Chapter 2

And two sounds there are, above the multitudinous crying of the city, two sounds that recur as time recurs--the great bell of the mission and the whistle of the factory. Every hour of the day the mission bell strikes, clear, deep-toned--telling perhaps of peace. And in the morning and in the evening the factory whistle blows, shrill, provocative--telling surely of toil. Now, when the mulberry trees are bare and the wintry wind lifts the rags of the beggars, the day shift at the factory is ten hours, and the night shift is fourteen. They are divided one from the other by the whistle, shrill, provocative. The mission and the factory are the West. What they are I know.

And between them lies the Orient--struggling and suffering, spawning and dying--but what it is I shall never know.

Yet there are two clean spaces in the city where I dwell, the compound of the church within the wall, and the courtyard of the factory beyond the wall. It is something that in these two one can breathe.

Wusih

Chinese New Year

Mrs. Sung has a new kitchen-god. The old one--he who has presided over the household this twelvemonth--has returned to the Celestial Regions to make his report. Before she burned him Mrs. Sung smeared his mouth with sugar; so that doubtless the report will be favorable. Now she has a new god. As she paid ten coppers for him he is handsomely painted and should be highly efficacious. So there is rejoicing in the house of Mrs. Sung.

Peking

Echoes

Crepuscule

Like the patter of rain on the crisp leaves of autumn are the tiny footfalls of the fox-maidens.

Festival of the Dragon Boats

On the fifth day of the fifth month the statesman Küh Yuen drowned himself in the river Mih-lo. Since then twenty-three centuries have passed, and the mountains wear away. Yet every year, on the fifth day of the fifth month, the great Dragon Boats, gay with flags and gongs, search diligently in the streams of the Empire for the body of Küh Yuen.

Kang Yi

When Kang Yi had been long dead the Empress decreed upon him posthumous decapitation, so that he walks for ever disgraced among the shades.

Poetics

While two ladies of the Imperial harem held before him a screen of pink silk, and a P'in Concubine knelt with his ink-slab, Li Po, who was very drunk, wrote an impassioned poem to the moon.

A Lament of Scarlet Cloud

O golden night, lit by the flame of seven stars, the years have drunk you too.

The Son of Heaven

Like this frail and melancholy rain is the memory of the Emperor Kuang-Hsü, and of his sufferings at the hand of Yehonala. Yet under heaven was there found no one to avenge him. Now he has mounted the Dragon and has visited the Nine Springs. His betrayer sits upon the Dragon Throne.

Yet among the shades may he not take comfort from the presence of his Pearl Concubine?

The Dream

When he had tasted in a dream of the Ten Courts of Purgatory, Doctor Tsêng was humbled in spirit, and passed his life in piety among the foot-hills.

Fêng-Shui

At the Hour of the Horse avoid raising a roof-tree, for by the trampling of his hoofs it may be beaten down; And at the Hour of the cunning Rat go not near a soothsayer, for by his cunning he may mislead the oracle, and the hopes of the enquirer come to naught.

China of the Tourists

Reflections in a Ricksha

This ricksha is more comfortable than some. The springs are not broken, and the seat is covered with a white cloth. Also the runner is young and sturdy, and his legs flash pleasantly. I am not ill at ease.

The runner interests me. Between the shafts he trots easily and familiarly, lifting his knees prettily and holding his shoulders steady. His hips are lean and narrow as a filly's; his calves might have posed for Praxiteles. He is a modern, I perceive, for he wears no queue. Above a rounded neck rises a shock of hair the shade of dusty coal. Each hair is stiff and erect as a brush bristle. There are lice in them no doubt-- but then perhaps we of the West are too squeamish in details of this minor sort. What interests me chiefly is the back of his ears. Not that they are extraordinary as ears; it is their very normality that touches me. I find them smaller than those of a horse, but undoubtedly near of kin.

There is no denying the truth of evolution; Yet as a beast of burden man is distinctly inferior.

It is odd. At home I am a democrat. A republic, a true republic, seems not improbable, a fighting dream. Yet beholding the back of the ears of a trotting man I perceive it to be impossible--the millennium another million years away. I grow insufferably superior and Anglo-Saxon. I am sorry, but what would you? One is what one is.

Hankow

The Camels

Whence do you come, and whither make return, you silent padding beasts? Over the mountain passes; through the Great Wall; to Kalgan--and beyond, whither?...

Here in the city you are alien, even as I am alien. Your sidling jaw, your pendulous neck--incredible--and that slow smile about your eyes and lip, these are not of this land. About you some far sense of mystery, some tawny charm, hangs ever. Silently, with the dignity of the desert, your caravans move among the hurrying hordes, remote and slowly smiling.

But whence are you, and whither do you make return? Over the mountain passes; through the Great Wall; to Kalgan--and beyond, whither?...

Peking

The Connoisseur: An American

He is not an old man, but he is lonely. He who was born in the clash of a western city dwells here, in this silent courtyard, alone. Seven servants he has, seven men-servants. They move about quietly and their slippered feet make no sound. Behind their almond eyes move green, sidelong shadows, and their limber hands are never still. In his house the riches of the Orient are gathered. Ivory he has, carved in a thousand quaint, enticing shapes--pleasant to the hand, smooth with the caressing of many fingers. And jade is there, dark green and milky white, with amber from Korea and strange gems--beryl, chrysoprase, jasper, sardonyx.... His lacquered shelves hold priceless pottery--peachblow and cinnabar and silver grey--pottery glazed like the new moon, fired how long ago for a moon-pale princess of the East, whose very name is dust!

In his vaults are incredible textures and colors that vibrate like struck jade.

Stiff with gold brocade they are, or soft as the coat of a fawn--these sacred robes of a long dead priest, silks of a gold-skinned courtesan, embroideries of a lost throne. When he unfolds them the shimmering heaps are like living opals, burning and moving darkly with the warm breath of beauty.

And other priceless things the collector has, so that in many days he could not look upon them all. Every morning his seven men-servants dress him, and every evening they undress him. Behind their almond eyes move green sidelong shadows. In this silent courtyard the collector lives. He is not an old man but he is lonely.

Peking

Sunday in the British Empire: Hong Kong

In the aisle of the cathedral it lies, an army rifle of the latest type. It is laid on the black and white mosaic, between the carved oaken pews and the strip of brown carpet in the aisle. A crimson light from the stained-glass window yonder glints on the blue steel of its barrel, and the khaki of its shoulder-strap blends with the brown of the carpet.

The stiff backs of its owner and a hundred like him are very still. The vested choir chants prettily. Then the bishop speaks: "O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord,... defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our enemies." "Amen!" say the owners of the khaki backs.

The light has shifted a little. On the blue steel barrel of the rifle the glint is turquoise now. That will be from the robe of the shepherd in the window yonder, He of the quiet eyes....

Hong Kong

On the Canton River Boat

Up and down, up and down, paces the sentry. He is dressed in a uniform of khaki and his socks are green. Over his shoulder is slung a rifle, and from his belt hang a pistol and cartridge pouch. He is, I think, Malay and Chinese mixed.

Behind him the rocky islands, hazed in blue, the yellow sun-drenched water, the tropic shore, pass as a background in a dream. He only is sweltering reality. Yet he is here to guard against a nightmare, an anachronism, something that I cannot grasp. He is guarding me from pirates.

Piracy! The very name is fantastic in my ears, colored like a toucan in the zoo. And yet the ordinance is clear: "Four armed guards, strong metal grills behind the bridge, the engine-room enclosed--in case of piracy."

The socks of the sentry are green. Up and down, up and down he paces, between the bridge and the first of the life-boats. In my deck chair I grow restless.

Am I then so far removed from life, so wrapped in cotton wool, so deep-sunk in the soft lap of civilization, that I cannot feel the cold splash of truth? It is a disquieting thought--for certainly piracy seems as fantastic as ever.

The socks of the sentry annoy me. They are _too_ green for so hot a day. And his shoes squeak. I should feel much cooler if he wouldn't pace so. Piracy!

Somewhere on the River

The Altar of Heaven

Beneath the leaning, rain-washed sky this great white circle--beautiful!

In three white terraces the circle lies, piled one on one toward Heaven. And on each terrace the white balustrade climbs in aspiring marble, etched in cloud. And Heaven is very near. For this is worship native as the air, wide as the wind, and poignant as the rain, Pure aspiration, the eternal dream.

Beneath the leaning sky this great white circle!

Peking

The Chair Ride

The coolies lift and strain; My chair creaks rhythmically. It is not yet morning and the live darkness pushes about us, a greedy darkness that has swallowed even the stars. In all the world there is left only my chair, with the tiny horn lantern before it. There are also, it is true, the undersides of trees in the lantern-light and the stony path that flows past ceaselessly. But these things flit and change. Only I and the chair and the darkness are permanent. We have been moving so since time was in the womb.

The seat of my chair is of wicker. It is not unlike an invalid chair, and I, in it, am swaddled like an invalid, wrapped in layer on layer of coddling wool. But there are no wheels to my chair. I ride on the steady feet of four queued coolies. The tramp of their lifted shoes is the rhythm of being, throbbing in me as my own heart throbs.

Save for their feet the bearers are silent. They move softly through the live darkness. But now and again I am shifted skilfully from one shoulder to the other.

The breath of the coolies is short. They strain, and in spite of the cold I know they are sweating. It is wicked of course! My five dollars ought not to buy life. But it is all they understand; And even I am not precisely comfortable.

The darkness is thinning a little. On either side loom featureless black hills, their summits sharp and ragged. The Great Wall is somewhere hereabouts.

My chair creaks rhythmically. In another year it will be day.

Ching-lung-chiao

The Sikh Policeman: A British Subject

Of what, I wonder, are you thinking? It is something beyond my world I know, something that I cannot guess. Yet I wonder.

Of nothing Chinese can you be thinking, for you hate them with an automatic hatred--the hatred of the well-fed for the starved, of the warlike for the weak. When they cross you, you kick them, viciously, with the drawing back of your silken beard, your black, black beard, from your white teeth. With a snarl you kick them, sputtering curses in short gutturals. You do not even speak their tongue, so it cannot be of them you are thinking.

Yet neither do you speak the tongue of the master whom you serve. No more do you know of us the "Masters" than you know of them the "dogs." We are above you, they below. And between us you stand, guarding the street, erect and splendid, lithe and male. Your scarlet turban frames your neat black head, And you are thinking.

Or are you? Perhaps we only are stung with thought. I wonder.

Shanghai

The Lady of Easy Virtue: An American

_Lotus_, So they called your name. Yet the green swelling pod, the fruit-like seeds and heavy flower, are nothing like to you. Rather, like a pitcher plant you are, for hope and all young wings are drowned in you.

Your slim body, here in the café, moves brightly in and out. Green satin, and a dance, white wine and gleaming laughter, with two nodding earrings--these are Lotus. And in the painted eyes cold steel, and on the lips a vulgar jest; Hands that fly ever to the coat lapels, familiar to the wrists and to the hair of men. These too are Lotus. And what more--God knows!

You too perhaps were stranded here, like these poor homesick boys, in this great catch-all where the white race ends, this grim Shanghai that like a sieve hangs over filth and loneliness. You were caught here like these, and who could live, young and so slender--in Shanghai? Green satin, and a gleaming throat, and painted eyes of steel, Hunter or hunted, Peace be with you, _Lotus_!

Shanghai

In the Mixed Court: Shanghai

Two men sit in judgment on their fellows. Side by side they sit, raised on the pedestal of the law, at grips with squalor and ignorance. They are civilization--and they are very grave.

One of them is of my own people, a small man, definite, hard-featured, an accurate weapon of small calibre. Of the other I cannot judge. He is heavily built, and when he is still the dignity of the Orient is about him like his robe. His head is large and beautifully domed, his hands tapering and aristocratic. When he speaks it is of subtleties. But when he speaks his dignity drops from him. His eyes shift quickly from one end of their little slit to the other, his mouth, his full brown mouth, moves over-fast, his hands flicker back and forth.

The courtroom is crowded with ominous yellow poverty. The cases are of many sorts. A woman, she of the little tortured feet and sullen face, has kidnapped a small boy to sell. A man was caught smuggling opium. A tea-merchant, in dark green silk, complains that he was decoyed and held prisoner in a lodging-house for ransom. A gambling den has been raided and the ivory dominoes are shown in court. The prisoners are stoically sullen. The odor of them fills the room.

Above them sit the two men, raised on the pedestal of the law, judging their fellows. I turn to the man beside me, waiting his case. "Tell me" I ask "of these men, which is the better judge?" He answers carefully. "The Chinaman is cleverer by half. He sees where the other is blind. But Chinese magistrates are bought, and this one sells himself too cheap." "And the other?" I ask again. "A good man, and quite honest. You see he doesn't care."

The judges put their heads together. They are civilization and they are very grave. What, I wonder, is civilization?

Shanghai