Melchior Yvan

“ But what life! what a multitude of people must elbow each other in the streets, since the suburbs resemble ant-hills. In the city—the true city—the people must run against each other and be mingled together like a swarm of bees flying away from any spot."
"It is precisely the contrary which is the case!" exclaimed Pan. "Most of the streets are as deserted as those of a village, and the most frequented ones are far less noisy than the Chinese quarter in Macao!" ”

“ Before the shops, at every street-corner, and along the houses, were to be seen groups of beggars, blind men keeping close to the walls and guiding themselves by a pole, jobbing tailoresses patching up and mending old clothes, and barbers shaving some decrepit old man, or curling the hair of some street fashionable. The beggars enjoy a singular privilege at Canton: they may station themselves at the door of any shop, singing and striking their pieces of bamboo against each other for hours together, while the proprietor has not the right to drive them away! ”

“ Every object provoked a murmur of admiration: a pretty bracelet, a masterpiece of jewellery, quite captivated her, and in her gestures and the tones of her voice she so broadly betrayed her wish to have it, that Madame de Lagrené took it off and fastened it on the arm of the fair Chinese, who took care not to refuse the gift, and expressed her delight at possessing the desired object by warbling a charming little song, full of caressing turns, tender and effortless, characteristic in fact of this spoilt child. ”

“ Generally, when the presence of a man of white race is signalled, these horrible, dirty, ragged, and hideous vagrants greet him with cries of fan-houaï! then, seizing their greasy queues with their left hands, they make signs to him that he will have his head cut off, if he approaches the seraglio. Such are the dragons who keep guard at the door of the paradise of Chinese pleasure, not the European, pursued by their clamour, can console himself with the reflection that those who would debar him from entering do not themselves touch the forbidden fruit. ”

“ Pan did not at first understand my meaning, but when Callery explained to him the regret I felt at not being able to penetrate into the walled city, he burst out laughing, and replied:
"Why, the city inside the walls is not as fine as that outside them. If it were preferable, I should live in it. Every day rich men leave the enclosed part, and settle upon the banks of the stream, for the purpose of breathing the air which is rendered fresh by the water; while men who have become rich never return into the Tartar city." ”

“ Mademoiselle Vo-Lon was very little like these graceful young women; these were the most charming types of Chinese beauty, while the other was an ugly specimen of the race. Then, the daughter of Vicente was a poor child of humble birth,—serious, shy, and hard-working,—whilst our visitors on this occasion had no trade but that of pleasing: to be pretty and seductive was their one pursuit in life; and, moreover, they were perfectly at home in all the engaging little ways and infantine coquetries which make the chief charm of the daughters of Han. ”

“ Have not all the ages of life their pleasures on the bed of the Tchou-kiang as well as on shore? In our boats, the child receives all the care his weakness requires; the young man exercises his profession in peace, and the old man, also, finds the diversion and repose his age demands. We shall inhabit the land only too soon!" added the beautiful tanka-girl, with a sigh. "When we are dead, it is there that our habitation is, and our bodies repose there for ever. After all, we inhabit the earth a much longer time than the water!" ”

“ Talkee-True is at the same time a merchant and an artist, and his antiquarian taste is continually struggling with his commercial avidity. When he sells anything, he contends with the buyer and with himself; up to the last moment, he hesitates between the dollars and the gem of art he is about to part with. He lives only in the past. A bronze figure three hundred years old is to him a modern object; his mind is perpetually ascending the stream of time; he hardly inquires about the present, which he considers bad, and cares little about the future, which according to him will be worse. ”

“ Pan-se-Chen impressed upon us, surrounded by this chaos, that he never allowed anybody to touch anything, giving as his reason that he never knew where to find things after they had been meddled with. In this sacred horror of the intervention of an untaught hand in the arrangement of his precious curiosities, what Gallic antiquarian will not recognise our dear mandarin for a man and a brother! I shall say no more of furniture in general, than that fashion is not more stationary in these matters in China than it is elsewhere; fresh forms and kinds of ornament are always coming into use. ”

“ I know nothing in the world so sad as this silent palace. It reminds you of one of those enchanted habitations in which some capricious fairy has imprisoned for centuries some prince who has denied her power. In the long passages, paved with flags of granite—in the vast and airy store-houses with vaulted roof—you never meet a woman or a child; you only see a few men of pale complexion wandering about like shadows, and silently giving orders to yellow-faced, half-naked porters, who in their turn obey without a word. ”

“ The humblest official cannot step across the street without being escorted by a legion of flunkeys—chair-bearers, flag-bearers, kettle-drummers, footmen, valets-de-chambre, and other valetry ad libitum. And when the master pays a visit to a friend, or to his official superior, every one of these gentry is received in his train, so that welcoming a visitor is like opening the gates to an invading army. I was one day at Pan-se-Chen's when ten of the highest functionaries of the vice-royalty paid him a visit. ”

“ Poor people! the sterility of their imagination is a eulogy on their credulity! I own that, if I had felt the want of persuading my readers I had penetrated into the walled city, I should have adopted a completely different course. My experience of things human taught me, a very long time ago, that the Unknown usually conceals a deception, and I should simply have expressed my surprise at having seen nothing surprising! ”

“ The passengers walked about, and smoked the detestable tobacco of the Celestial Empire, or they collected in groups, and devoted themselves with phrensy to the fetal passion of gambling. The Chinese, for the most part, are born with a taste either for gambling or gastronomy. They never lose a chance of having a feast. Marriages, births, and burials are all so many pretexts for a banquet. It is the same thing with gambling; a Chinaman plays with dice, with cards, and with his fingers, and, in his eyes, every subject is a subject for betting. ”

“ Another trait of resemblance between Chinese civilisation and our own! Have not we, also, women amongst us of restless, rather stormy habits, whose carriage and demeanour have a spice of recklessness, which women of the world sometimes imitate, when perhaps they wish to convey the impression that they are out of their places?
When we penetrated into the interior apartments, the whole swarm of women buzzed about us, measured us off with keen, inquisitive eyes, not without little short, ringing, satirical laughs, and overwhelmed Callery with questions. ”

“ If I go to a lapidary, and see some precious stone of a pure water, an emerald clasp, or ancient pan-che, in fine preservation, am I entitled to despise them, disparage their beauty and refuse to wear them, under the silly pretext that others have worn them before me? When people pay you ingots of silver, do you depreciate their value because others have handled them before you? ”

“ In my opinion, the value which the enlightened classes of a nation attach to luxurious delicacies, to costly rarities, fixes the hierarchic rank they should occupy in the world. The rajahs of Malasia and the pachas of the Ottoman Empire possess, it is true, in the shape of sparkling gems and magnificent tissues, objects of great price; but they are incapable of appreciating the thousand little nothings which Westerns and the Chinese will pay for with their weight in gold. ”

“ If it is absolutely necessary for your happiness to visit the walled city, we will introduce you; but remember my prediction: when you return safe and sound, you will regret having incurred real danger for so little. In the first place, you cannot in any manner get in with your European clothes; even those of your nation who pretend to have passed in their usual dress the threshold of Chin-se-Moun, or of Tai-pin-Moun, are guilty of an impudent lie; the guard that keeps watch at the entrance is vigilant, and nothing diverts it from its duty. ”

“ At Canton, my surprise amounted to stupefaction. Besides, at Macao, the crowd which blocked up the bazaar was noisy, but almost motionless—that is to say, it moved about on the same spot; it was a lake traversed by currents; in the present instance, however, the lake had overflowed its banks, and ran between two sinuous and irregular rocks. And yet, in these waves of population, among this compact crowd, we did not see a single woman, a single child, a single carriage, a single wagon, a single horse, a single dog, or a single cat; we beheld only men ”

“ Her dress was very simple: the robe, the trousers, and the cham, were of green edged with black velvet. Upon her bosom, suspended by a button of the cham, she wore an oval case, prettily broidered, to hold her spectacles. Madame Poun-tin-Quoua had given up cosmetics, whether white or red. Her venerable wrinkles spread undisguised over her yellow face, which was slightly emaciated, but she was not in the least decrepid. Her manners were noble and distinguished, and she appeared much pleased with the tokens of respect which we paid to her. ”

“ I have already said that the populace of Canton is the most violent, the most stupid, and the most inconsistent in the whole universe; and I am going to give a proof of this. When the Chinese meet in the American garden, or in the narrow alleys of the factories, any beautiful child of the Saxon race with auburn hair and blue eyes, or any beautiful little boy as rosy as a cupid of Watteau, they crowd around these charming little creatures with benevolent curiosity ”

“ If he is a druggist, and happens to be old, he wears an enormous pair of tortoise-shell barnacles, the lenses of which, made of rock crystal, are as big as the bottom of a glass. This optical apparatus is kept on the nose by two strings, each having at the end a small weight of jade or lead hanging behind the ear like the pear-shaped ear-drops of a fine lady of former times; the strings replace the branches of our spectacles. From the place where he is seated, the master keeps an eye on the shopmen, smiles at his customers, talks to them while they are being served, and writes his letters. ”

“ The house of Talkee-True is one of the finest, and his shop is certainly the most elegant one in Physic Street; his curiosities, arranged in perfect order, are, which is rare in China, protected by glasses from the dust and from indiscreet hands. But it is true that he is old and ugly; he is seventy years of age at least, and is thin and small; his face, stained over with dingy tints, is something like an old kid glove; he has little wrinkled eyes, which his spectacles do not hide ”

“ One morning our friend the mandarin begged us—Callery, Rondot, and myself—to take a passing glance at that part of his mansion which is consecrated to science and art; anxious, apparently, to let us see that a Celestial Sybarite could be also a man of learning and taste. We found among other things a regular printing-office—a Chinese printing-office, of course; and Pan-se-Chen, or rather Callery, explained to us that this Cantonese Mæcenas caused to be struck off ancient inscriptions, and old maxims grown scarce, whose reproduction was generally desired among the learned. ”

“ The flower-boats compose several streets in the floating city, which streets constitute the most elegant quarter in it. They are naturally the parts most frequented by idlers and pleasure-seekers; but Europeans generally purchase, at the price of some outrage or another, the satisfaction of going over them, either by night or by day. There is usually at the entrance of these handsome edifices, a crowd of blackguards, who, when they observe a foreigner, pursue him with their cries. ”

“ A very charming and winsome object is a Chinese woman eating. Our pretty messmates helped themselves, with the ends of their chopsticks, from the dishes spread upon the table, to a Nankin jujube, a bit of ginger, or of water-lily confection, and carried it to their lips with a mincing delicacy of movement, which made them look like pet birds being fed, a beak-full at a time. ”

“ The conversation had now taken such a turn that we resolved to seize the opportunity of sounding our mandarin thoroughly; we endeavoured to ascertain the strength of his affection for his wives.
"Polygamy," resumed Callery, "must lead to many embarrassments, vexations, and troubles. Women are not exempt from sickness any more than other created beings, and when they die it is a source of sorrow and mental suffering."
"When they die," replied Pan-se-Chen, "we buy them a coffin: that is expensive, but it is a cheap suit, after all, for one has not to renew it by-and-bye." ”