Civilization Part 8

Coming to see that she meant more to him than all the world beside.

Eating his heart out, craving her. Longing to return, to reseat himself under his bell. Only now he was no longer gilded. He must gild himself anew, bright, just as she had found him. Then he could go back.

"But it could not be done. He could not work. Somewhere in the world, he told me, was a spot where he could work. Where there were no memories. Somewhere in the Seven Seas lay the place. He should know it when he saw it. After so many years' exclusion, he was certain he should feel the atmosphere of the place where he could work. And there he would stay till he finished, till he produced the big thing that was in him. Thus, regilded, he would return to her again. One more effort, once more to feel his power, once more to hear the stimulating rush of praise,--then he would give it up again, quite content to sit beneath his wine-gla.s.s till the end. But this first.

"So I put him down where I have told you, on a lonely island. Somewhat north of the Equator, ten thousand miles away from Her. Wistfully, he said it was quite the right spot. He could feel it. So we helped him, the China-boys and I, to build a little hut, up on stilts, thatched with palm leaves. Very desolate it is. On all sides the burnished ocean, hot and breathless. And the warm, moist heat, close around, still and stifling. Like a blanket, dense, enveloping. But he said it was the spot. I don't know. He has been there now three years. He said he could do it there--if ever. From time to time I stop there, if the pa.s.sengers are willing for a day or two's delay. He looks very old now, and very thin, but he always says it's all right. Soon, very soon now, the ma.n.u.script will be ready. Next time I stop, perhaps. Once I came upon him sobbing. Landing early in the morning, slipped ash.o.r.e and found him sobbing. Head in arms and shoulders shaking. It was early in the morning and I think he'd sobbed all night. Somehow, I think it was not for the gift he'd lost--but for Her.

"But he says over and over again that it is the right spot--the very right place in the world for such as he. Told me that I must not mind, seeing him so lonely, so apparently depressed. That it was nothing.

Just the Tropics, and being so far away, and perhaps thinking a little too much of things that did not concern his work. But the work would surely come on. Moods came on him from time to time, which he recognised were quite the right moods in which to work, in which to produce great things. His genius was surely ripe now--he must just concentrate. Some day, very shortly, there would be a great rush, he should feel himself charged again with the old, fine fire. He would produce the great work of his life. He felt it coming on--it would be finished next time I called.

"This is the next time. Shall we go?" asked the Captain.

Accordingly, within a day or two, the small coastwise steamer dropped her anchor in a shallow bay, off a desert island marked with a cross on the Captain's chart, and unmarked upon all other charts of the same waters. All around lay the tranquil s.p.a.ces of a desolate ocean, and on the island the thatched roof of a solitary hut showed among the palms.

The Captain went ash.o.r.e by himself, and presently, after a little lapse of time, he returned.

"It is finished," he announced briefly, "the great work is finished. I think it must have been completed several weeks ago. He must have died several weeks ago. Possibly soon after my last call."

He held out a sheet of paper on which was written one word, "Beloved."

CHOLERA

IX

CHOLERA

There is cholera in the land, and there is fear of cholera in the land. Both are bad, though they are different. Those who get cholera have no fear of it. They are simple people and uneducated, fishermen and farmers, and little tradesmen, and workers of many kinds. Those who have fear of cholera have more intelligence, and know what it means. They have education, and their lives are bigger lives--more imposing, as it were, and they would safeguard them. Those who are afraid are the foreigners and the officials, yes, even the Emperor himself. Is he afraid, the Emperor? One can but guess. He has spent many weeks of this hot summer, when cholera was ravaging his country, in his summer palace at Nikko. There he was safe. And cholera spread itself throughout the land, in the seaports, in the capital, across the rice-fields to the inland villages, taking its toll here and there, of little petty lives. But dangerous to the Emperor, these lives, afflicted or cut short, whichever happens. So he is staying safe at Nikko, in seclusion, waiting for the cool of Autumn to come and purge his land.

Once he was to come back to Tokyo, to his capital. For September waned and he was due there, the Son of Heaven, due in his capital. Many of his subjects came to the station at Nikko on the day appointed for his departure, stepping with short steps in their high clogs, tinkling on the roadside in their clogs, scratching in their sandals. They came in crowds to the station, at the hour when he was due to enter the royal train. But when the time came for his departure, he did not go. He would tarry awhile longer at Nikko. So the crowds were disappointed and did not understand. Rumour had it that cholera had developed in the royal household itself--the Purveyor to the Palace, so it was stated, had contracted the disease. A fish dealer, bringing fish to the palace, had brought cholera with him. So the Emperor tarries at Nikko, and the highroad, behind the Imperial Palace in Tokyo is closed to the public, lest any poor coolie, strolling by, should become ill and bring this dread thing near to the precincts of the Son of Heaven.

The foreigners are very careful as to what they eat. They avoid the fruits, the ripe, rich Autumn figs, and the purple grapes, and the hard, round, woody pears, and the sweet b.u.t.ter and many other things.

Oh, these days the rich foreigners are very careful of themselves, and meal times are not as pleasant as they used to be. They discuss their food, and wonder about it. And because there is cholera, rife in the ports, and among the fishermen and sailors, the authorities have closed the fish market of Tokyo. The great Nihom-Bashi market, down by the bridge, the vile, evil smelling fish market, lying along the sluggish ca.n.a.l, is closed. The ca.n.a.l is full of straw thatched boats.

It all smells very nasty in that quarter, it smells like cholera. No wonder there is cholera, with that smell. No wonder the great market is closed. So the baskets of bamboo are empty, turned upside down, for there is no fish in them. The people, bare-legged, nearly naked, stand idly about the empty fish market, and talk together of this fear which is abroad, which has ruined their trade. What is this fear? They cannot understand. They do not know it. Only the Emperor cannot eat fish now, for some reason, and their business is ruined because of his caprice.

It is very hot. All summer has this great heat continued, and it makes one nervous. Day after day it lasts, unbroken, always the same, unavoidable. There is no escape from the stifling dampness of it--one cannot breathe. Over all the land it is like this, this heavy, sultry heat. It is no cooler when it rains, no dryer when the hot sun shines.

It is enveloping, engulfing. In the big hotel, the leather shoes of the foreigners become mouldy overnight, and the sweat runs in streams from the brown bodies of the rickshaw boys. The rickshaw boys of the big hotel wear clothes, long legged, tight cotton trousers, and flapping white coats. This is to save the feelings of the foreigners and the missionaries, who believe that clothing should always be worn, even in hot weather. So as the rickshaw boy runs along, one can see his white coat grow damp between the shoulder blades, then wet all across the back, till it is all wet and sticks to him tight. Yet it is more modest to wear clothes, when doing the work of a horse. One does not object to a man doing the work of a horse, provided he dress like a man. But the coolies toiling at the log carts, and the little tradesmen in their shops, wear few clothes, because they are independent of the foreigners. Therefore they seem to suffer less with the heat, or to suffer less obviously. Ah, but the heat is intense, overwhelming! Day after day, one cannot breathe. And in it, cholera goes on.

They say a typhoon is coming. Word has come from Formosa that a typhoon is rushing up from the southern seas, from Hong Kong, the Equator, wherever it is they come from. It will reach us to-night.

That will be better. The heat will go then, blown from the land by the gigantic blast of the typhoon, zig-zagging up the coast from Formosa.

Well, it is late September--this unnatural heat,--why will it not leave? Why must it linger till torn like a blanket from the sweating earth, by this hurricane from the Southern seas?

Only it did not come--the typhoon. They said it would, but it failed.

Has it gone shooting off into the Pacific, futile? So the damp, stifling heat lingers, and the toll of cholera rolls slowly upward day by day.

It is a long way from Nikko to Tokyo by motor. A hundred miles, when one can cross the bridge, but the bridge is washed away now, so a detour of many more miles is necessary, to ferry the motor across the Tonegawa on a flat bottomed, frail boat. The motor sinks nearly to the hubs in the blazing, glaring sands of the dry river bed, and many naked coolies are needed to push and pull it through the hot sands, and work it into the boat. In the glaring sun of noon, the broad river lies motionless, like a sheet of glowing steel. Children bathe in the river, and the sweating coolies dip their brown bodies in it, and the sun beats down pitiless. A junk gets loose from its moorings, and drifts down stream, stern first, on the slow current. Who cares? No one. It will beach itself presently, on a mud flat, and can be recovered towards evening. The great heat lies over all the land, and cholera is in the slowly flowing water, and the fishermen and the coolies and the children live and work and play by the river bank, and they have no fear of it, because they are ignorant.

From Nikko to the capital, the road runs through village after village, endlessly, mile after mile. On each side of the village street are straw thatched houses, and along the roads coolies bend under great loads, carried on poles across their shoulders. Black bulls drag giant loads on two wheeled carts, their masters straining beside them. The bulls' mouths are open, their tongues hang out, and saliva drools out in streams. It leaves a wet, irregular wake, in the dust of the roadside, behind the carts. By and by, the men will stop for food and drink. They cannot choose what it shall be. They cannot afford to choose. But the food of the Emperor is carefully selected.

Physicians examine those who handle it, who bring it to the Palace, to see that they are in good health. They examine the food, disinfect it, see to its cooking. News of this is in the papers each day, not to show that the Emperor is afraid, but to set an example to his subjects.

In the houses along the roadside, little tradesmen are at work, all naked in the heat. Or else they are bathing. For all along the high road from Nikko to the capital, following its every bend and turning, runs a ditch or channel filled with water. Sometimes the water is clean and rushing, sometimes foul and stagnant and evil smelling. And all the way along the high road people are bathing in this ditch or channel, in the foul or running water, as it happens. They stand naked, knee deep, men and children, while the women wash and bathe also, but more modestly. Also, besides their bodies, they wash much else in this long ditch,--clothes, pots, what-not. Very dirty seems this channel, sewer, bath tub, as you please. And cholera is abroad in the land.

At the entrance to the temples sits the image of Binzuru. Long ago, when history was new and the G.o.ds were young, Binzuru, one of the sixteen great disciples, broke his vow of chast.i.ty by remarking on the beauty of a woman. So he was put outside the temples. His image no longer rests upon the altars, with those of the calm, serene ones.

He's disgraced, expelled, no longer fit to sit upon the altars, with the cold, serene ones, in their colossal calm. He's so human now, outside the temples. Sitting on a chair for human beings to touch him, now he's off the altar, he's in contact with humanity. The devout ones rub his wooden image--there is no bronze or gold in poor Binzuru's makeup. So the people rub his wooden image, rub his ears, his head, his forehead, rub his arms, his legs, his shoulders. How they suffer, human beings! How their bodies ache and suffer, judged by poor Binzuru's body! For if you rub Binzuru on the part which hurts you in your body, and then rub your body with a hand fresh from Binzuru, you will be cured. Your pain will go. That's true. Binzuru is polished smooth and shining, quite deformed with rubbing--his poor head's a nubbin! And in grat.i.tude for what he's done for people, he sits now on a pile of cushions, one for each new cure. Bibs and caps adorn him too, votive offerings from the faithful whom he's cured.

But he is no good for cholera, poor Binzuru. You can't reach him quick enough to rub his stomach, then your own. Cholera's too quick for that. You can't reach him soon enough. He can't help in this.

Down the road a stretcher comes, swinging from a bamboo pole, carried on the shoulders of two men. Over it a mat is thrown, and through the little open triangle at one end, you see a pair of brown legs lying.

Only legs, no more. Drawn up stiffly, toes clinched.

Here in the hospital they lie in rows, very quiet. Not an outcry, not a murmur. Everything is swimming in carbolic. The nurses wear masks across their mouths and noses. They come and go in clogs, barefooted, and splash through the carbolic on the floors. This is cholera. These people, lying so quietly upon their hard pillows, have cholera. It is not spectacular. All are poor folk, fishermen, sailors, farmers, shopkeepers, all the ignorant, the stupid, who were not afraid. One is dying. Nose pinched, gasping, bathed in sweat. The hot air can't warm him. He is dying, cold.

So there is cholera in the land, and fear of cholera. Those who were not afraid have cholera. With them it is a matter of a few days only, one way or the other. But those who have fear of cholera have something which lasts much longer, weeks and weeks. Till the heat breaks. Till the typhoon comes.

COSMIC JUSTICE

X

COSMIC JUSTICE

Young Withers bought out his uncle's firm of Withers, Ltd., importers.

He had been a.s.sociated with his uncle for some years, as a minor partner, and how he could manage to take over the prosperous Withers, Ltd. without capital, is one of the mysteries of finance that do not concern us. Suffice it that he did, everything included, the big G.o.downs on the quais, shipping rights, the goodwill, stock and fixtures, and the old compradore, Li Yuan Chang. Most particular was old Mr. Withers that Li Yuan Chang should be included. "You will never find a better compradore," he had explained over and over, "in fact, the business will go to pieces without him." Presumably old Mr.

Withers knew what he was talking about, for Li had been his interpreter, his accountant, his man of affairs for years. So of course young Withers made no objection, and considered that he was very fortunate in having Li stay with him, after the turnover. For old Li was rich enough to retire by this time, no doubt, as compradores always find means to put away something year by year over and above their salaries. But he was scrupulously honest--old Mr. Withers had full and complete trust in him, and explained to his nephew that he could leave Tientsin from time to time, for as long a time as he liked, in fact, and could be sure meanwhile that old Li would look out for his interests.

"Just be careful of him," he explained. "He's really invaluable. But be a little careful of him--considerate, I mean--he's not very strong----"

"Chandoo?" asked young Withers suspiciously, by which he meant, was Li addicted to smoking that cheapest form of opium, the refuse and sc.r.a.pings, which was the only grade that all but the richest could afford.

"Oh never," replied old Mr. Withers, "never. In all the years I've had him. Never touches a pipe. Temperate and austere in all things, to a degree. But he is getting old now and needs humouring--likes to feel his importance, does not care to be overlooked in the way young men may be inclined to overlook him,--his work, I mean. Besides, he's not very strong, rather delicate in fact, so you must be easy with him.

But you'll never get a better compradore, and he's good for many years yet--or until you learn the ropes."

After which old Mr. Withers concerned himself very earnestly in the preparations for his departure, for he was leaving China for a better land,--England, I mean.

Young Withers set about learning the business under the direction of old Li. Which greatly complimented old Li, who liked being deferred to by a European. And young Withers being very easy-going, and having fallen into a business which required no up-building, being already in its stride, most successful, he left a good many of the details to his compradore, and bragged about him a good deal, saying that indeed he had inherited from his uncle a most wonderful and competent man of affairs. Therefore he was greatly astonished one day, about two years after his accession, when Li asked for a vacation--a long one.

"Want go America," explained the Chinese succinctly. Young Withers was dumbfounded.

"But you can't go America!" he explained, "no can go. What become of business here in Tientsin if you go America? No can do."