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The Coronavirus
Human, Social and
Political Implications
Edited by James Miller

The Coronavirus
James Miller
Editor
The Coronavirus
Human, Social and Political Implications
Editor
James Miller
Duke Kunshan University
Kunshan, China
ISBN 978-981-15-9361-1 ISBN 978-981-15-9362-8 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9362-8
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
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Introduction
China’s knowledge of contagious, epidemic, and pandemic disease is long

and deep. The Shuowen dictionary (second century C.E.) defines the term
yi 疫 as “[the situation] when all people are sick.”1 Early Chinese medical
thought theorized that such diseases could be caused by a form of “evil
Qi” (eqi 惡氣), including demons, “winds,” or other external forces that
could invade the body and disturb the delicate balance of energies that
leads to long life and well-being. However, the development of Chinese
medicine saw the increasing rationalization of etiology, and the general
rejection of demonology as a widespread cause of disease. Instead, a much
more holistic and systematic understanding of disease developed under
the rubric of “stimulus and response” (ganying 感應). According to this
fundamentally cosmological theory, all phenomena are related to each
other through a process of resonance or correspondence. Social, political,
medical, and astronomical phenomena were thought to influence each
other so that activity in one domain would entail a necessary transfor-
mation in another domain. Changes in the seasons or the rotations of the
constellations in the night sky, could bring about the downfall of a dynasty
or the upsurge of a deadly disease. Taken to its logical conclusion, in such
a system nothing happened completely by chance.
One of the main applications of this framework to the origin of disease
lay in the etiological theory of what we might today call climactic fluctua-
tion. Such fluctuations were thought to produce “pestilential qi” (liqi
癘氣) that developed in the air itself, and could be transmitted from
v
vi INTRODUCTION
one person to another.2 Climatic fluctuations were understood to be

that period where the weather is unseasonably warm in winter or cold
in summer. Such irregularities in the overall gradual transformation of qi
from cold to warm from winter summer were thought to bring about
“cold disorders” (shanghan 傷寒) or “warm epidemics” (wenyi 瘟疫). In
such cases, we might observe, it is the air (qi 氣) itself, the very substance
that enables us to have life, that is both the origin and vector of disease.
No wonder such plagues evoke deep terror in human society.
The terror of an airborne disease that lodges in one’s respiratory tract
producing fever, coughing, and shortness of breath has by now been well
documented by survivors of the coronavirus and their doctors and nurses.
This volume, however, aims to document and reflect on the entanglement
and porosity that such an airborne disease makes clear. It is a truism that
the virus knows no borders, and the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2
virus across the world has revealed the uncomfortable truth of our plane-
tary entanglement, prompting calls for “decoupling” and the end to the
economic miracle that “Chimerica” brought to the world. It is all the
more relevant, then that scholars at a very young Sino–United States joint
venture university should come together to offer initial reflections on the
coronavirus, from political, social, and cultural perspectives.
In January 2020, Duke Kunshan University’s undergraduate program
was in the middle of only its second year of operations. The university, a
joint venture between Duke University in the USA and Wuhan University
in China was in the midst of a growth phase, recruiting students, faculty
and staff, to work in its impressive facilities in Kunshan, a prosperous
city located between Shanghai and Suzhou. As news of the outbreak
spread, many faculty and students were traveling home for the lunar new
year’s break. Those who left campus were not able to return, and as we
prepared for the transition to online classes, a number of faculty relocated
to Durham, NC to work with colleagues at Duke University.
The origins of this volume lie in a conference on the human, cultural,
and political implications of the coronavirus, held at Duke University’s
Franklin Humanities Institute, and jointly organized with Duke Kunshan
University’s Humanities Research Center. It was the first Zoom confer-
ence that I had ever planned, and as the 200 participants joined the call at
8.30 am on Tuesday March 3, 2020, it was hard to ignore the sensation
that we were marking something of a momentous event. The 90-minute
webinar was followed later that day by a more traditional seminar, the last
live meeting that I attended. The remarks presented at the webinar and
INTRODUCTION vii
seminar formed the initial seeds that led to the short essays and reflections
presented in this volume.
The justification for this interdisciplinary and humanistic approach to
the coronavirus developed from my incipient understanding of this disease
as a planetary phenomenon that would expose the deep porosity of our
bodies and our psyches, and one whose effects would first be felt in a
Sino–United States joint venture university. Sometimes it felt that we
were being strangled at birth, the immense audacity, vision, and enter-
prise necessary to give birth to an innovative liberal arts and science
university in an increasingly illiberal China seemingly powerless in the
face of an invisible enemy. At other times it felt that in the very work
that we were doing together, China, United States, and other nations
could join together to forge a deeper and more perfect humanity. Little
could I foresee what the consequences of this apocalypse would be, but
I knew that it would be something that would change the nature of our
living together on our planetary home, and that to understand this change
required the work of the humanities and social sciences.
This short volume brings two styles of work together. Part I focuses
on memory and individual experience. It begins with a story of high
drama related by Denis Simon, then executive vice chancellor of Duke
Kunshan University. Simon relates how the university worked in collabo-
ration with Chinese and United States partners to grapple with and miti-
gate the effects of the pandemic, and offers insights into the nature and
value of collaborative relationships in times of crisis. This has implications
not only for joint venture universities or business, but on a larger scale
relate to the interactions between national governments.
The focus on memory and personal experience of what was first known
as “the Wuhan virus” continues with the work of the next three contri-
butions. Benjamin L. Bacon and Weijing Xu describe their work orga-
nizing and archiving the experiences of students at Duke Kunshan Univer-
sity who were under lockdown during the height of the crisis in China.
Yanping Ni analyzes the online diaries of Wuhan residents and recounts
both the everydayness and the crises that shaped the common identities of
Wuhan residents during lockdown. Moving from China to United States,
we read the work of Chen Chen, an undergraduate student at Duke
University, who writes movingly of the “hyper-visibility and invisibility” of
being Chinese in the United States during the outbreak: “When people,
including my friends, talked about China as if it were on a different planet,
viii INTRODUCTION
I felt myself internally screaming, “Why don’t you see me? I’m right
here.”
The first part of this book ends with a dramatic intervention by Zairong
Xiang that seeks to excavate the epistemological issues underlying the
frequent attitudes and acts of anti-Chinese racism that the virus has
brought forth. Noting the pointed criticism of China’s supposedly “dirty”
wet markets as an origin of the virus, Xiang recalls his experience of
those markets when he was growing up in China and launches both an
economic critique of globalization and also a epistemological critique of
those who would assert the supposed superiority of European rationality.
Part 2 of the book seeks to put the experience of the Coronavirus
pandemic into historical, cultural, and political perspective, and to offer
some tentative assessments of its impact in those areas. Nicole Barnes
shows firstly how a “double erasure of women’s work” during the Coro-
navirus outbreak contains echoes of similar erasures in the history of war
and disease in the twentieth century. She follows this with a historical
analysis of race in times of plague and disease, exposing the bigotry in
the familiar racist trope of China as “the sick man of Asia.” The next
two essays focus on problems of reasoning and knowledge. Carlos Rojas
focuses on the fact that the apparently unforeseen “black swan event” of
the coronavirus outbreak was in fact widely predicted, modeled and antic-
ipated by both the US government and the United Nations. Ignoring
these predictions and models is a means for governments to justify their
failure to respond adequately to the viral outbreak.
The final two papers focus on the significance of the virus for the
legitimacy of the Chinese government. Melanie Manion’s essay on infor-
mation politics focuses on the key issue of information transparency in
China’s communist government. Local governments fail to report prob-
lems upwards, and the central government tightly controls the spread
of information downwards. This “endemic lack of transparency within
China” entails failures of governance that the communist party refuses
to acknowledge. Despite these evident failures of governance, Andrew
W. MacDonald argues, the authority of the communist party in general
and Xi Jinping in particular does not face a serious existential threat.
However, MacDonald cautions us to pay attention to the unsustainable
INTRODUCTION ix
borrowing of local governments and a potential rise in corruption among

local officials as serious challenges to the party’s legitimacy.
James Miller
Notes
1. Volkmar, Barbara, “The Concept of Contagion in Chinese Medical
Thought: Empirical Knowledge versus Cosmological Order,” History and
Philosophy of the Life Sciences 22.2 (2000), 148.
2. Volkmar, “The Concept of Contagion,” 150.
Contents
Memoir and Reflection
Arresting COVID-19: Perspectives from a Sino-US Joint

Venture University 3
Denis Simon
Memory, Storytelling and GIS Digital Archive:

Introducing the COVID-19 Memory Archival Project 13
Benjamin L. Bacon and Weijing Xu
Separate Realities: Being Wuhanese and American

Throughout COVID-19 23
Yuexuan Chen
Observations on Wuhan Residents’ Diaries 33

Yanping Ni
On the Epistemic Condition of Pandemic in a Globalized

Present 43
Zairong Xiang
xi
xii CONTENTS
Context and Analysis
Historical Echoes 53
Nicole Elizabeth Barnes
Black and White Swans: Pandemics, Prognostications,

and Preparedness 61
Carlos Rojas
The Information Politics of COVID-19 in China 69

Melanie Manion
The Political and Economic Consequences of COVID-19

for China 77
Andrew W. MacDonald
Editor and Contributors
About the Editor
James Miller is Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Strategy, co-director

of the Humanities Research Center, and Professor of Humanities at Duke
Kunshan University. He is the author or editor of six books on religion in
China including, most recently, China’s Green Religion: Daoism and the
Quest for a Sustainable Future (Columbia University Press, 2017).
Contributors
Benjamin L. Bacon is a computational media artist, designer, and musi-

cian who creates work at the intersection of sound, computation,
networked systems, and mechanical life. His works have been exhibited
in the United States, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. He is an Asso-
ciate Professor of Media & Art and Director of Signature Work at Duke
Kunshan University. He is also a lifetime fellow at V2_Lab for Unstable
Media.
Nicole Elizabeth Barnes is an Assistant Professor of History at Duke
University. Her open-access book, Intimate Communities: Wartime
Healthcare and the Birth of Modern China, 1937 –1945 (University
of California Press, 2018), received the 2019 Joan Kelly Memorial
xiii
xiv EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS
Prize from the American Historical Association and the 2020 William H.
Welch Medal from the American Association for the History of Medicine.
Yuexuan Chen is a rising senior at Duke University who is studying
public policy, biology and journalism. Her family connections to Wuhan
and her childhood spent straddling the United States and China guided
her writing on the COVID-19 epidemic in Wuhan.
Andrew W. MacDonald is an Assistant Professor of Social Science at
Duke Kunshan University. He received his B.A. in History and M.A. in
East Asian Studies from Stanford University and his M.Phil. and Ph.D. in
Politics from Oxford University. His research focuses on political beliefs,
attitudes toward minorities, government promotion patterns, and online
privacy issues in China.
Melanie Manion is the Vor Broker Family Distinguished Professor of
Political Science at Duke University. Her research focuses on contem-
porary authoritarianism, with empirical work on bureaucracy, corrup-
tion, information, and representation in China. Her most recent book
is Information for Autocrats (Cambridge University Press, 2015).
Yanping Ni is a graduate student in East Asian Studies at Duke Univer-
sity. She is currently a graduate fellow in the Duke Ethnography Lab
and a Research Assistant in the “Revaluing Care in the Global Econ-
omy” network. Her research interests focus on the intersection of the
environment, health, and visual culture in China.
Carlos Rojas is Professor of Chinese Cultural Studies, Gender, Sexuality,
& Feminist Studies, and Arts of the Moving Image at Duke University. He
is the author, editor, and translator of numerous works, including Home-
sickness: Culture, Contagion, and National Transformation in Modern
China.
Denis Simon is Senior Adviser to the President for China Affairs at Duke
University. He also is Professor of China Business and Technology in the
Fuqua School of Business. From 2015 to 2020, he served as Executive
Vice-Chancellor of Duke Kunshan University, a Sino–United States joint
venture sponsored by Duke, Wuhan University and the city of Kunshan.
He holds an M.A. in Asian Studies and a Ph.D. in Political Science from
UC Berkeley.
EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS xv
Zairong Xiang is the author of the book Queer Ancient Ways: A Decolo-
nial Exploration (Punctum Books, 2018). He is the Assistant Professor
of Comparative Literature and the Associate Director of Arts at Duke
Kunshan University. He curated the “minor cosmopolitan weekend” at
the HKW Haus der Kulturen der Welt (2018), and is the editor of its
catalogue Minor Cosmopolitan: Thinking Art, Politics and the Universe
Together Otherwise (Diaphanes, 2020).
Weijing Xu is a media artist, designer, and researcher who works at
the intersect of computation, cybernetics and network systems, biomedia
and wearable technology. She has exhibited in Asia, America, Europe,
and Australia. Her Silkworm Project, Spun Silk Artifact is permanently
collected by the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. She is
Assistant Professor of Media & Art at Duke Kunshan University.
Memoir and Reflection
Arresting COVID-19: Perspectives
from a Sino-US Joint Venture University
Denis Simon
Abstract The tumult produced by the onset and spread of the COVID-
19 virus has had a demonstrably chilling effect on the nature of Sino-US
relations. American and Chinese leaders have hurled multiple accusations
about the origins of the virus across the Pacific; US officials have been
particularly dismayed by the lack of transparency by their counterparts in
China during the initial advances of the coronavirus in Wuhan and Hubei
province. Remarkably, however, in contrast to the initial mishandling of
the COVID-19 virus by PRC officials at the national level, the situation
within the Sino-US joint venture universities, e.g. Duke Kunshan Univer-
sity, was quite the opposite, with both sides cooperating and moving in
tandem to protect the safety and well-being of the students, staff and
faculty. This win-win experience highlights the potential mutual bene-
fits of a more collegial, highly collaborative US-China partnership if and
when both sides choose to work together with a set of shared goal and
objectives.
Keywords US-China relations · Joint venture universities · Duke

Kunshan University · US-China cooperation
D. Simon (B)
Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
e-mail: Denis.simon@duke.edu
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to 3

Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020
J. Miller (ed.), The Coronavirus,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9362-8_1
4 D. SIMON
Overview
The onset of the coronavirus epidemic has set in motion a range of
forces that promise to alter the dynamics of Sino-US relations for a
long-time to come. Both countries have suffered immensely from the
rapidity with which the virus overtook their respective societies and the
challenges they each faced in bringing the virus under some form of
comprehensive control. The fundamental differences between the Amer-
ican and Chinese political systems and cultures as well as their different
demographic and ethnic structures produced very different responses.
With the international spread of the coronavirus into a global pandemic
came a broad range of barbs, accusations, criticisms and finger-pointing
between Beijing and Washington DC. The ensuing war of words about
how the virus started in Wuhan and how it was handled only has served
to heighten existing tensions stemming from their still not-yet-fully unre-
solved “trade war” and has generated bad feelings across the Pacific,
including the use of racially-charged language by the President of the
United States, Donald J. Trump, who purposely labelled COVID-19
“the Chinese virus.”1 In many respects, the on-going unabated conflicts
between the world’s two most important nations has deprived both coun-
tries of many potential medical and related benefits that could have come
from better communications and closer cooperation at an earlier point in
time.2
Interestingly, while at the macro political level, tensions flared and
blatant falsehoods about the source of the virus were thrown across the
Pacific,3 at the micro or operational level, the situation was quite the
opposite. People-to-people diplomacy continued to work well as many
Americans helped to provide needed PPE (personal protective equip-
ment) and other items to China during the first three months of 2020.
Then, as the situation in China improved sharply and the virus spread
across the US, numerous Chinese organizations and citizens came to the
aid of their American friends with shipments of masks and other needed
medical supplies, etc. As the Executive Vice Chancellor sitting inside one
of the only nine approved joint venture universities (at Duke Kunshan
University), I had a front row seat during the initial evolution of the
virus in China. Fortunately, once the initial clouds of uncertainty and
information blockage faded away about the Wuhan situation and greater
transparency occurred, there was a concerted effort to strengthen the
bridges of cooperation and communications among all the key players
ARRESTING COVID-19: PERSPECTIVES FROM A SINO-US … 5
involved. Among the nine JV universities, three involve US institutions:

NYU-Shanghai, Wenzhou Kean University, and Duke Kunshan Univer-
sity. While each of the three differ in many key respects, during the course
of the first 3 months of the epidemic, the Chinese and American part-
ners on both sides of the Pacific Ocean quickly mobilized capabilities
and personnel to address the rising threats to the well-being of their
students, faculty and staff. The situations at NYU-Shanghai and Duke
Kunshan University were particularly challenging because the former has
a student body composed of 50% PRC students and 50% international
students, while the latter has about 35% international students and 65%
PRC students.
Using the lens of the developments at DKU during the January–April
2020 period, this paper provides analytic insights into the approach and
policies adopted by the key players to confront the threats and risks posed
by COVID-19. The discussion highlights the win-win outcomes that
resulted from the almost seamless working relationship that was forged
along the way between DKU and its American counterpart at Duke
University as well as with Wuhan University and the city of Kunshan.
Most important, learning from the experience of DKU, the paper suggests
some lessons for Sino-US relations, especially in terms of the benefits that
might accrue to both sides from enhanced coordination, expanded collab-
oration, and improved communications. Not only are there apparent
beneficial outcomes in terms of the bilateral relationship, but it also
has become increasingly clear that a better working relationship between
Beijing and Washington could be extremely helpful in terms of addressing
and arresting the global spread of the virus and other similar types of
problems across the globe.
The Onset of COVID-19: Quick

Response and Quick Action
As it became clear that the situation in Wuhan and Hubei Province
regarding COVID-19 was far more serious than initially had been under-
stood,4 the DKU leadership recognized by mid-January 2020 that it
needed to take rapid concerted action to protect the campus commu-
nity.5 The arrival of the Chinese New Year holiday coincided with the
dispersal of students, staff and faculty; most of the Chinese students and
staff returned home to celebrate the holiday with family, while many
foreign students and faculty chose to travel in China, other parts of
6 D. SIMON
Asia, and other parts of the world. This left a small number of key staff
on campus to oversee the general situation as was normally done on
extended holidays; some international students who chose not to return
home and a modest number of Chinese students all decided to spend the
holiday on campus. Several Chinese staff from the Kunshan/Suzhou area
remained in the area as did the Chancellor, FENG Youmei, who was from
Wuhan but had decided to stay on campus to oversee the campus during
the Chinese New Year holiday. Just as the campus began to clear out,
however, the news emerged from the Chinese government that all educa-
tion institutions needed to take special precautions to address the rapid
spread of the coronavirus. This led to an immediate critical decision to
organize an emergency task force to take the necessary protective actions.
As a Sino-US joint venture, the leadership had faced many challenging
situations in the past; the differences in culture and political systems had
not always led to a common perspective on appropriate actions or decision
criteria regarding academic affairs, student issues, financial matters, etc. In
the case of COVID-19, however, something was different. Working with
inputs from various sources in the US, including Duke University and
following the increasingly serious tone of Chinese government directives,
it became clear that evacuating our students was a top priority. A decision
was made to provide financial support for all Chinese and international
students to return to the safety of their homes. The only exception were
the students from Hubei province who simply could not return home due
to the growing severity of the virus. In the end, our campus ended up with
about 60 of our 725 undergraduate and graduate students remaining on
campus.
We also imposed a complete lockdown for the entire campus. This was
no small decision. No outside food deliveries, no Starbucks deliveries, no
packages, etc. The campus was closed to all visitors, all vendors, and most
service personnel. Soon after the bulk of the students departed, including
all but two international students from Vietnam, the three major US
airlines flying to China decided to shut down service, e.g. United Airlines
quickly decided to cut service on February 5th. The shutdown of the
US carriers led to a decision to evacuate other international staff as seats
became scarce and the virus showed no signs of ebbing; staff and faculty
who already had been overseas decided that a return to China was not a
good idea. On February 2nd, US President Trump put in place an exec-
utive order that the US would halt the travel of China passport holders
to the US unless they had a direct family relationship.6
What is remarkable about the 5–6 weeks between the onset of the virus
in mid-January and the ensuing period is the degree to which all the part-
ners in the joint venture actually worked together in an almost seamless
manner to address the needs of the DKU community—not just those
located in Kunshan or even in China, but all around the world. With
a student body from over 40 different countries and a faculty from 13
different countries, it was not easy to keep track of where everyone was
located. The Chinese government at the local, provincial and national
level was constantly in touch with DKU staff to collect concrete data
about the location of the various members of our community; continuous
efforts were made by our key staff on campus and elsewhere to gather
and report the necessary data as accurately as possible. In retrospect, one
of the key success factors that ultimately helped Jiangsu health authorities
moderate and arrest the spread of the virus across entire province was their
ability to act on reliable feeds of data not only from DKU and other local
universities, but also local communities to make relevant control deci-
sions.7 After an admittedly rather bumpy, inauspicious start, the formal
emergency task force units set up by the PRC government at multiple
levels served as an effective mechanism to ensure that local and eventu-
ally national policy decisions were being made based on real-time accurate
data.
As an academic institution, after protecting the health and safety of
the DKU community, our next priority was to begin consideration of
how we would continue forward with our education mission. DKU
classes are taught within a modular format; the university operates on
a calendar based on four 7-week modules: Fall 1, Fall 2 and Spring 3 and
Spring 4. DKU’s academic calendar is more aligned with Duke Univer-
sity in the US, and so unlike the other JV universities, DKU already had
begun Spring classes in early January. Faculty and students had finished
approximately three weeks of the Spring semester. The need to turn
to an online delivery model began to be talked about among China’s
education-related government agencies as part of a policy initiative called
“Suspending Classes without Stopping Learning.” Fortunately, DKU’s
American partner at Duke already had an experienced team in place to
work with our campus to facilitate the transition to an online delivery
capability. Due to the contributions of Duke colleagues and the close
working relationship that was forged very quickly, DKU was able to estab-
lish a full online university in just three weeks! I use the term “online
university” because we did not simply put courses online, but we also
8 D. SIMON
created a series of new virtual student experiences to complement what

was going on inside the classroom, e.g. virtual programming for students
interested in the arts and the DKU United project to strengthen our
students’ sense of community. The availability of new software technolo-
gies such as Zoom, WeChat, WebEx, Microsoft Teams, etc. helped to
make the overall online delivery and learning experience much richer and
more dynamic than the nature of online education in the past.
On March 28th, the PRC government decided to restrict the travel of
all non-PRC passport holders back to China.8 This was done in response
to the recognition that while the number of indigenous examples of
COVID-19 had been greatly curtailed across the country, the appear-
ance of new cases largely derived from imported sources—PRC returnees
coming back home as the situation around the world was getting worse.9
To ensure that a Phase Two of the virus did not occur from a growing
number of imported instances, the government instituted international
travel controls, severely restricting even the number of Chinese airlines
flying in and out of China. As of June 2020, the overall health situation
in China has continued to improve, especially in cities such as Shanghai,
though the restrictions on foreign travel to China remain very much in
place. As part of the Ministry of Education’s phased re-opening plan,
some joint venture universities decided to re-start classes for their seniors
and graduate students at the end of April after they received special
government clearance to re-open their campuses with explicit guarantees
regarding safety and health monitoring. The expectation among most of
the joint venture schools is that the situation in the Fall will return to
normal with face to face delivery being implemented once again.
In contrast to its US and UK counterparts at other joint venture
universities, the senior leadership at Duke Kunshan University decided
that a return of students was not a good idea because of continued risk
concerns and related logistical challenges. Having leveraged a great deal of
learning from the online delivery experience in the Spring 3 module, the
online delivery of the DKU curriculum proceeded ahead for the Spring
4 module. On-going discussions between Duke and DKU are continuing
to occur about how to deal with the Fall 2020 semester, especially given
the fact that the virus conditions in the US have become increasingly
severe. This has opened up a very new, innovative possibility: some newly
admitted Chinese and international students who anticipated enrolling at
Duke for the Fall 2020 semester might start their undergraduate educa-
tion with Duke on the DKU campus—with classes being taught by a
combination of DKU and Duke faculty in a hybrid fashion.
Key Lessons Learned

With the tensions between the US and China continuing to grow due
to a plethora of allegations and insults being hurled across the Pacific
in both directions, it is important to step back to draw some lessons
from the experiences of Duke Kunshan University during the coronavirus
epidemic. Why did the cooperative relationship between the Chinese
and American partner(s) hold up so well during such a very harsh and
severe crisis? Several reasons stand out in this regard. First, there was
a very clear and functional division of labor between the Chinese and
American senior leaders. The Chinese leaders focused their time and
attention on working with the PRC government agencies, including the
Jiangsu Education Department, the Suzhou Education Bureau, and the
Kunshan Education Bureau, while their American counterparts coordi-
nated communications and action plans with Duke University in the
US. The respective leaders made sure that they were working with real-
time information, some drawn from PRC government channels and some
from the world-wide media, US government sources, and the Amer-
ican Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. For Chinese colleagues, it was
important to be in full compliance with government directives as many of
the documents highlighted adverse consequences for those persons and
institutions that failed to obey PRC government directed actions. For
US colleagues, it was important to overcome any apparent information
deficits that might exist in China and to ensure that there were not any
serious breaches in terms of information accuracy. The information was
shared via the DKU Emergency Task Force co-directed by the Chancellor
and the Executive Vice Chancellor, which meant that there was a relatively
open forum for the exchange of critical information. Later, several Duke
colleagues joined the Task Force meetings to share additional information
and insights.
Second, as noted, despite examples of previous philosophical and oper-
ational disagreements in the past, the imperative nature of the crisis was
quickly felt and understood by both sides. Under such circumstances,
there were fewer debates over minor issues; everyone understood the need
for rapid action and action-oriented decision-making. Meetings were held
10 D. SIMON
2–3 times each day and if there was communication needed with Duke in
the US, some of DKU colleagues slept very few hours and vice versa on
the US side. The sense that there was a serious common threat that knew
no nationality or ethnicity helped to overcome the types of acrimony that
sometimes had been present on previous occasions. The internal DKU
team via the DKU Emergency Task Force operated in a cohesive fashion
as every person rose to the occasion of this serious epidemic.
Finally, there was strong cooperation across the board from faculty
and students as well as the staff once the full severity of the coronavirus
epidemic was grasped. After a bit of wrangling over the timing of campus
departures and reimbursements for travel, everyone worked together as
part of one larger community facing the same critical danger. The situ-
ation was helped along by a full-scale communications effort directed at
parents, students, faculty and staff. As the US partner in the joint venture,
Duke had received numerous inquiries and expressions of concern from
American parents about their children attending DKU; it was quickly
recognized that the coronavirus problem was not simply a DKU or China
problem. The issue was gradually, but steadily becoming both a Duke
issue and a US-China issue. By immediately conducting a full-court press
in terms of information availability and pro-active communications, the
entire community was able to operate with the same information in hand.
This attenuated attention to communications occurred in both Chinese
and English, and was aided by a very active social media presence. During
such crisis moments, it is easy for the Internet to get filled with false
rumors and misinformation; the rapid response to the need for accurate
information pre-empted what could have been a field day for so-called
“fake news” to circulate far and wide. Social media could have become
the Achilles heel of the DKU situation, but instead it became one of the
key success factors in helping to maintain calm during a period of great
uncertainty.
Overall, as this analysis suggests, it turns out that the comments from
Duke President Vince Price during one of his initial visits to China was
prescient. In referring to Duke Kunshan University, he stated that “DKU
is a beacon of light within the turbulence surrounding US-China rela-
tions.” DKU was able to weather the severe storm brought on by the
coronavirus. According to available information, not one case of the coro-
navirus was reported from within the entire DKU community. All three
partners—Duke University, Wuhan University, and the city of Kunshan,
worked to support the many needs of the university during its most trying
times. While the unplanned additional financial outlays needed to support

the faculty, students and staff during the height of the crisis were not
insignificant, all the sponsoring parties agreed that the safety and well-
being of the community was the top priority without exception. The
good will and trust garnered from sharing this almost catastrophic expe-
rience together will go a long way towards sustaining the joint venture
in the coming months and years as the full impact of the coronavirus in
economic and social terms has yet to be felt. Perhaps after widespread
Chinese media reporting about how DKU and the other joint venture
universities acted as responsible members of the Chinese higher education
system, senior leaders in Beijing and Washington can overcome some of
their misgivings and mistrust to work together in a much more cohesive
and collaborative manner for mutual benefit and the benefit of the world.
Notes
1. Renee DiResta, “For China: The “USA Virus” Is a Geopolitical Ploy,” The
Atlantic, April 11, 2020.
2. “Research Finds Huge Impact of Interventions on the Spread of COVID-
19,” The Guardian, March 11, 2020.
3. Shayan Sardarizadeh and Olga Robinson, “Coronavirus: US and China
Trade Conspiracy Theories,” BBC Monitoring, April 26, 2020. See also
Xinhuanet, “Reality Check of US Allegations Against China on COVID-
19,” Xinhua News Agency, May 10, 2020.
4. Aimee Cunningham, “People Who Didn’t Know They Had COVID-19
Drove Its Spread in China,” Science News, March 17, 2020.
5. David Ignatius, “How Did COVID-19 Begin: Its Initial Origin Story Is
Shaky,” Washington Post, April 2, 2020. See also “The Origin of COVID-
19: The Pieces of the Puzzle of COVID-19’s Origin Are Coming to
Light,” Economist, May 2, 2020.
6. “Trump Administration Restricts Entry into US from China,” New York
Times, January 31, 2020. See also “Trump’s Claims That He Imposed the
First China Ban,” Washington Post, April 7, 2020.
7. Sharon Begley, “Once Widely Criticized, the Wuhan Quarantine Bought
the World Time to Prepare for COVID-19,” STAT News, February 21,
2020.
8. “Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China National
Immigration Administration Announcement on the Temporary Suspension
of Entry by Foreign Nationals Holding Valid Chinese Visas and Residence
Permits,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Beijing, March 26, 2020.
9. David Cyranoski, “We Need to Be Alert: Scientists Fear Second Coron-
avirus Wave as China’s Lockdowns Ease,” Nature, March 30, 2020.
Memory, Storytelling and GIS Digital Archive:
Introducing the COVID-19 Memory Archival
Project
Benjamin L. Bacon and Weijing Xu
Abstract The COVID-19 Memory Archival Project is an educational

and scholarly initiative that seeks to preserve individual and shared expe-
riences and reflections during the COVID-19 outbreak through rich
media storytelling and geographic information system (GIS) mapping.
In this chapter, we introduce the archive project and story map collec-
tion as an inquiry into participatory and immersive digital archiving
as a means for understanding personal memory, experience, identity
and agency in the media aftermath of a global pandemic. Originally
initiated as a response to emergency online teaching during the early
stages of the COVID-19 lockdown, we explore the pedagogical poten-
tial of the ArcGIS StoryMaps platform in the undergraduate classroom.
Through analysis of archive story maps and comparative studies with
earlier community-based disaster-oriented online archives, we present new
insights into the media moment of 2020, and how that shapes percep-
tion and understanding of complex events. Finally, we reflect upon the
B. L. Bacon (B) · W. Xu
Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan, China
e-mail: Benjamin.bacon@dukekunshan.edu.cn
W. Xu
e-mail: Weijing.xu@dukekunshan.edu.cn

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9362-8_2
14 B. L. BACON AND W. XU
function of virtual memorials and how they might facilitate discourse and
contribute to broader geocultural dialogues.
Keywords Memory · Archive · Coronavirus
In the winter of 2019, a novel coronavirus was quietly spreading through

the city of Wuhan, China. As a global catastrophe gradually revealed itself
to the world in the ensuing months, both official and private channels
grappled with the rapid changing nature of this new reality. Global disas-
ters are often convoluted and multidimensional, appearing in cascading
multitudes across geographies and time. In the media frenzy of 2020, our
experiences of the pandemic are further mediated and framed through
information and communication infrastructures and institutions of the
day (Recuber 2016). In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, individual
and community voices have sought out online platforms to participate in
dialogue and assume ownership of meaning-making and memory preser-
vation of shared experiences. In the context of the Web 2.0 culture,
digital archives provide a vehicle and mnemonic device for fluid histor-
ical narratives generated by grassroot populations (Popple et al. 2020).
The following documents one such approach.
The COVID-19 Memory Archival Project is an educational and schol-
arly initiative that seeks to preserve individual and shared experiences
and reflections during the COVID-19 outbreak through rich media
storytelling and geographic information system (GIS) mapping. In this
chapter, we introduce the archive project and story map collection as an
inquiry into participatory and immersive digital archiving as a means for
understanding personal memory, experience, identity and agency in the
media aftermath of a global pandemic. Originally initiated as a response
to emergency online teaching during the early stages of the COVID-
19 lockdown, we explore the pedagogical potential of the ArcGIS
StoryMaps platform in the undergraduate classroom. Through analysis of
archive story maps and comparative studies with earlier community-based
disaster-oriented online archives, we present new insights into the media
moment of 2020, and how that shapes perception and understanding of
complex events. Finally, we reflect upon the function of virtual memo-
rials and how they might facilitate discourse and contribute to broader
geocultural dialogues.
MEMORY, STORYTELLING AND GIS DIGITAL … 15
The impetus behind this research stems from the authors’ reflections
of past personal experiences with viral outbreak and cultural dynamics
between East and West in light of the present global crises. The stark
contrast in pandemic understanding and response across cultures is
shocking, but these differences were already present years before. One
recollection of a classroom discussion in 2011 between Beijinger’s and
New Yorker’s foreshadowed the responses of China and the US in 2020.
There exists an urgency to bridge the gaps between different realities, as
collaboration and unity is essential in overcoming existential risks of the
future.
The Covid-19 Memory Archival Project was presented at The Coro-
navirus: Human, Social and Political Implications conference at Duke
University’s Franklin Humanities Institute, jointly organized with Duke
Kunshan University’s Humanities Research Center, held on March 3rd,
2020. The ideas presented here expand upon the original oral presenta-
tion.
Overview of Approach
First launched on March 1, 2020, The COVID-19 Memory Archival
Project was developed with the support of the Health Humanities Lab
and Humanities Research Center at Duke Kunshan University (DKU) in
China in collaboration with Duke University, and with faculty and student
participation from the University of North Carolina in the USA. As a
US-Sino joint venture between Duke University and Wuhan University,
DKU’s diverse community of student, faculty and staff come from many
provinces in China, as well as a variety of nationalities.
In late January, during the week of the Chinese New Year holiday, the
news of a deadly virus broke out across the country. Many individuals
were traveling in the midst of the largest human migrations in the world.
As the nation went into emergency lockdown, our students and faculty
found themselves stranded across geographies. Universities across China
postponed the start of school, as administration and faculty prepared
academic content for online delivery. It was under these circumstances
that a small group of DKU faculty and administrators traveling abroad
at the time regrouped at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina
to discuss approaches to conducting undergraduate liberal arts education
in a digital context. Displaced and facing an uncertain future, bound by
academic responsibility paired with individual experiences that mirrored
the larger collective, The COVID-19 Archival Project emerged through

collaborative discussions as a creative solution to turn a dire situation into
a unique opportunity and teaching moment.
For our purposes, ArcGIS StoryMaps presented an ideal platform
infrastructure that allowed complex layers of media and narrative to be
overlayed into a spatial mapping framework. First used as a scholarly
and pedagogical tool in the 1980s in geography, GIS quickly became
popularized in fields such as environmental sciences and urban planning.
More recently, it has expanded its applications into the social sciences
and humanities, inciting discussions around mapping, bias and power,
with new emerging areas of study such as “critical GIS”, also known
as “public participation GIS” (Wilson 2015). As increased use of GIS
tools brought the act of mapping into the digital sphere, the concepts of
maps and mapping also changed. Beyond detailing geographical domains,
through networked connections, maps are no longer self-contained mate-
rial objects, but provide a navigational pivot into societal, cultural and
political landscapes. In his “Linked Geographies: Maps as Mediators of
Reality”, Stefaan G. Verhulst posits that these new mapping tools “permit
a democratization of reality”, facilitating pluralism (Verhulst 2008). In
our approach, we utilized story maps as the digital medium for collection
and transmission of individual reflections of self and community. Through
hyperlinks, the boundaries between the private and public are blurred.
The platform’s capability to juxtapose static media, interactive media, and
personal narration in a dynamic way, allowed students under quarantine
restraints to interrogate online materials and mass media in conjunction
with their own experiences towards extracting meaningful discourse.
Disaster and trauma documentation practices in the digital age is well
established. One notable archive in the narrative genre is the WhereW-
ereYou.org archive that details accounts and testimonials of ordinary
people’s thoughts and feelings post 9/11 (Where Were You | September
11th, 2001 2001). Launched only 4 days after the attacks, stories were
collected for a year following the historical event. The landing page
presents prompts that help potential contributors consider their experi-
ences within a unifying framework, tying individuals together in solidarity.
Entries are presented in similar format with basic information and written
text. Another example is the teach311.org site ([Teach311 + COVID-
19] Collective 2011). Initiated by a group of scholars, academics and
educators, the collective focuses on the collaborative research of disasters
past and present in the Asian context, with the goal of bridging the gap
between public understanding and scholarship (Teo and Onaga 2019). In

this second case, experience and knowledge is preserved through essays,
field notes, interviews, photographs, diary entries and video lectures. In
the examples of the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank (Hurricane Digital
Memory Bank 2005), and most recently, A Journal of the Plague Year
(Share Your Story · A Journal of the Plague Year · COVID-19 Archive
2020), the inclusion of interactive maps highlights the geographical
dimensions of today’s disasters. In all afore mentioned cases, the need to
identify locality is clearly visible, a heightened awareness indicative of the
present century, impressed upon the collective subconscious through the
saturation of satellite imagery in visual culture. However, locality is but
a data point in these narratives, collected along other data points within
a static blog information infrastructure, rather than a dynamic interface
where data points intersect and interact to form hybrid virtual realities.
The COVID-19 Memory Archival Project departs from the restric-
tions of the blog platform towards a more fluid language of content
production that allows for flexible experimentation and interpretation.
Following personal memory practices of recent decades, students are
guided to develop their own media language, both as a tool for learning
and understanding, and a means for creative expression. In Sidonie Smith
and Julia Watson’s systemic account of memory, the act of remembering
is described as meaning-making in itself. It is not a recount of events,
but rather our experiences of them. These perceived experiences illus-
trate an ephemeral depiction of the individual and his or her place in
the world, performing and suturing together interconnected concepts
of individuality, self, community, and place (Smith and Watson 2002).
Along these lines, stories presented in the form of recollections allow
students to process their trauma emotionally, while evolving towards a
thoughtful, empathetic and holistic approach towards recent events. In
the next section, we analyze examples of student work that demonstrate
personalized strategies towards formulating complex images of identity,
social critique and the everyday mundane.
Student Story Map Collection

The student story map collection resulted from a handful of undergrad-
uate courses at DKU during spring term of 2020. In addition to in-class
mentorship and guidance, an in-depth tutorial that introduced story-
telling methodologies and resources as well as ArcGIS narrative text and
other multimedia features (The COVID-19 Memory Archival Project

Tutorial 2020) was created and made publicly available on the archive
site (The COVID-19 Memory Archival Project 2020). Further support
manifested in the forms of a personal story map created by faculty and
multiple online workshops introducing the project and its digital toolkit
to the larger DKU community (Our Story: Kunshan To Durham 2020).
The highlighted stories below largely come from Asia, addressing Asian
cultural discussions within a global context. One case is selected from the
United States, a photo journalistic work of everyday life under quarantine.
In “Advance!Advance at all Cost!!”, the author documents the tumul-
tuous emotions of a Chinese student’s complex relationship with his
home country during the early stages of the pandemic outbreak. Citing
science fiction, online gaming, poetry, quotes from leaders of industry
as well as news feeds and scientific data, he wrestles with the competing
feelings of anger towards government corruption, overwhelming pride
of Chinese fortitude, guilt over personal enaction and the harsh real-
ities of financial loss through his family’s first-hand experience amidst
an economy in standstill. He concludes his journey with a reflection
of the complexity of love, ending on a quote from the poet Qing Ai,
stating “now I truly understand what this poem means and how does the
poet feel when he wrote this poem. I love my country. 我爱我的祖国”
(Advance!Advance at All Costs!! 2020).
“Humanity Crises Under the Surface of Coronavirus” details another
student’s journey towards awareness of the invisible and evolving under-
currents of social and cultural discrimination. While racism and racist
discourse are at times painfully visible in the public consciousness, trib-
alism and more nuanced cultural discriminations at times can be over-
looked. In a narrative of self-reflection and criticism, the author recalls
her own discriminatory behavior towards Wuhanese friends after debates
around virus naming and cultural shaming emerged in international
discourse. She goes so far as to highlight her own cruel language towards
others in her story map through WeChat screenshots, exposing her own
ignorance while calling out for awareness (Humanity Crisis Under the
Surface of Coronavirus 2020).
In another account, “Shrouded in Darkness 2020”, a Taiwanese
student based in mainland China during the pandemic inspects the dark
realities of political agendas at play through the lens of face mask dona-
tion. During the early outbreak, relationships between the different East
Asian governments were strained and unstable. Propaganda machines
each churned out their own narratives in support of leadership decisions.

The author interrogates the extreme anti-Chinese Taiwanese propaganda
and questions his own government’s consideration for the larger welfare
of humanity. When confronted with older generation family member’s
attitudes towards their Wuhanese neighbors, he poses the important ques-
tion of whether humanity can sustain tolerance and empathy in times of
crises as well as peace (Shrouded in Darkness-2020 2020).
While these powerful personal narratives offer thought-provoking real-
ities of identity, nationalism and social justice during the pandemic, other
story map entries focus on the everyday mundane. “Witness Pandemic”
is a collaborative photo journal produced by graduate journalism students
from the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill. This entry was
uploaded in the beginning of May, over a month after North Carolina
announced a state-wide stay at home order. Documented at a time
when the official news cycles reflected a language of national anxiety and
panic, the photo collection present an alternative reality to the layers of
unfolding crises in the United States (Witness Pandemic 2020). Similarly,
“Life in the Square” offers a “normalized” perspective of pandemic life
in Beijing. By systemically documenting the public square visible from
her window every day, the author learns about the “regulars” from afar,
exploring new forms of serendipitous connectivity with strangers in the
time of social distancing (Life in the Square 2020).
A final genre of story map present in submissions includes artistic
and poetic renditions of inner emotion and turmoil. Entries such as
“The World Beyond Quarantine” utilize experimental and stop motion
animation techniques paired with poetry in presenting a black and white
reality of the author’s pandemic experience (The World Beyond Quar-
antine 2020). “A COVID-19 Story from Nepal” contrasts photographic
images with their hand-sketched counterparts, sometimes from repetitive
perspectives, sometimes slightly altered. Through techniques of layering,
the author conveys the real alongside the private and internal of everyday
life in Nepal (A COVID-19 Story from Nepal 2020).
These story map entries present to us a dynamic and complex portrait
of the inner private lives of young individuals during the pandemic.
Despite the tender age of these authors, their refusal to accept institu-
tionalized narratives in favor of personalized explorations and nuanced
dialogue is commendable. The versatility of the ArcGIS StoryMaps frame-
work allows us to see through stories the inner worlds of their creators in
four dimensional ways. There is value in the resolution the platform offers
for individuality and expression. However, it would be remiss to say that

there are no limitations. In the final section, we reflect upon our expe-
rience with the ArcGIS StoryMaps in The COVID-19 Archival Project,
and speculate on further exploration of methodology and approach in
utilizing GIS tools for critical research and pedagogy.
Conclusion
The phenomenon of the archival multiverse has reshaped our imagina-
tions of what memory, experience, history and heritage can be, redefining
the concept of the archive and its many practices. Fueled by the rise of the
internet and self-publishing culture, traditional archiving methods give
way to crowd sourced processes, allowing the many to co-author a collec-
tive narrative, providing “a substantial counterbalance to the dangers
posed by the creation of digital humanities macroscopes” (Prescott 2020).
As immersive, embodied, spatial technologies mature and popularize,
new opportunities are presented for the archivist. However, literacies
of these technologies pose a stumbling block for wider rollout and
adaptation, especially in earlier stages. In the case of The COVID-19
Memory Archival Project, much effort was devoted to familiarizing partic-
ipants with the platform environment and cultivating individualized media
expression.
Yet the turn towards a geospatial approach across disciplines is
inevitable. Already, the media that we consume is innately referential of
place. Photos and videos taken with our smart phones are embedded
with location data. We share our experiences on Facebook, Instagram and
WeChat through spatial tags. GPS navigation systems have replaced our
own biological sense of geographical location. Our lives, whether digital
or physical, are already largely framed by these platforms and instruments.
Like a prosthetic, everyday devices provide a continuous data stream of
space and place, and yet for many, interpretation of this data still sits
in traditional information infrastructures, rendering these new realities
invisible. As Roger M. Downs notes, “… it is important to understand
the links between the geospatial revolution and the geographic sense
of self. People adapt to technologies, and technologies are adapted to
human needs” (Downs 2014). One might argue that perhaps a new
digital geospatial cosmology is called for. This new concept of “situated
knowledge” transforms the virtual archive from a data representation to a
platform for discourse and dialogue (Jackson 2020). Critical GIS presents
a new investigative methodology between representation and intervention

that merges together the complex planetary spheres of this moment in
time.
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Separate Realities: Being Wuhanese
and American Throughout COVID-19
Yuexuan Chen
Abstract Navigating the coronavirus pandemic as a Chinese-American

college student and journalist in the U.S. with roots in Wuhan was full
of surprises. In particular, the first months of the pandemic showed me
the importance of being able to empathize and connect with experiences
outside of our own realities. The delayed response to coronavirus in the
US was exacerbated by an inability to listen to the voices of other nations
experiencing the crisis prior to its landfall in the US. By othering Chinese-
Americans, we lost precious time in responding to the pandemic and
exposed a deep-seated indifference to diverse voices in our society. In
my own experiences as an American university student reporting on the
realities of my family’s hometown in Wuhan, I observed first hand the
inability of my fellow Americans to recognize the Chinese experience with
coronavirus as indicative of our own future, and the refusal to learn from
Asian strategies against the spread of coronavirus. In an interconnected
world that requires collaborative solutions, COVID-19 has emphasized
the dangers of U.S. cultural isolationism, systemic racism, hubris and the
uncompassionate responses that are the result.
Y. Chen (B)
e-mail: yuexuan.chen@duke.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9362-8_3
24 Y. CHEN
Keywords Wuhan · Identity · Coronavirus · Racism
A student in the audience at our coronavirus seminar asked whether it

would make a difference if China had access to Western social media
to have ordinary Chinese people’s voices heard. I responded no because
Chinese voices aren’t heard or taken seriously in the U.S. in any case.
Whether it’s war in Syria, sanctions in Iran or suffering somewhere in
Africa, the ‘other’ can tell their stories, but it doesn’t make much of a
difference when people fundamentally don’t see the other as equal and
worthy of life and empathy. In a country where interconnectedness is
replaced with individuality, it was unsurprising—yet no less hurtful—that
most people around me couldn’t grasp the chaos and despair unraveling
across the Pacific.
Hypervisible, Yet Invisible

Being Chinese during the coronavirus outbreak in February made me
feel hyper-visible and invisible at the same time. When people, including
my friends, talked about China as if it were on a different planet, I felt
myself internally screaming, “Why don’t you see me? I’m right here.”
In such a globalized world, China can’t be considered a world away
anymore, especially since so many identities and lives like mine straddle
both countries.
Although every other news headline was coming out of Wuhan in late
January and early February, I felt an emptiness to each story—full of
numbers and quotes but no life, and often portraying the same cultur-
ally insensitive, inaccurate and sinister China picture that I’ve seen my
whole life. I know most of America doesn’t see China as a place with all
kinds of people just like here, but the level of callousness and carelessness
of much of the reporting coming out of China nevertheless shocked me.
The imprecise and exoticized usage of the phrase ‘wet market’ is the first
example that comes to mind.
In a small attempt to fill those gaps, I wrote “Wuhan is home and its
doctors are family” in one sitting on February 6 for the Duke student
newspaper where I was the Health and Science editor. It was supposed to
be published in the next few days and in print, but a story on a basketball
game was more pressing than the humanitarian disaster that was putting
SEPARATE REALITIES: BEING WUHANESE AND AMERICAN … 25
all of China on hold and affecting every person with some kind of China
connection at Duke. Then, when my article was supposed to be published
again, the editor in chief said that a breaking news story about a swastika
painted on the bridge took precedence.
Finally, on February 14, after feeling gaslighted into thinking that
my story wasn’t time-sensitive or important, my story went live. The
outpour of hundreds of responses from the Duke community and beyond
shocked me to my core. My editor felt that the story wasn’t urgent, but
every response I received to it came with a great sense of urgency. Every
message about how someone was able to connect to my story left me in
tears. I grew so used to the constant contempt for Chinese people that
I could never have imagined my story on “Wuhan coronavirus” would
garner zero negative responses and was even featured in my hometown
paper, at the publication where I interned last summer in South Africa
and on a medical supplies donation NGO site.
Even at Duke, with a sister school outside of Shanghai created under a
partnership with Wuhan University and a substantial Chinese student and
faculty population, the general dialogue on coronavirus in February—
although touched by my story—continued to be largely unconcerned. It
was merely a touch. As the Health and Science editor, I continued to
pitch coronavirus related stories which were met with my editor saying,
“We’ve already done a lot of COVID-19 coverage.”
I met with my dean to discuss summer plans and mentioned that I got
the Kenan Fellowship grant for a project in South Africa that probably
won’t happen because of coronavirus. She said that coronavirus wasn’t
anything worse than the flu for healthy people, which echoed the New
York Times COVID-19 information panel stating that coronavirus was a
less immediate threat than the flu. I didn’t correct her because I under-
stood that people in America didn’t get exactly how bad the situation was
in Wuhan (and how difficult it was becoming in places like Iran, South
Korea, Singapore and Japan).
No normal flu could wreak that level of havoc anywhere in the
world. It’s not SARS, it’s not influenza—there was no accurate modern
comparison for the horror that COVID-19 caused in unprepared, caught-
off-guard situations. My best friend said that I and my other suitemate
from Beijing went overboard by telling the other two rowdy suitemates
that after spring break, they weren’t allowed to have social gatherings in
the living room. It wasn’t that serious, she said.
26 Y. CHEN
These are all people I care about and respect. They mean well. They
heard what I was saying, but weren’t listening. It was so much worse than
what people could imagine to be put effectively into words and I was
internally crying: why don’t you get it? At the same time, I questioned
my sanity.
COVID Is Here
From the end of January to the beginning of March, I felt like I was living
a double life. It seemed like everything was normal where I’d go about
my day attending class, skating practice and meetings, but every night, I
would go back to my dorm room to waves of terrible news about Wuhan,
where most of my family lives—praying to some sort of higher being for
any kind of respite and normalcy.
I also joined Dr. Gregory Gray’s Duke One Health lab in early
February, and I remember him saying right away that it wasn’t a ques-
tion of if, but when coronavirus was coming to Durham. COVID-19 was
already spreading in Singapore where some of our colleagues were. He
advised all of us to prepare some masks and enough food and supplies for
at least a week of unexpected lockdown.
It took until late March for these worlds to collide as COVID-19
ripped through America, Duke was shut down and Dr. Gray’s lab was
taking COVID-19 patient samples for research.
Mid-February, one of my suitemates had a lingering flu or cold.
Another girl who didn’t live in our suite but frequently visited said that
she had pneumonia. I was petrified and aggressively washed my hands
after touching every surface in our suite. February 22, I went out with
my two friends to a party where I had a terrible feeling that it might be
my last, at least until COVID-19 was under control. On February 24, I
was chatting with the editor during my Chronicle editing shift and he said
that he was going to Italy for spring break. I nervously laughed and said
that was not going to happen and was a terrible idea. He said that it was
already all planned out and he and his friend were going to the south,
not the north where an outbreak had already begun.
Still, people couldn’t comprehend the severity and unpredictability of
this disease. Chinese people weren’t some sort of alien, diseased and dirty
vector that caused infection rates to explode. China wasn’t locking down
and temporarily crippling their entire economy simply for the draconian,
authoritarian fun of it.
As soon as the first case of community spread was reported in Cali-

fornia on February 26, a cinematic jolt with a booming voice-over ran
across my mind: it’s here, it’s really here. At that point, I avoided crowds
and started awkwardly elbowing the handicapped door button instead of
touching the door handle. February 29 marked the first death in Wash-
ington state. On March 2, Dr. Gray mentioned in our weekly meeting
that the WHO was likely to announce a pandemic later that week.
March 3, the date of the panel that led to the creation of this book,
was the first recorded COVID-19 case in North Carolina in Wake County.
The same day, I joked about wanting to go to the Duke–UNC basketball
game with my American friends, but lamented about how dangerous the
game was to my Chinese friends. I wanted to write an opinion piece for
the Chronicle about the need to get rid of spectators for the Duke-UNC
game, but I also didn’t want to be hated by 99% of the Duke student
body and anger the dedicated Cameron Crazies who lived in tents for
months to see the game. There was no way it would have been allowed
to run in the paper anyway.
On the morning of March 7, my roommate from Beijing and I went to
the ice rink together in an Uber. An African-American man with a mask
picked us up and asked if we thought coronavirus was serious. We said
yes, talking about how we wanted to wear masks, but didn’t want to risk
getting assaulted. The driver listened intently as we spoke about how the
Duke–UNC game should be canceled with already two COVID-19 cases
nearby. He pulled his mask over his nose.
My parents drove down to fetch me from school for spring break
because airports and planes were too risky. Instead of booking a hotel,
I asked them to stay in my suite because two of my suitemates were
gone and I didn’t want my parents risking contracting COVID-19
from the Durham community. My suitemate from Beijing was more than
understanding.
That night, I went to an empty pregame to visit one of my friends.
One other person there shook my hand. I internally threw-up a little,
memorizing which hand I need to keep away from everything I touch
until I get the chance to wash it. I wanted to go to Duke–UNC Shooters,
the huge party that happens after winning the rivalry game of the season,
but I decided not to, telling my friend that I was tired when in fact, I
was scared of this virus. I canceled a date that weekend too because the
guy worked in a hospital. “Hahahaha, says the Chinese girl… I’ll try to
survive,” he texted back.
28 Y. CHEN
I went to another friend’s suite to say goodbye before break, sitting a

distance away on the couch. “I don’t have corona,” she said. I was hesi-
tant, but we cuddled and watched some unmemorable movie as I thought
about how it was likely the last cuddle I was going to experience before
the end of the pandemic. My mom told me to pack up my things and
take everything home because school was going to move online anyway.
I didn’t want to believe it would happen that quickly and without warning
from Duke, so I left all my stuff in my dorm where it was still sitting at
the time of writing this piece. I was in denial even though I knew my
mom was right.
On March 8, travel restrictions began in northern Italy and my parents
and I began our eight-hour drive home, stopping only for gas—careful to
use gloves, hand sanitizer and Lysol along the way.
On March 9, all of Italy locked down and six additional cases were
reported in North Carolina. That same day, I went to the dentist in
Ohio to get my tooth that needed urgent attention fixed. My mom and
I waited outside instead of the crowded waiting room. She pleaded with
the dentist to be extremely cautious and hygenic. “There are no cases here
yet, right?” he said. He drilled into my tooth with his face mask exposing
his nose. My mom pointed that out, and he said that it was uncomfortable
to speak with the mask over his nose.
Duke announced spring break was being extended on March 10 and
the WHO declared a pandemic on March 11. Soon after, the rest of
the semester was moved online. Later, a close friend shared that she lost
her sense of taste and smell right after the Duke–UNC game and found
out that her boyfriend’s dad tested positive for COVID-19 in the weeks
following.
By the end of that week, my family and I had canceled everything,
made some last runs to Costco, began to get all groceries and necessities
delivered and started avoiding travel anywhere beyond our front yard.
That same week, a classmate from Texas called, FaceTiming me from
a rock climbing gym. You shouldn’t be touching the same holds as
hundreds of people and panting in each others’ faces, I said. He brushed
it off. One month later, we chatted again and he expressed regret—an
understanding for why he shouldn’t have been climbing that day and how
squeezing in those last-minute bits of normalcy may have only worked to
prolong the pandemic and the recovery process.
Breaking the News, Over and Over

The pace of everything felt simultaneously fast and slow. As the exact
same news reports traveled like deja vu across the world, I couldn’t help
but ponder why nobody listened to what people from Wuhan to South
Korea to Italy had suffered through.
I tried to rationalize why it, for example, took fellow white nations to
convince the U.S. that masks are indeed useful to protect others in an
outbreak of a respiratory infection. The New York Times broke a story
from the front lines in New York on a doctor being flabbergasted by
the complexities of younger patients who walked into the hospital with
lethal levels of blood oxygen saturation in the morning, only to die in the
afternoon; the same exact story was investigated and published in detail
from the front lines of Wuhan over a month earlier. Perhaps, the news
media should consider some sort of service that could translate all the
different news reports around the world. Foreign correspondents could
take part in verifying work that was already done instead of starting from
scratch in their own reporting.
There were so many questions, assumptions and rumors spread around
how the situation in Wuhan unfolded instead of making the effort to
just get to know exactly what happened from front-line perspectives. And
no, that doesn’t mean a couple quotes and an oversimplification of a
single martyr, such as Li Wenliang, the opthamologist who is now glob-
ally renowned as the first whistleblower—in which he wasn’t actually the
first.
I followed one front-line doctor at the epicenter in Wuhan for two
months on her journey from opening her coronavirus ward to finally
being able to go home and see her kids. Two pieces on her were published
in Medscape Medical News. One commenter said that it was “such a nice
account of truth—our politicians should see this reality.” Another said,
“This is absolutely fantastic, thank you. It really helps answer a lot of the
questions we’ve had about what happened in Wuhan.”
In some ways, I feel like the work I have done in journalism covering
Wuhan has been stupid. Why is it that I’m the one writing these stories
and reporting them? I’m just a college student who was trying to enjoy
my junior year and study for my exams, but instead I spent my last
month of normalcy at Duke reeling and reporting about the emergency
of a lifetime. Yet, my lived experiences as a Chinese-born, Wuhan-rooted,
Ohio-raised, cross-culturally educated, world traveler who is studying
30 Y. CHEN
public policy, biology and journalism with a mother who went to medical
school in Wuhan put me in a strangely fateful position to write about this
pandemic.
However, every time I wrote something and got a stream of replies
about how my reporting brought a story that was a fresh news angle,
I felt like a fraud because, personally, it wasn’t news. It felt like stale,
common knowledge, considering the outbreak had been going on for so
long already.
Bigger Than COVID-19

Late March, I was in a Zoom conference call put together by the Dewitt
Wallace Center for Media & Democracy with a New York Times jour-
nalist presenting about how she put together a video on front-line doctors
in NYC. She said that she felt inspired and moved by seeing videos of
doctors in Italy speaking to each other about coronavirus. I asked how
she handled reporting what was basically the same story over and over
again. She said that it was a good question and that there were new angles
to write about. I asked if she also looked at the videos of Wuhan doctors
speaking to each other. She said no. I asked why. She said that she simply
didn’t think of it.
There’s this idea that we’re all so different and unique that we can’t
learn from each other, take each other seriously and critique without
the lens of bias and propaganda that we all have to work toward a
self-awareness of. Last summer, I wrote the following in my blog while
investigating the possible impact of fracking on freshwater resources in
South Africa: “There are layers to every country’s story and at a certain
point, you hit the bedrock of everything systemically wrong with that
nation. Sexism, racism, poverty, inequality, corruption and discrimina-
tion–to varying degrees and in different ways–make up the past and
present of our world.”
We are all subject to life on the same planet with probably less agency
than we convince ourselves we have. With all of the discussion and confu-
sion in the news and on social media about COVID-19, I’m left with
this question: How do we feel for and truly give consideration to others’
realities?
When I’m in Ohio, how do I feel connected to the front-line struggles
in New York City? When I’m consuming yet another product I online-
shopped for, how do I care about the rivers and people polluted on the
other side of the world? When a nation in which I’m a registered voter
invades a country with supposedly people who just aren’t the same, how
do I relate to lives that, at first glance, are too disparate to grasp?
In order to solve modern global problems, we’re going to have to
learn how to love people we feel like we can’t relate to and who don’t
look or talk like us. We are a product of our realities that are no longer
as independent from each other as they used to be in a pre-industrial
world. The closer the world grows from the internet and global trade, the
more we are exposed to the different realities around us and our increased
responsibility in empathizing for and learning from circumstances that
aren’t our own.
We are all too interconnected to allow innovation and solutions to
be limited within barriers set up by cultures, politics and borders. The
COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the big question for my genera-
tion. No longer what side are you on and for whom, but what are you
fighting for?
Observations on Wuhan Residents’ Diaries
Yanping Ni
Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has witnessed explosive produc-

tion of diaries characterized by first-person, spontaneous expressions and
contents filled with daily experiences in the context marking the virus
as the new norm. The city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus infection
first emerged and robust medical practices were first implemented, is no
exception in this regard. During the 76-day Wuhan quarantine, numerous
diaries of various presentation forms were created on Chinese social media
platforms by Wuhan ordinary residents, forming a unique set of data
for scholarly consultation from a micro perspective. This essay argues for
the necessity of examining this particular body of literature, and on this
premise, offers reflections and observations through both existing schol-
arship and evidence found in those diaries. An overlapping relationship
between the ordinary and the extraordinary, created by the quotidian
everyday life and the exceptionality of the situation in Wuhan respectively,
is particularly noted and carried along to showcase the “slow violence”
caused by the pandemic and quarantine policy to Wuhan residents’ daily
life. Critically, this essay also argues that the activity of creating diaries
Y. Ni (B)
e-mail: Yanping.ni@duke.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9362-8_4
34 Y. NI
per se functions as an outlet of “dis-ease” emotions via communication

between diary producers and audience in a shared temporality.
Keywords Coronavirus · Diary · Social media · Wuhan
Any online search with the keywords “coronavirus diary,” “COVID-19

diary,” or similar terms will guide us to a great amount of data. These
diaries, produced by individuals or communities differently affected by
the coronavirus pandemic around the globe, have shown great diversity
in terms of their forms (written, photo, video, etc.) and tones (formal
or casual, negative or positive, academic or non-academic, etc.). Yet,
this diversity can hardly conceal the essential element that characterizes
a diary, that is, the recording and representation of daily life, which
has seemed extraordinary in the COVID-19 context as the abnormal
pandemic status is turning into the new norm and affecting the tini-
ness in our life. Wuhan is no exception in this regard. Particularly during
its 76-day quarantine, from January 23 to April 8, a cascade of diaries
created by residents “sealed” with the virus in the city sprung up on social
media. They tell stories about an unprecedented crisis from an easily over-
looked yet important perspective—one down to the ground and into the
everyday—whether concise or lengthy, visual or literary, widely-consumed
or unnoticed.
The production of diaries during the Wuhan quarantine has been
significant in at least two aspects. First, Wuhan is the first city where
the COVID-19 infection was discovered and exploded and where robust
medical practices were implemented. Diaries on related incidents and
repercussions emerging there have also been the earliest, marking them
as recordings of people’s real, unaltered reactions to a sudden public
health crisis. Second and relatedly, according to Anthony Stavrianakis and
Laurence Anne Tessier (2020), China has been the only country that has
forcefully and successfully laid radical restrictions on its citizens’ phys-
ical movement, with Hubei set as “a grid on its territory.” The Wuhan
quarantine was certainly the core of China’s serial arrangements in the
name of public health. Unsurprisingly, controversies over the quarantine
came to the fore back then. Liu Shaohua (2020) views these controls
as impotent and superficial actions that could not authentically lead to
positive caregiving. Giorgio Agamben (2020) points out that medical
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the job that would bungle it. I've got an idea as to where the Greuze
is hidden, but I know very well that at the first hint of anything going
wrong it would disappear, or be destroyed."
"Then you think that the same people who brought off the
Flurscheim burglary are responsible for the despatch leakage?"
asked the Permanent Secretary.
"Certain of it," declared Inspector Kenly.
"But if you continue to work on my business, isn't what you fear
likely to come to pass? Will not another man be put on to the picture
robbery? Flurscheim will hardly keep silence."
"I'll see after that," answered Kenly. "From what I know of Mr.
Flurscheim he won't let the grass grow under his feet. He is probably
on the way to town now."
"Then what becomes of your plans?" asked the Permanent
Secretary. He could see that the detective had not revealed all that
was in his mind.
"Mr. Flurscheim wants to get his Greuze back undamaged," said
the detective slowly, "and he also wants to punish the man who stole
it. I shall see him directly he arrives in town, and I think I can make it
clear to him that he had better say nothing until I consider the time
ripe for action."
"There's only one thing more," remarked the Permanent
Secretary. "Suppose I think it necessary to ask Captain Marven for
an explanation?"
The detective jumped to his feet with a look of horror on his
face. "Good heavens! Sir Everard," he exclaimed, "you would spoil
everything. You won't do it?"
The Permanent Secretary laughed.
"You may make your mind easy, Kenly," he observed. "I'm too
much of a sportsman for that, I hope."
CHAPTER XX
GUY'S LAST THEFT
While Inspector Kenly was hastening to London events at

Whitsea were shaping themselves to the bewilderment of a number
of the inhabitants of that pleasant little yachting resort. There was
electricity in the air afflicting everyone with a vague disquietude.
Meriel, thinking over Guy's wild outburst after his passionate
declaration of love, felt a strange dread of what the day should bring
forth. Guy, fearing the result of the confession he had promised to
make, could see no sun behind the gathering clouds. Mrs. Marven,
noticing a new-born constraint between the two young people, began
to think that she had misread the signs which had seemed
confidently to predict a love-match. Captain Marven, less dubious on
this point, felt only vaguely uneasy. He therefore decided that the
electricity was not produced by mental disturbance, but was purely
atmospheric.
"There is thunder in the air," he declared, and counselled the
members of his household not to get far away from home.
But on the physical horizon there was no cloud. Guy, wishing to
be alone once more with Meriel, proposed that they should bring the
Witch home, and Meriel, fearless of the sun and longing for an end
to her suspense, acceded to the suggestion.
After an early lunch they started. The heat was greater than
ever, but Guy was heedless of it. He pulled at the oars as if physical
exertion was a panacea for a troubled mind. Meriel, watching him
from the stern as the dingey cut the water, rejoiced in his strength. At
least her lover was a man.
She wondered greatly what was on his mind. She was no
petticoated ignoramus of the world. She knew that men were
sometimes caught in feminine entanglements, and were sometimes
even ashamed of their folly. It might be that Guy had been so caught,
and felt in honour bound to acquaint her with his difficulty. She did
not want to hear. It was quite sufficient that he should desire that she
should know the worst of him. When he spoke she would stop him.
She was quite sure, even as she had said on the previous evening,
that nothing that had happened in the past could make any
difference.
The Witch rode to her anchor, with her stern pointing to the sea,
for the tide was still ebbing when they reached her side.
Meriel felt Guy's hand tremble as it clasped hers to assist her
aboard. She knew that the time had come when Guy would speak.
She could have cried aloud to him to remain forever silent, for a fear
came upon her that it was no youthful indiscretion which her
companion proposed to reveal, but something vital to their joint
happiness, something searing to their love. She put the thought
aside. Her love was her life: more, for it would endure after life itself
had departed.
"Are you listening, Meriel?" asked Guy a little later.
He had set the mainsail, and in the shadow it cast on deck he
had arranged cushions for her. She looked up at him in mute answer.
"Meriel, don't look at me, your eyes will make a coward of me,"
he said. "Look out on the horizon. Do you see the white sail yonder?
That boat is coming on the first of the tide. By the time she reaches
us you will have no wish to look upon me again."
She denied the statement vehemently.
"I know what I have to tell you," he answered steadily. "But first I
should like you to know something of the beliefs in which I was
brought up."
He told her first of Lynton Hora's enmity with the world, told her
of his philosophy, of his conception of mankind as a fortuitous
aggregation of warring atoms, each hypocritically desirous of
concealing his real intent from his neighbours.
"This I believed till I met you, Meriel," he said.
"But if that is all——" Her voice died away. Looking at him, she
saw his face had hardened.
"It is not all." He told her of his early training, of the practical
exposition of Hora's philosophy.
Meriel no longer looked at her companion's face. She began to
feel horror growing upon her. She gazed now at the white sail. It was
perceptibly nearer.
He carried the story of his life on to the point where he left the
University, told her how, merely in obedience to his father's advice,
he had not, during those days, practised the principles in which he
had believed. Hope began to grow again in her heart. She
murmured, "Go on," eagerly.
He told her of his earnest desire to win the approbation of his
father, depicted for her the glamour which the adventurous aspect of
his profession presented. Abruptly he told her of his first enterprise.
Meriel's heart almost ceased to beat. The white sails of the
oncoming boat fascinated her. They were very near now.
"That is not all, yet," he said. "There is one other thing you must
know." Paltering not at all, excusing himself in no way, he told her the
history of the stolen despatches.
He had not looked at her at all during the narration, but now he
ventured one glance. Her face was unnaturally pale.
"You know now why I could not ask you to marry me," he said. "I
cannot ask you to marry a thief. Yet, I want you to believe that, thief
though I am, I could not steal your love. You must believe that of me.
It is true." She heard him, but she made no answer. The boat she
had been watching had crept up until it was level. It passed. She
shivered in spite of the heat.
Guy had moved quietly away. She saw that the Witch had
swung on the tide. She watched him weigh the anchor and get the
boat under way with a curious fear in her heart; a fear for herself. In
looks, in bearing, in his manner, he was every inch a man, a man
that she loved. But he was a thief, the thief who had treacherously
robbed the man who had been a father to her, a thief for whom the
police were searching, a thief who might any day stand in the dock
as a felon.
"Guy is a thief! a thief! a thief!" She had to repeat the words to
herself again and again lest she should forget. Yes, he had been
quite right, she could never marry a thief. She supposed that she
ought to be thankful to him for having told her before she had
married him. She would have married him if he had not told her. But
he was wrong in saying that he could not steal her love. He had
stolen it. If she had known from the first she would never have given
her heart to him. But he had come and taken it away, and now that
he had given it back to her——
Guy had come to the tiller. She roused herself and looked into
his face.
"It is not true that you did not steal my love," she said. "You took
my heart from me, and you have broken it, and now you bring me
back the pieces and say you did not steal it." She spoke
dispassionately, as one who would argue the point.
Guy wondered at the tone until he saw the dazed look in the
girl's eyes.
"Meriel," he cried, "for God's sake don't look at me like that. Say
something, anything, if only it were to curse me. I had to tell you,
even though I knew that the telling would end my life's happiness."
"I had no reason to think that you were anything but an
honourable man. I had never mixed with any but honourable men,
and so I suppose I was deceived," she answered wearily. "I don't
suppose I ought to blame you."
She turned away, and going forward leaned upon the staff-rack
where she was hidden from his sight by the intervening sail. Tears
had come to her relief at last.
The boat drifted on with the tide. The sky was becoming
overcast and away in the north a heavy bunch of clouds was
gathering. A sudden breeze ruffled the surface of the water, and died
away as swiftly as it arose. A puff filled the sails. It came from the
south, another puff followed it from another quarter, heading the
Witch so that the sails flapped wildly. Guy had barely brought her up
to the wind before it veered again to the south. The Witch leaned
over under the pressure, and, gathering way, set the foam swirling
under her bows. As the squall strengthened the Witch began to talk,
and Guy cast an anxious look aloft. The squall died away and once
more the boat drifted. But the ten minutes' breeze had brought them
near home. They were amongst the other boats moored in the river
opposite the quay.
Meriel had not moved from her place forward. Her tears had
ceased to flow. In a few more minutes she would have said good-bye
to Guy and to love. She looked up. The Witch was drifting past Mr.
Hildebrand Flurscheim's yacht, and the connoisseur was on the
deck. Meriel recognised him at the same moment that she was
recognised. "Good afternoon, Miss Challys. Look out for the storm,
Mr. Hora," cried Flurscheim.
Was there a spice of mockery in his voice, or was it her fancy?
Meriel could not be certain. There had been a smile on Flurscheim's
face. Supposing he suspected that Guy was the man who had
robbed him of his treasure, Guy would be arrested. She knew in that
moment that all that he had told her had made no difference to her
affection. She knew that she loved him, thief as he was, that she
would do anything, make any sacrifice, to rescue him from the result
of his misdeeds. She left her post and went aft to Guy's side. A
distant flash of lightning illuminated Flurscheim's face. He was still
smiling as he gazed in their direction. She wondered whether Guy
had observed the Jew's expression. If so, he had paid no heed to it.
His whole attention was given to the boat, though now and again he
cast an anxious glance at the sky.
"Here comes the breeze again," he muttered. He gave a sigh of
relief as the sails filled. "Five minutes of it, and we shall escape the
storm," he said. The Witch heeled over till her rail was awash and
the foam creamed away in their wake.
Meriel looked back at Flurscheim. He waved his hand, and even
as he waved it he overbalanced and fell forward into the water. She
gave utterance to a sharp cry of alarm.
"What is it?" shouted Guy, for the rushing of the wind made
ordinary speech impossible to be heard.
"Flurscheim is overboard," she gasped.
Without a moment's hesitation Guy put the tiller down, and, as
the Witch came up into the wind, he glanced in the direction to which
Meriel pointed. A dark object was being borne swiftly along on the
tide. Guy kept the tiller down until the boat was before the wind, and
giving the mainsail more sheet, the Witch scudded back in the
direction she had come. But the dark object had disappeared.
"Can you manage the tiller?" shouted Guy.
Meriel nodded.
"Bring her up into the wind the moment I tell you," he said. He
cast loose the painter of the dingey towing aft, and stood with it in his
hand, watching patiently. The dark object reappeared not a dozen
yards away. He had already kicked off his boots. He dropped the
painter.
"Now," he shouted to Meriel, and took a header straight into the
tossing water.
Guy had not trusted to Meriel in vain. When he rose to the
surface and shook the water out of his eyes he saw that the yacht
was lying-to not half a cable's length away. He had barely time to
appreciate the fact when the object he had dived for floated towards
him. He caught a glimpse of a despairing face, and the next moment
he had grasped Flurscheim by the collar and was striking out
strongly in the direction of the dingey, drifting, like themselves, with
the tide, only a few yards away. Flurscheim had struggled when Guy
had first gripped him, but his struggles had soon ceased. Guy got
him to the side of the boat, but could not hoist him aboard. He threw
one arm over the stern and hung on, supporting Flurscheim with the
other hand. He had not to wait very long. The accident had been
observed from the deck of the connoisseur's yacht, and two of her
crew, tumbling hastily into their own dingey, came swiftly to the
rescue. Flurscheim was hauled aboard; Guy followed, and as he
bent over the Jew his eyes opened, and a glance of recognition
came into them.
"Not much the worse for your ducking, eh, Mr. Flurscheim?"
asked Guy.
The connoisseur struggled into a sitting position. He held out his
hand mutely. Guy took it for a moment in his, then turned to the men
who had come to their assistance.
He pointed to the drifting dingey. "If you'll get hold of that, I'll pull
myself aboard," he said quietly. "Mr. Flurscheim will be all right." He
was obeyed, and a minute later he stepped aboard the Witch, and,
once more taking the tiller, brought her up to the wind and steered
for home.
Meriel said nothing—what could she say? To her Guy's action
was heroic. His coolness, the absolute confidence with which he had
set about the work of rescue, the ease with which he had performed
the task he had set himself, revealed qualities which filled her with
admiration. Yet the man who possessed these qualities was a thief.
No, there was nothing she could say.
The Witch flew homewards, and the Hall came into view.
"Will you take the tiller again, Miss Challys?" he asked, as the
boat neared the buoy.
She took it from him mechanically. He went forward, hauled in
the foresail, and, as the boat came about, dropped the peak. The
Witch drove leisurely on to her moorings, and in a couple of minutes
she was fast. There was no time to waste. Meriel hastened to his
assistance. She worked side by side in stowing away the canvas.
The storm held off, though the clouds had nearly covered the sky by
the time everything had been made snug aboard.
"Come," said Guy, as he drew the dingey alongside. Meriel
stepped into the boat, and a dozen strokes took them to the bank.
"We shall just manage to get home before the storm breaks," he
continued, as he handed her ashore, and, following, made the
painter fast to the guide rope.
He was right in his estimate, though they had to hasten their
footsteps to gain shelter, for almost as soon as they had reached the
top of the wall the lightning blazed out, and the thunder crashed at
the same moment. Meriel had been on the verge of hysteria. The
atmospheric tumult had come at a time when her nerves were
shattered; she wanted to shriek, but her muscles seemed to fail her.
"A near thing," said Guy. The equability of his voice gave Meriel
renewed confidence. She looked up at his face and wondered that it
was flushed with delight. She stumbled, Guy's hand steadied her. He
caught her up in his arms, and carried her onwards. She felt a
delicious sense of safety, and immediately the thought followed—he
is a thief. They came to the lawn gate, and he set her on her feet.
She forgot the storm. She laid her hand on his arm. "Tell me it is
untrue," she cried.
He took both her hands in his. "I love you, Meriel," he said
simply. "I wish I could say, 'Yes, it is untrue,' but I cannot." He took
her arm, and hurried her across the lawn until they stood beneath
the porch. There, with one piteous glance, she left him without
another word.
His eyes followed her along the passage, then he turned and
went out into the storm. He was the only living thing abroad, and he
rejoiced in the solitude. He had no fear of the revolting elements.
Their mood suited his. He would have welcomed the flash which
should scar his body, even as the lightning of his emotions had
seared his soul. He had told himself that his story would kill the love
that he had seen springing up in Meriel's heart, but all the while he
had hoped that it would survive the stroke he would deal at the root.
How much he had hoped, he had not realised until he saw the
anguish on her face, until he saw that she had shrunk from him. He
could have borne anger, taunts even, but silence—the silence of
contempt, for so he translated Meriel's attitude—that filled him with
bitterness. There was no hope for him. He was overwhelmed with
youth's Byronic despair. Heedless of his path, he went onward. The
thunder crashed, later the rain fell, but he pressed onwards blindly.
The awakening came when the storm, passing away, gave
place to a golden sunset. Guy found himself far away from sight of
human habitation, with the sea on one hand and on the other the
saltings stretching away to the horizon. The passing of the storm
brought no renewal of hope to him. He was wearied mentally and
physically. He knew the direction in which Whitsea lay, and he turned
his face towards it.
It was dark by the time he arrived at the Hall, and he heard the
dinner gong as he entered the door. He did not obey his first impulse
to shirk facing the inmates of the house. He threw off his rain-sodden
clothes, and put on conventional dinner attire so swiftly that he was
ready before the second gong sounded.
"Meriel will not be down," said Mrs. Marven, as he entered the
drawing-room. "The storm has given her a headache. I am so sorry,
as it is your last evening."
Guy could only murmur something unintelligible while he told
himself bitterly that the girl would not even look upon him.
CHAPTER XXI
EXPECTATION
Lynton Hora felt more uneasiness than he would have

acknowledged at Guy's failure to communicate with him. Nor did the
daily reports with which Cornelius Jessel supplied him do anything to
allay his disquietude. These would have furnished entertainment for
the Commandatore had they related to anybody but Guy. Indeed, the
shadow-man's matter-of-fact chronicle of the day-by-day doings of a
young man in love would have been food for mirth to the mildest
cynic.
"Took G.'s shaving water at seven. D——d me because he
scraped himself shaving. Said I hadn't stropped the razors properly.
As soon as he was up he went into the garden and helped Miss
Challys syringe the rose trees. They went into breakfast together.
After breakfast he sent me down to the village to see if some music
he had ordered for Miss Challys had arrived. When I got back, found
he had gone out in the boat with Miss Challys for a sail. Did not
come back until dinner-time. Saw them come home. They had been
alone together all day. Heard the Captain say to Mrs. M., 'We shall
not have to wait very long now for an announcement.' She
answered, 'They hardly seem to remember that there's anybody else
in the world....'"
But Lynton Hora was not amused by the report as he would
have been had Guy taken him into his confidence respecting what
was obviously an affair of the heart. He knew Guy well enough to be
aware that he was always in deadly earnest in any pursuit in which
he was engaged, and he dreaded the influence which a pure,
straightforward woman might have upon him. If Meriel Challys had
been the sort of woman who amused herself by luring a man on to a
declaration, he would have been delighted at Guy's infatuation, the
lesson would have been good for him. But he could not lull his
forebodings by any such narcotic.
He saw Guy drifting away from him, throwing overboard the
whole cargo of criminal philosophy which had been so carefully
provided for him, at the bidding of a mere girl. He had no fear for
himself. Guy might recant the faith in which he had been brought up,
but Lynton Hora did not for a moment imagine that the recantation
would be accompanied by any treachery towards himself. Loyalty
was a distinguishing feature of Guy's nature. He would never reveal
anything which would injure the man whom he looked upon as
father. The Commandatore felt perfectly safe on that point, so long
as Guy should not learn, nor even suspect, that he, Lynton Hora,
was not his father—the Commandatore did not pursue the thought,
though he foresaw the possibility and had provided what he thought
would be a complete defence against any trouble to himself through
the awakening of such a suspicion. Lynton Hora left as little as
possible to chance, and ordinary caution had led him to anticipate
the possibility of the discovery of Guy's real parentage, even though
the possibility was of the remotest.
But it was not only the question of danger to himself which
troubled him. It was the thought that Guy would no longer be his son.
All those years he had spent in moulding the boy's mind had not
been without effect on Lynton Hora. Unknowingly he had given away
what he did not know that he possessed. It was in reality a real
human affection for his foster child which made him so perturbed.
Cold as he had always been in his outward demeanour, he had
learned, when Guy had departed to chambers of his own, that
without him life had somehow suddenly ceased to interest him. The
fanatical priest rearing the victim for sacrifice upon the altar of an
unappeasable deity suddenly realised that he had learned to love the
proposed victim. Yet, rather than he should fall under the influence of
the man whom he looked upon as his bitterest enemy, he would
have sacrificed the victim even if he should eternally regret the
oblation.
He did not, it is true, anticipate such necessity. He allowed for
Guy's youth. Youth was ever impressionable and romantic, changing
in its fancy, and ever amenable to the mutable feminine. Once let
him be removed from the presence of Meriel Challys and Hora
thought that Guy might be weaned from his obvious infatuation.
Indeed, there was a probability that his romantic imaginings might be
turned to account. The young man, floundering out of his depths in
the quicksands of romantic imaginings, might be easily captured by
the wiles of a really clever woman.
Hora set himself earnestly to work to tutor Myra in the part he
destined her to play in the recalling of Guy. He did so entirely by
suggestion. He had taken her away from London, telling her that she
needed sea air to restore the roses of her complexion, if she wished
to be beautiful in Guy's eyes when she returned to town. Then, when
away, he continued, day by day, hour by hour almost, to sting her
emotions. His sneers were all directed at the virtuous woman; never
had Myra found him so entertaining. He excited her imagination by
the books he brought her to read, tales of passionate surrender,
memoirs of the courts of bygone centuries, when love and lechery
were synonymous terms. He talked to her much of Guy, dwelling on
his physical attributes, declaring that he was as other men. If Myra
realised any intention in his words, she gave no sign of doing so.
Then one day, soon after leaving town, Hora gave a hint that
perhaps already some rival was claiming Guy's kisses. At that
suggestion Myra's eyes flashed dangerously. Hora noted the glance.
"You will take me home
again."
"There's only one perfect revenge upon a rival," Hora remarked,

"and that is to steal away the rival's lover."
"You don't mean to tell me that Guy——" said Myra, heedless of
the suggestion. She could not utter the words which would have
voiced her fear that Guy had already given his love to another.
"I tell you that there is a chit of a girl in the country who, if she
knew as much as you do, would have taken Guy from us long ago.
Fortunately she is a fool, or Guy would be lost; as it is, Myra, your
chance has not yet passed."
She hoped not, and though she doubted, Hora's confidence
reassured her.
That same afternoon, as they passed a stationer's shop, with a
window full of photographs of actresses, Hora paused and directed
her attention to the portrait of a flagrantly décolleté woman.
"You have a finer figure than that woman," he remarked.
Myra blushed, and they passed on without another word. Later
on Myra returned to the shop alone and obtained the photograph.
After dinner she let fall an observation that her wardrobe needed
replenishing. Hora grumbled, but she teased him into giving her a
cheque. His face was perfectly grave. Next day she sent the
photograph and the cheque, accompanied by a long letter of
instructions, to Madame Gabrielle, her London dressmaker. Three
days later Madame Gabrielle arrived in Scarborough and Myra gave
the whole morning to the tedious business of fitting. Hora asked no
questions.
The day came for their return to town. Myra was feverishly
anxious to be off, fearful lest Guy should be back before them,
fearful lest he should not come back at all. He had not written once,
either to her or to Hora during the whole fortnight. Hora did his best
to mitigate her obvious anxiety.
"No doubt we shall find a letter waiting for us on our return," he
said.
His surmise proved correct. The letter which Jessel had posted
for Guy that same morning at Whitsea was lying on the table in the
entrance hall. Myra seized it eagerly. Her colour came and went as
Hora opened it deliberately.
"What does he say? When is he coming?" she cried.
For answer Hora read the letter aloud.
"I am returning to town to-morrow, after spending a fortnight with
Captain Marven, and I have something important to tell you. I am
afraid you won't like what I have to say, but I cannot help myself,
even if it should lead to a parting of our ways. Yes, I fear it has come
to that. I will come in to-morrow after dinner, if you will be at home."
That was all. Hora's voice became harsh as he read, and as he
finished he crumbled the letter in his hand, and threw it aside.
"A parting of the ways. It has come to that, has it?" he muttered.
His face grew dark and his eyes flashed dangerously. "A parting of
the ways, and all for the sake of a milk-and-water country girl. What
do you say to that, Myra?"
He turned suddenly upon his companion. He was almost
alarmed at what he saw. Her face was deathlike in its pallor, and in
her pale face her dark eyes flashed with unnatural brightness. She
reeled slightly and grasped with both hands at a table to steady
herself. He did not press the question. He led her to a chair, turned
swiftly to a tantalus, and, pouring brandy into a glass, held it to her
lips.
"You fool," he said, and his tone was kindly, though his words
were rough. "You fool, to set such store by any piece of mere frail
humanity. Drink this."
Myra obeyed the command. Gradually the colour came back to
her cheeks. She sat up, but her mouth drooped at the corners, there
was despair in her eyes.
"I could not help but give him my love," she said protestingly,
"and he will have none of it."
Hora turned aside, and paced the room irresolutely. He seated
himself at a writing-table, scribbled rapidly, and, when he had
finished, brought the note over to Myra. She read it listlessly.
"Dear Guy," Hora had written, "you are a most amazing person,
and I haven't the slightest idea as to the meaning of your
melodramatic phrases. You know you may always please yourself as
to anything you choose to do. If you do not like your profession, by
all means change it for any of the legalised forms of plunder, but,
even if this is in your thoughts, you need not worry over it. A man
has an inalienable right to please himself, and I shall not think less of
you for making your own decision, even if that decision is one which
destroys all my hopes of a successor. You will find I can discuss the
matter quite philosophically, but come before dinner to-morrow night,
and we will have a quiet chat over a cigar afterwards. If our ways are
to lie apart, you need not quite desert us. Perhaps you might even
convince me, not, perhaps, that my calling is not as honourable as
any other parasitic method of living, but that I might do well at my
age to retire from the active practice of my profession. Dinner at
8.30. Yours, Lynton Hora."
Myra read the letter, but the perusual brought no hope to her.
Hora folded it, placed it in an envelope, sealed and stamped it
deliberately. He rang the bell and ordered the letter to be posted.
Myra still sat silent. Then Hora said to her quietly:
"You will have to entertain Guy alone to-morrow, Myra. I shall be
called away on important business."
"I cannot, indeed I cannot," she cried.
He continued deaf to her protest. "It is your only chance, Myra.
To-morrow night you must win him or lose him forever. You must not
fail——"
He turned and left the room, leaving the threat unspoken.
She sat there long after he departed.
Her only chance! In one or two brief hours she must bind Guy to
her indissolubly. Hora had taught her, without ever once uttering a
word which might offend, how she could win him if she so chose. He
had insisted upon Guy's chivalrous nature. He had insisted, too, that
the most Puritanical of men could be fascinated by an appeal to the
senses. Thoughts came to her which set her cheeks burning. But
she could not banish those thoughts. She remained motionless until
a maid appeared to ask if she could see Madame Gabrielle.
"Yes, at once," she answered. "Bring her to my room."
Her listlessness had entirely departed as she rose and hurried
after the maid. A minute later the dressmaker was ushered into her
presence. The woman was a voluble specimen of her type, and as
she unpacked the box she descanted freely on the beauties of the
"creation" she had brought with her. She became more voluble than
ever when Myra was robed in the new frock.
"Ah, but it is ravishing; mademoiselle's figure is magnificent, and
the tint suits mademoiselle's complexion and colouring to perfection.
Oh, but it is a pity mademoiselle is in London. Only in Paris could
such a work of art be appreciated. Ah, mademoiselle has the right
idea of dress. It is a pleasure to make for her."
With deft fingers she fluttered round, settling a tuck here,
smoothing a fold there. "Let mademoiselle observe for herself," said
the woman.
Myra surveyed herself in the full-length mirror. Madame
Gabrielle was right. Her skin was dazzlingly fair against the dull rose
tint of the fabric. Cleverly, too, had the modiste followed the lines of
her customer's figure. Not a single graceful curve had been hidden.
Yet Myra felt no sense of nudity. All outlines were softened by careful
arrangement of chiffon.
Myra turned to the woman. "You have carried out my idea
exactly. I am very pleased," she said.
Madame Gabrielle beamed with gratification. She began again
to express her pleasure in gowning such a perfect figure. Myra cut
her short. She wanted to be alone. When the woman had departed,
she approached the mirror again and looked steadily at the
reflection. Taking up a hand glass, she moved backwards and
forwards, up and down, posturing in a score of different ways. Then
suddenly she flung herself down upon her knees by the side of a
chair and threw her arms in the air with a cry of despair. Something
gave way in the new frock, but she paid no heed.
"Oh, Guy, Guy!" she wailed. But the cry was hardly uttered
before it was checked. She bit her lip, and looked again at the mirror
to gather courage.
She blushed. A string had broken, and the bodice had slipped.
Suppose that Guy had answered her call. Her heart beat almost as
tumultuously as if he had been present. She made a pin do service
for the broken string, and, smiling again, went in search of Hora.
She found him in his study with a volume of the "Arabian Nights"
open before him, but with his eyes gazing into vacancy. He did not
glance at her as she entered. She moved gracefully across the room
until she stood before him, then she asked simply:
"Shall I do, Commandatore?"
Her voice was low, alluring, with a spice of mockery in it. Hora
looked up impatiently, and he caught his breath. His impatience
vanished. A smile passed over his face. Then he looked critically at
his vis-à-vis, so critically that Myra flushed rosily and half turned
away.
"Do?" said Hora. "If I had lived in the fifteenth century, I should
have declared that you had been taking counsel with the devil."
"Perhaps I have," she replied, but the mockery was still in her
voice.
"I believe you could bewitch even me, if you chose," he said as
he looked again. "You would serve for a picture of temptation
incarnate."
She laughed happily, and her eyes shone softly.
"It is for Guy," she answered, "all for Guy."
Lynton Hora recovered his wonted mood.
"Lucky young devil," he remarked cynically. His mood changed
again. "Look here, Myra," he cried. "You and Guy must be married
as soon as it can be managed. No, you need not interrupt me. You
can keep him here until I return, and a special license can be
obtained. When he leaves this flat it must be only with his bride. I will
make all arrangements, and"—he paused before continuing,
—"afterwards, you shall have your wish. Guy shall engage in no
more dangerous enterprises. We will sign an armistice with the
world."
Myra gave a cry of delight. She seized Hora's hand, pressing it
between her own two palms. "You are too good to me,
Commandatore," she said earnestly. "So good to me, and yet I fear. I
—I don't want the license. I only want Guy to love me; if—if he
doesn't——"
Tears stood in her eyes, and a sob choked her utterance.
"Guy cannot but love you," answered Hora, and he truly
believed what he said. "No man in his senses could reject such
devotion as yours, when once he is aware of its depths."
"But—I—I cannot tell him," she said helplessly, dropping her
hand.
Hora looked at her curiously.
"No?" he said. "There will be plenty of time for that afterwards.
First you have to win him." He caught one of her hands in his own,
and something of his own virile power seemed to be transmitted to
her. "You are irresistible in some moods, Myra, and, if I were forty
years younger and could be foolish again, I would take care that Guy
never came near you. If you wish, you may be as certain of winning
him as that to-morrow will dawn." His tone denoted absolute
conviction.
Myra drew away her hand.
"Good-night, Commandatore," she said. She gave him her
cheek, and he brushed it lightly with his lips before she turned away
and left him without another word.
"Good heavens!" he muttered to himself, when the door closed
behind her. "If I were forty years younger——" He smiled cynically,
and added:
"I don't think we have come to the parting of the ways just yet,
Guy."
CHAPTER XXII
TEMPTATION
The last evening Guy had spent at Whitsea had seemed

interminable. Both his host and hostess had observed his
depression, but tactfully took no notice. Then when Guy was alone
with Captain Marven he had braced himself to give what explanation
he could. He spoke of his love for Meriel—Captain Marven was
sympathetic. He spoke of its hopelessness—Captain Marven
wondered. Haltingly he revealed that he had considered it his duty to
disclose facts concerning himself which had placed an insuperable
barrier between them. The initial embarrassment in finding speech
once surmounted, he had no difficulty in making clear to his host that
it would be best that he should depart by the earliest possible train.
Captain Marven was greatly disturbed. Guy's veiled allusions were
without meaning to him. He even feared that the young man's brain
was disordered, though his demeanour was calm enough to
reassure him. He begged Guy to confide in him fully. Guy longed to
do so, but refrained. The thought of his father restrained him. Marven
was compelled to agree that it was best for him to depart without
further speech with Meriel.
So Guy left Whitsea without even seeing Meriel again. He had
hungered for another glance from her eyes, another touch of her
fingers, but neither had been vouchsafed to him.
He left early in the morning, and only Captain Marven bade him
adieu. The Captain's hearty handshake was comforting, even though
Guy felt, as the warm grasp closed on his, that it was given under
false pretences. He loathed himself more than ever at that moment,
and there crept into his mind the determination to make amends.
But how? Guy could think of no way, for there was his father to
be considered. He would have liked to say to Captain Marven: "You
must not take my hand. I have obtained your friendship under false
pretences. I have robbed you of your trust. Now I ask you to name
the punishment." That would be manly, but it would be treachery to
Hora.
Guy groaned in his spirit. One thing he was determined upon. In
the future the son should not tread in the steps of his father. Hora's
arguments might convince his understanding, but they would not
bear the test of practical application. The world was not the
agglomeration of warring atoms he had been taught to believe.
Honesty was not a pious hypocrisy with which men deluded
themselves. A courage for the forbidden was not the greatest of all
virtues. Meriel had shattered all these old beliefs. He knew that they
were gone forever, that in the future Lynton Hora's predatory
philosophy would cease to appeal to him. But he had nothing to take
the place of these shattered principles. Nothing but the memory of a
girl who, loving him, thrust him away in horror that he should be a
thief. He loathed himself because he should be an object of loathing
to her. He could not bear the idea that his needs should be supplied
by means which awakened her to such disgust. At least it was within
his power to alter that. He could go out into the world and make his
own way honestly. If he could not win Meriel, at least he could prove
himself worthy of her. But that would necessitate his cutting himself
adrift from Hora entirely. Well, he would pay that price gladly. He
would waste no time before doing so. Yet, though he arrived early in
town, he did not go at once to Westminster Mansions.
He found Hora's letter awaiting him at his own abode, and was
surprised, even touched, by its contents. Hora seemed to have
guessed at the upheaval his opinions had undergone, and to be
prepared to meet him halfway. Guy was relieved at the thought. He
had dreaded his father's gibes more than aught else, and he
wondered what should have happened to have so suddenly made
the Commandatore malleable to a mere suggestion—he who had
always been so fiercely insistent upon his right to dominate the lives
of his children. Guy puzzled for hours for an answer. He did not
distrust Hora. The Commandatore had not been accustomed to
deceive him.
Thus preyed upon by a whole host of conflicting thoughts, Guy
passed the day, and at last the hour arrived when he was due at
Westminster Mansions. He was averse to accepting Hora's
hospitality, to sit at the table supplied by means he had learnt to
detest. In a few hours his thoughts had travelled a tremendous
distance. He was not of the type which palters with convictions. Just
as whole-heartedly as he had adopted Hora's teachings, he was
prepared to tread the path of rectitude. But he felt that he would not
be at peace with himself until he had divested himself of every
vestige of the products of his evil deeds. Yet, though the acceptance
of Hora's invitation savoured of compromise, he realised that it would
be ungracious to refuse. Hora had been good to him, even if
misguided. There was no need that they should part in anger.
It was with the sense of a prisoner under sentence of death that
he dressed. Cornelius might have been a warder assisting him on
the execution morn. It was for the last time. To-morrow he would be
quite alone. He set his teeth grimly and fought against the feeling of
depression as he drove to Westminster Mansions. His mind was
abnormally active. He observed details that would have escaped his
attention under ordinary circumstances. He saw that the hall porter
looked at him curiously, and wondered why. The deferential welcome
of the lift man irritated him.
Arrived at the flat he felt in his pocket for the key of the outer
door which Lynton Hora had insisted upon his retaining, and he was
annoyed to find that he had left it at his chambers. He had intended
to leave it behind him. He rang, and the man who opened the door
seemed surprised.
"Is my father in?" he asked, as he handed the man his hat.
"No, sir," the man answered.
Guy paused irresolutely. He himself was late. "Won't he be back
for dinner?" he asked. Before he could reply the door of the drawing-
room opened.
"Is that you, Guy? How is it that you troubled to ring? Have you
lost your key?"
Myra came, with outstretched hands, to greet him. "Welch, take
Mr. Guy's coat, and we will have dinner served at once," she said to
the man, and, turning to Guy, she continued rapidly:
"The Commandatore was called away on business, and he told
me not to wait dinner. He expects to be back during the evening."
Guy submitted, and followed her into the drawing-room.
"You are a stranger, Guy," she said. "I think it is downright mean
of you to desert us."
Guy, meeting her glance, told himself that he had been
egregiously mistaken in thinking that Myra had ever thought of him
save as a brother.
"You don't seem to have suffered from my absence," he said
lightly.
"Don't you think I have grown thin?" she answered. There was
mockery in her tone.
Guy was glad to find her in so cheerful a mood. He smiled back
at her, and for the first time looked at her with seeing eyes. She
stood before him in the perfection of her young womanhood, glowing
with health and youth and beauty. Truly she was beautiful. He
wondered that he not realised how beautiful before. He did not know
how carefully she had studied the part she intended to play. He had
no idea that the gown, which adorned and but half concealed the
contours of her figure, had been expressly designed for his
allurement.
"I have never seen you looking so well," he answered.
She saw the admiration in his glance, but gave no sign of doing
so, though her heart began to throb with hope.
"I'm afraid I can't return the compliment," she answered. "You
look as if you hadn't been to bed for a week. Now come along in to
dinner and tell me what you have been doing with yourself."
She took his arm, and they entered the dining-room together.
"For the last time, perhaps," he murmured to himself regretfully. Myra
was a good sort, he mused. Despite her waves of anger she had
always been thoughtful of his welfare. Yet she was part of Hora's life.
He forgot her momentarily in his surroundings. Everything was so
homelike. Meriel Challys was an occupant of dreamland, surely, and
he had never really experienced all the mental disturbances which
had troubled him. He awoke to reality with the popping of a cork.
"No wine," he said.
Myra pouted rosy lips at him. "I insist," she replied imperiously.
"In default of a fatted calf, which one cannot possibly get served in a
flat, I insist upon champagne."
She lifted her glass to her lips. "May all our hopes come true!"
she said, and drank.
There was something infectious in her gaiety. Guy raised his
glass in response. "Amen!" he said fervently. The wine brought
colour to his cheeks and brightness to his eyes. He suddenly
remembered that he was hungry, and that he had eaten nothing
since breakfast, and that then a bare morsel of toast had been
almost more than he could swallow. Myra watched him with a smile
ever on her lips, and chattered vivaciously of Scarborough. She did
not ask him concerning his doings. She desired to lull his memories
to rest, and Guy was willing to let them slumber. He did not perceive
that danger threatened his new-made resolutions.
Under the spell of Myra's vivacity he became his natural self. He
was even surprised when he found himself laughing naturally. The
dinner was not too long, and every dish, Guy noted, was one for
which at one time or another he had expressed a preference. He
was thirsty, and his glass was always full.
The dinner came to an end.
"We will have coffee in the drawing-room," she said. "Then I can
smoke, too."
He rose and accompanied her. Her hope was growing strong
now. She was satisfied with her work so far. She had never before
held Guy's interest for so long a time.
"Your old chair," she said to him, as they entered together.
A fire was blazing merrily on the hearth, for the heat wave which
had swept the city had been driven away by the storm, and the night
was cold.
"Fires in August," he said, as he entered.
She looked at him strangely.
"There's something comforting to me in the fire," she answered.
"Especially now I'm so much alone. I often have one lighted
whatever the thermometer says, and sit for hours looking into it."
She knelt down on the snowy fur of the rug, and stretched her
arms to the blaze.
Guy was stricken again with a sense of her beauty. Her eyes
were half closed. She might have been a priestess offering an
oblation to the spurting flames which threw rosy shadows on her
face and arms and shoulders.
"I love the fire," she said dreamily. "I think I am almost a fire-
worshipper. When the flames spring up, my heart rejoices so that I
can sing aloud, and when they die down into a dull red glow, I can
dream and dream. But when the fire is out—Guy! Don't you just hate
ashes—cold ashes?"
She turned on him suddenly.
He did not know what to reply. He did not know Myra in this
mood.
She looked again into the fire.
"The end of everything is ashes, and so I would wish the fire
never to go out. Some day our fires will be out, and we shall be
ashes, too. Do you ever think of that, Guy?"
He thought bitterly that his hopes were ashes already, but he
strove to infuse cheerfulness into his reply.
"Isn't that rather morbid, Myra?" he said.
She turned towards him again, and laid her hand on the arm of
his chair. "No," she answered. "I say to myself, make the most of the
fire while it is there, for to ashes it must come at last. That's no
morbid doctrine." She laughed joyously, and shot a glance at him
beneath her eyelids. "The fire is alight in us both, Guy. The fire of
youth and health and strength. Ought we not to make the most of the
fire before it burns itself out?"
For half a moment Guy was startled. The glance, the words, the
covert invitation of the outstretched arms dazed him. Almost he
believed that the invitation was to him. But the thought passed. Myra
was laughing again. "You see, I am growing up, Guy," she remarked.
A man brought in coffee and liquors. Myra waited on Guy,
bringing him a cigarette and lighting it for him, as he sat in his chair.
Then she perched herself on the arm to light her own cigarette from
his. As she bent over him a sudden mad impulse to clasp her in his
arms seized him. A memory—the memory of Meriel—came before
him and the impulse passed, but it left him strangely agitated.
Myra seemed to observe nothing of this emotion. She threw
herself at length upon the rug, resting her head on her hand, gazing
into the fire. The sinuous lines of her figure were outlined clearly
against the whiteness of the rug. She rose suddenly, and without a
word snapped off the electric lights and, returning, threw herself
down again in the same attitude. She seemed oblivious of his
presence. The murmur of the traffic entered through the open
window, the firelight flickered. Guy began to feel as if some unknown
agency were at work to deprive him of his senses. Myra's words
dwelt in his mind. "The fire is alight in us both, Guy. Ought we not to
make the most of the fire before it burns itself out?"
There was a murmur of voices in the hall. Guy listened. Perhaps
the Commandatore had returned. A door closed sharply. There was
no other sound. He realised then that the servants had gone. He was
alone with Myra in the flat. It had happened hundreds of times
previously, but never had he realised it before. Perhaps it was that
the Myra with whom he had dined was so entirely new to him, an
utterly different Myra to the sisterly being with whom he had
quarrelled and petted when they lived under the same roof.
Supposing Hora should not return——
Myra was looking at him. She had turned where she lay and
resting on her elbows she was gazing up at him. There was a
challenge in her glance.
"Am I beautiful, Guy?" she asked.
His brain whirled. He fought against the web which seemed to
be enveloping him against his will. He did not know that the languor
which possessed him was largely due to reaction after the mental
and physical strain he had so recently undergone. His voice was
husky as he evaded the question.
"What strange devil possesses you to-night, Myra?"
"I am beautiful, am I not?" she repeated.
She had drawn herself up to his knees, and knelt beside his
chair.
"You have never told me I am beautiful," she whispered
coaxingly. Her hair brushed his cheeks. Her lips were very near his.
Without his will, it seemed, his hand fell upon her firm white arm, and
he thrilled at the touch.
"Myra, Myra, you will steal away my soul."
The cry was wrung from him.
Her eyes flashed. It was as if the fire she had spoken of had
burst into a blaze.
"I have given you mine long ago," she answered. Her arms were
thrown about him. "Guy, don't you know, haven't you seen how I love
you?" She whispered the words tremulously while her drooping lids
half veiled the passion glowing in her eyes, and her bosom rose and
fell stormily. "No one can ever love you as I love you, Guy."
She thought she was secure of victory. Her lips half parted for
the expected kiss. Guy had risen, holding her tightly to him. She
drooped in his arms. Almost he was won. "You have stolen my love,"
she murmured.
What strange fate brought those particular words to her lips?
Guy, thrilling in response to the passion which throbbed in her veins,
his senses enthralled by the diablerie of her beauty, remembered
that Meriel had used the very same words. He forgot where he was.
Once again he was on the deck of the yacht, becalmed, and hope
had passed him by with a flowing sail. Had hope come again? Myra
loved him. And he had not stolen her love. His conscience was clear
there. Yet she loved him, and he was hungry for love. Could he give
her love in return? He knew that he could not. Passion he could give,
a short-lived fire. No, no, no! A thousand times no. It would be
desecration of the memory he cherished. The conflict was brief.
He gently loosened the entwining arms which held him. He
could not trust himself to speak. He placed the girl gently in the chair
and turned away. She sprang after him, realising his intention.
"Guy," she cried, "you cannot be so cruel."
There was agony in her voice, and despair in her gesture. She
was carried away by the violence of her emotion.
"I only ask you to love me a little." Her words were those of a
child pleading. "I will be so good, so good. I only want to be near
you, Guy. I won't ask you to be all mine, only that sometimes you will
be kind and remember me." Her mood changed. She threw herself
to her knees. "I am beautiful, Guy, I know I am beautiful. There are
not many women so beautiful as I am, Guy, and——" She held up
her hands pleadingly. "You won't leave me all alone—stop just this
once, Guy."
He held her hands tightly, and as she looked into his eyes she
knew that her hope was vain. Her mouth drooped at the corners.
She freed her hands and dropped, a pathetic figure of despair, on to
the rug.
Guy walked to the door. But he could not leave her so. He came
back and knelt beside her.
"If I believed in God, I would say, 'God help both of us, Myra.'"
There was a quiver of pain in his voice. "I, too, love, and my love is
hopeless. I did not know, Myra."
She was listening, and now she raised herself. The passion had
gone out of her face. Her eyes were dull.
"It does not matter," she said. "I have been a fool."
He paid no heed to her words, but went on steadily.
"My love is hopeless," he said. "I do not think I can ever love
again, but here am I, and if you think"—he hesitated a moment—"if
you think I can make you happy in any way—Myra, will you marry
me? You shall have no cause to complain."
A sob shook her frame. "No," she said, "I have been a fool. It is
your love I want, and now I know it cannot be mine, I want to be
alone." She pointed to the fire. "The flames have died away. Soon
there will only be dead ashes. Help me up, Guy." He assisted her to
rise. "I think I'll go to bed, Guy," she said. "Good-night."
She held out one hand. He took both, and, drawing her to him,
kissed her. She responded with a kiss innocent as a child's.
When she passed out he left the door ajar. Later on he went to
the door of her room and listened. He could hear her regular
breathing and judged she slept. Yet he kept vigil until the dawn
broke. Then he ventured to peep into her room. Yes, she slept with
tears glistening on her eyelashes. The fear which had beset him, lest
she should have been tempted to end her life, was relieved. He put
on his coat and hat, and let himself out.
"Poor Myra!" he thought pityingly. He was developing rapidly.
The previous morning he had been pitying himself.

The Coronavirus Human Social and Political Implications James Miller Full Chapter

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The Coronavirus: Human, Social and

Political Implications James Miller

Edited by James Miller

ISBN 978-981-15-9361-1 ISBN 978-981-15-9362-8 (eBook)

Cover illustration: © Melisa Hasan

China’s knowledge of contagious, epidemic, and pandemic disease is long

one person to another.2 Climatic fluctuations were understood to be

borrowing of local governments and a potential rise in corruption among

Memoir and Reflection

Arresting COVID-19: Perspectives from a Sino-US Joint

Memory, Storytelling and GIS Digital Archive:

Separate Realities: Being Wuhanese and American

Observations on Wuhan Residents’ Diaries 33

On the Epistemic Condition of Pandemic in a Globalized

Context and Analysis

Black and White Swans: Pandemics, Prognostications,

The Information Politics of COVID-19 in China 69

The Political and Economic Consequences of COVID-19

About the Editor

James Miller is Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Strategy, co-director

Benjamin L. Bacon is a computational media artist, designer, and musi-

Keywords US-China relations · Joint venture universities · Duke

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to 3

involved. Among the nine JV universities, three involve US institutions:

The Onset of COVID-19: Quick

created a series of new virtual student experiences to complement what

Key Lessons Learned

times. While the unplanned additional financial outlays needed to support

Benjamin L. Bacon and Weijing Xu

Abstract The COVID-19 Memory Archival Project is an educational

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to 13

Keywords Memory · Archive · Coronavirus

In the winter of 2019, a novel coronavirus was quietly spreading through

the larger collective, The COVID-19 Archival Project emerged through

between public understanding and scholarship (Teo and Onaga 2019). In

Student Story Map Collection

other multimedia features (The COVID-19 Memory Archival Project

each churned out their own narratives in support of leadership decisions.

for individuality and expression. However, it would be remiss to say that

a new investigative methodology between representation and intervention

Abstract Navigating the coronavirus pandemic as a Chinese-American

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to 23

Keywords Wuhan · Identity · Coronavirus · Racism

A student in the audience at our coronavirus seminar asked whether it

Hypervisible, Yet Invisible

As soon as the first case of community spread was reported in Cali-

I went to another friend’s suite to say goodbye before break, sitting a

Breaking the News, Over and Over

Bigger Than COVID-19

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has witnessed explosive produc-

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to 33

per se functions as an outlet of “dis-ease” emotions via communication

Keywords Coronavirus · Diary · Social media · Wuhan

Any online search with the keywords “coronavirus diary,” “COVID-19

While Inspector Kenly was hastening to London events at

Lynton Hora felt more uneasiness than he would have

"There's only one perfect revenge upon a rival," Hora remarked,

The last evening Guy had spent at Whitsea had seemed

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