I knew the strain would prove too great for me, my face used to feel like scorched parchment, my eyes burnt like hot cinders, and often I feared to choke, and tears would stream down my face from the enormous efforts I made not to offend. I also became very popular with the other servants, frequently saving them from disgrace by stepping forward and drawing the master’s attention upon myself and from any unlucky one whose merriment had got the better of his prudence. At last I snapped under the strain, having been made weak and nervous by many sleepless nights of laughter. On the day of my downfall the magistrate was in an exceptionally happy vein. He had dispensed justice for five hours, never repeating a jest, and never failing to send a criminal to the potter’s field who did not leave the court convulsed with merriment. It came suddenly on me without warning, falling like a fit of madness, the restraint of months running riot, my pent-up emotions suddenly gave vent to themselves in peals of maniacal laughter. I rolled from side to side, now screaming like a parrot, again whooping like a child with the cough, hiccuping like any drunkard, squealing like an unbroken mule—every sound in the animal kingdom I seemed to reproduce as I rolled on the ground with streaming eyes before the horrified magistrate. He alone remained calm in the face of my shocking exhibition. Having dwelt upon the disappointment I had been to him he condemned me to death, pointing out that my ingratitude was the greater seeing how I had been advanced by his kindness, and having made a few quotations from the precepts of Confucius, which latter he rendered in rhyme, interlarded with some excruciatingly funny puns, he dismissed me, a limp, chuckling mass, from his presence. I now felt certain that I should end my days by a felon’s death, but the relief was so great that I passed the night in the greatest hilarity, enjoying the company of my friends, and entertaining them with a colossal farewell feast. Merrily the wine bowl passed, until the hour for the execution arrived, when I was led in the best of spirits to the potter’s field, and prepared to look my last on this beautiful world.
“Soldiers were drawn up in a hollow square, the executioner stood stripped to the waist in the centre, and a little in advance of the troops sat the melancholy magistrate on a milk-white pony. The world never looked brighter, as the early morning sun shone on the bright uniforms, glittering weapons, and gaudy banners of the soldiery. As a special mark of favour I was allowed to be unbound, and advancing to the centre of the square, I politely saluted the magistrate and thanked him for all his past kindness. He, however, replied with some apt jest, which again aroused my mirth. Now, thought I, I will have my fling. My wits were peculiarly sharpened, and I turned to the executioner and twitted him on his solemn demeanour. The fellow answered me to the best of his dull intellect, but as I made my preparations in a leisurely manner I soon had him hopelessly trembling from a mixture of laughter and fear at offending the great man. Even the soldiers began to snigger at my repartee and the executioner’s obvious distress, when suddenly a change came over me. Why should I die? What evil had I done? A feeling of huge wrath sprang up in me against this unfeeling wretch who never smiled. With the madness engendered by this reaction of feeling, I dashed at the now helpless executioner, wrenched the sword from his grasp, and with a yell of a madman rushed towards the crowd. The soldiers, cowards to a man, drew back before my onslaught. Blinded with fury I bounded towards the hated tao-tai, seated calm as ever on his pony. The sword was raised to strike, and in another moment I should have killed the callous fiend, when something in his face arrested my arm in mid-air. Could it be? Yes it was. He smiled, the smile broadened, and the melancholy magistrate of Foh Lin broke into peals of merriment. I stared like a fool, and let the sword drop, the situation was unique. I felt almost sorry for what I had done, shocked, it seemed to me, that my idol too had been shattered.
“When at last he spoke I listened with bowed head. He, bending a look almost of kindness upon me, addressed me thus—
“‘Brother, all my life I have never felt any of the emotions common to men until now, and now I have felt fear. Undoubtedly you have just held my life in your hands. This, the first emotion of my life, felt so strange that I laughed at the idea. I thank you for it, but you must leave me. Should I ever again wish to laugh you might be unable to afford me that pleasure. So it were better for us both that we parted. Fare you well, brother.’
“Thus, Excellencies, I learned the secret of gravity.”
“Is that all true, Hong?”
“High-born, I would have you ponder this saying of the philosopher—‘A bad liar is a better companion than a deaf mute.’”
THE HUNCHBACK’S PIETY