Gripped to their very stomachs by the need to question him, all looked at Ch’en with an idiotic intensity, but said nothing; he looked at the flagstones sprinkled with sunflower seeds. He could give these men the information they wanted, but he could never convey to them what he felt. The resistance of the body to the knife obsessed him-so much greater than that of his arm: but for the unexpected rebound, the weapon would not have penetrated it deeply. “I should never have thought it was so hard….’ ’
“It’s done/’ he said.
In the room, before the body, once the spell of unconsciousness was over, he had not doubted: he had felt death.
He handed over the order for the delivery of the firearms. Its text was lengthy. Kyo was reading it:
“Yes, but …”
They were all waiting. Kyo was neither impatient nor irritated; he had not moved; his face was scarcely contracted. But all felt that he was dumbfounded by what he had just discovered. He spoke at last:
“The arms are not paid for. Payment on delivery.” Ch’en felt anger fall upon him, as if he had allowed himself stupidly to be robbed. He had assured himself that the paper was the one he wanted, but had not had time to read it. For that matter, he could have done nothing about it. He drew the wallet from his pocket, gave it to Kyo: photos, receipts; no other items.
“We can manage it with men of the combat-sections, I guess,” said Kyo.
“Provided we can climb aboard,” answered Katov, “it’ll be all right.”
Silence. Their presence tore Ch’en from his terrible solitude, gently, like a plant that one pulls from the earth to which its finest roots still hold it fast. And at the same time that he was getting nearer to them, little by little, it seemed as if he were discovering them-like his sister the first time he had come back from a brothel. There was the tension of gambling-halls at the end of the night.
“Did everything go all right?” asked Katov, at last putting down the record that he had been holding all this ^me and advancing into the light.
Without answering, Ch’en looked at the kindly face which suggested a Russian Pierrot-little mischievous eyes and an upturned nose which even this light could not make dramatic; yet he knew what death was. He got up; he went to.look at the cricket asleep in its tiny cage;
Ch'en might have his reasons for keeping quiet. The latter watched the motion of the light, which enabled him to keep from thinking: the tremulous cry of the cricket awakened by Katov’s approach mingled with the last vibrations of the shadow on the faces. Always that obsession of the hardness of flesh, that desire to press his arm violently against the nearest object. Words could do nothing but disturb the familiarity with death which had established itself in his being.
“At what time did you leave the hotel?’ asked Kyo. “Twenty minutes ago/’
Kyo looked at his watch: ten minutes past one.
“Good. Let’s get through here, and get out.’
“I want to see your father, Kyo.”
“You know that IT will undoubtedly be tomorrow.” “So much the better/’
They all knew what IT was: the arrival of the revolutionary troops at the last railroad stations, which was to determine the insurrection.
“So much the better/’ repeated Ch’en. Like all intense sensations, those of murder and of danger, as they withdrew, left him empty; he longed to recover them.
“Just the same, I want to see him.”
“Go there tonight; he never sleeps before dawn.”
“I shall go there about four/’
Instinctively, when he felt a need to communicate his innermost feelings, Ch’en turned to old Gisors. He knew that his attitude was painful to Kyo-all the more painful in that no vanity was involved-but he could not help it: Kyo was one of the organizers of the insurrection, the Central Committee had confidence in him; so did Ch’en; but Kyo would never kill, except in battle. Katov was nearer to him-Katov who had been condemned to five years of hard labor in 1905 when, as a medical student, he had tried to blow up the gate of the Odessa prison. And yet ….
The Russian was eating little sugar candies, one by one, without taking his eyes off Ch’en who suddenly understood the meaning of gluttony. Now that he had killed, he had the right to crave anything he wished. The right. Even if it were childish. He held out his square hand. Katov thought he wanted to leave and shook it. Ch’en got up. It was perhaps just as welclass="underline" he had nothing more to do here; Kyo was informed, it was up to him to act. As for himself, he knew what he wanted to do now. He reached the door, returned, however.
“Pass me some candy.
Katov gave him the bag. He wanted to divide the contents: no paper. He filed his cupped hand, took a mouthful, and went out.
“Can’t've been so easy/’ said Katov.
He had been a refugee in Switzerland from 1905 to i 9 i 2, the date of his clandestine return to Russia, and he spoke French without the slightest Russian accent, but he slurred some of his vowels, as though he wanted to compensate for the necessity of articulating carefully when he spoke Chinese. As he now stood almost directly under the lamp, very little light fell on his face. Kyo preferred it so: the expression of ironic ingenuousness which the small eyes and especiaUy the upturned nose (a sly sparrow, said Hemmelrich) gave to Katov's face, was all the more pronounced as it jarred with his essential character.
“Let’s get through/’ said Kyo. “You have the records, Lu?”
Lu Yu Hsiian, all smiles and as if ready for a thousand little curtseys, placed the nvo records examined by
Katov on two phonographs. The two had to be put into motion at the same time.
“One, two, three,” Kyo counted.
The hissing sound of the first record covered the second; suddenly stopped-one heard: send-then continued. Another word: thirty. More hissing. Then: men. Hissing.
“Perfect,” said Kyo. He stopped the movement, and started the first record again, alone: hissing, silence, hissing. Stop. Good. Labeled “worn-out records.’
On the second: “Third lesson. Run, walk, go, come, send, receive, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, hundred. I have seen ten men run. Twenty women are here. Thirty-”
These false records for the teaching of languages were excellent; the label, perfectly imitated. Nevertheless Kyo was puzzled.
“Didn’t my voice record well?’
“Very well, perfectly.’
Lu expanded in a smile, Hemmelrich seemed indifferent. On the floor above, a child cried out in pain.
Kyo was nonplused:
“Then why was the recording changed?”
“It wasn’t changed,” said Lu. “It’s your o^. One rarely recognizes one’s o^ voice, you see, when one hears it for the first time.’
“The phonograph distorts it? ’
“It’s not that, for no one has trouble recognizing the voices of others. But one doesn’t have the habit, you see, of hearing oneself…”
Lu was giving himself over to the Chinaman’s delight in explaining-especially to a man of superior mind.
“It’s the same in our language… ”
“Good.Are they still coming to fetch the records tonight?
“The boats will leave tomorrow at daybreak for Hankow…. ”
The hissing records were shipped by one boat, the records with the text by another. The latter were French or English, according to whether the mission of the region was Catholic or Protestant. The revolutionaries sometimes used real language-teaching records, sometimes records recorded by themselves.
“At daybreak, thought Kyo. “How many things before daybreak….” He rose:
“We need volunteers, for the firearms. And a few Europeans, if possible.