Thank You, Mr. Moto

by John P. Marquand

  “Well get out here,” I told Eleanor Joyce.

  She had not spoken during all that ride. She did not speak then, until we were standing alone, on that dusty noisy street, beside the shop of a coffin maker who was still working with one of his assistants upon the latest of his wares.

  “Where are we?” she asked. I did not blame her asking me because Peking is confusing at night.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I know my way. We’re going into the northwest quarter. It will be lonely, but it’s perfectly safe.” She did not answer, and we turned up a narrow unlighted alley, and stumbled in dusty ruts. As one examines the outlines of this corner of Peking, the maps have a mazelike complexity, reminiscent of puzzles so favored by psychologists to test the intelligence coefficient. The Hutungs, or alleys open into irregular squares and taper off again into narrow meanderings. There are no street signs, and nearly the only light comes from occasional corner shrines, dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy, or to the Water God, or to the God of Earth. The walls of the hidden courtyards closed about us, making our footsteps echo hollowly. We turned corner after corner; we passed a coolie’s eating house, and several dimly lighted food shops, but most of the quarter was asleep. Here and there were open holes dug for drainage during summer rains, which made our progress slow and awkward. Once I stumbled over a dog, sleeping in the dust, that yelped and snarled and ran away.

  “Be careful,” I said to Eleanor Joyce. “Walk close behind me.”

  It was very dark, and we were very far away from anything that was familiar. The age-old sleep of China was closing over us, and we both must have been aware of our comparative unimportance, a disturbing fact for a Westerner to face.

  “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” she said at length. We had been walking for nearly a quarter of an hour by then.

  “Yes,” I said. “Wait a minute, we’re nearly there.” We stopped, and I listened, but the only sounds were peaceful sounds—the barking of a dog in the distance, quiet voices a long way off, and the faraway call of a ricksha puller, shouting for room. No one was following us; we went on and turned another corner, and there was a scent of fir trees about us, mingling with the age-old stench of the alley. There were the fir trees of one of Prince Tung’s gardens. The wall to our left bounded an edge of the Prince’s estate, in many respects a miniature of the Forbidden City, which had been laid out by the Prince’s Manchu ancestors in the great days, centuries before, when the Manchus had come from the northern plateau to seize China by the throat, when their hands were strong, and their eyes were fierce, and their manners were uncouth. Though we were walking by the Prince’s garden, it must have been eight minutes before we came to the Prince’s gate. The iron-studded gate was forbiddingly shut, like the gate of a fortress. I groped for a rope, which I knew hung there, and pulled it hard. There was a clanging of a bell and silence. Then I pulled again and waited. The great days of the Tung family were over; there were no longer a dozen guardians at the gate; instead there was a shuffling sound of slippers on the pavement, and a grating opened, displaying an old man’s face, who asked me who was there. I gave him my Chinese name and asked to see Prince Tung. He recognized me because I had been there often enough.

  “The great master has gone to his sleep,” he said.

  I handed a five dollar bill through the grating, knowing that the servants of the Manchus were corruptible from the earliest days of the dynasty.

  “Nevertheless, I must see him,” I answered. “I am not here for nothing.”

  The money was as good as a key, as I knew it would be. The old man drew the bars. The small door in the gate opened a crack, and he stood bowing, a slatternly old fellow in white coat and trousers holding a candle lantern.

  “Will you please to come in,” he said. “I will see that the great one is awakened.”

  Once we were in the courtyard, even the dim light of the old attendant’s lantern sufficed to show that the greatness of the Tungs had gone the way of the dynasty they had supported, far on the road to ruin. The beams of the yellow light flickered against a dragon screen before the gate of writhing yellow and blue porcelain monsters, floating over clouds. There were gaps in the screen, where the tile work had fallen. Parts of the tiling still lay in fragments on the pavement. Behind the screen came one of those bare rock gardens so dear to the Chinese aesthetic sense, more grotesque in the yellow lantern light than it ever was by day. Jagged rocks were heaped up into artificial mountains, and into caves and gorges. We crossed a short foot bridge over a dry water course, and threaded our way through the rocks; we passed through a pavilion, part of whose tiled roof had fallen, and whose latticed windows were broken and sagging. Then we were walking along the stone path, through a garden choked with weeds, past the ruins of summer houses and bridges, but the path itself was clear. It was one of those Chinese paths, designed with pebbles and cement in patterns of birds and flowers.

  “Where are we?” said Eleanor Joyce, “where is this?” Something had made her voice hushed, and my own voice was low as I answered:

  “We’re in one of Prince Tung’s gardens. There are acres of them, acres of ruined courts like this, and a theatre, and an artificial lake all ruined. The whole world of China was in here once. They always brought the world inside their walls. All the outside country was packed in here, the mountains and the deserts and the rivers. You see the Tungs were related to the Imperial family. He still keeps his goldfish in the courtyard, here.” We walked in silence through a moon gate in the wall to a low building in better repair than the others, which Prince Tung used for the reception of visitors.

  The old man lighted a row of lanterns on the ceiling. As each new candle was lighted the long room grew more distinct. It was one of the most beautiful rooms that I have seen in any country. There was not a trace of Europe in that room. Pillars of camphor wood supported carved roof beams. The trim around the doors and windows was sandalwood, carved into a design of herons and lotus flowers. Poetry scrolls were hanging on the walls in bold black Chinese characters, the gifts of sages and emperors to the ancestors of the Tungs. Stiff backed chairs and tables of black and gold lacquer stood along the walls, the gift of the Emperor Chien Lung to the family. In spite of the years of neglect, the lacquer was as fresh and shiny as when the Son of Heaven had sent it there. The scrolls and the furniture were the only decoration in the room, but its austerity made it majestic. It was a place where pigtailed heads had pounded softly on the tiled floor when the master of the house appeared.

  Once the lanterns were lighted the old man went away, and we each sat in a lacquer chair with a table between us. I said nothing, because the Prince’s house always made me silent. I placed the picture scroll on the table, and looked at the shadows of the pillars that made black masses against the white paper windows. Eleanor Joyce was the first one to speak. She was interested; her resentment toward me seemed to have vanished.

  “I’m grateful to you for taking me here,” she said. “I didn’t know there was a place in the world like this.”

  “There aren’t many,” I answered. “There aren’t many foreigners who have seen this one, either.”

  A servant came through the open door, carrying a pot of tea and three cups. He set them on the table, poured us tea and left us. The taste of that lemon colored tea reminded me that I had not eaten dinner. We sipped our tea in a silence that was growing as stiff as the backs of the lacquer chairs. We must have sat there for ten minutes before Prince Tung came.

  Chapter 16

  First there was a sound of slippers outside, and the rustle of a silk gown; then Prince Tung was standing in front of the table, in his black watered silk with his purple vest, and I had risen and was bowing. Though we knew each other very well, we went meticulously through the courtesies of the host and guest, because I knew that anything less would disturb him. We bowed and Prince Tung said: “I have not seen you for a long time.” We had seen each other yesterday afternoon, but form was more important tha
n fact.

  “Has his Excellency been keeping well of late?” I asked.

  I had inquired only yesterday afternoon for his health, but he thanked me floridly for my solicitude. I knew he was curious at this sudden intrusion, although he did not show it. We went through the formality gravely, like players through the opening of a chess game; and those formalities had a definite purpose, a realistic logic like everything else in China. They afforded a breathing space, in which each conversationalist might study the other, and form an estimate of the other’s capacities, and decide what the other wanted. When I introduced Eleanor Joyce, Prince Tung accepted her presence suavely.

  “He regrets that he cannot speak your language,” I said to Eleanor Joyce. “He apologizes for his ignorance; he says your presence is an honor to his house.”

  Eleanor Joyce smiled icily.

  “You can tell him it’s lucky it is, if you want to,” she said. “It isn’t my fault I’m here. Does he mind if I smoke a cigarette?” She lighted one and gazed at us indifferently as we continued to talk, lost in her own thoughts; the bell-like ripple of our conversation, with the four tones of the Mandarin dialect could mean less than nothing to her, which was probably just as well considering what the Prince said when the formalities were over.

  “I do not understand,” Prince Tung said. “I thought you told me the young woman was virtuous. How can she be virtuous if she is alone with you at night?”

  “You Excellency flatters me,” I answered, “if he thinks every woman loses her virtue who is alone with me in darkness.”

  Prince Tung laughed heartily; he had an easy pliable sense of humor. “I have told you before, my dear esteemed friend,” he said, “that I like you better than most of your round-eyed countrymen. It is fortunate for you that you are growing too Chinese. It is not etiquette to ask why you are here. I sit in respectful patience until you speak.”

  I bowed to him, his manners always helped to make my own polished. “I am not worthy,” I said. “Your Excellency is too gracious. I have come here to throw myself at your Excellency’s feet, because my life was attempted this evening.”

  If Prince Tung was surprised he gave no indication; his hands with their tapering fingers rested conventionally and motionless, one on either knee.

  “My chief dislike of foreigners,” he said, “is their ungoverned temper. Rage is a disease.”

  “Excellency,” I answered, “it was one of your own countrymen, not mine, who tried to kill me. I shall tell you about it if you are gracious enough to listen. Perhaps you may give me light.”

  “I declare to you,” said Prince Tung, “that your account will give me the greatest pleasure, and that I shall endeavor in my dull way to give it my best attention.” I could see that he did so, as I told him as accurately as I could, every word which had been exchanged with Major Best. He sat with his hands on his knees, his eyes unblinking, his sallow, rather rotund, face impassive, until I mentioned the name of Wu Lo Feng.

  “That may indeed explain something,” he said. “Why the city is very restless for example, during these last few days. I told you there was trouble in the city, but I am wretchedly rude to interrupt. Your account, my dear younger brother, is too concise and charming to admit interruption, so very interesting. My people were clever with the bow, once. In my younger days I myself was obliged to shoot at a mark from a galloping horse, when the Bannermen gathered, at the Emperor’s annual exercises. You know our interesting quarter, where the bowmakers still ply their trade? But my apologies, I interrupt.”

  He did not interrupt again, but there was a polite intensity, in the way he listened, that betrayed more than interest, almost agitation. I could feel it, for one’s apprehension became sensitive after dealing with the Chinese. I could feel a growing excitement, although he sat there as impassively as a Manchu portrait. His eyes had never left mine, after I had mentioned the name of Wu Lo Feng. The lanterns glowed dimly in that Chinese room; my voice lost itself in the shadows of the rafters. I stole a glance at Eleanor Joyce; she was watching us incuriously.

  “And so,” said Prince Tung, after a moment’s pause, when I had finished, “you are puzzled? There is nothing puzzling, believe me. It is only that the Middle Kingdom is in another of its periodic convulsions, such as occur inevitably after the fall of each dynasty. In a century or so, affairs will regulate themselves. There is little one can do during such interims.—So you brought the young woman with you? I speak to you as a friend, frankly and confidentially, because as I have said I have regard for you, though one’s regard may be somewhat superficial beyond the family tie. You were not wise to bring this young woman, I think. One should be cautious in one’s friendships, not swayed by passion or desire.”

  “Desire?” I said. “I have no desire.”

  Prince Tung smiled incredulously.

  “A woman,” he said, “is always dangerous, because eventually she is desirable.”

  “This one’s not dangerous,” I said. “One must protect women.”

  Prince Tung sighed. “That is one of the foreign concepts which I do not understand,” he remarked. “It seems to me on the whole quite barbarous. Why should one protect women? Since when have they needed protection? Does this one need it? To me she possesses no attractive attributes.”

  Eleanor Joyce’s voice interrupted us. Her instinct must have gathered that we were speaking of her. “What is he saying?” she asked.

  “He’s saying you’re very beautiful,” I answered.

  “Oh,” said Eleanor Joyce. Her hand went up to her hair, her fingernails glistened in the candlelight.

  “You can see for yourself,” said Prince Tung, “that her gestures are crude and uncouth. She has been badly brought up by untutored parents. I repeat, I believe that she is dangerous.”

  “It is not so,” I said. “It is because you do not understand my people.”

  Prince Tung paused and poured himself a cup of tea, took a sip from the fragile porcelain cup and set it down, unhurriedly. But I could see that something had disturbed him.

  “I believe that I understand you better than you think,” he said. “We Chinese are clever in gauging personalities. Just now you amuse me. Yes, I am very much amused.”

  “Why do I amuse you?” I asked. “I am so dull that I do not understand.”

  “You amuse me,” Prince Tung’s voice was gay and sprightly. There is an exasperation about the deflections of the Oriental mind; he seemed to have completely disregarded the seriousness of everything I told him. “You amuse me because we have conversed so often and so intelligently about the stream of history. We have agreed that no man can change events, and yet here you have been to-night, trying to change them. Though you admit it is futile, you have interested yourself in this young woman. It is always dangerous to interest oneself outside one’s family, one is compelled there to make certain sacrifices, but never otherwise, never. Instead of allowing the course of events to shape itself, you have deliberately interfered.”

  He sipped at his tea again; then he drew a fan from behind his neckband, a gold and black fan like the lacquer of the chairs, and waved it slowly in front of him. I was obliged to admit that his words were true, that I was interfering instead of watching the world go by: yet there seemed no way out of it now that I had begun. Prince Tung snapped his fan together and replaced it behind his neck.

  “You hope that I can explain these events?” he said. “I cannot very clearly. There is much that I do not understand. I do not understand how a picture should come into this affair. You have it here? May I see the picture?”

  His black gown rustled softly as he rose, apparently taking permission for granted. He lifted the scroll from the table where the tea cups stood and moved with it to another bare table a small distance down the room, where the light from the painted glass lanterns was clearer. I watched Eleanor Joyce while he did so. Although she had been disturbed about the picture earlier, now she sat quietly watching Prince Tung. He was an interesting sigh
t in the lantern light. The yellow gleam of candles picked out bits of a flower brocaded pattern in his black gown. His courtesy vest was a wine purple in the light, almost like the color in a stained glass window. He was leaning over the table, clearly in his element, a connoisseur examining an art object, as became a Manchu gentleman whose family had been distinguished patrons for generations. His fingers, delicate even for Chinese fingers, were unwinding the ribbon that held the scroll from around its carved ivory hasp. All his faculties were concentrating themselves upon the silk and paper before him.

  “The brocade cover is not bad,” he said softly. Then he was unrolling the picture deftly and I moved nearer and stood looking across his bent shoulders.

  There is something theatrical in the construction of a scroll painting which reminds one of the pause in a theatre at home before the curtain is raised upon a stage set. The cylinder of paper which backs the silk is not only a protection, but a setting like a frame. The first part which is unrolled is exactly like the raising of a curtain; first nothing but blank paper appears between the hands, the mounting and the setting of the picture itself. You unroll the scroll for an appreciable time and see nothing but this blank space. There is a period of suspense and still blank silk or paper. Prince Tung’s fingers moved swiftly while the scroll hissed comfortably beneath them, until the first of the picture appeared between his hands, flat on the table. The colors and the brushwork seemed to me truer and better than I had remembered. The beginning was a piece of Chinese mountain landscape, the tones of which might have seemed impossible if one had not seen the fantastic shapes of mountains in the clear yet dusky light of China; but once you had seen the Chinese country, the greens, the browns and the sapphires were no exaggeration, rather a part of an impressionism, delicate yet perfect and completely modern in conception, in spite of the centuries which divided its creator from the present. As I have said before, I had sense enough to know that the scroll was a piece of pictorial art of the very high order. Nevertheless I was not prepared for Prince Tung’s reaction when he saw it.