The Californian/Volume 1/The Dramatic in My Destiny
THE CALIFORNIAN.
A WESTERN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
Vol. I—JANUARY, 1880.—No. 1.
THE DRAMATIC IN MY DESTINY.
"Who shall say, 'I stand!' nor fall?
Destiny is over all."
PROLOGUE.
"Alcohol is for the brutish body, opium for the divine spirit," said Tong-ko-lin-sing,'as he lighted the lamp. "The bliss from wine grows and wanes as the body has its time of growth and loss, but that from opium stays at one height, as the soul knows no youth nor age." He brought the jar of black paste, rounded up by layer on layer of poppy petals. "Opium soothes, collects, is the friend alike of rich or poor. It has power to prove to the sinner that his soul is pure, and make the unhappy forget; it reverses all unpleasant things, like the phonograph, playing a piece of music backward.' He handed me the pipe—flute-like, fit instrument for the divine music of dreamland, though clumsy bamboo—the earthen bow! with the rich coloring of much smoking, like a Chinaman himself. "Dead faces look on us, and dead voices call, for the soul then gains its full stature, can mix with the immortals, and does; when alone and in silence, it can know that Time and Space have no bounds." He took a wire, which he dipped in the jar and held in the flame. " Strangest of all is the power of opium to form as well as repeat, even from odds and ends in our minds. There are herbs which inspire, those which destroy, and those which heal. The Siberian fungus benumbs the body and not the mind, the Himalayan and the New Granadan thorn-apple brings spectral illusions: why should there not be those which may cast prophetic spells?" The few drops of the paste clinging to the wire bubbled and burned. He smeared it on the rim of the pipe-bowl. "Opium has the power of a god; it can efface or renew the Past, and ignore or foretell the Future."
I drew three or four whiffs of whitish smoke; the bowl was empty. Again he went through the long course of filling. "Though it bring dream within dream, like our Chinese puzzles—mark their meaning, for our Chinese saying is, 'The world's nonsense is the sense of God!'"
I heard. I knew him for my queer teacher of Chinese, who knew French, English, and Sanscrit as well, whom I was wont to muse over here in "Chinatown," as over a relic, until oppressed with thought of the age of his country, until San Francisco seemed a town built of a child's toy-houses, and ours but a gad-fly race. I knew the room with its odd urns and vases, fans and banners, some of the last with stain which shows the baptism of human blood, given to make them lucky in war; the china and bronze gods, ugly and impossible as nightmare visions; the table with lamp and pot of tar-like paste, my Chinese grammar, and paper and ink; the other table with its jar of sweetmeats, covered with classical quotations, basket of queer soft-shelled nuts, and bottle of Sam-Shoo ricebrandy; the much-prized gift, a Lianchau coffin, standing up in the corner; the mantel-piece with Tong-ko-lin-sing's worn lot of books, where the great poet, Lintsehen, leaned on Shakspeare, Sakuntala stood beside Paul and Virginia, Robinson Crusoe nudged Confucius Page:The Californian volume 1 issue 1.djvu/2 Page:The Californian volume 1 issue 1.djvu/3 Page:The Californian volume 1 issue 1.djvu/4 Page:The Californian volume 1 issue 1.djvu/5 Page:The Californian volume 1 issue 1.djvu/6 Page:The Californian volume 1 issue 1.djvu/7 in the theatre, watching the ground and lofty tumbling, until the crowd and noise and bad air forced us to leave, when as I came out last of our party I nearly fell over him.
“Tong-ko-lin-sing !”
“Why all this trouble for a woman?” he asked, gravely. “Women are plenty, for to be- come one is a future punishment of ours for sin when men. I have seen her with you; she wore the tiger’s-claw jewelry you got through me. Like most American women she would not make a ‘mother of Meng,’ our wise woman, who has passed into a proverb. Then she wore black, which is ill luck for body and mind.”
Nothing could have better set off Elinor’s golden hair and fresh daisy-bloom than the soft laces and black velvet she had so often worn beside me at concert or play. I could almost see her again with me at the thought. I drew a deep sigh. “Where is Si-ki?” I cried, mak- ing a vain clutch at Tong-ko-lin-sing’s sleeve. But the others had turned back for me, and my Chinese teacher’s jacket and cap of black astrakhan fur soon melted into the darkness of some too near alley. Had he followed us all day from mere curiosity, or could he help us? We went to his door, but knocked in vain, though we all saw a line of light under his door as we went up-stairs, not there when we came down. Disheartened, we went home. Elinor had not changed. We could not try to sleep, but sat in my room.
“I wish,” said Brande, “you looked as full of life and joy as you did the last time I saw you come home with Miss Elinor.”
“O Noel!” I cried, “if I could but live over that last happy day, when to see her by me was thrilling as music, when to breathe the same air was exciting as wine!”
“Like Socrates under the plane-tree,” he mused, “‘borne away by a divine impression coming from this lovely place.’”
“Yes,” I said; “life was all changed, my soul was no more pent by bodily bounds, my eyes saw everything by an inner light which made all fair.”
“That reminds me,” said he, “of some verses about the picture over Miss Elinor’s piano.”
He searched his note-book, found, and read:
AN INTERLUDE.
Seem like a spell to conjure from the wall
One picture's living eyes, which, though returning
To shadows that engulph, hold me in thrall.
Across the strings has lain caressing bow,
But pauses for some thought that intervening
Yet holds him waiting, listening so.
Some consciousness had thrilled and made him know
And long to step into the circle, showing
Such charméd one within the hearth-fire’s glow.
What can be felt, or heard, or seen, except
When passing flashes of emotion, lending
Some added senses, over me have swept,
And my existence may to angels seem
Like that of phantom through dim vapors flaunting,
For ever near some vague, elusive dream.
In some bright moment's exaltation brief,
As if, though circling shadows oft imprison,
My music waits but for a turning leaf!
“Spirits in prison,’” said I; “where do you think they go when first set free?—to another world, or to the dearest friend in this?”
“That would depend,” he answered, “upon the kind of spirit that goes. One like Miss Elinor now—”
“Do not speak of’ her death;” I cried; “though I have thought before that you did not like her.”
“No,” said he, “I do not, but with no reason. It is a mere feeling that repels, and did at first sight, lovely as she is. I need not speak of her death to say that her spirit is one that would—”
I started. Elinor had come in at the door behind him, and stood looking at me, making a sign of caution as if she did not wish Brande to know of her presence. What had brought her to my room? She looked very shadowy in sweeping, misty robes and floating hair. Perhaps she was not in her right mind. I was sorely vexed to have Brande see her come to me. I had even wild thoughts of blindfolding him, while she should have time to flee.
- “What is it?” he asked. “You look as if you saw a ghost.”
“Nothing,” I faltered. While I wondered what was best to do, she looked anxiously at me, and made motions toward Brande as if I meant to do him mortal harm, as if warning me back from a crime. Such strange movements perplexed me, so that, seeing my absorbed gaze, Brande looked behind him.
“What do you see?” he cried, as he turned, and to my horror added, “there is nothing here!”
Had he gone mad or had I?
“Don’t you see her?” I gasped, hardly able to get on my feet, for a sinking at my heart seemed to root me to my chair. “Poor fellow!” he said to himself in pity. “He has lost his wits! See, my boy,” he said to me, rising and walking toward her. “Emp- ty space, all empty space.”
He swung his arms about him, but she moved swiftly toward me, still with the same air of warning me, then paused and spread her arms as if to keep us apart.
“Elinor! What is it? Speak!” I cried, rush- ing. toward her.
But Brande caught me in his arms, and by main force bore me to a chair in spite of my struggles and prayers. A look of despair came in her face. Her warnings doubled in zeal and number.
“Let me go!” I panted.
“T can not let you dash your brains out against the wall,” he said.
I made one more vain strain to leave my seat. He held me in a grasp of iron.
“What shall I do?” he groaned to himself, and turned white about the lips, for unseen I had made out to draw my pistol from my pocket, and now suddenly held it toward him.
“Yorke Rhys!” he shouted, but did not let go his hold.
How can I tell it? The room turned black tome. Then I found Elinor had fled, and my
friend lay at my feet with a bullet through his heart !
I have a confused remembrance of the board-
ers rushing in. I knew the glint of the French lady’s diamond ear-drops, and the down on her opera-cloak, just from the theatre, the wrought band of the German professor’s smoking-cap, and the palm-leaves on the Spanish lady’s cash- mere shawl, thrown over her night-robes as she came from her bed. They thought Brande had shot himself, for I sat there vaguely asking over and over:
“Why did he do it?”
There was a murmur of “Don’t tell him.” The crowd gave way for Elinor’s aunt, who came and laid my head against her breast in dear motherly fashion.
“What does Elinor want?” I asked. has just been here.”
She only said, “Poor boy!” and smoothed my hair.
Something in their faces smote me with dread. “He is out of his head!” they whispered.
“Tell me,” I urged, “where is Elinor? was here just now.”
The Spanish and the French lady looked in- quiringly at Elinor’s aunt. I turned my face up to hers just in time ere I lost my senses (or did that make me faint?) to see her lips shape the words:
“Elinor died just now!”
“She
She
Act IV.
I lay on my bed, dimly aware of a long, slow lapse of time. Was it of weeks, months or years? I could not tell. Sometimes I saw the sunshine veer round the room, and knew day after day passed, but not how many. Some of the boarders came and went, to my dull senses like visions in dreams: the French lady, trim and straight, nodded and twinkled past, whiffs from the German professor’s pipe curled near me, the tinkle of the Spanish lady’s guitar rang faint and far. Elinor’s aunt had often shaken and smoothed my pillow, but I did not know why nor how I came to be in this weak state of mind and body, and no one spoke of it to me even after I could sit up, till one day Nora brought me a folded page of note-paper, which, she said, fell from my clothes when I was un- dressed the night I fainted, and she had kept it for me, “because it had Miss Elinor’s writing on it.” It was “The Lost Pleiad.” All my weight of woe dropped on me anew. I knew what star had fallen from my sky.
“You kept it for me all this time?” I said, as I gave her some money. “I suppose I was sick some weeks.”
“Months,” she answered.
I sighed. How much in debt such long idle- ness and illness must have brought me! And I must have lost my chance for work in China. Letters must be written. I opened my desk. It had not been locked, and a pile of receipted board and doctor’s bills I had never seen lay in it, with a letter dated the very day that Elinor— that Noel—that I fell ill, from Brande’s friends on California Street. It told me that through his strong efforts I was given a place with them, which made sure the income I had longed for to let me marry and stay in my own country. They had kept the place waiting for me, and meanwhile paid my bills. Through Brande’s influence! And I had killed my best friend! I gasped for air, opened the windows and walked the room. I could trace my troubles all back to that infernal Si-ki. Hastily making ready, I stole out unseen, and rushed to Tong-ko-lin- sing. As I went in, his Tien-Sien lark was fill- ing the room with its song, standing on the floor of its cage, which was on the table in front of his master, who sat reading. in his bamboo easy-chair. Tong-ko-lin-sing was struck with the change in me, and wished to talk of it.
“T must find Si-ki,” I said.
“In a field of melons do not pull up your shoes,” said he; “under a plum-tree do not ad- just your cap. If I go with you, it will look as if I knew where to find him. I do not.” “You can find him. You must hunt for him,” I persisted.
It was like talking to a blank wall. unmoved except to ask,
“The lady—?”
“Ts dead. I must fimd Si-ki.”
Quite shocked that I should be so straight- forward, he said, “She has ascended to the skies?”
I nodded impatiently.
“To what sublime religion did she belong?” he asked.
I told him. I piled a small heap of gold and silver on the table under his eyes.
He spoke in high praise of her faith, but added,
“Religions are many. Reason is one. are all brothers.”
While speaking, he put the money out of sight, hung up the bird-cage, and opened his door.
We searched parts of Chinatown which would have been barred to me without a Chinese com- rade; underground depths like the abysses aft- er death, upper stories and roofs of buildings that towered in air as if striving for space to breathe, narrow, crooked alleys where loungers talked across from windows about the American
He was
We
straying there, and seemed to think I was led by Tong-ko-lin-sing because in some way his
prisoner. He offered odd trifles from the depths of his sleeves, in small pawn-shops, which held queer gatherings—pistols of all styles, daggers, even the fan-stiletto, clothes, beds and bedding, tea, sugar, clocks, china, and ornaments. He ealled on large warehouses where the heads of great firms met us; and behind huge jars the size of men, wrought silk screens, giant kites, odd baskets, and gay china, but not beyond the queer foreign scent of such stores, we were given rare tea in tiny cups holding no more than our dessert-spoons. He drew me through wood-yards and vegetable gardens, and over fish-dryer’s sheds. All knew and looked up to Tong-ko-lin-sing as one who knew the written language, but could not help him. He went to the Six Companies, but neither the Ning Yang, which owns the most men in San Francisco, nor the Sam Yup, which sends the most men to ‘other States; neither the Hop Wo, nor the Kong Chow, nor the other two, nor the great wash- house company could or would tell us anything. One after another he asked the throng of small, curb-stone dealers, the pipe-cleaners, cigarette- rollers, vegetable or sweetmeat venders, and cobblers, even the gutter-snipes.
At last, the cobbler who always sits on the south side of Clay Street, just below Dupont, told him something which I did not catch, but he
heard with a start. He wavered and urged me to giveupthe search. I would not. He set off a new way, and soon darted into an alley full of the grimy, blackened buildings which can never be used after the Chinese have lived in them, whose dark horrors recalled some scene else- where known—in what past age? I saw round me only the signs of a civilization older than the Pharaohs. I heard the twang and squeak of rude instruments, which, two thousand years before the three-stringed rebec (sire of our violin) was heard in Italy, played in balmy tea- gardens these same old songs of love, difficulty, and despair. Here crowded the strange build- ings, here crouched the quaint shadows of an Oriental city, known to me—when? where? in some dark-hued picture?
As Tong-ko-lin-sing started down some break-neck steps, I stopped a moment for breath, and looked around me. A street-lamp lighted a Chinese poster close by me, a signed and sealed notice from the Chin Mook Sow so- ciety, offering a thousand dollars, not for the taking of two offenders, but for their assassina- tion! I shuddered and crawled down the nar- row, shaky stairs. On the last landing from which I could see the narrow strip of sky, I looked up. Two great golden planets watched me. I groaned and went on. I felt the crooks of this under-world soon shut all out like a coffin-lid. My love was dead. My friend was murdered. I cursed aloud. I followed Tong- ko-lin-sing only by the strained tension of my nerves, through which I saw him in the dark as plain as if by light, and heard him muttering in Chinese, monotonous as the shrilling of the wind far overhead. He went in at a door— through a long passage that had a strange smell that made me feel faint, a smell of death —till, after a moment’s pause as if to make sure he was right, and giving me a warning touch, he opened a door into a dimly lighted den, while the sickening scent grew worse.
“Si-ki!” he called.
What was this ghostly form, white as a skel- eton, which slowly glimmered through the gloom before my amazed eyes? Dizzy from the fetid scent, yet held by my horror as by transfixing spear, with failing heart and quaking limbs, I saw the ghastly figure cross the rotten, slimy floor toward us.
“My dream! My dream!” I murmured as I clung to Tong-ko-lin-sing for support.
An awful voice, discordant as a Chinese gong, the hollow voice of a leper, a voice unearthly as if we had been shades met in another world, cried,
“Between us two! Between us two!”
EMMA FRANCES DAWSON.