Man's Fate by André Malraux

Author:André Malraux [Malraux, André]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature
ISBN: 9789110366466
Publisher: Modern Library
Published: 1933-01-12T04:30:00+00:00

From the back of his shop Hemmelrich heard a voice speaking in Chinese, and two others which were answering. Their pitch, their excited rhythm, had attracted his attention. “Just yesterday,” he thought to himself, “I saw two chaps walking by, whose faces were enough to give you chronic hemorrhoids, and who certainly weren’t there for their pleasure. … ” It was difficult for him to hear distinctly: upstairs the child was wailing incessantly. But the voices died away and short shadows on the sidewalk showed that three figures were standing there. The police? … Hemmelrich got up and walked towards the door. There was nothing about his looks, he reflected—conscious, as always, of his flattened nose and his sunken chest—that could inspire fear in an aggressor. But he recognized Ch’en even before his hand reached his pocket; he held it out to him instead of drawing his revolver.

“Let’s go into the back room,” said Ch’en.

All three passed in front of Hemmelrich. He was examining them. Each with a brief-case, not held carelessly, but squeezed tightly under his arm.

“Listen,” said Ch’en as soon as the door was closed: “can you give us hospitality for a few hours? To us and to what we have in our brief-cases?”

“Bombs?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

The child, upstairs, was still crying. His most painful cries had become sobs, with occasional little clucking sounds, as though he were weeping for fun—which made them all the more poignant. The records, the chairs, the cricket were so exactly the same as when Ch’en had come there after the murder of Tang Yen Ta that Hemmelrich and he both remembered that night. He said nothing, but Hemmelrich guessed:

“The bombs,” he said, “ … I can’t at this moment. If they find bombs here they’ll kill my wife and the kid.”

“Good. Let’s go to Shia’s.” He was the lamp-dealer whom Kyo had visited on the eve of the insurrection. “At this hour there’s only the boy.”

“Understand me, Ch’en: the kid is very sick, and the mother isn’t in too good shape … ”

He was looking at Ch’en, his hands trembling …

“You don’t know, Ch’en, you can’t know how lucky you are to be free! … ”

“Yes, I know.”

The three Chinamen went out.

“God damn! … God damn!” Hemmelrich said to himself, “won’t I ever be in his place?” He was swearing to himself, calmly, ponderously. And he was slowly climbing the stairs to the room. His Chinese wife was sitting, her eyes fixed on the bed. She did not turn round.

“The lady was nice today,” said the child, “she didn’t hurt me hardly at all. … ”

The lady was May. Hemmelrich remembered: “Mastoid. … My poor fellow, we’ll have to break the bone. … ” Hardly more than a baby. … All he knew of life so far was suffering. Hemmelrich would have to “explain to him.” Explain what? That it was advantageous to have the bones in his head broken so that he wouldn’t die, so that he would be rewarded by a life as

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