From Chapter Three

. . . .
“Enough, enough, young one. I am satisfied that your compunction is honest. But, you see, dragons don’t grow on trees. Listen to the story I am about to tell you. It will open your eyes.”
They sat themselves down on the knocked-over trunk. Bu Fu still clutched the bulbul to his beard. (He couldn’t clutch anything to his bosom because his beard was in the way.)
“The world,” said Bu Fu, “is full of sorcerers and sorceries; some sorceries are tiny, some sorceries are immense; you can turn water to wine, which any apprentice sorcerer can do, or you can bring a dead man to life again — and that, of course, is quite a project. But to summon a dragon is even harder than blowing the spirit back into a dead man’s mouth, because — think of it! — it calls for the undoing of the unbeing of an uncreature. Now if you please, picture all those sorcerers. One is making the rain fall in a drought; another is sending a toothache to a wicked peasant; a third is arguing with one of the Immortals. All this takes doing; it takes a mighty dose of doing. And all that doing drizzles out of the sorcerers and stays in the air. The air grows thicker and thicker with the doing of sorcery, and who knows where it will carry us in the end? I apprehend it, I fear it. Will the world perish of utter bewitchment? Clouds of sorcery gather over our despondent heads; each spell, each incantation, adds its mysterious effluvium to the thickening atmosphere. Where will it all end? Shall the world perish of irreversible sorcerosis?”
The bulbul took refuge in a tree, while Bu Fu gathered up his crucibles, his alembics, his trigrams, and his scrolls and carried them to and fro in front of the cave, so that Chi Po thought he could see evil clouds seep out of them, adding their poison to the thickening atmosphere.
Bu Fu sat down again and continued: “Long before you were born, we sorcerers held an assembly in the Valley of Bones to explore the danger, and let me tell you that the probability of our making the earth uninhabitable to anyone except demons and dandelions loomed not a little in our speeches.”
“But,” said Chi Po, “why didn’t you do something about it, like banning all spells?”
“Because we couldn’t agree,” Bu Fu replied. “After prolonged debates, we divided into two hostile factions. The enlightened one (to which I belonged) wished to pass a resolution as follows: ‘We view with alarm the strong possibility of universal contamination due to the uncontrollable effects of witchcraft, and propose that all spells be suspended for a duration of twenty years.’ Thereupon the party of the narrow-minded threw a contemptible counterproposal at our heads: ‘We consider with distress the likelihood of global poisoning attributable to the consequences of unlimited jinxing, and resolve that for a length of time of no less than two decades a pretermission of all sorcery be imposed.’
“We showed that their proposal was one more proof, if any were needed, of their hypocrisy, their bad faith, and their ambition to subjugate all sorcerers. They, on the other hand, ranted about our headlong ruthlessness, our lies, even our imbecility. We lobbed objects both sharp and round at each other, and I myself, creature of peace and patience, took off one of my shoes and discharged it at a nearby head: I hope it was that of an enemy. Five or six sorcerers had to be dipped bleeding into a stream, and we adjourned full of satisfying hatred.”
“But weren’t those resolutions pretty much the same?” Chi Po asked, scratching his head.
“How wrong you are! Night and day! When you grow up to be a man, you’ll understand.”
“So nothing was done?”
“Wrong once more. We voted five hundred twenty-two against three hundred thirteeen that no sorcerer should ever cast a spell to get lilacs to bloom in springtime.”
“But...lilacs don’t need spells anyway, do they, in order to bloom in springtime.”
“A lucky fact that facilitated our agreement. But though it was something, it was not enough. And ever since that time the air has been thickening. Spell upon spell inspissates the frightened elements. Do you see now why I dread to summon a dragon? I should have to emit a spell of the fifth magnitude and, who knows, bewitch the world beyond recall, beyond even my own powers.”
Bu Fu closed his eyes in anguish and moaned.
There wasn’t much Chi Po could answer, but the more dangerous the matter looked, the more he really longed to take a close look at a dragon, for he had convinced himself (only much later would he grasp how wrong he was) that he could never paint one convincingly unless he had seen it with his own eyes. So he kept quiet, but he decided that he would ask for a small dragon when Bu Fu was in good spirits.
Meantime Chi Po went every week to the cave, and then he was twelve years old, and then thirteen. Bu Fu mixed a hundred potions to make Chi Po a noteworthy painter. He even cut open his thumb to shed three drops of his own blood into a hideous cauldron full of cinnabar juice, gliphons’ livers, woodruff, and the intestines of infatuated spiders, with all of which he smeared Chi Po’s brush-holding fingers.
Indeed, he was so busy now that he stopped bothering the village. Otherwise Chi Po’s father would not have allowed his son to go so often into the haunted mountain. As it was, the good Chi Huang-ju, prodded by the worried mother, had gone to confer with a village Ancient specially apt in affairs of wisdom. For a gift, he brought along a jug of superior wine. Here is what happened.
“Pai Tai-shan,” said Chi Po’s father, “should I allow my son to visit the old sorcerer to make him a good painter? The boy will bring honor to our village when he begins to adorn it with his brush. The sorcerer’s spells cost me nothing, but mightn’t they be dangerous to my only boy?”
Pai Tai-shan gave the question some thought, and then he replied, “Maybe so. Maybe not so. And then again maybe maybe so. Let us ponder the problem together, my friend, but let this jug of wine inspire us.”
Chi Huang-ju agreed. When the jug was empty, and followed by another one brought in by Pai Tai-shan’s second wife, the Ancient showed Chi Huang-ju three glass marbles, one of which was black, another white, and the third green. “Wisdom,” said the venerable man, “sometimes decides to invite chance rather than wisdom to speak; and this is the course we shall follow today. The three marbles (toys my grandchildren play with) are now concealed in my two cupped hands. I will shake them, and then I will allow a single marble to slip between my slightly opened palms. If the black marble falls upon the mat, the answer is No. The white marble signifies Yes. And the green marble tells us that there is much to be said on either side of our question.”
Thereupon Pai Tai-shan rattled the marbles inside his hands, and even looked sharply away so that no foul play could be suspected. After a little while, one of the marbles did fall from his hands, like an egg from a chicken, and it was white. “Fate’s answer is Yes!” joyously cried the wise Ancient.
“Thank you with all my heart,” said Chi Po’s father. “That answer shall be my law.” And after a variety of courtesies, he took his leave of Pai Tai-shan.
Stop! This is a tragic blow! My story is dead! We were going to hear the story of how Chi Po became China’s most wonderful painter. But now the sage has said Yes, Bu Fu’s spells will harm the boy. He will no longer be allowed to visit Bu Fu. Alas! Is he destined to daub the doors of low taverns and the carts of noodle vendors?
Truly it was a perilous moment. But fortunately the worst did not happen. For the question Chi Huang-ju remembered asking was, “Ought the boy to continue his visits to the sorcerer?” And the answer, thank heaven — but you have already heard it; it was a clear, white Yes. As for the venerable Pai Tai-shan, who was very old, and easily waylaid by a jug (or two) of wine, he had forgotten the real question even more deeply than Chi Po’s father, for indeed forgetfulness occurs in us in varying degrees toward perfection.