Select a Portuguese sentence to reveal its English support.
Tap a Portuguese sentence to reveal its English support; tap it again or tap outside to close it.
With a keyboard, focus or activate a sentence. Press Escape to dismiss its English support.
The afternoon was already fading, and the Sun was sinking red as a shield of glowing metal, when we reached Tien-Hó. To the south, the town's black walls rose beside a torrent that roared among rocks. To the east, a pale and dusty plain stretched to the hills, where a vast Catholic mission showed white; to the north, the purple mountains of Mongolia looked like clouds suspended in the air.
We lodged in a foul-smelling shed which, with a certain irony, was called the Inn of Earthly Consolation. They gave me the noble room, which opened onto a gallery raised on posts and was decorated with paper dragons hanging from the ceiling by strings. At the slightest breeze, that legion of monsters swayed with the dry rustle of leaves, as though it had received a supernatural and grotesque life.
Before nightfall, I went to see the town with Sá-Tó, but I soon fled from the smell of its alleys. To my eyes, everything seemed black: the hovels, the muddy ground, the drains, the hungry dogs and the crowd I despised. I returned to the inn, where Mongolian drivers and some children watched me in astonishment.
- All these people seem suspicious to me, Sá-Tó - I said, frowning. - Your Honour is right; they are rabble! - replied Sá-Tó. He added that there was no danger, for he had killed a black cockerel before the journey and believed that he had pleased the goddess Kaonine. - Would Your Honour like tea? - he asked; and I told him to bring it.
As we drank, we discussed the grand plan: the next morning I would bring joy to the sad hut of the woman we supposed to be Ti-Chin-Fú's widow. I would announce to her that the millions I intended for her were already deposited in Peking. Then, with the Mandarin governor's agreement, we would distribute rice in abundance among the inhabitants. At night there would be illuminations and dancing, as at a public celebration. - What do you think, Sá-Tó? - I asked; he replied that the wisdom of Confucius dwelt on my lips and repeated: - It will be magnificent!
Tired from the journey, I lay down early on the heated brick platform that served as a bed, wrapped myself in my fur coat and made the sign of the cross. I fell asleep thinking of Vladimira's white arms and her mermaid-green eyes.
It may already have been midnight when I awoke to a slow, muffled noise around the shed, like a strong wind in the trees or the sea against a wall. The sad moonlight of the Asian autumn entered through the gallery and gave fantastic shapes to the paper dragons hanging from the ceiling.
I rose nervously when a tall, restless figure appeared in the strip of moonlight. - It is I, Your Honour! - Sá-Tó murmured in terror. Crouching beside me, he said that a rumour was spreading through the town that a foreigner, called a foreign Devil by the inhabitants, had arrived with luggage full of treasure. Sá-Tó said that sharp faces with greedy eyes were circling the inn like impatient jackals. He had therefore ordered the porters to barricade the door with the baggage carts, arranged in a semicircle in the Tartar manner.
The crowd had grown little by little and, according to what he said he had seen through the hatch, almost the whole population now surrounded the inn and muttered threateningly. Sá-Tó lamented that the goddess Kaonine had not been satisfied with the cockerel's blood and took the sight of a black goat recoiling at the door of a pagoda as another omen of terror. At last, he moaned that the night would be terrible and thought of his wife, whom he called the bone of his bone, so far away in Peking.
- And now, Sá-Tó? - I asked; he merely began: - Now, Your Honour, now... He fell silent, and I saw his thin figure trembling, crouched like a dog beneath the whip. I pushed him aside impatiently and stepped out onto the gallery. Beneath the shelter of the wall opposite, a dark mass of people was indeed packed into the shadow.
From time to time, someone crawled into the moonlight, peered at and sniffed the carts, then quickly withdrew into the darkness. Because the shelter was low, the Moon made the iron of a lowered spear gleam for a moment. - What do you want, you rabble? - I shouted in Portuguese.
A growl came from the shadow, and a stone flew up and pierced the oiled paper of the lattice beside me. A moment later, an arrow whistled and lodged in a beam above my head. I went down to the kitchen: my porters crouched there, their teeth chattering with fear, while the two Cossacks smoked by the hearth, unmoved, with their bare sabres across their knees. The old bespectacled innkeeper, the drivers, the children and a ragged grandmother had disappeared. I remembered seeing that old woman in the courtyard flying a paper kite; now only an old man intoxicated by opium remained in a corner, slumped like a bundle.
Outside, the crowd was already shouting; we had no weapons, and the two Cossacks, on their own, would not be enough to repel an assault. I ordered Sá-Tó to wake the Mandarin governor, say that I was Camilloff's friend and Prince Tong's guest, and demand the protection of the law of hospitality. In a weak voice, Sá-Tó confessed that he suspected the governor himself was directing the attack.
According to him, the fame of my wealth and the legend of carts loaded with gold had aroused everyone's greed, from the authorities to the beggars. Prudence, Sá-Tó declared, required us to abandon some of the supposed treasure, as well as mules and boxes of food. - And remain here, in this cursed village, without shirts, money or provisions? - I protested. - But with your precious life, Your Honour! - he replied. I yielded.
I told Sá-Tó to offer the crowd a large distribution of cash coins if it returned to its homes. In return, it was to respect us as guests sent by Buddha.
Sá-Tó climbed trembling onto the balcony and began to speak, waving his arms and throwing out the words with the force of a barking dog. I opened a case and passed him rolls and bags of coins, which he threw out by the handful with a sower's gesture. Below, each shower of metal first caused a furious struggle. It was followed by a slow sigh of satisfied desire and, immediately afterwards, the silence of people waiting for more.
- More! - Sá-Tó murmured, turning anxiously towards me. Reluctantly, I handed over more rolls and bunches of half-real coins threaded on strings. When the case was empty, the crowd roared, still waiting. - I have no more, man! The rest is in Peking! - I replied to Sá-Tó's plea. - Oh, Holy Buddha! Lost! Lost! - he cried, falling to his knees.
For a moment, the crowd remained silent; then a howl tore through the air. That mass hurled itself against the carts defending the door, and all the inn's timber groaned with the impact. The carts fell; axes came down on the boxes, knives split the leather of the cases, and countless hands tore out their contents. Beneath the shelter, the Cossacks struggled and shouted under the blows. Torches scattered sparks around the shed, dogs howled in the distance, and new shadows came running from every alley with spears and curved sickles.
I heard the crowd invade the ground floor through the broken doors and believed that it was looking for me, convinced that I kept the best of the treasure with me. Mad with terror, I broke a bamboo lattice, jumped into the courtyard and landed on thick scrub amid an acrid smell of filth.
My pony was neighing, tied to a beam; I threw myself onto it and seized its mane as a horde with lanterns and spears burst through the kitchen. The animal leapt over a ditch; an arrow flew past me, and bricks struck my shoulder, my lower back and my ear, as well as injuring the pony's flank. Clinging desperately to the mane, I gasped as blood dripped from my ear and the pony raced along a dark street.
Suddenly, I saw before me the wall, a bastion and the closed gate of the town. Hearing the roar of my pursuers behind me and feeling that all human aid had abandoned me, I needed God. I believed in Him and, shouting, offered Him fragments of prayers, including the Hail, Holy Queen, which I still kept in the depths of my memory. I looked back and saw the glow of the torches in the distance; then I raced along the wall, which looked like an enormous black ribbon unrolling. Seeing a breach bristling with brambles and, beyond it, the plain lying still beneath the Moon, I drove the pony through it.
We galloped for a long time across the open country. Suddenly, the pony and I fell with a dull crash into a pond. Foul water entered my mouth, and my feet became caught in the soft roots of the water lilies. When I managed to stand, I saw the pony already far away, like a shadow, with its stirrups flying in the wind.
I walked alone through muddy ground and thorny scrub, with blood from my ear dripping onto my shoulder and my soaked clothes chilling me to the skin. At times, in the darkness, I seemed to see the eyes of wild beasts shining.
At last, I found an enclosure of loose stones where yellow coffins abandoned in the fields were piled beneath a black bush. I collapsed exhausted on one of them, but the air was heavy with a terrible smell and I felt a sticky liquid seeping through the cracks in the boards. I wanted to flee, but my knees trembled and refused to obey; trees, rocks and grass began to spin around me. Red sparks quivered before my eyes, and I felt myself falling slowly from a great height, like a feather.
When I recovered my senses, I was lying on a stone bench in the silent courtyard of a vast building resembling a convent. Two Lazarist priests were slowly washing my ear while cool air moved around us, a well pulley creaked and a bell rang for matins.
I raised my eyes and saw a white façade with small barred windows and a cross at the top. In that Catholic peace, I recognised a corner of my recovered homeland and felt both shelter and consolation. Then two silent tears rolled from my eyelids.