“Well,” said Jean, “if that is your only reason for being annoyed with him, it isn’t serious and your flirtation is not compromised,” he added, smiling, for he liked to tease her.
They had now left the town. In the green country, the kaoliang fields lay side by side with plantations of maize and soya bean. Here and there coolies worked, a large straw covering protecting their heads. The brown skins of the naked children running about the lanes made them look like little bronze men. The cicadas were singing at the top of their shrill voices celebrating the splendour of the Chinese summer. Above their song one could hear the sharp noise of the click of the wooden wheels a little donkey was turning patiently to draw up the water used for irrigating the fields.
In the villages, the Chinese women gossiped from their doorstep, or else, walking painfully on their tiny bound feet, slowly worked the mill used to ground the millet, its golden dust filling the air. The sun shed a strong light on the surroundings, it brought out the thousand and one shades of green, clothing the country.
Like the warm breath of nature in labour, the scent of the earth rose from the ground.
The open air had put a colour into the girl’s cheeks, her golden curls escaped from under her hat; the joy of being alive shone in her eyes, the look of weariness and boredom had completely disappeared. Jean began to realize he liked to be with her; he had rid himself of the vision of the American, even though, only a short while ago, she had filled his every thought. There was too great a contrast between Melle de Frissonges and that diabolical woman whose blue grey eyes sometimes looked like steel. He knew her strange beauty attracted and fascinated him, but he feared her all the same. This girl whom until now he had simply found a little less commonplace than the others, appeared to have a fresh and charming nature and her naive outbursts interested him. She was like a barely unclosed, delicately perfumed, tender flower in the midst of those plants whose acrid scent went to one’s head.
His growing passion for Mrs. Brixton rose and fell as a fever. At times it was more acute, but when the attack was finished, he sought, like an invalid, a little freshness. The sight of this simple and pure girl slaked his thirst for awhile and snatched him from the burning dreams by which he was obsessed.
They reached the spot where the canal narrows, to give more force to the water that turns the mills, before falling with the noise of a waterfall into its bed lower down. A wooden bridge joins the two banks on which a few inns are huddled. Seated before cups of scalding tea or sharing flat maize cakes, the boatmen lazed under the arches, smoking their long small-bowled pipes. On the bank carved in the stone, two large dragons, like water genii, seemed to guard this picturesque spot.
“Don’t you think this view is delightful,” said Jean, “It is much prettier than the work of any of the Dutch masters. You must own that on a beautiful day like today, you are glad to be in China where the sun is so lavish of his light. I am sure you don’t regret the stream and the little mill you mentioned to me on the Wall the other day.”
“Of course not,” she said smiling, “but I am not in the same frame of mind. On the contrary, I feel I shall certainly regret this old country of China, I have so often hated. For I have not told you the great news, I am soon going back to France.”
“Oh, you are thinking of leaving us.”
“Yes, Papa has declared he wants to try and interest the banks in his affairs. He means to form a company for his mine. He says he begins to feel he is growing old, he has made enough money to live comfortably in some corner of the provinces. He will grow roses, translate Horace just like a retired cavalry officer, play bridge with his neighbours, and … busy himself with finding me a husband. And you, Mr. Maugrais aren’t you also thinking of going home for good? How long have you been here?”
“Nearly six years, Melle de Frissonges, I am already looked upon as an old resident. I am pointed out to the new arrivals as one who knew the splendours of the old regime, the carrying chair, the pigtails, the hats with peacock feathers and Sir Robert Hart’s green tie. My opinion is asked when any one wants to buy a Ming vase or a Kosseu; I am steward of the race course and a heeded member of several other committees. In short, my word carries weight,” he added laughing, “So you see I linger here.” Then becoming serious, he went on, “Certainly I get homesick sometimes for Europe, but could I return and throw myself again into the vortex of Paris? Each day I see my pals go; I often envy them but I haven’t the strength of mind to wrench myself away from the easy nonchalant life into which I feel myself gradually sinking. Yes, sometimes I feel like a man who has gone too far, drawn by a deceptive mirage and who finds himself in the quicksands. Every movement he makes sucks him down deeper; soon he loses his footing; his cries are stifled in his throat as it closes; he can no longer call for help, so conquered, he resigns himself and does not even make gestures he knows are useless.”
“What ideas,” said the girl; “I don’t recognize you like that. I thought you were skeptical and blasé, but I find you fatalist, resigned and defenceless. You must react. Besides, how do you know that no kind soul will pass by your quicksands and hold you out a helping hand?”
She had spoken without thinking. He looked at her; she coloured a little.
“Our ride will end in a walk,” she said, “Shall we trot?”
She gathered up her reins, the pony quickened his pace and Jean’s followed. The path was broad enough to ride abreast so the dust did not bother them. After a few strides the ponies broke into a gallop; the flies had been worrying them, their legs needed stretching. In a few minutes they were in sight of the tomb, a wood marked the spot. Some urchins, hoping for a tip, offered to hold the ponies and ran along behind them.
A shrivelled-up old guardian, warned by one of the children, arrived, limping, on the scene, a bunch of keys in his hand, just as the two young people were dismounting. A blind beggar wrapped in his rags lay on the ground, asleep, his wooden bowl beside him. At the sound of voices he woke and began to beg.
The ponies, their bridles removed by the mafoo, started to graze greedily on the grass covering the alley of statues that leads to the tomb.
“You have probably been here often,” said Jean to the young girl, as they went slowly by the marble giants. In their venerable immobility they seemed like servants or familiar animals waiting a sign from their dead masters whose spirits hovered near.
“Don’t you think the Chinese have a stronger sense of the respect due to those who are no longer with us? Their devotion to their dead is so great. Our narrow graveyards are just cemeteries where the dead are not even free to escape from those whom they were unable to avoid in this world. The whole of China, on the contrary, is one huge cemetery where rich and poor alike can rest in the midst of familiar landscapes. Death smiles here; a tomb is not a sad monument where only a short epitaph recalls him who sleeps his last sleep below.”
“Look at the beauty of this tomb; this marble column, resting on the sacred tortoise, emblem of eternal happiness, is inscribed with long tirades, full of poetry, extolling the merits of the illustrious person who is buried here. During his lifetime, the walls of his yamen hid his home from curious eyes. Now a double wall jealously guards the funeral altar where his soul comes at nightfall, to partake of the offerings. These great ash trees, in the middle of the shrunken stumps in the plain, spread their shade over the stupa which marks the place where the coffin rests and the light breeze rustles through their finely veined leaves and he who lies in this tomb is lulled to sleep by their soft murmur.”
“How poetical you are to-day, Mr. Maugrais,” said little Melle de Frissonges laughing. “I don’t believe you even know why this monument was erected. You probably believe the usual tale, that it was erected by a sorrowing husband to the memory of an Imperial princess, endowed with all the virtues. Well, that is not so, it is the tomb of one of the Emperor Ch’ien Lung’s servants. He had amassed great riches and his all-powerful master, in a sudden impulse, raised this sumptuous hab
itation to him. The funeral inscription you mentioned just now is a proof. I know, one of the Russian Legation Interpreters translated it for me last spring.”
“Your knowledge puts me in an embarrasing position. You are quite right, my soul is too poetic, and as you wish to arrest the flight of my imagination, I must confess the offerings I spoke of just now are probably the remains of a pic nic: look at the greasy paper lying about everywhere. As for the pious visitors who come to decorate the altar, they are doubtless some of the people from the different Legation guards, judging from the signatures on the walls.”
They roamed about joking, when suddenly the sky became overcast; dark clouds passed over the hill tops.
“We had better go home,” said Maugrais. “If we loiter too long, we shall be overtaken by the shower.” The mafoo was already holding the ponies for them; they hastened to mount. Jean proposed cutting across country to save time. They could no longer ride abreast; she took the lead. The sky, so clear in the early afternoon, had clouded over, the atmosphere had become oppressive. The threatened storm came nearer; the pair galloped on in silence.
Maugrais felt himself influenced by the sadness which covered the landscape, so bright and gay a little while ago under the hot caresses of the sun. Like a mantle of lead the shadows fell across the country side, the green fields quivered as if the earth were shaking with fear; the reeds near the bank moaned plaintively.
He turned over in his mind the conversation of a while ago; he recalled the sinking into the quicksands, gradually they had risen all round him. When finally he realized his danger and wished to escape it was already too late, the efforts he made were of no avail and only increased his anguish. He resigned himself to his fate and ended in a slow agony.
He had already tarried here a long time, gradually the memory of the friends he had left in France was getting blurred by the distance; letters were becoming scarcer; one after the other the links that bound him to the old world were breaking, his scattered family diminished almost daily. When he left France, his mother had just died; last year his father followed her into the tomb. He saw himself growing older here in the midst of always fresh faces; other people only passed through, he alone seemed to tarry. A day would arrive when he, too, would return to France, but sick at heart; it would be too late, he would find no friendly faces; over there, as here, he would be alone in the midst of unknown people, seeking shelter in a embittered selfishness which would only increase the void round him.
As for this American, he wanted her passionately with his whole being; an unconquerable force drew him to her; he was fascinated. Fate meant him to become her prey, but nevertheless, the helping hand so sorely needed to prevent his sinking deeper was, it seemed, close by. He had, he was almost certain, only to make a movement to grasp it and the horrible nightmare that pursued him and against which he was struggling would vanish.
The young couple had now reached a turning; the ponies rather blown, had slowed down. Jean’s suddenly shied, a crow rose slowly into the air, croaking. A dark heap lay in a field bordering the road. It was a coffin, recently deposited there until the grave should be dug. On the road, some figures were moving away; the family of the dead were going home. The procession could scarcely have been imposing, only five or six relatives, in their long white mourning robes, accompanied the dead to his last resting place. They stood aside to allow the ponies to pass. A few paces further on, the bearers were scattered along the road, their long red poles on their shoulders. The coolies followed with the beggars hired for the occasion, bringing back the various things which figure as a matter of course in the funeral procession of all Chinese, even those of the lowest classes. Draped in green smocks with conventional design, their heads covered with a piece of filthy felt, decorated with cock feathers dyed red and slightly moth eaten, they walked along. One man carried a wicker basket containing the white chicken which, a few minutes ago, had been placed at the head of the coffin. By its presence, it had forced the soul of the dead to accompany, as far as the burying place, the body it was tempted to abandon.
They also met the red-clad musicians, carrying on their backs the now useless cymbals with which they had beaten time for the march of the procession. A child had taken, from the hands of a bearer, the funeral horn with wide flag, whose sad melope sounded alternatively with the clang of the gongs, beaten to keep the evil spirits away. As Jean and his companion passed the child blew a harsh blast, prolonged like a sob into a plaintive moan.
Jean, buried in his sad thoughts, suddenly shivered. Large drops of rain were falling, making dark spots in the dust on the ground.
“We must hurry,” he said urging on his pony, and they galloped in silence to the city gates.
CHAPTER VI
THERE was bridge that day from 5 o’clock, at Mme. de Maricourt’s. She had met Jean on the Wall in the morning, and, though he was neither an enthusiastic nor a brilliant bridge player, he had promised her to come. If he did not play, he could always talk. Chatours and the Argentine Minister would be there; the two Beaurelois, the little de Frissonges girl, Mrs. Brixton, in short every one whom the heat had not yet driven from Peking to Pei Ta Ho or Shan Hai Kwan.
He had allowed himself to be persuaded and now his rickshaw was taking him towards the Hutung in the Chinese City where the young people had taken a house. They lived in an old yamen which used to belong to Prince Su and which they had arranged with a great deal of taste.
Before the brilliant-hued door, a few carriages waited. Among them Jean at once recognized Mrs. Brixton’s. Her men servants wore scarlet coats.
The Kai men ti, venerable as he should be in a well-kept house, hastened to greet the young man and to shew him the way in.
They had first to cross a courtyard, passing through one of those round openings pierced through a brick wall, so characteristic of Chinese architecture. The gnarled trunk of a century-old wisteria grew against the wall; although so late in the season the tree was still covered with bunches of mauve flowers. The second courtyard was protected from the sun by a pang, a kind of scaffolding on which are placed coarsely woven straw mats. It was almost shady underneath, the temperature perceptibly less than outside. To the left and right, in large polished earthen-ware jars the traditional gold fish, goggled eyed, lolled on the water.
The drawing room doors stood wide open.
“How nice of you to keep your promise, Mr. Maugrais,” said Mme. de Maricourt affectedly as Jean entered. She was alone, seated at a small table set for tea. She was scolding the servant for forgetting some plates of cakes.
“You see, I am abandoned, the men and Mrs. Brixton have already started their game over there on the verandah. My husband will give up his place to you bye and bye, but first sit down for a minute and flirt with me.”
“I shall love too. Besides, I play badly and I prefer disparaging my friends gracefully with you, rather than making a grand slam in a no trump hand.”
“All right, then I shall have no scruples about keeping you with me. But you know gossiping is not my strong point and I never talk scandal.”
“How surprising. I did not know that any woman in this little village of Peking could live without following the usual custom. I am sure you are like all the rest and sometimes succumb to temptation.”
“Well, perhaps; I don’t want to make myself out better than I am. I’ll tell you what people are saying about you.”
“What have they confided to you? That I am peculiar blasé and something of a man hater and that I am partial to paradoxes?”
“Not at all, you are right off the scent. I was told you have lately been very attentive to the little de Frissonges girl. It appears you go for long sentimental rides with her.”
“People are idiots,” retorted Maugrais sharply. “Of course I find her very nice and I like her quite well, but what else will they invent?”
“There, there, calm yourself, otherwise I shall think there is some truth in the talk,” she added laughing. “But after
all, it would not be such a bad thing. As for me, I adore the child and I am sure she would make you a charming wife in spite of the rather independent airs she gives herself.”
“Oh I see what is matter. You have been attacked by the matrimonial fever. Take care,” he said jokingly, “it is very dangerous in this climate. Unfortunately, you are out of luck with me, because confidence for confidence, whenever a woman appeals to me, I discover she is already provided with a husband.”
She burst out laughing. “Do you say that for me?”
“Perhaps, who knows?”
Footsteps sounded outside. Chatours, the Beaurelois couple and Melle de Frissonges arrived all together.
‘What a pity,” said Maugrais dryly, “I was just going to make you a declaration.”
Mme. de Maricourt hastened to offer tea and iced drinks. The usual banalities exchanged, they talked of the Brazilian Minister’s sale. It had taken place the day before yesterday. Chatours announced he had been there; he had been told there would be some porcelain and some brocades.
“Did you buy anything?” asked Mme. de Beaurelois.
“No, the so-called rare pieces were all more or less chipped vases. On the other hand, there were a quantity of old top hats which sold like hot cakes. They are very popular since the advent of the Republic.”
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