The Great Buddha of Kwang Ki

I had not seen Helen Rochdale for almost a year. And indeed I cannot say that I ever wanted greatly to see her again. Not that seeing her wasn’t always to be a pleasure, but rejection by a girl whom one has loved almost since childhood means that one does not exactly seek her company afterwards. “You are such a wise, dear old thing—even if you’re only twenty-three,” her letter had begun, illogically enough, “that I want you to come over from your old Paris and tell me whether something I’ve gotten on the track of is a bargain or not. Now do be sweet about it. You know you love to talk about ‘patina’ and such things to father. And really he respects your advice tremendously. Can’t see why. I never did.” The letter wound on for several pages more. No other girl could have been at once so unaffectedly cordial and so blandly disarming—I almost imagined that our love affair was beginning, instead of buried a year or more. I mean she had written me in just the tone we used to use long before there was any thought of love between us, at least on her side. For I cannot remember when I was not more or less in love with Helen. Still, perhaps her request was not so remarkable. I was young, but I had been brought up in the very center of the art world. My father had been a collector by profession and a sculptor of sorts, as he used to say, by accident. Then, at the time I was growing up, his business had waxed profitable, so that we lived rather well, and the house of “Richards of London”, as our firm was called, possessed a certain indefinable halo of distinction that raised it quite out of the common rut of “art salesrooms”.

The foundations of my acquaintance with Lord Rochdale’s family had been laid when the late earl, Helen’s grandfather, appeared one day in a wrought-up state, and declared that a painting sold to him by our firm as a genuine Hobbema was spurious. I can remember to this very hour the royal rage into which he flew, and the decidedly quaint invectives of an earlier day that he hurled at my defenseless head, for I was alone in our galleries that afternoon. I at once offered to repurchase the picture from him at the original figure. But, at the same time, I assured him that it was a genuine Hobbema, and in the course of our rather long conversation on the subject I think we each rose considerably in the other’s regard. The upshot was that he took the picture back to its place in the ancient halls of Rochdale—pending the arrival of a certain celebrated art critic from Italy. And, on the appearance of that personage, he was so good as to invite me to take dinner at The Lawns, and be present when the final judgment was passed. Had he known that our own considerably more modest establishment almost adjoined The Lawns, and that I had grown up to worship his granddaughter Helen from afar, perhaps many things might have been different. But, be that as it may, I made the most of this opportunity, as well as such others as were offered me, and came in time to be a not unwelcome visitor at Lord Rochdale’s household.

The death of the old Lord Rochdale, with whom I had far more in common than Helen’s father, coupled with the revelation, not long after, that Helen liked me exceedingly but by no means wanted to become my wife, had driven me to Paris, there to take charge of our French branch and occupy myself exclusively with art matters. When Helen’s letter came, I do not think it ever seriously occurred to me not to obey her request. I am not, at least, a bad loser, and I very soon found myself speeding across the Channel for the first time in almost a year. Arrived in London, I was met by the very chauffeur who, years before, had tremblingly followed the late Lord Rochdale into our galleries, carrying the disputed Hobbema. A short ride, or rather a fairly longish one, brought me once again to the threshold with which I associated so many varied memories. Lady Rochdale was away, but I was received by the Honorable Helen Rochdale with a wink and a hearty handshake, and by the Honorable Helen Rochdale’s Aunt Eugene without a trace of the former and only a very feeble attempt at the latter.

Of the ensuing evening there is, perhaps, no special need to tell. For this is a story of the Great Buddha of Kwang Ki, with whom I became acquainted next morning. I call it the Great Buddha of Kwang Ki because that was its official title, but it was of medium size, standing some four or four and a half feet high without the base, and hideously ugly—by which I mean that one must have lived among examples of Chinese art for many years to have understood its peculiar beauty. As the sale was to be that afternoon, I fell to work at once and examined the statue with the greatest care. It appeared to be an extraordinarily fine example of the bronze Buddhas occasionally discovered in the north of China, and belonging to the Chang period. I found that Helen, who had a keen eye for such things and an unusually well-stocked pocketbook, had discovered the Buddha in the not over reliable or pretentious shop where it now reposed, and had realized its great value if genuine, but feared to bid on it without advice to supplant her own knowledge of such things. I told her that I felt sure the Buddha was genuine, and that it undoubtedly was not later than the Chang period, which was made certain not only by various indications in the carving, but by the unusually fine greenish-golden patina, which the bronze had accumulated in the course of centuries. I had withdrawn with Helen to some distance from the crowd, in order to discuss this with her, when, just as I finished speaking, an extraordinarily ill-kempt little man bustled out from behind a curtained recess and spoke to us.

He seemed to be quivering with some suppressed emotion, and fairly blurted out, “Excuse me, sir, and you, ma’am. But I suppose they’ve been stuffing you with tales of how that’s the Great Buddha of Kwang Ki, and has killed all its former owners by magic, and them as speaks ill of it, too! But it’s all bosh! Perfect nonsense! The thing’s a fake! Plaster clear through with a copper facing and weighted with lead! I’ll show ’em!” And with that he rushed upon the Buddha, brandishing his umbrella, apparently prepared to demolish it. Well, it was only a coincidence, of course. But before the old fellow could reach the statue his foot slipped, and he came down with the most terrible crash right on the projecting corner of an antique bronze table that was standing in the way. It knocked him out dreadfully, and he had to be carried to a chemist’s shop across the street, and then taken to the hospital without ever recovering consciousness. Poor Helen was dreadfully affected, and I wanted her to abandon the whole thing and go back home. But she said no, that she wasn’t going to be kept from a real find just because some crank insisted it was made of plaster and had gotten himself hurt trying to prove it. So we went back once more, and I again verified my former conclusions, especially with regard to the patina, which was really extremely fine, and is an infallible indication of age in a bronze of that type.

Eventually I bid in the Buddha for Helen at £300, which was tremendously cheap and only accounted for by the comparative obscurity of the sale. We then arranged to have it delivered next day, and departed well pleased with ourselves. But the next day passed, and part of a third without its having arrived. At last, I decided to go and see what had become of it, since in London such small shops do not usually have a telephone, and this was one of those that did not. Arrived at the shop, I was greeted by the proprietor, who made a thousand apologies, but said that he could not deliver the Buddha before night. His story was that the “curse of the Buddha”, as he insisted upon calling it, had fallen upon one of his men who had attempted to remove it the day after the sale. This man, said the proprietor, had been engaged in erecting a crane, with which to lower the statue to the street. But he had been in a hurry, and had had so little respect for the sacred personage before him as to roundly curse it for an awkward, heavy slob of a heathen god. Whereupon, said my informant, the Buddha had blasted the scaffold upon which he sat with holy fire and hurled the impious blasphemer to his death in the street below. These details, with the exception of the heavenly fire, were corroborated by the other employees of the place, and the result was that not one of them could be persuaded to approach the angry god for fear its vengeance might not be exhausted. No outside truckman could be obtained until the evening of the present day. But I was assured that Buddha would be faithfully delivered before nightfall.

Returning to The Lawns, I endeavored to keep secret the cause of the Buddha’s non-appearance. But alas, Helen is a witch who will wring anything from my lips, which she suspects of being a secret. And so it was not long before she knew the whole story, as it had been told me. I confess that when the huge object finally loomed up the winding drive in the dusk, brought though it was by a very matter-of-fact electric dray, I did not feel entirely comfortable. But Helen, apparently, did not share whatever eerie feelings I may have had. The bronze was duly installed in a conspicuous place, the men were paid, we descended to dinner, we dined, and still no calamity befell. When the meal was over, Helen wanted to rush back to view her newly-acquired treasure, and I followed in her wake, quite reassured. We stood for a while examining the way in which the light from the chandelier fell across the statue and made queer shadows on the wall. Finally Helen laughed, and, making light of my previous nervousness, began calling “for little Buddha” by a string of pet names, hardly suited to its oriental dignity. She, at least, was not afraid, she said, of any lump of bronze, no matter how old it was. But something within me seemed to sound a warning. And, just as she was about to put her tongue out at the Great Buddha of Kwang Ki, I darted my hand out and pulled her back, why I hardly know. At the same moment there was a cracking sound, the table upon which the Buddha rested seemed to crumble, the huge bulk of that awful statue gathered itself together and hurled towards us with a terrific crash. At the same moment the lights were extinguished. And then—then came the moment that has made the Great Buddha of Kwang Ki my friend for life! I found Helen, sobbing, clinging in my arms, pouring out that we were going to die, but that she loved me, had always loved me!

The story really ends here—that is quite all that is of importance. For, when you have lived as long as I with the old bronzes of the East, you begin to have more than a vague sense of the unseen forces that may linger about them, even after so many thousand years. And especially when a very old and august god has troubled to bring you all the way from France, just to throw the only girl you have ever loved into your arms, it does not occur to you to search for the incredible series of coincidences that may have brought about that almost too perfect result. No, one allows others to speculate as to why a table, supposedly more than strong enough to support the weight of even so considerable a deity, should suddenly have crumbled at exactly the right moment, carrying the chandelier with it. Or perhaps one permits them to prove that it was only by coincidence that all who have ever insulted the Great Buddha of Kwang Ki have been punished for their temerity. Indeed, I myself have had to perform all those feats of explanation, in order to quiet Helen’s fears to the point of getting her to allow the Buddha to remain solidly ensconced in a little marble summer house, where he is admired and feared by all the children of the place. But as for me, well, on moonlight nights, I sometimes wander out to where the old bronze god sits quietly dreaming of the time when he was fearsomely adored. And, as the moonlight filters in upon him, I have a feeling that when he seems to nod in the flickering shadows, he is only answering my unspoken question. And when, again, the pale light softens the lines about his lips into a bland and oriental smile, I imagine that he is smiling at the success of our bargain—which has given to me a wife and to him a quiet place to dream.

LAIRD GOLDSBOROUGH.