It never occurred to them, either, that Li Sin was a Manchu duke, with a genealogy4 that extended back to the days of Tang. It never occurred to them that the slant-eyed Manchu was as big a physician as any of the high-priced practitioners5 on the Avenue. To the descendants of fur-peddlers and deck-scrubbers who graced the Social Register, or to the millionaires of Long Island who had soared into the financial heavens on an accidental oil-spout or who had amassed6 their fortunes by the less reputable forms of mine-grabbing—to these, and to their wives and daughters, Li Sin was merely a tradesman or shopkeeper. It did not particularly matter to them that his shop on Fifth Avenue was filled with little gold Buddhas8 whose eyes were fine emeralds, with pieces of lacquer which it had taken an artist his lifetime to do, with peachblow vases transparent9 as a hand against the sun, with porcelains10 sheer as fine silks, with cloisonne jars that made staid experts rave11 like men in liquor. But the strictures of the ignorant did not worry Li Sin in the least. He would only raise his eyebrows12 and smile his bland13, inscrutable smile.
Li Sin has left Fifth Avenue now, and in his store, which was in those days a temple of truth as well as a temple of beauty, a very lying and exceedingly dishonest Armenian reigns14. In his own city of Tientsin the Manchu lives in stately leisure. He has reverted15 to his own name, Hsien Po, which is great in Manchu annals. He has reverted to his Manchu dress of brocaded blouse and silken trousers, to his mandarin16's cap with its mandarin's button. He is very proud of his pear gardens, and he divides his time between walking in them, reading the analects of Confucius, and giving the benefit of his marvelous medical knowledge gratuitously19 to the poor. He is happy, I hope, for if ever a man deserved to be happy, it is he.
He is gone now, is Li Sin, but I can see him as plainly as though he were standing20 beside me. A rather squat21 sort of man, with a squarish face and high cheek-bones. His shining black hair was parted smoothly22 at the side, and there was a look of health in the transparent quality of his brown skin and in the whites of his slanting23 eyes. There was always a quiet smile on his lips, and he wore the tweed and broadcloth of America with as much ease as the blouse and silken trousers of his own land. The only Oriental hint in his clothes was the suppressed gorgeousness of his neckties. He roamed about the great store, passing an occasional word with the attendants or stopping to greet a favorite customer, which was an honor. The customers were much in awe24 of Li Sin. There were incidents that had taught them to respect him.
There was the incident of the amateur pottery25 expert who happened to be also a millionaire. He noticed a vase of delicate blue jade26.
"Oh, Li Sin," he said, "I want that. That's a wonderful piece of Ming."
"It's not Ming," the Manchu told him.
"I tell you it is Ming!" the young millionaire insisted. "I 'll buy it."
"Then you 'll sell me nothing, ever again," Rensselaer decreed in a passion.
"Oh, very well," Li Sin smiled.
To Morganstern, the munitions28 magnate, he was much shorter. The bulky financier rushed into the store rolling a cigar about his fat lips. He wanted a rug, he said, an expensive one, the best in the store. Li Sin smiled a trifle cynically29 and pointed30 out something on the wall.
"A Persian thirteenth-century," he explained curtly31. "Used to belong to a shah of Persia. It costs seventeen thousand dollars."
"I 'll take it," Morganstern nodded. "I want something for the bedroom floor."
"But, dear sir," Li Sin expostulated, "one does n't put that on the floor. One hangs it on a wall."
"I don't care a damn." The munitions man drew out his check-book. "Anything good enough for the shah of Persia's wall is good enough for my feet."
"My good sir—" Li Sin's voice was as bland as ever—"you are making a mistake. There are several grass-rug emporiums on Second Avenue. Go into the next drug store and look one up in a telephone-book. Take a trolley32 across Fifty-ninth Street. They 'll sell you one, and you can carry it home beneath your arm." And abruptly33 he left Morganstern.
These things created a legend about Li Sin that will never die on the Avenue. Cynics say that it was good advertising34, and brought people who liked to be insulted. But we, who knew the Manchu, were certain that was the last thing he had in mind. Peculiar35 as Li Sin's business habits were, more peculiar still were his friends. Among them might be counted a European ambassador in Washington, a great heavy-weight wrestler36, a little Roman Catholic priest, a head waiter in a restaurant. All of these people he liked for some quality that his shrewd eyes had discovered. And last but not least was Irene Johns.
She had come into the store one soft spring morning, looking for a birthday present for her mother, something inexpensive, she said, about two dollars, all—she laughed merrily—she could afford. Perhaps it was that gurgling laugh of hers, that limpid37, hurried, harmonious38 scale, that drew Li Sin's attention. But he came forward with a suggestion when she and the salesman became nonplused at the problem of finding something pretty, good and worth two dollars.
"Perhaps I can help," he smiled.
She impressed him with her appearance as much as with her laugh. There was something so ethereal about her that she seemed less a being of flesh and blood than the disembodied spirit of spring. Her fair hair, her starlit purple eyes, her eager, half-closed small mouth with its glint of little teeth, her slim neck stood out against her heather costume and black, sweeping39 hat like a softly modulated40 light. She was so little, so slender, that she seemed as delicate as a snowflake. She moved with the lightness of a feather stirring along the ground. And yet, Li Sin saw with his physician's eye, she was not fragile. She was as healthy as an athlete.
"I think I can find you something," he said.
He did. In the rear of the store he discovered a roughly hammered silver brooch from Bokhara, a marvel17 of intricacy and sweeping lines; he had bought it in Bokhara himself for two rubles. The thing had interested him.
"I paid one dollar for it in Bokhara, and I am exacting42 a dollar profit for it, which is not too little," the Manchu answered gravely.
By what peculiar, invisible steps their friendship ripened45 it would be impossible to detail; but ripen44 it did. The fresh, fair American beauty, slim and beautiful as a Tanagra figurine, and the squat, aged47" target="_blank">middle-aged46 Mongol liked each other, came to appreciate each other. She had an inborn48 love for beautiful things, and he was never weary of showing her the treasures of his store. He showed her strange, exotic jewels, collected by dead kings and queens—chrysoberyls that were at times the strange green of olives and at other times red like a setting sun, topazes with the yellow of aged wine, sunstones that glowed with a tremulous golden red, carbuncles that flashed into explosive stars of scarlet49, peridots and milky50 moonstones, a ruby51 that the King of Ceylon had owned, and an emerald that had once belonged to the unhappy Queen of Scots. Irene Johns would gasp52 at the sight of these things.
"They 're so beautiful!" she would say. "They make the tears come to my eyes!"
That was enough for Li Sin, that gasp of appreciation53. He loved the things so much himself. He had hunted his treasures up and down the earth and to and fro in it, and he wanted them to be gazed on with the appreciative54 eye rather than with the cold look of barter55 and exchange. He liked this little twenty-year-old woman, because she had the spirit of beauty within her, and because she seemed so fair and fresh and unprotected. And she liked the swarthy Mongol, not for his strange, exotic setting, but for the sheer kindliness56 of him, the great, expansive benevolence57 and his consummate58 courtesy, which after all was nothing but the birthright of a Manchu prince.
There could be no question of love between them, for many reasons, and never a thought of it passed their minds. She might have been something like a niece to him, and he her benevolent59 uncle. They never met outside his store.
He drew from her the story of what of life she had known, carefully, gently, like the skilled surgeon extracting a splinter from flesh. The daughter of a naval60 surgeon who had died while she was still young,—and who, Li Sin shrewdly guessed, had been somewhat of a blackguard,—she lived poorly with her mother, on a meager61 pension. She had been brought up decently, educated well, at what must have been a terrible expense to the mother. She had not been married, beautiful as she was, because she had not mixed with people who were to be regarded as beneath her in social rank. The people of her own station were too poor to marry offhand62—but there was a young ensign she mentioned as having met once or twice, and there was a faint blush on her cheeks as she spoke of it. For the illustrious and the moneyed she had either too little fortune or too little lineage. And that was all.
"Too bad!" Li Sin murmured to himself, and his thoughts would have done credit to the most adroit63 of schatchen. "Too bad!"
She would breeze in, if such a word may be used of her who was as gentle as a zephyr64, bringing always with her the sweetness of spring.
"Good morning!" she would greet him eagerly. "I wonder if we could find something—I want a clasp for my hair, for evening wear—something frightfully inexpensive."
"I think we might find it." Li Sin would smile, and he would find it. He took her money, and gave her the article at a just profit on what he had paid for it. The only thing gratuitous18 he gave her was the travel and the adventure necessary to pick his wonderful trifles up. Of this he said nothing, and she was none the wiser.
There came the day when she entered a little excited, a little afraid, a little nervous. She wanted something more expensive than usual. She was going out that night, she explained, with somebody.
"To whom?" Li Sin asked quietly.
"A friend of my father's," she answered blushingly. "Roderick Dreghorn, the ivory-hunter."
"I wonder if I might ask you to do something," Li Sin said slowly, "and that is: will you bring your fiancé here some day so that I may congratulate him?"
"I should love to," she said; and she left him, excitedly happy, Li Sin saw; but he also noticed that she seemed a little terrified, a little aghast.
I have told the story of Li Sin to many people, now that he is gone to his own home and is happy there with his poor and his pear-trees, and some of them have believed me because they know China and the manner of man Li Sin is, and some of them have believed me because they know I abhor66 lies as I abhor the devil. But many cannot understand it. They cannot see why a Manchu duke should become a merchant on Fifth Avenue.
"And if he is as great a doctor as you say—" they object.
There is a passage in Isaiah, I believe, which speaks of Tyre, "whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honorable of the earth." Marco Polo, that ancient Venetian, says of Cathay, that there, of all professions the most esteemed67 is that of merchant. It is above arms, he says, above learning. And what obtained in the Yellow Empire when Hoang-ti led his people across the desert in the misty68 dawn of time obtains to-day, from the outer sea to the confines of Mongolia. An ancient and honorable thing it is, a fit profession for princes, a thing pregnant with ideals of honesty and fair dealing69, a clean thing. There is nothing anomalous70 to the eye in Li Sin, a Manchu duke, unearthing72 the treasures of forgotten days for the New World, and exacting a just profit for the work.
As for the medicine, that was another matter. I could no more imagine Li Sin accepting money for his healing art than I can imagine him stealing alms from a blind beggar. The thing was far too holy for him. There in that glass-topped studio in his house on Fifth Avenue, above the great treasure-store, he studied his science with the enthusiasm of an amateur pursuing a hobby. A queer place it was, with its retorts and vials, its glinting instruments, its Rontgen-ray apparatus73, its tubes of deadly serum74 and of healing drugs. And beside these were the quaint75 adjuncts of Oriental healing: the twisted tubes of herbs, instruments that seemed like an alchemist's dream, medicines of black, occult art as well as of benevolence, secret, untraceable poisons, liquids which, it is whispered, would bring the dead to life for minutes, which would drive men mad.
Ask the taciturn Lee Fong, on Mott Street, that slant-eyed millionaire. Ask the leaders of the Hip43 Sing. At the Five Companies of San Francisco, inquire. They will speak of Li Sin as a demigod of medicine.
One has n't to go as far as that to find out. There is a tenement-house on Hudson Street, where the Bracalellos live. There is a romping76 child there called Beata. For years she was an object of research to physicians in hospitals, because of her twisted spine77. Nothing could be done, they decided78. They were wrong. Li Sin saw the white-cheeked child carried in the subway on a horrible metal stretcher, strapped79 to it. It hurt him—the illnesses of children always hurt him. He took charge of her. She romps80 about now as other children do. There are many cases of that kind.
But above all in my mind there is the tragic81 case of Mrs. Madge Eaton, who is now happy as a woman farmer on Long Island. Li Sin discovered her creeping up an alleyway to die from hunger, shame, and heartbreak. Against all protestation he took her home. Her story was tragic and very sordid82. She had married John Eaton, a man who had come up to Maine for a holiday. He had brought her to New York. In a month he had sent her out to work. She fell ill. Eaton deserted83 her, taking with him all her jewelry84, all her money, all her clothes. When she was discovered, she was sent to a hospital, and when she emerged from there, she found herself without courage to kill herself and without the wherewithal to live. The police sent her to jail two weeks later. When she came out, Li Sin found her, broken, hungry, terrified, wanting to die and yet without courage to face the river.
He cured her. He brought her back to life and hope and strength. By some means he instilled85 into that frail86 and timid heart the courage of a lioness. But he did one thing, unknown to her, of which she might not have approved.
There was a tripartite function of Li Sin's: Firstly there was that of the merchant, whose duty it was to discover and barter rare and costly87 things. Secondly88 came the physician's, to heal body and mind. Thirdly came that of the Manchu prince, to dispense89 justice.
He called Hong Kop, his body-servant, to him—that subtle and inscrutable Cantonese. He looked at the card on which he had scribbled90 an address, an address he had extracted from Mrs. Eaton.
The Cantonese nodded.
"You will go to this address—a gambling-house—and there you will pick up the trail of John Eaton. You will pick up the trail and follow it until you find him. And when you do find him—"
He paused for an instant. Again the Cantonese bowed.
"You will kill him, Hong Kop."
Six feet tall, spare as a lance, tanned to a deep brown, hatchet-faced and yet handsome in some daredevil, hypnotic way, with eyes that glinted with the vindictive92 sheen of a rifle-barrel, mouth twisted slightly,—enough to show the cruelty hidden within—Roderick Dreghorn lounged into the store with Irene Johns. There was an amused smile on his powerful face, as though it pleased him whimsically to accompany his fiancée on a shopping expedition, to meet her queer friends.
"Li Sin," she said, "this is the man I am going to marry."
The Manchu smiled gravely. Dreghorn watched him with an amused, contemptuous glance.
"There is no need to wish felicity," said Li Sin, courteously94, "to the future husband of Miss Johns." And Dreghorn nodded in an offhand way. The hunter turned to the girl.
"Didn't you want to get something here?" he asked, "some silk or something?" Li Sin noted95 beneath the man's soft tones the concealed96 edge that could cut on occasion like a rawhide97 whip. Rapidly Li Sin was summing the man up in his mind: forty-five, he decided, a man of the world, a gentleman born, an utter blackguard, a man who had done and seen evil things. He had money, too—witness the plain but expensive cut of his brown tweeds. Li Sin noted quickly a faint scar on the temple that he knew to be an old bullet-wound, and a weal across the fingers of the right hand that only a long knife could have made.
"Would you care to come and help Miss Johns select the silk?" Li Sin asked. Dreghorn smiled, and there was a lift to the left corner of his mouth that showed the teeth. It was like a dog's threatening snarl98.
"I don't think so," he drawled. "I am not interested in any products of the yellow or black countries."
"Indeed!" Li Sin murmured.
Excitedly, at the end of the store, Irene Johns told her story. Dreghorn—in a moment of boredom99, Li Sin judged—had dropped in to see the family of the man he had known fifteen years before in Hongkong. He had heard of Mrs. Johns and her daughter from some casual acquaintance. Li Sin smiled; the casual acquaintance had spoken of the daughter's beauty, most probably. Mr. Dreghorn had been so kind to all of them! He had taken them out, had showered presents on them, had in the end asked her to marry him.
"Indeed!" Li Sin thought, and he encouraged her to go on.
He was so big, so powerful, she hinted. He had done big things, had had great adventures. She seemed a little aghast as she mentioned that. He was so compelling, she said.
"She is not in love," thought Li Sin. "She is hypnotized."
He was going on one more expedition, she told the Manchu. After that, he was coming home to settle down. They would have a house in the country, a farm.
"Agh!" Li Sin exclaimed to himself. So that was it. The old, old story, as old as Cain: the rake, the scoundrel, after sucking the world dry of wickedness, wanted a wife, home, and children. Li Sin could understand how the girl's purity, her lightness, her youth, had appealed to the world-worn rascal100. He could understand the visions the man had—the sweet, hawthorn-scented dreams. It was like a murderer seeking to wash the blood from his hands with God's pure water.
They left. Li Sin escorted them courteously to the door.
"Good-by!" he wished them.
"Good-by, my yellow friend," Dreghorn answered contemptuously. Irene Johns did not hear it.
Li Sin went above to his apartment. He clapped his hands for Hong Kop.
"You will go down to where you know, Hong Kop, to the house of Ling Wah Lee—"
The Cantonese made his eternal bow.
"And you will have him find out for me, Hong Kop, all there is to be known about Roderick Dreghorn, hunter of ivory, with a bullet-mark on the forehead and a weal on the right hand, the weal of a Burmese knife."
There is a doctrine101 in one of the faiths that man is born in original sin, and that unless he is cleansed102 by sacrament he is until the end of time the property of the evil one. There is an article of dogma in the same faith that one may become possessed103 of demons104. If this is true, then never a sacrament was said over Dreghorn, nor ever was he confronted with the exorcist's mystic and terrible formula. Hell seemed to have employed him all his life and to have made him its brain and hand. The first of the story was bad enough, with its record of treachery, of gainful crimes in the dark lands, of murders concealed and never explained. Even Li Sin's worldly-wise mind was shocked by Hong Kop's report. There was the incident in the Belgian Congo when Dreghorn, allied105 with a corrupt106 Belgian official, burned a village with all the inhabitants, shooting down those who tried to escape from the flames. They had not produced enough ivory.
"Even madness will not explain that!" Li Sin shook his head.
There was the incident during the period of the Boxer107 chaos108 in Yuen-Lau, when Dreghorn and an associate had tortured an old mandarin, hoping to make him unearth71 treasure. They had given him the torture of the bowstring, and the water torture, and the torture of red metal at his feet.
"And he an old man," Li Sin thought, "four-score and five!"
There was the incident in Mombasaland when the fiendish natives had captured a lone109 hunter of ivory, had crucified him on the ground, smeared110 with honey for the ants, delirious111 under the smashing sun. Dreghorn could have rescued him, for he was well armed and had a large party of natives. But he contented112 himself with stealing the man's ivory and leaving him there to die.
"That is one thing for which there is no punishment," Li Sin thought. "No punishment is equal in horror."
Li Sin read another incident, and he read no farther. It was the story of Marie Tirlemont, called Flancs-de-neige, whom Dreghorn had brought with him from Maxim's in Paris, down to the Congo. She had ceased to amuse Dreghorn a hundred miles south of Leopoldville, and he had abandoned her alone, in a village of black beasts.
And now Dreghorn, Li Sin mused93, wanted to marry. He wanted to marry this fair little American girl, pure and delicate as the petal113 of a primrose114, light and shimmering115 and gay as iridescence116 on water—to make a home with her, to have her bear children.
He called for Hong Kop.
"What is the profit of crime, Hong Kop?" he asked.
The Cantonese thought for a moment.
"The profit of crime is death," he answered.
"Death is a sweet and gentle thing, Hong Kop," his master mused. "It comes to the old like a gentle and sweet-scented sleep. It comes to the suffering like a grateful anodyne117. On others it falls so quickly and surely that there is no pain. It is not the profit of crime, Hong Kop, except for those who wish much to live."
He mused again, joining his finger-tips together and knitting his brows.
"Unless, instead of being a sweet sleep, it is a nightmare, Hong Kop! Unless, instead of being an anodyne, it is a horror! Unless it comes accompanied by a huge and monstrous118 fear, a terror that clutches the heartstrings, a fear that kills!"
He was going away on the morrow, Dreghorn said. He would be away for six months, and then he would return, and they would be married. He wanted to buy her something before he left, a ring or a bracelet119.
"I wanted to buy it here," she replied warmly, "because here I can get the most beautiful things in the world."
"If you care for that yellow junk," Dreghorn laughed shortly.
"Roderick!" she protested quickly. She was pained through and through. Li Sin smiled reassuringly121 at her. But Dreghorn wandered on.
"Anything you want," he told Irene; "anything that pleases you."
As he watched him, Li Sin became convinced that the man was in love, head over heels in, as a boy might be. The hunter became garrulous122, under his feelings, as under the influence of a drug.
"She spoke of getting the house at Huntingdon decorated in some Oriental style," Dreghorn laughed. "She can have it if she wants it. But I don't see why she could n't have it done in honest white style."
Li Sin smiled blandly as ever. He might have been receiving a compliment.
"I have no use for any color except white," Dreghorn answered brutally124. "Black, yellow, brown, or red."
"It is a harsh thing," Li Sin reproved him. Irene Johns stood by, pale, nervous, and hurt. "It is a grievous thing to wound the body, but it is a more grievous thing to wound the soul. And to wound it unjustly is more grievous still."
"I deal in facts," Dreghorn laughed.
"May I show you a fact?" Li Sin went on. "You have been in China, and if I mistake not, you read Chinese."
"Among my many accomplishments," Dreghorn sneered, "is the reading of Chinese."
Irene looked at him with a sort of fearful agony in her eyes. She had never seen his brutality125 creep out before, and she was shocked at the sight of him lolling across the counter and striving his utmost to hurt the smiling Manchu. Li Sin took up a book from behind him, a broad, thin book, the stiff parchment pages of which were edged with gold. He opened it carefully. The leaves had the stiffness of steel.
"These are the verses of Ling Tai Fu, of Tientsin," the Manchu said, "a poet of the last century who had traveled into Russia. He complains bitterly of the same prejudice, and he deals with facts, which you deal with. Here is his poem 'The Return.' Perhaps you will translate it."
Dreghorn looked down the page smilingly.
"They have laughed at me, they of the North—me, of the race of Chang!
Because of my skin like an autumn leaf, because of my slitted eyes,
Because they were white as the sun, they said, white as light!
And yet—whiter than white is the leper.
White is the hibiscus tree with fluttering blossoms, white as they!
White are the men of the North as the sun, white as light!
And yet—whiter than white is the leper."
Dreghorn laughed easily. Irene shivered with a shock of horror. Li Sin smiled.
"Those are facts," the Manchu said.
"Is there any more of this?" the hunter asked. He turned over the leaf.
"No more," Li Sin answered. "I should have warned you about those leaves. You have cut your hand."
Dreghorn looked at his left thumb. The edge of the book-leaf had sheared127 into it as sharp and as painlessly as the edge of a razor. A few minute drops of blood showed on the skin.
"You had better have a little peroxide," Li Sin suggested.
"I 'm not a child," Dreghorn laughed. "It is n't anything. Come on, Irene."
They left the store together, and, as was his wont128 with favored customers, Li Sin saw them to the door. The girl was flushed deep with mortification129, and she shot the Manchu a mute appeal of apology. Dreghorn smiled again.
"Good-by!" answered Li Sin, gravely.
Li Sin saw little of Irene Johns for the next six weeks. Once she came into the store, but she was nervous and flushed, as though she thought the Manchu would hold against her the insults Dreghorn had offered him. But he took pains to show her that he and she were as close friends as ever. She was silently grateful, but still nervous.
"Mr. Dreghorn will be back in six months?" the Manchu said.
"In six months," she answered listlessly. "He is gone to Abyssinia."
"And you will be married soon after?"
"Immediately he comes back, he insists," she said.
The glamour131 and hypnotism and force of the man's presence no longer enthralled132 her, Li Sin could see. She was fearful of the step she was taking. But she was certain it was going to take place. Once Dreghorn returned, the quality of his masterfulness would grind down all opposition133, even were she to show any.
"I want you to come in soon," Li Sin told her. "I have some things coming from Peking that I want you to see."
But she did not come in. In place of her there entered the store, six weeks after Dreghorn had sailed, a tall, heavily built young man with a tanned face, heavy jaw134, and gray eyes. He asked for Mr. Sin.
"I am Li Sin," the Manchu told him.
"My name is Gray, surgeon on the Cunarder Hibernia, between New York and Algiers. Miss Johns asked me to tell you something, and she would like to see you, if it is not asking too much. She is prostrated135 at home. Her fiancé is dead."
"Mr. Dreghorn is dead!" Li Sin commented simply. "How?"
"He came out of the smoking-room one night, after talking to me about his intended," the surgeon went on glibly136. He seemed to be repeating something he had rehearsed. "We were off Algiers, and though the night was fine, a cross-sea was running. He said he would not turn in for a half-hour yet, and the last I saw of him he was leaning against the starboard rail of the boat-deck. We never saw anything more of him. There can be no doubt that he fell overboard."
Li Sin studied him for a few minutes silently.
"Dr. Gray," he said simply, "you will pardon a man who is twenty years older than you, and who has seen much of the world and much of life, but—that is not what happened. Dr. Gray, how did Dreghorn die?"
He continued looking at the young surgeon. The man was evidently under a great strain.
"I know Miss Johns," Li Sin went on, "and I knew Dreghorn."
"If you know Miss Johns," the young surgeon blurted out suddenly, "you know the best and most beautiful woman I have ever seen; and if you knew Dreghorn, you knew the damnedest scoundrel unhanged."
"That, too, I know," said Li Sin.
He waited an instant. The surgeon was uncomfortably silent.
"Dr. Gray," the Manchu insisted, "of what did Dreghorn die?"
"If you want to know, and have the right to know," Gray burst out savagely137, "the man died because he had contracted the most virulent138 case of leprosy I have ever seen in the tropics. How he did it, God only knows. He was quite well when he left New York except for a rash on his left hand. He must have been impregnated with some horrible virus. In a few days I had to manacle him in his cabin. For a week the man was a shrieking139 maniac140. I thought something might be done when we got to port. There was no chance. In Algiers they would have put him in the leper colony. So one night I took him up to the boat-deck and let him go overboard."
There was an instant's silence.
"I knew of the man," the doctor said bitterly, "and I can't even pray to God for his soul!"
"But I must!" said Li Sin.
"You will go up and see Miss Johns," the surgeon reminded him. "She will get over it."
"She will get over it, and be happy, and marry a good man," the Manchu told him. "I will go to see her." And they parted.
He went upstairs to his apartment, very slowly, very calmly. He sat down and thought for a while. Softly he clapped his hands. The silent Cantonese came.
"Hong Kop," he asked, "tell me, Hong Kop, you who are young, how does love come?"
"There is beauty," he said, "and it calls to manliness142 with the call of cymbals143. They meet and wing upward, as Chung Tzu wrote, 'like a hymn144 recited softly at the death of day.'"
"There is beauty, and there is manliness!" the Manchu mused. "There is Irene Johns, and there is—" He smiled an instant, and became as grave as ever again. "You will go to Brooklyn, to the Navy Yard, Hong Kop, and you will find for me an ensign called Nelson. You will find where he is, Hong Kop....
"I am getting old, Hong Kop, I am getting old. The pear gardens of Tientsin are bursting into silver and mauve. Birds from the outer sea are winging northward145. Again with the spring the musicians tune7 their lutes of jade. The throbbing146 chords do not awaken147 me, Hong Kop. Hong Kop, I am old."
He rose wearily.
He stretched his arms out for his fur coat, but suddenly he remembered something. He went upstairs to the glass-roofed laboratory; taking a parcel from a bronze chest, and unwrapping the antiseptic-soaked coverings, he brought out a book, a broad, thin book, the stiff parchment pages of which were edged with gold. Carefully he lighted the muffle-furnace, and carefully he placed the volume in it. And while he waited for the volume to be consumed, softly he began to recite a quatrain from it, a quatrain of Ling Tai Fu's:
"White is the hibiscus tree with fluttering blossoms, white as they!
But whiter than it is the snow which numbs its roots in the ground!
White are the men of the North as the sun, white as light!
And yet—whiter than white is the leper."
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slit
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| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
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enigma
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| n.谜，谜一样的人或事 | |
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3
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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4
genealogy
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| n.家系，宗谱 | |
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5
practitioners
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| n.习艺者，实习者( practitioner的名词复数 )；从业者（尤指医师） | |
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6
amassed
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| v.积累，积聚( amass的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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7
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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8
Buddhas
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| n.佛，佛陀，佛像( Buddha的名词复数 ) | |
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9
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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10
porcelains
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| n.瓷，瓷器( porcelain的名词复数 ) | |
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11
rave
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| vi.胡言乱语；热衷谈论；n.热情赞扬 | |
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12
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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13
bland
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| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
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14
reigns
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| n.君主的统治( reign的名词复数 )；君主统治时期；任期；当政期 | |
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15
reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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16
Mandarin
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| n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的 | |
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17
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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18
gratuitous
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| adj.无偿的，免费的；无缘无故的，不必要的 | |
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19
gratuitously
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| 平白 | |
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20
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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21
squat
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| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
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22
smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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23
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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24
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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25
pottery
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| n.陶器，陶器场 | |
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26
jade
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| n.玉石；碧玉；翡翠 | |
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27
blandly
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| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
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28
munitions
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| n.军火，弹药；v.供应…军需品 | |
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29
cynically
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| adv.爱嘲笑地，冷笑地 | |
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30
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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31
curtly
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| adv.简短地 | |
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32
trolley
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| n.手推车，台车；无轨电车；有轨电车 | |
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33
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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34
advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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35
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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36
wrestler
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| n.摔角选手，扭 | |
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37
limpid
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| adj.清澈的，透明的 | |
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38
harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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39
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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40
modulated
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| 已调整[制]的，被调的 | |
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41
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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42
exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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43
hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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44
ripen
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| vt.使成熟；vi.成熟 | |
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45
ripened
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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47
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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48
inborn
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| adj.天生的，生来的，先天的 | |
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49
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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50
milky
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| adj.牛奶的，多奶的；乳白色的 | |
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51
ruby
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| n.红宝石，红宝石色 | |
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52
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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53
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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54
appreciative
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| adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的 | |
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55
barter
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| n.物物交换，以货易货，实物交易 | |
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56
kindliness
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| n.厚道，亲切，友好的行为 | |
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57
benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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58
consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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59
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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60
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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61
meager
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| adj.缺乏的，不足的，瘦的 | |
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62
offhand
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| adj.临时，无准备的；随便，马虎的 | |
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63
adroit
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| adj.熟练的，灵巧的 | |
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64
zephyr
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| n.和风，微风 | |
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65
blurted
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| v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66
abhor
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| v.憎恶；痛恨 | |
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67
esteemed
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|
| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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68
misty
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|
| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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69
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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70
anomalous
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|
| adj.反常的；不规则的 | |
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71
unearth
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| v.发掘，掘出，从洞中赶出 | |
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72
unearthing
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|
| 发掘或挖出某物( unearth的现在分词 )； 搜寻到某事物，发现并披露 | |
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73
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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74
serum
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|
| n.浆液，血清，乳浆 | |
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75
quaint
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|
| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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76
romping
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|
| adj.嬉戏喧闹的，乱蹦乱闹的v.嬉笑玩闹( romp的现在分词 )；（尤指在赛跑或竞选等中）轻易获胜 | |
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77
spine
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|
| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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78
decided
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|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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79
strapped
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|
| adj.用皮带捆住的，用皮带装饰的；身无分文的；缺钱；手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词)；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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80
romps
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| n.无忧无虑，快活( romp的名词复数 )v.嬉笑玩闹( romp的第三人称单数 )；（尤指在赛跑或竞选等中）轻易获胜 | |
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81
tragic
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|
| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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82
sordid
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|
| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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83
deserted
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|
| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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84
jewelry
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|
| n.（jewllery）（总称）珠宝 | |
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85
instilled
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|
| v.逐渐使某人获得（某种可取的品质），逐步灌输( instill的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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86
frail
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|
| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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87
costly
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|
| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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88
secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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89
dispense
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| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
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90
scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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91
colon
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| n.冒号，结肠，直肠 | |
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92
vindictive
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| adj.有报仇心的，怀恨的，惩罚的 | |
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93
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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94
courteously
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| adv.有礼貌地，亲切地 | |
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95
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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96
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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97
rawhide
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| n.生牛皮 | |
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98
snarl
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| v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮 | |
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99
boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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100
rascal
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| n.流氓；不诚实的人 | |
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101
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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102
cleansed
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| 弄干净，清洗( cleanse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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103
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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104
demons
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| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
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105
allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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106
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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107
boxer
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| n.制箱者，拳击手 | |
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108
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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109
lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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110
smeared
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| 弄脏； 玷污； 涂抹； 擦上 | |
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111
delirious
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| adj.不省人事的，神智昏迷的 | |
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112
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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113
petal
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| n.花瓣 | |
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114
primrose
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| n.樱草，最佳部分， | |
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115
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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116
iridescence
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| n.彩虹色；放光彩；晕色；晕彩 | |
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117
anodyne
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| n.解除痛苦的东西，止痛剂 | |
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118
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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119
bracelet
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| n.手镯，臂镯 | |
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120
sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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121
reassuringly
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| ad.安心，可靠 | |
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122
garrulous
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| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
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123
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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124
brutally
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| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
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125
brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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126
numbs
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| v.使麻木，使麻痹( numb的第三人称单数 ) | |
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127
sheared
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| v.剪羊毛( shear的过去式和过去分词 )；切断；剪切 | |
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128
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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129
mortification
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| n.耻辱，屈辱 | |
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130
poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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131
glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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132
enthralled
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| 迷住，吸引住( enthrall的过去式和过去分词 )； 使感到非常愉快 | |
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133
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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134
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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135
prostrated
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| v.使俯伏，使拜倒( prostrate的过去式和过去分词 )；（指疾病、天气等）使某人无能为力 | |
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136
glibly
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| adv.流利地，流畅地；满口 | |
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137
savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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138
virulent
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| adj.有毒的，有恶意的，充满敌意的 | |
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139
shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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140
maniac
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| n.精神癫狂的人；疯子 | |
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141
fluting
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| 有沟槽的衣料； 吹笛子； 笛声； 刻凹槽 | |
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142
manliness
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| 刚毅 | |
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143
cymbals
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| pl.铙钹 | |
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144
hymn
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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145
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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146
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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147
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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148
limousine
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| n.豪华轿车 | |
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