EAST AND WEST
It was dead of night and midwinter. A frightful wind was bringingsleet from the East. The long sere grasses were wailing. Two specksof light appeared on the desolate plain; a man in a hansom cab wasdriving alone in North China.
Alone with the driver and the dejected horse. The driver wore a goodwaterproof cape, and of course an oiled silk hat, but the man in thecab wore nothing but evening dress. He did not have the glass doordown because the horse fell so frequently, the sleet had put his cigarout and it was too cold to sleep; the two lamps flared in the wind.By the uncertain light of a candle lamp that flickered inside the cab,a Manchu shepherd that saw the vehicle pass, where he watched hissheep on the plain in fear of the wolves, for the first time sawevening dress. And though he saw if dimly, and what he saw was wet,it was like a backward glance of a thousand years, for as hiscivilization is so much older than ours they have presumably passedthrough all that kind of thing.
He watched it stoically, not wondering at a new thing, if indeed it benew to China, meditated on it awhile in a manner strange to us, andwhen he had added to his philosophy what little could be derived fromthe sight of this hansom cab, returned to his contemplation of thatnight's chances of wolves and to such occasional thoughts as he drewat times for his comfort out of the legends of China, that have beenpreserved for such uses. And on such a night their comfort wasgreatly needed. He thought of the legend of a dragon-lady, more fairthan the flowers are, without an equal amongst daughters of men,humanly lovely to look on although her sire was a dragon, yet one whotraced his descent from gods of the elder days, and so it was that shewent in all her ways divine, like the earliest ones of her race, whowere holier than the emperor.
She had come down one day out of her little land, a grassy valleyhidden amongst the mountains; by the way of the mountain passes shecame down, and the rocks of the rugged pass rang like little bellsabout her, as her bare feet went by, like silver bells to please her;and the sound was like the sound of the dromedaries of a prince whenthey come home at evening--their silver bells are ringing and thevillage-folk are glad. She had come down to pick the enchanted poppythat grew, and grows to this day--if only men might find it--in afield at the feet of the mountains; if one should pick it happinesswould come to all yellow men, victory without fighting, good wages,and ceaseless ease. She came down all fair from the mountains; and asthe legend pleasantly passed through his mind in the bitterest hour ofthe night, which comes before dawn, two lights appeared and anotherhansom went by.
The man in the second cab was dressed the same as the first, he waswetter than the first, for the sleet had fallen all night, but eveningdress is evening dress all the world over. The driver wore the sameoiled hat, the same waterproof cape as the other. And when the cabhad passed the darkness swirled back where the two small lamps hadbeen, and the slush poured into the wheel-tracks and nothing remainedbut the speculations of the shepherd to tell that a hansom cab hadbeen in that part of China; presently even these ceased, and he wasback with the early legends again in contemplation of serener things.
And the storm and the cold and the darkness made one last effort, andshook the bones of that shepherd, and rattled the teeth in the headthat mused on the flowery fables, and suddenly it was morning. Yousaw the outlines of the sheep all of a sudden, the shepherd countedthem, no wolf had come, you could see them all quite clearly. And inthe pale light of the earliest morning the third hansom appeared, withits lamps still burning, looking ridiculous in the daylight. They cameout of the East with the sleet and were all going due westwards, andthe occupant of the third cab also wore evening dress.
Calmly that Manchu shepherd, without curiosity, still less withwonder, but as one who would see whatever life has to show him, stoodfor four hours to see if another would come. The sleet and the Eastwind continued. And at the end of four hours another came. Thedriver was urging it on as fast as he could, as though he were makingthe most of the daylight, his cabby's cape was flapping wildly abouthim; inside the cab a man in evening dress was being jolted up anddown by the unevenness of the plain.
This was of course that famous race from Pittsburg to Piccadilly,going round by the long way, that started one night after dinner fromMr. Flagdrop's house, and was won by Mr. Kagg, driving the HonourableAlfred Fortescue, whose father it will be remembered was HagarDermstein, and became (by Letters Patent) Sir Edgar Fortescue, andfinally Lord St. George.
The Manchu shepherd stood there till evening, and when he saw that nomore cabs would come, turned homeward in search of food.
And the rice prepared for him was hot and good, all the more after thebitter coldness of that sleet. And when he had consumed it herperused his experience, turning over again in his mind each detail ofthe cabs he had seen; and from that his thoughts slipped calmly to theglorious history of China, going back to the indecorous times beforecalmness came, and beyond those times to the happy days of the earthwhen the gods and dragons were here and China was young; and lightinghis opium pipe and casting his thoughts easily forward he looked tothe time when the dragons shall come again.
And for a long while then his mind reposed itself in such a dignifiedcalm that no thought stirred there at all, from which when he wasaroused he cast off his lethargy as a man emerges from the baths,refreshed, cleansed and contented, and put away from his musings thethings he had seen on the plain as being evil and of the nature ofdreams, or futile illusion, the results of activity which troublethcalm. And then he turned his mind toward the shape of God, the One,the Ineffable, who sits by the lotus lily, whose shape is the shape ofpeace, and denieth activity, and went out his thanks to him that hehad cast all bad customs westward out of China as a woman throwshousehold dirt out of her basket far out into neighbouring gardens.
From thankfulness he turned to calm again, and out of calm to sleep.