 1 In which the peculiarities and nationality of the personages are gradually revealed. It must be acknowledged, however, that there is some good in life, observed one of the guests, who, leading his elbow on the arm of his chair with a marble back, sat nibbling a root of a sugar-watered lily, and evil also added another between two spells of coughing, having been nearly strangled by the prickles of the delicate fin of a shark. Let us be philosophers, than sad an older person, whose nose supported an enormous pair of spectacles with broad glasses affixed to wooden bows. Today, one comes near strangling, and tomorrow, everything flows smoothly as the fragrant draughts of this nectar. This is life, after all. After these words, this easily pleased epicure swallowed a glass of excellent warm wine, whose light vapor was slowly escaping from a metal teapot. For my part, continued the fourth guest, existence seems very acceptable, whenever one does nothing, and has the means which enable him to do nothing. You mistake, quickly replied the fifth, happiness is in study and work. To acquire the greatest possible amount of knowledge is the way to render oneself happy, and to learn, when you sub it all up, that you know nothing. It's not that the beginning of wisdom, but what is the end? Wisdom has no end, philosophically answered the man with spectacles. To have common sense would be supreme satisfaction. On this, the first guest directly addressed the host, who occupy the upper end of the table, that is, the poorest place, as the rules of politeness require. With indifference and inattention, the latter listened silently to this discussion in terpócula. Come, let us hear what her host thinks of this rambling talk over the wine-cup. Does he find existence a blessing, or an evil? Is it yes or no? The host carelessly munched several watermelon seeds, and for answer nearly pouted his lips cornfully, like a man who seems to take interest in nothing. Po, said he. This is a favorite word with indifferent people, for it means everything and nothing. It belongs to all languages, and must have a place in every dictionary on the globe, and is an articulated pout. The five guests whom this enigue was entertaining, then pressed him with arguments, each in favor of his own proposition, for they wished to have his opinion. He at first tried to avoid answering, but finally asserted that life was neither a blessing nor an evil. In his opinion it was an invention, rather insignificant, and in short not very encouraging. Ha, now our friend reveals himself. How can he speak thus when his life has been as smooth as an unruffled rose-leaf? And he's so young, young and in good health, in good health and rich, very rich, more than very rich, too rich perhaps. His remarks followed each other like rockets from a piece of fireworks, without even bringing a smile to the host's impassive face. He only shrugged his shoulders slightly, like a man who has never wished, even for an hour, to turn over the leaves in the book of his own life, and has not so much as cut the first pages. And yet this indifferent man was thirty-one years at most, was in wonderfully good health, possessed a great fortune, a mind that did not lack culture, and intelligence above the average, and had, in short, everything which so many others have not, to make him one of the happy of this world. And why was he not happy? Why? The philosopher's great voice was now heard, speaking like a leader of a chorus of the early drama. Friend, he said, if you are not happy here below, it is because, to now, your happiness has been only negative, with happiness as with health, to enjoy it, one should be deprived of it occasionally. Now, you have never been ill. I mean, you have never been unfortunate. It is that which your life needs. Who can appreciate happiness if misfortune has never even for a moment assailed him? And at this remark, which was stemmed with wisdom, the philosopher raising his glass full of champagne of the best brand, said, I wish some shadow to fall a thwart our host's sunlight, and some sorrows to enter his life, saying which he emptied his glass at one swallow. The host made a gesture of ascent, and again lapsed into his habitual apathy. Where did this conversation take place? In an European dining room, in Paris, London, Vienna, or St. Petersburg? Were these six companions conversing together in a restaurant in the old or new world? And who were they? Who, without having drunk more than usual, were discussing these questions in the midst of a repast? Certainly, they were not Frenchmen, because they were not talking politics. They were seated at a table in an elegantly decorated saloon of medium size. The last rays of the sun were streaming through the network of blue and orange window paints, and past the open windows the evening breeze was swinging garlands of natural and artificial flowers, and a few variegated lanterns mingled their pale light with the dying gleams of day. Above the windows were carved arabesques, enriched with varied sculpture, and representing celestial and terrestrial beauty, and animals and vegetables of a strange fauna and flora. On the walls of the saloon, which were hung in silken tapestry, were shining broad, double-beveled mirrors, and on the ceiling, a punkah, moving its painted percale wings, rendered the temperature indurable. The table was a vast quadrilateral of black lacquer work, and being uncovered reflected the numerous pieces of silver and porcelain as a slab of the purest crystal might have done. There were no napkins, only simple squares of ornamented paper, a sufficiently supply of which was furnished each guest. On the table stood chairs with marble backs, far preferable in this latitude to the covering of modern furniture. The attendants were very prepossessing young girls, in whose black hair were mingled lilies and chrysanthemums, and round whose arms bracelets of gold and jade were coquettishly wound. Smiling and sprightly they served or removed dishes with one hand, while with the other they gracefully waved a large pen, which restored the currents of air displaced by the punkah on the ceiling. The repast left nothing to be desired. One could not imagine anything more delicate than the cooking, which was both neat and artistic. For the bignon of the place, knowing that he was catering to connoisseurs, surpassed himself in the preparation of the five hundred dishes which composed the menu. In the first course there were sugar cakes, caviar, fried grasshoppers, dried fruits, and oysters from Ningpo. Then followed at short intervals poached eggs of the duck, pigeon, and lapwing, swallows nests with buttered eggs, fricases of ginseng, stewed sturgeon's gills, whale's nerves with sugar sauce, freshwater tadpoles, a ragout of the yolks of crab's eggs, sparrow's gizzards and sheep's eyes pierced with a pointed bit of garlic fur flavoring, ravenoli prepared with the milk of apricot stones, a stew of holothuria, bamboo shoots in their juice, salads of young roots, pineapples from Singapore, roasted earthnuts, salted almonds, savory mangoes, fruits of the long yin with white flesh, and lychee with pale pulp, water kaltrups, and preserved canton oranges composed the last course of a repast which had lasted three hours, a repast largely watered with beer, champagne, chaoqing wine, and the inevitable rice, which placed between the lips of the guests by the aid of chopsticks, was to crown at dessert the wisely arranged bill of fare. The moment came at last for the young girls to bring not those bowels of European fashion which contained a perfumed liquid, but napkins saturated with warm water which each of the guests passed over his face with extreme satisfaction. It was, however, only an intact of the repast, an hour of farniente whose moments were to be filled with music, for soon a troupe of singers and instrumentalists entered the saloon. The singers were pretty young girls of modest appearance and behavior. What music and method was theirs? A mewing and clucking without measure or tunefulness, rising in sharp notes to the utmost limit of perception by the auditory nerves. As for the instruments, there were violins whose strings became entangled in those of the bow, guitars covered with serpent skins, screeching clarinets, and harmonicas resembling small portable pianos, and all worthy of the songs and the singers to whom they formed a noisy accompaniment. The leader of this discordant orchestra presented the program of his repertoire as he entered, and at emotion from the host, who gave him carte blanche, his musicians played the bouquet of ten flowers, a piece very much in the mode at the time, and the rage in fashionable society. Then the singing and performing troupe, having been well paid in advance, withdrew, carrying with them many a bravo with which they would yet weep a rich harvest in the neighboring saloons. The six companions then left their seats, but only to pass from one table to another, which movement was accompanied with great ceremony and compliments of all kinds. On the second table, each found a small cup with a lid ornamented with a portrait of Bodhidharama, the celebrated Buddhist monk, standing on his legendary raft. Each received a pinch of tea, which is teaped in the boiling water in his cup, and drank almost immediately without sugar. And what tea? It was not to be feared, either that the house of Gib, Gib and Co., who furnished it, had adulterated it with a mixture of foreign leaves, or that it had already undergone a first infusion and was only good to use in sweeping carpets, or that an unscrupulous preparer had collarded yellow with kirkama, or green with precious blue. It was imperial tea, and all its purity, and was composed of those precious leaves of the first harvest in March, which are similar to the flower itself, and are seldom gathered, for loss of its leaves causes the death of the plant. It was composed of those leaves which young children alone with carefully gloved hands are allowed to cull. A European could not have found words of praise in numbers sufficient to extol this beverage, which the six companions were slowly sipping, without going into ecstasies, like connoisseurs who were used to it. But it must be confessed, they were really unable to appreciate the delicacy of the excellent concoction. They were gentlemen of the best society, richly dressed in the hanchao, a light under waistcoat, the makwal, a short tunic, and the hawl, a long robe buttoning at the side. They wore yellow sandals and open work hose, silk pantaloons fastened at the waist with a tassel sash, and a plastering of fine embroidered silk on their bosom, and a fan at their waist. These amiable persons were born in the same country where the tea plant once a year produces its harvest of fragrant leaves. This repast, in which swallows nests, fish of the Holothurian species, whales' nerves, and sharks' fins appeared, was partaken of as the delicacy of the viands deserved. But its menu, which would have astonished a foreigner, did not surprise them in the least. But what did surprise them was the statement which their host made to them, as they were at last about to leave the table, and from which they understood why he had entertained them that day. The cups were still full, and the indifferent gentleman, with his eyes fixed on vacancy, and his elbow leaning on the table, was about to empty his cup for the last time when he expressed himself in these words. My friends, listen to me without laughing. The die is cast. I am about to introduce into my life a new element, which perhaps will dispel its monotony. Will it be a blessing, or a misfortune? The future only can tell. This dinner, to which I have invited you, is my farewell dinner to bachelor life. In a fortnight I shall be married, and and you will be the happiest of men, cried the optimist. Behold, all the signs are in your favor. In fact, the lamps flickered, and cast a pale light around. The magpies chattered on the arabasques of the windows, and the little tea-leaves floated perpendicularly in the cups. So many lucky omens could not fail. Therefore, all congratulated their host, who received these compliments with the most perfect composure. But, as it did not name the person destined to the role of new element, and the one whom he had chosen, no one was so indiscreet as to question him on the subject. But the philosopher's voice did not mingle in the general concert of congratulations. With his arms crossed, his eyes partly closed, and an ironical smile on his lips, he seemed to approve those complimenting no more than he did the one complimented. The latter then rose, placed his hand on his friend's shoulder, and in a voice that seemed less calm than usual, asked, Am I then too old to marry? No. Too young? No. Neither too young nor too old. Do you think I'm doing wrong? Perhaps so. But she whom I have chosen, and with whom you are acquainted, possesses every quality necessary to make me happy. I know it. Well, it is you who have not all that is necessary to make you so. To be bored single in life is bad, but to be bored double is worse. Then I shall never be happy? No. Not so long as you do not know what misfortune is. Misfortune cannot reach me. So much the worse, for then you are incurable. Ha! These philosophers cry the youngest of the guests. One should not listen to them. They are machines with theories. They manufacture all kinds of theories, which are trash, and good for nothing in practice. Get married. Get married, my friend. I should do the same, had I not made a vow never to do anything. Get married. And as our poets say, May the two phoenixes always appear to you tenderly united. Friends, I drink to the happiness of our host. And I, responded the philosopher, drink to the near interposition of some protecting divinity, who in order to make him happy, will cause him to pass through the trial of misfortune. At this odd toast the guests arose, brought their fists together, as boxers do before beginning a contest, and having alternately lowered and raised them while bowing their heads took leave of each other. From the description of the saloon in which this entertainment was given, and the foreign menu which composed it, as well as from the dress of the guests, with their manner of expressing themselves, perhaps too, from the singularity of their theories, the reader has surmised that we have had to do with the Chinese. Not with those celestials, who look as if they had been unglued from a Chinese screen, or had escaped from a pottery vase where they properly belonged, but with the modern inhabitants of the celestial empire, already Europeanized by their studies, voyages, and frequent communication with the civilized people of the West. Indeed, it was in the saloon of one of the flower boats on the river of pearls at Canton that the rich king pho, accompanied by the inseparable wong the philosopher, had just entertained four of the best friends of his youth, Pao Shen, a Mandarin of the fourth class, and of the order of the blue button, Ying Peng, a rich silk merchant in a pavacary street, Tim, the high liver, and Hua, the literary man. And this took place on the 27th day of the fourth moon, during the first of those five periods which so poetically divide the hours of the Chinese night. End of chapter one. Chapter two of Tribulations of a Chinaman in China. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Tribulations of a Chinaman in China by Jules Verne, translated by Virginia Chaplin. Chapter two, in which Qin Fou and the philosopher are more fully described. The reason why Qin Fou gave a farewell dinner to his Canton friends was because he passed a part of his youth in the capital of the province of Guangdong. Of the numerous comrades, a wealthy and generous young man is sure to have. The only ones left him at this time were the four guests who had been present on the flower boat. It would have been useless for him to have tried to bring the others together as they were scattered by the various accidents of life. Qin Fou lived in Shanghai and, being worn out with Inui, was now for a change spending a few days in Canton. This evening he intended to take the steamboat, which stops at several points along the coast, and return quietly home to his yamen. The reason that Wei accompanied Qin Fou was because the philosopher could never leave his pupil, who did not want for lessons, though, to tell the truth he paid no heed to them, and they were just so many maxims in why saying losts. The theory machine, however, as Tim the Highliver called him, was never wary of producing them. Qin Fou was a perfect type of the northern Chinese, whose race is being transformed, and who have never united with the Tartars. He was of a stamp differing from the usual found in the southern provinces, where the high and the low classes are more intimately blended with the Manchurian race. He had not a drop of Tartar blood in his veins, neither from father nor mother whose ancestors kept secluded after the conquest. He was tall, well-built, fair rather than yellow, with straight eyebrows and eyes following the horizontal, and but slightly raised towards the temple, with a straight nose and a face that was not flat. He would have been distinguished even among the finest specimens of western people. Indeed, if Qin Fou appeared at all like a Chinaman, it was because of his carefully shaved skull, his smooth hairless brow and neck, and his magnificent braid, which started at the back of his head and rolled down like a serpent of jet. He was very careful about his person, and wore a delicate mustache which made a half circle over his upper lip, and an imperial, which was exactly like a resting musical notation. His nails were more than a centimeter long, a proof that he belonged to those fortunate men who are not obliged to work. Perhaps, too, his careless walk and haughty bearing added still more to the comé le font appearance of his whole person. Besides, Qin Fou was born at Pekin, an advantage of which the Chinese were very proud. To anyone who would have asked him where he came from, he would have answered proudly, I come from above. His father, Qiang Heo, was living at Pekin when he was born, and he was six years old when the former settled at Shanghai. The worthy Chinaman, who came from a fine family in the northern part of the empire, like all his compatriots, had a remarkable capacity for business. During the first years of his career, he bartered and sold everything that the rich and populous territory produces, such as paper goods from Sautiao, silks from Sucu, sugar candy from Formosa, tea from Han Khao, and Fou Chao, iron from Hunan, and red and yellow copper from the province of Yunnan. His principal business house, his Hong, was at Shanghai, but he had branch establishments at Nankin, Tianxing, Macao, and Hong Kong. And he was a close follower of European progress. He shipped his goods on English steamers, and he kept himself informed by cablegram of the state of the silk and opium market at Lyons and Calcutta. He was not opposed to these agents of progress, steam and electricity, as are the majority of the Chinese who are under the influence of mandarins and the government, whose prestige is gradually being lessened by progress. In sort, Chao Hio managed so shrewdly in his business in the interior of the empire, as well as in his transactions with the Portuguese, French, English, or American houses, in Shanghai, Macao, and Hong Kong, that, when Qin Fou came into the world, his fortune exceeded $400,000, and during the year that followed, this capital was doubled on account of the establishment of a new traffic, which might be called the Cooley trade of the New World. It is well known that the population of China is in excess, and out of all proportion to the vast extent of the territory, which is poetically divided into the various names of celestial empire, central empire, and empire or land of flowers. Its inhabitants are estimated at not less than 360 million, which is almost a third of the population of the earth. Now little is the Chinaman eats, he nevertheless eats, and China, even with its numerous rice fields and extensive cultivation of millet and wheat, does not provide enough to nourish them. Hence there are more inhabitants than can be cared for, and their only desire is to escape through some of the loopholes which the English and French canon have made in the moral and material walls of the celestial empire. This surplus has poured into North America, and principally into the state of California, but in such multitudes that Congress has been obliged to take restrictive measures against the invasion, which is rather impolitely called the Yellow Pest. As was observed, 50 million Chinese immigrants in the United States would not have sensibly diminished the population of China, and it would have brought about a blending with the Anglo-Saxon race to the benefit of the Mongolian. However this may be, the Exodus was conducted on a large scale. These coulis, living on a handful of rice, a cup of tea, and a pipe of tobacco, and apt in all trades, met with remarkably quick success in Virginia, Salt Lake, Oregon, and above all, this state of California, where they greatly reduced the wages of manual labor. Companies were then formed for the transportation of these inexpensive immigrants, and there were five which had charge of the enlisting in the five provinces of the celestial empire, and a sixth which was stationed at San Francisco. The former shipped, and the latter received, the merchandise, while an additional agency, called the Ting Tong, reshipped them. This requires an explanation. The Chinese are very willing to expatriate themselves, to seek their fortune with the melikons, as they called people of the United States, but on one condition, that their bodies should be faithfully brought back and buried in their native land. This is one of the principal conditions of the contract, a scene qua non clause, which is binding on these companies with regard to the immigrant, and cannot be eluded. Therefore the Ting Tong, or in other words the agency of the dead, which draws its funds from private sources, is charged with freighting the corpse steamers, which leaves San Francisco loaded for Shanghai, Hong Kong, or Tianxing. Here was a new business, and a new source of profit, which the shrewd and enterprising Chaohiu foresaw. At the time of his death in 1866, he was a director in the Kuang Than Company in the province of that name, and sub director of the Treasury for the Dead in San Francisco. Kin Fou, having neither father nor mother, was heir to a fortune valued at four million francs, invested in stock in the central bank in California, and which he had a good sense to let remain there. When he lost his father, the young heir, who was nineteen years old, would have been alone in the world had it not been for Wang, the inseparable Wang, who filled the place of mentor and friend. But who was this Wang? For seventeen years he had lived in the yamen of Shanghai, and was the guest of the father before he became that of the son. But where did he come from? What was his past? And all these somewhat different questions Chaohiu and Kin Fou alone could have answered, and if they had considered it proper to do so, which was not probable, this is what one would have learned from them. No one is aware that China is par excellence. The kingdom were insurrections last many years, and carry off hundreds of thousands of men. Now, in the seventeenth century, the celebrated dynasty of Ming, of Chinese origin, had been in power in China three hundred years, when, in 1644, the chief, feeling too weak to resist the rebels who threatened the capital, asked aid of a Tartar king. The king, who did not need to be entreated, hastened to his assistance, drove out the rebels and profited by the situation to overthrow him, who had implored his aid, and proclaimed his own son, Chong Che, emperor. From this period the Tartar rule was substituted for that of the Chinese, and the throne was occupied by Manchurian emperors. The two races, especially among the lower classes, gradually came together, but among the rich families of the north, they did not mingle. Therefore, the type still retains its characteristics, particularly in the center of the western provinces of the empire. There, the irreconcibles, who remained faithful to the fallen dynasty, took refuge. Qin Feng's father was one of the latter, and he did not belay the traditions of his family, who refused to enter into contact with the Tartars. A rebellion against the foreign power, even after a rule of three hundred years, would have found him ready to join it. It is unnecessary to add that his son, Qin Feng, fully shared his political opinions. Now, in 1860, there still reigned the emperor, Zhehan Feng, who declared war against England and France, warring by the Treaty of Peckin on the 25th of October of the same year. But before that date, a formidable uprising threatened the reigning dynasty. The Changmou, or the Taiping, the long-haired rebels, took possession of Nanking in 1853 and Shanghai in 1855. After Zhehan Feng's death, his son had great difficulty in repulsing the Taiping, without the Viceroy Li and Prince Kong, and especially the English Colonel Gordon, he, perhaps, would not have been able to save his throne. The Taiping, the declared enemies of the Tartars, being strongly organized for rebellion, wished to replace the dynasty of the Qing with that of the Wang. They formed four distinct armies, the first under a black banner appointed to kill, the second under a red banner to set fire, the third under a yellow banner to pillage, and the fourth under a white banner to provision the other three. There were important military operations in Qingsuo, and Suchu, and Hiahing. Five leagues' distance from Shanghai fell into the power of the rebels and were recovered not without difficulty by the imperial troops. Shanghai, which had been seriously threatened, was also attacked on the 18th of August 1860, at the time that General's Grant and Lantalbin, commanding the Anglo-French army, were canoning the forts at Peihou. Now, at this time, Zhang Yu, Qin Feng's father, was living near Shanghai, not far from the magnificent bridge being thrown across the river by Chinese engineers at Souchu. He disapproved of this rebellion of the Taiping, since it was chiefly directed against the Tartar dynasty. This, then, was the state of affairs when on the evening of the 18th of August, after the rebels had been driven out of Shanghai, the door of Zhang Yu's house suddenly opened and a fugitive, having dodged his pursuers, came to throw himself at the feet of Zhang Yu. The unfortunate man had no weapon with which to defend himself, and if he, to whom he came to ask for shelter, had given him up to the imperial soldiers, he would have been killed. Qin Feng's father was not the man to betray a Taiping, who thought refuge in his house, and he closed the door and said, I do not wish to know, and I shall never know, who you are, what you have done, or whence you come, you are my guest, and for that reason only will be perfectly safe at my house. The fugitive tried to speak to express his gratitude, but scarce they had strength. Your name, as Zhang Yu, Wang. It was Wang indeed, saved by Zhang Yu's generosity, a generosity which would have cost the latter his life if anyone had suspected that he was given asylum to a rebel, but Zhang Yu was like one of those men of ancient times with whom every guest is sacred. A few years later the uprising of the rebels was forever repressed, and in 1864 the Taiping chief, who besieged an antichkin, poisoned himself to escape falling to the hands of the imperials. Wang, ever since that day, had remained in his benefactor's house. He was never obliged to say anything about his past for no one questioned him. Perhaps they feared they might hear too much. The atrocities committed by the rebels was frightful, it was said, and under what banner Wang had served, they were yellow, red, black, or white. It was better to remain in ignorance, and to fancy that he belonged only to the provisioning column. Wang, however, was delighted with his lot and continued to be the guest of this hospitality house. After Zhang Yu's death, his son, being so accustomed to the amenable man's company, would never be parted from him. But in truth, at the time when this story begins, who would have ever recognized a former Taiping, a murderer, a plunderer, or incendiary from choice? Is this philosopher of fifty-five years, this more or less than spectacles, playing the part of a Chinaman with eyes drawn towards the temples and with the traditional mustache, with his long robe of a modest color and a waist rising towards his chest from a growing obesity, with his headdress regulated according to the imperial degree? That is to say, with a fur hat with the rim raised around the crown, from wits streamed tassels of red core. Did he not look the worthy professor of philosophy and one of those sedants who write fluently in the eighty-thousand characters of Chinese handwriting? And like a literature of the Superior Dialect, we're saving the first prize in the examination of doctors with the right to pass under the grand gate at Pekin, which is an honor reserved for the Sons of Heaven. Perhaps, after all, the rebel, forgetting a past full of horror, had improved by contact with the honest Zhang Yu and had gradually branched off to the road of speculative philosophy. That is why, on this evening, Qin Fou and Wang, who never left each other, were together at Canton, and why, after his farewell dinner, both were going along the wharves to seek a steamer to take them quickly to Shang Hai. Qin Fou walked on in silence, and even somewhat thoughtfully, Wang, looking around to the right and to the left, philosophizing to the moon and the stars, passed smilingly under the gate of eternal purity, which he did not find too high for him, and under the gate of eternal joy, whose doors seemed to open on his own existence, and finally saw the pagoda of the five hundred divinities vanishing in the distance. The steamer, Permah, was on her full steam. Qin Fou and Wang went on board, and entered the cabins reserved for them. The rapid current of the river of pearls, which daily bears along the bodies of those condemned to death, with the mud from its shores, carried the boat swiftly onward. It sped like an arrow between the ruins made by French cannon, and left standing here and there, past the pagoda halfway nine stories high, and past Point Jardine near Wampoa, where the large ship is anchor, between the islands and the bamboo palisades of the two shores. The one hundred and fifty kilometers, that is to say, three hundred and seventy-five leagues, which separate cantons from the mouth of the river, were traveled in the night. At sunrise, the Permah passed the tiger's mouth, and then the two bars of the estuary, the Victoria Peak of the Isle of Hong Kong, eighteen hundred and twenty-five feet high, appeared for a moment through the morning mist, when, after the most successful passages, Qin Fou and the philosopher, leaving the yellowish waters of the Blue River behind, landed at Shanghai, on the shores of the province of Qiong Nan. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit livervox.org, recording by Jeannie Whitfield. The Tribulations of a China Men in China, by Jules Verne, translated by Virginia Champlain, Chapter Three, in which the reader, without fatigue, can glance over the city of Shanghai. A Chinese proverb says, when sabers are rusty and spades bright, when prisons are empty and granaries full, when the steps of the temples are worn by the feet of worshipers, and the courtyards of the tribunals are covered with grass, when physicians go on foot and bakers unhorsed back, the empire is well governed. It is a good proverb, and it might be applied to all the states of the old and new world, but if there is a single one where this Desateratum is still far from being realized, it is precisely the Celestial Empire, for there it is the sabers which are bright, and the spades rusty, the prisons which are overflowing, and the granaries empty. The bakers rest more than the physicians, and if the pagodas attract worshipers, the tribunals, on the contrary, lack neither criminals nor litigants. Besides a kingdom of 180,000 square miles, which from north to south, measures more than 800 leagues, and from east to west more than 900, which counts 18 vast provinces, not to mention the tributary countries, Mongolia, Manchuria, Tibet, Tonkin, Korea, the Luchau Islands, etc., can be but very imperfectly governed. If the Chinese have a faint suspicion of this, foreigners are not at all deceived. The emperor, who is called the Son of Heaven, the father and mother of his subjects, who makes or unmakes laws at his pleasure, and has power of life and death over every one, and to whom the revenues of the empire are a birthright, the sovereign before whom brows are bowed to the dust, shut up in his palace which is sheltered by the walls of a triple city, alone perhaps considers that everything is for the best in the best of worlds. It would be unnecessary even to try to prove to him that he is mistaken. A Son of Heaven is never mistaken. Did Qin Fu have any reason to think that it would be better to be governed in the European than the Chinese manner? One would be tempted to think so. Indeed, he lived not in Shanghai but out of the city, in a part of the English concession which preserves a sort of freedom that is highly prized. Shanghai, the city proper, is situated on the left shore of the Little River Huang Tao, which, uniting at a right angle with the Wusong, flows into the Yangtze King, or Blue River, and from there is lost in the Yellow Sea. It is an oval extending from north to south, and surrounded by high walls with an outlet of gates opening on its suburbs, an inextricable network of paved lanes which would soon wear out sweeping machines where they to clean them, gloomy shops without shutters or any display of goods in their windows, and in which the shopkeepers perform their duties naked to the waist, not a carriage, not a palakwine, and scarcely any horsemen, here and there a few native temples or foreign chapels, for promenades, a tea garden, and a rather pebbly parade ground built on an embankment filled with ancient rice fields and subject to marshy emanations. A population of 200,000 inhabitants in the streets and narrow houses all composed this city, which though as a place of residence is hardly desirable, is nevertheless of great importance. In this city, after the Treaty of Nankin, foreigners for the first time possessed the right to establish stores, and here was the great port opened in China to European traffic, therefore outside of Shanghai and its suburbs, the government seated for an annual slum three portions of territory to the French, English, and Americans, who numbered about 2,000. Of the French concession, there is little to be said it being the least important. Nearly the whole of it is within the northern enclosure of the city, reaching as far as the Brook Yang King Pang, which separates it from the English territory. There stand the churches of the Lazarus and the Jesuits, who four miles from Shanghai own the College of Tiscave, where they confer bachelor's degrees. But this little French colony does not equal its neighbors, far from it. Of the 10 commercial houses founded in 1861, there remain but three, and they even prefer to establish the discount broker's office on the English concession. The American territory occupies that part of the country extending to Wusung, and is separated from the English territory by the Siu Chu Creek, which is spanned by a wooden bridge. Here are the Hotel Aster and the Church of the Missions, and the docks erected for the repair of European ships. But of the three concessions, the most flourishing is indisputably the English. Here are sumptuous dwellings on the wharves, houses with verandas and gardens, palaces of the merchant princes, the Oriental Bank, the Hong of the celebrated house which bears the name of the firm of Lao Chi Chang, and the stores of the Jardines, Brussels, and other great merchants, the English club, the theater, the tennis courts, the park, the race course, and the library. Such is that wealthy creation of the Anglo-Saxons, which has justly merited the name of model colony. That is why on the privileged territory, under the patronage of a liberal administration, one will not be astonished, as Monsieur Leon Russet says, to find a Chinese city of an especially individual character, which has not its counterpart anywhere. In this little corner of the earth, the foreigner, arriving by the picturesque Blue River, sees four flags unfurled by the same breeze. The three French colors, the yacht of the United Kingdom, the American stars, and the cross of St. Andrew, yellow with a green background of the Flowery Empire. As for the environs of Shanghai, they are a flat, tree-less country, cut up by narrow, stony roads and footpaths, laid out at bright angles or hollowed out by cisterns and arroyos, distributing the water through numerous rice fields, or furrowed by canals conveying junk boats, which start in the middle of the fields, like the canal boats through Holland. They are sort of vast to blow, very green in tone, a picture without a frame. The perma on her arrival anchored at the wharf of the native port, before the eastern suburbs of Shanghai, and it was there that Wang and Kin Poo landed in the afternoon. The coming and going of business people created a traffic that was enormous on the shore and beyond description on the river. The junk boats by hundreds, the flower boats, Sam pans, a kind of gondola managed by the skull, the gigs and other boats of every size formed a kind of floating city inhabited by a maritime population, which cannot be reckoned at less than 40,000 souls, a population maintained in an inferior situation, and the wealthy part of which cannot rise to the rank of literary or Mandarin class. The two friends sauntered along the wharf among the strange motley crowd, which comprised merchants of every kind, vendors of arachnids, beetle nuts and oranges, with some from the Indian Orange Tree, semen of every nation, water carriers, fortune tellers, bonzes, llamas, Catholic priests, closed in Chinese fashion with big tail and fan, native soldiers, taipaos, the town bailiffs of the place, and compradors or deputy brokers, as they might be called who transacted business for European merchants. Qin Fu, with his fan in his hand, cast his usual indifferent look over the crowd, and took no interest in what was passing around him, neither the metallic sound of the Mexican piastres, nor that of the silver towels and copperset pickways, which sellers and buyers were exchanging with considerable noise could have disturbed him. He had the means to buy out the entire suburbs for cash. As for Wang, he opened his immense yellow umbrella, which was decorated with black monsters, and constantly faced the east as every high-bred Chinaman should, and looked around everywhere for objects worthy of his observation. As he passed before the eastern gate, his eyes fell, by chance on a dozen bamboo cages, from which the faces of criminals who had been beheaded the evening before grinned at him, perhaps said he, there is something better to do than to cut off people's heads, and that is to make them stronger. Qin Fu, no doubt, did not hear Wang's reflection, which, on the part of a former Taiping, would have astonished him. Both continued to follow the wharf, winding around the walls of the Chinese city, at the extremity of the outskirts, just as they were about to set foot on the French concession, a native in a long blue robe who was striking a buffalo horn with a small stick, which produced a harsh grating sound, attracting quite a crowd around him. As the Un Cheng, said the philosopher, what is it to us, added Qin Fu, friend, answered Wang, ask him your fortune. This is a good time when you are about to be married. Qin Fu started on his way again, but Wang held him back. The Xin Cheng is a sort of popular prophet who, for a few sepiques, makes a business of foretelling the future. His only professional apparatus is a cage, enclosing a little bird, which he hangs on one of the buttons of his robe, and a pack of 64 cards representing figures of gods, men, or animals. The Chinese of every class who are generally superstitious make nothing of the predictions of the Xin Cheng, who probably is not in earnest. At a sign from Wang, he spread a piece of cotton cloth on the ground, placed his cage on it, drew out his cards, shuffled, and placed them on this carpeting in a manner to display their figures. The door of the cage was then opened, and a little bird came out, selected one of the cards, and went back again after having received a kernel of rice as a reward. The Xin Cheng turned over the card. It bore the face of a man and a device written at Gunen Runa, the Mandarin language of the North, an official language used by an educated people. Then addressing Kin Fu, the fortune teller predicted what those of the profession in all countries invariably predict without compromising themselves, that after undergoing some near trial, he would enjoy 10,000 years of happiness. One answered Kin Fu, one only, and I won't insist upon the rest. Then he threw a silver tail on the ground, which the Prophet scrambled for as a hungry dog does for a bone. Such windfalls did not come to him every day. After this, Wang and his people proceeded to the French colony. The former thinking of the prediction, which accorded with his own theories about happiness, the latter knowing well that no trial could come to him. They passed the French consulate and ascended as far as the covert, thrown across Yang, King, Pang, and crossed the brook. Then went in an oblique direction across the English territory in order to reach the war at the European port. It was just striking 12, and business which had been very active throughout the morning stopped as if by magic. The business day was ended, we may say, and quiet took the place of bustle, even in the English city, which had become Chinese in this respect. At this moment, several foreign ships were arriving in port, most of them under the flag of the United Kingdom. Nine out of ten, we must state, were laden with opium. This brutalizing substance, this poison with which England encumbers China, creates a traffic amounting to more than 260 million francs, and returns 300% profit. In vain has the Chinese government tried to prevent the importation of opium into the Celestial Empire. The War of 1841 and the Treaty of Nanking gave free entry to English merchandise, and yielded the day to the merchant princes. We must also add that if the government of Peking has gone so far as to proclaim death to every Chinaman who sells opium, there are arrangements that can be made through a financial medium with the treasurers of the ruler, and it is even believed that the Mandarin Governor of Shanghai lays up a million annually, by merely shutting his eyes to the acts of his subordinates. We need not add that neither Kin Fu nor Wang were addicted to the desestable habit of smoking opium, which destroys all the elasticity of the system, and quickly leads to death. Therefore not an ounce of this substance had even entered the costly dwelling which the two friends reached an hour after landing on the wharf in Shanghai. Wang, the remark is still more surprising because it is that of its ex-typing, did not hesitate to say, perhaps there is something better than importing that which brutalizes a whole nation. Commerce is well enough, but philosophy is better. Let us be philosophers before all. Let us be philosophers. Chapter 4 In which Kin Fu receives an important letter, which is eight days behind time. A yamen is a collection of various buildings ranged along a parallel line, which is cut across perpendicularly by a second line of kiosks and pavilions. Usually the yamen serves as a dwelling for mandarins of high rank, and belongs to the emperor. But wealthy celestials are not forbidden to have one. It was in one of these sumptuous hotels that the opulent Kin Fu lived. Wang and his pupils stopped at the principal gate, which opened on the vast enclosure surrounding the various structures of the yamen, and its gardens and courtyards. If, instead of being the dwelling of a private individual, it had been that of a mandarin, a great drum would have occupied the best place under the carved roof of the porch over the door, and where, in the night as well as in the day, those of his officers who might have to ask for justice would have knocked. But instead of this complainer's drum, huge porcelain jars ornamented the entrance of the yamen, and contained cold tea, which was constantly renewed by attendance. These jars were at the disposal of Passer's Bay, a generosity which did honour to Kin Fu. So he was thought a great deal of, as they say, by his neighbours in the east and west. On the master's arrival the servants ran to the door to meet him. Valets de Chandra, footmen, porters, chair-bearers, grooms, coachmen, waiters, night-watchers, and cooks, and all who composed the Chinese household formed into line under the orders of the intendant, while a dozen coulis, engaged by the month for the heaviest work, stood a little in the rear. The intendant offered his welcome to the master of the house, who made a slight acknowledgment with a motion of his hand, and passed rapidly on. Sound, said he simply. Sound, answered Wang, smiling. If Sound were here it would not be Sound. Where is he? repeated Kin Fu. The intendant had to confess that neither he nor anyone knew what had become of him. Now Sound held no less important opposition than that of first Valets de Chandra, and was in particular attached to Kin Fu's person, and was one whom the latter could by no means do without. Was he, then, a model servant? No. He could not possibly have performed his duties in a worse manner. Absent-minded, incoherent in speech, awkward with his hands and tongue, a thorough gormand, and somewhat of a coward. He was a true Chinese screen, Chinaman, but faithful on the whole, and the only person, after all, who possessed the gift of moving his master. Kin Fu found an occasion to get angry with Sound twenty times a day, and if he only corrected him ten, there was just so much the less to rouse him from his habitual indifference, and stir his bile. A hygienic servant it is plain to be seen. Besides, Sound, like the majority of Chinese servants, came of his own accord to receive punishment whenever he merited it, which his master was not sparing in bestowing. The blows of the Ratan rained down on his shoulders, but he hardly minded them. What caused him to show infinitely more sensibility was the successive cuttings of his braided pigtail, which Kin Fu made him undergo when he was guilty of any great fault. Probably no one is unaware how much the Chinaman values this odd appendage. The loss of his pigtail is the first punishment offered to a criminal. It is a dishonour for life. Therefore the unhappy valet dreaded nothing so much as to be condemned to lose a piece of it. Four years before, when he entered Kin Fu's service, his braid, one of the most beautiful in the Celestial Empire, measured one meter and twenty-five. Now there remained only fifty-seven centimeters. At this rate Sound in two years would be entirely bald. However, Wang and Kin Fu followed respectfully by the servants, crossed the garden in which the trees, that were mostly set in porcelain vases, and trimmed in an astonishing but lamentable style of art, assumed the form of fantastic animals. Then the friends walked around the reservoir filled with goramis, and red fishes, and in which the limpid water was hidden from view under the broad, pale red flowers of the Nellumbo, the most beautiful of the native water lilies in the Empire of Flowers. They saluted a quadruped in hieroglyphics, painted in violent colors on a wall, ad hoc, like a symbolical fresco, and finally reached the entrance to the principal dwelling in the Yaman. It was a house composed of a ground floor and one story, raised on a terrace which was ascended by six marble steps. Bamboo screens were hung like awnings before the doors and windows, in order to render in durable the excessive heat by airing the interior. The flat roof contrasted with the fantastic roofing of the pavilions scattered here and there in the enclosure of the Yaman, whose embrasures, many-colored tiles, and bricks carved in fine arabesques, were extremely pleasing to the eye. Inside, with the exception of the rooms, especially reserved for the occupancy of Wang and Kin Foe, there were only salons surrounded by cabinets formed of transparent walls, on which were traced garlands of painted flowers, or inscriptions giving those moral aphorisms with which the celestials are profuse. Everywhere were to be seen seats oddly fashioned in pottery or porcelain, in wood or marble, to say nothing of some dozens of cushions of more inviting softness. And everywhere were lamps or lanterns of various forms, with glasses shaded in delicate colors and more encumbered with tassels, fringes, and top-knots than a Spanish mule. And the little tea-tables, called Teja Ki, which form an indispensable complement to the furniture of a Chinese apartment. One would not have wasted, but have well employed, hours in counting the ivory and shell carvings, the dead bronzes, the sensors, the lacquer work ornamented with filigree of raised gold, them icky white and emerald green objects in jade, the vases, round or in the form of a prism, of the dynasty of the Ming and Xing, and the still rarer porcelains of the dynasty of the Yan, in vain enamel work of translucent pink and yellow, the secret of whose manufacture is unknown. All that Chinese fancy added to European comfort could offer was to be found in this luxurious home. Indeed, Kin Fou, it has been alluded to before, and his tastes prove it, was a progressive man who was not opposed to the importation of each and every modern invention, and he might be classed with those sons of heaven still too rare who are charmed by the physical and chemical sciences. He was not one of those barbarians who cut the first telegraph wires which the House of Reynolds wished to establish as far as Waosung, with the intention of learning sooner of the arrival of English and American males, nor one of those behind-the-times mandarins who, in order not to allow the submarine cable from Shanghai to Hong Kong to be secured at any point whatsoever of the territory, obliged the telegraph workers to fasten it on a boat floating in the middle of the river. No, Kin Fou joined those of his compatriots who approved of the government building arsenals and shipyards in Fow Chao under the direction of French engineers, and he was also a stockholder in the Chinese steamers which ply between Tien Shing and Shanghai on government business, and was interested in those boats of great speed which, after leaving Singapore, gained three or four days over the English mail. It has been affirmed that material progress found its way even into his home. Indeed, the telephone gave communication between the different buildings in his yamen, and electric bells connected the rooms in his house. During the cold season he built a fire to warm himself without a feeling of shame, being more sensible in this respect than his fellow citizens, who froze before an empty fireplace under four or five suits of clothes. He lighted his house with gas, like the Inspector General of the Custom House in Peking, and the immensely rich Mr. Gang, the principal proprietor of the pawn shops in the Central Empire. Finally, disdaining the superannuated custom of handwriting in his familiar correspondence, the progressive Kin Fou, as one will soon find, adopted phonography, recently brought to the highest degree of perfection by Edison. Thus the pupil of the philosopher Wang had, in his material, as well as in his moral life, all that was necessary to make him happy. Yet he was not so. He had sound to rouse him from his daily apathy, but even sound did not suffice to bring happiness. It is true, that at the present moment at least, sound, who was never where he ought to be, would not show himself. He no doubt must have some grave fault with which to reproach himself, some awkward act done in his master's absence, or if he did not fear for his shoulders accustomed to the domestic retin. Everything led one to believe that he was trembling particularly for his pigtail. Sound called Kin Fou as he entered the hall into which opened the salons on the right and left, and his voice indicated an ill-repressed impatience. Sound repeated Wang, whose good advice and reproofs had produced no effect on the incorrigible valet. Let some one hunt up sound and bring him to me, said Kin Fou, addressing the intended, who set all his people to find the unfindable. Wang and Kin Fou remained alone. Wisdom then spoke the philosopher, commands the traveler who returns to his fireside to take rest. Let us be wise, simply answered Wang's pupil, and after having clasped the philosopher's hand, he went to his apartments. Kin Fou, when at length alone, stretched himself on one of those soft lounges of European manufacture, which a Chinese upholsterer would never have been able to make so comfortable. In this position he began to meditate. Was he meditating on his marriage with the amiable and pretty woman he was to make the companion of his life? Yes, but that is not surprising, because he was about to visit her. This charming person did not reside in Shanghai, but in Peking, and Kin Fou thought that it would be proper to announce to her both his return to Shanghai and his intention of soon visiting the capital of the celestial empire. Even were he to show a certain desire and slight impatience to see her again, it would not be out of place, for he really had a true affection for her. Wang had demonstrated this to him by the most unanswerable rules of logic, and this new element introduced into his life might, perhaps, call forth the unknown, that is, happiness, who, which, of which, Kin Fou was dreaming, with his eyes already closed, and he would have gently fallen asleep if he had not felt a sort of tickling in his right hand. Instinctively his fingers came together and seized a slightly naughty cylindrical body of tolerable thickness, which they undoubtedly were accustomed to handle. He could not be mistaken, it was a rattan, which had slipped into his right hand, while at the same time were heard, in a resigned tone, the following words, When master wishes, Kin Fou started up and instinctively brandished the correcting rattan. Sound was before him, presenting his shoulders and bending half-double in the position of a malefactor about to be beheaded. Supporting himself on the floor by one hand, he held a letter in the other. Well, here you are at last, cried Kin Fou. Ay, ay, ah! answered Sound. I did not expect master till the third period. If he wishes, Kin Fou threw the rattan on the floor. Sound, although he was naturally so yellow, managed to turn pale. If you offer your back without any other explanation, said his master, it is because you deserve something more. What is the matter? This letter. Well, what of it? Speak! cried Kin Fou, seizing the letter which Sound presented to him. I very stupidly forgot to give it to you before your departure to Canton. A week behind time, you rascal! I did wrong, master. Come here. I am like a poor crab that has no claws and cannot walk. Ay, ay, ah! This last cry was one of despair. Kin Fou, having seized Sound by his braid, with one clip of the well-sharpened scissors, cut off the extreme tip. It is to be supposed that claws grow instantaneously on the unhappy crab. For this one, having first snatched from the carpet the severed part of his precious appendage, scampered hastily away. From fifty-seven centimeters, Sound's pigtail had become reduced to fifty-four. Kin Fou, who was again perfectly calm, had thrown himself once more on the lounge, and was examining with the air of a man whom nothing hurries, the letter which had arrived a week ago. He was only displeased with Sound on account of his carelessness, not on account of the delay. How could any letter whatsoever interest him? It would only be welcome if it could cause him an emotion. An emotion for him. He looked at it, therefore, somewhat vacantly. The envelope of heavy linen paper revealed on the front and the reverse side various postmarks of a chocolate and a wine color, with the printed picture of a man underneath the figure, too. And six cents which showed that it came from the United States of America. Good, said Kin Fou, shrugging his shoulders, a letter from my correspondent in San Francisco, and he threw it in a corner of the lounge. Indeed, what could his correspondent have to tell him? That the securities which composed almost all of his fortune remained quietly in the safes of the central bank in California, or that his stock had risen from fifteen to twenty percent, or that the dividends to be distributed would exceed those of the preceding year, etc. A few million dollars more or less really could not move him. However, a few moments later, Kin Fou took the letter again and mechanically tore the envelope. But instead of reading it, his eyes at first sought only the signature. It is truly from my correspondent, he said. He can only have business matters to tell me of. And business I won't think of till tomorrow. And a second time Kin Fou was about to throw the letter down, when inside, on the right-hand page, a word underlined several times caught his eye. It was the word indebtedness, to which the San Francisco correspondent wished to draw the attention of his client at Shanghai. Kin Fou then began the letter from the beginning, and read every word from the first to the last line, not without a certain feeling of curiosity, rather surprising on his part. For a moment his eyebrows contracted, but a rather disdainful smile played around his lips when he finished reading. He then rose, took about twenty steps around his room, and approached the rubber tube which placed him in communication with Wang. He even carried the mouthpiece to his lips, and was about to whistle through it when he changed his mind, let fall the rubber serpent, and returning through himself on the lounge. Poo! said he. This word just expressed Kin Fou. And she, he murmured. She is really more interested in all this than I am. He then approached a little lacquered table, on which stood an oblong box of rare carving. But as he was about to open it, he stayed his hand. What was it that her last letter said, he murmured? Instead of raising the box cover, he pressed a spring at one end, and immediately a sweet voice was heard. My little elder brother, am I no longer to you like the flower Mi Haua in the first moon, like the flower of the apricot in the second, and the flower of the peach tree in the third? My dear precious jewel of a heart, a thousand, ten thousand greetings to you. It was the voice of a young woman whose tender words were repeated by the phonograph. Poor little younger sister, said Kin Fou. Then, opening the box, he took out from the apparatus the paper on which were the indented lines which had just reproduced the inflections of the absent voice, and replaced it with another. The phonograph was then perfected to such a degree that it was necessary only to speak aloud for the membrane to receive the impression, and the wheel which was turned as by the machinery of a watch would stamp the words on the paper inside. Kin Fou spoken it for about a moment. By his voice, which was always calm and even, one could not have learned whether joy or sorrow influenced his thoughts. No more than three or four sentences were spoken. Having ended, he stopped the machinery of the phonograph, drew out the special paper on which the needle, acted upon by the membrane, had traced oblique ridges corresponding to the words spoken. Then, placing this paper in an envelope which he sealed, he wrote from right to left the following address. An electric bell quickly brought the servant who had charge of letters, and he was ordered to take this one immediately to the post office. An hour afterwards, Kin Fou was sleeping peacefully, pressing in his arms his Chao Fao Zhen, a kind of pillow of plated bamboo which maintains a medium temperature in Chinese beds, and is very much prized in these warm latitudes. End of Chapter 4 Recording by Joseph Lawler Chapter 5 of the Tribulations of a China Man in China This is a LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox Recording signed the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Netine Kertboulez The Tribulations of a China Man in China by Jules Verne Translated by Virginia Champlain Chapter 5 In which Lee Hu receives a letter which he would rather not have received. You have no letter for me yet? Hey, no, madam. Time seems so long to me, old mother. Thus for the tenth time that day spoke the charming Lee Hu in the Boudoir of her house in Chakwa Avenue, Pekin. The old mother who answered her, and to whom she gave this title, usually bestowed in China on servants of a respectable age, was the grumbling and disagreeable Miss Nan. Lee Hu had married at eighteen a literary man of the highest distinction who had contributed to the famous Tse Kutsuane Chu. This servant was twice her age and died three years after this unequal union. The young widow was left alone in the world when she was only twenty-one years old. Kin Fu met her on a journey which he made to Pekin about this time. Wang, who was acquainted with this charming person, called the attention of his indifferent pupil to her, and Kin Fu gradually gave himself up to the idea of modifying the conditions of his life by becoming the husband of such a pretty widow. Lee Hu was not averse to the proposition, so the marriage, which was decided upon to the great satisfaction of the philosopher, was to be celebrated as soon as Kin Fu, after having made the necessary arrangements at Shanghai, should return to Pekin. It is not common in the Celestial Empire for widows to marry again, not that they do not wish to as much as those of their class in western countries, but because their wish is shared by few of the opposite sex. If Kin Fu was an exception to the rule, it was because he was eccentric, as we know. Lee Hu, if married again, it is true, would no longer have the right to pass under the commemorative arches, which the emperor has sometimes erected in honor of women celebrated for their fidelity to a deceased husband, such as that in honor of the widow Sang, who never would leave her husband's tomb, of the widow Kung Chiang, who cut off an arm, and of the widow Yan Chiang, who disfigured herself as a sign of conjugal grief. But Lee Hu thought she could do better in her 20th year. She would resume that life of obedience which constitutes the whole whole of woman in a Chinese family, give up talking of outside matters, conform to the precepts of the book Lin Nan on Domestic Virtues, and the book Nate Sopien on Marital Judis, and again find that consideration enjoyed by the wife Hu in the upper classes is not the slave she is generally believed to be. So Lee Hu, who was intelligent and well educated, understanding what place she would hold in the life of the rich ennuié, and feeling herself drawn towards him by the desire of proving to him that happiness exists on the earth, was quite resigned to her new fate. The savant had left his young widow in easy though moderate circumstances, and the house in Chacoa Avenue was therefore unpretentious. The intolerable Nan was the only servant, but Lee Hu was accustomed to her deplorable menace, which are not peculiar to the servants of the empire of flowers. The young woman preferred to spend most of her time in her boudoir, the furniture of which would have seemed very plain, had it not been for the rich presence which, for two eventful months, had been arriving from Shanghai. A few pictures hung on the walls. Among others a shadow of the old painter once went in, which would have attracted the attention of connoisseurs, among other very Chinese watercolors with green hoses, violet docks and blue trees, the work of native modern artists. On the lacquer table were displayed fans like great butterflies with expanded wings from the celebrated school of Swarto. From a pulsing hanging lamp drooped elegant festoons of those artificial flowers so admirably manufactured from the pith of the Arabia papyrifer of Formosa, and rivalling the white water lilies, yellow chrysanthemums, and red lilies of Japan, which crowded the jardiniere of delicately carved wood. A soft light filled the room, as the screens of braided bamboo at the windows excluded the direct rays of the sun by filtering them as it were. A magnificent screen made of large Spirohawks feathers, on which the spots of color artistically disposed represented a large peony, that emblem of beauty in the empire of flowers. Two bird cages in the form of a pagoda, real kaleidoscopes of the most brilliant birds of India, a few Aeolian Tiemels, whose glass plate vibrated in the breeze, and a thousand objects, in fact, which recalled the absent one, completed the curious adornment of this boudoir. No letter yet, none? Why no, madame, not yet? A charming woman was this young Liu, and pretty even to European eyes, for she was fair, not yellow, and had soft eyes, but slightly raised near the temples. Black hair, which was ornamented with a few peach blossoms, fastened by paints of green jade, small white teeth and eyebrows faintly defined with a delicate line of India ink. She put no cosmetic of honey or Spanish white on her cheeks, as the beauties in the celestial empire generally do, no circle of carmine on her lower lip, no small vertical line between her eyes, nor a single layer of the paint which the imperial court dispenses annually for ten million sabbages. The young widow had nothing to do with these artificial ingredients. She seldom went out of her house at Chakua, and for that reason could scorn this mask which every Chinese woman uses outside of her own house. As for her toilet, nothing could be more simple and elegant. A long robe, slashed on four sides, with a white embroidered galoon at the hem, and, underneath this, a plated skirt. At her waist, a plastron embellished with braid in gold filigree, pantaloons attached to the belt, and fasten over hose of lankin silk, and pretty slippers ornamented with pearls, composed her attire. We can mention nothing more to make the young woman charming, unless we add that her hands were delicate, and that she preserved her nails, which were long and rosy, in little silver cases, carved with exquisite art. And her feet? Well, her feet were small, not in consequence of that barbarous costume of deforming them, which happily is being done away with, but because nature had made them so. This custom has already lasted several hundred years, and probably arose from the deformity of some club-fooded princess, and not, as has been believed, from the jealousy of husbands. In its most simple application, the flexion of the foretoes under the sole, while leaving the chalcaneum intact, converts the leg into a sort of conical trunk, absolutely impedes walking, and predisposes to anemia. The custom had extended day by day from the conquest by the Tartars. But now one cannot find three Chinese women out of ten who have been forced to submit, at an early age, to a succession of those painful operations which causes the deformity of the foot. It cannot be possible that a letter has not come to-day, said Liu again. Go and see, old mother. I have been to-see, and said Miss Nan very disrespectfully, as she left the room crumbling. Liu tried to work to divert her mind, yet she was thinking of kinfu all the same. Since she was embroidering for him a pair of cloth stockings, whose manufacturer is confined to women in Chinese households to whatever class they may belong. But her work soon fell from her hands. She rose, took two or three watermelon seeds from a bonbon box, crunched them between her little teeth, then opened a book entitled Nushun, a code of instructions which is the habit of every worthy wife to read daily. As spring is the most favorable season for the farmer, so is the dawn, the most propitious moment of the day. Rise early, and do not yield to the wooing of sleep. Take care of the mulberry tree and the hemp. Spin silk and cotton zealously. A woman's virtue is in being industrious and economical. Your neighbour will sing your praises. This book was soon closed, for the fond Liu was not thinking of what she was reading. Where can he be? she questioned. He must have gone to Canton. Has he returned to Shanghai? When will he arrive at Beijing? Has the sea been smooth for him? I pray the goddess Qu'an in May watch over him. Thus spoke the anxious young woman, and her eyes wandered absently over a table cover which was artistically made of a thousand little pieces patched together in a sort of mosaic and of a material of Portuguese fashion on which were designed the Mandarin duck and his family, the symbol of fidelity. Finally she approached a jardinière and plucked a flower at random. Ah, said she, this is not a flower of the green willow, the emblem of spring, youth and joy. It is the yellow chrysanthemum, the emblem of autumn and sorrow. To dispel the anxiety which now possessed her, she took up her lute and ran her fingers over the strings, while she softly sang the first words of the song, hence united. But she could not continue. His letters always came promptly, she said to herself, and what emotion they caused me as I read them. Or, instead of those lines which were addressed only to my eyes, it was his voice itself I could hear. Far in that instrument it spoke to me as if we were near. Liu glanced at a phonograph which stood on a small lacquered table, and which was exactly like the one that Kinfo used at Shanghai. Both could thus hear each other speak, or rather the sound of their voices, in spite of the distance which separated them. But today, as for several days, the apparatus was silent, and no longer spoke the thoughts of the absent one. The old mother now entered. Here is your letter, she said, and she handed Liu an envelope postmark Shanghai, and then left the room. A smile played about Liu's lips, and her eyes sparkled with a more brilliant light. She quickly tore open the envelope without taking time to look at it, as was her habit. It did not contain a letter, but one of those pieces of paper with oblique indented lines, which, when adjusted in the phonograph, reproduced all the inflections of the human voice. Oh, I like this even better! she cried joyously, for I can hear him speak. The paper was placed on the roller of the phonograph, which the machinery, like clockwork, immediately made revolve, and Liu, putting her ear to it, heard a well-known voice, which said, Little younger sister, Rune has made way with my riches, as the east wind blows away the yellow leaves of autumn. I do not wish to make another wretched by having her share my poverty. Forget him on whom ten thousand misfortunes have fallen. Yours in despair, Qinfu. What a blow for the young woman. A life more bitter than the bitter gentian, awaited her now. Yes, the golden wing was carrying away her last hopes with the fortune of him she loved. Was Qinfu's love for her gone, forever? Did her friend believe only in the happiness which riches give? Our poor Liu, she now resembled a kite, which, when its string is broken, falls to the ground and is shattered. Nan, whom she had called, entered the room, and, with a shrug of her shoulders, carried her mistress to her hang. But, although her couch was one of those stove-beds artificially warmed, it seemed cold to the unfortunate Liu, and how slowly passed the five parts of that sleepless night. End of Chapter 5, Recording by Netine Kertboulle, in February 2010. Chapter 6 of The Tribulations of a Chinaman in China This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Tribulations of a Chinaman in China by Jules Fern translated by Virginia Champlain. Chapter 6 which will perhaps make the reader desire to visit the offices of the sentinary. The next day, Qinfu, whose disdain for things of this world did not lessen for a moment, left home alone and, with his usual regular gate, descended the right shore of the creek. Having reached the wooden bridge, which connects the English concession with the American, he crossed the river and proceeded to a rather handsome house, which stood between the Mission Church and the Consulate of the United States. On the front of this house was displayed a large copper plate on which was engraved in Ray's letters, this inscription. The Sentinary Life Insurance Company, guaranteed capital $20 million, principal agent William J. Bedolf. Qinfu pushed open the door, which was protected by another one inside, and found himself in an office divided into two compartments by a simple balustrade, as high as his elbow. Several pasteboard boxes for papers, some books with nickel clasps, an American safe, two or three tables where the agent's clerks were working, and a complicated secretary reserved for the honorable William J. Bedolf comprised the furniture of this room, which seemed to belong more to a house in Broadway than to one on the shores of the Wusong. William J. Bedolf was the principal agent in China of the Life and Fire Insurance Company, whose head was in Chicago. It was called the Sentinary, a good title which must draw patrons. The Sentinary, which was very popular in the United States, had branches in the five divisions of the world. It carried on an enormous business thanks to its bylaws, which were very boldly and liberally framed, and was thus able to take every risk. The Celestials were beginning to follow these modern ideas, which filled the coffers of companies of this kind. A large number of houses in the Central Empire were ensured against fire, and the contracts of insurance, in case of death, with their complex combinations, did not lack Chinese signatures. The advertisement of the Sentinary was already posted on doors in Shanghai, and among other places, on the pillars of Kinfo's Kostli Yaman. Therefore, it was not with the intention of insuring against fire that Wang's pupil was paying a visit to the honorable William J. Bedolf. Mr. Bedolf, he asked as he entered. William J. Bedolf was there in person, like a photographer who is his own operator, and always at the disposition of the public. He was a man 50 years old, correctly dressed in a black coat and white cravet, with a full-grown beard but no mustache, and with peculiarly American manners. To whom have I the honor of speaking, he asked. To Mr. Kinfo of Shanghai. Mr. Kinfo, one of the patrons of the Sentinary, policy number 27200. The same. Am I to have the good fortune of having you desire my services, sir? I would like to speak to you in private, answered Kinfo. Conversation between these two could be the more easily carried on, since William J. Bedolf spoke Chinese, and Kinfo spoke English. The wealthy patron was then introduced with the respect to him, into an inner office hung with heavy tapestry, enclosed with double doors, where one might have plotted the overthrow of the dynasty of Tsing without fear of being heard by the most cunning tipals of the celestial empire. Sir, said Kinfo, as soon as he had seated himself in a rocking chair before a fireplace heated by gas, I desire to negotiate with your company for the insurance of my life for a sum, the amount of which I will give you presently. Sir, answered William J. Bedolf, there is nothing more simple to signatures, yours and mine, at the bottom of a policy and the insurance is affected after a few preliminary formalities. But sir, permit me to ask this question, you desire to die only at a very advanced age, do you not? Quite a natural desire. Why should I ask Kinfo? Usually when one ensures his life, it indicates that he fears sudden death. Oh, sir, answered Mr. Bedolf in the most serious way in the world. That fear is never entertained by the patrons of the sentinary, does not its name indicate this? To ensure with us is to take out a patent of long life, I beg pardon, but it is rare that those ensuring with us do not live beyond the hundredth year. Very rare, very rare, for their own good we ought to deprive them of life, but we do a superb business. So I assure you, sir, that insurance in the sentinary is a quasi certainty of becoming a sentinarian. Indeed, said Kinfo quietly, looking at William J. Bedolf with his cold eye. The chief agent, serious as a clergyman, had by no means the appearance of joking. However that may be, resumed Kinfo, I desire to get insured for two hundred thousand dollars. We say a policy of two hundred thousand dollars, answered Mr. Bedolf. He entered this sum in his notebook and its magnitude did not even cause him to raise his eyebrows. You know, he added, that the insurances void and that all premiums paid whatever their number go to the company if the person insured loses his life through the act of the beneficiary of the contract. I know that. And against what risks do you pretend to insure, my dear sir? All kinds. Risks of travel by land or sea and those of a residence outside the limits of the celestial empire? Yes. Risks of legal sentence? Yes. Risks of dual? Yes. Risks of military service? Yes. Then the premiums will be very high. I will pay what is necessary. It is agreed. But, added Kinfo, there is another very important risk which you do not speak of. What is it? Suicide. I thought the statutes of the centenary authorized it to insure against suicide also. Just so, sir, just so answered William J. Bedolf rubbing his hands. Even that proves a source of splendid profit to us. You understand, our patrons are generally people who value life and those who, through exaggerated prudence, insure against suicide never kill themselves. For all that, answered Kinfo, for personal reasons, I wish to insure against this risk also. Bless me, but it is a pretty big premium. I repeat that I will pay whatever is necessary. Of course, we will put down then, said Mr. Bedolf, continuing to write in his notebook, risks of traveling by sea and land and suicide. And on those conditions, what will be the amount to pay, asked Kinfo. My dear sir, answered the principal agent. Our premiums are tabled with a mathematical accuracy which is greatly to the honor of the company. They are not based, as they used to be, on Duvallar's tables. Are you acquainted with Duvallar's? I am not acquainted with Duvallar's. A remarkable statistician, but already ancient. So ancient even that he is dead. At the time that he established his famous tables, which still serve as the scale for premiums in the majority of European companies, which are very much behind the times, the average duration of life was less than now, thanks to general progress. We form a basis on a higher medium and, consequently, one more favorable to the insured, who pays a lower price and lives longer. What will be the amount of my premium, resumed Kinfo, desirous of stopping the wordy agent, who neglected no occasion to mention this advantage in favor of the centenary? Sir, answered William J. Bedolf, may I take the liberty of asking your age? 31 years. Well, at 31, if you were only ensuring on ordinary risks, you would pay in any company two eighty-three percent, but in the centenary it will only be two seventy, which for a capital of two hundred thousand dollars would make five thousand four hundred dollars per annum. And on the conditions that I desire, asked Kinfo, ensuring against every risk, even suicide? Suicide above everything. Sir, answered Mr. Bedolf in an amiable tone, after having consulted a printed table on the last page of his notebook, we cannot do this for you at less than twenty-five percent, which will make fifty thousand dollars. And how will the premium be paid to you all at once or in parts monthly at the pleasure of the person insured? And what would it be for the first two months? Eight thousand three hundred and thirty-two dollars, which, if paid today, the thirtieth of April, my dear sir would cover you to the thirtieth of June of the present year. Sir, said Kinfo, those conditions suit me. Here is the premium for the first two months. And he placed on the table a thick roll of bills, which he drew from his pocket. Well, sir, very well answered Mr. Bedolf. But before signing the policy, there is one formality to be gone through with. What is it? You must receive a visit from the physician of the company. For what reason? In order to ascertain if you are soundly built, if you have no organic malady of a nature to shorten life, if in short you can give us guarantees of a long life. Of what use is that, since I insure even against dual and suicide, observed Kinfo. Well, my dear sir answered Mr. Bedolf, still smiling. A malady whose germs you might have, and which would carry you off in a few months, would cost us an all two hundred thousand dollars. My suicide would cost you that also, I suppose. Dear sir answered the gracious agent taking Kinfo's hand, which he gently padded. Allow me to tell you that many of our patrons insure against suicide, but they never commit suicide. But we are not prevented from watching over them, but with the greatest discretion. Ah, said Kinfo. I will add this, which I have often said, that of all those insured by the centenary, they are the ones who pay premiums the longest. But between ourselves, pray, tell me, why should the wealthy Mr. Kinfo commit suicide? And why should the wealthy Mr. Kinfo get insured? Oh, answered William J. Bedolf, to obtain the certainty of a living to be very old as a patron of the centenary. There was no use in discussing any longer with the principal agent of the celebrated company. He was so positive in what he said. And now he added, to whose profit is this insurance of two hundred thousand dollars, who will be the beneficiary of the contract? There will be two beneficiaries, answered Kinfo. In equal shares? No, in unequal shares, one for fifty thousand dollars, the other for one hundred and fifty thousand. For the fifty thousand, we say Mr. Wang, the philosopher Wang, the same. And for the hundred and fifty thousand, Madam Liu of Peking, Peking added Mr. Bedolf, finishing his entry of the names of the beneficiaries. Then he resumed, what is Madam Liu's age? Twenty-one, answered Kinfo. Oh, said the agent, a young lady who will be quite old when she receives the amount of the policy. Why so, please? Because you will live to be more than a hundred, my dear sir. And how old is the philosopher Wang? Fifty-five. Well, this worthy man is sure of never receiving anything. That remains to be seen, sir. Sir, answered Mr. Bedolf, if at fifty-five I were the heir of a man of thirty-one who was to die a centenarian, I would not be so simple as to count on inheriting from him. Your servant, sir, said Kinfo, moving to the office door. And yours, answered the honorable Mr. Bedolf, bowing to the new insuree of the centenary. The next day, the physician of the company made Kinfo the regular visit. Body of iron, muscles of steel, lungs like organ bellows, read the report. There was nothing to prevent the company from dealing with a man so soundly built. The policy was then signed, under this date, by Kinfo on his part, for the benefit of the young widow and the philosopher Wang, and on the other by William J. Bedolf, the representative of the company. Neither Liu nor Wang, unless through improbable circumstances, would ever know what Kinfo had just done for them, until the day when the centenary should be called upon to pay them the policy, the last generous act of the ex-millionaire. End of Chapter Six, Recording by Tom Barron