had owed to His Honor the graduate, the other said that he did not know what he was held for. They asked Ah Q and Ah Q answered proudly and unhesitatingly:
"Because I want to revolt."
In the afternoon he was taken out of the cell and marched to the judgment hall. Behind a table in the center sat an oldish man with a clean-shaven head. Ah Q at first thought that he was a Buddhist monk, but when he observed the squad of soldiers standing below and the group of some ten personages in long gowns on either side—some with clean-shaven heads like the oldish man, some with hair about a foot long hanging down their shoulders like the fake foreigner, all with fierce features and staring at him menacingly—he decided that there must be something to that oldish man and his knee joints thereupon loosened and he knelt down.
"Stand up! Don't kneel!" shouted the personages in long gowns. Ah Q, though he appeared to have understood the command, was unable to maintain a standing posture, his knees failed him, he sagged down and again lapsed into his kneeling position.
"Slave habit!" The personages in long gowns grunted with contempt, but did not insist on his standing up.
"You might as well confess the truth so as to avoid unnecessary pain. I know everything already. Confess and you will be set free." The oldish man with the clean-shaven head said very firmly and deliberately, his eyes fixed searchingly upon Ah Q.
"Confess!" the personages in long gowns echoed.
"I had intended to come and . . . ," Ah Q said after revolving the situation in his confused mind.
