But he knows what he is saying, and he understands who Master Ji is; he senses he is on the right track, and it’s no accident that he found him today; he knows, in brief, that he is the one, that it’s because of him that he is here in Suzhou, even if he doesn’t know what it is that he knows, and, mainly, why he feels so certain in all this, more certain than death. He’s the one, he’s the one! — Stein tries to whip up some enthusiasm in the interpreter in the hotel room, who, however, just once again collapses dead tired onto the bed, and falls asleep with the phrase repeating in his head, this ‘He’s the one, he’s the one’—even if, of course, at that point, he can’t have any idea at all if he really is the one; but he can only lead somewhere, not to his self, but he will lead: and in that there can be no mistake.
The Spirit of China
The next day, at three o’clock in the afternoon, of course, there is Master Ji in front of the entrance gate of the Garden of the Master of the Nets, with a beautiful woman of noble gaze, about the same age as Master Ji; a marvellously handsome man, a little younger than Stein yet seeming somewhat ageless, with long grey hair reaching down to his shoulders; and a younger woman standing beside him, arm in arm, clearly his wife. After the introductions, Master Ji leads them through the tourist groups — only sporadically destructive at this moment — to the end of the garden, to a hidden nook where, under the greatest protection that could possibly exist in such a place, they take a seat in an empty teahouse. All the doors in the teahouse are open, and the back wall of the inner courtyard, grown over with woodbine and overlooking their table, is flooded with the afternoon sunshine.