The Judgment

> *The upper corner of this page is missing; the torn edge is blackened, as if singed by fire. Of the lower half, the text remains legible. This page records the passing around of the papers and the verdict of the hall. (A note by the descendants: the two lines of verse that appear on this page are the only ones Song Tao ever recorded from Zhang Sheng's parting poem; of the poem's remainder, he wrote, "I have forgotten most of it.")*

There was no wind in the hall, yet the dust at the corner of the paper stirred.

Someone came to collect the papers. Not an official—the grey-clad man who had stood in the corner of the hall. He came to my table and put out his hand for the paper, neither bending nor speaking.

I pressed my hand on the paper and did not hand it over at once.

I looked up at him. His face was the same face as before, without expression, the eyes neither on me nor off me.

He did not answer, only looked at me, waiting. I held the paper a moment; he did not urge me.

I handed the paper over. He took it, folded it, turned, and went. As he folded it, his sleeve brushed the corner of my table, and the dust on the table did not move.

The hall fell quiet again.

I sat waiting, not knowing what I waited for. Zhang Sheng sat too, like a stone statue. The web in the corner of the hall stirred; the small dried insect on it swayed, once, twice.

The dust fell slowly. I watched the ink in the inkstone; it had dried. Along the rim ran a water mark where the ice had melted, and that had dried too. I put out my hand and touched the rim; it was dry. I picked up the vermilion brush, capped it, and set it down again.

A long time passed. Perhaps not long; there was no water-clock in the hall, and I cannot say. At last the one at the head, of imperial bearing, spoke. What came from him was not words but a low breath, like a sigh, or something else. He set the paper in his hands down, raised his eyes to the middle of the hall.

"Pass it around," he said.

An official rose from his seat, came past my table, took up my paper, and carried it to the head. Another went to Zhang Sheng's table, took up his paper, and carried it up too. The two sheets lay side by side on the table at the head.

I kept my head down and heard the sound of paper turning. Once, twice. No one in the hall spoke; there was only the sound of paper turning, slow, one after another.

The officials at the head examined both papers one after another. Some lifted a paper and set it down. Some leaned close, looked a long while, then returned to their seats without a word. The grey-bearded one with the ledger looked too; when he had done, his gaze slid past me, rested on Zhang Sheng a moment, then drew back.

I sat with lowered eyes, looking at my own knees. The vermilion brush in my sleeve-cuff pressed against my wristbone, cool.

When they reached my page, the sound stopped.

It stopped a long time.

I heard the one at the head, of imperial bearing, make that breathy sound again—this time longer, as if it were a word he had not yet found. The paper was turned back and forth in his hands, slowly. Then he raised his eyes and looked at me.

I met his gaze and did not look away.

He looked away first, handed the paper back to the official. The official carried it down, stood in the middle of the hall, opened the paper, and read aloud:

"He who does good deliberately, though it be good, deserves no reward; he who does evil unintentionally, though it be evil, deserves no punishment."

No one in the hall spoke.

I heard my own heartbeat, one stroke, then another. When these words had come from my own brush, I had not thought them anything out of the way; now that a man read them aloud, and the hall gave back no echo, no comment, not even a stirring of the dust, I understood a little—these words, fallen into this hall, were heavier than their weight.

I raised my eyes and glanced at the head of the hall. The one of imperial bearing sat with lowered eyes, not looking at me. The grey-bearded one did not look at me either. I lowered my head and looked at my own hands; the paper was in them, and one corner was already creased.

The official returned the paper to me and stepped back to his place.

I took the paper and looked down at it. It was my own hand, neat and square, the ink dry now. I looked at it a long while, folded it, and put it into my sleeve. The vermilion brush was in the sleeve too; the paper pressed against the brush-shaft, two things lying together, cool.

Still no one in the hall spoke. I looked up; some of the officials had shifted slightly in their seats, then settled again. The grey-bearded one opened his ledger, turned two pages, and closed it. When he closed it, the corners of the leaves curled, as they had before.

No one looked at me. But I knew that for that moment, everyone in the hall had looked at me, and then looked away, as at a thing that need not be looked at again.

Then I heard a sound beside me.

Zhang Sheng stood up. His paper was still at the head of the hall; no one had read it aloud. He rose without haste, stood a moment in the dust-light, and sat down again. All through it no one in the hall turned to him.

I wondered suddenly: what had he written?

No one read it. No one mentioned it. Zhang Sheng stood there, like a thing forgotten in the middle of the room—and it came to me that a thing forgotten is not the same as a thing unseen. They had looked at his paper. They had simply not spoken of it.

I sat down again.

Zhang Sheng sat down too, in the same manner, not looking at me, not looking at the head of the hall, his back straight, waiting for something, waiting for nothing.

The small insect in the corner of the hall, hanging on the web, swayed once, twice. I watched it a while; it swayed without wind, and I could not tell what moved it.

I stopped looking at it and lowered my eyes.

The official at the head moved. The one of imperial bearing spoke again. This time his voice was low and even, and every word of it was plain:

"Song Tao."

I raised my head.

Every eye in the hall fell on me. I stood up, hands at my sides.

"Pass it around," said the one of imperial bearing. "Zhang Sheng's paper—Song Tao may look."

Someone brought Zhang Sheng's paper and held it before me.

I reached out, took it, and unfolded it. The paper was very light, the ink very faint; there were only two lines.

The first line: "With flowers and wine, spring is always here."

The second line: "Without candle or lamp, the night is bright of itself."

Two lines of verse. No title, no signature, no punctuation.

I stood in the middle of the hall looking at these two lines. The strokes were very faint, as if written long ago and faded, or written lightly on purpose, as if not wanting to be seen clearly. I read them once, and again. The first reading took in what they said; the second, how they were written. Two lines, fourteen characters, set on a blank sheet of paper, like a man who kept only two sentences of what was in his heart and carried the rest away with him.

On the third reading, my fingers stopped.

The places where the strokes closed, the press and pause of the upstrokes, the weight of the turns—I knew them. They were my own hand. The hand I had written with for forty years.

I did not believe it. I brought the paper closer and held it up to the grey light of the hall, and read it character by character. With, flowers, wine, spring, always, here—that character *zai*, when I write it, I always press down at the last stroke, then draw back. This paper did the same. Without, candle, lamp, night, self, bright—that *ming*, the horizontal stroke inside the *ri* I always write longer than the strokes above and below it. This paper did the same.

I raised my right hand and, in the empty air, wrote the two lines again as the paper had them. Where my strokes fell, they matched exactly.

I stood in the middle of the hall, holding that roll of paper, the corner pressing into my palm, unable to say a word.

I raised my head and looked at Zhang Sheng.

He sat in the last seat, not looking at me. The dust of the hall lay on his shoulders, a layer deep. He sat, as one waiting for something, or as one who had already waited it out.