For a long time I paced that street, breathing at times through my handkerchief in order to avoid the choking dust.
As the evening wore away, my resolution weakened. I began to see myself for the absurdity I unquestionably was—I the thin, nervous man of science, pitifully inexperienced in the ways of this sadly violent world, yet endeavoring to swell myself up (like the frog in the fable) into a creature fit to cope with that world. It is absurd. I am not a violent man. I don't understand violence. There is no place for it in my philosophy, for my philosophy is based on fact and reason. There is no room for violence in an orderly world. Yet, under the pretense of civilization which is spread so plausibly over the surface of modern human life, I am confronted at every turn by the spirit of violence. And my own reason and sense of fact, in which I have so often sought sanctuary, have now failed me utterly.
Little by little my walks to and fro carried me farther into the broad open park that is called the glacis. That odd, morbid eagerness was drawing me steadily nearer and nearer the little foreign city within the Legation walls.
Finally I entered the Quarter. The great masonry walls fairly breathed of violence.
There is a sharp angle in this narrow road where it enters the Quarter, so constructed that the street can not be raked, from without, by shot and shell.
I passed under a sentry box on the wall, from which an armed soldier peered out at me—placed there because he might be needed to prevent or commit murder. For he and his like are but the trained agents of violence, masquerading behind a thin film of patriotism and what men still call glory.
Once within the walls I walked very rapidly. I was conscious that my whole body had tightened nervously, but I was powerless to relax. The blood was racing through my arteries and veins. I could feel that old throbbing at the back of my head. And my forehead was sweating so that I had to push my hat back. I carried my heavy walking stick—it had seemed that I might need it—and I was swinging it as I walked, gripping it so tightly by the middle that it all but hurt my hand.
There was no stopping me now. I went straight through to Legation Street, hurried along it, past the bank and the big German store, and turned off south toward the great hotel with its hundreds of bright lights and its noisy little swarm of rickshaw men on the curb.
I entered the wide hall that leads to the office and stood there, while my eyes searched about among the moving, chatting groups of people. There was a circle of tourists about the old Chinese conjuror who sat on his heels in a corner among his cloths and bowls and what not; I walked slowly around this circle, seeking the erect figure, the solid shoulders, and the drink-flushed face of Crocker.
I walked deliberately through the lounge, studying every solitary figure there among the easy chairs and the little tables and the potted shrubbery.