Concerning the ill-destined manner of existence of the hound
Hercules. The thoughtlessly-expressed desire of the
entrancing maiden and its effect upon a person of
susceptible refinement. The opportune (as it may yet be
described) visit of one Herbert. The behaviour of those
around. Reflections.
Venerated Sire (whose large right hand is continuously floating in
spirit over the image of this person’s dutiful submission),--
Doubtless to your all-consuming prescience, it will at once become plain
that I have abandoned the place of residence from which I directed my
former badly-written and offensively-constructed letter, the house of
the sympathetic and resourceful Maidens Blank, where in return for an
utterly inadequate sum of money, produced at stated intervals, this very
much inferior person was allowed to partake of a delicately-balanced and
somewhat unvarying fare in the company of the engaging of both sexes,
and afterwards to associate on terms of honourable equality with them in
the chief apartment. The reason and manner of this one’s departure
are in no degree formidable to his refined manner of conducting any
enterprise, but arose partly from an insufficient grasp of the more
elaborate outlines of a confessedly involved language, and still more
from a too excessive impetuousness in carrying out what at the time he
believed to be the ambition of one who had come to exercise a melodious
influence over his most internal emotions. Well remarked the Sage, “A
piece of gold may be tried between the teeth; a written promise to pay
may be disposed of at a sacrifice to one more credulous; but what shall
be said of the wind, the Hoang Ho, and the way of a woman?”
To contrive a pitfall for this short-sighted person’s immature feet,
certain malicious spirits had so willed it that the chief and more
autumnal of the Maidens Blank (who, nevertheless, wore an excessively
flower-like name), had long lavished herself upon the possession of an
obtuse and self-assertive hound, which was in the habit of gratifying
this inconsiderable person and those who sat around by continually
depositing upon their unworthy garments details of its outer surface,
and when the weather was more than usually cold, by stretching its
graceful and refined body before the fire in such a way as to ensure
that no one should suffer from a too acute exposure to the heat. From
these causes, and because it was by nature a hound which even on the
darkest night could be detected at a more than reasonable distance away,
while at all times it did not hesitate to shake itself freely into
the various prepared viands, this person (and doubtless others also)
regarded it with an emotion very unfavourable towards its prolonged
existence; but observing from the first that those who permitted
themselves to be deposited upon, and their hands and even their faces to
be hound-tongue-defiled with the most externally cheerful spirit of
word suppression, invariably received the most desirable of the allotted
portions of food, he judged it prudent and conducive to a settled
digestion to greet it with favourable terms and actions, and to refer
frequently to its well-displayed proportions, and to the agile dexterity
which it certainly maintained in breathing into the contents of every
dish. Thus the matter may be regarded as being positioned for a space of
time.
One evening I returned at the appointed gong-stroke of dinner, and was
beginning, according to my custom, to greet the hound with ingratiating
politeness, when the one of chief authority held up a reproving hand, at
the same time exclaiming:
“No, Mr. Kong, you must not encourage Hercules with your amiable
condescension, for just now he is in very bad odour with us all.”
“Undoubtedly,” replied this person, somewhat puzzled, nevertheless, that
the imperfection should thus be referred to openly by one who hitherto
had not hesitated to caress the hound with most intimate details,
“undoubtedly the surrounding has a highly concentrated acuteness
to-night, but the ever-present characteristic of the hound Hercules is
by no means new, for whenever he is in the room--”
At this point it is necessary to explain that the ceremonial etiquette
of these barbarian outcasts is both conflicting and involved. Upon
most of the ordinary occasions of life to obtrude oneself within the
conversation of another is a thing not to be done, yet repeatedly when
this unpretentious person has been relating his experience or inquiring
into the nature and meaning of certain matters which he has witnessed,
he has become aware that his words have been obliterated, as it were,
and his remarks diverted from their original intention by the sudden and
unanticipated desire of those present to express themselves loudly on
some topic of not really engrossing interest. Not infrequently on such
occasions every one present has spoken at once with concentrated anxiety
upon the condition of the weather, the atmosphere of the room, the hour
of the day, or some like detail of contemptible inferiority. At other
times maidens of unquestionable politeness have sounded instruments of
brass or stringed woods with unceasing vigour, have cast down ornaments
of china, or even stood upon each other’s--or this person’s--feet with
assumed inelegance. When, therefore, in the midst of my agreeable remark
on the asserted no fragrance of the hound Hercules, a gentleman of
habitual refinement struck me somewhat heavily on the back of the head
with a reclining seat which he was conveying across the room for the
acceptance of a lady, and immediately overwhelmed me with apologies
of almost unnecessary profusion, my mind at once leapt to an inspired
conclusion, and smiling acquiescently I bowed several times to each
person to convey to them an admission of the undoubted fact that to the
wise a timely omen before the storm is as effective as a thunderbolt
afterwards.
It chanced that there was present the exceptionally prepossessing maiden
to whom this person has already referred. So varied and ornate were her
attractions that it would be incompetent in one of my less than average
ability to attempt an adequate portrayal. She had a light-coloured name
with the letters so harmoniously convoluted as to be quite beyond my
inferior power of pronunciation, so that if I wished to refer to her
in her absence I had to indicate the one I meant by likening her to
a full-blown chrysanthemum, a piece of rare jade, an ivory pagoda of
unapproachable antiquity, or some other object of admitted grace. Even
this description may scarcely convey to you the real extent of her
elegant personality; but in her presence my internal organs never failed
to vibrate with a most entrancing uncertainty, and even now, at the
recollection of her virtuous demeanour, I am by no means settled within
myself.
“Well,” exclaimed this melodious vision, with sympathetic tact, “if
every one is going to disown poor Hercules because he has eaten all our
dinners, I shall be quite willing to have him, for he is a dzear ole
loveykins, wasn’t ums?” (This, O my immaculate and dignified sire, which
I transcribe with faithful undeviation, appears to be the dialect of
a remote province, spoken only by maidens--both young and of autumnal
solitude--under occasional mental stress; as of a native of Shan-si
relapsing without consciousness into his uncouth tongue after passing a
lifetime in the Capital.) “Don’t you think so too, Mr. Kong?”
“When the sun shines the shadow falls, for truly it is said, ‘To the
faithful one even the voice of the corncrake at evening speaks of his
absent love,’” replied this person, so engagingly disconcerted at
being thus openly addressed by the maiden that he retained no delicate
impression of what she said, or even of what he was replying, beyond
an unassuming hope that the nature of his feelings might perchance be
inoffensively revealed to her in the semblance of a discreet allegory.
“Perhaps,” interposed a person of neglected refinement, turning towards
the maiden, “you would like to have a corncrake also, to remind you of
Mr. Kong?”
“I do not know what a corncrake is like,” replied the maiden with
commendable dignity. “I do not think so, however, for I once had a pair
of canaries, and I found them very unsatisfying, insipid creatures. But
I should love to have a little dog I am sure, only Miss Blank won’t hear
of it.”
“Kong Ho,” thought this person inwardly, “not in vain have you burnt
joss sticks unceasingly, for the enchanting one has said into your
eyes that she would love to partake of a little dog. Assuredly we have
recently consumed the cold portion of sheep on more occasions than a
strict honourableness could require of those who pay a stated sum at
regular intervals, and the change would be a welcome one. As she truly
says, the flavour even of canaries is trivial and insignificant by
comparison.” During the period of dinner--which consisted of eggs and
green herbs of the field--this person allowed the contemplation to grow
within him, and inspired by a most pleasant and disinterested ambition
to carry out the expressed wishes of the one who had spoken, he
determined that the matter should be unobtrusively arranged despite the
mercenary opposition of the Maidens Blank.
This person had already learned by experience that dogs are rarely if
ever exposed for sale in the stalls of the meat venders, the reason
doubtless being that they are articles of excessive luxury and reserved
by law for the rich and powerful. Those kept by private persons are
generally closely guarded when they approach a desirable condition of
body, and the hound Hercules would not prove an attractive dish to those
who had known him in life. Nevertheless, it is well said, “The Great
Wall is unsurmountable, but there are many gaps through,” and that
same evening I was able to carry the first part of my well-intentioned
surprise into effect.
The matter now involves one named Herbert, who having exchanged gifts
of betrothal with a maiden staying at the house, was in the habit of
presenting himself openly, when he was permitted to see her, after the
manner of these barbarians. (Yet even of them the more discriminating
acknowledge that our customs are immeasurably superior; for when I
explained to the aged father of the Maidens Blank that among us the
marriage rites are irrevocably performed before the bride is seen
unveiled by man, he sighed heavily and exclaimed that the parents of
this country had much to learn.)
The genial-minded Herbert had already acquired for himself the
reputation of being one who ceaselessly removes the gravity of others,
both by word and action, and from the first he selected this obscure
person for his charitable purpose to a most flattering extent. Not only
did he--on the pretext that his memory was rebellious--invariably greet
me as “Mr. Hong Kong,” but on more than one occasion he insisted, with
mirth-provoking reference to certain details of my unbecoming garments,
that I must surely have become confused and sent a Mrs. Hong Kong
instead of myself, and frequently he undermined the gravity of all most
successfully by pulling me backwards suddenly by the pigtail, with the
plea that he imagined he was picking up his riding-whip. This attractive
person was always accompanied by a formidable dog--of convex limbs,
shrunken lip, and suspicious demeanour--which he called Influenza, to
the excessive amusement of those to whom he related its characteristics.
For some inexplicable reason from the first it regarded my lower apparel
as being unsuitable for the ordinary occasions of life, and in spite
of the low hissing call by which its master endeavoured to attract
its attention to himself, it devoted its energies unceasingly to the
self-imposed task of removing them fragment by fragment. Nevertheless it
was a dog of favourable size and condition, and it need not therefore be
a matter for surprise that when the intellectual person Herbert took
his departure on the day in question it had to be assumed that it had
already preceded him. Having accomplished so much, this person found
little difficulty in preparing it tastefully in his own apartment, and
making the substitution on the following day.
Although his mind was confessedly enlarged at the success of his
venture, and his hopes most ornamentally coloured at the thought of the
adorable one’s gratified esteem when she discovered how expertly her
wishes had been carried out, this person could not fail to notice that
the Maiden Blank was also materially agitated when she distributed the
contents of the dish before her.
“Will you, of your enlightened courtesy, accept, and overlook the
deficiencies of, a portion of rabbit-pie, O high-souled Mr. Kong?” she
inquired gracefully when this insignificant person was reached, and,
concealing my many-hued emotion beneath an impassive face, I bowed
agreeably as I replied, “To the beggar, black bread is a royal course.”
“WHAT pie did you say, dear?” whispered another autumnal maiden, when
all had partaken somewhat, and at her words a most consistently acute
silence involved the table.
“I--I don’t quite know,” replied the one of the upper end, becoming
excessively devoid of complexion; and restraining her voice she
forthwith sent down an attending slave to inquire closely.
At this point a person of degraded ancestry endeavoured to remove the
undoubted cloud of depression by feigning the nocturnal cry of the
domestic cat; but in this he was not successful, and a maiden opposite,
after fixedly regarding a bone on her plate, withdrew suddenly,
embracing herself as she went. A moment later the slave returned,
proclaiming aloud that the dish which had been prepared for the occasion
had now been accidentally discovered by the round-bodied cook beneath
the cushions of an arm-chair (a spot by no means satisfactory to this
person’s imagination had the opportunities at his disposal been more
diffuse).
“What, then, is this of which we have freely partaken?” cried they
around, and, in the really impressive silence which followed, an
inopportune person discovered a small silver tablet among the fragments
upon his plate, and, taking it up, read aloud the single word,
“Influenza.”
During the day, and even far into the uncounted gong-strokes of the
time of darkness, this person had frequently remained in a fascinated
contemplation of the moment when he should reveal himself and stand up
to receive the benevolently-expressed congratulations of all who paid
an agreed sum at fixed intervals, and, particularly, the dazzling though
confessedly unsettling glance-thanks of the celestially-formed maiden
who had explicitly stated that she was desirous of having a little
dog. Now, however, when this part of the enterprise ought to have taken
place, I found myself unable to evade the conclusion that some important
detail of the entire scheme had failed to agree harmoniously with the
rest, and, had it been possible, I would have retired with unobtrusive
tact and permitted another to wear my honourable acquirements. But, for
some reason, as I looked around I perceived that every eye was fixed
upon me with what at another time would have been a most engaging
unanimity, and, although I bowed with undeterred profusion, and
endeavoured to walk out behind an expression of all-comprehensive
urbanity that had never hitherto failed me, a person of unsympathetic
outline placed himself before the door, and two others, standing one
on each side of me, gave me to understand that a recital of the full
happening was required before I left the room.
It is hopeless to expect a display of refined intelligence at the hands
of a people sunk in barbarism and unacquainted with the requirements of
true dignity and the essentials of food preparation. On the manner
of behaving of the male portion of those present this person has
no inducement whatever to linger. Even the maiden for whom he had
accomplished so much, after the nature of the misunderstanding had been
made plain to her, uttered only a single word of approval, which, on
subsequently consulting a book of interpretations, this person found to
indicate: “A person of weak intellect; one without an adequate sense of
the proportion and fitness of things; a buffoon; a jester; a compound of
gooseberries scalded and crushed with cream”; but although each of these
definitions may in a way be regarded as applicable, he is still unable
to decide which was the precise one intended.
With salutations of filial regard, and in a spirit seven times refined
by affliction and purified by vain regrets.