An Autumn Mountain 169
excused from actually parting with it. These refusals only served to strengthen the impetuous Yen-k’o’s resolve. ‘One day,’ he promised himself, ‘that great picture will hang in my own hall.’ Confident of the eventual outcome, he finally resigned himself to returning home and abandoning temporarily the Painting of an Autumn Mountain.
“About a year later, in the course of a further visit to the county of Jun, he tried calling once more at the house of Mr Chang. Nothing had changed; the ivy was still coiled in disorder about the walls and fences, and the garden was covered with weeds. But when the servant answered his knock, Yen-k’o was told that Chang was not in residence. The old man asked if he might have another look at the Painting of an Autumn Mountain, despite the owner’s absence, but his importunacy was of no avail: the servant repeated that he had no authority to admit anyone until his master returned. As Yen-k’o persisted, the man finally shut the door in his face. Overcome with chagrin, Yen-k’o had to leave the house and the great painting that lay somewhere in one of the dilapidated rooms.”
Wang Shih-ku paused for a moment.
“All that I have related so far,” he said, “I heard from the master Yen-k’o himself.”
“But tell me,” said Yün Nan-t’ien, stroking his white beard, “did Yen-k’o ever really see the Painting of an Autumn Mountain?”
“He said that he saw it. Whether or not he did, I cannot know for certain. Let me tell you the sequel, and then you will judge for yourself.”
Wang Shih-ku continued his story with a concentrated air, and now he was no longer sipping his tea.
“When Yen-k’o told me all this, almost fifty years had passed since his visits to the county of Jun. The master Yüan Tsai was long since dead and Mr Chang’s large house had already passed into the hands of two successive generations of
