And as I went on my way to Peking, across the plain in its summer dress of lush green kaoliang, I wondered sorrowfully if all the return I had made for the kindness received was to have those missionaries accused of pocketing the cumshaw I was supposed to have given.
But I was glad to come back, glad not to think any more of the Chinaman as a creature whose soul had to be saved, glad to come back to my ordinary associates who were ordinarily worldly and selfish, and felt that they might drink a whisky-and-soda and consider their own enjoyment, though there were a few hundred million people in outer darkness around them. The majority of us cannot live in the rarefied atmosphere that demands constant sacrifice and abnegation for the sake of those we do not and cannot love.
CHAPTER XX—THE WAYS OF THE CHINESE SERVANT
The heat of Peking—-The wall by moonlight—Tongshan—“Your devoted milkman”—The eye of the mistress—A little fort—In case of an outbreak—The Temple of the Sleeping Buddha—A runaway bride—The San Shan An—My own temple courtyard—The missing outfit—The Language Officer—Friends in need.
It was David, I think, who said in his haste, that all men are liars, but I suppose he was right, if he meant as he probably did, that at one time or another, we are all of us given to making rash statements. I expect it would be a rash statement to say that Peking in the summer is the hottest place in the world, and that the heat of West Africa, that much-maligned land, is nothing to it, and yet, even when I think over the matter at my leisure, I know that the heat, for about six weeks, is something very hard to bear. I suspect it is living in a stone house inside the city walls that makes it so hot. Could I have slept in the open I might have taken a different view. I slept, or rather I did not sleep, with two windows wide open, and an electric fan going, but, since Peking mosquitoes are of the very aggressive order, bred in the imperial canal, the great open drain that runs through the city, it was always necessary to keep the mosquito curtains drawn. If anyone doubts that a house with mosquito-proof windows and doors is an airless death-trap, let him try and sleep under mosquito curtains, while hoping for a breath of cool air from the electric fan. Fully half the air is cut off, but as the mosquito curtains are raised during the daytime, the air over the bed is renewed daily. In that abomination a mosquito-proof house, it is never renewed.
Since it was a choice between little air and plenty of mosquitoes. I chose the shortage of air, and generally went to bed with a deep soup plate full of cold water, and a large sponge. It made the bed decidedly wet, but that was an advantage.
I did not go away because the war had started between the North and the South, and no one knew exactly what was going to happen. To be at the heart of things is often to be too close, wiser eyes than mine saw nothing. Once there was a rumour that the Southern army would march on Peking, and that promised excitement, but in the city itself, though there was martial law, there was no excitement, and the only pleasant thing to do was to go on moonlight evenings and sit on the wall. There was a cool breath of air there, if there was anywhere, and at any rate the moonlight lent it a glamour, and the fireflies, that came out after the rain, gave the added touch that made it fairyland.