What was it Sir Robert had said? Oh, yes, that Crocker had come to
Peking. This was dreadful. It meant trouble. One way or the other, I
myself was involved in this trouble. A wife is, in a sense, the property
of her husband--in a sense. If she dishonors his home by leaving him
for another, he has some right to be indignant. If his outraged sense
of possession lashes him into a murderous passion he can not be stopped
from killing her. In England now--something about competent witnesses.
And the difficulty of convincing a jury that she was not living with
me....
In the confusion of mind that lay over my faculties like a paralysis,
one curious fact sticks out in my memory. I deliberately shook myself,
standing there on my balcony. I tried to shake myself awake.
I seemed to be recalling a story that the fat vaudeville manager from
Cincinnati told on the ship, one night. It had to do with a celebrated
prize fight in New York some years back. He reveled in memories of
fights, that vaudeville man. An odd mental habit!
On the occasion he mentioned, one fighter was knocked down and very
nearly, as the phrase runs, “out.” Lying there upon the floor of the
ring, dazed, all but unconscious, the man actually beat his own head
against the door in a desperate effort to rouse himself.
Over and over again that picture rose in my mind. I have never witnessed
such a spectacle. Primitive brutality has played, needless to say, no
part in my life. But at this time, caught up and whirled about, as
I was, in a bewildering conflict of primitive emotions, it was a
second-hand recollection of the prize ring that came to my aid.
The fact is not uninteresting.
I chanced to glance down. A tiny, lacy ball lay there at my feet. I
picked it up. It was Heloise's handkerchief.
I held the absurdly small square of linen and lace in my two hands and
looked at it. I folded and unfolded it. I pressed it to my lips, again
and again.
Am I to become the helpless victim of these crude emotional
uprushes--like any common clerk with his shopgirl? I, who have for
so long observed the human herd from afar with a sort of casual
interest?... I wonder.
Suddenly the thought of the man Crocker came to me. He was in this city.
He was over there in the Legation Quarter, behind the walls that I could
see--over in the big hotel. He was drinking again. And there was murder
in his heart.
It seems to me that this thought--I am trying to face my strange, new
self, and set everything down; God know's I need the discipline!--that
this thought was followed by a little blaze of heroics. I am somewhat
confused about this, of course--one can not analyze one's own emotions
with any degree of accuracy while they are still active--but I recall
going out into the hall and standing there like a sentry. I was
determined to protect my lady with my life. I saw myself fighting
gloriously for her; and I saw her, close at hand, witnessing my ever
valiant act, and exulting in my prowess.
A child has such notions. And, I note, a lover.
I stood for a time at the top of the stairs. Crocker should never mount
those stairs alive. Behind me, through the transom of number eighteen,
there occasionally came floating clear little threads of tone. Heloise
was singing as she moved about her room. She did not know. And she
should not know--not yet. Perhaps I could find a way to spare her. At
any rate, Crocker would never pass those stairs without fighting his way
over my body.
Once I tiptoed back and tapped at Sir Robert's door; even tried the
knob, but it was locked. He had gone, evidently.
I don't seem to know quite why I sought that old man again. It was an
impulse. Perhaps I wanted him to see that his warning had had no effect
on me, none whatever.
It was getting on into the early evening now, say between seven and
eight. I half-saw one of the Chinese waiters come up the stairs with a
tray for Heloise. I leaned against the wall when he passed. But for some
reason it did not occur to me to order food for myself. I could not have
eaten out there in the hall, anyway; and were I to sit in my room, even
with the door open, there was a possibility that Crocker might rush by
before I could stop him. So I ate nothing, all the evening. I could n't
eat now, if food were brought to me. The reactions of what we call love
are curiously related, it appears, to the various bodily appetites. I
am almost ready to define love as a general disturbance of all the nerve
centers, accompanied by strong, positive, emotional excitement and a
partial paralysis of the reasoning faculty.
Some little time passed while I stood there at the head of the stairs.
A fit of impatience, that may have had in it an element of morbid
eagerness to hasten the event, took possession of me. After all, it
was not essential that I should stand guard at that particular spot.
I walked slowly down the stairs and, making a strong effort to appear
unconcerned, through the office and out the door. He would have to come
in this way.
I walked slowly along the narrow street toward the Italian _glacis_. It
would be better, much better, to meet him out here.
There has been a chill in the air this evening. And the wind has risen,
stirring up clouds of the powdery loess dust that is the curse of this
wonderful old city.
For a long time I paced that street, breathing at times through my
handkerchief in order to avoid the choking dust.
As the evening wore away, my resolution weakened. I began to see myself
for the absurdity I unquestionably was--I the thin, nervous man of
science, pitifully inexperienced in the ways of this sadly violent
world, yet endeavoring to swell myself up (like the frog in the fable)
into a creature fit to cope with that world. It _is_ absurd. I am not a
violent man. I don't understand violence. There is no place for it in my
philosophy, for my philosophy is based on fact and reason. There is
no room for violence in an orderly world. Yet, under the pretense of
civilization which is spread so plausibly over the surface of modern
human life, I am confronted at every turn by the spirit of violence.
And my own reason and sense of fact, in which I have so often sought
sanctuary, have now failed me utterly.
Little by little my walks to and fro carried me farther into the broad
open park that is called the _glacis_. That odd, morbid eagerness was
drawing me steadily nearer and nearer the little foreign city within the
Legation walls.
Finally I entered the Quarter. The great masonry walls fairly breathed
of violence.
There is a sharp angle in this narrow road where it enters the Quarter,
so constructed that the street can not be raked, from without, by shot
and shell.
I passed under a sentry box on the wall, from which an armed soldier
peered out at me--placed there because he might be needed to prevent
or commit murder. For he and his like are but the trained agents of
violence, masquerading behind a thin film of patriotism and what men
still call glory.
Once within the walls I walked very rapidly. I was conscious that my
whole body had tightened nervously, but I was powerless to relax. The
blood was racing through my arteries and veins. I could feel that old
throbbing at the back of my head. And my forehead was sweating so that I
had to push my hat back. I carried my heavy walking stick--it had seemed
that I might need it--and I was swinging it as I walked, gripping it so
tightly by the middle that it all but hurt my hand.
There was no stopping me now. I went straight through to Legation
Street, hurried along it, past the bank and the big German store, and
turned off south toward the great hotel with its hundreds of bright
lights and its noisy little swarm of rickshaw men on the curb.
I entered the wide hall that leads to the office and stood there, while
my eyes searched about among the moving, chatting groups of people.
There was a circle of tourists about the old Chinese conjuror who sat on
his heels in a corner among his cloths and bowls and what not; I
walked slowly around this circle, seeking the erect figure, the solid
shoulders, and the drink-flushed face of Crocker.
I walked deliberately through the lounge, studying every solitary
figure there among the easy chairs and the little tables and the potted
shrubbery.
I went down the long corridor to the bar, and stood squarely on the
threshold surveying the large room. There was a considerable number of
men there--fifty or more, easily. The dress uniforms of half the armies
of Europe flashed their gilt at me. All the tables were occupied, and
there was a solid rank at the bar, behind which slab of mahogany the
sober, silent Chinese waiters worked deftly at catering to the vics of
these dignified gentlemen from the Christian West, now and then pausing
to take in the scene with inscrutable, slanting eyes. There was
much loud talk, some laughter, and, at one of the tables, a little
quarreling.
Here, sure enough, was Crocker.
He sat in the corner across from the door and a little to the left. He
was alone. A whisky bottle stood before him on the table, and a number
of glasses. His face was very red. His big, usually vigorous body leaned
limply against the wall. His head rolled slowly back and forth. There
could be no doubt that he was very drunk. It seemed to me that he would
have rolled to the floor had not his body been wedged in between the
wall and the back of his chair.
I will admit that I was profoundly relieved. Nothing could be done
to-night. Crocker could not act, or talk, or even listen.
Even now I feel that relief. Though I have observed Crocker closely
enough to know that when he recovers from this debauch he will be
dangerously unbalanced, I am glad of even a day's delay. He was in what
he himself referred to as the “hangover” stage when he knocked down the
waiter at Yokohama.
I may as well admit further--since this journal must be honest or else
cease to exist--that this first sight of the man since Heloise entered
my life and so vitally changed it was unexpectedly unsettling to me.
Despite his condition at the moment, I felt again, looking at his
shoulders and chest and arms and the outlines of his head, the primitive
force of the man. And the expression of his face, now maudlin with
drink, oddly recalled my memory of him as I had last seen him at the
Yokohama station when there were tears on it. I had never before seen a
man cry. I do not know that the possibility of such extreme emotion in a
strong man had ever occurred to me.
He holds ideas regarding men, women and morality that are profoundly
repellent to me, this crude yet not wholly unattractive man. He is
permitting his life to be wrecked for these ideas--which at least
indicates some sincerity. Heaven knows a man can't “own” a woman, or a
woman “own” a man. Neither can possibly possess more of the other than
that other is compelled by the power of love to give. There are no
“rights” in love.
Yet--and this is the puzzling thing--when I was with Crocker, I liked
him. And he liked me.
Savagely as he is mistreating his splendidly vigorous body, desperately
as he is permitting his mind to become confused and brutalized, he is,
even now, by no means a besotted man. I am not certain that he could
properly be termed a drunkard. There is yet stuff in him. There is
energy in him, that could be used. But in his stubborn purpose of
destruction he is incidentally destroying himself.
What is this mystery of sex that it should enter a man's heart in the
guise of love only to tear that heart to pieces?
Pale wanderings, these! And sad. For they tell me that in all the
so-called practical affairs of life I am a weak person of confused
mentality. There is bitterness in the thought.
I rather like that man. I think I feel a deep pity for him. And I am his
mortal enemy. I can not understand it. But it is so.
I think I will give you up, you Journal that have so long been my
companion in the rich solitude of my working life. For this life of mine
is a working life no longer. It has turned off into the dark byways of
passion. My purpose, hitherto compelling, falters now. My once clear
mind is clouded and confused. I do not know when I shall work again. I
do not know what I shall do. I only know that all is dark and still
in the room next to this dingy room of mine, and that a sad, beautiful
woman sleeps softly there. I only know that I love her beyond my
strength, and yet that I seem unable to hate the man who would hate me
if he knew.
It is only a little later--in the very early morning. I have
reconsidered. I shall not yield to this weakness. After all, it may
steady me to continue my old-time habit of writing everything down.
Besides, it is clear that I shall have no sleep this night. It will be
better to keep occupied at something.
It was my weakness for introspection, I think, that brought me to that
state of bewilderment. I seem to get along better when I confine my
narrative closely to the facts. I must resolve again, as I have resolved
before, simply to tell what took place. Just tell it.
I turned away from the bar-room door. A number of men from one of the
legations approached along the corridor. They were talking and laughing
rather freely, and were all tall men, so that I neither heard nor saw
the man behind them until after I had stepped aside and across the
corridor to let them pass in to the bar. And the man behind followed
them in without seeing me.
It was Sir Robert. He was in evening dress, of course, true to his
British breeding. His monocle dangled against his shirt front. He was
bowed a little. His hands shook perceptibly as he walked. And I observed
that same new nervous twitching on the left side, of his face.
He stepped a little way into the room and looked about, as I had done.
I waited. I did not seem to care whether he saw me or not, but felt no
desire to invite conversation with him.
His eyes finally rested on the drunken man in the corner. His left
eyelid drooped and drooped, as it always does when he is thinking
intently. It seemed to me that he stood there for a long time, and that
there was irresolution on his face. Myself, I could not take my eyes
off him; it fascinated me to watch his drooping eyelid and the twitching
corner of his mouth.
After a time he slowly turned and came out. He did not so much as
know that I was there. He was studying the carpeted floor--thinking,
thinking. I followed him.
He moved slowly out through the lounge to the street door, bowing coldly
to certain of the individuals he passed. He went out, and down the
steps.
The ragged rickshaw coolies pressed about him. He brushed them aside
with his hand. For a moment he stood there, on the stone sidewalk. Once
he turned, as if to reenter the hotel; but wavered, and stood still
again.
I thought he saw me, waiting in the doorway, but believe now that he did
not.
Finally he stepped up into a rickshaw, and waved his hand. His coolie
picked up the shafts and set off on a run.