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“I carried out my plan because I felt the Chief had some fear of those of my race, of those uncountable forebears whose culmination lies in me. I wished to prove to him that a yellow man could save his armies.”

Early in the story, Yu Tsun describes his motivations for the drastic actions he takes in the story. Although a wartime spy might be expected to act out of love for one’s country or hatred of the enemy, Yu Tsun does not feel a hatred of England or an allegiance to Germany. Instead, he acts out of a desire to prove to the Chief that his racist beliefs are wrong. Throughout the story, Yu Tsun shows a deep love for and pride in his Chinese culture. Borges demonstrates that he also respects and admires other cultures, indicating his admiration for the Englishman Stephen Albert by comparing him to the German literary great Goethe. He finds the Chinese elements of Albert’s home and garden to be particularly beautiful, and it is his pride in his heritage that drives him to attempt to prove his worth to the Chief, despite the fact that this forces him to kill the English scholar and Sinologist whom he admires so greatly.

“He knew that my problem was to shout, with my feeble voice, above the tumult of war, the name of the city called Albert, and that I had no other course open to me than to kill someone of that name. He does not know, for no one can, of my infinite penitence and sickness of the heart.”

The closing lines of the story portray the internal tension within Yu Tsun over his actions as a spy and his private thoughts and feelings. As a spy, Yu Tsun acts decisively and boldly. He feels triumph at his success in communicating the secret of the location of the British military encampment at Albert, despite losing his connection to the German spy network after Madden’s discovery of Runeberg. At the same time, his internal life throughout the story shows him to be a sensitive man who contemplates the world beyond the level of political intrigue. In the closing paragraph, he is both proud that his plan has worked and filled with sorrow that his success required him to murder Stephen Albert, a man he admired deeply who showed him the value of his great-grandfather’s work.

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