The Chinago Page #3

"The Chinago" is a short story by Jack London that explores themes of identity, conflict, and cultural clashes in the context of the Chinese immigrant experience in early 20th-century America. Set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush, the story follows the life of a Chinese man, whose struggles with prejudice and societal expectations reveal the harsh realities faced by immigrants. London's vivid storytelling captures both the resilience and vulnerability of his characters, highlighting the complexities of race and humanity in a rapidly changing world.

• Novel

								

to Wong Li and Ah Tong. Ah Chow, however, did not care for the maxim.
His head was to be separated from his body in so short a time that he
had no need for patience to wait for that event. He smoked well, ate
well, slept well, and did not worry about the slow passage of time.

Cruchot was a gendarme. He had seen twenty years of service in the
colonies, from Nigeria and Senegal to the South Seas, and those
twenty years had not perceptibly brightened his dull mind. He was as
slow-witted and stupid as in his peasant days in the south of France. He
knew discipline and fear of authority, and from God down to the sergeant
of gendarmes the only difference to him was the measure of slavish
obedience which he rendered. In point of fact, the sergeant bulked
bigger in his mind than God, except on Sundays when God's mouthpieces
had their say. God was usually very remote, while the sergeant was
ordinarily very close at hand.

Cruchot it was who received the order from the Chief Justice to the
jailer commanding that functionary to deliver over to Cruchot the person
of Ah Chow. Now, it happened that the Chief Justice had given a dinner
the night before to the captain and officers of the French man-of-war.
His hand was shaking when he wrote out the order, and his eyes were
aching so dreadfully that he did not read over the order. It was only a
Chinago's life he was signing away, anyway. So he did not notice that he
had omitted the final letter in Ah Chow's name. The order read "Ah Cho,"
and, when Cruchot presented the order, the jailer turned over to him the
person of Ah Cho. Cruchot took that person beside him on the seat of a
wagon, behind two mules, and drove away.

Ah Cho was glad to be out in the sunshine. He sat beside the gendarme
and beamed. He beamed more ardently than ever when he noted the mules
headed south toward Atimaono. Undoubtedly Schemmer had sent for him to
be brought back. Schemmer wanted him to work. Very well, he would work
well. Schemmer would never have cause to complain. It was a hot day.
There had been a stoppage of the trades. The mules sweated, Cruchot
sweated, and Ah Cho sweated. But it was Ah Cho that bore the heat with
the least concern. He had toiled three years under that sun on the
plantation. He beamed and beamed with such genial good nature that even
Cruchot's heavy mind was stirred to wonderment.

"You are very funny," he said at last.

Ah Cho nodded and beamed more ardently. Unlike the magistrate, Cruchot
spoke to him in the Kanaka tongue, and this, like all Chinagos and all
foreign devils, Ah Cho understood.

"You laugh too much," Cruchot chided. "One's heart should be full of
tears on a day like this."

"I am glad to get out of the jail."

"Is that all?" The gendarme shrugged his shoulders.

"Is it not enough?" was the retort.

"Then you are not glad to have your head cut off?"

Ah Cho looked at him in abrupt perplexity, and said--

"Why, I am going back to Atimaono to work on the plantation for
Schemmer. Are you not taking me to Atimaono?"

Cruchot stroked his long moustaches reflectively. "Well, well," he said
finally, with a flick of the whip at the off mule, "so you don't know?"

"Know what?" Ah Cho was beginning to feel a vague alarm. "Won't Schemmer
let me work for him any more?"

"Not after to-day." Cruchot laughed heartily. It was a good joke. "You
see, you won't be able to work after to-day. A man with his head off
can't work, eh?" He poked the Chinago in the ribs, and chuckled.

Ah Cho maintained silence while the mules trotted a hot mile. Then he
spoke: "Is Schemmer going to cut off my head?"

Cruchot grinned as he nodded.

"It is a mistake," said Ah Cho, gravely. "I am not the Chinago that
is to have his head cut off. I am Ah Cho. The honourable judge has
determined that I am to stop twenty years in New Caledonia."

The gendarme laughed. It was a good joke, this funny Chinago trying to
cheat the guillotine. The mules trotted through a coconut grove and for
half a mile beside the sparkling sea before Ah Cho spoke again.

"I tell you I am not Ah Chow. The honourable judge did not say that my
head was to go off."

"Don't be afraid," said Cruchot, with the philanthropic intention of
making it easier for his prisoner. "It is not difficult to die that
way." He snapped his fingers. "It is quick--like that. It is not like
hanging on the end of a rope and kicking and making faces for five
minutes. It is like killing a chicken with a hatchet. You cut its head
off, that is all. And it is the same with a man. Pouf!--it is over. It
doesn't hurt. You don't even think it hurts. You don't think. Your head
is gone, so you cannot think. It is very good. That is the way I want to
die--quick, ah, quick. You are lucky to die that way. You might get the
leprosy and fall to pieces slowly, a finger at a time, and now and again
a thumb, also the toes. I knew a man who was burned by hot water. It
took him two days to die. You could hear him yelling a kilometre away.
But you? Ah! so easy! Chck!--the knife cuts your neck like that. It is
finished. The knife may even tickle. Who can say? Nobody who died that
way ever came back to say."

He considered this last an excruciating joke, and permitted himself
to be convulsed with laughter for half a minute. Part of his mirth was
assumed, but he considered it his humane duty to cheer up the Chinago.

"But I tell you I am Ah Cho," the other persisted. "I don't want my head
cut off."

Cruchot scowled. The Chinago was carrying the foolishness too far.

"I am not Ah Chow--" Ah Cho began.

"That will do," the gendarme interrupted. He puffed up his cheeks and
strove to appear fierce.

"I tell you I am not--" Ah Cho began again.

"Shut up!" bawled Cruchot.

After that they rode along in silence. It was twenty miles from Papeete
to Atimaono, and over half the distance was covered by the time the
Chinago again ventured into speech.

"I saw you in the court room, when the honourable judge sought after our
guilt," he began. "Very good. And do you remember that Ah Chow, whose
head is to be cut off--do you remember that he--Ah Chow--was a tall man?
Look at me."

He stood up suddenly, and Cruchot saw that he was a short man. And just
as suddenly Cruchot caught a glimpse of a memory picture of Ah Chow, and
in that picture Ah Chow was tall. To the gendarme all Chinagos looked
alike. One face was like another. But between tallness and shortness he
could differentiate, and he knew that he had the wrong man beside him on
the seat. He pulled up the mules abruptly, so that the pole shot ahead
of them, elevating their collars.

"You see, it was a mistake," said Ah Cho, smiling pleasantly.
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