You must see him now as he was seventeen years after he had come to
China, and fourteen years after his wife, little Golden Bells, had
died, a lean figure of a man, with his hair streaked with gray, a lean,
hard face on him and savage eyes, and all the body of him steel and
whale-bone from riding on the great Khan's business, and riding fast
and furious, so that he might sleep and forget; but forgetting never
came to him... You might think he was a harsh man from his face and
eyes, but he was the straight man in administering justice, and he had
the soft heart for the poor--the heart of Golden Bells. He was easily
moved to anger, but the fine Chinese people never minded him, knowing
he was a suffering man. Though never a word of Golden Bells came from
his mouth, barring maybe that line of Dante's, the saddest line in the
world, and that he used to repeat to himself and no one there:
..."'la bella persona
Che mi fu tolta...che mi fu tolta'; who was
taken from me; Taken! Taken from me!"
And oftentimes a look would come over his face as if he were listening
for a voice to speak--listening, listening, and then a wee harsh laugh
would come from him, very heartbreaking to hear, and whatever was in
his hand, papers or a riding-whip, he would pitch down and walk away...
He had just come in from the borders of the Arctic lands, from giving
the khan's orders to the squat, hairy tribes who live by the icy
shores, and had come to the garden by the Lake of Cranes, the garden
where the Golden Bells of singing and laughter were dumb this armful of
years, and he was alone, and the listening look was on his face, when
there came Kubla and Li Po and the old magician...
Now Kubla was very old, so old he could hardly walk, and very frail,
and Li Po was very old, too, and gray in the face, and sadder in the
eyes than ever, and the magician's white beard had grown to his knees,
but there was no more humor in his eyes... And Marco Polo helped the
old khan to sit down.
"Oh, sir, why did you come to me? Sure I was going to you the moment I
had changed my riding-clothes... Sir, you should have stayed in your
bed..."
"There was something on my mind, Marco, and the old do be thinking long
to get things off their mind."
"What can I do sir?"
"Marco, my child, you mustn't take what I say amiss. But I want you to
be going back, to be going back to Venice."
"Sir, what have I done to dissatisfy you? In all my embassies have I
been weak to the strong or bullying toward the weak? Does an oppressed
man complain of injustice, does a merchant complain of being cheated,
or a woman say she was wronged?"
"Now, Marco of my heart, didn't I say not to be taking it amiss? Is
there any one closer to me nor you, or is it likely I'd be listening to
stories brought against you? It's just this. I'm an old and tired
man, Marco Beag, and in a week or a moon at most I'm due to die, so the
Sanang tells me. Don't be sorry, son. Be glad for me. Life has been
a wee bit too long.
"And now, son dear, I want to tell you. You've been closer to me than
my own sons, and you've been the dear lad. And there's not one man in
all China can say you did a harsh or an unjust thing; but, my dear son,
'tis just the way of people; there's a power of hard feeling against
you in this land, you being a stranger and having stood so high.
"So when I'm dead, dear son, there's many would do you an injury, and
treat you badly; aye, in our family itself, though they smile on you
now. Let you be going now, Marco. I'll miss you to close my eyes for
me, but my heart will be lighter. It will so. I couldn't sleep easy,
and you ill treated in this land of mine. You ask him, too, Li Po."
"Ah, sir," Marco laughed,--"and, Li Po, what is ill treatment to me?
Sorrow's my blood brother. What I've suffered! Do you think I could
suffer more?"
"I know, Marco, I know."
"Don't you think I suffer now, sir? Fourteen years she's dead now, the
wee one who lay by my side in sleep. And never a word and never a
sign. In the house where we were married I can see the pool and the
willows and the hibiscus, but there is never a token of her," he broke
out. "The leaves of trees cover the pavilion, the hair of the
musicians is silver, and dust is on the blue and white tiles. And she
never comes to comfort pie. I can't sleep with waiting. The stars
never seem to wane, and the hoar frost comes on the grass, and I'm
always waiting. Christ! Why should I go back? I've forgotten Venice.
I've even forgotten my God for her!"
"Sanang," says Kubla Khan to the magician, "couldn't you do something
for this poor lad?"
It was now dusk in the garden by the Lake of Cranes...
"I don't need any damned wizard to bring my wife to me," raged Marco
Polo. "If she were to come, she would come, and I in the dark of the
moon and the moorfowl calling. She would have come because my heart
needed her." And he raged through the dusk by the Lake of Cranes...
"Now, Marco, dear lad, don't be flying off again, but remember that
there is science needed to all things. And think, too, that maybe she
was not permitted. The older we get, the more we understand the
destiny that rules all things, with now a nudge, with now a leading
finger, with now a terrible blow over the heart, and what we think at
twenty-five was a trifling accident, at seventy-five we know to have
been the enormous gesture of God. We are not asked when we like to be
born, Marco, nor is it up to us when to die.
"And again, Marco, consider. If she were to have come to you in the
dark of the moon-time, in the strange mystic hours when you can hear
eternity tick like a clock, your eyes would have been not on this
world, but the next. Your look would have been vacant that's now keen
to discover injustice. Your body would have been flabby that's now
whalebone and steel. And there would have been no memory of you in
China, that's now like sweet honey in the mouth.
"Would a wee dead spirit be proud of a man, Marco, and he just crying,
crying, crying, and letting the days go by while even the brown bee
works, and even the grass grows that cattle may fatten and men eat? She
might be sorry, but would there be pride on her? Even a dead woman
wants a strong man.
"Now, I'm not saying that the silent dead should not have a voice in
our affairs when we need them. But they have wisdom, else what is the
use of having died? And if the Sanang can bring her, she'll come now
and join with us in asking you, now being the time she's needed.
"Child, be guided by us three ancient men. I have lived long and have
knowledge of the world. Li Po has lived long and has knowledge of the
heart. The Sanang has lived long, and knows the secrets of the dead.
If to our three voices, who love you, there is added a sign from Golden
Bells, will you leave China?"
"If there is a sign from her I'll leave China," said Marco Polo.
And it was dusk in the Garden by the Lake of Cranes.