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Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.
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THE CHINESE ROOM
VIVIAN CONNELL
The Chinese Room was originally published in 1942 by The Citadel Press, New York.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS 4
ONE 5
TWO 8
THREE 13
FOUR 19
FIVE 24
SIX 29
SEVEN 33
EIGHT 35
NINE 38
TEN 46
ELEVEN 50
TWELVE 53
THIRTEEN 58
FOURTEEN 60
FIFTEEN 70
SIXTEEN 72
SEVENTEEN 80
EIGHTEEN 87
NINETEEN 90
TWENTY 92
TWENTY-ONE 111
TWENTY-TWO 114
TWENTY-THREE 120
TWENTY-FOUR 123
TWENTY-FIVE 127
TWENTY-SIX 129
TWENTY-SEVEN 131
TWENTY-EIGHT 135
TWENTY-NINE 143
THIRTY 151
THIRTY-ONE 159
THIRTY-TWO 164
THIRTY-THREE 177
THIRTY-FOUR 186
THIRTY-FIVE 188
THIRTY-SIX 195
THIRTY-SEVEN 204
REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 217
ONE
Nicholas Bude signed his name at the bottom of a page of notepaper that was plain, dignified, and solemn as the Bude Bank. He looked at Mr. Elder and spoke. “Black and white, Mr. Elder, plain black and white. That’s how I like notepaper, banking, and life to be—clear and plain in black and white.”
“Yes, sir.” Mr. Elder paused. “And death, sir. I like funeral cards to have dignity.”
Nicholas looked up at the gray stones of Mr. Elder’s eyes, at the face blank as a white page. It was seldom Mr. Elder spoke at all. Nicholas indicated the letters.
“That’s all, Mr. Elder.” Nicholas paused. “Another week done.” He looked out at the sunlight over London. “Now for a pleasant week end in the country.” Mr. Elder took up the letters, made a slight bow, said good evening, and went to the door. As he opened it, Miss Coleman came in. Mr. Elder held the door for her, closed it in a noiseless way.
“Face like a tombstone!” said Nicholas.
Miss Coleman did not smile. “Oh, he was an old man long before he was a boy.”
Nicholas always saw Miss Coleman for the first time. Now her face painted itself on his eye again. She took him outside his world of black and white for a moment, and then Mr. Elder came back into his mind. “You know, he shut that door like a Chinaman.”
“You don’t like him?”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It was something he said annoyed me.” He paused. “Everything done, Miss Coleman?”
“Yes, Mr. Bude.”
She laid down some papers; he nodded without looking at them, and she took them over and locked them in the cabinet. She stood by the window, and Nicholas looked down and saw her on the white blotting pad. He could feel the actual touch of her beauty on his eye. She had green eyes, white skin, a red mouth, and gold hair. Miss Coleman turned the key in the cabinet and the Rossetti lady had gone off the white blotting pad. Miss Coleman came back and bent over the desk, and he saw the gold rope of hair coiled on her neck over her black frock. Nicholas took his hands off the desk, and she looked at the desk with nothing in her eyes, and he felt that she could see his hands underneath strangling his thought. He spoke calmly. “Oh, have those roses come yet?”
“Yes. The page is bringing them up. Your car is not here yet.”
“Damn him!” Nicholas got up and looked at the clock.
“Blake won’t be late. He never is. Oh...” The page came in with an enormous basket of roses, smiled. “Put them down.” The page bowed and the smile closed on his face and he shut the door behind him with a tiny snap. She walked over and looked at the roses. “Why didn’t you get lilies?”
Nicholas put his hands behind his back.
“Lilies?”
“Yes. Just an idea of mine.”
Nicholas thought her face was cold and white as a lily on a tombstone and felt she knew his thought. He pulled out a smile.
“I suppose it does look a bit silly to take roses down to the country. Just a habit. Just a habit.”
“Exactly.”
She waited, and he knew that he had to say it.
“Would you like them?”
“I don’t like roses.” She paused. “But 111 take them.”
There was something in his eyes that he could not work out of them with his hands. He went to the door, said good evening sharply, and went out. When he had gone a minute, Miss Coleman looked at the clock that pointed the hour and then looked out the window and saw that Blake had come in time. She picked up the telephone.
“Page, please.”
When the boy came in she nodded at the roses.
“Take these down, call me a taxi, and put them in it.”
What the page was going to say perished on her cold face.
“Yes, miss.”
On the white marble stairway Mr. Elder paused as she came down. “They exhale, but do not inhale,” he said.
Miss Coleman’s eye followed the page. “You do not like Bude?”
“Do you?”
Miss Coleman looked coldly at him. “Did you mean anything about the roses?”
“No. It simply occurred to me—they exhale, but do not inhale.”
“Chinese wisdom!”
“Alas, no. All wisdom.”
She went down and got into the taxi, and the page closed the door and copied her silence. He turned to the man with a blue coat and gold buttons who was closing the iron gate of the bank.
“I guess I’m too young to get the hang of her.”
“Methuselah,” said the man in blue and gold as he clicked the key, “was too young to understand a woman like her.”
TWO
Nicholas took up the speaking tube and said into the horn: “Go to Snood’s.”
Blake nodded in front of the glass window and glided in his clutch. Nicholas dropped the tube and thought it hung like a dead snake, a beautiful green snake with a golden head. His hands working on his lap reminded him that he was thinking of somebody with a golden head and he put them in his pockets to stop his thinking. He tried to relax into the yellow plush and wondered if it was because of his formal blue suit that he could not be comfortable in this car that was like a lounge. He did not notice London passing by and was quite surprised when Blake opened the door and said: “Snood’s, sir.”
Nicholas, as he went into the flower shop, wished that Blake had not such a smooth voice.
“Good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Bude. I hope you liked the roses.”
“Yes, thank you, but...” Nicholas realized there was no need to explain. “They were very nice. Could I have some carnations?”
Nicholas watched her supple hands using the gold wire in such a way that
it did not argue with her fingers. “Oh—do you do embroidery, or something like that?”
There was no surprise in her calm gray eyes as she looked up. “Oh, I can use a needle.” She paused. “Why did you ask, Mr. Bude?”
“Oh, nothing, only—well, I noticed you had persuading fingers. I like people who can get their way with their hands.”
Then she realized that Mr. Bude had his hands in his pockets and was faintly annoyed. She did not like men who stood with their hands in their pockets as if waiting for a porter to bring their suitcases. They always seemed to be on the point of moving somewhere and had no time to spend.
When she had done, Nicholas picked up the basket and said: “Now, make up another basket exactly the same.”
As he seemed to be going she asked, “To be sent somewhere, Mr. Bude?”
“No. They are for you.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Bude.” When the door had closed behind him she said to the astringent blonde in the office: “Oh, I’ve got a present!”
“Not a present,” said the blonde, “an apology.”
“You remember me, my lord?”
Nicholas looked at the shabby cadger who haunted the Ritz arcade. “I do not.”
“Times is hard, m’lord.”
“I am not ‘my lord.’”
“Oh, beg pardon, sir! Mr. Bude!” The cadger’s smile crept over his face. “But I won’t be wrong for long, Mr. Bude.”
“Don’t stand in my way.”
Blake was taking the basket of carnations and pushed the cadger aside. The cadger was going to say something when he noticed the look in Mr. Bude’s eye.
“Thought Mrs. Bude liked roses, sir?” said Blake.
“Oh—well, I thought I’d make a change for one day.”
“Well, these are very nice, sir. I don’t think she’ll be disappointed.” Blake put the rug on his master’s knees.
The engine was purring softly and the rug was like a blue Persian cat and Nicholas realized that it had soothed his hands as the green landscape going by had calmed his eyes. He was in a tranquil mood when Blake, sounding his musical horn, reminded him that they had reached the lodge. Blake pulled up and waited for Fuidge to come out of his ivy-covered porch and open the gate, and Nicholas found his eye roving over lawns and woods around Barrington Hall. It was pleasant to be the squire of Barrington.
Blake sounded the horn again, waited a moment, then got out with a frown on him and swung the massive gates on their hinges. When he came back to bring the car he said: “First time Fuidge hasn’t opened the gate.”
Nicholas nodded, glanced at the lodge as the car glided in.
“What the devil is wrong, Blake?”
Blake got out and looked at the lodge. Fuidge came out on his old stick, and Nicholas thought his soul had gone gray as his beard. Blake was staring as the blinds down in the lodge. They looked queer in the sunlight.
“Excuse me, sir, but ..Fuidge did not seem to be able to go on.
“What has happened, Fuidge?”
“Sarah—she—she’s dead, sir.”
“Dead!”
“Yes. She—she took her own life, sir.” Fuidge paused. “She was always a bit...But, my own daughter, sir, going against the will of God.”
“I’m—I’m very distressed to hear this, Fuidge. What happened?” Nicholas put his hands behind his back.
“I don’t know, sir. I—I don’t understand it—the doctor, he’s up at the Hall with Mrs. Bude, he’ll tell you, sir. Excuse me, sir.”
Nicholas watched the old man stumping on the porch. “Good God. Come on, Blake. We’ll get up to the Hall.”
On the broad sweep below the curving steps two cars glistened in the sunshine. Nicholas got out and saw Muriel standing on the stone curb of the doorway. He went up, and Blake brought up the carnations and touched his cap to Muriel.
She looked at the basket. “I am afraid you ought to have brought lilies, Nick.”
Nicholas started. He could see Miss Coleman looking down at the roses.
“What on earth has happened at the lodge?”
“Sarah poisoned herself.” She paused. “Oh, why have you brought carnations?”
“Oh—I just thought they’d be a change. Whose cars are these?”
“Oh, the doctor and the police inspector. They’re talking in the library. I asked them up.”
They went in, and Nicholas looked at all the heads and horns in the great hall and suddenly wondered why the hell they should hang there in his house because Lord Barrington had shot them long ago in Africa. He had a queer feeling that Muriel walked across the hall as if she were a visitor in a house where she did not feel quite at home. In the drawing room she sat by the great silver tray and poured him China tea. There were more cups for the doctor and inspector when they would come out of the library.
“When did this happen?”
“This morning.”
“Why didn’t you ring me?”
“I saw no point in it. Friday is the most important day at the bank, and you would have worried and it wouldn’t have done any good.” The maid came in with the server. “Nick, do you want to wash your hands?”
“No, ahm...”
He looked at her in inquiry.
“Well, you are washing them.”
He took a drink of tea and was careful not to let his teeth bite on the rare china. They wanted to bite on something. “But why did she poison herself?”
“Anonymous letters.”
“Sarah! But what could she do to write anonymous letters about? Damn it, she was ugly, and—well, no man would look at her.”
“That seems to be it. The letters said she was an immoral woman.”
“But who the hell wrote them?”
“Herself.”
“Good God! You are joking?”
“I am not. Ah...”
The butler showed the doctor and police inspector in from the library. Nicholas got up.
“Nick, this is Dr. Saluby. You know the Inspector. My husband.”
“I’m glad to see you, Doctor. Haven’t had time to call on you yet.”
“Well, I’ve only been here a week, Mr. Bude!” When Saluby sat down, Nicholas had a queer feeling that he did it so perfectly that he was like an actor who had rehearsed sitting in ducal drawing rooms so well that he did it rather better than a duke. His voice was as cultivated as an orchid. The Inspector looked as if he would prefer a whisky, standing up.
“My wife has been telling me an amazing story—something about Sarah writing letters to herself.”
“Daftest thing I ever knew. Can hardly believe it yet.” The Inspector took a scone in one mouthful as if glad to be rid of it.
Saluby nibbled at his and nibbled at Muriel with his eyes. That voice, Nicholas knew, would explain anything away.
“Not at all daft, Inspector, as you call it. It has happened before. Normal to an abnormal type.” Saluby produced a photograph of the dead girl. “When you examine that face you will see that it is that of an inhibited mercurial. She comes from peasant stock, and crude though her feelings might be, her instincts and emotions, from long contact with the soil, are liable to be affected even by atmospheric changes, and...
When he had finished, Nicholas realized that his tea was cold.
The Inspector said: “Well, I suppose that’s the science of it, or whatever you call it, but all I can make out of it is that she wanted a man and hadn’t got one, and weeds began growing in her mind, and she poisoned herself with them weeds.” The Inspector smiled in awkward apology. “Well, I’m peasant stock meself, so maybe that’s why I understand it only that way.” Nicholas said nothing and realized that Saluby was looking at his hands. He said: “Have a cigarette, Doctor. They’re beside you.”
When the doctor looked away, Nicholas put his hands out of sight. When they got up from the table, Saluby strolled out ahead with Muriel. Nicholas said to the Inspector: “He’s a bit advanced for a country practice.”
“Yay. He’s
got a head on him.” The Inspector paused. “Kind of face that would sell a million bottles of hair oil in a picture paper.” He winked at Nicholas. “But he’d never understand Sarah in the way me and you can. He’s just a townie. He’s got no roots in him.” When they had gone, Muriel said: “I’ve asked Dr. Saluby back to dine. I’m sure he must be lonely in a new place.” She sighed. “I wish you had brought roses. They would have looked nicer on the dinner table.”
THREE
In the glow of the log fire, Nicholas felt, one ought to sit in a glow of the mind and forget the world. In this light there was an apricot bloom on Muriel’s skin, and the northern pink of the carnations on the table had become golden, like the color of a tropical garden. The Burgundy and the Napoleon were dreaming in the blood, and the odor of the carnations was like an opium. Nicholas fidgeted in his doze. He was growing tired of Saluby’s mind working like a mole in Sarah’s clay, and he forgot his manners.
“Damn it, Saluby,” he said, “the woman is dead, and you’ve done your post-mortem. You’ve been eating at Sarah all through dinner and now you’re still picking her bones.”
Saluby put the photograph of Sarah into his pocket. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bude. It’s a habit of mine to lose myself in my work.” He paused. “You see, we have learned in modern medicine that a psychological autopsy can often discover more than a physical examination. Now Sarah is...”
“Sarah was,” said Nicholas. “Sarah’s is dead. That’s what you forgot. And her mind died with her. It seems to me that the Inspector hit the nail on the head when he said that she poisoned herself with the weeds in her own mind. That’s simple and easy to get the hang of.” Saluby sighed and adjusted his bow in his yellow silk collar. “I fear, Mr. Bude, it is not quite as simple as that, nor as elementary. Even at school one goes beyond the A. B. C. Now the letters which caused Sarah’s death...”
“No letters caused Sarah’s death. She was going to commit suicide anyway. If she hadn’t thought of the letters, she’d have got up another stunt but she’d have killed herself anyway.”
Nicholas put his hands under the cushion on his lap. “Damn it, man, she knew she was writing the letters herself. She wasn’t daft enough to forget posting them.”
The Chinese Room Page 1
