Adrift in Pacific and Other Great Adventures – 17 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
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“Rise early, and do not yield to the wooing of sleep.
“Take care of the mulberry-tree and the hemp.
“Spin silk and cotton zealously.
“A woman’s virtue is in being industrious and economical.
“Your neighbor will sing your praises.”
This book was soon closed; for the fond Le-ou was not thinking of what she was reading.
“Where can he be?” she questioned. “He must have gone to Canton. Has he returned to Shang-hai? When will he arrive at Pekin? Has the sea been smooth for him? I pray the goddess Koanine may watch over him.”
Thus spoke the anxious young woman; and her eyes wandered absently over a table-cover, which was artistically made of a thousand little pieces patched together in a sort of mosaic, and of a material of Portuguese fashion, on which were designed the mandarin duck and his family, the symbol of fidelity. Finally she approached a jardinière, and plucked a flower at random.
“Ah!” said she, “this is not a flower of the green willow, the emblem of spring, youth, and joy: it is the yellow chrysanthemum, the emblem of autumn and sorrow!”
To dispel the anxiety which now possessed her, she took up her lute, and ran her fingers over the strings, while she softly sang the first words of the song, “Hands United;” but she could not continue.
“His letters always came promptly,” she said to herself; “and what emotion they caused me as I read them! Or, instead of those lines which were addressed only to my eyes, it was his voice itself I could hear; for in that instrument it spoke to me as if he were near.”
Le-ou glanced at a phonograph which stood on a small lacquered table, and which was exactly like the one that Kin-Fo used at Shang-hai. Both could thus hear each other speak, or rather the sound of their voices, in spite of the distance which separated them. But to-day, as for several days, the apparatus was silent, and no longer spoke the thoughts of the absent one.
The old mother now entered.
“Here is your letter,” she said; and she handed Le-ou an envelope postmarked Shang-hai, and then left the room.
A smile played about Le-ou’s lips, and her eyes sparkled with a more brilliant light. She quickly tore open the envelope, without taking time to look at it, as was her habit. It did not contain a letter, but one of those pieces of paper with oblique indented lines, which, when adjusted in the phonograph, reproduce all the inflections of the human voice.
“Ah! I like this even better!” she cried joyously; “for I can hear him speak.”
The paper was placed on the roller of the phonograph, which the machinery, like clock-work, immediately made revolve, and Le-ou, putting her ear to it, heard a well-known voice, which said,—
“Little younger sister, ruin has made way with my riches, as the east wind blows away the yellow leaves of autumn. I do not wish to make another wretched by having her share my poverty. Forget him on whom ten thousand misfortunes have fallen.
“Yours in despair,
“KIN-FO.”
What a blow for the young woman! A life more bitter than the bitter gentian awaited her now. Yes, the golden wind was carrying away her last hopes with the fortune of him she loved. Was Kin-Fo’s love for her gone forever? Did her friend believe only in the happiness which riches give? Ah, poor Le-ou! she now resembled a kite, which, when its string is broken, falls to the ground and is shattered.
Nan, whom she had called, entered the room, and, with a shrug of her shoulders, carried her mistress to her “hang.” But, although her couch was one of those stove-beds artificially warmed, it seemed cold to the unfortunate Le-ou; and how slowly passed the five parts of that sleepless night!
1 This work, begun in 1773, is to comprise one hundred and sixty thousand volumes, and at present has reached only the seventy-eight thousand seven hundred and thirty-eighth.
2 The renown of the great masters has been handed down to us by traditions, which, though anecdotical, are none the less worthy of attention. It is recorded, for example, that in the third century a painter, by the name of Tsao-Pouh-Ying, having finished a screen for the emperor, amused himself by painting flies here and there, and had the satisfaction of seeing his majesty take his handkerchief to brush them off. No less celebrated was Huan-Tse-Nen, who flourished towards the year one thousand. Having had charge of the mural decorations in one of the palace-halls, he painted several pheasants on it. Now, some foreign envoys who brought several falcons as a present to the emperor, having been introduced into this hall, the birds of prey no sooner beheld the pheasants painted on the walls, than they flew upon them to the injury of their heads more than to the satisfaction of their voracious instincts.—Thompson’s Voyage to China.
CHAPTER VI.
Which Will, Perhaps, Make The Reader Desire To Visit The Offices Of The “Centenary.”
The next day Kin-Fo, whose disdain for things of this world did not lessen for a moment, left home alone, and, with his usual regular gait, descended the right shore of the creek. Having reached the wooden bridge which connects the English concession with the American, he crossed the river, and proceeded to a rather handsome house, which stood between the mission-church and the consulate of the United States.
On the front of this house was displayed a large copper plate, on which was engraved, in raised letters, this inscription,—
“THE CENTENARY LIFE-INSURANCE COMPANY.
Guaranteed Capital, $20,000,000.
Principal Agent, William J. Bidulph.”
Kin-Fo pushed open the door, which was protected by another one inside, and found himself in an office divided into two compartments by a simple balustrade, as high as his elbow. Several pasteboard boxes for papers, some books with nickel clasps, an American safe, two or three tables where the agent’s clerks were working, and a complicated secretary reserved for the Honorable William J. Bidulph, comprised the furniture of this room, which seemed to belong more to a house in Broadway than to one on the shores of the Wousung.
William J. Bidulph was the principal agent in China of the life and fire insurance company whose head was in Chicago. It was called the Centenary,—a good title, which must draw patrons. The Centenary, which was very popular in the United States, had branches in the five divisions of the world. It carried on an enormous business,—thanks to its by-laws, which were very boldly and liberally framed,—and was thus able to take every risk.
The Celestials were beginning to follow these modern ideas which filled the coffers of companies of this kind. A large number of houses in the Central Empire were insured against fire; and the contracts of insurance in case of death, with their complex combinations, did not lack Chinese signatures. The advertisement of the Centenary was already posted on doors in Shanghai, and, among other places, on the pillars of Kin-Fo’s costly yamen. Therefore it was not with the intention of insuring against fire that Wang’s pupil was paying a visit to the Honorable William J. Bidulph.
“Mr. Bidulph?” he asked, as he entered.
William J. Bidulph was there “in person,” like a photographer who is his own operator, and always at the disposition of the public. He was a man fifty years old, correctly dressed in a black coat and white cravat, with a full-grown beard, but no mustache, and with peculiarly American manners.
“To whom have I the honor of speaking?”