He turned his head away, he bit his lips, muttering, “My government has not even sent me enough money to pay the legation expenses. My ambassador had no money for hiring a clerk and the secretary was serving without salary. We have no money to buy land for a proper legation building — not even land! We should have consulates — other nations have their consulates, and they laugh at our parsimony. The great, rich United States of America! I chose land at Inchon for a beginning, but no money has come for the purchase. Do you wonder that other nations laugh?”
He sighed, and got up and walked around and around the room, his feet noiseless on the ondul floor.
“I should not tell you this — it is our family business — we Americans — and I could endure it all, but your King — he keeps pressing me, begging me to give him American advisers. He has a hundred plans — all good ones — a good man, this King of yours — he could build the nation if he had half a chance, and if our government only knew — if they could only see what they are throwing away — the chance to help him build a strong independent free Korea — a bulwark in Asia!”
“Why do you not go home and tell them?” Il-han asked.
He was embarrassed by many emotions, fear for his people, dismay lest the Americans were indeed unable to help them, and despair for the King. They must fall into the abyss of the greedy nations if no hand stretched out to them in friendship. Who could save them if the Americans did not?
“In addition to all else,” Foulk was saying, “my ambassador was reduced in rank. He was no longer Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. He was only Minister Resident and Consul General. Of course he resigned.”
Il-han could bear no more. “Stupidity — stupidity,” he cried under his breath. “How could your government send us a minister of first rank and then degrade him?”
“He resigned,” Foulk said, “and there is no one to replace him. I am the only one left.”
“Shufeldt?” Il-han suggested.
“Shufeldt will not come,” Foulk replied. “He knows too well what it means — a prudent man! I wish I were as prudent!”
“How old is all this trouble between your ambassador and your government?” Il-han inquired.
“Old — old,” Foulk groaned. He sat down again. “Even before the dinner when Min Yong-ik was nearly killed.”
“And you did not tell me!” Il-han exclaimed.
“I was ashamed,” Foulk said, “and I still had hope that we could persuade those men in Washington.”
“When did your ambassador leave us?” Il-han asked.
“The year after that dinner.”
“And you?”
“I have been in charge ever since, without rank and helpless. And now I too give up. I want one Korean to know why — and you I can trust.”
“I pray you, tell me everything,” Il-han urged. “It may be that I—”
“No hope,” Foulk repeated. “But if you — want to know the worst, here it is.”
With this he enumerated, one by one on his ten fingers, the steps by which he had come to his present despair. Left alone, he had returned to the task of beseeching his superiors to send the American advisers for whom the King so urgently asked.
“The most pressing need of Korea in her present deplorable situation, I told Washington, is competent western instructors for her troops — many of them. Well, what happened? Three teachers were recommended by the Department of State! The King said he would pay for their expenses, but they were not permitted to come, except under private support. And where was I to find the money?”
Now that he had begun his confession to Il-han it seemed that Foulk could not stop himself. He wrung his hands together, he ground his teeth in anguish. “I had no money, I tell you! Because I was acting chargé d’affaires I couldn’t even draw my navy pay — I was allotted half the minister’s fund, but I couldn’t draw the money. And then that German, that von Mollendorf, he got himself appointed head of customs in your capital, since no American advisers came, and he has worked against me continually, trying to get German advisers into Korea with the hope of establishing German influence here—”
“He did not succeed!” Il-han exclaimed.
Foulk went passionately on, as though he recited a program of doom and Il-han could only hold his head and groan as he listened.
“No, but failing to get German advisers, he employed Russian advisers, at least for your armies. Then and for once China and Japan united in pleading with the King that American advisers be sent — they being above all afraid of Russia. Well, the American military advisers are now scheduled to come next year — four years too late! The King has lost confidence in my country and my government and how can I blame him?”
Here Il-han opened his mouth to speak, but Foulk was not finished. “My pay drafts have been returned. Insufficient funds! Appropriations for Korea have been exhausted! And meanwhile I must handle affairs at Chemulpo as well as at Seoul, my country being the only one without a consul in Chemulpo! I resigned six months ago!”
“But you are still here.”
Foulk made bitter laughter. “No one reads the dispatches I send, therefore no one is sent to replace me! In spite of this, your people—” Foulk paused here and leaned his elbows on the low desk, and shaded his eyes with his hands. His voice broke. “Your glorious people still look on me as the representative of the United States, the lodestar of their hope of independence! But I have had to tell them — the leader of the new independence group — a brave young man — I won’t speak his name even here — I have told him that my government is interested only in collecting the indemnity for the General Sherman—lost so many years ago.”
Foulk’s voice was trembling. He paused, he pressed his lips together and went on abruptly. “I can no longer carry the burden of representing my government — and my people — without even clerical or secretarial help. But I haven’t enough money to pay the most necessary bills for the legation. It has all made me ill. My health has failed. I — look at this.”
He held out his hands and Il-han saw how thin his wrists were, the big bones gaunt and the skin drawn taut over the wasting muscles.
What could Il-han say? He clasped the hands of his friend in his own hands again and he bent his head down until his forehead rested on their clasped hands and his tears overflowed. Foulk waited a long moment and then without further word he withdrew his hands gently and left the room.
Some time afterwards, how long Il-han did not know, Sunia slid the door open. “Will you not come to bed now?” she asked but timidly.
“No,” Il-han said, and did not look up.
She slid the door shut again and went away, and he sat the night through alone.
… Hours passed uncounted. Whether he was in the body or out of the body he did not know. Did he hate the Americans? He could have hated them except that he remembered them as he had gone to and fro among them in their own country, a kindly people, enjoying the manifold benefits of their life, and in their enjoyment and self-content exuding friendliness, though without friendship, as he now perceived. They were still too young for friendship, incapable of the deep bonds which bind one human being to others. Friendliness is shallow though pleasant, and it was unreasonable to expect a depth beyond their capacity. The mind must know, the heart must feel, before there can be understanding, and they did not know the long sad history of his people, nor could they feel the terror of being a small country set by chance among giants. The King had expected far too much. He and his fellows, Il-han himself, had expected too much of the Americans. It was their own ignorance of foreign peoples to mistake the easy promises of friendliness for the loyalty of true friendship. No, he could not hate them. Yet without them he knew his people were doomed.