The Wayfarer and the Sage

On a dusty road east of Handan, in the years when the great Tang was still young, a traveler named Lu Sheng sat down upon a heap of broken brick beside the roadside inn. His robe was of coarse hemp, caked with the long road; his boots were split at the seam; he had ridden all day and eaten nothing worth the name.

The inn was small and humble. A single fire burned in the yard, where the keeper had set a pot of millet to simmer for the evening meal. A few wayfarers huddled near the warmth, rubbing their hands. Across from Lu Sheng sat an old man in a faded Taoist cap, his face calm as still water, leaning upon a staff of thornwood.

For a while they watched the fire in silence. Then Lu Sheng looked down at his worn garments, and a sigh rose out of him that seemed to come from his very bones. Alas, he said, that a man should live and die in such squalor. I am young, I am strong, yet all I have to show for it is this dusty road. The honored ones ride in carriages, wear brocade, and drink from gold; and here I sit, a beggar at an inn.

The Taoist said nothing at first. He only watched the flames, and then he drew from his sleeve a small thing and laid it between them on the bench. It was a pillow of celadon porcelain, smooth and cool, and through either end of it there ran a narrow opening, like the mouth of a small vase.

Lay your head upon this, the old man said. Rest, and such hungers as you carry will be answered. Lu Sheng took the pillow in his hands. It was lighter than he had thought, and warm, as though it had been lying in sunlight. He did not question it. He was very tired, and the road had eaten him.

He stretched himself upon the bench and laid his cheek to the cool porcelain. At first he could hear the pot bubbling, and the low voices of the other travelers. Then the small openings in the pillow seemed to soften and widen, the light within them growing until they were no longer openings but doorways, bright and quietly inviting.

Through them, far off, he saw a gate of painted wood. He rose — he did not know how — and passed through. Beyond lay a house whose eaves were of carved cedar, whose doors were lacquered red. Servants in clean robes bowed as he entered, and he knew, without being told, that this house was his.

In the days that followed, it seemed to Lu Sheng that all the world he had once longed for opened to him like a flower. He was brought to the house of the Cui clan, and the lady Cui, fair and gentle, became his bride. Her dowry was rich; his purse grew heavy. That autumn he sat for the imperial examination and took the highest rank.

The court noticed him at once. He was sent first to govern a distant prefecture, then recalled to the capital. Men bowed when he passed in his carriage. He built halls and gardens; he watched his sons grow tall and marry into noble houses; he himself rose until he stood near the throne itself, the chancellor whom princes consulted.

And all the while, deep beneath it, beneath the music and the silk and the praise, a small part of him seemed to listen for the distant bubbling of a pot over a roadside fire.