STUDENT L. went early on his way to an interview with the
district superintendent.The student's excitement imparted speed, and
happiness added grace
to his quick steps along the path bordering
the principal thoroughfare.
Father L. had received word that a tutor's post had opened in the household of
one of the provincial capital's most important families.
He knew that his son was
the best scholar in the district,
perhaps in his young generation, and had obtained an appointment for the lad
with SUPERINTENDENT G, the man in charge
of filling the position. Father L did not know, but should have surmised that the
wily superintendent already had manoeuvred
one of his own progeny into the prestigious
post, and so had no intention of being
deprived of such a prize by
however many qualifications or whatever merit STUDENT L might possess. The
determined student, although not
insensitive to intrigue,
had little taste for it; and had
decided to risk an
assault upon
the influential office after
concluding that his probable alternative
was conscription into the army.

None of this prevented STUDENT L from noticing that
early morning light left
pleasantly unresolved a dual perspective of an object in
a distant field.
In the horizontal the
thing was a hay barrow with two handles
poking behind, interpreted in the vertical it was a buffalo
with polished horns.
Nor did the student fail
to observe that the elevated path he followed
skimmed above centuries'
debris, how the crumbled remains of old paving could be
inferred from mounds in the beaten earth below,
and how each turn
in the walkway
minimised a traveller's efforts.
It seemed to him
that an ancient stream must have carved this passage through the
landscape in the first place.
The young man walked apace.

  SUPERINTENDENT G received STUDENT L.
in one of the great halls that enshrined his function.
He sat in a chair next to a table untidy with documents,
and scratched his chin with the neat
end of a plume as the student
stood before him. For a time, the official
took the lad's measure in silence,
then peremptorily began an interrogation
whose design was
to confound and entangle
the respondent, thereby
summarily clearing him from the concerns of SUPERINTENDENT G
as a fly is blown
from a branch or flicked into a web.

  "From what cave can a whisper be heard in all corners of the land?"
asked the official.

"A whisper in the ear of an imperial courtier resounds as far as
the empire extends,"
was the even reply.
"The time it takes to echo from the frontiers is a measure of the centre’s reach,"
added the student. The official frowned.

"You confuse topology with influence over men,"
he declared.

"Honoured sir, both are questions of proximity,"
responded the student. The official looked aside.

"Deficient in geography,"
he shrugged.
"Let us proceed. Two starving wolves in a forest fall
upon a lamb large enough to feed but one of them.
Were they to fight over the lamb it would escape;
should one wolf kill, then try to devour the lamb
it would be set upon by the other.
What can be done?"

"No lamb could stray far into the forest alone,"
answered the student.
"The wolves must cripple the lamb, and carry it to
within hearing distance of the shepherd.
While the shepherd runs distracted to the bleating lamb,
each wolf can cull a fat ewe from the flock."

"That is at once devilish and cruel,"
said the official with distaste.

"Such is the way of wolves,"
observed the student. SUPERINTENDENT G shook his head slowly,
then announced
with the tone of
his voice that the next
question would be the last.

"At the hunt’s peak, the prince’s favourite
hawk has seized the prey, but circles
the sky rather than returning to its master.
How does the prince bring it to hand?"

"With an arrow through its heart,
honoured sir,"
replied the student. The official started.

"Conceited oaf,"
he shouted in anger.

"I mean no disrespect,"
said the student, bowing his head.
"I think only that no matter how glorious, how
beautiful the prince’s proud hunter,
it is preferable
to have it killed cleanly
in defiance’s first flight, than fouled by disobedience."
The official narrowed his eyes,
as if to conceal the swift, as yet uncertain course of his thought.
The student prepared
to beg leave of his better. SUPERINTENDENT G
stood, turned to his table and brushed
with the plume upon a parchment.
He thumped the flattened roll with a seal
before clapping it into the hands of STUDENT L.

"The position is yours. Take this,"
he ordered the student.

As the astonished youth bowed out of the hall,
the official
leaned over the table
to collect some scattered sheaves.

SUPERINTENDENT G knew full well that barring success in this interview,
the occupation reserved
for the applicant
was that of a soldier.
He did not want, ten years hence,
to come across this scholar’s mind hardened by service in arms and wielding
an officer’s command.
The functionary’s own family
would have other occasions to benefit from its
patriarch’s office.
SUPERINTENDENT G had a sense of terrain,
and knew when heaven and earth
had carved a path through the
middle ground reserved to men.
He had sufficient sense to let
nature take her course.