“He’ll listen to you,” Henrietta said. “I’m sure he will listen to you.”
The train from Vancouver reached San Francisco just after sunset. Clem deserted Henrietta at the station.
“Hon, you can get yourself to the hotel, can’t you? Hop into a hack with our stuff. I guess the Cliff House is all right. Wait there for me — don’t go out walking by yourself or anything!”
It was Clem’s fantasy that Henrietta must not walk out alone after dark lest she be molested.
“You’d better tell me where you are going,” Henrietta said. “If you don’t come back I’ll know where to look for you.”
“I’ll get back all right,” Clem said. “Chinese all know me, I guess.”
He hurried off, too busy to do what she asked, jumped into a horse cab and gave directions. Then he sat, taut, leaning dangerously forward while the cabman drove him over the rough streets. He sought the Chinese rebel in one of the miserable tin shacks which had sprung up in the ruins of old Chinatown after the great fire. The old dark beautiful city within a city, small and close, set like a gem within San Francisco — the haunted narrow streets that were the center of Chinese life transplanted and nourished by generations of homesick Chinese — had been wiped out. Those living creatures who remained alive had made such shelters as they could, and they walked the streets, still dazed and lost. There was no beauty springing new from ashes.
Clem, however, did not include beauty within the necessities. Oblivious to ugliness, he dismissed the cab and walked briskly through the dim streets to the address he had memorized, so often had he read it. Even the smell of old Chinatown was gone, that mingling of herbs and wine, that scent of sandalwood and incense, that sad sweetness of opium and the lusty reek of roasting pork and garlic and noodles frying in sesame oil. The sound of temple bells was gone, and the venders were no more. The clash of cymbals from the theater was silenced and the theater itself was still in ruins. Instead the night air was weighted still with the acrid smell of ash and seaweed and charcoal smoke from the braziers of families cooking in the open.
On the old Street of Gamblers, its iron gates a ruin of twisted rust Clem found the place he sought. The door was locked, a flimsy partition of wood, and he knocked upon it. It was not opened at once and he heard the sound of voices within.
“Open the door!” a strong voice said. “Of whom am I afraid?”
Then it was opened, and a cautious yellow face peered into the twilight.
“What thing you want?” the face asked.
“I am looking for the Elder Brother,” Clem said in Chinese.
Clem held up his left hand and on the palm he traced with the forefinger of his right hand the ideograph of Sun.
“Come in,” the face said. The door opened widely enough to let Clem in. The shack was one room, partitioned by a curtain, and it could be seen that it belonged to a laundryman. The face belonged to the laundryman and he went back to the table piled with the clothes he was ironing, paying no further heed to Clem.
Two men sat at a small table scarcely larger than a stool. One was Sun Yatsen, the other was the cramped, humped figure of an American.
Clem spoke to Sun. “I am sent here by Mr. Fong, the bookseller on Hatamen Street, in Peking.”
“I know him,” Sun replied in a quiet voice.
“I have come with an idea which may be useful to you,” Clem said.
“I have no seat to offer you,” Sun replied. “Pray take mine.”
He rose, but Clem refused. The laundryman came forward then with a third stool and Clem sat down. Sun did not introduce the American.
“Proceed, if you please,” he said in his strangely quiet voice. “I am to set sail shortly for my own country, and these last days, perhaps hours, are valuable to me.”
“Has the news been good or bad?” Clem asked.
“It is bad,” Sun said. “I am used to bad news. But I must get home.”
The hunchback interrupted him with a high sharp positive voice. “The news will always be bad unless you have an army. No revolution has ever succeeded until there was an army.”
“Perhaps,” Sun Yatsen said, without change in voice or face.
“I haven’t come to talk about an army,” Clem said. He felt uncomfortable in the presence of the white-faced hunchback. He hated intrigue and he did not believe revolutions were necessary. People fought when they got hungry. When they starved they were desperate. But after it was over everything depended again on whether the new rulers fed them. If not, it all began over again.
“I want to talk to you about food,” Clem said abruptly. “I want to tell you what I believe. People will never be permanently at peace unless the means of getting food is made regular and guaranteed. Now I have worked out a plan.”
He leaned forward, and began to speak in Chinese. Thus he shut out the hunchback. He had a feeling that the hunchback was an enemy. That small bitter white face, tortured with a lifetime of pain and misfortune, spoke cruelty and violence. But if he had thought by speaking in Chinese to drive the man away, he failed. The hunchback waited motionless, his eyes veiled as though he were asleep. The laundryman stopped ironing and listened to Clem’s quick, persuading words.
“True, true,” he muttered, to no one.
Clem’s eyes were fixed upon the face of the revolutionist. He studied the high forehead, the proud mouth, the wide nostrils, the broad and powerful skull. He could not tell whether or not he was impressing his own faith upon this man.
Sun Yatsen was a good listener. He did not interrupt. When Clem had made plain his desire to organize in China a means of food distribution that would guarantee the contentment of the people, Sun Yatsen shook his head.
“I have only so much money. I can choose between an army which will fight the enemies of the people and set up a righteous government for the people by the people and of the people, or I can, as you suggest, merely feed the people.”
“Your government will not stand if the people are not fed,” Clem said.
Sun Yatsen smiled his famous winning smile. “I have no government yet. First must come first, my friend.”
“Only if the people have food will they believe in you,” Clem said. “When they believe in you, you can set up what government you choose.”
“It depends on one’s point of view,” Sun Yatsen said suddenly in English. “If I set up a government then I shall be able to feed the people.”
The hunchback came to life. He opened his narrow and snakelike eyes.
“Exactly,” he said. “Force comes first.”
Clem got to his feet. “It is a misfortune that I didn’t find you alone,” he said to Sun Yatsen. “I guess I have failed. But you will fail, too. Your government will fail, and somebody else will come in and the way they will get, in is just by promising the people food. Maybe they won’t even have to deliver. Maybe by that time the people will be so hungry that just a promise will be enough.”
Sun Yatsen did not answer for a moment. When he did speak it was to say with the utmost courtesy as he rose to his feet:
“I thank you, sir, for seeking me out. Thank you for caring for my people. I am touched, if not convinced.”
His English was admirable, the accent faintly Oxford. It was far better, indeed, than Clem’s American speech, tinged with the flatness of Ohio plains.
“Good night,” Clem said. “I wish you luck, anyway, and I hope you won’t forget what I’ve said, even if you don’t agree with me, because I know I’m right.”