Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/215
he would enter as he was bidden and be asked to "deign to choose a mat," on the west side of the room, as a special mark of honor. And a soft-footed servant in a crimson, dragon-embroidered tunic and a cap with a turquoise button would bring two jade cups; cups not of the garish green iao jade which foreigners like, but of the white and transparent iu jade that the rites reserve for princes, viceroys, Manchus, ministers, and distinguished literati.
He himself was a literatus.
Had he not, many years ago, competing against ninety-seven picked youths from all the provinces of the Middle Kingdom, passed first in the examination at the Palace of August and Happy Education, and obtained the eminent degree of San Tsoi? Had not the Dowager Empress, in person, thereon congratulated him? Had not his mother been thanked publicly for having given birth to such a talented son? And his prize poem—was it not being quoted to this day by white-bearded priests, sipping their jasmine-flavored tea in the flaunting gardens of Pekin's Lama monastery?
He remembered how the poem began:
"Day reddens in the wake of night,
But the days of our life return not.
Sweet-scented orchids blot out the path,
But they die in the drift of waters,
And their flowers are blotted out,
But their perfume …"
Yes. He himself was a literatus. But he would again protest his unworthiness.
"I shall drink if you wish me to, O wise and older