Miss Su said with a smile, "You'd better hurry. Aren't
you afraid some one will get impatient?"
Fang Hung-chien blushed and gave a silly smile, then
walked away from Miss Su. She knew perfectly well she
couldn't keep him back, but when he left, she felt a
sense of loss. Not a word of the book sank in. She
could hear Miss Pao's sweet voice and laughter and
couldn't resist looking at her again. Fang was smoking
a cigarette. As Miss Pao held out her hand toward him,
he pulled out his cigarette case and offered her one.
Miss Pao held it in her mouth, and as he made a
gesture with his fingers on the lighter to light it
for her, she suddenly tilted her mouth upward, and
touching her cigarette with the one he was smoking,
breathed in. With the cigarette lit, Miss Pao
triumphantly blew out a puff of smoke. Miss Su was so
furious that chills ran through her body. Those two
have no sense of shame whatsoever, she thought. right
in full view of everyone using cigarettes to kiss.
Unable to bear the sight any longer, she stood up and
said she was going below. Actually she knew there was
no place to go below the deck. People were playing
cards in the dining room, and the sleeping cabins were
too stuffy. Mrs. Sun was also thinking of going down
to her husband to see how much money he had lost that
day, but she was afraid if he had lost badly he would
take it out on her as soon as she asked him, and there
would be a long quarrel when he returned to the cabin.
Thus, she didn't dare get up rashly and only asked her
son if he wanted to go down and pee.
Miss Su's condemnation of Fang Hung-chien for being
shameless was ac tually unjust. At that moment he was
so embarrassed that it seemed to him that everybody on
deck was watching him. Inwardly he blamed Miss Pao for
being too overt in her behavior and wished he could
have said something to her about it. Although he was
now twenty-seven and had been engaged be fore, he had
had no training in love. His father had passed the
second-degree examination under Manchu rule6 and was a
prominent squire ~n his native dis trict south of the
Yangtze.7 Nine out of ten of the emigrants from this
district living in big cities were now either
blacksmiths, bean-curd makers, or sedan- chair
carriers. The most famous indigenous crafts were clay
dolls; and for young men entering college, civil
engineering was the most popular disci 8
pline. The intractability of iron, the insipidity of
bean curd, the narrowness of sedan chairs, and in
addition, the smell of earth could be called the local
traits; even those who became rich or high officials
lacked polish.
In the district a man named Chou had become wealthy
from a blacksmith shop he opened in Shanghai. Together
with some fellow villagers in the same business, he
organized a small bank called the Golden Touch Bank,8
serving as manager himself. One year, remembering the
saying about returning home clothed in glory, he chose
the Ch'ing Ming Festival9 to return to his district to
offer obeisance at the family temple, attend to the
ancestral graves, and make acquaintances with local
notables. Since Fang Hung-chien's father was one of
the respected men in the community, in due time Chou
paid him a visit. Thus they became friends and went on
to become in-laws.
While Fang Hung-chien was still in high school, in
compliance with his parents' decision, he became
engaged. He had never met his fiancee; merely viewing
a bust photograph of her had left him feeling
indifferent. Two years later he went to Peking to
enter a university and had his first taste of coeduca
tion. Seeing couple after couple in love, he grew
red-eyed with envy. When he thought how his fiancee
had quit school after one year of high school to learn
housekeeping at home in order to become a capable
daughter-in-law, he felt an uncontrollable aversion
toward her. Thus, bewailing his fate and feel ing
resentful toward his father, he went about in a half
stupor for several days. Then suddenly he woke up, and
mustering his courage, he wrote a letter home asking
for release from the engagement.
Since he had received his father's guidance in
literary composition and placed second in the high
school general examination, his letter was couched in
an elegant style without incorrectly using any of the
various particles of literary Chinese. The letter went
something like this: "I have of late been very
restless and fitful, experiencing little joy and much
grief. A feeling of 'autumnal melancholy'10 has
suddenly possessed me, and every time I look into the
mirror at my own reflection, so gaunt and dispirited,
I feel it is not the face of one destined for
longevity. I'm afraid my body can't hold up much
longer, and I may be the cause of a lifetime of regret
for Miss Chou. I hope you, Father, will extend to me
your understanding and sympathy and tactfully sever
the ties that bind. Do not get angry and reject my
plea and thus help bring me everlasting woe."
Since he felt the wording of the letter was sad and
entreating enough to move a heart of stone, he was
quite unprepared for the express letter which came
from his father. It gave him a severe scolding:
I did not begrudge the expense of sending you hundreds
of miles away to study. If you devoted yourself to
your studies as you should, would you still have the
leisure to look in a mirror? You are not a woman, so
what need do you have of a mirror? That sort of thing
is for actors
9
only. A real man who gazes at himself in the mirror
will only be scorned by society. Never had I thought
once you parted from me that you would pick up such
base habits. Most deplorable and disgusting!
Moreover, it is said that "When one's parents are
still living, a son should not speak of getting old."
You have no consideration for your parents, who hold
you dearly in their hearts, but frighten them with the
talk of death. This is certainly neglect of filial
duties to the extreme! It can only be the result of
your attending a coeducational school-seeing women
around has put ideas in your head. The sight of girls
has made you think of change. Though you make excuses
about "autumnal melan choly," I know full well that
what ails you are the "yearnings of spring time."11
Nothing can escape this old-timer's sharp eye. If you
carry on with this foolishness, I will cut off your
funds and order you to discontinue your studies and
return home. Next year you will get married at the
same time as your brother. Give careful thought to my
words and take them to heart.
Fang Hung-chien was shaken to the core, never
expecting his father to be quite so shrewd. He wasted
no time in getting off a reply begging forgiveness and
explained that the mirror was his roommate's and not
something he had bought himself. Within the last few
days, after taking some American cod liver oil pills
and German vitamin tablets, his health and spirits had
taken a turn for the better, and his face had filled
out, he assured his father, except that the high cost
of medicine had been more than he could afford. As for
his marriage, he would like to ask that it be
postponed until after his graduation. For one thing,
it would interfere with his schooling; for another he
was still unable to support a family and would not
feel right about adding to his fa ther's
responsibilities.
When his father received the letter, which proved that
the father's au thority had reached across several
hundred miles, his father was extremely gratified. In
high spirits, his father sent him a sum of money so he
could buy tonic medicine. From then on, he buried his
feelings and dared not indulge in vain hopes. He began
reading Schopenhauer and would often say wisely to his
classmates, "Where is romantic love in the world? It's
entirely the repro ductive urge." In no time at all he
was a senior in college and was to marry the year
following his graduation.
One day an express letter came from his father. It
read as follows: "I have just received a telegram from
your father-in-law. I was greatly shocked to learn
that Shu-ying was stricken with typhoid fever, and due
to the negli gence of a Western-trained doctor, she
passed away at four o'clock in the afternoon on the
thirteenth of this month. I am deeply sorry. Marriage
was so close at hand; all good things have unexpected
setbacks. It is all due to your lack of good fortune."
The postscript read: "This may be a blessing in
disguise.'2 If you had
married three years earlier, this would have cost us a
large sum of money.
But with a family of such virtue as ours, if the
marriage had taken place earlier, perhaps Shuying
would have been spared this calamity and lived a long
life. One's marriage is predestined, and you have no
cause to be overly grieved. You should, however, send
a letter of condolence to your father-in- law."
Fang Hung-czhien read this with the joy of a pardoned
criminal. But for the girl whose life had been cut
short he felt a tinge of pity. While exulting in his
own freedom, he wanted to help lessen others' grief.
He therefore wrote a long letter of commiseration to
his would-be father-in-law.
When Mr. Chou received the letter, he felt that the
young man knew etiquette~ and so he instructed the
bank's chief-secretary Mr. Wang to send a reply. When
Chief-secretary Wang read Fang Hung-chien's letter, he
had high praise for his boss's would-be son-in-law,
remarking that the young man's calligraphy and
literary style were both excellent, and that the
expres sion of his feelings for the deceased was deep
and genuine, indicative of a very kind heart and
talent that would take him far. Delighted with all
this, Chou instructed Wang to reply in the following
manner: "Although my daughter was never wed, our
in-law relationship will remain unchanged. I had but
one daughter and had originally planned to give her a
grand wedding. Now I am going to give the entire
amount, which I had set aside for the wedding and the
dowry, along with the earnings from investments made
with your family's betrothal present-altogether a sum
of over twenty thousand dollars or one thousand three
hundred British pounds-to finance your education
abroad after your graduation from college next year.~~
Even in his dreams Fang Hung-chien had never conceived
of such a stroke of good fortune and felt profound
gratitude toward his deceased fi anc~e. He was a
worthless sort, who could never learn civil
engineering, and while at the university he had
switched his major from sociology to philosophy before
finally settling down as a Chinese literature major.
It may sound a bit absurd for someone majoring in
Chinese to go abroad for advanced study. In fact,
however, it is only for those studying Chinese
literature that it is absolutely necessary to study
abroad, since all other sub jects such as mathematics,
physics, philosophy, psychology, economics, and law,
which have been imported from abroad, have already
been Westernized. Chinese literature, the only native
product, is still in need of a foreign trade mark
before it can hold its own, just as Chinese officials
and merchants have to convert the money they have
fleeced at home into foreign exchange to maintain the
original value of the national currency.
During his stay in Europe, Fang Hung-chien did not
spend his time tran scribing the Tun-huang
manuscripts'3 or visiting the Yung-lo collections'4 or
looking for relevant documents on the T'ai-p'ing
Heavenly Kingdom.'5 With in four years he had gone the
rounds of three universities: London, Paris, and
11
10
Berlin. He took a few courses here and there, and
though his interests were fairly broad, he gained
nothing at all in the way of knowledge, mostly dissi
pating his life away in idleness. In the spring of the
fourth year, with only three hundred pounds left in
the bank, he decided to return home in the sum mer.
His father had written asking him if he had received
his Ph.D. and when he would be coming home. He replied
with a long letter denouncing the Ph.D. title as
having absolutely no practical value. His father did
not see it that way at all, but now that his son had
grown up, he hesitated to threaten him again with
paternal authority, and merely said that he knew
perfectly well titles were useless and that he would
never force his son to get one, but his son had a duty
toward Mr. Chou, who had invested a large sum of money
on his edu cation. A few days later, Fang Hung-chien
also received a letter from his father-in-law, which
said in effect: "A worthy son-in-law like you with
talent and learning and a reputation extending far and
wide does not need to flaunt a Ph.D. But your father
passed the Manchu second-degree examination and
therefore it seems only fitting that you become the
foreign equivalent of the third-degree holder,
following in your father's footsteps and even
surpassing him. Then I too would share in your glory."
Finding himself pressured on both sides, Fang
Hung-chien finally realized the importance of a
foreign diploma. This diploma, it seemed, would
function the same as Adam and Eve's figleaf. It could
hide a person's shame and wrap up his disgrace. This
tiny square of paper could cover his shallowness,
ignor ance, and stupidity. Without it, it was as if he
were spiritually stark naked and had nothing to bundle
up in. But as for getting a degree at that point,
whether by studying toward it himself or hiring a
ghost writer to write a dissertation, there was
neither time nor money. A Ph.D. from the nearby
University of Hamburg was considered the easiest to
muddle through, but even it required six months. He
could just go ahead and deceive his family by saying
he'd re ceived a Ph.D., but then he was afraid that he
couldn't fool his father and father-in-law. As one who
had passed the old second-degree examination, his
father would want to see the official "announcement."
His father-in-law, a businessman, would want to see
the "title deed." Unable to think of a solution, he
was prepared to return home ,brazen-faced and tell
them that he had not obtained a degree.
One day as he was going to the Chinese bibliography
section of the Ber lin library to see a German friend,
he noticed on the floor a large stack of periodicals
published in Shanghai during the first years of the
Republic of China, including The Eastern Miscellany,
Short Story Monthly, The Grand China, and the Women's
Magazine. Having stopped to leaf leisurely through
one, he happened to see an advertisement with Chinese
and English parallel texts placed by the
"Correspondence Division of the Carleton Institute of
Law
12
and Commerce" in the city of New York. It stated that
for those Chinese stu dents who had the desire to
study abroad but no opportunity to do 50, the school
had special correspondence courses, upon completion of
which certifi of the B.A M A or ees would be granted.
The
cate equivalents ., . ., Ph.D. degr
brochures would be forwarded immediately upon request
by writing to such and such a number and on such and
such a street in New York City.
Fang's heart skipped a beat. As a good twenty years
had elapsed since the date of the advertisement, he
had no way of knowing whether the school still existed
or not. At any rate sending off a letter of inquiry
won't cost much, he thought.
The man who had placed the advertisement was actually
a swindler. Since no Chinese was ever taken in, he had
dropped it for another line of busi ness and died some
time ago. The apartment he had lived in was now rented
to an Irishman, with all the Irish irresponsibility,
quick wit, and poverty. It is said that an Irishman's
fortune consists of his two breasts and two but tocks,
but this one, being a tall, thin Bernard Shaw-type of
man, did not have much breast or buttocks. When he
came upon Fang's letter in his mailbox, he thought the
mailman had made a mistake. But the address was
clearly his; so full of curiosity, he opened the
letter. Greatly puzzled, he mulled over it for a
while, then leaped for joy.
He quickly borrowed a typewriter from a tabloid
reporter next door and typed out the following reply:
"Since you have been studying in a uni versity in
Europe, your level of achievement must be quite high,
making it unnecessary for you to go through the
correspondence procedures. You need only send a
10,000-word dissertation and enclose five hundred U.S.
dollars. After evaluating your qualifications, we will
immediately forward to you a Ph.D. degree diploma.
Letters can be addressed to myself without having to
write the name of the school. Signed, Patrick
Mahoney." Underneath his name he conferred upon
himself four or five doctoral titles.
When Fang saw the letter was written on ordinary
stationery without the name of the school engraved on
it, and as the contents clearly showed the school to
be fraudulent, he put it aside and forgot about it.
The Irishman meanwhile grew impatient and sent off
another letter stating that if Fang found the price
too high, the price could be negotiated. He himself
had always loved China, and as an educator, he was
particularly averse to profit-seeking. Fang mulled it
over for a while, suspecting that the Irishman was
undoubted ly up to tricks. If he bought a bogus
diploma and went back to dupe other people with it,
wouldn't he himself be a fraud? But, remember, Fang
had once been a philosophy major, and to a philosophy
major lying and cheating were not always immoral. In
Plato's Ideal State soldiers were justified in fooling
the enemy, doctors in fooling their patients, and
officials in fooling the people. A sage like Confucius
had pretended to be ill in order to trick Ju Pei into
leav 13
ing,'6 and even Mencius had lied to King Hsuan of Ch'i
and pretended that he was ill.'~ Since both his father
and his father-in-law hoped he would be come a Ph.D.,
how could he, a son and son-in-law, dare disappoint
them? Buying a degree to deceive them was like
purchasing an official rank in Man chu times,18 or
like the merchants of a British colony contributing a
few ten thousand pound notes to the royal exchequer in
exchange for a knighthood, he reasoned. Every dutiful
son and worthy son-in-law should seek to please his
elders by bringing glory to the family. In any case,
when later it came time for him to look for a job, he
would never include this degree in his resum& He might
as well try slashing the price, and if the Irishman
refused, he could then forget the whole thing and
avoid turning into a fraud himself. So he replied that
he would pay one hundred U.S. dollars, making a
thirty- dollar down payment, and when the diploma was
delivered, he would send the rest, and that thirty or
more other Chinese students were also interested in
dealing with "your honorable school" in the same
manner.
At first, the Irishman would not agree. Later,
realizing that Fang's deci sion was firm, and having
ascertained from local sources that American doc toral
titles were indeed fashionable in China, he gradually
became convinced that there really were thirty-odd
Chinese muddleheads in Europe wanting to buy a degree
from him. He also learned that there were a number of
organi zations engaged in the same business, such as
the University of the East, Eastern United States of
America University, the Intercollegiate University,
and the Truth University, where one could buy an M.A.
diploma for as lit tle as ten U.S. dollars, while the
College of Divine Metaphysics offered a bargain
package of three types of Ph.D. diplomas. All these
were formally accredited and registered schools with
which he could never hope to com pete. Therefore,
keeping his objective of low profits but wide markets
in mind, he came to terms with Fang Hung-chien. When
he received the thir ty dollars, he printed up forty
or fifty diplomas, filled one out, and sent it to
Fang. In an accompanying letter he pressed Fang to
send the balance and to inform the others to apply to
him.
Fang replied that, after making a careful
investigation, he had found no such school in the
United States and that the diploma amounted to waste
pa per. But he would be lenient toward a first
offender and not press charges in hopes that the
Irishman would repent and reform himself. Nonetheless,
he did send the Irishman ten extra U.S. dollars to
help tide the Irishman over while changing to another
line of work.
The Irishman was so enraged that he cursed without
stop, got drunk and red-eyed, and sought to pick a
fight with any Chinese he could find. The inci dent
may well mark China's sole victory over the foreigners
since she began to have foreign relations or signed
her first treaty of commerce.
Afterwards, Fang went to a photo studio, donned the
German doctoral
14
robe and had a four-inch picture taken. He sent a copy
each to his father and father-in-~law. In a letter he
reiterated how all his life he had hated the title of
doctor and that while this time he could not avoid the
convention, it was not worth mentioning his degree to
others.
He returned to France where he enjoyed himself a few
weeks, then bought a second-class steamship ticket for
the return trip home. After board ing the ship at
Marseilles, he discovered that he was the only Chinese
traveling second class and was lonely and bored. The
Chinese students in the third class felt that he,
being a student, too, was just flaunting his wealth by
traveling second class, and they eyed him with some
hostility. Learning of an empty berth in the cabin of
a Vietnamese, he made arrangements with the purser to
give up his original cabin and go sleep in third
class, while still taking his meals in the second
class.
Among the Chinese on board, the only one he knew from
China was Miss Su, who had studied French literature
at Lyons. She had written her dissertation on eighteen
Chinese poets of the colloquial styleiO and had just
received her doctorate. When Fang and she were
classmates at college, she had never even noticed the
existence of the little nobody Fang Hung-chien. In
those days she valued her affection too highly to
bestow it casually. Now, however, she was just like
the person who has some fine clothes made and, saving
them for good occasions, locks them in a chest. Then
one or two years later she suddenly finds their style
and design are out of fashion and is filled with
disappointment and regret. Before, she had had her
heart set on studying abroad and despised those
suitors for their lack of prospects, since they were
merely college graduates. But now that she was a woman
Ph.D., she felt the loneliness of her lofty perch,
which was higher than any one dared climb. She knew a
little about Fang's family background; and observing
that he was a nice person and didn't seem to lack
money, she thought she might use the trip to give him
an opportunity to get near her. She never guessed that
her cabinmate, Miss Pao, would beat her to him.
Miss Pao was born and raised in Macao and was said to
have Portuguese blood. To say she had "Portugese
blood" was the same as for the Japanese to claim they
have native culture,20 or for an author who has
plagiarized a foreign play to declare in his revised
version, "copyright reserved, transla tions
forbidden," since the Portuguese blood had Chinese
ingredients mixed in it from the start. But to judge
from Miss Pao's figure, her Portuguese mother may also
have had Arab blood inherited indirectly from Spain.
Miss Pao had a very slender waist, which fit exactly
the standard of feminine beau ty the Arab poet praised
and described at length in Arahian Nights: "Her waist
was slender, her hips were heavy and did weight her
down whene' er she would rise." Under her long
eyelashes was a pair of sleepy, seemingly drunken,
dreamy, big smiling eyes; her full, round upper lip
seemed to be
15
angrily pouting at a lover. Her fiance Dr. Li, without
any sense of prudence, had given her the money to
study obstetrics in London by herself. The Por tuguese
have a saying that for a lucky man the firstborn is
always a girl (A homen ventureiro a fliha ihe nasce
primeiro), because when the girl grows up, she will be
handy around the house and look after her younger
brothers and sisters; thus before her marriage she
saves her parents the expense of hiring a maid. Miss
Pao was used to being at her parents' beck and call.
Being clever, she realized that she would have to find
her own opportunity and seek her own happiness by
herself. She therefore chose to become engaged to a
man twelve years older, so she could have the chance
to go abroad. The British are accustomed to seeing
fair skin, so when they saw her dark, though not
black, color with its rich, spicy attractiveness, they
thought she was a true Oriental beauty. She believed
herself to be very seductive, so she was very quickly
and easily seduced. Fortunately, being a medical
student, she did not take these affairs seriously or
get into any trouble. After two years in England she
was now returning to get married and set up a joint
practice with her husband. Once aboard the ship, the
Chinese students found out she carried a British
passport issued by the Hong Kong government, which
meant she was not a Chinese citizen, so they did not
quite warm up to her. Since she couldn't speak French
and didn't care to talk about home with the
third-class Canton ese waiters, she felt terribly
bored. She saw Fang was a second-class passenger and
thought he might make a good companion to while away
the time during the trip.
Miss Su, who pictured herself in the words of the
familiar saying, "as de lectable as peach and plum and
as cold as frost and ice,"2' decided she would allow
Fang to humbly gaze at her in admiration and then
prostrate himself to beg for her love. Who would have
thought that while the temperature hov ered around 100
degrees every day, this sweet, cool ice cream manner
of hers was completely ineffective. By merely letting
drop one lighthearted remark, Miss Pao had Fang
hooked. The day after Fang had moved to the third
class, he went up on deck for a stroll and happened to
run into Miss Pao, who was leaning against the ship's
railing by herself and taking in a breath of air. He
greeted her and struck up a conversation. Before he
had said more than a sen tence or two, Miss Pao
remarked with a smile, "Mr. Fang, you remind me of my
fiance. You look so much like him!"
She made him feel both embarrassed and pleased. When
an attractive woman says you look like her fian&, it
is tantamount to saying that if she were not engaged,
you would be qualified to win her love. A real cynic
might interpret this as meaning: she already has a
fianc6, so you can enjoy a fianc~'s privileges without
having to fulfill the obligation of marrying her. Be
that as it may, from that point on their friendship
grew with the speed of a tropical
plant. All the other Chinese men students teased Fang
and made him treat everyone to iced coffee and beer.
Although Fang was inwardly critical of Miss Pao for
her immodest be havior, he was also feeling excited.
When he turned his head and saw Miss Six and Mrs.
Sun's empty chairs, he was thankful the cigarette
incident had passed without their notice.
That evening it became windy, and the ship began
pitching slightly. Af ter ten o'clock only four or
five couples were on deck, hiding in the shadows from
the gleam of lights, murmuring sweet words to each
other. Fang and Miss Pao strolled along side by side
in silence. A big wave violently shook the ship, she
nearly losing her balance. He then hooked his arm
around her waist, and staying close to the railing, he
kissed her hungrily. Her lips were ready, her body
submissive. This stolen kiss, hurried and rough,
gradually settled into a full and comfortable one. She
deftly pushed aside his arm, and breath ing heavily
said, "You're suffocating me. I have a cold and can't
breathe. You got away with it cheap. You haven't even
begged for my love!"
"I'll make it up by begging for it now, all right?"
Like all men without love experience, he considered
the word "love" much too noble and solemn to be used
casually on women. He only felt he wanted her, not
that he loved her, thus this evasiveness in his reply.
"Anyway, you haven't anything nice to say. You can't
get away with that same old line."
"When you put your mouth against mine and I say
something to you, those words pass right into your
heart without having to take the long way around,
making a turn, and going in through your ear."
"I'm not going to be fooled by you! If you have
something to say, say it like a gentleman. That's
enough for today. If you behave yourself, tomor row
I-"
He wasn't paying any attention and again put his arm
around her waist. Suddenly the ship lurched sideways.
He had not taken hold of the railing and nearly pulled
her down with him. At the same time, in the shadows,
the other women let out shrill cries. Miss Pao took
advantage of the situation and slipped away, saying,
"I feel cold. I think I will go on down. See you tomor
row"-leaving him alone on deck.
Dark clouds had already formed in the sky, disclosing
here and there a few stars. The storm sounded like a
man greedily gulping his food; the broad open sea of
the daytime had now been completely digested in the
even vaster night. Against this background the tumult
in a man's heart shrinks to noth ingness. Only a well
of hope for the morrow, which has not yet descended
into the vastness, illuminates itself like the speck
of light from a firefly in the dark depths of
boundless, roaring waves.
16
17
From that day on, Fang often ate his meals in the
third class. Miss Su's attitude toward him visibly
cooled, so he asked Miss Pao in private why Miss Su
had been snubbing him lately. Miss Pao laughed at him
for being such a simpleton, adding, "I can guess why,
but I won't tell you so you won't get more stuck up."
He said she was imagining things, but after this,
whenever he met Miss Six, he felt even more awkward
and ill at ease.
The ship passed Ceylon and Singapore and in a few days
reached Saigon. This was the first colony since the
start of the voyage that the French could boast of as
their own. The French on board were like dogs at the
sight of their master's home-their chests suddenly
filled out, their actions became more arrogant, and
the pitch of their voices was raised. In the afternoon
the ship docked and anchored for two nights. Miss
Six's relatives, who worked at the local Chinese
consulate, sent a car to the wharf to pick her up for
dinner, and so, with everyone watching enviously, she
was the first one to get off the ship. The remaining
students decided to eat at a Chinese restaurant. Fang
Hung-chien wanted to eat somewhere else with Miss Pao,
bixt feeling it would be too embarrassing to say this
in front of the others, he just went along with them.
After eating, the Suns left first to take their child
back to the ship, while the others stopped at a coffee
shop and Miss Pao suggested they go dancing. Though
Fang had paid for a couple of dancing lessons in
France, he was hard ly a master at it. After one dance
with Miss Pao, he retreated to the sidelines and
watched her dance with others. After twelve o'clock
everyone had had enough and was ready to return to the
ship to sleep. When they got out of the rickshaws at
the wharf, Fang and Miss Pao lingered behind. She
said, "Miss Six won't be coming back tonight."
"My Vietnamese cabinmate has gone ashore too. I heard
his berth was taken by a Chinese businessman on his
way to Hong Kong from Saigon."
"We'll both be sleeping alone tonight," she said
almost carelessly.
It was as though lightning had flashed through his
mind and produced a sudden blinding glare. All the
blood rushed to his face. He was about to speak, when
someone up front turned around and shouted, "What are
you two talking about so much? Walking slowly because
you're afraid we'll eavesdrop, aren't you?" Without
another word, the two hurried onto the ship. Everyone
said, "Good night," and went his own way. Fang bathed
and returned to his cabin, lay down, and then sat up
again. Trying to dispel the thought, once it has
lodged there, seems as agonizing as it is for a
pregnant woman to have an abortion. Maybe Miss Pao had
meant nothing by that re mark. If he went to her, he
might make a fool of himself. Since cargo was now
being loaded on the deck and two watchmen were
patrolling the corridors to prevent intruders from
slipping in, there was no assurance he wouldn't |
