Gods Men (19 page)

Dr. Lane went into the bookshop and bowed to Mr. Fong, who stood behind the counter reading an old book he had bought from the library of a man recently dead. Since the man had no sons and none of the females of the house could read, there was no more use for a library.

“What can I do for you, Elder Brother?” Mr. Fong inquired. He was polite to all foreigners because, being a good man, he was sorry for everything that had happened. While he could not say that he was glad that his country was defeated, for he put no more trust in foreign governments than in his own, yet he grieved that foreigners and Chinese had been killed.

Especially was he ashamed of the folly of the Old Woman who had put her faith in the society of ignorant men called Boxers. She deserved the catastrophe that had befallen her when she had been compelled to flee the city in such haste, seventeen months ago. So impetuous had been the Court's flight, as Mr. Fong heard, that more people had been killed by the Imperial Guard in getting the Old Buddha out of the city than the foreign soldiers had killed when they came in. It was over at last, to the disgrace of all concerned, and pity to those dead, both Chinese and foreign, and especially the little children, and Mr. Fong was polite at the sight of a foreign face now that it was safe to be friendly.

Dr. Lane replied with equal politeness. “I wish to rent a few feet of your excellent balcony tomorrow in order that I may see the return of the Empress Dowager.”

Mr. Fong was surprised. “Elder Brother, are you and the elder brothers of your country pleased to see her return?”

“At least I am,” Dr. Lane said. “I believe that the people need their government and I have every hope that the Empress will have learned her lesson and that she will allow the young Emperor to put in reforms.”

“Western elder brothers have more faith in women than we have,” Mr. Fong replied. “Whether Elder Brother is right I do not know and it is always likely that I am wrong. I could not take money for the balcony. Pray use it as though it were your own.”

After some minutes of such talk, Mr. Fong finally accepted two taels of silver, which was not too much since the foreigners were eagerly buying whatever space they could find. Chinese would not of course be allowed to see the royal return. All doors were to be barred, all windows closed, and blue cotton curtains were even now being hung across side streets and alleyways, so that no common eye could look upon the Old Buddha. Foreigners could not be thus controlled since they were the victors in the brief war.

“You know, Elder Brother,” Mr. Fong remarked when the transaction was over, “I feel more than usually unhappy to take silver from you because I had once in this house a clever small brother of your people.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes,” Mr. Fong said, stroking his sparse beard. “He came to teach my son a foreign language. He did not take money for pay. Instead he asked for my foreign books, of which I have a few. Servants steal such books from their foreign masters to sell for a few coins, and that is how I got them.”

“Who was this foreign boy?” Dr. Lane asked.

“You remember the god-man who was killed, he and his wife and children? The one who was always begging for bread?”

“I do, indeed,” Dr. Lane said. He remembered very well that the Miller family had been found lying in their own blood, but the boy was not there, nor had he ever been heard of, although the American officials had made efforts to trace him.

“The boy was here,” Mr. Fong said solemnly. He tapped his polished wooden counter with his long fingernail. “Here he was in my house. He came early to teach my son. Thus he escaped death. Surely there was meaning in it. I have considered it a good omen for my house.”

“What became of him?” Dr. Lane asked with intense interest.

“He came back,” Mr. Fong said. “And he told me what he had found in his own house. He stayed with us until he was able to escape. Then I told him to go east to the sea and to find a foreign ship and to return to his own land and his father's father's house.”

“That was very good of you,” Dr. Lane said. “I shall report this to the American officials.”

“Please do not do so,” Mr. Fong said hastily. “It is better not to tell anyone so long as the Old Woman is alive. She will come back smiling, as you will see tomorrow, but who will know what is in her heart?”

Who indeed could know? Dr. Lane himself would never wholly recover from the long siege within the Legation Quarters. He had caught dysentery in the heat of that summer, and was nearly dead when at last the soldiers from the West came surging into the city. When his wife came back to him from America, after William was safely in college, she had tried to make him give up China.

“Surely, Henry, you have done enough.”

“I have done nothing yet,” he replied. It was the beginning of the long struggle between them over whether China was worth his life.

“See how many foreigners have been killed!” she had cried passionately.

“Hundreds of us have been saved, and by six men,” he had retorted.

It was true. Junglu, the favorite of the Empress Dowager, had done all he could to save the foreigners from her fury. Yuan-cheng and Hsu Ching-cheng had deliberately changed the word “slay,” in the royal edict, to “protect.” Li-shao, Liu-yuan, and Hsu Tung-i the Empress had put to death for opposing the war against the foreigners. And there were the noble host, those whom he never forgot, the thousands of Chinese Christians, more than two score of them of his own church here in Peking, who had refused to give up their faith and who died, martyrs for a god who to them was a foreign one.

No, Dr. Lane told himself steadfastly, it was beyond his wife's power, strong woman though she was, to move him from his own faith, not only in God but in the Chinese people.

“I will be here tomorrow,” he promised Mr. Fong.

Thus on the next day Dr. Lane stood upon the balcony, wrapped in a thick quilted Chinese robe inside of which he still shivered. Mrs. Lane had refused to stand there with him, when looking out from the window of their bedroom this morning, she had seen the city shrouded in yellow dust from the deserts of the northwest. A bitter wind was blowing, even then. Dr. Lane had been slightly exasperated to perceive it, for it added to the honor of the Imperial return. It was an ancient tradition in the city that whenever an emperor left his palace a strong wind would go with him, and would bring him back again. Heaven itself seemed to be on the side of the Old Buddha.

While he waited on the balcony in the fury of the cold wind Dr. Lane thought of what Mr. Fong had told him. The Miller boy had doubtless done exactly what his Chinese friend had bade him. He might now be safely in America. He must write and tell William of the possibility. He had reported the story to the American officials yesterday, concealing Mr. Fong's name.

He glanced with concern at the great gate. There was still no sign of the royal entourage. Helen had been wise, perhaps, to content herself with seeing the Empress at the mighty reception which she was to give to her conquerors when she reached the Imperial Palace. Yet he did not want to attend it. He was not dazzled by her arrogant and heathen splendor. He hoped to see her as she came in the North Gate and to discern for himself whether she had repented. He had prayed solemnly that her heart might be softened for the good of the people. He did not honestly know whether such prayers were answered.

Everything was in readiness for the moment at the gate. Across the city the wide street had been cleared of all venders and stalls and booths. The street had been swept clean and spread with bright yellow sand, yellow, the imperial color. No common man was on the street. The imperial guard stood waiting, and princes and dukes were ready each with his own banner corps. Here and there down the street foreigners stood at windows, a few opened by permission that the visitors might witness the return.

Mr. Fong's head appeared above the edge of the ladder. He held out a small brass handstove. “Take this, Elder Brother,” he whispered. “I have put fresh coals in it.”

Dr. Lane took the handstove gratefully and before he could speak his thanks Mr. Fong was gone. Now he perceived certain signs. A line of Chinese heads would appear here and there over a rooftop, instantly to disappear again. Word was running through the city that the Old Buddha was near. She had descended from the train. For the first time in her life the Old Buddha had ridden on a train, and with her, her court. She had not enjoyed it. The dust had been suffocating, the noise insupportable. When the whistle blew she had been terrified and indignant, and when she learned that this was the duty of the engineer she sent word by a eunuch that he was not to blow it without telling her before he did it. The railway from Paoting to Peking had been destroyed during the war and rebuilt again under the foreign victors and the foreign soldiers had brought it into the very heart of the city, tearing great holes in the walls.

The Old Buddha would not pass through these desecrated walls. She had ordered the court to alight outside and to enter their royal palanquins, that they might return to the city in proper state through the great gate.

Dr. Lane, holding the little handstove, heard a rising shout. A small army of eunuchs on horseback galloped from the gate. They wore black caps with red feathers and on the breasts of their robes were huge medallions of red and yellow embroidery. Behind them came the imperial herald, crying in a high voice that the Imperial Court was returned. All those officials waiting on the street fell to their knees and bowed their faces into the dust. Dr. Lane leaned on the frail banisters of the balcony and stared down into the street, and the destiny of this moment was impressed upon him. He watched everything, intent to remember it all, to tell William. He saw the Imperial Guard, followed by military officers. Great flags of yellow satin swirled in the wind, and upon each was embroidered a blue dragon swallowing a red sun. On either side of the flags were the imperial banners embroidered with the imperial arms.

Behind these rode the young Emperor, a sad young man, sitting within his yellow palanquin, which was lined with blue silk. The curtain was up and there he sat, his face unmoved, gazing straight ahead. He sat upon his crossed feet in the position of a Buddha.

“The sacrifice of youth,” Dr. Lane murmured to nobody. Death was already clear upon that tragic face.

But death had nothing to do with the Empress herself. He was indignant to see the redoubtable figure, seated in her great palanquin in the midst of her guards, followed by the young Empress and the court ladies. Upon that gay and wicked old visage there was nothing but the liveliest pleasure. Seeing the foreigners, who were her conquerors, she had put aside the curtains of the palanquin and waved her handkerchief at them. He was the more indignant to see some of the foreign ladies, among whom he recognized Americans, too, wave back to the old sinner, laughing as they did so. Thus quickly was all forgot.

He came down from the balcony and returned the handstove to Mr. Fong with thanks.

“How did the Old Woman look?” Mr. Fong inquired.

“She has not repented,” Dr. Lane said grimly.

“Did I not tell you?” Mr. Fong replied and he laughed, though his face was full of rue.

William Lane remembered suddenly in the midst of his preparation for a test in advanced English that he had not read his father's letter. He had got it in the morning with other letters, one of them from Candace, and hers he had read first. He wanted very much to be in love with Candace, and most of the time now he thought he was. The obstacle to his complete conviction was simple enough—herself. She expected from him a quality of attendance, a constant gallantry, which he found little short of degrading. For a woman to be beautiful was entirely necessary in his eyes. He despised his sister Henrietta for her plain face. Candace was beautiful enough to satisfy him, could he subdue her other less-attractive qualities.

At the moment, however, his relation with Candace was puzzling and exciting. He felt at a disadvantage, there was so much he did not know because he had not always lived in his own country. The secret hostility he had always felt toward his father for compelling him to be born the son of a missionary in China was now rising into a profound and helpless anger. In spite of this he loved his father in a strange half-hating fashion, and some of his darkest moods were those in which he brooded upon what his father might have been had he not heard the unfortunate call of God. Handsome in face, winning in manner, a leader of men, there was no reason, William thought when his fancy was rampant, why his father might not have gone into politics and even become the President of the United States. There was nothing wonderful about Theodore Roosevelt. William spent a good deal of time studying that bumptious angular face. Anybody could be President!

He pulled his father's letter from his pocket and saving the Chinese stamp for Jeremy, he tore the envelope and took out the sheets of thin paper, lined closely with the delicate and familiar handwriting. He was quite aware that his father always took pains to communicate with him on equal terms, and especially to tell him constantly what was happening in the land that had been left behind. William was too shrewd not to understand these pains. His father dreamed that the dear only son would come back to China, to be a better missionary than anyone had ever been before, to persuade the changing nation toward God. Some day or other, William knew, he would have to destroy this dream, but he had not yet the courage for it. He did not put it in terms of courage. He told himself that he was only waiting for the moment when it would hurt his father least. Now quickly and carelessly he read what his father had written slowly and with care.

I told you of the pending return of the Court. Now it has come. It was a strange and barbaric sight, a motley crowd of rascals ruled over by a feminine tyrant, and yet somehow there was magnificence in it, too, a sort of wild and natural glory, the atmosphere which the Chinese can manage so well in whatever they do. The Old Empress is too great a person, in spite of her monstrous evil, to remain ungenerous. She has acknowledged her defeat, if not her fault, and now she sees that she must begin reforms for the people. Even before the return she issued an edict demanding that the officials of the empire immediately learn all about political science and international law. She has given them six months in which to complete this task, upon pain of death. Six months. There speaks the old ignorance and the new!

Perhaps more exciting, because more practicable, is the fact she has appointed a commission to draft a public school system, the first that China has ever had. Some day the old examinations will be entirely abolished and China will be modern. It may happen before you finish college, dear boy, so that when you come back it will be to another country altogether, one which you can help to build.

But I do not wish to speak only of China. Tell me about yourself at college. What you say of Jeremy seems pleasant and good. What fortune to find such a friend! I had feared loneliness for you. The young can be so cruel to those who have not their exact experience. Give him my warm regards.

Your mother is writing you tomorrow, she says, about the reception which the Old Empress held for all the foreigners. It was a great affair. All the diplomats and their wives went and so far as I can learn from your mother, the Empress behaved exactly as though she had won the war and was graciously meeting her captives and freeing prisoners. So successful was she that a number of ladies capitulated to her frightful charm. I myself refused to go. I could not stomach having to be polite to that female personification of the Evil One. Your mother was not so scrupulous and apparently enjoyed herself.