Ruben Sên had no grief at going. He was so filled with anticipation
that it left no chink or crevice for regret or sadness.
Sir Charles Snow and Kow Li saw him off; Ivy wouldn’t. Mrs. Sên felt
that she could not.
All that mattered nothing to Ruben. His heart was singing--all the way
to China.
They three stood together on the great boat’s deck until “All off for
the shore!” had been cried twice; Ruben in his English traveling gear,
radiant-faced and eager-eyed, Snow trying to look far less grave than
he felt; Kow Li a brilliant figure of Oriental splendor, almost broken
up by the wrench of parting with his young master, tremulous too with
his joy and triumph that at last the Sên was going home to Ho-nan.
Kow Li had made the toilet of his life. No noble of Genghiz Khan’s
sumptuous court ever went to the throne-room of his liege more richly
attired or more noticeably. And this was not the throne-room in the
Forbidden City, but the simple British deck of a P. & O. Old Kow
Li was a gorgeous medley of rose and crimson satins, thick-padded
embroideries, dangling chain and wallet, many sparkling jewels;
snow-white embroidered stockings, purple padded shoes with scarlet
heels. He carried a small but very costly blue and green umbrella. Its
stick of gold lacquer was a radiance, and its open top was a peril,
both to his own hat, and to all less splendid hats that ventured
near him. He wore his “pig-tail” almost lacquered with pigments, and
lengthened nearly to his heels with plaited crimson silk. He wore his
most scholarly spectacles, and his hat beggars description. And Kow Li
fanned himself incessantly with an exquisite tiny fan; he bowed low
when Sir Charles spoke to him; when Sên Ruben deigned to speak to him
Kow Li ko’towed profoundly.
Several people tittered as they watched him. Kow Li heard and saw them,
but it did not annoy or disconcert him in the least. He knew that they
knew no better. And to Kow Li the best of them were foreign-devils, and
the rest were nothings.
Sir Charles Snow and Ruben Sên did not titter at Kow Li, or wish to;
nor did they smile or suppress a smile.
And they both knew that the odd signs boldly embroidered across the
back of his satin jacket from shoulder to shoulder, was the Sên crest
of servitude, the _chop_ that marked Kow Li the servant and thrall of
the great clan of Sên--theirs from birth till death--and after.
As the boat pulled slowly out, Ruben Sên leaning uncovered over the
rail, Kow Li broke into uncontrollable sobbing. Sir Charles Snow laid
his hand softly on the old Chinese’s shaking satin shoulder. Sir
Charles Snow was not ashamed of Kow Li.
And Ruben Sên’s eyes misted.
* * * * *
No one stood waiting on the Victoria City pier to welcome him to China.
Ruben had wished it so.
They sighted China in the early morning. Ruben had risen with the sun
to look for the first thin line that might be China in the distance.
He stood motionless, immovable, hour after hour, until they sighted
China. He neither moved nor spoke until the boat was berthed. But he
lifted his eyes to the hills of China. That was what the Peak was to
him as he lifted his eyes to its blue-misted green; the hills of China;
not the homes-park of Western affluence and comfort. This was his
portal to all that lay beyond and to him that one lovely hill meant
all the mountain ranges of China, all the flowers that grew at their
slopes, all the snows that crowned them, the torrents that poured from
them, the tiny laughing rills that slid leaping and singing through
the hillside verdures down into the valleys and lakes that nestled at
the fragrant feet of the encircling mountains. The bund, the buildings
thick behind it, all meant a great deal to Ruben because they spoke
of the teeming life at this sea-washed edge of his old, old homeland,
but it was the feathered crest of the Peak that claimed and welcomed
him, claimed him a prodigal son of Han home-come at last, caught him
close in a vice of filial love. Trees, flowers and running water Ruben
had loved from his babyhood; he had liked to finger the roses in his
mother’s garden in Brent-on-Wold, had liked to lie for hours on the
birch-shaded grass, watching the clouds drift, lazy as he, across the
blue of the sky; watching the birds busied up in the trees, flying
securely through the still summer air. But in their Surrey garden, what
leapt in him now had been an enjoyment intense but quiescent, almost
unconscious, quite inarticulate, a pleasant personal enjoyment, not an
emotion. He had liked the flowers and the leafage, the birds in song
and in flight, the drip of the fountain, the sky’s soft pageant, but
he had not thought of Nature. He had laved in her bounty, not bowed
down to her. This was his baptism at the font of Nature--a hill-cupped
font, green with the lace of the slender bamboos that quivered over
the Peak, hiding its pathways, veiling its bungalows, cooling and
decking it all. His heart leapt to it devoutly. And it baptized him, a
Chinese worshiper of Nature, one with his people, of their unalterable
fellowship, in their one true religion--the worship of Nature. And he
throbbed at the sacrament and was grateful. It was ecstasy.
No boy entirely, or fundamentally, Western could have felt so, or have
been so unashamed that he did feel so.
There are only two peoples who so worship Nature, only two who so find
her; the Chinese and their neighbors of the Island Kingdom; and it is
with the Chinese that it is predominant and intensest.
He lifted his eyes to the bamboo belaced and lacquered green and
gold-gray hillside, and was glad!
Then he went slowly across the deck, down the gangway.
And Ruben Sên was in China.
What would he think of China? His mother had wondered, and Lady Snow
had, and even Sir Charles a little--though Sir Charles had had but
little doubt.
Kow Li had not wondered. Kow Li had known. And when the wireless told
him, not an hour later, that Sên Ruben was in China, Kow Li sobbed for
joy.
It did not seem strange to Sên as he stepped ashore--neither the place
nor its jabbering yellow crowds.
It was a strange and an enormous experience, but there was nothing
weird about it; it was a sudden delightful restfulness, uplifting,
too big for excitement. Sên Ruben had none of the chilled and baffled
feeling, almost a sense of mental apprehension that one so often feels
when first reaching a strange city; still more when first stepping on
foreign soil.
Ruben stood on the Hong Kong landing stage, waiting for his luggage
to find him. He never had been more at ease, never before had felt so
entirely, or half so deeply, at home. China had received him.
His was an experience as indescribable as it was enormous. But it is
not inexplicable, for it was his by birthright.
But it comes a freer gift--an interracial soul-dole to some--once
perhaps in a lifetime. Once (before the Manchu fell) a Western woman
standing just where Ruben Sên stood--a woman who had realized no
special wish to visit China nor been conscious of any quick interest in
the Chinese above other alien peoples--instantly felt at home. She came
in after years to believe it a message, and received it gratefully.
Places have individuality, mind, soul, character as surely as human
creatures do. It is not always our relatives that we like best, are
in closest touch with, _know_ soonest or surest. And so it is with
countries and places. Home and nativity are not always synonyms.
Scott’s popular dictum beginning, “Breathes there the man with soul so
dead,” is, one ventures to think, arguable.
Ivy would have writhed at China. China would have bored Emma Snow.
Ruben knew that he loved it; knew that he had come home. And he knew
that this would have been as true, as instant and direct, if he never
had heard of China, or if he had not known in what country he had
landed.
Kow Li had labored incessantly, but quite unnecessarily, to make Sên
Ruben a Chinese--for a greater craftsman than Kow Li had done it
thousands of years before.
Sên made no acquaintances in Hong Kong. He avoided doing so. He did not
wish to meet even Chinese, yet; but to be alone with China.
That was friendship and companionship enough.