She shook her head.
“A Chinese painter called Zhu Da. Do you want me to tell you his story?...
“Yes,” she said, finally.
“When he was a child, Zhu Da was very happy…”
He took a swallow of tea.
“He was a prince and his family were very rich and powerful. His father and grandfather were painters and famous calligraphers, and little Zhu Da had inherited their gift. So just imagine, one day, when he wasn’t even 8 years old yet, he could draw a flower, a simple lotus flower floating on a pond. His drawing was beautiful, so beautiful that his mother decided to hang it in their salon. She claimed that thanks to the drawing you could feel a fresh little breeze in the huge room and you could even smell the flower’s perfume when you walked by the drawing. Can you imagine? Even the perfume! And his mother was surely not an easy person to please… With both a husband and a father who were artists, she must have seen a few things by then…”
He took another sip from his cup.
“So, Zhu Da grew up in this carefree world full of pleasure, and he was sure that he too would be a great artist someday. Alas, when he turned 18, The Manchus seized power from the Mings. The Manchus were a cruel and brutal people who did not care for painters or writers. They forbade them to work, which is the worst thing anyone could do to them, as you can well imagine. Zhu Da’s family knew no peace after that, and his father died of despair. From one day to the next the son, a mischievous kid who had loved to laugh, sing, say silly things, and recite long poems, did the most incredible thing… Something you’d never imagine. He decided to stop speaking forever. Forever, do you hear? Not a single word would leave his lips! He was disgusted by the attitude of the people around him, those who denied their traditions and their beliefs just so they would be viewed favorably by the Manchus; he didn’t want to speak to any of them ever again. Devil take them all! Every last one! Slaves! Cowards! So he write the word MUTE on the door of his house, and if there were people who tried to talk to him all the same, he would unfold a fan in front of his face, on which he had also written MUTE, and he’d wave it every which way to make them go away.”
Little Camille was captivated.
“The problem is that people can’t live without expressing themselves. No one can. It’s impossible. So Zhu Da, who, like everyone, like you and me for example, had a lot of things to say, Zhu Da had a brilliant idea. He went off into the mountains, far away from all those people who had betrayed him, and he began to draw. And from then on, that is how he would express himself, how he’d communicate with the rest of the world: through his drawings. Would you like to see them?”
Mr. Doughton went to fetch a big black and white book from his shelves, and put it down in front of her.
“Look, isn’t this beautiful? So simple. Just one stroke, and there you are. A flower, a fish, a grasshopper. Look at this duck, how angry it looks; or these mountains in the mist. And you see how he’s drawn the mist? As if it were nothing, just an emptiness. And these chicks, see them? So soft you want to stroke them. Look, his ink is like down, his ink is soft…”
Camille was smiling.
“Would you like me to teach you how to draw like this?”
She nodded.
- Anna Gavalda, Hunting and Gathering
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