【英文文学】The Yellow Pearl.docx

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1、【英文文学】The Yellow PearlMarch 1st, 1Here I am in this strange country about which I have learned in the geography and history, and about which I heard my father talk. The daughter of an American man and a Chinese woman, I suppose I am what is called a mongrel. My father was a Commissioner of Customs i

2、n China, and living for years in that country he fell in love with my mother and married heras was natural. Who could help falling in love with my dear, yellow, winsome, little mother? My name is Margaret, called after my fathers mother; my father said that the word Margaret means a pearl, so he gav

3、e me the pet name Pearl. Dear father! It was a monstrous thing for Brother George to marry away there, I overheard my Aunt Gwendolin remark a short time after my arrival. Why could he not have come back home to his own country and found a wife?And above all to have married a heathen Chinese!Not a he

4、athen, said my grandmother, reproachfully, she had previously embraced the faith of Europeans; so my dear George wrote me from that far-away country.Oh, they are all heathens in my estimation, cried my Aunt Gwendolin, scornfully; what faith they embrace does not change the fact that they belong to t

5、he yellow people.My mother died while I was yet a child, and my father has died and left me alone in the world within the last year. Grandmother, my fathers mother,Pg 5 when she learned about her sons death, sent at once for me.I cannot leave a granddaughter of mine in that country, and among that h

6、eathen, if not barbarous, people, she wrote to the American consul, and I ask your services to assist her to come to my home in America.The consul, absent-minded, gave me my grandmothers letter to read, and thus I learned her feeling about my mothers people and country. I never would have come to th

7、is horrible America if I could have helped myself; but I am scarcely of age, and by my fathers will grandmother is appointed my guardian.The result of it all is, that having crossed the intervening waters, I am here in the home of my grandmother, my Aunt Gwendolin and my Uncle Theodore Morgan. When

8、I arrived this morning I was ushered into the sitting-room by a maid, and the first one I beheld was my grandmother, sitting in a rocking-chair. She called me to her, and crossing the room, I kotowed to her, that is I went down on my hands and knees and touched my forehead to the floor, as my Chines

9、e nurse had taught me when I was yet a baby that I should always do when I came into the presence of an elderly woman, a mother of children.My dear grandchild! cried my grandmother, do get up. All you should do is to kiss meyour grandmother! And she put out her hand and assisted me from the floor.Gr

10、andmother is the dearest, prettiest little woman I ever saw, with white hair and the brightest of eyes, and I have to love her, although I had madePg 7 up my mind to hate everything in America. A moment after she had lifted me from the floor, my Aunt Gwendolin came in. She is tall and thin, not near

11、ly so beautiful a woman as my Chinese mother. She wears skirts that drag on the floor, and her hair is built up into a sort of a mountain on top of her head. I am reminded every time I look at her of a certain peak in the Thian Shan mountains. I very much prefer little women, like my own dear mother

12、, like the women of my own country.My Uncle Theodore is long-armed, long-legged, long-bodied. He looks a little like my father, and for that reason I hate him a little less than my Aunt Gwendolin.After my mothers death, my father brought into our home a French governess, daughter of a French consul,

13、 toPg 8 teach me. Father seemed to be lost in his business, or his grief at the loss of my mother, and paid very little heed to me after the arrival of the governess.She is an educated woman, he told me when he had engaged her, and I want her to teach you all you could learn in a first-class girls s

14、chool in Europe or America.After that the French governess spent hours with me every day, and I saw my father only at intervals. How much we talked about, that French lady and I! Everything, almost, except religion; that my father vetoed, as her faith was not the one he wished me to embrace. Ill tak

15、e you over to your grandmother by and by, he used to say, to get the proper religious instruction.The governess said that I inherited more from my fathers side of the housePg 9 than my mothers; that although I was born in China, I was more of an Occidental than an Oriental; more than once she said t

16、hat my American mannerisms and tricks of speech were really remarkable, and that I was a living example of the power of heredity. But I am never going back on my mothers people, never, my dear little oval-faced mother whose grave is under a spreading camphor tree at the heart of the world.Does it no

17、t mean something that China is at the centre of the worldthe kernel?The girl is not bad to look at, in fact I think she is a beautya face filled with the indescribable dash of the Orient, said my Uncle Theodore, when they were talking me over in the sitting-room after I had retired to myPg 10 chambe

18、r upstairs. Evidently they had forgotten the opening in the floor which had been left by the workmen while making some changes in the plumbing. And they did not know my extraordinary keenness of hearing, which my governess said was an Oriental trait.It seemed to give my governess some pleasure to ta

19、lk about that keen sense of the Orientals, and to speculate as to how they had acquired it. They have lived in a country where it is necessary, for self-protection, to hear all that is being plotted and planned, she said, a country of conspiracies and intrigues, of plots and counterplots. Centuries

20、of this have developed abnormal hearing.She has a superb figure, said my uncle, continuing to talk about me, andPg 11 that oval face of hers, with her creamy complexion, is really bewitching.Yellow! you mean, yellow! interrupted my Aunt Gwendolin; shes entirely too yellow for beauty. Im terribly afr

21、aid that some of our set will discover her nationality. Thats one thing you must remember, Theodore, nobody on this continent is ever to learn anything about her Chinese blood. They are so despised here as a race. She is our brothers daughter, with some foreign strain inherited from her mother; that

22、 is enough; never, never, let us acknowledge the Chinese. The Italians and Spanish are yellowish too,I have it! she exclaimed, Spanish!Spanish will do!Some of those are our people now, you know! It will be quite interesting to have her a native of one of our DependenciesaPg 12 descendant of some old

23、 Spanish family!Do not be foolish, Gwendolin, said my grandmother.I could not endure the thought of introducing a Celestial, continued my aunt. None must know that we have introduced the Yellow Peril into the country!Why, Gwendolin, how you do talk, said my grandmother; the childs father was an Amer

24、ican, and she was admitted into this country as an American.You must talk with the girl to-morrow, Theodore, continued my aunt, ignoring my grandmothers remark, and tell her to keep sacred her progenitors. She speaks such perfect English no one would suspect that there was much foreign about her.She

25、 has a striking, unusual air thatPg 13 would attract a second glance from most people, said my uncle. If you can keep her nationality from Professor Ballington you will do better than I think you can; he is a great ethnologist; it is his life-work to make discoveries in that line.Well it must be kep

26、t, no matter what means we resort to, returned my Aunt Gwendolin, with a ring of determination in her voice.Poor child, said my dear old grandmother, she is my granddaughter, and I love her already, my Georges child. She looks beautiful to me whether yellow or no.I had gone down to dinner on this fi

27、rst evening in a soft yellow silk, with long flowing sleeves trimmed with dragons, I know I looked well in it. Governess always said I did. It wasPg 14 partly Chinese and partly European in design. Governess planned it herself, and she said the French were born with a knowledge how to dress artistic

28、ally; she boasted that she made it to suit my peculiar style.Did you notice that China silk she had on at dinner? said Aunt Gwendolin; there must be an end to all that; a ban must be put on everything Chinese.It was rather becoming I thought, said Uncle Theodore, in harmony with the clear yellow of

29、her skin. Let her dress alone, she seems to know how to put it. That is a born gift with some women, and if it is not, they never seem to acquire it. There is great elegance in the straight lines of the Oriental dress.Let her alone, said Aunt Gwendolin scornfully, and let the whole city know we have

30、 introduced the Yellow Per Gwendolin, dear, interrupted grandmother, do not speak so.Those Chinese silks, of which she seems to have gowns galoreI was at the unpacking of her trunksmust be tabooed, said my aunt. Her father has evidently intended her to dress like an European or American; she has som

31、e waist line, and does not wear the sacque the women wear in China; but her sleeves are years old.The dear child may object to having her attire changed at once, said my grandmother. She is used to those soft clinging silks, and may not want to give them up. And sleeves are of little consequence. Le

32、t her alone for awhile.Let her alone! again retorted Aunt Gwendolin, and let Professor Ballington see her? Hed know her nationality at once in that yellow silk covered with Pg 16sprawling dragons, as almost anybody might. I cannot have anything so mortifying occur when the girl is calling me aunt!Ba

33、llington is a curious kind of a chap, and values people on their own merits; hed think none the less of the girl because she has some Chinese blood in her, returned Uncle Theodore.Ill take her out to-morrow, continued my aunt, and buy her some taffeta silks and French muslins, and dress her up as a

34、Christian should be dressed.Grandmother said no more. The mother is not the head of the house in America as she is in dear old China. I suppose it is the daughter who rules in this country.I am so sleepy I cannot listen any longer, even to talk about myself. My governess has taught me that Pg 17eave

35、sdropping is not honourable, but I cannot avoid hearing so long as I stay in my room, and I have nowhere else to go. I will turn out the electric light, throw myself on the bed, yellow silk and all, and cry myself asleep. I wonder is that an American or a Chinese act? My governess was continually tr

36、acing my actions to one or other of the nations.March 2, 1It happened this morning! That man Aunt Gwendolin thought would be so sure to know that I was the Yellow Pearl, came to the house, and was ushered into my uncles den by the maid, a few moments after I had been sent in there to have the talk w

37、ith him which was spoken about the night before.He is a tall man, very, very white, were my thoughts regarding him, asPg 18 he bowed politely before me, when my uncle introduced us; and I suppose his thoughts regarding me were: She is a short woman, very, very, yellow.He left after a few moments con

38、versation with my uncle; and turning to me the latter said, That gentleman who has just gone is professor of ethnology in the State University. He knows all about the peculiarities of all the peoples and tribes that ever have graced or disgraced the face of this planet we call the world Has your aun

39、t told you that she thinks it better that you should say nothing about your Chinese ancestry? he added hastily and awkwardly.Have the Chinese done anything disgraceful? I asked him.No, no, I dont suppose they really have, he answered with an air ofPg 19 annoyance. A girl like you cannot understand;

40、you had better simply follow instructions. I hope it will not be necessary to mention this subject again, he added meaningly.I could not mistake him; I must not dare tell Professor Ballington or any one else in this great country that my mother was a Chinese woman.In the afternoon Aunt Gwendolin too

41、k me down into the shops of the city, to select an outfit, she said.We stood for hours, it seemed to me, over counters laden with silks and muslins of every colour in the rainbow. Aunt Gwendolin held the various shades up against my face to see which best became my Spanish complexion. This was said,

42、 I suppose, for the ears of the sales-people, and the fashionable customers standing around. When selections were made among the goods, I was taken to the establishment of a Parisienne modiste, where I was pinched, puckered, and pulled until I was nearly numb. A sort of a steel waist was put on me,

43、which my aunt and the modiste called a corset, and was so tightly pulled I could scarcely breathe.I cant stand it, Aunt Gwendolin, I whisperingly gasped.Yes, you can! she returned peremptorily, youll get used to it; thats nothing like as tight as the girls all wear them in this country.I cant breath

44、e, I gasped again, when the modiste had turned her back; (Aunt Gwendolin had signed to me the first time not to let her hear me).Hush! said my aunt; for pity sake do not let the modiste know that you never had a corset on before. Id rather have my feet bound like the women do in ChiAunt Gwendolin pl

45、aced her jewelled fingers over my mouth before I had finished the sentence.Just as I was through being fitted, one of Aunt Gwendolins fashionable friends came in. Arabella, my aunt called her, but the modiste called her Mrs. Delaney. I was not noticed, and slipped off into a corner, and this newcome

46、r and my relative fell into a deep and absorbing talk about the new style of sleeve. I saw my opportunity and slipped unnoticed out the front door, which fortunately was behind them.Hurrying down a few blocks I reached a booksellers window. With one glance I had noticed, when my aunt and I were pass

47、ing the window on the way to the establishment of the ParisiennePg 22 modiste, the word China on the cover of a book. Ill buy that book, I had said to myself, and learn what there is about China that makes Americans despise her people.Entering the store, I found a number of books about China and the

48、 Chinese: One of Chinas Scholars, How the Chinese Think, The Greatest Novels of China, Chinese Life. I paid for them all and ordered them sent to my grandmothers house.The bookseller looked at me very curiously for several moments, and then ventured, You speak English very well.Of course I do, I said, tossing my head and trying to act saucily, as my governess had told me the American girls did. I would