remembered with great dread the moment when he must go into the grey street and see the cringing figures and the wolfish faces of the poor. Sometimes one of these poor stretched out a hand in despair at such deafness as these merry rich people had, and the hand would lay hold upon a lady’s satin robe and cling to it.
Then a man’s lordly voice would shout out, “Your hand away there! How can you lay your filthy hand upon my lady’s satin robe and soil it?” And a policeman of those who stood there would rush forth and beat the taloned filthy hand away.
But Yuan shrank and bent his head and hurried on, because he was so formed in spirit that he felt as upon his own flesh the beating of the wooden club, and it was his own starved hand that winced and fell down broken. At this time of his life Yuan loved pleasure, and he was unwilling to see the poor, and yet he was so shaped within that he saw them all even while he wished he did not.
But there were not only such nights in Yuan’s life now. There were the sturdy days of work in school among his fellows, and here he came to know better his cousins Sheng and Meng, whom Ai-lan called the Poet and the Rebel. Here in the school these two were their true selves, and in the classrooms or in throwing a great ball about upon the playground, they all, these three young cousins, could forget themselves. They could sit in the decorous listening rows of desks, or leap and shout at their fellows and roar with laughter at some faulty play, and Yuan came to know his cousins as he never did at home.
For as young men at home among their elders are never their true selves, so were not these two, Sheng always being silent and too good for everybody, and secret as to his poems, and Meng always sulky and prone to knock against some small table or other too full of small toys and bowls of tea, so that his mother cried constantly against him, “I swear no son of mine has ever been so like a young buffalo in my house. Why can you not walk smooth and silent as Sheng does?” And yet when Sheng came home so late from pleasure that he could not rise in time the next morning for his school she would cry at Sheng, “I ever say I am the most suffering mother in the world, and all my sons are worthless. Why can you not stay decently at home at night as Meng does? I do not see him slipping out at night dressed like a foreign devil and going I do not know to what evil place. It is your elder brother leads you wrong, as his own father did lead him. It is your father’s fault at bottom and I always said it was.”
Now the truth was that Sheng never went to the same pleasure houses as his elder brother did, for Sheng liked a daintier sort of pleasure, and Yuan saw him often in the pleasure houses where Ai-lan was. Sometimes he went with Yuan and Ai-lan, but often he went alone with some maid he loved for the time, and they two would dance together the whole evening through in silence and in perfect pleasure.
Thus the brothers went their own ways, each absorbed in some secret life of this great multitudinous city. But, although Sheng and Meng were two such diverse souls that they might easily have quarreled, more easily than either with the elder brother, who was too far older than they were, since there were two between, one dead by hanging himself in his youth, and the other given to the Tiger, yet they did not quarrel, partly because Sheng was a truly gentle laughing youth who held nothing worth a quarrel, and he let Meng have his way, but also because each was in the other’s secret. If Meng knew Sheng went to certain places, Sheng knew Meng was a secret revolutionist and had his own certain hidden meeting places, too, though in a different cause, yet in a more dangerous one. And so the two kept silence for each other and neither defended himself before the mother at the expense of the other. But each, as time went on, came to know Yuan and to like him the more, because he told to neither of
Then a man’s lordly voice would shout out, “Your hand away there! How can you lay your filthy hand upon my lady’s satin robe and soil it?” And a policeman of those who stood there would rush forth and beat the taloned filthy hand away.
But Yuan shrank and bent his head and hurried on, because he was so formed in spirit that he felt as upon his own flesh the beating of the wooden club, and it was his own starved hand that winced and fell down broken. At this time of his life Yuan loved pleasure, and he was unwilling to see the poor, and yet he was so shaped within that he saw them all even while he wished he did not.
But there were not only such nights in Yuan’s life now. There were the sturdy days of work in school among his fellows, and here he came to know better his cousins Sheng and Meng, whom Ai-lan called the Poet and the Rebel. Here in the school these two were their true selves, and in the classrooms or in throwing a great ball about upon the playground, they all, these three young cousins, could forget themselves. They could sit in the decorous listening rows of desks, or leap and shout at their fellows and roar with laughter at some faulty play, and Yuan came to know his cousins as he never did at home.
For as young men at home among their elders are never their true selves, so were not these two, Sheng always being silent and too good for everybody, and secret as to his poems, and Meng always sulky and prone to knock against some small table or other too full of small toys and bowls of tea, so that his mother cried constantly against him, “I swear no son of mine has ever been so like a young buffalo in my house. Why can you not walk smooth and silent as Sheng does?” And yet when Sheng came home so late from pleasure that he could not rise in time the next morning for his school she would cry at Sheng, “I ever say I am the most suffering mother in the world, and all my sons are worthless. Why can you not stay decently at home at night as Meng does? I do not see him slipping out at night dressed like a foreign devil and going I do not know to what evil place. It is your elder brother leads you wrong, as his own father did lead him. It is your father’s fault at bottom and I always said it was.”
Now the truth was that Sheng never went to the same pleasure houses as his elder brother did, for Sheng liked a daintier sort of pleasure, and Yuan saw him often in the pleasure houses where Ai-lan was. Sometimes he went with Yuan and Ai-lan, but often he went alone with some maid he loved for the time, and they two would dance together the whole evening through in silence and in perfect pleasure.
Thus the brothers went their own ways, each absorbed in some secret life of this great multitudinous city. But, although Sheng and Meng were two such diverse souls that they might easily have quarreled, more easily than either with the elder brother, who was too far older than they were, since there were two between, one dead by hanging himself in his youth, and the other given to the Tiger, yet they did not quarrel, partly because Sheng was a truly gentle laughing youth who held nothing worth a quarrel, and he let Meng have his way, but also because each was in the other’s secret. If Meng knew Sheng went to certain places, Sheng knew Meng was a secret revolutionist and had his own certain hidden meeting places, too, though in a different cause, yet in a more dangerous one. And so the two kept silence for each other and neither defended himself before the mother at the expense of the other. But each, as time went on, came to know Yuan and to like him the more, because he told to neither of
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