It was as though the old story of the magic cloak of invisibility had been reversed; by wrapping her water-clear impersonality in this wide cloak of reality that Seryozha was, she was seen—seen—a woman at last—obliged to offer herself for acceptance or rejection by the eyes of strangers—obliged to ask humbly for tolerance, from eyes.
And as she looked at Seryozha going shyly round the table to his place, hitching up one shoulder awkwardly as though one of his legs were heavier than the other, patting down the brassy crest of hair on the crown of his head, she felt almost as if she were in his body, protecting it from the cold challenge of eyes—as if she were with him inside his too visible body which quailed, yet hoped for the best—which preened itself, yet feared rebuff. She felt herself the true traditional wife—helping him to strengthen his ramparts, arming and encouraging the tender I inside that tough body.
And when Seryozha said to her father, “Thank you, I won’t have any honey,” Tatiana could almost have cried, so suddenly obsessed was she by the thought of that I—alone all its life till now—hoping for the best possible results from its little notions of making itself charming—or at least inoffensive; trying to feel confident of victory in its humble struggles to impress itself; keeping its body clean, its nose wiped, its mind wistfully yet imperfectly adjusted to the minds of others; walking in and out of the presence of strangers, saying, “Will I do?” and then, “Did I pass?” When Seryozha said, “I won’t have any honey, thank you,” she saw him clinging forlornly to his rights and prejudices, daring to refuse honey, to like ham, to be different from other people, presenting himself cautiously as an individual to the round ruthless eye of her father.
Seryozha, unaware of the pathetic picture he was presenting to his wife, ate a very hearty breakfast and felt better, in spite of a slight spasm of indigestion. His father and mother were on his mind; he believed that he was pitying them, but really he was homesick for them. How could he combine the keeping of his promise to Varvara—to stay at Mi-san for a fortnight—with his determination to get home as quickly as possible? And there was that money still to be fetched from Isaev in Seoul. His life seemed to him now so complicated that he sweated a little all the time. He gave inarticulate consideration to a letter that he would write to his mother—Dearest mamma, I am married to Tatiana Pavlovna Ostapenko. … That wouldn’t take long; he knew how to spell all the words. In the meantime, he drew Wilfred aside.
“My mamma and my papa, Mr. Chew, they thinks I come back soon.”
“Well, you will, will you not?”
“Nyet. Pavel Nicholaievitch speak me I wait here fourteen day.”
“Very hospitable, I’m sure.”
“Da da da. But I speak him, Yes, I shall stop.”
“Well, it is for you to say.”
“Nyet. My papa and my mamma thinks I come back more soon.”
“Well really, my dear Saggay Saggayitch, I cannot grasp your difficulty. It is impossible for you to be in two places at once.”
“Most impossible, indeed. Nu, if I shall wait here fourteen day, then, after, I must go to Isaev to speak him to give me my papa’s money.”
“Well, what of it? That was what you came for, primarily, was it not?”
“Yes indeed, very primarily. Yet yist too long time. My papa and my mamma very sad. Fourteen day here. Three four day Seoul. Ten day walking to Chi-tao-kou. Too long time.”
“Well, why not make a quick trip to Seoul or , get your money and come back here?”
“But I speak Pavel Nicholaievitch and Varvara Alexeievna most certain sure I wait here fourteen day.”
“We seem to be arguing in a circle, my dear chap,” said Wilfred, still anxious to be helpful, yet conscious of a deadlock.
“Mr. Chew, I give you my papa’s paper. You go to Seoul and speak Isaev give you my papa’s money. So you bring back to me this money and after fourteen day, we go home.”
“With the greatest pleasure, my dear Saggay Saggayitch,” said Wilfred Chew, immediately.
XII
“This is very kind of me,” thought Wilfred Chew, as he sat in the Seoul-bound train. The train lurched through the black world with an open-throated, gasping roar. “I really seem to be a kind of guardian angel to these Russians. … What would they do without me?”
As he thought of the Reverend Oswald Fawcett, who had warned him against every sin except complacency, the hundred and fifty yen that Ostapenko had given him seemed to lie not exactly heavily but perceptibly on his bosom. The money was a foreign body in his conscience, like a splinter of shell in a soldier’s flesh. “There is nothing wrong in being paid for one’s services,” Wilfred replied to the shadow of the Reverend Oswald Fawcett. Poor Wilfred! his conscience was already a naturalised alien in his Chinese body. And now must his Chinese lips turn traitor and serve this Wesleyan conscience? His brain—Chinese born—London trained—sought a compromise. “Men are sometimes made use of, surely, by God for His purposes … used, in fact, as angels or heavenly messengers, in answer to the prayers of unhappy people. Yet those men, so used, still have stomachs that must be filled—futures that must be provided for. … Why, don’t you remember, Mr. Fawcett? there was a time when we prayed for more blankets for the school, and that very afternoon, in walked a coolie with a present of army blankets from the Dutch Consul.
