The Minister of History, for example, was a Han gentleman who looked ever so scholarly, and was fluent in many languages, and seemed to have memorized all of Western history as well as the Eastern. But his employment consisted only in being very busy at doing nothing worthwhile. When I asked what he was engaged upon at the moment, he got up from his big writing desk, opened a door of his chamber and showed me a much bigger chamber beyond. It was full of small writing desks very close together, and bent over each one was a scribe hard at work, almost hidden behind the books and rolled scrolls and sheaves of documents piled at his place.
Speaking perfect Farsi, the Minister of History said, “The Khakhan Kubilai decreed four years ago that his reign will commence a Yuan Dynasty comprising all subsequent reigns of his successors. The title he chose, Yuan, means ‘the greatest’ or ‘the principal.’ Which is to say, it must eclipse the lately extinguished Chin Dynasty, and the Xia before that, and every other dynasty dating back to the beginning of civilization in these lands. So I am compiling, and my assistants are writing, a glowing history to assure that future generations will recognize the supremacy of the Yuan Dynasty.”
“A deal of writing is being done, certainly,” I said, looking at all the bowed heads and twitching ink brushes. “But how much can there be to write, if the Yuan Dynasty is only four years old?”
“Oh, the recording of current events is nothing,” he said dismissively. “The difficult part is rewriting all the history that has gone before.”
“What? But how? History is history, Minister. History is what has happened.”
“Not so, Marco Polo. History is what is remembered of what has happened.”
“I see no difference,” I said. “If, say, a devastating flood of the Yellow River occurred in such and such a year, whether or not anyone made written record of the event, it is likely that the flood will be remembered and so will the date.”
“Ah, but not all the attendant circumstances. Suppose the then-emperor came promptly to the aid of the flood victims, and rescued them and fetched them to safe ground, and gave them new land and helped them again to prosperity. If those beneficent circumstances were to stay in the archives as part of the history of that reign, then this Yuan Dynasty might, by comparison, appear deficient in benevolence. So we change the history just slightly, to record that earlier emperor as having been callous to his people’s suffering.”
“And the Yuan seems kind by comparison? But suppose Kubilai and his successors prove to be truly callous in such calamities?”
“Then we must rewrite again, and make the earlier rulers more hardhearted. I trust you perceive now the importance of my work, and the diligence and creativeness required. It is no job for a lazy man, or a stupid one. History is not just a daily setting down of events, like keeping a ship’s log. History is a fluid process, and the work of a historian is never done.”
I said, “Historical events may be variously rendered, but current ones? For instance, in the Year of Our Lord one thousand two hundred seventy-five, Marco Polo arrived in Khanbalik. What more could be said of such a trifle?”
“If it is indeed a trifle,” said the Minister, smiling, “then it need not be mentioned in history at all. But it could prove later to be significant. So I make a note of even such a trifle, and wait to see if it should be inscribed in the archives as an occasion to be treasured or regretted.”
He went back to his writing desk, opened a large leather folder and riffled through the papers inside it. He picked out one and read from it:
“At the hour of Xu in the sixth day of the seventh moon, in the Year of the Boar, the year three thousand nine hundred seventy-three of the Han calendar, the year four of Yuan, there returned from the Western city of Wei-ni-si to the City of the Khan the two foreigners, Po-lo Ni-klo and Po-lo Mah-fyo, bringing with them a third and younger Po-lo Mah-ko. It remains to be seen whether this young man will make Khanbalik better for his presence”—he threw me a mischievous side glance, and I could tell that he was no longer reading from the paper—“or whether he will be merely a nuisance, inflicting himself upon busy officials and interrupting them in their pressing duties.”
“I will go away,” I said, laughing. “Just one last question, Minister. If you can write a whole new history, cannot someone else rewrite yours?”
“Of course,” he said. “And someone will.” He looked surprised that I had even asked. “When the late Chin Dynasty was new, its first Minister of History rewrote everything that had gone before. And Chin historians continued so to write, to make the Chin period appear the Golden Age of all time. But dynasties come and go; the Chin lasted only a hundred and nineteen years. It could well happen that the Yuan Dynasty and all I accomplish here”—he waved an arm to indicate his chamber and the other full of scribes—“may not outlast my own lifetime.”
So I went away, resisting the temptation to suggest to the Minister that instead of exerting his scholarship and erudition, he might better employ his muscles, helping to pile up the kara blocks for the new hill being built in the palace gardens. That hill would less likely be dismantled by future generations than would the pile of falsehoods he was building in the capital archives.
The conclusion I was coming to—that a great many men were engaged in doing very little of moment—I did not immediately confide to the Khakhan during my audience that week. But he himself began talking of a matter rather similar. It seemed that he had recently had a count made of the various and numerous holy men currently habitant in Kithai, and was disgruntled by it.
“Priests,” he growled. “Lamas, monks, Nestorians, malangs, imams, missionaries. All looking to accrete a congregation on which they can batten. I would not mind so much if they only preached sermons and then held out their begging bowls. But as soon as they do accumulate a few believers, they command the deluded wretches to despise and detest everyone who prefers some other faith. Of all the religions being propagated, only the Buddhists are tolerant of every other. I do not wish either to impose or oppose any religion, but I am seriously considering an edict against the preachers. My ukaz would command that what time the preachers now spend on petty ritual and ranting and prayer and evangelism and meditation be spent instead with a fly whisk, swatting flies. What do you think, Marco Polo? They would do incalculably more than they are doing now to make this world a better place.”
“I think, Sire, the preachers are chiefly concerned with the next world.”
“Well? Making this one better should earn them high credit in the next one. Kithai is overrun with pestiferous flies and with self-proclaimed holy men. I cannot abolish the flies by ukaz. But would you not agree that it would be good use of the holy men to kill the flies?”
“I have lately reflected, yes, Sire, that a large proportion of men are misemployed.”
“Most men are misemployed, Marco,” he said emphatically, “and do no manly work. To my mind, only warriors, laborers, explorers, craftsmen, artists, cooks and physicians are worth esteem. They do things or they discover things or they make things or they preserve things. All other men are scavengers and parasites dependent on the doers and the makers. Government functionaries, counselors, tradesmen, astrologers, money changers, factors, scribes, priests, clerks, they perform activity and call it action. They do nothing but move things about—and usually nothing weightier than bits of paper—or they exist only to proffer commentary or advice or criticism to the doers and the makers of things.”
He paused and frowned, and then almost spat. “Vakh! What am I, since I got down from my horse? I lift no lance any longer, only a yin seal to stamp approval or disapproval. In honesty, I must include myself among the busy men who do nothing. Vakh!”