I
(第一)風雲雪
Once there was a great quarrel between the winds, the clouds, and the
snow.
And suddenly, without any warning, there came the angry roar of the
thunder and the sharp cracking of the forked lightning as it separated
the heavens.
Then the north winds, the south winds, the east winds, and the west
winds came together a thousand and a thousand strong.
And the sun was no longer seen, for the earth was covered with a deep
blackness as of the night. The clouds were coming to the east, but the
wind drove them all back to the west side of the heavens and finally
much hail and snow were thrown down to the earth.
The clouds said to the snow, “Why do you go to earth? You are not
wanted there. In the warm south land you are never welcomed. Your
people would be killed at once if they went there. Even here you are
allowed to stay only for a short time.”
“We do not come to this earth for our own pleasure,” answered the snow.
“It was pleasanter where we were. We came to earth to help its people.”
At this the clouds frowned until their faces became black and they
said, “We can not believe that.”
“It is true,” answered the snow. “In the summer time you will see how
the people cry for pressed snow. They pay three pennies for one little
cup of water that we have made cold.
“You say we are not liked in the south land, but we tell you that the
south-land people send many oxen, horses, and men to the north to find
the snow.
“They pack us in the storehouses so that we may last until the hot
weather, and when the summer fever comes all people need us.”
“You have been studying this one great need of man a long time, we
think,” and the clouds bowed in scornful mock sympathy.
“We do many good things for man,” continued the snow. “Thunder and
lightning do him much harm and he fears them greatly; but the Creator
sends us to comfort him. The lightning disappears from the earth for a
time when the season of our appearance comes.”
“You should wear a crown,” suggested the clouds sneeringly.
“A king who wore one—the old King Dai-Sung—once said of us, ‘Oh, snow,
snow, how beautiful you are. It is good for flowers, good for grass,
and good for trees that you are here.’
“And he said to the rose bushes, shrubs, and trees who were asleep, ‘If
you wish beauty in the spring time, you must have our friend the snow
in the winter.’
“He laid his hand gently on his horses’ necks and said, ‘True helpers
that are both feet and legs to me, it will soon be time for the green
grass to appear. You will have plenty this year, for we had a thick
cover of snow this winter.
“‘It will soon be hot weather, but I do not fear the heat, for I have
plenty of hard snow, pressed and packed for the summer time.’
“So you see the snow is useful to man. We could have stayed where we
were in the sky and kept clean, and we need not have worked hard flying
all the way down to the ground.
“We never hear that the clouds do any good thing,” said the snow.
“The time may come when you will have finished talking,” said the
clouds. “Then we can tell you some things.”
“We saw the big Ti-San Mountain to-day,” continued the snow, “and many
of the cloud children were playing around its summit, but what good did
they do? None.
“A hunter was looking for wild beasts and your children were naughty
and covered his eyes so that he could not see. Do you remember how he
scolded your children and said, ‘I do not like these cloudy, foggy
days’?
“Once the General San Chi led his soldiers to fight against his
nation’s enemy, and one night he went out to learn how many of the
enemy could be seen.
“The moon and stars tried to help him, but you came and covered them
and it grew so dark that he lost his way. Then the enemy took his horse
and gun and he nearly lost his life.
“He hid in a cave and said, ‘Those clouds have caused my death, I
fear.’ He lay in the dark cave until the morning came and he could see
to find his way.
“We do not see why the Creator made clouds to hang around in the sky
from north to south, and east to west,” said the snow, angrily.