return from the port in song and sottishness. He thought of the lights
of Shanghai up the river, beyond fourteen miles of foul marsh mist. His
own various and recent miseries had often recurred. On this night that
the _John Dividend_ dropped anchor off the Shanghai port, they brought
the white man a kind of madness. There was nothing in particular to
watch. Overside, the sea and dark were one, though the ship was
surrounded by Chinese junks. Some of the junks were manned by begging
lepers, but the needy would have fared ill from the mercy of the _John
Dividend's_ crew.
As if moved by an involuntary impulse, the white man tumbled forward
into the dark. The junks shot toward the splash, like a school of sharks
after a chunk of pork. The nearest dragged in the prize, and the
forward deck of the _John Dividend_ was left without a watch. This was
not exactly a loss, since the missing man as a sailor was equally
worthless above and below, but there was a bad debt and a bad name left
behind, consequently a memory. McLean held the memory and the missing
man's note for five pounds.
Dawn was upon the water as the junk approached the city. From either
bank came the shrill voices of the river-dwellers not unlike the waking
sound of winged scavengers. Hoarse shouts were heard ahead. The American
buried his face while the last drunken party of the _John Dividend_
pulled past, headed for the ship. When the voices could be heard no
more, the fugitive raised his head, shuddering. It was then that he
noticed the other occupant of his own junk--a hairless female without
hand, without teeth, with an empty socket in the place of one eye. She
manipulated the oars by means of straps attached from her wrists to the
handles. A child was in her lap, and the child was so far clean.
This was the creature who had helped him into the boat before light, who
had touched him. When the junk bumped into the masonry of the city's
front, he tossed a silver dollar into the leper's dress. She screamed
for more as she would have done had the piece been a double-eagle.
Fearful lest she should spring at him, the white man threw another coin
into her lap and fled.
Yet after all, he took Shanghai with something of a smile that day. The
first thought was to get clean clothes, but there is always formality
and inconvenience about such purchases that are not connected with the
barter of rum.
Within a few hours he had fallen once more into the great drift; resumed
his classic jaunt over Asia and the Islands. It had begun far up a
certain big yellow drain many months before.
Of the two days which followed, only distorted passages that touched
McLean, the money-lender, came to surface. Certain foreigners, however,
were stopped upon the streets of Shanghai by a dilapidated American who
seemed to have a wild laugh back in his brain, and who inquired with
manner, "Has the _John Dividend_ put to sea?"
The drift took him at length to the Walled City where a white man may
truly be lost, and where countless animals, roughly shaped like men,
move about to a dirge-like beat of many afflictions and seem waiting for
death.
Three days after the white man disappeared into the walled city of
Shanghai, a great liner's nose cleaved the yellow water off Woosung. On
the hurricane deck, well away from the enthusiastic party of American
tourists, a small slant-eyed man stood alone by the landward rail. To
him every puff of the warm breeze was lotus and memory-laden, though he
kept his sentiments in chilled steel.
"_Dr. Huan Ti Kung, San Francisco to Shanghai,_" was all the ship's
registry told of him.... He might have been twenty or forty, as you
preferred. One couldn't tell anything definite from the styleless black
suit and hat he wore, nor from the sombre repose of the classically
Chinese face.
Throughout the final two hours of the passage between Nagasaki and the
Shanghai port, Dr. Ti Kung did not once leave the liner's deck. The
ship was now churning the yellow emptyings of the Yang-tze, and that
which held his eyes ahead, looked very much like a swamp to the eyes of
the Americans and English. To Dr. Ti Kung it was not marshland, but the
garment's hem of the Mother Empire, not seen these many years. There
were no tears in his eyes; it is doubtful if his pulse had quickened.
It is dangerous to suggest the nature of a yellow man's emotion. None
but a yellow man could understand exactly. Yet this was certain, Dr. Ti
Kung had not stood on the deck heretofore during the three weeks' voyage
from San Francisco. He had not gone ashore in Japanese ports. The
expression on his face was as serene and contemplative as usual while
the liner lay on the different days in the three harbours of Nippon. But
the face of the yellow man is not an authoritative document.
The recent ten years in America had been years of much movement, study
and mystery. He had lived much in college towns, in Toronto, Vancouver,
also in California and New England. It had not been the mere matter of
an education, though he had specialised rather extensively at chemistry
and biology. Plentiful education is to be had in Peking.
Dr. Ti Kung had made friends in America. There were Americans of his own
age who had tried to know him as a white man knows another. It may be
certain of these believed they succeeded. The Chinese accepted with
equal mind the condescension of his inferiors, who held the belief that
the Celestial Empire was a kind of giant laundry, and the frank,
emotional friendliness of those of his classmates and business
affiliates who had found that he was equally prodigious as athlete and
student. His was a manner of profound gentility, with a mental
background sumptuous in colour and experience. To Dr. Ti Kung most of
these Americans were acquaintances, nothing more. The word _friend_ in
his language was something to which only the best aspired.
In spite of his various appearances for a year or more in different
colleges and commercial establishments, none of these affairs had made
up the real life of Dr. Ti Kung, nor had anything to do with his present
journey home. He had not worked for money. A certain class of American
acquaintances had found him not only approachable for temporary benefit
but admirable in forgetfulness as he was unswerving in bestowal. His
material means seemed inexhaustible from the first. A large portion of
his life in America was unaccounted for, except by the few men and women
whose lips were as well governed as his own.
Dr. Ti Kung made himself very small in the crowded launch on the way up
the river, and was one of the first to step forth upon the stones of the
Bund. A word to a coolie there and his baggage and other matters of
disembarkation were taken from his hands. He moved into the foreign
quarter swiftly, passing through the streets with as little interest as
if it were a daily custom. A mile deep in the Nankin Road, well past
the row of German tobacconists, he hailed a particular 'rickshaw coolie
from a group and was carried by a round-about journey through the
northeast gate of the Walled City. Here Dr. Ti Kung sniffed; at least
something of relaxation was for the first time apparent. His
surroundings were not pleasant, but it was China herself.
The street had now narrowed to a passageway. There was not room for two
'rickshaws. The beggars were forced to move back close to the
stall-fronts as he passed, and the progress of his coolie was
necessarily slow. Presently the passage was broken by a series of broad
stone steps to the right. Half way up these, in the midst of a group of
beggars, sat a white man, very drunk. He appeared to be expounding some
great matter in a lingual mixture straight from nowhere. His head
rocked leisurely from side to side. But one eyelid could withstand its
heaviness at a time. On occasion both of the lids would drop, whereupon
the white man's hand would fumble to his face and prop up the nearest
with a very soiled finger, an effort that quite commanded his faculties
so that speech halted for the moment.
Dr. Ti Kung spoke to the 'rickshaw coolie, who halted promptly. Leaning
forward, he surveyed the figure with thoughtful interest. It now
appeared that an insect threatened the lean inflamed face of the
American, for the propping finger was withdrawn and waved laboriously
before the beaked nose, the eyelids meanwhile falling in abandon. Just
a word was spoken from the 'rickshaw and the next instant the figure on
the steps was alone. Dr. Ti Kung now took one shoulder, ordering his
coolie to the other, and the American was lifted to his feet. Walking
rigidly on either side, they steadied the limp and slender giant to the
vehicle, where he sprawled across the wheel and was pushed with
considerable effort into the seat. He sighed luxuriously and called for
a cigarette. Dr. Ti Kung brought forth his case, lit the match, and
resumed his way on foot, a man's length or more behind the 'rickshaw.
Thus they proceeded for some distance along the numerous unsavoury
passages. Keeping to a direction was impossible in trending the
intricate alley-ways; the coolie seemed merely to be following the paths
of greatest smell.
By degrees the novelty of the ride wore off for the tall fellow in the
'rickshaw. Even the cigarette stump, burning into the padding of the
seat, failed to interest him. The eyes of Dr. Ti Kung, walking behind,
were presently held to the back of the vehicle which strained and
creaked outrageously. A moment later, it stopped. Stepping forward and
around, the Chinese gentleman found his 'rickshaw coolie standing like a
faithful horse, waiting to be extricated from the embrace of the
American who had launched forward over the handles, with the intention
seemingly of depositing himself upon the neck and shoulders of the
native. He had not altogether succeeded. Dr. Ti Kung decided that his
charge must have a change.
They were now at the junction of the passage and a broader artery, where
a barbershop was in operation, partly upon the corner and partly within
doors. Dr. Ti Kung beckoned and three of the barbers were at his side
in an instant. The idea was not broached to the white man. He was
seized and benched, lather applied at once. He had evidently met
Chinese at home. His jaw hardened and he appeared to await some
brutality from without, before taking exception to events. At the first
scrape of the blade, however, he lay back at ease--a white man's long
training under the knife.
Meanwhile the chief barber, disdaining other than to officiate in the
present activity, turned to Dr. Ti Kung as if resuming a conversation
halted yesterday:
"... The amazement of this low-minded proprietor in having his
unmentionable shop patronized by so enlightened a personage, is without
bounds and earth-defying." He produced a water-pipe of silver mounting
and proceeded: "To say nothing of this illustrious foreigner who thus
disguises his exalted rank--"
"You suffer from slight misconception," said Dr. Ti Kung, "only as
regards the companion of this foreign prince. Behold in myself a rural
born of lowest degree--"
The barber drowned the utterances in the loud bubbling of his
water-pipe. "This day will ever linger in the memory of one degraded
chief of barbers, for the patronage of a court companion of the great
Yi--"
Dr. Ti Kung again courteously depreciated himself, and they turned to
the American. The chief of barbers said:
"The illustrious one now occupying the chair has relapsed in revery,
having given no directions. Is it desirable that the entire head be
denuded?"
Ti Kung uncovered his own queue-less head. "Let the hair be
short-cropped merely, as this of his servant--and the features shaven."
"So be," said the chief, shuffling over to direct the operators. In a
moment he was back in his position beside the Chinese gentleman.
"This illiterate one," he began again, as the gurgling of the water-pipe
was renewed, "perceived in the reports today that the wrestler, Kwong,
won all honours in the athletic contests at the Imperial Pavilion. His
prowess has doubtless come under court attention before. Today the
trained cormorant of the Mandarin Pih has proved to be the best diver in
a tournament that has been held three successive days on the river.
Probably, however, this fact is already known to one whose relatives
recline in the Yellow Palanquin...."
Just now one of the barbers drew back a step to survey his half-finished
task. The eyes of the others were drawn to the strange voices at the
turning of the street. A small party of American tourists, exploring
the Walled City, had reached this point. Dr. Ti Kung recognised the
party as belonging to the ship he had left this morning. Just at this
moment the white man leaped up from the barber's chair and staggered
forth, waving his hands. Dr. Ti Kung observed that his charge had been
whipped back to consciousness by the voices of the tourist party.
The Chinese gentleman spoke quickly, a low, intense order. One of the
barbers darted after the white man who had turned down an alley-way to
the rear of the shop, Dr. Ti Kung following leisurely. A moment later,
he watched without concern while two brawny bare-shouldered natives
overcame the half-shaven one, and carried him through the nearest
door.... It was still early in the day. The tourist party had passed
on.
*2*
The white man awoke several hours later on the floor of a small stone
cell containing one table and one chair. The chair was cemented to the
floor. He had not jarred it loose, though the cell was so small that
his body had been forced to adjust itself to it during sleep. The table
was also stationary. The door was of heavy black wood, intended to
preserve silence from without and possibly from within. There was a
small metal disc in the door and by the finger-marks around it, the
prisoner grasped the fact that it doubtless covered a hole.
Gaining his feet he had to bend considerably to put his mouth to the
opening. He called and turned his ear to the disc for answer. He was
about to make further outcry when he heard a peculiar scuffling step in
a distant corridor. It soon halted before the door and inquired in a
nasal, whining tone, something which sounded like:
"_Pai ning?_"
The white man now recalled that he was in China. Recollections came
quickly. He sank down into the chair, the thick table pressing against
him. He heard the scuffling step depart and wondered what he was in
for. There was no doubt in his mind regarding the nature of the place.
There is a similarity to such places around the world. The stationary
table and chair, however, were new.
He was dry. He was in pain. His face felt sticky, and rubbing his
fingers across it, he was at first inclined to doubt his senses. The
right side of his face witnessed to several days neglect, while the left
cheek and part of the chin were cleanly shaven.
"_Pai ning,_" he repeated. "Or was it _pai ning_?"
He could not tell. He remembered a native barber, but did not know if
this were a new day or still last night. The last he remembered clearly
was a vow of mortal friendship delivered in Shropshire dialect by a
sailor from his Majesty's cruiser _Dunedin_, and that they were about to
anoint the vow in a bar-room close to the water-front. He wondered if
all the lights had gone out at that instant or just his own. He patted
his face in several places, regarding his hands intently in the gloom
for blood, but none appeared. He was all right muscularly; the choking
which he experienced was to be expected. Now the vital questions
appeared: How long was he in for? Had he been tried?
"_Pai ning,_" he repeated. "Yes, that's what he said."
He now arose and shoved back the metal disc once more, but his call was
touched with a different respect. Listening was again rewarded with the
scuffling step and a whining voice.
"_Pai ning?_"
"Sure! _Pai ning_," said the American.
There was hesitation without, after which the question was repeated.
The prisoner explained his need for drink in Chinese and found himself
making signs of draining a fourth-dimension cup against the black door.
The scuffling retreated.
He now relapsed in awe. His first impulse had been to use strength. He
was aware of his strength because it had been tested and failed. The
awe had to do with thirst. He had felt this before and became deadly
afraid at the memory. He pressed his body into the seat again and
cleared his throat.
Just now there was a voice in the corridor, a key in the door, and a
Chinese gentleman in European attire entered smilingly, holding out his
hand. The white man took the hand and tried to recall where he had seen
that face before. It had nothing to do with China, nothing to do with
recent years, yet somewhere before he had seen that smile, and something
was glad within him.
"Well, Mr. Romney," said Dr. Ti Kung, "did you rest well?"
"Let me have a cigarette," the other said unsteadily.
A certain case was proffered again.
"Thanks. You haven't a touch of heartener--have you?"
"I have ordered refreshments," said Dr. Ti Kung, lighting a match.
"How did you hear of my trouble?"
"Trouble?"
"Well, the fact is," said Romney, "I was not altogether there when it
happened--just a sort of night-shift working.... What did I do?"
Dr. Ti Kung lit a cigarette. "This morning in passing by the
waterfront," he began pleasantly, "I came upon you in the midst of a
group of friends--sitting and talking, you know. I recognized you at
once, waited until you were not engaged. We had a short ride in my
'rickshaw up to the street of the Everlasting Spring. Here you became
restless; you were not feeling yourself. We stopped at a barber-shop,
but you were impatient to be off. In fact, you insisted upon leaving
before the--"
Romney smiled painfully, passing his hand again over his half-shaven
face. However, a certain appreciation formed in his mind for the man
who described his condition so delicately.
"And after that?"
Dr. Ti Kung hesitated.... Here the door swung back on silent hinges and
the old man whom the American had called to through the chink, scuffed
in with glasses and a bottle. He made a curious little bobbing bow to
Dr. Ti Kung, and scuffed out.
Romney added, when the door had closed: "I mean the lock-up, this
calaboose, what am I in for?"
"This is not a jail. You're merely in one of our examination cells."
The other turned white and arose.
"What am I enlisting for? Some conscript mess I got into with your
countrymen?"
"Not at all," laughed Dr. Ti Kung. "This is an educational institution;
this chamber is connected with one of our colleges. We put aspiring
young men in these chambers together with a set of questions and a large
quantity of white paper, leaving them in quiet contemplation until the
questions are answered. Here, exchange of thoughts with any other
student is impossible and one is able to put his best concentration upon
the task."
"I see," said the American, looking about at the thickness of the stone
walls.
"Our young literati," continued Dr. Ti Kung, "are rigorously brought
up." He eyed Romney with narrowed lids through the smoke. "It so
happened that this place was at hand when you required rest, so we
carried you in. By the way, you are very light for your length."
Romney did not appear to hear the observations, but leaned toward the
other, saying apologetically, "You'll have to excuse me, but I give it
up. My head is bad. Where did I meet you before?"
Dr. Ti Kung almost smiled. "The first time, I believe, was at a certain
field-meet in the Santa Clara valley."
"Lord, that's more than seven years. I have you. I was fit that day--"
"You were fit this morning," beamed Dr. Ti Kung.
Another drink came. Romney was more cheerful.
"Say, what's this _pai ning_ stuff in use here? I know the expression,
but didn't get the connection."
"_Pal ning?_" repeated Ti Kung.
"You've got it. That's the way he said it."
"Why, that means literally, 'f-i-n-ee-s-h-e-d?' It had to do with the
examination papers. The hall-boy came at your call. His duty was to
inquire if your work was done before turning the key."
"It wasn't," said Romney thoughtfully.
He was thinking of the day of that field-meet in the Santa Clara valley.
He had been a distance runner of sorts, a bit too fine physically--a
little cough in the throat that had stuck until he came to China, but a
superb bit of health compared to the red panting animal he had become in
the past nine months.... His throat was cooled; his whole nerve-system
had leaped to the stimulant which Ti Kung had ordered. Romney laughed.
He wouldn't even have been able to think as coherently as this, but for
the two recent drinks. It was a deep ironical laugh from somewhere
within, possibly from the soul of things.... Running--and a victory had
thrilled him. Cheap things to thrill over. He hadn't asked much in
those days. Now he was an inflamed pig, half-bearded, in soiled white
clothing that he could get the smell of.... He had sincerely tried to
arrive at the end of himself, but he had put on a belated kind of
toughness in the years of Asia. He wondered if he would go on trying,
or square about and regain something of his old form--form of mind as
well as form of body, his old form among men.
Romney looked up at Ti Kung and laughed again. This very thought of
rehabilitation was not from the wreck that he felt himself to have
become, but from the fresh warmth of alcohol.... No, he had done his
living. If he got well enough to think connectedly for any length of
time, a certain two weeks would rush back and make a monkey of him. No,
this was a false note--this idea of regaining form. He didn't want form
among men. Nothing would be interesting. The Immortal had spoiled all
the rest. Even China would bore him. And she was gone--on her own
blessed highway. It had seemed good to put an end to himself out of
extreme boredom of days, but he hadn't counted on being tough as
blacksnake.... He would be kicked and trampled around Asia a little
longer until something broke--something that had been so perversely
strong inside of him.
He looked to find Dr. Ti Kung smiling contentedly and without haste.
The Chinese had understood the laugh. It was remarkable how this little
yellow man understood. It had been the same, many years ago. They had
all commented upon it. They had always found Ti Kung on the dot,
without haste, without raising his voice. It was so now.... Why had he
stopped to pick up a ruffian white man on the street? Romney felt
himself leaning on the other. He hated it, but didn't lie to himself
about it.... His hand crept to his face--one clean side, one hairy one.
It was like him. He swallowed the shame of it.
"Well," he said, "what are we going to do about all this?"
"I will tell you in three days," said Dr. Ti Kung.
There was something so authoritative, so decisive and prepared, in the
statement that Romney identified it with a clean side. It had to do
with climbing out.... This man was on the dot. His eyes were full of
fire, yet hard-held, steady and kind; full of reason and order. Three
days. Ti Kung meant three days. There was no lying, no leaning in
that. He had a design. There was something to Romney in his own
weakness and vacillation, like the splendour of God in this capacity of
vision, this steadiness of eye and clarity of speech; white strength of
hand and hard-held manhood.
"And what now?" he remarked. Even in this rare moment of
self-examination, he did not know it, but he asked that last question
like a child.
He was spared the pathos.
"We'll go to my home," said Dr. Ti Kung. "It's not a 'rickshaw this
time. I have ordered a carriage. I take great pleasure in bringing you
to my home."
Romney drew his hand across his chin. The other touched his arm.
"All that will be attended to. Don't let's think of it. You will find
that all is ready for you."
*3*
The scent of soap in the fountain-place of the Ti Kung house might be
considered by some a preposterous detail, but it was real to Romney. It
had to do with Longstruth's, on a certain night when he had felt himself
to be a far more reckonable person even than on the day of the
field-meet at Palo Alto which brought him a trophy or two. It was on a
night about mid-way in the Moira Kelvin revelations when it suddenly
appeared that she was wavering a little. Hope lifted and he had felt
fit to conquer continents. But that had passed. He had somehow
diminished again.