Read Online The Lady and the Panda by Vicki Croke - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Vicki Croke
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irked him, and his irritation occasionally surfaced in negotiations. But he needed her money, and in courting her as a financial partner, he must have labored to keep those views in check.
Harkness and Smith did find common ground in their interest in animals. Smith even loaned her a fairly tame large Indian civet. The size of a small dog, the exotic animal had the coat of a raccoon, complete with a magnificent striped tail. “Noctivorous,” Smith had said of him, and Harkness discovered that indeed “Szechwan” was like a typical Shanghai citizen, wanting to sleep all day and play all night.
Even on this front, though, the two were miles apart. Smith was the kind of animal lover who could unload the barrel of a rifle on a creature as easily as he could scratch its haunch. He wanted the glory of capturing a live panda, but nearly as good, he said, would be snagging one to “pickle.” Toward the unfortunates he collected and shipped out, he felt no sorrow. “Those who think that the animals chafe at their captivity do not realize that with a regular supply of food and freedom from the fear of attack, most of them are ‘in clover,’ and they know it,” he wrote.
Harkness was a sentimentalist through and through. She was forever rescuing stray kittens, falling in love with dogs, and even keeping a pet monkey in New York. In France, a live pigeon shoot she witnessed was “atrocious.” “I don't know how you feel about animals,” she once told a crowd, “but I develop a terrific inferiority complex when dogs look askance at me, and to have a cat sneer at me will depress me for days.”
As mismatched as they were, both Harkness and Smith were determined to capture a giant panda. And as they sized each other up overthose steamy summer nights, each thought the other was wholly incapable of accomplishing the task.
Despite Harkness and Smith's building wariness, the marathon sessions did not slow down. Smith couldn't afford to let Harkness go—he was trying to reel her in, and he had laid out what he thought was the most practical strategy, a scheme that he reasoned would appeal to a city sophisticate like Harkness. If she would simply bankroll his operation, not participate in it, the two of them could stay in Shanghai, letting his hunters do all the work.
Harkness was appalled. She began to feel she knew where the trouble in Bill's blighted expedition had lain. Here was Smith selling himself as an experienced resident collector—he knew the ropes, had the contacts, the infrastructure—yet he simply never produced. Poor Bill had made it out to the edge of panda country, only to be wrenched back because Smith had not managed to obtain permissions. Even now, at the time Ruth Harkness came into the picture, Smith was trying to revive his operation in Sichuan, still finding it impossible to secure those permits.
Through all Smith's reminiscences, she had been reading between the lines. The arc of his life story was a troubling one. Even though he had managed some important specimen hauls to places like the Field Museum in Chicago, he ultimately appeared either the unluckiest or most incompetent collector going. As she reviewed the mishaps of his long career, the portrait that emerged was of a man always ready with a justification, eager to point a finger, to play people off one another, to scam a little extra cash, and to skirt a code of ethics he claimed to live by.
Born in Japan in 1882 to missionary parents, Smith had gone west for college—attending four schools in four years before graduating from Bowdoin. His professional life began in banking and business on Wall Street, then continued in London, Bombay, and Shanghai. Here he wore suits and toiled over smudged figures on bank ledgers, all the while pining to join the ranks of young men from the West who raced through the city on their way to exotic adventure in the borderland with Tibet.
He went on expeditions when he could, but his big break eluded
Harkness and Smith did find common ground in their interest in animals. Smith even loaned her a fairly tame large Indian civet. The size of a small dog, the exotic animal had the coat of a raccoon, complete with a magnificent striped tail. “Noctivorous,” Smith had said of him, and Harkness discovered that indeed “Szechwan” was like a typical Shanghai citizen, wanting to sleep all day and play all night.
Even on this front, though, the two were miles apart. Smith was the kind of animal lover who could unload the barrel of a rifle on a creature as easily as he could scratch its haunch. He wanted the glory of capturing a live panda, but nearly as good, he said, would be snagging one to “pickle.” Toward the unfortunates he collected and shipped out, he felt no sorrow. “Those who think that the animals chafe at their captivity do not realize that with a regular supply of food and freedom from the fear of attack, most of them are ‘in clover,’ and they know it,” he wrote.
Harkness was a sentimentalist through and through. She was forever rescuing stray kittens, falling in love with dogs, and even keeping a pet monkey in New York. In France, a live pigeon shoot she witnessed was “atrocious.” “I don't know how you feel about animals,” she once told a crowd, “but I develop a terrific inferiority complex when dogs look askance at me, and to have a cat sneer at me will depress me for days.”
As mismatched as they were, both Harkness and Smith were determined to capture a giant panda. And as they sized each other up overthose steamy summer nights, each thought the other was wholly incapable of accomplishing the task.
Despite Harkness and Smith's building wariness, the marathon sessions did not slow down. Smith couldn't afford to let Harkness go—he was trying to reel her in, and he had laid out what he thought was the most practical strategy, a scheme that he reasoned would appeal to a city sophisticate like Harkness. If she would simply bankroll his operation, not participate in it, the two of them could stay in Shanghai, letting his hunters do all the work.
Harkness was appalled. She began to feel she knew where the trouble in Bill's blighted expedition had lain. Here was Smith selling himself as an experienced resident collector—he knew the ropes, had the contacts, the infrastructure—yet he simply never produced. Poor Bill had made it out to the edge of panda country, only to be wrenched back because Smith had not managed to obtain permissions. Even now, at the time Ruth Harkness came into the picture, Smith was trying to revive his operation in Sichuan, still finding it impossible to secure those permits.
Through all Smith's reminiscences, she had been reading between the lines. The arc of his life story was a troubling one. Even though he had managed some important specimen hauls to places like the Field Museum in Chicago, he ultimately appeared either the unluckiest or most incompetent collector going. As she reviewed the mishaps of his long career, the portrait that emerged was of a man always ready with a justification, eager to point a finger, to play people off one another, to scam a little extra cash, and to skirt a code of ethics he claimed to live by.
Born in Japan in 1882 to missionary parents, Smith had gone west for college—attending four schools in four years before graduating from Bowdoin. His professional life began in banking and business on Wall Street, then continued in London, Bombay, and Shanghai. Here he wore suits and toiled over smudged figures on bank ledgers, all the while pining to join the ranks of young men from the West who raced through the city on their way to exotic adventure in the borderland with Tibet.
He went on expeditions when he could, but his big break eluded
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