Many of the booths and the shops were shut. Shopmen with black caps and long gowns stood expectantly outside their barred doors. Tense faces looked from the leaning upper windows into the abyss of the narrow street. A closely curtained light chair was carried swiftly by, and a young Chinese woman with a frightened face pushed aside the curtains and looked out when she heard the booted tread of the three foreigners. Perhaps she hoped they were wild wicked soldiers and would see her. The houses leaned together, propped up by their own crooked shadows; a fringe of gilded shop signs swayed so low that the occasional cavalrymen had to dismount and lead their horses. Soldiers passed, all facing towards the river gate. The soldiers swaggered by the dubious, watching citizens. The soldiers looked afraid, but their mouths opened to shout confident things.
“Buy nice ivory?” said one of the shopkeepers to Tam in a soft voice. The shopkeeper clasped his hands and bowed himself slightly towards Tam. Stone was sitting on the rough counter of a deserted booth watching the soldiers. Tam and Edward left him in the street and entered the shop when the shopman had taken down one shutter.
“This feller knows me,” said Tam. “It was here I finally found the cigarette-holder that Emily wanted.”
The shopman brought down various and unlikely things for their inspection, an opium pipe, a large porcelain figure, a curly animal made of dull jade the color of a shallow sea, a polished screen of blackwood. Tam fingered the porcelain figure as he talked.
“I promised you I’d tell you various things about Emily. I met her first about three years ago, soon after I had married Lucy. She and I met Emily at a theatre party.... I am a wholehearted man and an obstinate man; at the play I was irritated because Emily seemed so conscious of her own cleverness. I didn’t want to be forced to be conscious of her. I find Lucy adorable because I am never conscious of her—she is like air to me. I am clever myself and I refuse to be distracted. Emily has once or twice very nearly succeeded in distracting me—against my will. I have been hardened against her, simply because she tried so hard. I like awfully being with her. With her I can be much wittier than without her. With her nothing ever falls flat. And Lucy was fond of her too; Lucy insisted on my bringing Emily round the world as my secretary. When that was arranged, Emily said to Lucy, ‘How d’you know I won’t steal Tam? What would you call that, Lucy—committing astigamy?’ It shocked Lucy. Lucy’s mind wears tight stays, you know. That fact makes things easier for me. She never disconcerts me. On the other hand she is often disconcerted by me. Emily never is. To me, after that sally, Emily said—‘How d’you know I don’t love you? What would you call that?’ Somehow Emily ... never paid back the loan of life. Emily never let me forget her. She could not believe that I could continue not to love her. If she had not been so clever I might have loved her. She put her wits between herself and me—a shining armor. She did most fatally watch me, and if there was an increased softness or success between us at any time—her eyes seemed to seize that moment and devour it, so that the moment, for me, was gone. She knows herself and everything that is happening to her too well.”
His fingers seemed trying to knead the china figure in front of him. The shopman’s assistant had placed two bowls of tea before them.
Something had been heard outside. Edward had not heard it. Everyone was moving. The assistant ran two stout horizontal bars across the shutters. He had not time to put up the missing shutter. He was driven indoors by the sound of running feet down the street. Even Edward could hear that sound. A strange voiceless whispering of many bare feet. Men and children ran by, all in one crowd, arms bent, mouths open, distorted, breathless faces. They made no sound except with their running whispering feet. The assistant lifted the porcelain figure as one lifts a baby and crouched behind the counter with it. The shopman stood with his eye to a crack in the shutter. Edward and Tam sat on two blackwood stools at the foot, as it were, of a ghost, a blue and green and gold mandarin coat crucified on a screen.
There was no sound anywhere.
Then there was a faint shuffling. Two soldiers came uncertainly down the street. Their uniform was new to Edward, a mustard-yellow one. They carried their rifles alertly, pointing forward. They walked with a crouching gait. Their faces looked dark and drunken.