Young Mien-yaun had for two years been the shining centre of the aristocratic circles of Pekin. Around him revolved the social system. He was the vitalizing element in fashionable life,—the radiant sun, diffusing conventional warmth of tone and brilliancy of polish. He created modes. He regulated reputations.
His smile or his frown determined the worldly fate of thousands. His ready assurance gave him preeminence with one sex, and his beauty made him the admiration of the other. When he talked, Mandarins listened; when he walked, maidens' eyes glistened. He was, in short, the rage,—and he knew it, and meant to remain so. He was a wonderful student, and understood politics like a second Confucius. With the literature of all ages, from the Shee-king, written four thousand years ago, down to the latest achievements of the modern poets, he was intimately acquainted. His accomplishments were rich and varied, and his Tartar descent endowed him with a spirit and animation that enabled him to exhibit them to every advantage. He sang like a veritable Orpheus, and sensitive women had been known to faint under the excitement of his Moo-lee-wha, or national song. He even danced,—a most rare faculty in Pekin, as in all China,—but this was frowned upon, as immoral, by his family. Comely indeed he was, especially on state occasions, when he appeared in all the radiance of rosy health, overflowing spirits, and the richest crapes and satins,—decorated with the high order of the peacock's feather, the red button, and numberless glittering ornaments of ivory and lapis-lazuli. Beloved or envied by all the men, and with all the women dying for him, he was fully able to appreciate the comforts of existence. Considering the homage universally accorded him, he was as little of a dandy as could reasonably be expected.
His family connections were very exalted. All his relatives belonged to the Tse,—the learned and governing class. His father had been one of the Tootche-yuen, a censor of the highest board, and was still a member of the council of ministerial Mandarins. His uncle was a personal noble, a prince, higher in rank than the best of the Mandarins, and directed the deliberations of the Ping-pu, the Council of War. Thus his station gave him access to all the best society. His career was a path of roses. He never knew a sorrow. All were friendly to him, even the jealous, because it was the fashion. The doors of the mighty opened at his approach, and the smiles of the noble greeted him. He lived in an atmosphere of adulation, and yet resisted the more intoxicating influences of his dangerous elevation. Young as he was, he had penetrated the social surface, and, marking its many uncertainties, had laid out for himself a system of diplomacy which he believed best calculated to fortify him in his agreeable position of master of modes and dictator of fashionable public opinion.
The course he adopted was thoroughly effective. His sway was never disputed for a moment. He knew his personal charms, and determined to enhance their value by displaying them sparingly. Accordingly, he began by refusing forty-nine out of every fifty public invitations,—his former habit having been to refuse but one in five. He appeared on the promenade only twice in three weeks, but on these occasions he always artfully contrived to throw the community into the wildest excitement. One day, he appeared arrayed from head to foot in yellow Nankin, a color always considered a special abomination in Pekin, but which was nevertheless instantly adopted by all the gallants about town,—a proceeding which caused so much scandal that an imperial edict had to be issued, forbidding the practice in future. Another time, he came out with an unparalleled twist to his tail, the construction of which had occupied his mind for some days, and which occasioned the death by suicide of three over-ambitious youths who found themselves unable to survive the mortification of an unsuccessful attempt to imitate it. Again, to the infinite horror of the Mandarins, he paraded himself one afternoon with decacuminated finger-nails, and came very near producing a riot by his unwillingness to permit them to grow again, besides calling forth another imperial decree, threatening ignominious death to all nobles throughout the empire who should encourage the practice. All these eccentricities served only to add to the consequence of the multipotent Mien-yaun. Then again, he was gifted with a bewitching smile; but he steadily refrained from making any use of it oftener than once a month, at which times the enthusiasm of his adherents knew no bounds, and it might have been supposed that all Pekin had administered unto itself a mild preparation of laughing-gas, so universal were the grimaces. On very rare and distinguished occasions, Mien-yaun permitted himself to be persuaded to sing; but as ladies sometimes swooned under his melodious influence, the natural goodness of his heart prevented him from frequent indulgence in the exercise of this accomplishment.
It may naturally be supposed that the popular and fascinating young Chinese nobleman was the devoted object of much matrimonial speculation. Managing mammas and aspiring daughters gave the whole of their minds to him. To look forward to the possible hope of sharing through life his fortunes and his fame was the continual employment of many a high-born damsel. And they the more readily and unreservedly indulged these fancies, as nothing in the laws of China could prevent Mien-yaun from taking as many wives as he chose, provided he could support them all, and supply all their natural wants. But our hero knew his value. He was fully conscious that a member of the Tse, a son of an ex-censor of the highest board, a nephew of a personal noble and the Secretary of War, and, above all, the brightest ornament of aristocratic society, was by no means the sort of person to throw himself lightly away upon any woman or any set of women. He preferred to wait.
His family had high hopes of him. He was largely gifted with filial piety, which is everything in China. Politics, religion, literature, government, all rest upon the broad principle of filial piety. Being very filially pious, of course Mien-yaun was eminent in all these varied accomplishments. Consequently his family had a right to have high hopes of him. The great statesman, Kei-ying,—who has very recently terminated a life of devoted patriotism and heroic virtues by a sublime death on the scaffold,—undertook his instruction in Chinese politics. One lesson completed his education. "Lie, cheat, steal, and honor your parents," were the elementary principles which Kei-ying inculcated. The readiness with which Mien-yaun mastered them inspired his tutor with a lively confidence in the young man's future greatness. He was pronounced a rising character. His popularity increased. His name was in everybody's mouth. He shunned society more sedulously than ever, and assumed new and loftier airs. He was seized with fits of ambition, each of which lasted a day, and then gave place to some new aspiration. First, he would be a poet; but, after a few hours' labor, he declared the exertion of hunting up rhymes too great an exertion. Next, he would be a moral philosopher, and commenced a work, to be completed in sixty volumes, on the Whole Duty of Chinamen; but he never got beyond the elementary principles he had imbibed from Kei-ying. Again, he would become a great painter; but, having in an unguarded moment permitted the claims of perspective to be recognized, he was discouraged from this attempt by a deputation of the first artists of the empire, who waited upon him, and with great respect laid before him the appalling effects that would inevitably follow any public recognition of perspective in painting. Finally, he renounced all ambition but that of ruling his fellow-creatures with a rod more tyrannical than that of political authority, and more respected than the sceptre of government itself.
II.
Satiated with success, Mien-yaun at length became weary of the ceaseless round of flattering triumphs, and began to lament that no higher step on the social staircase remained for him to achieve. Alas that discontent should so soon follow the realization of our brightest hopes! What, in this world, is enough? More than we have! Mien-yaun felt all the pangs of anxious aspiration, without knowing how to alleviate them. He was only conscious of a deep desolation, for which none of the elementary principles he had learned from Kei-ying afforded the slightest consolation. He now avoided publicity from inclination, rather than from any systematic plan of action. He dressed mostly in blue, a sufficient sign of a perturbed spirit. He discarded the peacock's feather, as an idle vanity, and always came forth among the world arrayed in ultramarine gowns and cerulean petticoats. His stockings, especially, were of the deepest, darkest, and most beautiful blue. The world of fashion saw, and was amazed; but in less than, a week all Pekin had the blues. Annoyed at what a few months before he would have delighted in as another convincing proof of his influential position, Mien-yaun fled the city, and sought relief in a cruise up and down the Peiho, in his private junk. As he neared the Gulf of Pe-tche-lee, the sea-breeze brought calm to his troubled spirit and imparted renewed vigor to his wearied mind. A degree of resolution, to which he had heretofore been a stranger, possessed him. His courage returned. He would go back to Pekin. He would renounce those vain pursuits in which he had passed his unworthy life. Henceforth he would strive for nobler aims. Something great and wonderful he certainly would accomplish,—the exact nature of which, however, he did not pause to consider.
As he reëntered the city, he was obliged to pass through that quarter which is inhabited by the Kung,—the working and manufacturing classes. His attention was suddenly arrested by feminine cries of distress; and, turning a corner, he came upon a domestic scene so common in China that it would hardly have attracted his notice but for a peculiar circumstance. A matron, well advanced in years, was violently beating a young and beautiful girl with a bit of bamboo; and the peculiar circumstance that enforced Mien-yaun's interest was, that, as the maiden turned her fair face towards him, she smiled through her tears and telegraphed him a fragrant kiss, by means of her fair fingers. Naturally astounded, he paused, and gazed upon the pair. The younger female was the loveliest maid he had ever looked upon. She had the smallest eyes in the world, the most tempting, large, full, pouting lips, the blackest and most abundant hair, exquisitely plaited, and feet no bigger than her little finger. As these are the four characteristics of female beauty dearest to a Chinaman's heart, it is no wonder that Mien-yaun thought her a paragon. The old woman, on the contrary, was hideously ugly. Her teeth were gone, and her eyes sought the comforting assistance of an ill-fitting pair of crystal spectacles. She had no hair, and her feet might have supported an elephant. As he rested his eyes wistfully upon them, the young woman discharged a second rapturous salute. His heart beat with singular turbulence, and he approached.
"What has the child done?" he asked.