Norris, Frank
(Chicago, Ill. 1870-1902 San Francisco, Calif.) : Schriftsteller
Name Alternative(s)
Norris, Benjamin Franklin
Subjects
Index of Names : Occident
/
Literature : Occident : United States of America
Chronology Entries (7)
| # | Year | Text | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1898 |
Norris, Frank. Moran of the Lady Letty : a story of adventure off the California coast. (New York, N.Y. : Doubleday & MacClure, 1898). http://www.gutenberg.org/files/321/321.txt. In the mile or so of shipping that stretched from the docks where the China steamships landed, down past the ferry slips and on to Meiggs's Wharf, every maritime nation in the world was represented… In the forward part of the schooner a Chinaman in brown duck was mixing paint… As Wilbur came on deck he saw the crew of the schooner hurrying forward, six of them, Chinamen every one, in brown jeans and black felt hats…Wilbur saw the Chinamen ranging themselves about what he guessed was the windlass in the schooner's bow. He followed and took his place among them, grasping one of the bars. "Break down!" came the next order. Wilbur and the Chinamen obeyed, bearing up and down upon the bars till the slack of the anchor-chain came home and stretched taut and dripping from the hawse-holes… She was very dirty and smelt abominably of some kind of rancid oil. Her crew were Chinamen; there was no mate. But the cook--himself a Chinaman--who appeared from time to time at the door of the galley, a potato-masher in his hand, seemed to have some sort of authority over the hands… Wilbur heard the Captain address him as Charlie. He spoke pigeon English fairly. Of the balance of the crew--the five Chinamen--Wilbur could make nothing… He "lay out" as best he could and cast off the gaskets—he knew barely enough of yachting to understand an order here and there--and by the time he was back on the fo'c'sle head the Chinamen were at the jib halyard and hoisting away… As before, one of the Chinese hands stood by the sail rope of the jib… He descended the fo'c'sle hatch. The Chinamen were already there, sitting on the edges of their bunks. On the floor, at the bottom of the ladder, punk-sticks were burning in an old tomato-can. Charlie brought in supper--stewed beef and pork in a bread-pan and a wooden kit--and the Chinamen ate in silence with their sheath-knives and from tin plates…A single reeking lamp swung with the swinging of the schooner over the centre of the group, and long after Wilbur could remember the grisly scene--the punk-sticks, the bread-pan full of hunks of meat, the horrid close and oily smell, and the circle of silent, preoccupied Chinese, each sitting on his bunk-ledge, devouring stewed pork and holding his pannikin of Black Jack between his feet against the rolling of the boat… "I'm not hungry enough for that just now," he told himself. "Say, Jim," he said, turning to the Chinaman next him on the bunk-ledge, "say, what kind of boat is this? What you do--where you go?"… He glanced in the direction of the mainland, now almost out of sight, then took the wheel from one of the Chinamen and commanded, "Ease off y'r fore an' main sheets."… The watches were divided, Charlie and three other Chinamen on the port, Kitchell, Wilbur, and two Chinamen on the starboard. The men trooped forward again… Why was I brought aboard, why are there only Chinese along, where are we going, what are we going to do, and how long are we going to be gone? Kitchell spat over the side, and then sucked the nicotine from his mustache. "Well," he said, resuming his pipe, "it's like this, son. This ship belongs to one of the Six Chinese Companies of Chinatown in Frisco. Charlie, here, is one of the shareholders in the business. We go down here twice a year off Cape Sain' Lucas, Lower California, an' fish for blue sharks, or white, if we kin ketch 'em. We get the livers of these an' try out the oil, an' we bring back that same oil, an' the Chinamen sell it all over San Francisco as simon-pure cod-liver oil, savvy?... The Chinamen went about the decks wearing but their jeans and blouses… During most of his watches Wilbur was engaged in painting the inside of the cabin, door panels, lintels, and the few scattered moldings; and toward the middle of the first week out, when the "Bertha Millner" was in the latitude of Point Conception, he and three Chinamen, under Kitchell's directions, ratlined down the forerigging and affixed the crow's nest upon the for'mast. The next morning, during Charlie's watch on deck, a Chinaman was sent up into the crow's nest, and from that time on there was always a lookout maintained from the masthead… On the fo'c'sle head the Chinamen were asleep or smoking opium… A few minutes later the Captain, who was standing in the dory's bow and alternately conning the ocean's surface and looking back to the Chinaman standing on the schooner's masthead… "Sing!" he shouted, as the Chinaman clambered away like a bewildered ape; "sing a little more…"Him velly sick," hazarded the Chinaman from the ratlines, adding a sentence in Chinese to Charlie… It was impossible to resist the excitement of the situation, its novelty--the high crow's nest of the schooner, the keen salt air, the Chinamen grouped far below… The Chinamen at the oars of the dory, with that extraordinary absence of curiosity which is the mark of the race, did not glance a second time at the survivor of the "Lady Letty's" misadventure… In the cabin the six doors kept up a continuous ear-shocking fusillade, as though half a dozen men were fighting with revolvers; from without, down the open skylight, came the sing-song talk of the Chinamen and the wash and ripple of the two vessels, now side by side… Wilbur returned to the schooner with the two Chinamen, leaving Kitchell alone on the bark… "That's the kind of man I have to deal with," muttered Wilbur. "It's encouraging, and there's no one to talk to. Not much help in a Chinaman and a crazy girl in a man's oilskins… The Chinamen cowered to the decks, grasping at cleats, stays, and masts… The "Bertha Millner's" Chinese crew huddled forward, talking wildly, pointing and looking in a bewildered fashion over the sides… She had looked squarely at Wilbur from under her scowl, and had said briefly and in a fine contralto voice, that he had for the first time noted: "I berth aft, in the cabin; you and the Chinaman forward. Understand?"… Moran had only forestalled Wilbur's intention; while after her almost miraculous piece of seamanship in the rescue of the schooner, Charlie and the Chinese crew accorded her a respect that was almost superstitious… Charlie, who was at the wheel, spoke a sentence in Chinese, and one of the hands drew his knife across the halyards and brought the distress signal to the deck… The odd conclave assembled about Kitchell's table--the club-man, the half-masculine girl in men's clothes, and the Chinaman. The conference was an angry one, Wilbur and Moran insisting that they be put aboard the steamship, Charlie refusing with calm obstinacy. "I have um chin-chin with China boys las' nigh'. China boy heap flaid, no can stop um steamship. Heap flaid too much talkee-talkee. No stop; go fish now; go fish chop-chop. Los' heap time; go fish. I no savvy sail um boat, China boy no savvy sail um boat. I tink um you savvy (and he pointed to Moran)... "China boy like you heap pretty big," said Charlie to Moran, as he went out. "You savvy sail um boat all light; wanta you fo' captain. But," he added, suddenly dropping his bland passivity as though he wore a mask, and for an instant allowing the wicked malevolent Cantonese to come to the surface, "China boy no likee funnee business, savvy?" Then with a smile of a Talleyrand he disappeared. Moran and Wilbur were helpless for the present. They were but two against seven Chinamen. They must stay on board, if the coolies wished it; and if they were to stay it was a matter of their own personal safety that the "Bertha Millner" should be properly navigated… For two days previous the Chinese hands had been getting out the deck-tubs, tackles, gaffs, spades, and the other shark-fishing gear that had been stowed forward… Another Chinaman stood by with a long-handled gaff, hooked out the purple-black liver, brought it over the side, and dropped it into one of the deck-tubs… Hardly a half minute passed that one of the four Chinamen that were fishing did not signal a catch, and Charlie and Jim were kept busy with spade and gaff…Charlie disappeared in the galley, supper was cooked, and eaten upon deck under the conflagration of the sunset; the lights were set, the Chinamen foregathered in the fo'c'stle head, smoking opium, and by eight o'clock the routine of the day was at an end… They regained the schooner toward five o'clock, to find the Chinamen perplexed and mystified… "No savvy," said Charlie. "No likee, no likee. China boy tink um heap funny, too much heap funny."… He could see the bowsprit moving upward from star to star. Still the schooner lifted; objects on deck began to slide aft; the oil in the deck-tubs washed over; then, as there came a wild scrambling of the Chinese crew up the fo'c'stle hatch, she settled again gradually at first, then, with an abrupt lurch that almost threw him from his feet, regained her level… A watch was set, the Chinamen sent below, and until daybreak, when Charlie began to make a clattering of tins in the galley as he set about preparing breakfast… The shark were plentiful here and the fishing went forward again as before. Certain of these shark were hauled aboard, stunned by a blow on the nose, and their fins cut off.The Chinamen packed these fins away in separate kegs. Eventually they would be sent to China… The Chinamen swarmed up the hatch-way, voluble and shrill. Again the "Bertha Millner" lifted and sank, the tubs sliding on the deck, the masts quivering like reeds, the timbers groaning aloud with the strain… Ridden with all manner of nameless Oriental superstitions, it was evident that the Chinamen preferred any hazard of fortune to remaining longer upon the schooner… The Chinamen had left plenty of provisions on board, and Moran cooked breakfast… "Right," she answered; adding upon the moment: "Huh! more Chinamen; the thing is alive with coolies; she's a junk."… I've heard of them along this coast--heard our Chinamen speak of them… Her crew were Chinamen; but such Chinamen! The coolies of the "Bertha Millner" were pampered and effete in comparison… "I wonder what Charlie and our China boys will think of this?" said Wilbur, looking shoreward, where the deserters could be seen gathered together in a silent, observing group… They were unlike any Chinamen he had ever seen--hideous to a degree that he had imagined impossible in a human being… Moran and Wilbur kept to the quarter-deck, always within reach of the huge cutting-in spades, but the Chinese beach-combers were too elated over their prize to pay them much attention… And indeed the dead monster proved a veritable treasure-trove. By the end of the day he had been triced up to the foremast, and all hands straining at the windlass had raised the mighty head out of the water. The Chinamen descended upon the smooth, black body, their bare feet sliding and slipping at every step. They held on by jabbing their knives nto the hide as glacier-climbers do their ice-picks. The head yielded barrel after barrel of oil and a fair quantity of bone. The blubber was taken aboard the junk, minced up with hatchets, and run into casks. Last of all, a Chinaman cut a hole through the "case," and, actually descending into the inside of the head, stripped away the spermaceti (clear as crystal), and packed it into buckets, which were hauled up on the junk's deck. The work occupied some two or three days. During this time the "Bertha Millner" was keeled over to nearly twenty degrees by the weight of the dead monster. However, neither Wilbur nor Moran made protest. The Chinamen would do as they pleased; that was said and signed. And they did not release the schooner until the whale had been emptied of oil and blubber, spermaceti and bone. At length, on the afternoon of the third day, the captain of the junk, whose name was Hoang, presented himself upon the quarter-deck. He was naked to the waist, and his bare brown torso was gleaming with oil and sweat. His queue was coiled like a snake around his neck, his hatchet thrust into his belt… The three principals came to a settlement with unprecedented directness. Like all Chinamen, Hoang was true to his promises, and he had already set apart three and a half barrels of spermaceti, ten barrels of oil, and some twenty pounds of bone as the schooner's share in the transaction… "This ship's mine," cried Moran, backing to the cabin door. Wilbur followed her, and the Chinamen closed down upon the pair… Hoang uttered a sentence in Cantonese. One of the coolies jumped forward, and Moran's fist met him in the face and brought him to his knees. Then came the rush Wilbur had foreseen. He had just time to catch a sight of Moran at grapples with Hoang when a little hatchet glinted over his head… Wilbur, dressed in Chinese jeans and blouse, with Chinese wicker sandals on his bare feet, sat with his back against the whale's skull, smoking quietly… Charlie did not even follow the direction of her gesture, and from this very indifference Wilbur guessed that it was precisely because of the beach-combers that the Machiavellian Chinaman had wished to treat with his old officers… "China boy heap plenty much sick. Two boy velly sick. I tink um die pretty soon to-molla… Charlie rose. "I go back. I tell um China boy what you say 'bout liver pill. Bime-by I come back."… The deserting Chinamen huddled around Charlie, drawing close, as if finding comfort in the feel of each other's elbows. "No can tell," answered Charlie. "Him shake, then lif' up all the same as we. Bime-by too much lif' up; him smash all to--Four-piecee Chinamen dlown."… "No savvy; no can tell. Him try catch um schooner sure. Him velly bad China boy. See Yup China boy, velly bad. I b'long Sam Yup. Savvy?'!... "Look here, Charlie," she said, turning to the Chinaman. "If the beach-combers take the schooner--the 'Bertha Millner'--from us we'll be left to starve on this beach."… "I go talkee-talk to China boy," said Charlie, coming up. For about five minutes the Chinamen conferred together, squatting in a circle on the beach… They were examining this armament and Moran was suggesting a plan of attack, when Hoang, the leader of the beach-combers, and one other Chinaman appeared some little distance below them on the beach… In that whirl of swift action Wilbur could reconstruct but two brief pictures: the Chinaman, Hoang's companion, flying like one possessed along the shore; Hoang himself flung headlong into the arms of the "Bertha's" coolies, and Moran, her eyes blazing, her thick braids flying, brandishing her fist as she shouted at the top of her deep voice, "We've got you, anyhow!" They had taken Hoang prisoner, whether by treachery or not, Wilbur did not exactly know; and, even if unfair means had been used, he could not repress a feeling of delight and satisfaction as he told himself that in the very beginning of the fight that was to follow he and his mates had gained the first advantage… "Now you're going to talk," she cried to Hoang, as the bound Chinaman sat upon the beach, leaning his back against the great skull. "Charlie, ask him if they saved the ambergris when the junk went down--if they've got it now?" Charlie put the question in Chinese, but the beach-comber only twinkled his vicious eyes upon them and held his peace… The Chinaman who had been sent aboard the schooner returned, carrying a long, rather coarse-grained file. Moran took it from him. "Now," she said, standing in front of Hoang, "I'll give you one more chance. Answer me. Did you bring off the ambergris, you beast, when your junk sank? Where is it now? How many men have you? What arms have you got? Have your men got a rifle?--Charlie, put that all to him in your lingo, so as to make sure that he understands. Tell him if he don't talk I'm going to make him very sick." Charlie put the questions in Chinese, pausing after each one. Hoang held his peace… He told them partly in pigeon English and partly in Cantonese, which Charlie translated, that their men were eight in number, and that they had intended to seize the schooner that night, but that probably his own capture had delayed their plans… They neither moved nor spoke. The silence and absolute lack of motion on the part of these small, half-naked Chinamen, with their ape-like muzzles and twinkling eyes, was ominous… The Chinese on either side had begun exchanging insults; the still, hot air of the tropic dawn was vibrant with the Cantonese monosyllables tossed back and forth like tennis-balls over the low sand rampart. The thing was degenerating into a farce--the "Bertha's" Chinamen would not fight… The "Bertha's" Chinamen were all running forward, three of them well in advance of the others… The Chinaman sprang to his feet again, but Wilbur was at him in an instant, feeling instinctively that his chance was to close with his man, and so bring his own superior weight and strength to bear… This was fighting at last, and there within arm's length were men grappling and gripping and hitting one another, each honestly striving to kill his fellow--Chinamen all, fighting in barbarous Oriental fashion with nails and teeth when the knife or hatchet failed… As Wilbur and Moran came around the cabin they saw the "Bertha Millner's" Chinamen in a group, not far from the water's edge, reassembled after the fight--panting and bloody, some of them bare to the belt, their weapons still in their hands… "We'll get back to the 'Bertha' now and put to sea as soon as we can catch the tide. I'll send Jim and two of the other men across in the dory with Charlie. The rest of us will go around by the shore. We've got to have a chin-chin with Hoang, if he don't get loose aboard there and fire the boat before we can get back… In accordance with Wilbur's orders, Charlie was carried aboard the dory; which, with two Chinamen at the oars, and the ambergris stowed again into the cuddy, at once set off for the schooner… Wilbur allowed the Chinamen three or four hours' rest… Wilbur and Moran sought out Hoang, whom they found as they had left him--bound upon the floor of the cabin… "It doesn't look like a place for a Tong row with Chinese pirates, though, does it?" he said; but even as he spoke the words, he guessed that that was not what he meant… Hoang did not readily recover his "loss of face." The "Bertha's" Chinamen would have nothing to do with this member of a hostile Tong; and the humiliated beach-comber kept almost entirely to himself, sitting on the forecastle-head all day long, smoking his sui-yen-hu and brooding silently to himself… "Planty muchee solly," he said; "China boy, him heap flaid of Feng-shui. When Feng-shui no likee, we then must go chop-chop… "I want plenty fine funeral in Chinatown in San Francisco. Oh, heap fine! You buy um first-chop coffin--savvy? Silver heap much—costum big money. You gib my money to Hop Sing Association, topside Ming Yen temple… "Want six-piecee band musicians--China music--heap plenty gong. You no flogettee? Two piecee priest, all dressum white--savvy? You mus' buyum coffin yo'self. Velly fine coffin, heap much silver, an' four-piecee horse. You catchum fireclacker--one, five, seven hundled fireclacker, makeum big noise; an' loast pig, an' plenty lice an' China blandy. Heap fine funeral, costum fifteen hundled dollah. I be bury all same Mandarin--all same Little Pete. You plomise, sure?"…"Bimeby Hop Sing sendum body back China." He closed his eyes and lay for a long time, worn out with the effort of speaking, as if asleep… "First-chop coffin, plenty much silver"; and again, a little later nd very feebly: "Six-piecee--band music--China music--four-piecee gong--four."… And the low-caste Cantonese coolie, with all the dignity and calmness of a Cicero, composed himself for death…. Hoang, naked to the waist, gleaming with sweat and whale-oil; the ambergris; the race to beach the sinking schooner; the never-to-be-forgotten night when he and Moran had camped together on the beach; Hoang taken prisoner, and the hideous filing of his teeth; the beach-combers, silent and watchful behind their sand breastworks; the Chinaman he had killed twitching and hic-coughing at his feet… Hoang dropped the sacks in the boat, swung himself over the side, and rowed calmly toward the station's wharf. If any notion of putting to sea with the schooner had entered the obscure, perverted cunning of his mind, he had almost instantly rejected it. Chinatown was his aim; once there and under the protection of his Tong, Hoang knew that he was safe… Two hours later, Hoang was lost in San Francisco's Chinatown… |
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| 2 | 1899 |
Norris, Frank. Blix. (New York, N.Y. : Doubleday & McClure Co, 1899). http://www.gutenberg.org/files/401/401.txt. They were Episcopalians, and for time out of mind had rented a half-pew in the church of their denomination on California Street, not far from Chinatown… "Chinatown!" exclaimed Travis. "I hadn't the faintest idea we had come up so far… "Why not get a package of Chinese tea, now that you're down here, and take it home with you?"… On the way back to Chinatown Travis stopped at a music store on Kearney Street to get her banjo, which she had left to have its head tightened; and thus burdened they regained the "town," Condy grieving audibly at having to carry "brown-paper bundles through the street"… "Here you are!" suddenly exclaimed Condy, halting in front of a wholesale tea-house bearing a sign in Chinese and English… Nearer at hand, Chinatown sent up the vague murmur of the life of the Orient… They turned back into the room, and a great, fat Chinaman brought them tea on Condy's order. But besides tea, he brought dried almonds, pickled watermelon rinds, candied quince, and "China nuts."… And then for the first time in her life, there in that airy, golden Chinese restaurant… The exhilaration of the water-front, his delight over the story he was to make out of the old mate's yarn, Chinatown, the charming unconventionality of their lunch in the Chinese restaurant, the sparkling serenity of the afternoon, and the joy of discovering Travis' appreciation of his adored and venerated author, had put him into a mood bordering close upon hilarity… As if warned by a mysterious instinct, the fat Chinaman made his appearance in the outer room… Blix calmly took out her purse. "I expected it," she said resignedly. "I knew this would happen sooner or later, and I always have been prepared. How much is it, John?" she asked of the Chinaman… Condy saw again a brief vision of the street, and Blix upon the corner waiting to cross; then it was the gay, brisk confusion of the water-front, the old mate's cabin aboard the whaleback, Chinatown, and a loop of vermilion cloth over a gallery rail, the golden balcony, the glint of the Stevenson ship upon the green Plaza, Blix playing the banjo, the delightful and picturesque confusion of the deserted Chinese restaurant… Yet he had broken his promises to her in this very matter of playing before--before that day of their visit to the Chinese restaurant--and had felt no great qualm of self-reproach… In the morning of each day she helped Victorine with the upstairs work, making the beds, putting the rooms to rights; or consulted with the butcher's and grocer's boys at the head of the back stairs, or chaffered with urbane and smiling Chinamen with their balanced vegetable baskets… A Chinaman, evidently of the merchant class, came in, with a Chinese woman following. As he took his place and the Japanese girl came up to get his order, Blix overheard him say in English: "Bring tea for-um leddy."… They considered the Chinese restaurant, the Plaza, Lotta's fountain, the Mechanics' Library, and even the cathedral over in the Mexican quarter, but arrived at no decision… Shall we go down to Chinatown--to the restaurant, or to the water-front again?... It CAN be reached by following the alleys of Chinatown… Condy made a pretence of rising to get a match in a ribbed, truncated cone of china that stood upon an adjacent table, and Blix held her breath as he glanced down into the depths of the hat… It was quite evident that he saw no matter for conscience in the smuggling of Chinamen across the Canadian border at thirty dollars a head--a venture in which he had had the assistance of the prodigal son of an American divine of international renown… He had filibustered down to Chili; had acted as ice pilot on an Arctic relief expedition; had captained a crew of Chinamen shark-fishing in Magdalena Bay… He had, all unknowing, loved her even before this wonderful morning: had loved her that day at the lake, and that never-to-be-forgotten, delicious afternoon in the Chinese restaurant; all those long, quiet evenings spent in the window of the little dining-room, looking down upon the darkening city, he had loved her… He was not quite the same boyish, hairbrained fellow who had made "a buffoon of himself" in the Chinese restaurant, three months before… Thursdays and Sunday afternoons they visited the life-boat station, and at other times prowled about the unfrequented corners of the city, now passing an afternoon along the water front, watching the departure of a China steamer or the loading of the great, steel wheat ships; now climbing the ladder-like streets of Telegraph Hill, or revisiting the Plaza, Chinatown, and the restaurant; or taking long walks in the Presidio Reservation… They said good-by to the old places they had come to know so well—Chinatown… I knew you did not love me when you said you did; but now, since--oh, since that afternoon in the Chinese restaurant, remember?... All was over now; their solitary walks, the long, still evenings in the little dining-room overlooking the sleeping city, their excursions to Luna's, their afternoons spent in the golden Chinese balcony, their mornings on the lake, calm and still and hot… |
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| 3 | 1899 |
Norris, Frank. McTeague : a story of San Francisco. (New York, N.Y. : Doubleday & McClure Co, 1899). http://www.gutenberg.org/files/165/165.txt. McTeague remembered his mother, too, who, with the help of the Chinaman, cooked for forty miners… There were corner drug stores with huge jars of red, yellow, and green liquids in their windows, very brave and gay; stationers' stores, where illustrated weeklies were tacked upon bulletin boards; barber shops with cigar stands in their vestibules; sad-looking plumbers' offices; cheap restaurants, in whose windows one saw piles of unopened oysters weighted down by cubes of ice, and china pigs and cows knee deep in layers of white beans… This little army of workers, tramping steadily in one direction, met and mingled with other toilers of a different description--conductors and "swing men" of the cable company going on duty; heavy-eyed night clerks from the drug stores on their way home to sleep; roundsmen returning to the precinct police station to make their night report, and Chinese market gardeners teetering past under their heavy baskets… Across the flats, at the fringe of the town, were the dump heaps, the figures of a few Chinese rag-pickers moving over them… "Ah, the Chinese cigar-makers," cried Marcus, in a passion, brandishing his fist… I put in the ears and tail with a drop of glue, and paint it with a 'non-poisonous' paint—Vandyke brown for the horses, foxes, and cows; slate gray for the elephants and camels; burnt umber for the chickens, zebras, and so on; then, last, a dot of Chinese white for the eyes, and there you are, all finished… They haunted the house-furnishing floors of the great department houses, inspecting and pricing ranges, hardware, china, and the like… On rainy days their servants--the Chinese cooks or the second girls--took their places… This woman was French, and was known to the flat as Augustine, no one taking enough interest in her to inquire for her last name; all that was known of her was that she was a decayed French laundress, miserably poor, her trade long since ruined by Chinese competition… She burnt pastilles and Chinese punk, and even, as now, coffee on a shovel, all to no purpose… She turned the little figures in her fingers with a wonderful lightness and deftness, painting the chickens Naples yellow, the elephants blue gray, the horses Vandyke brown, adding a dot of Chinese white for the eyes and sticking in the ears and tail with a drop of glue… Then a touch of ivory black with a small flat brush created the tail and mane, and dots of Chinese white made the eyes… |
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| 4 | 1901 |
Norris, Frank. The octopus : a story of California. (New York, N.Y. : Doubleday, Page & Co., 1901). http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=268. Soon after this Genslinger took himself away, and Derrick's Chinaman came in to set the table… The Chinaman had made a certain kind of plum pudding for dessert, and Annixter, who remembered other dinners at the Derrick's, had been saving himself for this, and had meditated upon it all through the meal… Before he could interfere, the Chinaman had poured a quantity of it upon his plate… A little while after this the Chinaman cleared away the dessert and brought in coffee and cigars… The half hundred men of the gang threw themselves upon the supper the Chinese cooks had set out in the shed of the eating-house, long as a bowling alley, unpainted, crude, the seats benches, the table covered with oil cloth. Overhead a half-dozen kerosene lamps flared and smoked… In answer to Annixter's embarrassed inquiry after Magnus, she sent the Chinese cook to call him from the office; and Annixter, after tying his horse to the ring driven into the trunk of one of the eucalyptus trees, came up to the porch, and, taking off his hat, sat down upon the steps… A Chinaman went by, teetering under the weight of his market baskets slung on a pole across his shoulders… As Annixter came to the door of the barn to shout abuse at the distraught Chinese cook who was cutting up lemons in the kitchen, he caught sight of Presley and Vanamee and hailed them… He shouted a last imprecation at the Chinaman and turned back into the barn… Mamma and papa, of course, and Billy, the stableman, and Montalegre, the Portugee foreman, and the Chinese cook, even, and Mr. Delaney… We must march with the course of empire, not against it. I mean, we must look to China. Rice in China is losing its nutritive quality. The Asiatics, though, must be fed; if not on rice, then on wheat. Why, Mr. Derrick, if only one-half the population of China ate a half ounce of flour per man per day all the wheat areas in California could not feed them. Ah, if I could only hammer that into the brains of every rancher of the San Joaquin, yes, and of every owner of every bonanza farm in Dakota and Minnesota. Send your wheat to China; handle it yourselves; do away with the middleman; break up the Chicago wheat pits and elevator rings and mixing houses. When in feeding China you have decreased the European shipments, the effect is instantaneous. Prices go up in Europe without having the least effect upon the prices in China. We hold the key, we have the wheat,--infinitely more than we ourselves can eat. Asia and Europe must look to America to be fed. What fatuous neglect of opportunity to continue to deluge Europe with our surplus food when the East trembles upon the verge of starvation!"… The Chinaman, in the robes of a mandarin, lectured on Confucius… "Harran," said the Governor, with decision, "there is a deal, there, in what Cedarquist says. Our wheat to China, hey, boy?"… He saw the farmer suddenly emancipated, the world's food no longer at the mercy of the speculator, thousands upon thousands of men set free of the grip of Trust and ring and monopoly acting for themselves, selling their own wheat, organizing into one gigantic trust, themselves, sending their agents to all the entry ports of China… The Chinese cook served his supper in silence… They made the inevitable bridal trip to the Cliff House and spent an afternoon in the grewsome and made-to-order beauties of Sutro's Gardens; they went through Chinatown, the Palace Hotel, the park museum… He found her in the dining-room, her hands full of the gold-bordered china plates, only used on special occasions and which Louisa was forbidden to touch… Annixter, observant enough where his wife was concerned noted how the reflection of the white china set a glow of pale light underneath her chin… Presley looked at the marvellous, department-store bed of brass, with its brave, gay canopy; the mill-made wash-stand, with its pitcher and bowl of blinding red and green china, the straw-framed lithographs of symbolic female figures against the multi-coloured… "Say, how about those paintings, Pres?" inquired Annixter a little uneasily. "I don't know whether they're good or not.They were painted by a three-fingered Chinaman in Monterey, and I got the lot for thirty dollars, frames thrown in…. Hilma hastened to put forward a huge china platter… She turned aside in avoidance of this, only to plunge into the purlieus of Chinatown… The entire table was a vague glow of white napery, delicate china, and glass as brilliant as crystal… |
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| 5 | 1902 |
Norris, Frank. The pit : a story of Chicago. (New York, N.Y. : Doubleday, Page & Co., 1902). http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4382/4382.txt. And then the little accessories that meant so much--the smell of violets, of good tobacco, of fragrant coffee; the gleaming damasks, china and silver of the breakfast table… I heard of him in New York. And Page, our little, solemn Minerva of Dresden china?" A long "Madeira" chair stood at the window which overlooked the park and lake, and near to it a great round table of San Domingo mahogany, with tea things and almost diaphanous china… In the "front library," where Laura entered first, were steel engravings of the style of the seventies, "whatnots" crowded with shells, Chinese coins, lacquer boxes, and the inevitable sawfish bill… |
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| 6 | 1903 |
Norris, Frank. A deal in wheat and other stories of the new and old West. (New York, N.Y. : Doubleday, Page & Co., 1903). http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9905/9905.txt. The dual personality of Slick Dick Nickerson. The President stirred uneasily in his place. "Well, I ain't quite worked that scheme out, Joe. But I smell the deal. There's a Russian post along there some'eres. Where they catch sea-otters. And the skins o'sea-otters are selling this very day for seventy dollars at any port in China." "I s'y," piped up Ally Bazan, "I knows a bit about that gyme. They's a bally kind o' Lum-tums among them Chinese as sports those syme skins on their bally clothes--as a mark o' rank, d'ye see."… The ship that saw a ghost. But you may go along the "Front" in San Francisco from Fisherman's Wharf to the China steamships' docks and shake your dollars under the seamen's noses, and if you so much as whisper _Glarus_ they will edge suddenly off and look at you with scared suspicion, and then, as like as not, walk away without another word… Only once were we all agreed, and that was when the cook, a Chinaman, spoiled a certain batch of biscuits… |
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| 7 | 1914 |
Norris, Frank. Vandover and the brute. (Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, Page & Co., 1914). http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=14712. He was not what would be called in America a rich man, but he had made money enough to travel, to allow himself any reasonable relaxation, to cultivate a taste for art, music, literature or the drama, to indulge in any harmless fad, such as collecting etchings, china or bric-a-brac… There were the usual bottles of olives and pepper sauce, a plate of broken crackers, and a ribbed match-safe of china… Her father had a three-fourths interest in a carpet-cleaning establishment on Howard Street, and her mother gave lessons in painting on china and on velvet… The family kept two servants, June the "China boy," who had been with them since the beginning of things, and Delphine the cook, a more recent acquisition… Her hands were red and knotty, smelling of soap, and they touched the chinaware with an over-zealous and constraining tenderness as if the plates and dishes had been delicate glass butterflies… The stores were closed and in their vestibules one saw the peddlers who were never there on week-days, venders of canes and peddlers of glue with heavy weights attached to mended china plates… The single bartender was reading a paper, and in the passage between the private rooms a Chinese with a clean napkin wound around his head was polishing the brass and woodwork… The mixing of his tobacco was a positive event and undertaken with all gravity, while the task of keeping it moist and ripe in the blue china jar… He found amusement for two days in twisting and rolling these "lights," cutting frills in the larger ends with a pair of scissors, and stacking them afterward in a Chinese flower jar he had bought for the purpose and stood on top of the bookcases…. A Chinese "boy" in a stiff blouse of white linen, made a great splashing as he washed down the front steps with a bucket of water and the garden hose… The college men in the front ranks were singing one song, those in the rear another, while the middle of the column was given over to an abominable medley of fish-horns, policemen's rattles and great Chinese gongs… The work that Field secured for him was the work of painting those little pictures on the lacquered surface of iron safes, those little oval landscapes between the lines of red and gold lettering--landscapes, rugged gorges, ocean steamships under all sail, mountain lakes with sailboats careening upon their surfaces, the boat indicated by two little triangular dabs of Chinese white, one for the sail itself and the other for its reflection in the water… The neighbourhood was low--just on the edge of the Barbary Coast, abounding in stores for second-hand clothing, saloons, pawnshops, gun-stores, bird-stores, and the shops of Chinese cobblers… A Chinese woman passed him, pattering along lamely, her green jade ear-rings twinkling in the light of a street lamp, newly lighted… |
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Bibliography (3)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1957 |
[Norris, Frank]. Zhang yu : yi ge Jialifuniya di gu shi. Fulanke Nuolisi ; Wu Lao yi. (Shanghai : Xin wen yi chu ban she, 1957). Übersetzung von Norris, Frank. The octopus : a story of California. (New York, N.Y. : Doubleday, Page & Co., 1901). 章魚 : 一个加利福尼亚的故事 |
Publication / Nor1 | |
| 2 | 1957 |
[Norris, Frank]. Maiketige : jiu jin shan gu shi. Xu Ruchun, Chen Liangting yi. (Shanghai : Xin wen yi chu ban she, 1957). Übersetzung von Norris, Frank. Norris, Frank. McTeague : a story of San Francisco. (New York, N.Y. : Doubleday & McClure Co, 1899). 麥克梯格 : 旧金山故事 |
Publication / Nor4 | |
| 3 | 2000 |
[Norris, Frank]. Shen yuan : zhi jia ge gu shi. Nuolisi ; Qiu Yin yi. (Shanghai : Shanghai yi wen chu ban she, 2000). (Nuolisi wen ji. Xiao mai shi shi). Übersetzung von Norris, Frank. The pit : a story of Chicago. (New York, N.Y. : Doubleday, Page & Co., 1902). 深渊 : 芝加哥故事 |
Publication / Nor3 |