He waited some time in the narrow street, without ceasing to walk; at last Kyo arrived. Each told the other what he had done. They continued their walk in the mud, on their crepe soles: Kyo small and supple as a Japanese cat, Katov swinging his shoulders, thinking of the troops who were advancing, guns gleaming in the rain, toward Shanghai glowing red in the heart of the night. Kyo, too, wanted to know if this advance had not been stopped.
The street where they were walking was the first one in the Chinese city. Because of the pro^mity of the European quarter it was lined with pet-shops. They were al closed: not a creature outside, and not a cry disturbing the silence, between the siren-calls and the last drops that feU from the horned roofs into the puddles. The animals were asleep. After knocking, they entered one of the shops: that of a dealer in live fishes. The only light, a candle fixed in a holder, was feebly reflected in the phosphorescent bowls aligned like those of Ali-Baba, and in which the illustrious Chinese carps slept, invisible.
“Tomorrow?” asked Kyo.
“Tomorrow; at one o’clock.”
At the back of the shop, behind a counter, an indistinct human being was asleep with his head in his elbows. He had scarcely looked up to reply. This shop was one of the eighty posts of the Kuo^intang through which news was transmitted.
“Official?”
“Yes. The army is at Ch’eng Ch’ou. General strike at noon/’
Although nothing in the shadow had changed, although the dealer drowsing in his cell had made no motion, the phosphorescent surface of all the bowls began to stir feebly: soft, black, concentric waves rose in silence. The sound of the voices was awakening the fishes. A siren, once again, became lost in the distance.
They went out, resumed their walk. The Avenue of the Two Republics again.
A taxi. The car set off at reckless speed. Katov, sitting at the left, leaned over, looked at the driver closely.
“He is nguyen.' Too bad. I’d abs’lutely like not to be killed before tomorrow night. Easy, old chap!
“So Clappique is having the ship moved/’ said Kyo. “The comrades in the gove^rnment outfitting-shop can supply us with cops’ uniforms.
“No need. I have more than fifteen of them at the post/’
“Let’s take the launch with your twelve men/’
“It would be better without you..
Kyo looked at him without speaking.
“It’s not very dangerous, but it’s not exactly child’s play either, you know. It’s more dangerous than this idiot of a driver who’s starting to speed again. And it’s not the moment to ask you to get out/’
“Nor you either/’
“It’s not the same thing. 1 can be replaced, now, you see..I’d rather you would take care of the truck which will be waiting, and the distribution/’
He hesitated, embarrassed, his hand on his chest. “I have to give a chance to think it over/’ he was thinking. Kyo said nothing. The car continued to speed
1 In a state of craving (of opiiwn addicts).
between streaks of light blurred by the mist. There was no doubt that he was more useful than Katov: the Central Committee knew the details of everything he had organized, but on index-cards, whereas for the insurrection was a living thing; the city was in his skin, with its weak points like wounds. None of his comrades could react so quickly as he, so surely.
“All right, he said.
Lights more and more numerous. Again, the armored trucks of the concessions, and then, once more, the dark.
The car stopped. Kyo got out.
“I’U go get the uniforms, said Katov: “I’U come and fetch you when everything is ready.
Kyo lived with his father in a single-story Chinese house; four wings surrounding a garden. He passed through the first one, then through the garden, and entered the halclass="underline" right and left, on the white walls, Sung paintings, Chardin-blue phcenixes; at the end a Buddha of the Wei dynasty, almost romanesque in style. Plain divans, an opium table. Behind Kyo, the windows, bare like those of a work-shop. His father, who had heard him, entered: for some years he had been suffering from insomnia, was able to sleep only a few hours toward dawn, and welcomed joyfully anything that would help to pass the night.
“Good evening, father. Ch’en is coming to see you.
“Good.
Kyo’s features were not his father’s, which were those of an ascetic abbot, accentuated tonight by a camel’s hair dressing gown. His mother’s Japanese blood appeared to have softened their lines to form Kyo’s samurai face.
“Has anything happened to him?”
“Yes.”
No further question. Both sat down. Kyo was not sleepy. He told him about the show Clappique had just put on for him-without mentioning the firearms. Not, indeed, that he mistrusted his father; but he needed too much to be solely responsible for his own life to confide to him more than the general nature of his actions. I 'though the old professor of sociology of the University of Peking, dismissed by Chang Tso Lin because of his teaching, had formed the best revolutionary cadres in Northern China, he did not participate in action. Whenever Kyo came into his presence, his own will to action was transformed into intelligence, which rather disturbed him: he became interested in individuals instead of being interested in forces. And, because he was speaking of Clappique to his father who knew him well, the Baron now appeared more mysterious than a while ago, when he was looking at him.
“. he finally touched me for fifty dollars.. ” “He is disinterested, Kyo. ”
“But he had just spent a hundred dollars: I saw it. Mythomania is always a rather disturbing thing.”
He wanted to know just how far he could continue to use Clappique. His father, as always, was trying to discover what was profound or singular in the man. But what is deepest in a man is rarely what one can use directly to make him act, and Kyo was thinking of his guns:
“If he needs to believe himself rich, why doesn’t he try to get rich?”
“He used to be the foremost antiquarian in Peking. ”
“Why does he spend all his money in one night, then, if not to give himself the illusion of being rich?”
Gisors blinked, threw back his longish white hair; his old man’s voice, in spite of its weakened tone, took on the sharpness of a line.
“His mythomania is a means of denying life, don’t you see, of denying, and not of forgetting. Beware of logic in these matters. ”
He extended his hand uncertainly; his restrained gestures hardly ever went sideways but straight before him: his motions, when he resorted to them to round out a sentence, did not seem to push aside, but to seize something.
“Everything has happened as though he wanted to prove to himself this evening that, although he lived for two hours like a rich man, wealth does not exist. Because then poverty does not exist either. Which is essential. Nothing exists: all is dream. Don’t forget the alcohol, which helps him.. ”
Gisors smiled. The smile of his thin lips, drooping at the corners, expressed his idea with more complexity than his words. For twenty years he had used his intelligence to win the affections of men by justifying them, and they were grateful to him for a kindness which they did not suspect had its roots in opium. People attributed to him the patience of a Buddhist: it was the patience of an addict.
“No man lives by denying life,” answered Kyo.
“One lives inadequately by it.. He feels a need to live inadequately.”
“And he is forced to.”
“He chooses a way of life that makes it necessary- his dealings in antiques, perhaps drugs, and the traffic of firearms. … In conjunction with the police whom he no doubt detests, but whom he cooperates with in such deals for a fair remuneration. ”
It didn’t make much difference: the police knew the Communists didn’t have enough money to buy firearms from the clandestine importers.