Wise Man Of The West (Harvill Press Editions)

by Vincent Cronin

  It was their practice to spend every spare hour on the Chinese language and, returning now to the private house where they were being lodged, they took from their baggage a collection of manuscript notebooks and grammars which they themselves had composed in Italian and began to hear each other’s vocabulary, discussing and often disagreeing over the difficult pronunciation. Michael Ruggieri had been studying the language ever since his arrival in Macao four years before. The first European ever to learn Chinese, he had imbibed it painfully like a child from the merchants of Macao, themselves ignorant of any European tongue.

  Instead of receiving direct instruction from master or book, he had been obliged to collaborate. First he had drawn the simple objects of everyday life, tree, horse, ship, then progressed to more abstract terms which had to be acted out or gropingly explained: for each picture or sign his Chinese tutor would paint the equivalent character and teach him how to pronounce it. On a short visit to Canton, he had been shocked to discover that the language he had been learning in Macao was purely local, each part of China possessing its own dialect, incomprehensible to inhabitants of other provinces. Since none of these dialects were spoken by educated men, all he had so far learned was useless. He had then begun an even more laborious task, to pick up the rudiments of mandarin, lingua franca of the official class. When Matthew Ricci joined him they had worked together chiefly from the library of Chinese books gathered in the house of St. Martin, increased their vocabulary and learned to read simple sentences. Matthew had an uncanny knack for languages—almost, Ruggieri would say, to mitigate his own comparative slowness, a gift of tongues. The weird uninflected monosyllables, like Italian only in rarity of consonants and frequency of vowel terminations, were in themselves difficult enough to learn, but what proved almost impossible was to attune their ears to the added dimension of five tones, each of which changed the meaning of the same sound.

  Few moments were so humbling as this, when they garbled and faltered: they who had come, masters of Western learning, so wise, so self-confident, to teach a new doctrine, were forced to return to elementary school, painfully, plank by plank to construct a raft to carry across their cargo. Until it was built they were poor, ignorant and helpless as coolies.

  Three days later the governor summoned the missionaries. “Since I wrote to you last month I have spent much time consulting the laws, trying to find some way of keeping you in Shiuhing. At last I have found an imperial privilege. Here it is.” He indicated a musty volume. “‘While the laws of the Middle Kingdom forbid foreigners to live in the country, nevertheless having regard to the brotherhood of man, any stranger who comes from a distant country and either cannot or does not wish to return, may remain in the Middle Kingdom, provided he is quiet, humble and useful to the country. He must take from his belongings sufficient money to lead out his life, and he may be assigned land for his lodging.’” He paused and looked up at the two Italians. “When I found this privilege, I told the viceroy about it and asked all the high mandarins of this province whether or not it could be made to apply. All replied that it could. You, in your turn, must promise to fulfil certain conditions. You must not be joined by other barbarians; you must continue to wear our dress; you must promise to conform to our habits; you must obey our magistrates; if you marry, you must choose a woman of our country. You will become, in all save your physical appearance, men of the Middle Kingdom, subject to the Son of Heaven. Are you willing to make these promises?”

  As the governor’s words were translated, Ruggieri and Ricci listened with mingled feelings. A loophole which would allow them to live in China: this exceeded their most extravagant hopes. But at so dear a price! Their superior Valignano had given them express orders to adapt themselves as far as possible to the Chinese way of life. Their shaven heads and grey mantles already proclaimed them bonzes; they had intended to speak Chinese and live close to the people. But to transfer their allegiance to a pagan Emperor, whose rights over his subjects were unlimited by law, to perpetuate their kneeling position before Wang P’an by voluntary acceptance of Chinese authority, to replant themselves once and for all in alien soil, that was tantamount to changing their nature, to reincarnation. The two Italians consulted. What counsel would Valignano have given? They recalled his directive: Make every possible concession to establish yourselves within the country. “Are these conditions a prerequisite of our remaining?” Philip translated Ruggieri’s question, then the governor’s affirmative answer. Again they took counsel and reluctantly decided to acquiesce. First Ruggieri, then Ricci awkwardly repeated promises of submission and conformity. The governor nodded in satisfaction. “Now I can legally assign you a piece of land. The viceroy has given his agreement. Tomorrow I will come to the tower and formally hand it over to you.” The missionaries paid their respects by bowing to the ground three times, and returned to their lodging.

  Next morning they arrived early at the tower and had to wait some time before they spotted the governor’s suite winding down from the eastern gate. In front swaggered guards, some swinging bamboo whips, others beating gongs, another holding the seal of office. Then came the governor carried by four bearers on an open litter—for all the world like the Pope in Rome—followed by friends and other guards who bore brightly-coloured tiered parasols and tablets designating his rank. At their approach all who happened to be on the road turned tail and fled. Even children playing far off hurried home and slammed the door.

  At the tower Wang P’an dismounted from his litter, carefully arranged his loose clothes and presented two of his suite to the Italians, his own personal assistant and the president of the tower committee.

  “I propose,” the governor told his friends, “to grant these bonzes land where they may build a house.”

  His subordinates, who had already greeted the missionaries coldly, did not hide their displeasure.

  “If these foreigners remain,” protested the president, “they will call others from Macao and drive us out of our town.”

  Turning to Ruggieri, the governor said, “Yesterday you solemnly promised on no account to summon others of your country from Macao, to observe the laws of the Middle Kingdom and obey its officials. Will you abide by that promise?”

  As Philip translated Ruggieri’s affirmative reply the governor smiled approval, then glided in slow and stately fashion to a corner of the field in which the tower was being built and with his staff of office marked out a small piece of land barely fifteen yards square. The missionaries looked on in dismay, then persuaded Philip to demur.

  “We are honoured,” said their interpreter, “that you should grant us land at all, but this piece you have marked out is hardly adequate for both house and pagoda.”

  Puzzled, Wang P’an replied, “This is not for the pagoda, but only for the house.” Then he pointed to several Buddhist temples grouped near the tower. “There you have ample place to worship Heaven.”

  In consternation Ruggieri replied, “We cannot worship there, your Excellency. We do not adore idols, but only the King of Heaven.”

  When these words were translated, all the mandarins showed great astonishment. After consulting with his two subordinates, the governor replied, “It is of small importance. You can build your own pagoda and put inside whatever images you like.” Thereupon he marked out another piece of land twice as large as the first.

  Meanwhile inhabitants of the district and workmen from the tower, silently, in groups of two or three, had gathered round the party, anxious to catch a glimpse of men so curious and to learn the governor’s plans for them. The crowd became even more pressing when, as a gesture of gratitude, Ruggieri produced presents for the governor. First he held up a prism of Venetian glass, then uncovered a small painting of the Virgin, which had been sent from Rome. The mandarins and the crowd treated the objects like stars fallen from heaven, fearing to touch, at first hardly daring to look. When Ruggieri showed the governor how to hold the prism to the light and view the eight colours of the spectrum,
he turned pale as the glass itself with excitement. Having examined it from every angle, he passed it round his astonished suite.

  After experiments at Macao, the presents had been carefully chosen to arouse Chinese wonder. Glass, even in its crudest form, was unknown in this part of the country, where parchment served as windows, so that the equilateral, brightly polished Venetian prism seemed a heavenly jewel, a crystal where the rainbow lay caged. As for painting, the Chinese prided themselves on this more than any other art. They aimed not to represent facts but to suggest a poetic idea, esteeming idealism, achieved with delicate lines and pale water colours, more than material solidity. Europe, confronting and imitating reality, had recently evolved a perspective unknown in China, where height represented distance, so that now the oil painting of the lady in blue, its heavy chiaroscuro giving an illusion of three dimensions, appeared to onlookers a living figure. Some, in awe of what seemed preternatural, had even flung themselves on their knees and repeatedly bowed down to the ground in worship.

  When the prism had been passed round, the governor asked, “May I take these wonderful objects to my house? I should like to show them to my family.”

  “They are yours,” Ruggieri replied. “We make a present of them, in thanksgiving for the land you have allotted to us.”

  The governor smiled and re-entered his litter. As the two missionaries knelt to pay homage, he motioned them to their feet, before being carried away to the sound of gongs.

  That same afternoon, however, some of their confidence was spilled, when the governor returned the prism and painting. Puzzled, Ruggieri sent him instead some elaborately worked handkerchiefs. But before nightfall these too were returned. Philip questioned the servant who brought them back. “Were they too mean a gift for his Excellency?”

  “Oh, no,” replied the servant. “One of his three ladies was delighted with them. She wanted to keep them for herself, but the governor would not hear of it.”

  Later the knowledgeable Philip provided a possible explanation. “He must have an important reason for so discourteous an act. Perhaps he does not want the viceroy to suspect him of having been bribed to assign you that land.”

  Next morning the missionaries hired workmen to help them excavate the foundations of the proposed house: a brick building of two storeys in European style. Since the builders had never erected any but single-storey wooden houses without deep foundations, it would be necessary to carry out much of the work themselves. Near the site, therefore, they rented a small house where they could celebrate Mass on feast days and Sundays. During the other days they encamped in a rude shelter fashioned from piles of bricks to be used in building. Living conditions were uncomfortable and the workmen recalcitrant, but Ruggieri and Ricci were far more troubled by the huge crowds of every class who came, sometimes from miles around, to gaze at the prodigious newcomers—they had never seen white men before—with those large noses and eyes considered so ugly in China, and to inspect their belongings. They swarmed over the site, rendering work impossible for much of the day. In particular they clamoured to see the prism, which they called “the precious jewel beyond price.” In order to gain their goodwill the missionaries had to down tools and show kindness to all, however rude and ungracious. From morning to night during the first weeks they were largely engaged like museum-curators or toyshop keepers in showing their belongings, while the builders laboured. But the essential work progressed: as they drove the excavations deeper and laid the first bricks above ground, interruptions became less frequent. Under their hands, after so many years, so many frustrations, the first mission house in China was gradually taking shape.

  Philip meanwhile culled information. The most discouraging news concerned the graduates of Shiuhing who were supervising the building of the tower. Ricci had already learned the fundamental importance of graduates. They formed three classes: bachelors of arts, masters and doctors, attaining their rank by passing examinations, the chief subjects of which were the classical works of Confucius. Only masters and doctors—men of elegant literary style and traditional learning—could hold official government posts. They were recruited in theory from all classes of society without distinction, in practice from those families which could afford to educate their sons, and since the country’s hereditary aristocracy was forbidden to hold office, this intellectual élite formed the most powerful group in China, united by its own elegant language, too complex for the masses to learn. Between graduates and those who had not passed an examination lay a gulf wider than that between Italian nobles and peasants.

  It appeared that the graduates, already hostile to foreigners, were particularly angry that part of their land should have been requisitioned. They intended their tower to serve partly as a place of recreation, and had planned to lay out pleasure gardens in the surrounding field. Here, outside the town, amid cinnamon and magnolia trees, flowering cherry and plum, they would be able to stroll in the evenings, listen to the lapping river and indulge in a favourite pastime, contemplation of the moon. With aggressive barbarians—suspected spies—in their midst they would be unable to enjoy themselves fully. More important still, according to the principles of geomancy, the new building would deflect auspicious currents of cosmic influence from the tower, thus perhaps invalidating its primary purpose, the retention of good fortune. Their resentment, Philip discovered, grew more plangent with each brick that was laid.

  The outside walls were being completed when the graduates intervened. One morning the president of the tower committee approached the workmen and ordered them to stop building. Ruggieri and Ricci at once protested, asking the reason for his interference.

  “The builders started work on a day of ill-omen,” was the reply. “That is sufficient to blight the pleasure gardens. Later, when I have decided on a propitious day, I shall give orders for work to begin again.”

  To his puzzled masters Philip once again provided an explanation. A universal superstition held that the position of the stars rendered certain days and hours propitious for work and play, others unpropitious. Every year two sorts of calendar were published by the Government, in which days were marked either lucky or unlucky by the imperial astronomers. No one would dream of starting on a journey, building a house, burying a relative or celebrating marriage on a day of ill-omen, for fear of calamitous consequences.

  The missionaries decided to resist. If the president were telling the truth, they could not acquiesce in the superstition. If—more probably, considering his tardy protest—he were lying, to yield once to trickery would create a dangerous precedent. Without providing an explanation, they ordered the workmen to continue. The president walked off indignantly, threatening counter-measures. That same afternoon, however, heavy autumnal rain began to fall, harbinger of the equinoctial storms, making work impossible for the rest of that day.

  The Italians decided to confront the anger their resistance would certainly arouse. These graduates were reasonable, educated men, steeped in Confucius, therefore in theory moderate and humane. Very well, they would show them their fears were groundless. Philip had learned that the fiercest opposition came from the bachelors, those graduates not yet appointed to government posts. In Shiuhing, as in every other town, they lived in a school which harboured the local shrine of Confucius, under the jurisdiction of a special mandarin, some acting as tutors, others continuing their studies, all with too much time on their hands, proud as cockerels and very conscious of their new-won rank.

  With Philip, Ruggieri visited the school and spoke to the bachelors he found there. He pointed out that the governor had given them permission to reside in the town and that the viceroy had raised no objection. Unable to resist this point, they shifted their ground. The presence of the foreign bonzes disturbed them less than the site of the mission house, which would interfere with their plans for the pleasure gardens. On this point they proposed a compromise. The house should be built not beside the tower but some distance off, where it could be approached from the to
wn without crossing the proposed gardens. The new site, they said, was one of the most agreeable in the neighbourhood, overlooking the river with its continual diversion of boats, towards wooded hills. To this Ruggieri objected that they had already spent much on labour and materials and could not afford to make a second start. As a gesture of conciliation, the bachelors offered several thousand bricks and a quantity of larch wood from the materials assembled at the tower. Ruggieri decided to accept.

  The missionaries abandoned the old site and transferred their workmen to the new, where once again walls began to rise. As soon as they had received the builder’s first estimate, they had sent a letter to the Portuguese rector of the Jesuit house at Macao and therefore superior of the mission, asking for more money. The superior now wrote back that shipwrecks were ruining Macao and he could not send a single ducat. In these circumstances the missionaries were obliged to pawn some of their curios, including the Venetian prism. This loan enabled them to cover over what had already been built on the new site—a mere couple of rooms. Completion of the work would have to await further help from Macao.

  Their joy at owning and living in their own particular house was enhanced by a gift from the governor. On the day they took possession he sent an edict to exhibit outside the door: a proclamation of protection, as it was called. After referring in flattering terms to the bonzes come from a distant kingdom, it said that the governor had given them this land to build a house, at the viceroy’s command: no one was allowed to interfere with the inmates or harm them, under pain of severe punishment. Philip showed them how to affix the scroll to their doorpost, where it caused the greatest excitement. Writing, it seemed, exerted an uncanny power, and the written word of a mandarin possessed the force of law. Now all approached the house with a new respect for men who enjoyed not only the governor’s company but written, irrefutable proof of his protection. Soon afterwards Wang P’an gave them two documents, one confirming the donation of that piece of land, the other permitting them to travel to Canton and Macao. Both were written as meticulously as medieval Bibles and signed with his seal in red ink. This, Ricci learned, was the distinctive mark of office. On his appointment, a magistrate was carried in solemn procession to the pagoda dedicated to the protective spirits of the town. Here he swore a solemn oath to observe justice and faithfully to administer his office in a ceremony known as “taking the seal.” The seal, a gift from the Emperor, he guarded with scrupulous care, for if it were mislaid its holder would not only lose office but suffer severe punishment. When a magistrate walked through the town, his seal was carried in front of him in a box locked and franked with a second seal.