sight; she had to insist in the morning and lock herself in her own
room in order to get up and dress in peace. At midday she knocked again
at her husband’s door. As soon as he saw her he cried: “Oh, here is the
delightful lady! Who I am I do not know; I am not even curious, except
that I am perfectly well and very happy, and will take my coffee if
that old fool of a servant will bring it to me; then, mademoiselle, I
am going to make love to you as soon as I get up; I will not allow you
to leave me again.”
After a week Madame Rambeau declared that she was the happiest woman in
France; she had no idea, she said, that a man could be so charming and
so wonderful. And when the doctor returned, bringing other doctors with
him, and had a long consultation, she was frightened almost to death.
They proposed that Rambeau should be sent to an asylum, but she would
not hear of it. To lose her husband and lover together was too much.
No! no! She was determined to take care of him herself, and not trust
him to any other hands.
The family doctor shrugged his shoulders; he could not explain such
conjugal devotion, but he could see that Germaine was absolutely
content and happy; it shone from her face and manner--she was delighted.
As for Henri, he seemed to begin his life again every twenty-four
hours. He had no curiosity, he did not seem to want to go out, he
absolutely refused to meet anyone who called on him; he wanted nothing
but Germaine, and from morning to night and from night to morning they
lived for each other.
This happiness continued nearly five weeks and then one morning Madame
Rambeau, who had dressed herself with great care, came and knocked
lightly at the door of her husband’s room and went in as usual; but now
he looked at her coolly, carelessly: “Oh! it’s you!” he said. “What
have you come to disturb me about?”...
Germaine could not help it, the shock was too dreadful; she burst into
sobs, crying: “My God! My God! It’s terrible to think you’re cured--so
soon!”
A CHINESE STORY
A CHINESE STORY
It was my second visit to Shanghai after a long interval. I had only
a vague idea of the old walled city, though the European settlement
seemed fairly familiar. But now the old Chinese city drew me in spite
of its gloomy, stinking streets and swarming verminous life. What
lay on the other side? What was the soul of China, and that Chinese
civilisation which speculated in transcendental philosophies and
practised impressionist painting when Rome was still mistress of the
world? Could I get any glimpse of the tantalising mystery in spite of
the veil of language?
An English student-interpreter put me on the way: “There’s a Pole here
named Shimonski,” he said, “who is called in in every difficulty; they
say he knows more about China than the Chinks themselves: he’d be an
ideal guide. I’ll send him to you to-morrow morning, if you’ll be in.”
I agreed gladly; but no Shimonski appeared next morning or the morning
after, and the appointment was gradually blotted out of my memory by
the rush of new and strange experiences.
One morning I had been accosted in front of the hotel by an old
Chinaman, who talked to me with many genuflections in a tone and manner
of profound humility. While I was trying to understand his expressive
face and mimicry he suddenly flourished a large knife, evidently
not with any evil purpose, for as soon as I turned away, the knife
disappeared. I went about the hotel trying to get the matter explained
to me, and about eleven o’clock returned to my room.
To my astonishment a man was seated in my particular arm-chair at the
table, smoking my cigarettes. He did not get up as I entered, so I said
to him: “Have you not made some mistake?”
“I think not,” he replied, in a quiet voice and excellent English. “I
was told you wanted to see me.”
“And your name?” I asked.
“My name is Shimonski,” he replied, negligently knocking off the ash
from his cigarette, and looking up at me.
“Oh!” I cried, “you are the guide whom Lawrence spoke of?”
He nodded merely. Rather interested by his casual way of taking the
matter, I drew up a chair and sat down beside him.
Shimonski was tall, almost six feet in height, and spare of figure.
He seemed about forty, but might have been five years more or less,
for his whiskers and moustache and hair were all of that straw colour
in which grey hairs scarcely show. His features were very irregular,
almost like a Tartar’s--the forehead low, the straw-thatch growing down
into it and making two bays, so to say; the eyes small and grey; the
nose, the prominent feature, long and thin, pinched, indeed, on top,
with very broad nostrils that vibrated with every emotion, and in anger
grew quite white. The dominant expression of the face was sharp temper,
inclined to suspicion. I was not pleasurably impressed.
“They tell me,” I began, “that you know more about China than any
foreigner.”
“That would _not_ be high praise,” he answered quietly. “Here, as
in India, the natives speak of the whites as savages, and with good
reason.”
“I wonder,” I went on, “whether I could learn anything about China
without knowing the language. All that I hear is so strange to me. I
am told that all of the great mandarins and governors are appointed
according to their literary achievements. I wonder how that works.”
“Do you think it would be preferable,” he asked sneeringly, “to have
them appointed by money, as in America, or by snobbery, as in England?”
“You’ve got me there,” I laughed. “I am prepared to admit that rulers
everywhere are a poor lot, and I dare say they are no worse here than
elsewhere.”
“Better here,” he retorted, “though not much; there is a good deal of
human nature everywhere.”
The man’s way of talking interested me. He was evidently free of
prejudice and used words scrupulously.
“You think I may learn something even without the language?”
He nodded.
“How much do you want to be my guide and teacher?” I asked.
“If I am to do you any good,” he said, “it ought to be forty or fifty
dollars a week.”
“All right. Shall we begin from to-day or to-morrow?”
“As you like,” he answered; “but I think you ought to give me a cheque
now; not that I have any claim on it, but I want it.” The remark was
made in the air.
I could not associate cheating with this nonchalant, thoughtful person,
so I wrote him a cheque for the larger amount and handed it to him. He
put it in his pocket.
“How long are you going to stay in Shanghai?” he asked.
“Two or three months,” I replied; “but I am not limited to time if
there is anything of value to learn.”
“That depends on you,” he said, and his little eyes bored into mine.
“Well, so long!” He turned abruptly and went.
As soon as I was alone I began to reproach myself for not asking him
to explain the old Chinaman, but I told myself that it would be time
enough next day.
But next day there was no Shimonski, nor the day after, nor the day
after that.
One evening I spoke to an American merchant who had been in Shanghai
twenty odd years and asked him if he knew Shimonski.
“A queer fish,” he replied.
“Is he honest?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” said the merchant. “I say he is queer, because he lives like
a Chink; his eyes are getting to look like a Chinaman’s, don’t you
think? And you even see him in their dress.”
A day or two later I was told that someone wanted to see me.
“Send him up to my room,” I said. To my astonishment a little Chinese
girl came in and gave me a slip of paper on which I read: “Please give
bearer my week’s money; I shall see you soon. Shimonski.”
I hesitated. It seemed to me the height of insolence.
“Can you take me to Mr. Shimonski?” I said to the girl.
She shook her head: “He isn’t in Shanghai.”
“When did he give you this?” I asked.
“Before he went away, a week ago,” she answered.
It was curious, but the man’s personality was so impressive in its
entire sincerity, in its absence of pose, that I wrote out a cheque and
handed it to the girl. As she put out her hand to take it I noticed
that her skin was lighter than the skin of the majority of Chinese
women. “Maybe Shimonski’s daughter,” I said to myself.
A couple of days passed and I heard no more of the matter, but I was
again accosted by the old Chinaman with the knife.
Then one afternoon the door opened and Shimonski came in.
“Good-day!” he said.
“So you have turned up at last,” I replied.
“Yes. I had something to finish that took me out of town, but now I am
at your service, and from to-morrow I think you will find me fairly
punctual. I suppose you will be up about nine o’clock?”
I said I would, and the next moment, without a word of excuse or
explanation, he had left the room.
The next morning at nine o’clock I was up and dressed. Again he came in
without knocking. “Shall we go out?” he said.
I took up my stick and hat and went with him. At the door I was once
more approached by the old Chinaman.
“What does he want?” I asked Shimonski. “He has bothered me three or
four times.”
Shimonski spoke to him and then turned to me.
“His proposal,” he said, “is to kill himself any way you like for ten
dollars!”
“Why should I want him to kill himself?” I asked.
Shimonski shrugged his shoulders. “He says he will do it according to
the Japanese way, which is the most painful, or he will go across the
street and cut his throat there, or do anything you please.”
“What good would that do me?” I asked.
“Good?” said Shimonski carelessly. “I don’t know; it would be an
experience.”
“One that I won’t buy,” I said. “What does he want ten dollars for?”
“He has an only daughter,” said Shimonski, “and he can get her well
married for that dowry.”
The old Chinaman had stood listening to us with his head on one side,
looking from face to face. He seemed so eager that I took out ten
dollars and gave him the bill. He pressed it against his heart and then
again took out the great knife and made remarks.
“Tell him to put that knife up,” I said, “and go off to his daughter.”
Shimonski said a few words and the Chinaman disappeared.
“What an extraordinary creature,” I remarked, “to be willing to kill
himself for so little.”
“Life is cheap in China,” said Shimonski; “they all recognise that life
to the poor is worthless.”
“Does that explain, I wonder, our shootings in Western America?”
“Sure,” replied Shimonski. “Where life is easy and pleasant it becomes
precious.”
“But men in Western America are free,” I went on.
“Nothing like so free as they are in China,” snapped Shimonski.
“What do you mean?” I asked, in surprise.
“That old Chinaman could have killed himself in the street and no one
would have interfered with him; some days would probably have elapsed
before the corpse would have been taken away. No country in the world
is so free as China.”
“Really!” I cried.
He looked at me, smiling. “What countries did you think freest?” he
asked.
“I have always thought England and America,” I replied.
“Surely,” he retorted, “you know that the Greeks and Dalmatians are
infinitely freer. In England, it is true, there is a little sense of
personal liberty; in America there is none: it has been completely
lost. America has a small sense of equality; here there is no sense
of equality; no sense at all, but an extraordinary sense of liberty.
Freedom is a religion in China.
“I am taking you now to the execution of some pirates who were caught
the other day at the mouth of the river,” he went on, “that will teach
you what we mean here by freedom,” and he led the way over one of the
bridges. In ten minutes we came to a sort of yard, at the other side
of which was a poor-looking temple structure. We had been there only a
few moments when there filed into the yard eighteen men, all with their
arms tied tightly behind their backs; their legs were tied too--in fact
so closely haltered that they could only totter with short steps.
In a little while the executioner appeared--a gigantic man from North
China--the biggest Chinaman I had seen up to that time, six feet three
or four inches in height, of superb breadth and strength. He was
flourishing an enormous sword as he came to us; it was scimitar-shaped
and fully an inch thick at the back: it must have weighed thirty
pounds. When he spoke the pirates all knelt down and he stood in front
of them and made a short speech, which Shimonski translated.
“He says that he is the greatest executioner in the world, and that
if they will only keep quiet and push their heads well back and
their chins up they will never know that death came to them nor feel
the stroke. See, he is shaving hairs off his arm to show them how
razor-sharp the sword is.”
As the executioner stepped smiling towards the first man in the line I
stared round me and noticed that half the wall looking on to the street
had been broken down, but of the people who were passing not one even
paused to look at the tragedy.
The executioner said a word or two to the first man and lifted his chin
in the air with his hand. Then stepping to the side, with one slice, he
cut off his head, that rolled in the mud. I was horrified; but again
the executioner stepped in front and said a few words.
“What is he saying?” I gasped, with dry mouth.
“Simply asking them to notice how perfect the stroke was; that the man
has gone into the other world without knowing it. Look at his head; you
will see the features are quite composed,” Shimonski replied coolly.
Again and again and again the tragedy took place, accompanied each time
by the boasting of the executioner. It was the fourth or fifth body
that remained upright after the head had been sliced off, the poor
torso spouting blood two feet high in a stream.
The executioner pointed with his sword to the body and said: “That’s
the way I do my work; all you have to do is to keep quiet, chin up,
head back.”
To my astonishment the remaining pirates nudged each other to look at
the headless trunk, and laughed.
“I must go,” I said to Shimonski. “I cannot stand this; that laughter
and the cold cruelty are too horrible.”
“It may be interesting,” he said. “Wait.”
But I could not wait, and hurried outside to get the wall between me
and the ghastly spectacle. It was ten minutes before Shimonski rejoined
me. “You might as well have waited,” he said; “nothing happened.”
“Do you call the murder of eighteen people nothing?”
“Nothing,” repeated Shimonski, shrugging his shoulders. “Thousands die
every day in China that no one cares about.”
“Fancy,” I said, “not one person outside even turned to look; in
America there would have been a crowd.”
“Yes,” replied Shimonski, “you are interested in your neighbour; in
China we mind our own business; that’s all.”
* * * * *
Chinese contempt for human life was made plain to me by this execution,
but Shimonski seemed determined that I should learn something more
about the judicial system in China, for the next time we went out he
took me to a court.
One or two cases were decided, not by argument of any sort or an
appeal to law, but simply by the sense of justice of the judge, a
peculiar-looking little Chinaman, with eyes that were mere slits and a
low monotonous voice that was, somehow or other, impressive.
The first few cases were decided with a sort of rough justice, I
thought, and then came a more important case. A merchant, it seemed,
was complaining of his manager or chief assistant. He was a stout,
rather large man, very voluble. He declared that his assistant had
recently married and was living in a better way than his salary
justified. This excited his suspicion. He took a sort of inventory and
found that certain silken garments were missing. He believed that his
assistant had stolen and sold them and made use of the proceeds; how,
otherwise, could he have got the money to live as he was living?
The complaint seemed to me absurd and unfounded, but the little
mandarin on the bench said a word or two, which Shimonski translated:
“The judge says he wants to hear the assistant.”
So the assistant came forward, one of the finest-looking young Chinamen
I had ever seen. His face was almost Caucasian, the eyes large and
frank, and the expression honest and intelligent; he was, besides, a
fine figure of a man, taller even than the merchant and broader, but
carrying no fat. He showed no fear or anger, and told his tale quite
simply. Shimonski translated for me as he went on:
“He says the accusation is absurd: if the merchant will take an
inventory he will find that nothing has disappeared that has not been
paid for; he has never taken any garment outside the shop; he makes
much extra money by going to the European Hotel in the evening and
carrying baggage to the steamer or doing anything they want him to do,
and his wife, too, works.”
Again and again he was interrupted by the merchant. When he had
finished the judge said a few quiet words and Shimonski chuckled.
“What is it?” I asked; “surely he will dismiss the case.”
“The judge asks him what became of the silken garments that the
merchant says were in the shop. The judge is in favour of the merchant.
The employé is too bold. We shall see some fun.”
The young man answered the judge at somewhat greater length now and
with much greater emphasis, and when interrupted by the merchant he
turned on him and spoke indignantly. Again the judge peered through
his slits of eyes and said something and there was a commotion in the
court; two or three Chinese police went out by a side door.
“Now you will see something,” whispered Shimonski excitedly. “This is
getting interesting.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“The judge is going to make him confess,” said Shimonski. “You’ll see.”
A moment more and two policemen came back with the most curious-looking
affair I had ever seen. It was a high pole, as thick as one’s leg,
with a very large basin-looking thing at the base, a bar stuck out
horizontally at the top, with a pulley attached. In the basin was
a huge cannon-ball of stone that must have weighed two or three
hundredweight.
“What on earth is that thing for?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” replied Shimonski curtly, with gleaming eyes.
Again the mandarin on the bench said something in his slow, monotonous,
quiet voice. Two policemen took hold of the young man and dragged
him to the machine. Two or three others pulled the cannon-ball about
six feet high by the rope. A policeman shoved the right foot of the
young man into the basin and held it there. A word from the judge and
the ball fell with a thud on the young man’s foot and turned it into
mere blood and pulp. I never heard such a cry as he uttered. I was
fascinated with horror. “Good God!” I kept repeating. “Good God!”
I turned to Shimonski. He was smiling, with his eyes fixed on the
mandarin, who was speaking again, evidently addressing the young man,
who was being held up by the policeman.
“What is he saying?” I asked.
“The judge is asking him if he remembers the silk robes now, and he
says ‘No. He can only repeat what he has said already.’”
The merchant came forward and even his face was white. He made some
remark and Shimonski translated: “He says now he may be mistaken. Won’t
the honourable judge please let the young man go?”
For the first time the judge used a few short sentences: Shimonski
translated: “He says that as the merchant had pleaded for the young
man’s life he may go, but he hopes the punishment will be a lesson to
him to keep from stealing in the future.”
The little old mandarin then got up and disappeared through a door at
the back. The policemen took their hands off the young man, who pulled
himself together and limped to the door, a long stream of blood pouring
from his right leg to the floor.
“Good God!” I cried to Shimonski, “give the poor fellow some money and
see if he cannot be carried home and his leg attended to.”
“Why give him money?” asked Shimonski. “In a couple of hours he’ll be
dead. Why waste money on a corpse?”
“But can’t they put a tourniquet on his leg,” I said, “and stop the
bleeding? He will be a cripple, but he may live.”
“What good is life to a cripple?” replied Shimonski. “Give your money
to people who are sound, if you want to give it.”
“Let us get out of this,” I cried, appalled. “I cannot stand your
Chinese justice.”
A day or two afterwards I cross-examined Shimonski about the matter.
“Is there no appeal in such a case?” I asked. “The merchant evidently
lied and the young man was murdered for nothing at all.”
“No, no,” said Shimonski; “he was impudent.”
“Innocence,” I retorted, “is always impudent.”
“Wealth is the only thing in China that dares to be impudent,” said
Shimonski. “If you are independent you can be impudent; if you are not,
you had better be respectful.”
“So,” I said, “this is the way your boasted liberty is bounded: freedom
for the well-to-do; torture and untimely death for the poor.”
Shimonski shrugged his shoulders. “As long as I am one of the
well-to-do,” he said, “I do not bother.”
There was no doubt he took pleasure in cruelty, and when I asked him he
admitted it quite coolly.
“You have a childish idea,” he said, “that pleasure in life is only to
be got from love and liking and such roots, but I think as much joy
in life comes from gratified hatred, and there is keen pleasure in
punishment that falls on another.”
“Justice has nothing to do with it, then?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “You do not ask whether you deserve to be kissed or
not; you take pleasure in the kiss. The wise man gets all the pleasure
he can out of life.”
“But can there be any pleasure in cruelty?” I asked.
“Of course,” he replied with a sigh, as if tired of such foolish
questions, “the very sharpest.”
A little later he took me to another Chinese execution, but before I
tell of it I want to say that his cruelty had begun to interest me. I
wanted to find the reason for it, the explanation of it. After all, he
couldn’t have been born with that fiend’s nature.
The second execution which Shimonski brought me to see is certainly
an institution peculiar to China and throws a grim light on Chinese
judicial proceedings. It, too, was in public, but this time a crowd had
collected in the half-paved yard, where bloodstains could still be seen
from the execution of the pirates.
Against the wall, underneath the temple, a wooden staging had been
built, and the back of the staging was planked right up to the top
of the wall. The executioner was a man of ordinary size, but of
considerable muscular development, and he was stripped to the waist. He
was abrupt in movement and vibrant with energy.
A large basket was at his feet and he had two assistants. It took them
perhaps a quarter of an hour to tie up the criminal to big nails let in
on the wooden hoarding at the back. When they had finished the victim
was spread-eagled against this wooden background, but standing more or
less at ease on his own feet, though he could not move his hands or
head or limbs, because he was trussed like a fowl and tied everywhere
to the hoarding like an advertisement. The victim was a man of perhaps
forty years of age, but of an extraordinary emaciation; he looked more
like a skeleton than a man. It appeared he had entered the house of
a rich man to steal, and had been arrested after killing one of the
policemen.
“Want drove him to it?” I remarked to Shimonski.
“Probably poverty,” he replied; “he looks like it.”
Shimonski was not as interested as usual. “They are not going through
with it,” he said disconsolately. “The man has some girl children
and they have curried favour with a rich mandarin and I hear the
executioner has been bought; if so, we shan’t have much fun.”
“Justice, then, can be bought in China?” I said.
Shimonski looked at me. “Justice is bought everywhere; sometimes with
popular applause, as in America, sometimes with money, as in France,
and sometimes with titles and snobbery, as in Great Britain; but
everywhere justice is bought. In China money is the purchasing power.
The Chinese are a matter-of-fact, realistic, sensible people.”
Scarcely had he finished speaking when the executioner turned round and
made a speech. Shimonski translated it for me. He began by saying: “In
this basket at my feet are fifty knives. I do not know what is written
on the handles. I pick them up and read, and act according to the
instructions. It is all a lottery and our lives are at the mercy of our
masters.”
“Fifty knives!” I cried. “What on earth does he want fifty knives for?”
“You will see,” said Shimonski. “Wait and see.”
Suddenly one of the _aides_ drew the cloth away from the basket with
a flourish and immediately the executioner stooped down and picked a
knife out of the basket: there was a label on the haft. He read it out:
“Through the arm,” and whirling round at once he pinned the man’s left
arm to the wood by driving the knife through it.