Chinese Literature

“Just think! There’s a teacher for you! And he has been teaching here for sixteen years now! But I can’t cancel his contract ... an infiuential member of the local gentry supports him. Such is our sacred educational field! At that, to tell the truth, conditions here in this school are still considered better than elsewhere. What can one do? Unless you have no intention whatever to do any work for the public, you have to compromise, bow your head and keep your temper! . . 2

The other yawned, lighted a cigarette and cast a pitying glance at Old Pan.

“That old man is rotten all through, one hundred per cent,’ Old Pan added. “When you talk to him about current events, about the war of resistance to Japanese aggression, he ... the ideas he expresses are really those of a traitor!”

That evening, the two friends sat in a restaurant for over two hours. Mr. Li alone consumed one catty of yellow rice wine, sipping at his cup continually and refilling it from the pewter wine pot as soon as it was empty. His thin face turned more and more pale as he drank.

When Old Pan warned him that he might be drinking too much, he clutched at the wine pot and said:

“Old Pan, let me tell you a story. A hard drinker once said, “Hot wine hurts my lungs. Cold wine hurts my liver. But not to drink would hurt my heart. I’d rather have my lungs and liver hurt than my heart.’ This man really knew how to live. ... Iam sorry for you people who never drink.”

He sipped some of the wine, smacking his lips loudly and leaning back in his chair with an air of great ease. He half-closed his eyes with an expression of bliss, but their bloodshot sockets made one suspect that he had wept not long ago.

“At first, I did not intend to drink the wine produced on this soil.” He pointed to the ground. “I thought it would be bad. But, really, it’s quite allright. ... Old Pan, do havea drop! You must savour it... .”

Old Pan obligingly took a tiny sip. Then he said, ashamedly:

“T used to drink a little. But I could never tell whether a wine was good or bad.”

“This wine certainly does not compare with that of my native place. I had nine jars of old Shaohsing wine at home, said to have ripened for sixty years. Perhaps its vintage was of only thirty or forty years ago, but definitely not less than that. I often invited friends to stay for a few days in our little town. We would talk and drink. ... I can’t drink much, but I like the feeling one has when one is drinking... . | Oh, you’ve been to Hangchow, did you go to a wine shop there?”

AS 7 “Oh, but you should have gone!” Mr. Li raised his hand excitedly.

_ “The people who go to drink there... that kind of . .. that kind of. : Oh, they really know how to drink. One dish of dried beancurd

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