Tribulations of a Chinaman in China

Illustrated

 

by Jules Verne

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tribulations of a Chinaman in China

 

 

 

by Jules Verne

 

 

 

first published in 1879

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Chapter 1. The First Watch of the Night.

"It must be admitted that life has some good in it," said one of the guests, leaning his elbow on the arm of his marble-backed chair while he sat biting the root of a sugar water-lily.

"And some bad also," answered another, between fits of coughing occasioned by having swallowed the prickly part of the delicate fin of a shark which had nearly choked him.

"Be philosophical," said an older man, who wore on his nose an enormous pair of wooden spectacles with large glasses. "To-day, one runs the risk of strangling, and tomorrow everything flows as smoothly as the sweet draughts of this nectar-- such is life.”

After saying these words, this easy-going epicure swallowed a glass of warm wine, the steam of which slowly escaped from a metal teapot.

"For my part," said a fourth guest, "life appears to be very acceptable when one does nothing, and has the means to afford to do nothing.”

"That is a mistake," answered the fifth. "Happiness is to be found in study and work. To acquire the greatest amount of knowledge is the way to be happy.”

"And to learn at last that one knows nothing.”

"Is not that the commencement of wisdom?”

"What, then, is the end?”

"Wisdom has no end," philosophically answered the man with the spectacles. "To have common sense should be supreme satisfaction.”

It was then that the first guest directly addressed the host, who occupied the upper end of the table-- that is the worst place-- as the laws of politeness exacted. Indifferent and inattentive the latter listened without saying anything during this discussion. "Come, let us hear what our host has to say? Does he find existence good or bad? Is he for or against it?”

The host carelessly cracked some melon seeds, and answered by disdainfully moving his lips like a man who takes no interest in anything. "Pooh!" said he.

This is the favorite word of indifferent people. It says everything, and means nothing. It is in every language, and has a place in every dictionary in the world. It is an articulated grimace.

The five guests who were entertained by this weary host pressed him with arguments, each in favor of his own proposition. They wanted his opinion. He tried to avoid answering, but replied by affirming that life had no good or bad in it. In his view, "It was an invention, insignificant enough, and having but little enjoyment in it.”

"Ah, now our friend speaks; but why should he thus speak, since the rustle of a rose has not even troubled his repose?”

"And he is young yet.”

"Young and rich.”

"Perhaps too rich.”

These remarks flew about like rockets from fireworks, without bringing a smile to the host's impassable physiognomy. He was satisfied to shrug his shoulders slightly, like a man who had never wished to turn over the leaves in the book of his life, and who had not even cut the first pages.

And yet this indifferent man was at least thirty-one years of age; he possessed a large fortune, enjoyed good health, was not without culture, his intelligence was above the average, and he had everything, which so many want, to make him one of the happiest men in the world. And why was he not happy?.

"Why?”

The grave voice of the philosopher was now heard, speaking like the leader of a chorus. "Friend," he said, "if you are not happy here below it is because your happiness thus far has been only negative. It is with happiness as it is with health, to enjoy it one should sometimes be deprived of it. Now, have you never been ill? I mean to ask, rather have you never been unfortunate? It is that which is wanting in your life. Who can appreciate happiness if misfortune has never, even for a moment, assailed him?”

And at this observation, full of wisdom, the philosopher, raising his glass full of the best champagne, said, "I wish that the sun of our host's life may be a little darkened, and that he may experience some sorrows." After which he emptied his glass.

The host made a nod of assent, and lapsed into his habitual apathy.

Where did this conversation take place? Was it in a European diningroom in Paris, London, Vienna, or St. Petersburg? Were these six guests assembled together in a restaurant in the Old or the New World? And who were they who, without having drunk to excess, were discussing these questions in the midst of a feast? They were not Frenchmen, you may rest assured, because they were not talking politics.

These six guests were seated in a medium-sized dining-room elegantly decorated. The last rays of the sun were streaming through the net-work of blue and orange window-glass, and past the open windows the breeze was full of the odor of natural flowers. A few lanterns mingled their variegated light with the dying light of day. Above the windows were sculptured and rich arabesques representing celestial and terrestrial beauty, and animals and vegetables of a strange fauna and flora.

As to the servants, they were very prepossessing young girls, whose hair was mingled with lilies and chrysanthemums, and whose arms were coquettishly encircled with bracelets of gold. Smiling, they served or removed the dishes with one hand, while with the other each gracefully waved a large fan which restored the currents of the air.

The moment came at last when the young girls brought in, not according to European fashion, finger-bowls containing perfumed water, but napkins saturated with warm water, which each of the guests passed over his face with extreme satisfaction.

It was only an interlude of the repast-- an hour of luxurious rest, while the music filled up the moments, for soon a troupe of singers and musicians entered the room. The singers were young and pretty girls of modest appearance and behavior; but what music and method was there-- it was a mewing and harsh noise, without measure or tune sometimes rising in sharp notes to the utmost limit of perception by the auditory nerves.

The six guests then left their seats, but only to pass from one table to another, which was done with great ceremony and compliments of all sorts. On this second table each found a small cup having a lid ornamented with a portrait of Bodhidharama, the celebrated Buddhist monk, standing on his legendary raft. Each of the guests received a pinch of tea, which he infused in the boiling water in his cup, without any sugar, and he drank it immediately.

And what tea! It was not to be feared that the house of Gibb, Gibb and Company, who supplied it, had adulterated it with a mixture of foreign leaves; or that it had already been subjected to a first infusion, and was only good to use in sweeping carpets; or that a dishonest preparer had colored it yellow with curcuma, or green with Prussian blue! It was imperial tea in all its purity, and its leaves were the first gathering in the month of March-- those precious leaves which are like the flower itself, for the loss of the leaves causes the death of the plant. It was composed of those leaves which young children alone are allowed to gather, with carefully gloved hands.

The cups were still full, and the host, with his eyes fixed on vacancy and his elbow leaning on the table, expressed himself in these words: "My friends, listen to me without laughing; the die is cast. I am going to introduce into my life a new element, which may perhaps vary its monotony. Will it be for good or for evil? The future only can tell. This dinner to which I have invited you, is my farewell dinner to bachelor life. In fifteen days I shall be married, and----”

"And you will be the happiest of men," cried the optimist. "See, all the signs are in your favor.”

Indeed, the lamps flickered, and cast a pale light around, the magpies chattered on the arabesques of the windows, and the little tea leaves floated perpendicularly in the cups. So many lucky omens could not fail.

They all congratulated their host, who received their compliments with the greatest coolness. But as he did not name the person destined to fill the part of the "new element to his happiness," and whom he had chosen, no one was indiscreet enough to interrogate him on the subject.

Yet, the philosopher's voice was not heard among 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 who paid the compliments no more than he did the one who was complimented.

The latter 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 am acting wrong?”

"Probably so.”

"But she, whom I have chosen, and whom you know, has everything that is necessary to make me happy.”

"I know it.”

"Well, then?”

"But it is you who have not everything necessary to make you happy. To be bored during single life is bad, but to be bored double is worse.”

"Am I, then, never to 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.”

"Ah! These philosophers," cried the youngest of the guests. "One should not listen to them. They are theoretical; they manufacture all kinds of theories which are impracticable. 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 the poets say, 'May the two phoenixes always appear to you tenderly united.' My friends, I drink to the success of our host.”

"And I," answered the philosopher, "drink to the near interposition of some protecting divinity, who, in order to make him happy, will require him to pass through the trial of misfortune.”

At this singular toast, the guests arose, brought their fists together as they do at games before beginning the struggle; and having alternately lowered and raised them while bowing their heads, took leave of each other.

From the description of the dining-room where the entertainment was given, and the strange bill of fare which composed it, as well as from the dress and manner of the guests, and perhaps from the singularity of the theories which they advanced, the reader has guessed that we are speaking of the Chinese, not of those "Celestials" who look as if they had been taken from some Chinese screen, or had escaped from some piece of pottery, but of the modern inhabitants of the Celestial Empire, already Europeanized by their studies, their voyages, and their frequent communication with the civilization 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 Kin-Fo, accompanied by the inseparable Wang, the philosopher, had just given an entertainment to four of the best friends of his youth. Pao-Shen, a mandarin of the fourth class, and of the order of the blue button; Yin-Pang, a rich silk merchant in Apothecary street; Tim, the high liver; and Houal, the literary man.

And this entertainment took place on the 27th day of the 4th moon during the first of those five periods which so poetically divide the hours of the Chinese night.

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Chapter 2. Antecedents.

If Kin-Fo gave his farewell dinner to his Canton friends, it was because he had passed a part of his youth in the capital of the Province of Kouang-Tong. Of the numerous companions a rich and generous young man is sure to have, the four invited guests on the flower boat were the only ones left him at this time. As to the others, they were dispersed by the accidents of life; he would have looked in vain to have brought them together.

Kin-Fo lived in Shang-Hai at this time, and for a change of air he was spending a few days in Canton. This evening he intended to take the steamer which stops at the principal points along the coast, and return quietly home to his yamen.

Why Wang accompanied Kin-Fo was because the philosopher could never leave his pupil, who did not want for lessons. To tell the truth he paid no attention to them, they were so many maxims and wise sentences lost. The "theory machine," according to Tim, the high liver, was never weary of producing them.

Kin-Fo was a good type of the northern Chinamen who have never joined with the Tartars. You might not meet his equal in the southern provinces, where the high and low classes are more intimately blended with the Mandshurian race. Kin-Fo neither from his father nor his mother, whose ancestors kept secluded after the conquest, had a drop of Tartar blood in his veins. He was tall, well-built, fair rather than yellow, with straight eyebrows, and eyes following the horizontal, and but slightly raised toward the temple; he had 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 Kin-Fo appeared like a Chinaman, it was because of his carefully shaven skull, his smooth, hairless brow and neck, and his magnificent queue, which started from the occiput and rolled down like a serpent of jet. Careful of his person, he wore a delicate mustache which made a half circle over his upper lip, and an imperial which was exactly like a rest seen in a piece of music. His nails were more than a centimeter long, a proof that he belonged to that category of lucky men who can live without work. Perhaps, too, his careless manner and his haughty bearing added somewhat to his distinguished appearance.

Besides, Kin-Fo was born at Pekin, an advantage of which the Chinese are very proud. To any one who would have asked him where he came from, he would have answered, "I come from above.”

It was at Pekin that his father, Tchoung-Heou, lived when he was born, and he was six years old when the former settled at Shang-Hai. This worthy Chinaman, who came from an excellent family in the northern part of the empire, possessed, like his countrymen, a remarkable capacity for business. During the first years of his career he traded and sold everything that the rich and populous territory produced: Such as paper goods from Swatow; silks from Sou-Tcheou sugar candy from Formosa; tea from Hankow and Foochow; iron from Honan; and red and yellow copper from the province of Yunanne. All were to him articles of trade and commerce. During the years following his capital was doubled, owing to the creation of a new commerce, which might be called "The Coolie trade of the New World.”

It is toward North America, and principally into the State of California that the surplus population of China is directed, but this has been done in such great numbers that Congress has been obliged to take restrictive measures against the invasion, rather impolitely called "The yellow pest.”

Rich companies undertake the transportation of these inexpensive emigrants. Five had charge of the enlisting in the five provinces of the Celestial Empire, and a sixth had quarters at San Francisco. The first five shipped the merchandise, and the sixth received them. An additional agency, called the Ting-Tong, was stationed where they were reshipped.

This requires an explanation. The Chinese are very willing to expatriate themselves to seek their fortunes with the "Melicans," as they call the population of the United States, but on one condition that their bodies shall be faithfully brought back and buried in their native land. This is one of the principal conditions of the contract a sine qua non clause which is binding on these companies toward the emigrant, and nothing can avoid it. So that the Ting-Tong, otherwise called the "Agency of the Dead," which draws its funds from private sources, is charged with freighting the "corpse-steamers," which leave San Francisco fully loaded for Shang-Hai, Hong-Kong, or Tien-Tsin.

This new kind of business, and new source of profit, the able and enterprising Tchoung-Heou soon saw. At the time of his death, in the year 1866, he was a director in the Kouang-Than Company, in the province of that name, and sub-director of the treasury for the dead in San Francisco.

Kin-Fo having now no father or mother, was heir to a fortune valued at four millions of francs, which was invested in stock in the Central Bank of California, and he had the good sense to let it remain there. At the time 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 at Shang-Hai, and he was the guest of the father before he became that of the son. But where did he come from? What were his antecedents? All these obscure questions Tchoung-Heou and Kin-Fo alone could answer; and if they had considered proper to do so, which was not probable, this is what they would have said:.

Every one knows that China is the kingdom where 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, reigned in China three hundred years; when, in the year 1644 the chief, feeling unable to cope with the rebels who threatened the capital, asked aid of a Tartar king. The king hastened to his aid without being pressed to do so; he drove out the rebels, profited by the situation to overthrow him who had asked his aid, and he proclaimed his own son, Chun-Tche, emperor.

From this period, the Tartar authority was substituted for that of the Chinese, and the throne was occupied by Manchurian emperors. By degrees the two races, especially among the lower classes, came together; but among the rich families of the north the separation between the Chinese and the Tartars was maintained more strictly. The type still retains its characteristics, particularly in the center of the Western Provinces of the Empire. There are centered what are called "the irreconcilables," who remain faithful to the fallen dynasty.

Kin-Fo's father belonged to the latter class, and he did not belie the traditions of his family. A rising against the foreign power, even after a reign of three hundred years, would have found him ready to join it. His son, Kin-Fo, fully shared his political opinions.

In the year 1860, the Emperor S'Hiene-Fong declared war against England and France-- a war ended by the treaty of Pekin, on the 25th of October of the same year. Before that date, a formidable uprising threatened the then reigning dynasty. The Tchang-Mao or the Tai-ping, the "long-haired rebels," took possession of Nan-King in 1853, and Shang-Hai in 1855. S'Hiene-Fong being dead, his son had great difficulty in repulsing the Tai-ping. 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 Tai-ping, the declared enemies of the Tartars, having strongly organized for rebellion, wished to replace the ancient dynasty of the Ming. They formed four distinct bands; 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 rob; and the fourth, under a white banner, were commissioned to provision the other three.

There were important military operations in Kiang-Sou and Sou-Tcheou, and Kia-Hing, about five leagues distant from Shang-Hai fell into the power of the rebels, and were recovered, not without great difficulty, by the imperial troops. Shang-Hai was menaced, and even attacked, on the 18th of August, 1860, at the time that Generals Grant and Montauban, commanding the Anglo-French army, were cannonading the forts of Pei-Ho.

Now, at this time Tchoung-Heou, Kin-Fo's father, was living near Shang-Hai, not far from the beautiful bridge which the Chinese engineers had thrown across the river at Sou-Tcheou. This rebellion of the Tai-ping he could not regard but with approval, since it was chiefly directed against the Tartar dynasty. On the evening of the 18th of August, after the rebels had been driven out of ShangHai, the door of Tchoung-Heou's house suddenly opened.

A fugitive, who had escaped from his pursuers, threw himself at the feet of Tchoung-Heou. This unfortunate man had no weapon with which to defend himself, and if he was given up to the imperial soldiers he was lost.

Kin-Fo's father was not the man to betray a Tai-ping who sought refuge in his house, and he shut the door, and said, "I do not wish to know, and I never shall know, who you are, what you have done, or whence you come; you are my guest, and for that reason you are safe at my house.”

The fugitive wished to speak to express his acknowledgments, but he was unable from weakness.

"Your name?" asked Tchoung-Heou.

"Wang." It was indeed Wang, who was saved by the generosity of Tchoung-Heou-- a generosity which would have cost the latter his life if he was suspected of having given hospitality to a rebel.

A few years afterward the uprising of the rebels was forever repressed. In the year 1864 the Tai-ping chief, who was besieged at Nan-King poisoned himself, to avoid falling into the hands of the imperials. Wang, from that day forward, remained in the house of his benefactor. He never referred to the past, and no one questioned him. The atrocities committed by the rebels were said to be frightful, and under what banner Wang had served-- the yellow, red, black, or white-- it was better to remain in ignorance of, and to believe that he belonged to the provisioning column.

Wang was pleased with his lot, and he continued to be the guest of this hospitable house. After Tchoung-Heou's death, his son had no desire to be separated from him, so much accustomed had he become to the company of this amiable person.

Indeed, at the time of this story who would have ever recognized a former Tai-ping, a murderer, a robber, or an incendiary from choice, in this philosopher of fifty-five years, this moralist in spectacles.

With his long, modest robe, and the sash around his waist rising toward his chest from growing obesity, with his head-dress regulated according to the imperial decree, wearing a fur hat with the rim raised around the crown, from whence fell tassels of red cord, did he not look like a worthy professor of philosophy, and one of those learned men who write fluently in the eighty thousand characters of Chinese writing, and like a savant of superior dialect receiving the first prize in the examination of doctors, with the right to pass under the gate of Pekin reserved for the "Sons of Heaven?" Perhaps, after all, the rebel had improved by contact with the honest Tchoung-Heou, and he had gradually entered into the study of speculative philosophy.

On the evening when Kin-Fo and Wang, who never left each other were together at Canton, after the farewell dinner, they both went along the wharves to seek the steamer to take them quickly to Shang-Hai. Kin-Fo walked on in silence, and in a pensive mood. Wang looked round to the right and to the left, philosophizing to the moon and to 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 gates seemed to open on his own existence and finally saw the pagoda of the "Five Hundred Divinities" vanishing in the distance.

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Chapter 3. Kin-Fo At Home.

A yamen is a number of buildings, variously constructed, ranged according to a parallel line, which a second line of kiosks and pavilions cut across perpendicularly. Ordinarily, the yamen serves as a dwelling for mandarins of high rank, and belongs to the emperor; but it is not forbidden to wealthy Celestials to have one. It was in one of these sumptuous hotels that the wealthy Kin-Fo dwelt in Shang-Hai.

Wang and his pupil stopped at the principal gate opening on the vast inclosure, which surrounded the various constructions of the yamen and its garden and courtyards. If, instead of being the dwelling of a private person, it had been that of a mandarin magistrate, a large drum would have occupied the best place under the roof of the porch over the door, and where in the night as well as the day those of his deputies who might have to seek for justice would have knocked; but instead of this "drum" large porcelain jars ornamented the entrance to the yamen, which contained cold tea, and which were kept constantly filled by his servants.

These jars were for the benefit of passers-by, which did honor to the generosity of Kin-Fo. He was well and favorably regarded, as they say, by his neighbors in the east and the west.

On the arrival of the master, the servants of the house ran to the door to receive him. Valets-de-chambre, footmen, porters, chair-bearers waiters, coachmen, and cooks, all who compose a Chinese household, formed into line under the orders of the steward. A dozen of coolies, engaged by the month for the coarse work, stood a little in the rear.

The steward welcomed the master to the house, who made a sign with his hand and passed rapidly on.

"Soun," he merely said.

"Soun," answered Wang, smiling. "If Soun were here, it would not be Soun.”

"Where is he?" asked Kin-Fo.

The steward had to confess that neither he, nor any one, knew where he was. Now Soun was no less a person than the first valet-de-chambre, specially attached to Kin-Fo's person, and was one whom he could by no means dispense with.

Was Soun, then a model servant? No, he could not possibly have done his duty in a worse manner; he was absent-minded, awkward with his hands and tongue, a great eater, and a great coward; but he was a true Chinaman, faithful on the whole, and the only one possessed of the gift of moving his master. Did Kin-Fo find a necessity to get angry with Soun twenty times a day, yet if he only corrected him ten times, there was just so much less to rouse him from his habitual indolence, and put his bile in motion. It was evident that he was a hygienic servant.

Soun, like the most of Chinese servants, came of himself to be corrected when he deserved it. The blows of the rattan would be poured on his shoulders, but he hardly cared for that. What caused him to show more sensibility was the successive cuttings

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 12.05.2014
ISBN: 978-3-7368-1116-4

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