The allusion is sufficiently concealed; but, in China, this habit of veiling one’s meaning is a very common one, and it is specially to be noticed in the pictorial art. On the other hand, such subjects as the following are often suggested to painters: A red spot in the midst of green. One painter would paint on this theme a forest with a stork isolated on one tree; another would paint a red sunset in the green sea; another, a woman with red lips in a bamboo wood.
Artists, in China, never sell their pictures. They are always amateurs, and give their pictures away. The only art-wares which are trafficked in China are produced by workpeople, and belong to the category of decorative art. Sculpture is less cultivated at home by our amateurs, and one must know our sculptors to understand their ways. One of them once offered to make my bust. I went to his house, and he made me sit down in front of him. We were separated by a table, which was covered by a cloth which reached down to the ground. A very animated conversation began between us. My friend was a man of a very quick intelligence, and had a very original turn of thought. I was quite taken up with what he was saying to me, but I still did notice that he kept his hands under the table, and this surprised me all the more that I observed after watching him some time that he was moving them with feverish activity. After I had been there about an hour, which had passed very quickly, thanks to our gossip, I was just going to rise, when my friend produced a mass of clay from beneath the table, and said, “Do you think that it is like you?”
I was not a little surprised to see that it was my bust, which, in spite of the rapidity with which it had been modelled, was very resembling; a thing which was very curious, as the artist had never once looked at the clay, but at my face alone. He must have had a wonderful skill to be able to use his fingers both as eyes and as tools, touch replacing sight.
CHAPTER XXIV
CHESS
This game differs very much from the one played in Europe, and which is the delight of the habitués of the European chess clubs. In our game there are three hundred and sixty-one pawns, divided into two camps, one white and the other black. These pawns are like round draughts. The game is played on a square chess-board which has nineteen squares on each side. The players set down pawn after pawn, and the one who succeeds in closing his adversary in, so that there is no possible issue for him, wins the game. The skill in this game consists in closing your adversary in, and in taking as many of his pawns as possible—advancing wedge-like into his territory, without losing any of your own forces. It has been said that this game—the board of which represented the firmament, the stars being represented by the three hundred and sixty-one pawns—was invented by Emperor Yao, and used by him to instruct his children and teach them to think. It is, at the same time, a military game, representing a battle-field and two hostile camps, each doing its best to conquer the other. In short, it is rather a game of patience, for each game lasts a very long time, the reflection of a quarter or half-an-hour being sometimes needed before playing a pawn. On this account it is called “game of conversation,” for the player who is waiting for his adversary to play has plenty of leisure to talk. It is also known by another name, that of “meditation in solitude,” which seems a very good name for it. It is the favourite pastime of literary men, ladies, and especially of people who have retired from business. The noise of the pawns as they are placed down on the different squares of the board, which is often engraved on a marble bench, under the shade of leafy trees, is considered a very poetical noise. The three things that one loves to hear, when one wishes to turn one’s thoughts towards what is pure and delicate, are the sounds of water falling, the wind among the trees, and the rattle of this game of chess. It has been said that under the reign of the Tching dynasty a woodcutter met two young men who were playing at chess at the top of a mountain. He watched them, and one of them gave him a kind of candied fruit which he swallowed. Before the game had been finished, he noticed that the handle of his axe had rotted away. He made haste back to his village, and could recognise none of the people he met, for several centuries had passed away since he had gone out. History also tells us that a statesman named Li-No was a very impatient man. But once seated at the chess-board his character completely changed; so that each time he felt that he was going to fly into a rage, his friends used to suggest a game of chess, and at once his good humour returned to him. One day the Emperor asked why he wasted at chess time which might be so much more profitably employed. He said that the moments during which a man forgets his worries are the most precious of all.