There is, or was, a famous tea-house in Shanghai which is perhaps better known than any other in the world because it is the model of the Willow Pattern China that every one knows so well. I met two Englishwomen there whom I knew slightly. Now, Englishwomen often give the impression that they are very proper and very reserved. But my experience with these two, and a great many after them, has led me to believe that the calm exterior of the British woman conceals something really more adventurous than one ever suspects.
The story begins when I got into conversation with Miss B and Lady D. Miss B was telling the story of the Willow Tearoom plate and it was very sweet and just what I would have suspected from the trim, boyish-looking young woman...
Our conversation covered many things, and it came out somehow that I was interested in adventures. Suddenly Lady D looked steadily through her lorgnette at her friend and said: "You know, we have just time to take her to the most wonderful of all adventures. Do you think she would care to come?"
Miss B thought I would and I protested that I would try anything once. The upshot was that we all hired a chair and away we went to an address that I did not hear. I speak of the fact that we hired a chair, because it was evident that the English ladies did not want their own bearers to know where they were going.
However I was not nervous. After threading through the amazing streets of the old city, we came to a courtyard which was hidden away as if to keep the world from knowing about it, but where there was a very decent looking house, clean and seemingly newer than the century-old buildings about it.
My guides got out and went to the door and, after pressing on a panel, engaged themselves in conversation with old woman.
We went in . . .
I had courage enough to ask my friends what kind of experience was in store for us. I learned little. "Even if we could tell you," said Lady B, "it would be useless. But you may believe that it is an experience which you will never forget and which, in your turn, you will never be able to describe."
She was right...
I insisted that Miss B go first, and I remember almost better than any other moment in my life the next 20 minutes or so while I sat alone in that strange place wondering.
I heard almost nothing through the thick curtains that concealed the door through which she had passed, but there was a strange whining sound, like music. It reminded me of a violin, playing far away. Sometimes, when the sound was more distinct, I would feel a slight perspiration and a shiver. It is hard to explain.
After a while, there was dead silence.
Finally I heard the shuffling of slippers, and the curtain was drawn back. It was Miss B returning.
She was staring straight ahead of her. She did not see me. Her eyes were dilated, her face was flushed. She seemed in a trance. It was as though she had taken a powerful drug. What was it? I almost decided to run away, but the old woman was motioning to me, and I felt obliged to follow her through the door into darkness.
I say darkness. That is not exact. There was the soft glow of a lamp... a single flame burning like a soul. It made shadows on the carved ivory panels of the walls. The shadows flickered over a large Chinese bed in the room's centre. There was a grass mat on the floor, and absolutely nothing else in the place. The one window back of the bed was covered by an impenetrable curtain. There was not a sound.
The old woman's hands were held out for my robe. Frightened to refuse, I gave it to her, but I was terrified to give it. It seemed as thought my last defence... against a mysterious, imagined something... were being taken away.
She softly pushed me to the bed and motioned me to lie down. I did, as if I were hypnotised. Naked I lay out straight on my back, across the bed, I could see nothing but the flickering shadows of the lamp, and the old woman departing.
Then suddenly there was some one in the room. I had not seen him come in. It was an old man, a very old man, with a thin, wax-like face.
Almost without a sound, he shuffled in silken slippers over towards me, stopped about two yards from the bed, and peered at me in silence. His hands were folded under his large sleeves. His eyes glowed and picked up the light of the lamp from in back of me.
Then, still looking fixedly at me, he unfolded his arms and brought out from somewhere a small stringed instrument with an abnormally long neck. He sat down cross-legged on the floor, turned his back on me, and began to play.
That first note... it was as though it were drawn from my heartstrings. It was as though something in me were being played with a bow. It drew from the vitals of my life and being and plunged me into a voluptuousness that cannot be described.
It was as though invisible hands were touching me and pouring a rich current of electricity through me and into me. My eyes closed, my body relaxed. Like a million hands pressing my body, torturing me with a delicious torture, that sound... or was it music?... enwrapped me and carried me out of myself into an orgy of physical hysteria.
No, I cannot explain it. I cannot make myself clear. It was not alone sexual, not alone sensual. It transcended every and all physical pleasure I have ever known... Faster and faster and more rich the sound came from the little man's hands, rhythm after rhythm consumed me and lighted fires of passion and madness in me that are unspeakable, unfathomable.
Then it stopped...
I hardly regained complete understanding of actual life again until I was being led downstairs by Miss B, whose arm was tightly around me, guiding me and bracing me for fear that I fall. I tried to speak, to ask questions, but I found no voice. I felt myself being led out to the waiting chair and carried off by our coolies.
