On the morning after the third gate had opened, Liu Bei (劉備) and Kongming (孔明) continued their conversation upon the stone in the yard at Wolonggang (臥龍崗).

The first brief exchange had been about "the difference between a name and a heart." The second, longer, would be a more concrete tale. Kongming opened the fan and closed it again.

"Your Lordship. This man's yard is small. From one edge to the other is ten paces. Within these ten paces, this man has lived for twenty years."

"For twenty years, inside this yard, what did you do?"

"I waited."

A short answer. The corner of Liu Bei's eye trembled lightly. A man who had waited twenty years within one yard, meeting this morning a man who had spent twenty years moving from yard to yard and missing the seat of waiting — their "twenty years" were the same word, but different rooms.

Kongming drew the tip of the fan across the earth of the yard. A light line remained on the dirt.

"Your Lordship. The courtyard of one who waits does two things. First, while it waits, it gathers, measure by measure, the rhythm of the world outside. Second, when the day comes that ends its waiting, it prepares to return that gathered rhythm, all at once, to the outside. This morning Your Lordship's third stride has reached this yard; from today, the second work begins."

Liu Bei was silent for a long while. Then quietly he spoke.

"Master Kongming. The reason I could not wait for twenty years, and kept moving from yard to yard, is that I had not learned what waiting is. From the ten-pace seat of your yard, may I, beginning this morning, learn the first stride of waiting?"

Kongming smiled.

"Your Lordship. The waiting this man has learned is the waiting inside a yard. The waiting Your Lordship must learn from here on is the waiting of the realm outside. They are two different waitings. This man shall stand at your shoulder in your own waiting from here on."

Then Kongming, with the finger of his right hand, drew for the first time a single line upon the earth of the yard. A map was beginning.

"Your Lordship. Upon this earth today I shall draw one map. The map is five chi (尺) wide. Within those five chi, the three slices of the realm will come to sit. Tomorrow morning I shall unpack that map for you in detail. This morning, first, you set the shape of this yard's waiting upon one corner of the map."

Kongming's finger drew a strand for the north upon the earth. Then a strand for the south. Then a strand for the west. The three strands were not drawn as one continuous curve but each alone. The empty space between them was wide. That empty space was the largest place on this morning's map.

Liu Bei looked long at the empty space. Kongming closed the fan and opened it again.

"Your Lordship. The empty place of a map is the actual place of the map. This morning's empty place is, for the next twenty years, Your Lordship's place."

After hearing that, Liu Bei was silent for a long while. A breeze passed across the yard and lightly scattered one end of the three strands upon the earth. Kongming smoothed that scattered end again with the fan.

"Your Lordship. The wind scatters the lines of a map. Only, it cannot scatter the empty spaces. The force of the empty spaces is, at times, firmer than the force of the drawn lines."

Liu Bei laid his two hands lightly upon the earth of the yard. A little dirt stuck to his palms. Kongming saw it and gave a small laugh.

"Your Lordship. The handful of dirt on Your Lordship's palms this morning is the firmest handful of the coming twenty years. Do not brush it off yet. Keep it on your palms until you leave this yard this afternoon."

Outside the brushwood gate, Guan Yu (關羽) and Zhang Fei (張飛) kept watching the scene. Both shifted their posture several times. As the morning sun moved toward noon, three strands had been drawn upon the earth of the yard, a handful of dirt had stuck to one man's palms, and the single fan had once more softened the air between the two men.

The courtyard of the one who waits, this morning, had stopped waiting. Instead, it had begun to release its waiting, one small handful at a time, onto the palms of another man in the form of dirt. That transfer would continue into tomorrow morning's long explanation of the map. This afternoon's dirt on Liu Bei's palms would be the same dirt as the dirt of tomorrow morning's map. One yard, one handful, two spans of twenty years, grafted at last upon a single human palm. Such moments, when they come at all, are small enough to miss and heavy enough to shape a decade.

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