me as though I were the sinner! Between the lot of you there is no sin left uncommitted, no commandment unbroken – your every act is shameful in the eyes of the Lord. Gluttony, adultery, sodomy, thievery – what is exempt? I have only to look at your faces to know why the Lord willed me to bring those boats into this city – it was to hasten the destruction of this city of sin. If that purpose has been advanced then I can only be glad of it. And if my continuing presence brings the hour of retribution any closer, why then, I would consider it my duty to remain.’
He paused to look around the room and then spat on the floor. ‘There’s not one amongst you doesn’t know that in comparison to all of you fine fucking gentlemen, I am an innocent – an honest man. And that, let me tell you, gentlemen, is the only reason why I might choose to leave Canton: it’s because there’s not one amongst you deserves to keep company with James Innes.’
*
December 12
I cannot believe, dearest Puggly, that this letter has been sitting helplessly on my desk for so many days. But so indeed it has, because I have not been able to find a boat to take it to Hong Kong. Thanks to Mr Innes, who has still to leave Canton, the Trade is at a complete standstill.
But the strange thing, Pugglie-cherie, is that this has been a marvellously happy time for me – so much so that I would not be in the least sorry if the Trade were to remain frozen for ever! For I have never found so much joy in painting as I have had in these last few days. Jacqua comes to sit for me whenever he can, and I confess that I do not always work as speedily as I might – not only because his company is pleasing but also because it is exceedingly instructive. You may be surprised to learn that he was not in the least offended to see himself being depicted with an unclothed torso. Indeed he was kind enough to rectify and even embellish my efforts – which is how I discovered that he, and many other young apprentices at the studio, have made a deep study of anatomical painting. This is at the insistence of Lamqua, who goes frequently to Dr Parker’s hospital, to paint patients who have undergone operations there. These paintings of Lamqua’s are quite extraordinary -I have never in my life seen anything like them. They are of people with amputated arms and legs, and also of some who are suffering from dreadful diseases – and the miracle of it is that they are not in the least ghoulish or prurient, even though they are painstakingly detailed and unrelentingly accurate. I am sure I myself would swoon dead away if I had to gaze upon such injuries and lesions for any length of time (but I am, as you know, just a little bit squeamish). Yet Lamqua’s pictures are so wonderfully sympathetic that I am inclined to think that to be painted by him is perhaps even a part of the patients’ cure. He paints the human body as if mutilation and imperfection were not the exception but the rule, proof of life itself. It is a way of looking at anatomy that could never be learnt in a morgue or through the dissection of corpses – for the flesh is never without life nor the other way around.
Jacqua too has imbibed something of this unflinching yet tender regard for the body, and when he corrects me I sometimes feel that he is reproving me – for he laughs and says that I paint human flesh as a tiger might, as though it were food. This has made me think anew about the del Sarto torso on my canvas: I see that its flaws lie exactly in the perfection of the flesh, which renders nothing of the spirit of the subject and seems indeed to be utterly at odds with it.
But it is all to the good, for I do not in the least mind being criticized by Jacqua: it gives me a reason to start all over again and sometimes Jacqua will even allow me to sketch from life – which is, I find, a great deal more rewarding than trying to remember a painting which I have never even seen, except in reproduction.
But that is not all, mia cara Pugglazon. I have also received my first commission! And from whom, you might ask? Well, it is none other than Mr King, my young Gericault! He came up to me in the Maidan some days ago and said that he is often unoccupied nowadays because of the stoppage in Trade, so would I like to do his portrait while he has the time to sit for it? Of course I said yes, and I have spent several afternoons in the American Factory, where he has his lodgings.
Although he has been kind to me, Mr King is, I think, a reserved, even reticent man. We did not speak much at first, but then a very curious thing happened. One day I came across Mr Slade in the Maidan and he asked me if it was true that I was painting a portrait of Mr King. I said it was indeed true, so then he proceeded to harangue me, demanding to know whether I was not ashamed to associate with such a man – a creature of perverse and unnatural inclinations, who consorted with China-men and took their side against his own kind. I said I knew nothing about all that but Mr King had always treated me kindly, and I liked him very much. Mr Slade went away, harrumphing loudly, but I was greatly shaken and I could not refrain from mentioning this peculiar encounter to Mr King. To my surprise he laughed, a little scornfully, and owned that he was not entirely surprised. Mr Slade is exceedingly peculiar, he says: although his behaviour towards Mr King is often insulting in public, in private he often besieges him with protestations of Friendship – he has even been known to ask the barber for a lock of his hair! Mr Slade sees depravity and desire everywhere he looks, says Mr King, except within himself, which is where they principally have their seat. That a man of this sort, filled with rage and shallow invective, should command a following in Fanqui-town is a cause for despair, says Mr King.
Detestable as he is, I feel I should thank Mr Slade for breaking the ice between Mr King and myself. For Mr King speaks to me now with such a frankness that I feel I am well on the way to becoming his confidant (indeed he has asked me to call him Charlie!). And I am persuaded, Puggly dear, that he is tormented by all that is happening here! He thinks the foreign merchants are entirely to blame for the present Situation: opium has made them so rich they cannot conceive of managing without it; they do not understand that it has become impossible for the Chinese to continue to import it because thousands, maybe millions of people here have become slaves to it – monks, generals, housewives, soldiers, mandarins, students. Even more dangerous than the drug, says Charlie, is the Corruption that comes with it, for hundreds of officials are paid bribes in order to ensure the continuance of the trade. It has become a matter of life and death, Charlie says, because over the last thirty years the export of opium to China has increased tenfold. If the Chinese do not stop the inflow of opium their country will be eaten away from within – and in his darkest moments he thinks that this is exactly what the foreigners want, even though they speak endlessly of bringing Freedom and Religion to China. When confronted with evidence of their smuggling, they resort to the most absurd subterfuges, thinking the Chinese will be deceived and they never are. He fears that this latest affair, concerning Mr Innes, has brought things to such a pass that an Insurrection or an Uprising may well break out (and this is not excessive, Puggly dear, for I have asked Jacqua about it and he says it is perfectly true. He has friends who are positively chafing to set fire to the house Mr Innes lives in – they refrain from doing so only out of fear of the local constabulary).
… and oh dear Puggly, perhaps I should not have written those last lines, for even as I am sitting here, writing, I can see from my desk that another great Commotion is getting under way in the Maidan. I see bannermen trooping in, accompanied by gongs and pennants and fireworks. They have stationed themselves around the American flag, which is at the very centre of the Maidan, and they are driving people back with the butts of their spears, creating a kind of clearing. A crowd has begun to gather around them, and now more soldiers have appeared, a whole troop of them, and some mandarins too, in sedan chairs. I can scarcely believe it, but they have brought an apparatus with them! It looks exactly like the one I saw at the execution grounds – a sort of wooden cross.
My heart has risen to my throat, dear Puggly… I can write no more
…
*
Neel was walking out of the Danish Hong, where he had gone to deliver a letter, when he was halted by an unexpected sound: a synchronized thudding of feet, accompanied by drums, gongs and exploding firecrackers.
Drawing abreast of the Danish Factory’s cattle pen, Neel waited to see what would happen. A minute later a column of troops burst out of the mouth of Old China Street. Their rhythmically stamping feet sent a cloud of dust spiralling into the air as they trotted towards the tall pole that bore the American flag.
As it happened the flag was hoisted not in front of the American but the Swedish Factory for it was in that compound that the residence of the American Consul was located. Between the Danish Hong, which was at the far end of the enclave, and the Swedish, which was in the middle, lay six other factories: the Spanish, the French, the Mingqua, the American, the Paoushun and the Imperial Hong. It took only a few minutes for the sound of drums, gongs and firecrackers to penetrate to the interior of those factories. Then all at once, traders, agents, shroffs and merchants came pouring out.
It was ten in the morning, the busiest time of day in Fanqui-town. The early ferry-boats from Whampoa had arrived a couple of hours before, bringing in the usual contingent of sailors on shore leave. On reaching the enclave
