Wise Man Of The West (Harvill Press Editions)

by Vincent Cronin

  The eunuch clasped the chalice to him: it was evidently more costly than it looked. Moved by Ricci’s appeal, the mandarin intervened. “Evidently they want the goblet only because they consider it holy. Since they offer double its weight in silver, you had better accept.”

  The eunuch glanced from Ricci to the military superintendent, puzzled and on ground where he felt unsure. Ricci held his breath. For a moment sacrilege hung in the balance. Ma T’ang looked down at the cup: his palaces, after all, were heaped with more valuable treasures. With an ill grace he handed the chalice back.

  After ordering an inventory to be made of all the presents, which were to be transferred to the government strong-room in the city, Ma T’ang left the pagoda, saying that since he had sent a new letter to the Emperor, they could hope to reach Peking shortly. Two days later he returned to Lintsing, leaving Ricci and his party under guard.

  November passed, in a cloud of winnowing and perfume of harvest. In the pagoda which served as their prison Ricci and Pantoja began to pray and fast, begging God, for the sake of so many million souls, to grant them safe passage to Peking. But the year drew towards its end, a cold winter set in, freezing the canal, and still they heard nothing from the eunuch or Peking. Ricci therefore dispatched two letters. The first, to Ma T’ang, asked him to write again to the Emperor, because they were suffering from the extreme cold, the lodgings having no form of heating. The second, to the military superintendent at Lintsing, asked for advice and begged him to use his influence with Ma T’ang. The servant who delivered the first note was severely beaten and sent back without a reply, while the military superintendent, afraid to correspond with Ricci, also turned him away. Later, however, he sent secretly for the servant, to whom he gave a verbal reply: “Your affairs have gone from bad to worse. Ma T’ang intends to increase his reputation by launching a formal charge against you as fetishists bent on murdering the Emperor. He has already spread this rumour here in Lintsing and says you ought to be sent back in chains to your own country.” In a secret written note he advised “Save your lives while you can. Return to Canton, even though it means losing all your belongings. Above all, destroy those crucifixes. If you are afraid to increase the danger by leaving, submit a memorial to the Emperor by way of your friends in Peking, asking permission to leave the country.”

  Ricci had supposed their situation desperate, but not as desperate as this. He refused, however, either to destroy the incriminating crucifixes or to abandon his attempt to see the Emperor. Smuggling him out of the pagoda by night, he sent Brother Sebastian to the capital, two days’ journey away, with some small presents and appeals for help to his few acquaintances and those to whom he had letters of recommendation. A week later he returned to confirm Ricci’s doubts: rumours spread by Ma T’ang had alarmed Peking: his friends were too frightened to intervene. They advised Ricci on no account to submit a memorial, for the Emperor did only what the eunuchs proposed. Instead, he and his party should throw themselves on Ma T’ang’s mercy and beg for their lives in exchange for the presents.

  Since the eunuch already possessed their presents, barter was out of the question, and Ricci had no illusions about his mercy. Guards surrounded the pagoda. A tribunal was presumably being found competent to judge and execute foreigners who had tried to kill the Emperor. Ricci was furious with himself for allowing the trap to close. Now their only escape lay overhead. While all around giant inscrutable idols were invoked to grant release from the wheel of life, they prayed they might be spared, not for their own sake—even Brother Sebastian was eager for martyrdom—but to establish the Church in China.

  chapter nine

  Within the Forbidden City

  The year turned and with it their fortune. In mid-January a letter was dispatched to Ma T’ang, the contents of which Ricci learned a few days later. “Having considered the memorial submitted by Ma T’ang, Collector of Taxes, concerning the gifts which the distant barbarian Li Ma-tou desires to offer, His Majesty orders the said Li Ma-tou to present his gifts at Peking. At the same time the Ministry of Rites is commanded to examine the matter and submit a further memorial.”

  Six months had passed since they had fallen into Ma T’ang’s hands. For eight weeks they had been in imminent danger of their lives: everyone, mandarins, eunuchs, even their guards believed they would die. And now deliverance. It seemed certain to Ricci that Providence had intervened. All that he could ever learn about the reprieve was that one day, when the second memorial had been dismissed to an obscure palace limbo, the Emperor suddenly remembered that “certain foreigners wanted to present His Majesty with a striking clock.” Petulantly he asked, “Why don’t they give me that striking clock?” The Emperor’s private secretary, a eunuch, replied, “The foreigners cannot enter Peking without a licence, and your Majesty has not yet replied to Ma T’ang’s second memorial.” The Emperor called for the memorial and at once issued a rescript.

  Ma T’ang was displeased because his charges against the foreigners had been ignored, and because the Ministry of Rites, a hated mandarin body, had been ordered to take the matter out of his hands. But with an imperial rescript he could only comply. Reluctantly he commanded the gifts to be removed from the strong-room and given back to the foreigners, who were to be provided with horses and porters at public expense for the journey to Peking. When the gifts were restored, for safety’s sake Ricci opened both the reliquaries and removed the pieces of the true Cross. He left only minor relics such as pieces of saints’ clothing and soil from the Holy Land, carefully altering the inscriptions in case they ever fell into Christian hands. The pieces of the true Cross he concealed in his own personal baggage.

  On January the twentieth Ricci and his party set out with eight horses and more than thirty porters, in charge of a mandarin who informed them that this was the usual way of escorting ambassadors from tributary kingdoms. As foreigners wishing to present gifts, they had been provisionally placed in that category. They changed horses at every town and spent each night in the Governor’s house as guests of honour. After shivering all winter, it was luxury to sleep on brick kangs kept warm by an interior charcoal fire. As men “summoned by the Emperor” they travelled at a slow pace conformable to their new dignity, taking four days to reach Peking, where they were lodged outside the walls in a house belonging to the court eunuchs.

  Ricci had hoped to be able to offer the presents himself, but now he was informed that foreigners were not admitted to the palace, and he must submit them through the Director of the Office for Transmitting Letters. This news was a severe blow, for he had brought the presents only to win an audience. However, each moment he spent in the country was a contravention of age-old custom, and he believed that the palace gates, like those of China, would yield to prayer and perseverance. Meanwhile, he drew up a complete list of the presents in Chinese:

  A small modern painting of Christ.

  A large antique painting of the Virgin.

  A modern painting of the Virgin with the Christ Child and John the Baptist.

  A breviary, with gold-thread binding.

  A cross inlaid with precious stones and pieces of polychrome glass, containing relics of the saints.

  An atlas—the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of Ortelius.

  A large clock with weights, and a small striking clock of gilded metal worked by springs.

  Two prisms.

  A clavichord.

  Eight mirrors and bottles of various sizes.

  A rhinoceros tusk.

  Two sand clocks.

  The Four Gospels.

  Four European belts of different colours.

  Five pieces of European cloth.

  Four cruzados.

  He scanned the items: toys to win an Emperor. They were not the magnificent valuables of the embassy he had once planned, but in the clocks he had special faith. As for the rhinoceros tusk, it was believed to be a unicorn’s horn, giving protection against poison and every disease. Most of the objects had already aroused manda
rin curiosity and covered such a range that one at least would surely interest the Emperor, whatever his tastes. On this point Ricci, despite discreet questions (for the Son of Heaven was never the subject of idle gossip), had obtained no exact information. His gifts were being offered, like prayer, to the invisible and unknown.

  Next Ricci drew up the draft of a memorial to accompany them, balancing as far as possible humility with an essential petition. He carried the draft to a highly qualified scholar whose profession it was, for a very high fee, to turn mundane thoughts into ethereal language suitable for the Son of Heaven. Every phrase had to be elaborated in a special way which even many graduates did not know. Having copied out the memorial on two separate sheets in special calligraphy employed only for such occasions, he read his version to Ricci:

  “Li Ma-tou, your Majesty’s servant, come from the Far West, addresses himself to your Majesty with respect, in order to offer gifts from his country. Your Majesty’s servant comes from a far distant land which has never exchanged presents with the Middle Kingdom. Despite the distance, fame told me of the remarkable teaching and fine institutions with which the Imperial Court has endowed all its peoples. I desired to share these advantages and live out my life as one of your Majesty’s subjects, hoping in return to be of some small use. With this aim, I said farewell to my country and crossed the oceans. At the end of three years, after a voyage of more than eighty thousand li, I finally reached Kwangtung province. First, not understanding the language, I was like a dumb man. I rented a house and studied the written and spoken language, then for fifteen years lived in Shiuhing and Shiuchow. I acquired a good understanding of the doctrine of the ancient philosophers; I read and memorised parts of the Classics and other works; and I understood their meaning a little. Then I crossed the mountains; from Kiangsi I went to Nanking, where I stayed five years. The extreme benevolence which the present glorious dynasty extends to all foreigners has encouraged me to come now even to the imperial palace, bringing gifts from my country, among them a picture of the Lord of Heaven, two pictures of the Mother of the Lord of Heaven, a book of prayers, a cross inlaid with precious stones, two clocks, an atlas and a clavichord. Such are the objects I bring and now respectfully offer to your Majesty. Doubtless they are not very valuable, but coming from the Far West they will appear rare and curious. Like the watercress and warmth of the sun which are all a poor villager can offer, they will testify to the feelings of your Majesty’s servant. Since childhood I have aspired to virtue; now I have run more than half my course. Never having married, my only desire is that these gifts may bring your Majesty long life, unalloyed prosperity, the protection of Heaven on the empire and the tranquillity of the people. I humbly beg your Majesty to have compassion on me, since I have come to place myself under your Majesty’s law, and deign to accept the European objects I offer. In doing so, your Majesty will increase my gratitude of your Majesty’s immense goodness which excludes no one; and your Majesty will give a servant come from afar the means of showing a little of the affection which your Majesty’s kindness inspires in him. Formerly, in his own country, your Majesty’s servant graduated: he obtained appointments and rank. He has a sound knowledge of astronomy, geography, geometry and arithmetic. With the help of instruments he observes the stars and he uses the gnomon; his methods are in entire conformity with those formerly practised in your Majesty’s kingdom. If your Majesty does not reject an ignorant, incapable man and allows me to exercise my paltry talent, my keenest desire is to employ it in the service of so great a prince. Nevertheless, incapable as I am, I would not dare to promise results. Your Majesty’s grateful servant awaits orders: he has written this letter in all humility. Dated the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth moon of the twenty-eighth year of the kingdom of Wan Li.”

  This document was carefully placed between two yellow tablets and covered with a piece of yellow silk. On January the twenty-seventh the memorial and presents were handed in at the principal gate of the palace, and a musket was fired off to let all Peking know that a memorial had been presented to the Son of Heaven.

  It might have been a farewell shot burying the whole affair for all Ricci heard during the next few days. He learned that neither gifts nor letter were bound to go further than the Director of the Office for Transmitting Letters, a eunuch who would deal with them as he thought fit. No official receipt arrived. In the palace, a city of ten thousand intriguing eunuchs, how could such paltry objects fail to get lost? Since only eunuchs had news of the palace, he set himself to be pleasant to those who frequented his lodging. He learned that the responsible official had forwarded the gifts, a day later that they had reached the imperial apartments, presently—with a touch of triumph—that they had been offered. When the picture of the Son of God was shown to the Son of Heaven, so the eunuchs related, he cried out in astonishment, “This is a living idol.” Ricci treasured the unintentional truth in his words, and believed they boded well.

  The next report, however, proved discouraging in itself and as a reflection of the Emperor’s character. The Son of Heaven had grown afraid of this living God and had the picture removed from his apartments. The picture of the Virgin he sent to the merciful and prudent Empress Mother. This woman, widowed at an early age, had brought her son up strictly, punishing him when he neglected his studies, waking him herself every morning at an early hour and keeping a firm hold of the boy until the age of seventeen. A fervent Buddhist, she had built many pagodas throughout China and persuaded her son to spend large sums on alms. Strong-minded though she was, she too soon became frightened by the picture’s likeness to life, and had it stored in her personal strong-room, at the east side of the Pavilion of the Central Extremity.

  Every day, with increasing doubts, Ricci questioned the eunuchs in the hope of hearing the particular piece of news on which he counted. He had to wait more than a week before it arrived. One morning a messenger hurried to the lodgings with an urgent command from the Emperor himself: the large clock had run down and no longer struck the hours. In order to repair it the foreigners were summoned at once to the palace. Ricci and Pantoja were ready and without delay, carried by palanquin and escorted by eunuchs, travelled into the centre of Peking, to the southern of the four entrances to the palace, oriented according to strict geomantic principles. Here they dismounted and entered by one of the side gates, the central of the three, reserved for his Majesty, being always locked. They were in the Forbidden City, standing where no European had ever stood before.

  Before them stretched a line of immensely wide courtyards separated by towering gateways and flanked by carved white marble balustrades. At each side, raised on marble terraces, stood red wooden pavilions, many with double, superimposed roofs. Westwards a canal led through gardens rampant with tigers, leopards and bears, to a sequestered lake. The grouping of the buildings, laid out in accordance with the pole star and adjoining constellations, was purposely processional. Man was first rendered insignificant by the vast courtyards, then drawn inwards by a gravity of being to the centre of the terrestrial universe. The walls, roofs and even the parchment windows of the buildings were yellow, colour of earth and of the Emperor who personified earth. All boasted the imperial dragon, a benevolent beast associated with life-giving rain, having a camel’s head, a deer’s horns, a hare’s eyes, a bull’s ears, a snake’s neck, a carp’s scales (to the extremely lucky number of eighty-one), an eagle’s five claws, a tiger’s paws: a creature evolved imaginatively either from the Yangtze alligator or from some prehistoric saurian. Far off they could glimpse the central apartments, seat of the dragon throne, “of the most powerful of all powers on earth, greater than all who are great under sun and moon.”

  His sacred person was guarded by four towering walls: within the first privileged courtiers, with the exception of bonzes and women, were allowed to enter by day: the inner two only members of the imperial family, eunuchs and concubines could penetrate. Ricci and Pantoja, looking round in bewilderment at such strangeness and count
er-strangeness, were led into a courtyard between the first and second walls, dominated by the Gate of Supreme Harmony. Here, amid a crowd of bystanders who stood gazing and chattering like magpies round a broken egg, the large clock, removed from the inner apartments, had been set up, a new device for taking a more indomitable Troy. A special wooden case had been made at Nanking to protect the face and conceal the weights, four columns surmounted by cornices and a dome, with doors on two sides to regulate the mechanism, carved with foliage, flowers and dragons, varnished and gilded. A special face had also been designed, hours and quarters being designated by Chinese characters, and the hour hand taking the form of an eagle, its beak now hanging lifelessly against the incorrect hour.

  The newcomers were introduced to the eunuch of protocol. He asked Ricci why they had given the clock—did they expect some appointment? No, replied Ricci, it was simply a gift of gratitude. The eunuch looked relieved: evidently he feared to be replaced by more knowledgeable foreigners. Ricci soon discovered that the courtier, for all his intelligence, did not know the first thing about clocks; he even had to point out that the dial and chime were for telling the hour, whether by day or night.

  “Will you teach us how to regulate it?” Ricci was asked.

  These were the words he had been hoping to hear.

  “With pleasure,” he replied. “But that will require two or three days.”

  The eunuch seemed surprised and hurried away to report this to the Emperor, who straightway ordered four members of the imperial college of mathematicians to learn how to regulate both clocks and in future to care for them. In three days this and the other clock were to be brought to his apartments.

  So excited they could scarcely savour their triumph, Ricci and Pantoja were led to the college of mathematicians, a large pavilion in the same part of the Forbidden City, where they were received with unusual respect. A curious situation had now arisen. A rumour was circulating that Ma T’ang had accepted presents from the foreigners equal to or greater than those given to the Emperor. To silence it, Ma T’ang’s agents were spending large sums, bribing hostile eunuchs in the palace and generally currying favour. In order to calm Ricci’s supposed wrath, they now insisted on paying the missionaries’ expenses at the college.