They told so many things Yuan had not heard that he began to wonder why he ever had those old memories, and he grew more than ever eager to be in his new country. He was glad of his youth, in these days, and among these of his own kind he said one day as they sat at a table together and his heart leaped within him when he spoke, “How great a thing it is that we are born now when we may be free and do as we will with our own lives!”
And they all looked at each other, these young eager men and women, and they smiled in exultation, and one girl thrust out her pretty foot and said, “Look at me! If I had been born in my mother’s time, do you think I could have walked on two good sound feet like these?” and they all laughed as children do over some little joke of their own. But the girls’ laughter had a deeper meaning in it than only merriment, and one said, “It is the first time in our people’s history that we are all free — the first time since Confucius!”
And then a merry youth cried out, “Down with Confucius!” And they all cried, “Yes, down with Confucius!” and they said, “Let’s put him down and keep him down with all those old things which we hate — him and his filial piety!”
Then at other times they talked more gravely and at these times they grew anxious to think and plan what they could do for country’s sake, for there was not one of these companions of Yuan’s who was not filled with yearning so to serve his country. In every sentence they made, the words “country” and “love of country” could be heard, and they seriously weighed their faults and their abilities and compared them to those of other men. They said, “Those men of the west excel us in inventiveness, and in the energy in their bodies, and in their dauntlessness to go ahead in what they do.” And another said, “How do we excel?” and they looked at each other and took thought, and they said, “We excel in patience and in understanding and in long endurance.”
At this the girl who had thrust out her pretty foot cried impatiently, “It is our weakness that we do endure so long! For myself, I am determined to endure nothing — nothing at all I do not like, and I shall try to teach all my countrywomen not to endure anything. I never saw any woman in the foreign country endure anything she did not like and that is how they have come as far as they have!”
And one who was a wag cried out, “Yes, it is the men who endure there, and now it seems we must learn it, brothers!” and then they all laughed together, as the young will laugh easily, but the wag looked secretly with admiration at the bold pretty impatient girl, who must have her own way.
So did all these young men and women and Yuan among them pass the days upon the ship in the highest good humor and most eager expectation of their home-coming. They paid no heed to any except themselves, for they all were filled with the strength of their sureness of their own youth and sufficient to themselves in their knowledge and zest to be going home again, confident each one that he was significant and marked for some special value and service to his times. Yet for all their pleasure in themselves, Yuan could not but see how the very words they used were foreign words, and how even when they spoke their own tongues they must add words of a foreign sort to supply some idea they had for which there was no suited word in their own tongue, and the girls were half foreign in their dress, and the men all foreign, so that if one saw another in the back, it could not be said what his race was. And every night they danced, man and maid together, in the way foreigners did, and even sometimes as shamelessly, cheek pressed to cheek, and hand put into hand. Only Yuan did not dance. In such small ways he held himself apart even from these his own people when they did that which was foreign to him. He said to himself, forgetting he used to do it, “It is a foreign thing, this dancing.” But partly he drew back because now he did not want to take one of these new women in his arms. He was afraid of them because they put out their hands so easily to touch a man, and Yuan was always one who feared a clinging touch.
So those days passed, and Yuan wondered more and more what his country would seem to him after all these years. On the day when he was to reach it, he went alone to the front of the ship and there watched the coming of the land. The land put forth its shadow into the ocean long before it could be seen. Into the clear cold green of ocean water Yuan looked down and saw the yellow line of clay which was the earth the river tore away in its passing through thousands of miles of land, and carried turbulently down to throw into the sea. There the line was as clearly as though a hand had drawn it, so that every wave was pushed back and held away. Yuan one moment saw himself upon the ocean, and the next moment, as though the ship had leaped a barrier he looked down into swirling yellow waves and knew himself at home.
When later he went to bathe himself, for the day was in the midst of summer and of great heat, the water rushed out yellow, and Yuan thought first, “Shall I bathe myself in it?” For at first it seemed to him not clean. Then he said, “Why should I not bathe myself in it? It is dark with the good earth of my fathers,” and he did bathe himself and felt himself cooled and cleansed.
Then the ship crept into the river’s mouth, and there the land was on either side, stolid and yellow and low and not beautiful, and on it were the small low houses of the same color, and there was no making it beautiful, as though that land did not care if men found it beautiful or not. There it was as it always was, low yellow banks the rivers had laid to push the sea back and claim more for their own.
Even Yuan must see it was not beautiful. He stood upon the decks among the many others of every race and kind upon the ship, and they all stood staring at this new country, and Yuan heard some cry, “It’s not beautiful, is it?” “It is not as pretty as the mountains of other countries.” But he would not answer anything. He was proud and thought to himself, “My country hides her beauty. She is like a virtuous woman who puts on sober clothes before strangers at the gates, and only within the walls of her own home does she wear colors and put rings on her hands and jewels in her ears.”
For the first time in many years this thought shaped itself into a small poem, and he felt the impulse to write four lines down, and he drew out a little book he kept in his pocket, and instantly the verse was there, and this flying moment added its point of brightness to the exultation of this day.
Then suddenly out of the flat grave country towers arose, and these towers Yuan had not seen when he went away, awaking as he had within a ship’s cabin at night with Sheng. Now he gazed on them as strangely as all these other travellers did, and they rose glittering in the hot sunshine, tall out of the flatness, and Yuan heard a white man say, “I did not dream it was such a big modern city,” and he marked with secret pride the respect in the man’s voice, though he said nothing and he did not let his face move, but only leaned as he was upon the rail and looked steadfastly at his country.
But even as this pride rose in him, the ship was docked and instantly a horde of common men leaped on the ship, fellows from the wharf and docks who pressed about to find a little work to do, a bag or box to hoist upon their backs, or some such lowly task. And in the harbor small dingy boats crept out into the hot summer sunshine, and in these boats beggars whined and held up baskets on long poles, and of these beggars many were diseased. Among these common fellows, too, many were half naked for the heat, and in their eagerness for work they pressed rudely among the delicately gowned white women, their bodies grimed and sweating.