In a time so long ago that the names of the history books which describe it have been forgotten, when civilization was still new in China, there lived a young artisan in the capital city, the name of which has also been lost. He made many curious things. The common people knew him for the pictures he painted or carved on shoes - scenes of mountains and deserts and exotic islands - and said that he who wore a pair of these shoes would one day walk to the place depicted on them. Occasionally he drew strange landscapes that might have shown the view of a man standing on the moon or a distant star, and the people said that the wearer of such shoes might, with luck, courage, and skill, become a god.
His true art, though, was carving the handles of paint brushes. Artists travelled from far parts of the country to ask him for a brush - they would say, "I am painting a dragon" and he would find a long, ferocious, ancient dragon in a thin piece of wood, or they would say, "I want to paint the reeds by the river" and he would carve a handle in the shape of a reed, or would set a stream winding in relief about the brush. His work was fragile, and never lasted long enough to be used for more than one painting, but the artists said that it lived on in their pictures.
One day the old emperor died and was replaced by his son, a cold and angry man. He ordered the borders to be closed, and declared that he was a god: it was treason and sacrilege to make a sculpture or painting with any subject but him. The people hated him but feared him more, and the artisan sold no more shoes covered with scenes of distant lands. He only laughed at the few painters who came to him and asked for a brush in the likeness of the new emperor. He continued to carve, and, not receiving requests for mundane subjects, began to make strange forms - corals and long thin fish from the bottom of the sea, unicorn horns, parades of three-legged men, comets, waterfalls.
He gave these away in the streets, and one day the chief of the emperor's secret police was shown a tiny full- length panther eating a bird whose tail was the bristles of the brush. He arrested the artisan, had him flogged before the palace, and warned him to stop his sacrilegeous work.
The artisan was unbroken and continued to make his little carvings, though he kept them in his work- room. He had aroused suspicions, however. One day a spy came, claiming to be an artist, and said that he wanted to make a series of paintings of the emperor in Hell. The artisan was delighted and inspired, and soon produced twelve scenes of the self-proclaimed god in torment.
He was brought in chains before the emperor, who threw the paint brushes to the artisan's feet and asked him, "What are these?" The artisan replied, "Oh, I like to eat my rice hot, but I kept burning my fingers, so I use these to eat with." The emperor was further enraged by this defiance but laughed. He ordered his torturers to bring hot coals and burn away the artisan's fingers, and had him left as an example in the public square.
Those who passed by were aghast, but fearing that worse would be done to the next rebel, averted their eyes. Yet the next morning they found the artisan sitting there, with paint brushes strapped to the stumps of his hands, fiercly concentrated, eating a bowl of rice. Seeing this, they found courage and rose up against the despot and burned his palace down. The artisan never painted a shoe or carved again, but the common folk have eaten their rice in his style ever since.