CHAPTER FOUR
Poem:
After taking leave of his wife and father-in-law, Vesperus set out on his study tour. He had no particular destination in mind, but merely let his legs carry him wherever they would. So long as there was a beautiful girl somewhere, he thought, that was where he would settle down. At each prefectural or county town he came to, he stayed several months. As a brilliant young man of letters, he easily qualified for local society. He was fond of joining literary circles, had published a great deal, and was known by name to educated men for hundreds of miles around. Wherever he went, he found friends eager to take him off to join their groups.
For Vesperus, however, writing and the social life that went with it were of minor significance beside his quest for a beautiful girl. Every day at dawn he would get up and patrol the town from its main streets to its back alleys. Unfortunately all the women he saw were quite ordinary, and he never came across another outstanding beauty, which was a disappointment that preyed on his mind and tongue; for whatever he was doing, he would mutter, "Such a fine place, yet not a single girl worth looking at!" Over and over he would mutter these words wherever he went, even on trips to the privy. His complaint ultimately became such a habit with him that he would blurt it out before acquaintances and strangers alike, a fact that led his fellow students to call him sex-crazy behind his back.
One day while he was staying at an inn in the countryside, both of his pages fell ill and were confined to bed. Vesperus wanted to go for a walk but feared it would detract from his dignity if some woman saw him without an escort, and so he remained alone in his room, bored beyond endurance. Just at the height of his boredom, a guest from the next room paid him a visit.
"You're all on your own, sir," said the visitor, "and I daresay you're feeling lonely. I have a jar of wine in my room, and if you have no objection, I'd like to invite you for a drink."
"Meeting by chance," said Vesperus, "one mustn't impose. If we're going to drink together, you must let me be the host."
"And I've always heard that educated men like to be unconventional! Why so formal? As the proverb says, 'Within the four seas, all men are brothers.' And there's another one, too: 'Many's the time men meet by chance.' I may have a humble station in life, but there's nothing I enjoy more than making friends. However, your prospects are so grand that in the ordinary way I would never have presumed to make your acquaintance. So this is a rare encounter, our staying at the same inn! What harm would there be in your condescending to join me?"
In his state of acute boredom Vesperus was only too eager to have someone to talk to and, on finding himself so earnestly invited, he promptly accepted. His host seated him in the place of honor, while he himself sat to one side, an arrangement over which Vesperus protested, insisting he take the seat opposite. After a few casual remarks, they exchanged their names. Vesperus revealed his sobriquet and asked his host's.
"As an educated man, sir, you have a sobriquet," said the other. "But I am a vulgar fellow and have no such elegant title, just the nickname A Match for the Knave of Kunlun. How ever, you'll find that everyone within a hundred miles of here recognizes that name."
"It's most unusual. How did you come to choose it?"
"If I tell you, I'm afraid you'll be scared. And even if you're not scared, you'll want to leave at once and not drink with me anymore."
"I'm a man of some courage myself, you know, as well as a free spirit. I wouldn't be scared even if it was an immortal or a ghost there in front of me. And as for such things as status and education, I pay them even less attention. As everybody knows, there was a barnyard mimic as well as a sneak thief among the heroes in the Lord of Mengchang's entourage, and Jing Ke used to get drunk with a dogmeat butcher in the marketplace of Yan. [38] So long as we get on together, why wouldn't I drink with you?"
"In that case there's no harm in telling you. I'm a professional thief, a specialist in breaking and entering. A rich man's tower may be thousands of feet high and his walls hundreds of courses thick; if I choose not to try, fine, but if I go there in search of money, I'll get straight to his bedside with the greatest of ease, bundle up his valuables, and make my getaway so cleanly that he won't know he's been robbed until the next day. They say there used to be a Knave of Kunlun who got over the wall into General Guo's palace and abducted a Girl in Red, but he did it only once, whereas I've done that kind of thing hundreds of times. [39] Anyway that's why I'm called A Match for the Knave."
Vesperus was aghast. "But since you've been doing this for a long time and have earned a name for yourself that everyone knows, surely you must have fallen foul of the law?"
"If I did that," replied the Knave, "I'd be no hero. As the proverb says, 'You have to have the goods to catch the thief.' When the stolen goods can't be found, I point that out, and no one dares lay a finger on me. In fact everyone around here tries to get into my good books, because they're afraid I'll ruin them if they so much as cross me. But I'm not without honor, you know. I do have my Five Abstentions from Theft."
"And what are they?"
"I don't rob unlucky people, lucky people, people I know, people I've robbed once already, or people who take no precautions."
"Those terms are rather intriguing. Won't you please explain?"
"If people have suffered some blow such as an illness, a death in the family, or some natural disaster and are in terrible anguish over it, robbing them would be like pouring oil on the flames-too much for them to bear. That's why I won't do it.
"If a family has something to celebrate, such as a wedding, the birth of a son, or a new house, and I were to go and rob them in the midst of the festivities, the loss of property would be far less important than the ill fortune I'd be bringing them, ill fortune that would dog them in the future. That's why I won't do it.
"I don't consider it wrong to steal from people I've never met, people I know but who don't know me, or people who know me but aren't willing to associate with me. But in the case of people I meet and greet every day, if I were to rob them, they'd never suspect me and I'd feel a bit ashamed when I saw them next. For instance, I invited you to join me for a drink just now. If you'd refused, you'd have shown yourself to be a snob who looked down on me and, no matter where you lived, I'd never have let you get away with it. But you were happy to come over and sit here opposite me. Someone as congenial as that-how could I bring myself to rob him?
"In the case of a rich man who has never been robbed despite all his wealth, I'll condescend to pay him a call, to hit him up for a contribution, as it were. What's wrong with that? But if I've robbed him once already and gotten my share, I'd have to be a monster of greed to go on plaguing him. So that, too, is something I won't do.