“In this poem a friend tells Su Tung P’o: ‘You and I have fished and gathered fuel on the river islets. We have consorted with the fish and the prawns, we have befriended the deer. Together we have sailed our skiff, frail as a leaf; in close companionship we have drunk wine from the gourd. We pass through this world like two gnats in a husk of millet on a boundless ocean. I grieve that life is but a moment in time, and envy the endless current of the Great River. . . . ’ Listen what Su Tung P’o replied, ‘Do you understand the water and the moon? The former passes by, but has never gone. The latter waxes and wanes but does not really increase or diminish. For, if we regard this question as one of impermanence, then the universe cannot last for a twinkling of an eye. If, on the other hand, we consider it from the aspect of permanence, then you and I, together with all matter, are imperishable. Why, then, this yearning?’”
“To Wan, how beautiful that is,” exclaimed Helen, thinking it over. “How stimulating and suggestive!”
“That was written in the year one thousand and something,” said Kim lazily. “But still I see nothing in the West to compare with the reasonableness of such a mood.”
Helen hitched herself forward a little as if beginning conversation in earnest now, though Kim still had the lazy attitude. “Why did you give me T. S. Eliot’s poems to read?”
. . . What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.
Kim quoted. “Well, did the book touch you emotionally, Helen?”
“But he is intellect vs. emotion, is he not?”
“There is no such thing. A poet is always emotion vs. intellect . . . although he never ceases to defend the intellect against the emotions. And Spencer has said, ‘Were it fully understood that the emotions are the masters and the intellect the servant, it would seem that little can be done by improving the servant, while the master remains unimproved. . . . ’ Then you were not touched emotionally by him?”
“My main emotion,” said Helen honestly, “was that I was sorry for Mr. Eliot. But I don’t think I understood him very well.”
“Why feel sorry? He will go back to Christianity . . . whereas I am in the same predicament but worse. All my roads cut off. Nor can I possibly go back. Nature is sterner with me than with Mr. Eliot.” Kim settled himself more comfortably. “And perhaps it is just as well.”
“Then you yourself don’t like Mr. Eliot much?”
“He has given me some headache. But many Western phenomena have done that. His influence will undoubtedly live a few more years. Then that, too, will vanish just like morning dew from these green leaves, since we mortals are more interested in life than in death. (Even more interested in life than in art.) Of course I am not minimizing. The Waste Land is a great poem and its creator is great. He has seen beyond most. Death and the something that once was, greater than the death that is now. How hauntingly he conveys his seriousness! But it takes a greater to see more than that. What inconsistency in going back! Christianity! Buddhism! Confucianism! All are like milestones on a road that is past. How impossible for me to go back, more impossible than to see how many angels can dance on the point of the needle without being jostled. And I, too, am inconsistent. I myself do not know whether Westerners like Eliot are more to be envied or pitied. I envy one moment, I pity another moment. And I myself am probably the more pitiable spectacle. My emotions are strong enough, but my intellect seems a sick, disobedient servant. I am tired of the Western learning and all it implies. Yet one thing I know. To us Easterners, until our vitality becomes all exhausted—this Western death is a luxury we can’t afford!”
And death indeed did not seem in the atmosphere. I thought, where now are the suffering ghosts of Abelard and Heloise? Dante does not mourn for Beatrice here, neither Petrarch for Laura. Nor does Othello walk here with Iago. Here only are blooming trees and fragrant grasses, the sounds of human merriment from rowing boats. A good many of the canoes hold just two. Romeo and Juliet—I thought. And the sky’s hues and the earth’s tints were mingled before us on the flowing water. We made a further stop to get some lunch, and all that we ate seemed a part with our happy drifting through nature.
By mid-afternoon, the temperature already seemed to have acquired the summer gesture. Some we saw that afternoon were swimming in the river. And we saw others in their bathing suits playing along the edge. Yet I knew the water was cold, from the touch of it. Perhaps the girls and boys were there, having in mind to show off their legs rather than white sport dresses. But the bright, shining flesh fitted in like beautiful poetry to the jolly pastoral scene. As for the many others seeking pleasure like us in the canoe trip, their presence was no more disturbing than the rest of nature. Some were already landing, others just setting out. Laughter, a lot of banjo, a lot of song were heard. New England seemed to be meeting now the summer isles. We drifted out into the wide part of the river, which seemed a vast boatyard full of movement. All the silent water was made alive by boats and canoes. Under the bright afternoon sun, every stroke of the paddle became a gleam. Happily I glanced at my friend. His face was not so pale and heavy as in the wintertime when I knew him before. The glowing sun was already getting into his skin to mellow it. But the spiritual change was greater than the physical. He had become light, lazy and playful; he was more natural, more Korean. Romantic despairs of the fantastic West seemed to have left his eyes, which were now lazily blinking. He was more alert, at the same time more receptive, and the whole man had gained elasticity, ease.
As we drifted down and down superbly with the day, we found the river divided into two branches—one left and the other right. The left side was crowded with more canoes, and the water there was smoother, but the right had more currents, no canoes; it seemed straight and looked promising. We took the swifter right. The canoe slid down without any paddling. By and by we came to a mill under which the river ran. Before us was a bridge to the mill, a bridge with four feet making three tunnels between. We thought we could go through one of those arches. We steered the canoe straight there. But we could not get through. Now the canoe was turning broadside, it was placing itself against the bridge between the arch and the river currents. We could not paddle back upstream because the current was too strong. Nor could we go on through the opening and escape it. Now the end of the canoe was cracking, water was leaking in. Things floated out. . . . So many things from the boat, light overcoats, books, bottles of cool drinks—these, once released, went through the channel, there to be lost, it would seem, in the current forever. But we could not think of them now. For now we, too, were in the water. The water was trying its best to push us under. We grasped the foot of the bridge. Looking at that hole now we did not want to go through. Helen was struggling in the water. Even her hair was wet. Kim leaped to the bank and managed to pull Helen out with my help, and together we all three rescued the poor cracked canoe. Then we ran downstream, each trying separately to rescue the overcoats, the rented cushions, even those well-soaked books including The Waste Land. Helen was the first to give in. She sank down on the grass. We ran back to her, our arms full of drenched salvaged articles. She did not cry, but laughed. Helen laughed and laughed. And we laughed too. “Poor Ophelia, too much water,” I said.
We went into the mill and tried to get dry. It was a very dirty place with old rags lying around over the place, but it was very hot, for there was some kind of steam machinery that moved the water round and round. Helen disappeared behind a big mound of old rags. She tried to wring out all her clothes upon her. We did the same on the other side. Presently an old man came in, who was, I believe, the watchman. He was scandalized and kept saying that the mill was private and no one had th
e right to enter the place to get dried. He fussed and stuttered. Then he swore at us. We got out then. Finally we took canoes rented by other people, who paddled us back to the boathouse, each one in a different boat. We told the whole story, and Kim offered at once to pay for the canoe. But the boatman said it was all right, and took Kim’s address, and said he would deal squarely with us for we brought back the canoe instead of leaving it on the bank and running away, as others sometimes did. Upsetting by the mill-stream was a well-known accident.
Now we had the problem of getting dried before we could go back to Boston. There was a small town near-by. Here we separated. Kim and I went to the police station, where we were given prison nightgowns and we dried our clothes amidst huge laughs, fat spits and the smell of cheap cigars. Those policemen were very nice. Helen drove into the town to get dried in a friend’s house. But she came back to the police station in her car for us, and we all returned to Boston and had dinner in a Chinatown restaurant. We separated early, tired and glowing. Helen went back to Brookline, and Kim and I to our own rooms to sleep.
3
Doctor Dimassi’s house faced the Esplanade, a beautiful paved walk parallel with the River Charles. It was of brick, tall and substantial. Gorgeous suave sunshine fell quietly through the Back Bay street; always a cool sea breeze fluttered the vines. There were small plots of grass on each side of the house looking more mossy than New York grass, and arching trees that seemed older than New York trees. Behind the house were a large garden, a big tree, and many flowers. A great silence lay on this street and all the tall, dignified houses seemed to be empty . . . most of the Back Bay people went to Nahant and Marblehead at this time of the year. But even when winter came, the same air reigned, a dreamy tranquillity, and Old-World stateliness, for it was a back bay truly, where the tide of modern business had not yet come in.
Inside Doctor Dimassi’s house was a cool, dark, rather sacred feeling, which may have been due to the general tone of Back Bay or to the professional dignity of the doctor’s office, to which the ground floor was devoted, with its scientific incense of formaldehyde. The living room was on the second floor, a big, leisurely room with low, comfortable divans, opulent footstools (seats in themselves) and great deep chairs. This room held a baby grand piano, a victrola and a radio, and also a big drum which was played by the doctor himself. There was a commodious fireplace for burning logs, a large table holding magazines taken by the family, Harpers, Scribner’s, The Atlantic Monthly, The Mentor, and certain Roman Catholic magazines. Doctor Dimassi was a Roman Catholic. A tall, athletic, handsome gentleman about thirty-eight, with golden brown hair, strong white teeth, and a warm smile, he was the blend of a Sicilian-Puritan marriage, a generation or so behind. Now he was firmly ensconced in Boston society, though his Italian ancestry still gave him a rich Renaissance look and an air of cosmopolitan distinction. He knew Europe very well, but he himself was a prosperous citizen of Boston, with his season ticket at the Symphony.
The great dark staircase went up and up; the carpeted steps rippled gradually, so that they seemed almost flat. My room was on the third floor, the children’s floor, on the other side of the hall from the big playroom, which had a floor mapped out with all kinds of games, big toys waiting on low shelves and many many windows through which the sunlight poured. Above was still another floor, the servants’, when Doctor Dimassi’s family was at home. My room had a double bed, a luxurious couch, and a door that opened into a smaller room with a cute little bed there for a child. A little desk was in this little room opposite the little bed, and I often studied in here, raising my eyes from my books to look out over the Charles River.
Every day the Negro janitor came to dust about a bit. All his life he had been with Doctor Dimassi’s mother-in-law, who was an old-timer in Boston. John was his name. He was a tall, fine-figured black man about fifty. He was always very dignified and never had any sense of humor, which was unusual in a Negro. As janitor he had one specialty—it was really his profession—shining the brass on the doorplate.
Doctor Dimassi and his partner, Doctor Starr, were away all day, only returning in the evening to sleep, for they kept bachelor quarters together, in the absence of children and wives. Sometimes they came home for lunch; then they ate nothing but great round crackers, imported, crumbled into capacious bowls holding double A grade milk. Whenever they ate at home they always invited me to sit down and eat with them in the big, cool, still dining room with the curtains drawn to keep out the summery sun. Our relations were ever friendly. My job was an easy one: to be always on hand, sleep there, answer telephone calls and take down messages; my wages were six dollars a week and my room. By and by the doctors conceived the idea of eating dinner at home sometimes with me. The Club they said was very expensive—especially, added Doctor Starr, cigars!—and it was far more pleasant and cheaper to eat at home. Coming in about six o’clock, the first thing they did was to change to gymnasium suits—trunks, nothing else. Doctor Starr would mix them both a small cocktail while Doctor Dimassi and I did the cooking. Our dinners were very simple. Thick, juicy steak of the quality George would appreciate, or a big fish fresh from the sea. And rice. The rice was my charge. Doctor Starr then made the salad, and everything was placed on the dumbwaiter, while I ran ahead to the dining room to pull it up. Afterwards we sat down in style, but startlingly nudist, for all three were naked from the waist up, since I imitated the doctors to avoid the summer heat. The two doctors talked like college boys. They had a good time in kidding each other. Everything was a joke except the Catholic religion. Like many Catholics, Doctor Dimassi was devout without ever going to church. I heard his view about it. He said he accepted his faith not for a future salvation but for a present one. It was a pattern or tune needed to make life ordered and harmonious. Many Americans missed that. He preached to me one day on the dangers of becoming Americanized and losing all sense of values. I asked the doctors if they had ever read William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience—which happened to be the book I was reading just then. Then Doctor Starr laughed, and said that happened to be the only book he had not read.
All during the summer months, I was like a hungry cow eating grass in a valley. There was a public library within five minutes’ walk, and also I could use the various college and university libraries of Boston and Cambridge. I browsed from shelf to shelf—sociology, philosophy, poetry, anything that took my fancy. I consulted only my appetite. Shaw, Gibbon, Wells, Sinclair Lewis, Thackeray, Thomas Hardy, everything in odd assortment . . . the Brontës, the works of Jane Austen . . . the Americans, Hawthorne, Cooper, Poe, Melville, Whitman. I read translations of Plato and Aristotle. Besides what I read thoroughly, I touched scattered pages of thousands of books. I began to gather roughly what this man stood for, that man preached, as I picked out the general configuration of Western literature and the heads that had bobbed on the crest of its cultural waves. In the morning I walked and got books for the afternoon; I did not need to be on duty at Doctor Dimassi’s until four o’clock. Even after that, I was not confined to the office, for there were telephone extensions on every floor.
Toward the end of the summer, I had a short note from Kim, telling me to be sure to look him up if I came to New York, as he had heard of some remunerative work in translation I might be able to do while studying in Boston. I thought this was worth going to New York to see about. So I engaged a Chinese student to take my place at Doctor Dimassi’s, and went down on the boat.
4
Kim was glad to see me, and had me stop with him. I found him in a curious state of up and down moods. Helen was of course back of this turmoil. He had been seeing a good deal of her lately. She had returned from Europe and was visiting in New York. When she was with the Browns, he could see her freely, and when she was with her aunt, they must meet clandestinely. Her aunt, it seemed, did not approve of her friendship with Kim and was at sword’s point with the Browns about that. Helen had begun at her aunt’s and ended
up at the Browns’. The next move appeared uncertain. I felt that their relationship was rapidly nearing a climax. I could say nothing to help my friend, indeed I could only guess at what was taking place now. Kim had no defense against Helen’s conservative background. It intensified the feeling he had had all along, that he was an unwanted guest in the house of Western culture. Yet through the West (for the present, at least) he had reached the intellectual frontier of humanity. And however much Kim spoke of himself as drifting, his sense of time and tide had been the force carrying him to New York, depositing him here in unwilling attendance upon the Machine Age. From my own case, I knew that well. His emotions were deeply involved with Helen Hancock and there was nothing he could do but wait until she made up her mind. Useless to preach George’s doctrine, “Do not take life too seriously.” Kim would have said, “What could a fish living way down in a lower well know about the superior regions of air up above?” Yet both were Westernized. Each in his own way seemed to accept the existence of romantic love which could not be analyzed in the philosophical teakettle or in that artistic liquid tube in which Kim washed his ink brushes. George had all the animalism of the pagan, the lust of the world, the flesh of the twentieth century . . . while Kim’s love was the voice of an unseen bird in agony in some mountain solitude, a man of another world, good for nothing in this one. One moment I thought what a pity they could not get on together, this Sancho Panza and Don Quixote of mine, and the next I saw it could never be.
East Goes West Page 30
