Complete Works of Frank Norris

by Frank Norris

  The day before the men of the Hop Sing Tong had not been so cowed by the ward police and the special detail but what they had broken loose again late at night, and finding a Lee Tong man in a tan kahn room underneath Clay Street, had mishandled and bitten him so badly that he had died before the dawn, out of his head and gibbering. This had let them feel their power, and they did not want to relinquish it. They did want the man who grovelled on Barry Vance’s tennis courts and whose arms and legs were now and then jerking and twitching with the fear that sat upon him. The idea of sacking the house and mobbing its inmates seemed good to them, too.

  “Aih Aih Hoang-chow!” With a wailing staccato yell and a rush of a hundred of padded soles they lurched heavily forward toward the steps that led up from the street to the lawn and — recoiled before the figure of a slightly built young man in tennis flannels who stood upon the topmost step with a cigarette in his mouth and a heavy dog whip in his hand. Shotover faced them, calm and watchful, drawing the lash of the whip slowly through his fingers, and the Hop Sing Tong, recognizing, with a crowd’s intuition, a born leader and master of men, felt themselves slipping back into the cowed washmen and opium-drugged half-castes of the previous week, and backed off out of reach.

  It is so rarely one sees the coolie otherwise than as the meek and cringing menial of the laundry or the kitchen that when he turns and shows his teeth he looks particularly mean and ill-favoured. It is like getting a rat into a corner.

  But the present situation was something the reverse of this: instead of one, there were one hundred rats. It was the man who was in the corner, and a momentary suggestion of the old Rhine bishop in his mouse tower flashed across Shotover’s mind. As he ran his eyes over them he knew that he was facing as ugly a lot of ruffians as could be found up or down the coast from Portland to San Diego. Thugs, who had more ways of killing a man than you would think possible; hatchet men, brought over from the purlieus of Canton and Peking to do the work of the tongs; highbinders from the horrible chan-doo kahns underneath Clay and Jackson streets, with Smith & Wesson’s strapped to their forearms; kai-gingh and tan men from Gambler’s Alley, with poison darts in their mouths; tchins who could put a knife into their man’s lungs and disappear before he dropped.

  Perhaps Shotover got the courage to face them as he did out of his love for Barry, or perhaps he underestimated the danger or was too unimaginative to appreciate it, or perhaps he felt the old privateer blood of the Shotovers of 1812 stir in him and believed that it all was only what was expected of him as their descendant. Ancestors are sometimes an inconvenience in this way. A man has to live up to them, as it were, for if he can afford to have them at all he must look to have the world expect more from him than from the rank and file.

  A hatchet man, wearing a coral-tipped mow, stood out from the crowd and, hooking his fingers at Shotover, cried:

  “Let us pass.”

  Without raising his voice above conversation pitch, Shotover answered:

  “I will not.”

  Both spoke their own language, but each perfectly understood the other, because at such times men see and hear things, not with their eyes and ears, but with a kind of sixth sense that overpasses the outward and visible signs and that is born from and dies with the occasion.

  And the Hop Sing Tong, curs to the marrow, chattered and cowered before him, and he, without any melodramatic posing or gesturing, even without any show of interest in their doings except a very intense watchfulness, held them at their distance with his dog whip, which he slowly drew between his fingers. And he was quite alone.

  No, not quite. He did not watch the coolies so close but what he was presently aware of a big blue-gray bulk at his side and knew that Bevis was standing there, his tail slowly waving and the hair on the nape of his neck raising and bristling.

  There they stood and kept the crowd in check, thoroughbreds both.

  Had he quailed the least in the world they would have probably been on him, knives and nails, in an instant, and have killed him where he stood, and this tale never would have been written. But somehow this pale young man in the tennis flannels made them feel as if the dog whip were a machine gun and his hand were upon the lanyard, and they were afraid and began to expostulate.

  When he understood that they were trying to reason with him, Shotover drew a long breath, for he knew that the worst was over. In five minutes more two patrol wagons had come up on the gallop and twenty policemen were beating the Hop Sing Tong over its hundred hydra heads with slung shots and revolver butts.

  Then the childish vanity and the foolish desire to show off came out upon Shotover like prickly heat, and as he reached for his match case and relighted his cigarette, he said listlessly, “Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?” Then he turned back to the veranda and asked Barry to finish their game.

  I am sorry to say that after the affair was over Brunt came downstairs, brushing the dust and cobwebs from his shoulders, and tried to talk as though he had been looking for old Vance’s revolver in his closet and bureau drawers. They never saw very much of Brunt after that day.

  One evening, about a week later, old Vance met Shot-over in the hallway as he was leaving. He went out bareheaded upon the veranda with him and shut the front door. He said:

  “Barry has told me a good many things about you, Mr. Shotover, and though she’s an only child, I won’t stand in her way if she’s sure of her mind. If you two people understand each other, why, I don’t suppose the old folks have got anything to say. Only I wish you’d think once more about taking hold of that controlling interest in the D and O Company — or any other steady business.”

  “You see,” old Vance explained afterward, “there can’t be very much wrong about a man who can stand off a mob of highbinders with a dog whip. I don’t know; I’m no Tory, but if good blood is what makes all the difference between a five and a five-hundred-dollar dog, I suppose it would make a difference between men as well.”

  And Barry thinks so, too.

  Overland Monthly, February, 1895.

  A STATUE IN AN OLD GARDEN

  THE garden was very, very old. Aged mulberry trees stood about, and ancient yews and cypresses and venerable junipers. A heavy growth of black and gray lichens covered the inclosing walls and encrusted the basin of the marble fountain. The fountain itself was carved in a style that suggested times and seasons long past. Besides the fountain there were one or two statues of fauns and nymphs, all weather-streaked and green with moss.

  Ancient hollyhocks and asters, ancient marigolds, ancient petunias and phlox grew against the walls, filling the air with curious perfumes — perfumes that made one think of old china and of old chambers hung in green taffetas.

  It was the close of a warm day in early autumn. The first leaves were falling from the mulberry trees. They fell straight as plummets through the motionless air, settling very lightly over parterre and quincunx.

  There was not a sound. From all this ancient teeming life of tree and flower there seemed to rise some strange, dreamy, muffling essence that hung suspended and brooded over the garden. Outside, far away, somewhere beyond those blackened walls, rolled the world, but in here were silence and calm and absolute repose.

  There were no birds here. The birds did not seek this spot. Two living things alone found here their habitation — the venerable tortoise that floated with craning neck on the surface of the water in the fountain’s basin, and the frog, the immense green patriarchal frog that lived in the weeds in the damp northern corner of the walls. These two were solitary creatures, neither seeking nor acknowledging each other’s presence. They lived out their lives apart, contentedly, asking nothing better.

  At intervals during the week, toward sundown, the gardener, an old man bent earthward and gray, creaked the reluctant grille at the end of the garden, and, entering, pottered lovingly about, giving a touch here and there with rake or trowel or pruning hook.

  In a shady spot not far from the fountain
was a bench overhung by two larch trees, and near the bench on the other side of the walk was a pedestal from which the statue was missing. At near approach one discerned the statue fallen on the ground, half hidden by a tall growth of grass and mullen stalks. The statue was that of a little Love in the act of drawing his bow. Once it had been pretty; a smile of triumph was on the Love’s lips, and a glance partly of command, partly of pure joy, was in his eyes; his limbs had been round and white and perfect; but now he had fallen from his pedestal and lay prone in the grass; an arm was broken, the white, perfect limbs were chipped and marred, a snail sat upon the forehead.

  Ah, the lamentable little Love, dethroned and neglected, lying there amid the weeds, gradually sinking into the soil of his own weight, battered and mutilated, all but destroyed, sinking into a self-made grave! What an end! Love itself crumbles, is overturned, is shattered, is befouled with contact of the earth, while even in the midst of its forehead may sit a thing unclean and noisome. It falls, it sinks, it disappears in the embrace of the all-reclaiming Mother who asks no questions, who takes back what she gives, however sadly bruised or stained in its span of little life, who knows neither joy nor grief, neither glory nor shame, neither hatred nor love.

  Yet still the little Love drew his bow, aiming at the empty sky above. Still he smiled persistently from amid the weeds and soil, smiled secretly, discreetly, as if seeing the coming of things that were not yet. What was he waiting for, that little battered Love, lying hidden in the weeds there in that ancient autumn garden?

  Toward the middle of the afternoon it was very still indeed. There was not a sound, nothing moved. The tortoise floated silently over the surface of the fountain, his neck craned, his eyes closed; the great green frog was nowhere to be seen. Minutes slipped away, the life of the old garden teemed on there silently under the warm sun. It was still, still. A half hour passed. There was a movement. A faint puff of breeze, some lost zephyr, wandered over the blackened walls, and a red leaf fell like a blood drop from the heart of the dying summer. The larch and mulberry trees stirred with a long sigh. The surface of the water in the basin ruffled ever so slightly, as a mirror blurs beneath a sigh. In the damp northern corner of the walls the patriarchal frog uttered a single croak.

  And that was all. The breeze passed and died, the trees fell motionless again, the unruffled fountain again reflected a single image of the sun, the huge frog held his peace. Once more the ancient garden relapsed into stillness.

  Deep in the grasses the little Love smiled as ever.

  At four o’clock two people, a man and a woman, came into the garden, and going slowly down the walk by the fountain sought out the bench under the larch trees. Their manner was that of people who were familiar with the place.

  He waited until she was seated and then took his place at her side, dropping his hat and stick on the grass. She let her white-gloved hands fall upon the blue cloth of her lap and looked about her, drawing a long breath.

  “Ah, the old garden!” she said in a low voice, with a little shake of her head. “I love it.”

  The two were no longer young. His hair was turning gray; hers was a little faded, and her blue eyes had in them the expression of one who has already commenced to look backward instead of forward. “One can love things, then,” he asked, “even if they are — even if they have ceased to be young?”

  “Oh, yes, some things,” she answered, smiling, “when one has ceased to be young one’s self.”

  “Does one ever get too old to care?” he said thoughtfully. “I thought such a thing possible at one time, but all my theories have changed since — within the last few weeks.”

  “Love will die,” she said, looking at the vacant pedestal opposite.

  “He might be born again.”

  “But just the same as before?” she inquired. “Just as sweet, fresh, and strong? Oh, no, it is not possible.” She shook her head slowly, then continuing: “You tell me that you love me, and I, yes, I believe you, but do not tell me that you love me as you could have done had we met and known each other when we were young; that I do not believe, and whatever my answer is to be to you I must tell you that I can never love you as I might have done once, long ago. That part of our lives is gone forever for us two; we have missed it, we can never call it back. We can never love each other as we might have done at one time. It is too late for that.” He was about to protest, but she checked him, laying her hand upon his sleeve. “Do not deceive yourself — nor me,” she said sweetly. “At least let us be frank with one another. We are no longer young; we have lived the best part of our lives; we have outgrown many things. Don’t you suppose that I have had my little romance? It was fifteen years ago. I was a young girl. I had all my illusions yet; everything was rose-coloured, and he — he was just from college, and I loved him as one loves when one is twenty. It sounds like the refrain of a song, doesn’t it? As one loves when one is twenty. Yes, it was a song, but a song of which I only knew the music; the words were never to be for me. I am not ashamed now to say that I loved him; for me he was everything that was good and fine. Oh, yes, it was sweet while it lasted. I loved him, but he never knew, and then one day something happened. Oh, what does it matter! He was not what I thought him, that was all. It was my first disillusion. From that time I began to grow old. That is my little romance.” She paused.

  In the ensuing stillness the grille creaked on its reluctant hinges. The old gardener came in, his shears in his hand. He saw the two on the bench under the larch trees, but, accustomed to their presence, he made no comment. He took a bypath along a wall of the garden. He disappeared in a distant corner; from time to time they heard his step upon the gravel or the subdued noise of his shears clipping at the borders of box.

  “Yes, you are right,” the man admitted at length. “And I, yes, I have had my little romance as well. I have often thought that I had forgotten, but it comes back at times and hurts, even yet. I did not know I cared for her at first. We had grown up together. I saw her almost daily for a long time — five or six years. I had no idea how much she entered into my life — why, everything was only worth while because of her. When I came of age I was sent to travel with my tutor. We made the grand tour and were absent something over three years. When I came back she was married. Then I knew, all of a sudden knew, that I had cared for her all my life. She was in no way to blame; not a word had ever passed between us. She hadn’t a guess that I cared. she never did have. But I — it was almost more than a boy is made to bear. You are right; I suppose I can never love just like that again. Yes,” he mused, “as one loves when one is twenty. It is a long time ago, and yet...” He let his voice die to silence. He gazed vacantly across the old garden, his thoughts elsewhere, searching in the past, and there came upon him a look of great tenderness, of sadness, of regret.

  She sat motionless beside him, yet far away. She was thinking of other things, dreaming of other days; she felt the touch of other hands; she heard the sound of other voices; she saw the light of other eyes.

  His hand clenched whitely as it rested on the bench, and he shut his teeth against the old bitterness that could not be forgotten.

  Her eyes swam a little, and a long sigh parted her lips.

  There was a prolonged silence. For a long time they sat thus in the midst of that old garden, thinking of other things.

  Suddenly they turned to each other, and looking into each other’s eyes laughed a little note of bitterness.

  At a far end of an alley the head of the old gardener appeared for a moment over a hedge. He bent down and resumed his work. He was planting a new flower in a bed of old and fading roses.

  “Yes,” admitted the man, “we have lived our lives; we are no longer young, but even with us Love can be born again, and though it is not so sweet and perfect, though it is bruised and sadly worn, if it is the best we are capable of, what else matters! It is Love, after all, Love in spite of everything. After all, the little future that yet remains to us is worth more than the who
le past.”

  He took her hand in his, and they rose and faced each other, smiling.

  “You are right,” she answered, “it is to the future that one should look. Love in spite of everything. You are right. Love will not die quite.”

  With a charming little gesture of frankness and confidence and calm affection she laid an arm across his shoulder.

  The two moved down the walk by the fountain and passed out at the grille. They disappeared.

  The old gardener had finished his work. The new flower was planted. He made ready to go. He came down the walk toward the fountain, toward the bench under the two larch trees, and his glance fell upon the empty pedestal and the little broken Love lying in the grass. Scores of times he had passed the statue neglectful, but now he paused, resolving to set it again in its place, moved by a sudden caprice.

  Or was it caprice, or did the old gardener yield to some faint, elusive influence that brooded over that spot where the two others had been? Was there something delicate and subtle in the air that had not been there heretofore, something vague and sweet, something for which the little Love had waited so long?

  The old gardener bent down and clasped the figure in his withered arms. Slowly and painfully he lifted it. He set it upon the pedestal, wiped from it the stains of soil and weather, plucked the noisome snail from its forehead.

  Slowly his glance wandered to the empty bench and back to the pedestal no longer empty. He was thinking certain unwonted thoughts, confused, intangible. He thought of the old garden and of all that teeming ancient life that had flourished there centuries before him, that would flourish there centuries after he was dead. He thought of the man and the woman who had just gone and of their love for each other.

  Perhaps deep down there in the remote, untouched recesses of his simple soul something stirred and woke for an instant — some other shadowy self, that saw with other clearer eyes, saw the greater things of the world, the vast, vague forces of human existence, Life and Love. These were the things that mattered; these only persisted unchanged and unchangeable through all the years: the two great eternities forever renewed. Life and Love — and Death? No, not Death; Death had no place in that old and everlasting garden where nothing died. Death was but an episode, an incident, the hiding of a seed in the earth, a moment of darkness in a little narrow closet, wherein things hid themselves an instant and were changed and came out again, young once more and sweet and fresh.