Mrs. Wang snorted contemptuously. “When you were young? I—I don’t believe you were ever young.”
Wang turned red in the face, and Hung-chien quickly said that they did not mean to be ungrateful to Mr. and Mrs. Wang for their good intentions, but they would like to know who the girls were.
Mrs. Wang clapped her hands and said, “Ah ha! So Mr. Fang would like to know. The identities of the two young women are heaven’s secrets and not to be revealed. Ch’u-hou, don’t tell them.”
Having been given this affectionate order by his wife, Wang, regaining his composure, said, “You will find out when you come tomorrow. Don’t take it too seriously. It’s just a chance for everyone to get together. If you are completely uninterested, what difference will it make to have a meal together? It’s not something the other could hold against you or take you to court for. Ha, ha. But I have some earnest advice for you. It doesn’t look as though this war will be over in a year or two; it’s apt to drag on for a long, long time. If you wait for peace to come before getting married, your own youth will slip by. As they say, ‘Don’t put off what is best done now.’ That’s quite right. Once you two get married, your careers and your personal lives will both benefit. Our school has a great future, though it’s not easy to hire people right away. In the case of talented men like yourselves—Hsien, haven’t I always been telling you about these two?—who are willing to condescend to come here, the school certainly won’t let you go. If you got married and settled down here permanently, the school would benefit greatly. As for me—don’t mention this to anyone—next semester I may be in charge of the College of Letters. The Department of Education is going to split off from the College of Letters and become a Teacher’s College. The present chairman of the Department of Education, Mr. K’ung, certainly can’t serve as dean of the College of Letters. For my own sake, I’m ready to go to great lengths to keep you here. Besides, with your spouses working at the school too, husband and wife would both have their own income. Your obligations wouldn’t be any greater—”
“How shameless!” exclaimed Mrs. Wang, cutting him short. “It’s just exactly what you were saying a moment ago: ‘Not the slightest bit of romance.’ Everything is figured out to the last nickel!”
“Look how impatient you are!” said Wang. “Romance will come at once. Marriage is the happiest event of one’s life. My wife and I both know what it is. If marriage weren’t happy, we should be exhorting you not to marry. Do you think we’d still want to be matchmakers? She and I—”
Frowning, Mrs. Wang waved her hand and said, “Oh, stop. It’s so sickening.” She suddenly remembered an incident a year ago when her husband and she visited a temple in Ch’engtu and a monk had talked about transmigration, upon which her husband had whispered to her, “When I die, I’ll try to be born again as soon as possible so I can marry you a second time.” The recollection disgusted her. Meanwhile, Hung-chien and Hsin-mei dutifully flattered them by saying that a happy couple like the Wangs were one in a thousand.
On the way back to the school, the two of them discussed Mrs. Wang in great detail. Both felt she was remarkable, but wondered why she had married someone twenty years older than herself. They reasoned that her family must have been poor and had admired Wang because he was a local official. Furthermore, they felt her paintings were not bad, but the characters inscribed on them seemed to have been written by Wang himself.
Pretending to be an expert on the subject, Hung-chien said, “Characters can’t be drawn. It’s not like painting where you can touch up. Lots of women can draw a few impressionistic landscapes but when it comes to writing characters they really have a hard time. Mrs. Wang’s calligraphy is probably abominable.”
Hung-chien had reached the door of his room and was just pulling out his key to open it when Hsin-mei suddenly blurted, “Did you notice that there is something about Mrs. Wang that resembles—Su Wen-wan?” And before he’d finished speaking, he bounded up the stairs two at a time. Hung-chien stared after him in astonishment.
After the guests had left, Wang went back into the bedroom with his wife and asked, “I didn’t say anything improper today, did I?” This was a customary question. After every social occasion, Mrs. Wang, who loved nit-picking, would always correct her husband.
Mrs. Wang said, “Why, no. Anyway, I didn’t pay much attention, but why did you have to tell them about being dean of the College of Letters? You just love to brag about things beforehand.”
Wang did in fact regret it a little at this point, but he insisted, “That doesn’t matter. Let them know their jobs are partly in my hands. Why did you humiliate me today?” As he recalled it, his anger flared. “I mean those remarks about being young or not.” He added this explanation because of his wife’s puzzled look.
Mrs. Wang, who was critically examining her face in the round mirror of her dressing table, said, “Oh, that. Just look at your face in the mirror. It’s so frightening; it looks as if you were about to gobble someone up! I don’t want to look at you!”
Instead of pushing away her husband, who was standing beside her, Mrs. Wang merely picked up the silk powder puff from her powder box and dabbed a few times at his livid face in the mirror, blurring his features.
Liu Tung-fang had recently become preoccupied with personal matters. As his mother and father were both dead, his younger sister’s marriage was now his responsibility. Last year at Kunming someone with every good intention had been introduced to her, but nothing had come of it. Of course, having her around the house meant extra help for Mrs. Liu. The sweaters the two children wore, for example, were all knitted by her, and the eldest daughter still shared the same bed with her. But as the years slipped by in this manner, he and his wife began to fear that she would never be married off and would become a lifelong burden. Two years ago when she escaped to the interior she was to have begun her senior year in college. Seniors were not allowed to transfer to another school, and his wife was then about to give birth. For the moment they were unable to hire a servant, and with everything at home in a mess, he had no time to find a way out for her. She postponed her schooling, and she never graduated. He felt very bad about it and would justify himself by saying that while there were any number of women graduates, how many of them could really make a living for themselves? His wife reproached him for having had his sister enter a woman’s university in the first place. If she had gone to a coeducational school, the marriage problem would have been solved long ago.
Flustered, Liu countered, “Miss Fan graduated from a coeducational school. Why hasn’t she been married off?”
Mrs. Liu said, “There you go again. She is much better than Miss Fan.” Anyone who could talk like this about her husband’s sister wasn’t such a bad sister-in-law.
“Maybe it’s just a matter of fate,” said Liu with a sigh. “My mother used to say that Sister was born with her face down and her back up, which meant she would die in her mother’s home. We often teased her about it when she was little. Now it looks like she really will be an old maid.”
Mrs. Liu hurriedly put in, “How can we have that? If she really does get old, she can do just as well to marry a widower, like Mrs. Wang. Didn’t that work out very nicely?” implying that human endeavor could turn back the tides of fate.
Last year when Liu had cleared up the misunderstanding for Fang Hung-chien, it had suddenly occurred to him that Fang wouldn’t make a bad brother-in-law. As he was Hung-chien’s protector, Fang ought to be grateful and appreciate the honor. Furthermore, by forming this family tie with him, Fang could consolidate his own position. Unless Fang were a perfect fool he would never let such a wonderful opportunity as this slip by, he reasoned. Mrs. Liu also approved of her husband’s keen reasoning, her only qualm being that Fang was so inept and would need her husband to keep his job for him. Later, when she heard her husband say Fang was smart enough, she stopped worrying and made plans for the newlyweds to live in her house after their marriage. In any case there was an empty roo
m, but a formal lease would have to be drawn up; otherwise, if the two households were not kept separate, when the Fangs had children, they would take all the good fortune and intelligence away from the Liu children.
When Mrs. Wang agreed to act as matchmaker, the Lius joyfully revealed the news to Miss Liu, fully expecting her to be shy and happy. To their surprise she merely flushed scarlet and said nothing.
The outspoken Mrs. Liu asked, “Have you ever met this Fang fellow? Your brother says that compared to the one in Kunming—”
Liu quickly gave his wife a vigorous kick under the table. Miss Liu broke her silence and had quite a bit to say. First, she did not want to get married. Who asked Mrs. Wang to be a matchmaker? Besides, were women so cheap? All this about “matchmaking” and “introducing” sounded so wonderful! But the way women got all dolled up for men to come pick and choose, wasn’t it just like selling chickens or ducks at the market? And if they didn’t suit the men’s fancy, once the meal was over, nothing more was ever heard about it again. It was so humiliating! Furthermore, it wasn’t as though she were eating off them for nothing. With all the things she did around the house, she more than made up for a servant, so why were they chasing her out? She became angrier the more she talked and even dragged out the business about not graduating from college. Afterwards, Mr. Liu reproved his wife for provoking all his sister’s pent-up resentment by bringing up the Kunming matchmaking affair.
“That stubborn Liu temperament!” said Mrs. Liu, fuming. “Whoever marries her certainly will be out of luck.”
Early the next morning the eldest daughter, who slept with Miss Liu, reported to her parents that her aunt had cried half the night. That day Miss Liu paced up and down the riverbank behind the house by herself, going without breakfast or lunch. Mr. and Mrs. Liu were frightened out of their wits, certain that the sight of the clear current below would lead her to thoughts of suicide. Even if she did not go so far as to take her own life, it would never do to have the whole school learn of it, so they quickly sent the eldest daughter out to follow her. Fortunately, she returned to eat dinner and even had two bowls of rice. After this the matter was never mentioned again. When the invitation arrived from the Wangs, she accepted it without a word. Mr. and Mrs. Liu did not venture to feel her out on the matter. After talking it over between themselves they decided that if on the morning of the dinner there was still no sign of action, they would go ask Mrs. Wang to come and entreat with her. That morning Miss Liu told the maid to get the iron ready so she could press some clothes. The Lius then exchanged glances and smiled surreptitiously.
Miss Fan discovered that when she had a secret, the itch to tell it was as hard to bear as a cough in the throat. To want people to know one has a secret while not letting them know what it is, however much they may ask or guess, is human vanity. Miss Fan lacked such an interrogator with whom she could whisper intimately. She and Miss Sun were roommates and, as was usually the case, were not very close. She had been living happily by herself in a large room, when for no reason at all half of it was portioned off for Miss Sun. If Miss Sun had been pretty or extravagant, perhaps Miss Sun could have been forgiven, but of all things Miss Sun was such an ordinary sort of girl. And even if Miss Sun were from Shanghai, except for her Chinese dress being a little shorter, she failed to see that Miss Sun was any more stylish than she. Thus, while the two of them often went out shopping together, they were not bosom companions. Ever since Mrs. Wang had said she wanted to introduce her to Chao Hsin-mei, she had become even more wary of Miss Sun, because Miss Sun was always saying she was going to the faculty dormitory to see Hsin-mei. Of course, Miss Sun had told her before that she always called Hsin-mei Uncle Chao, but then girls nowadays often forget to make distinctions of rank. So Miss Fan kept the invitation from the Wangs strictly secret.
Miss Fan’s one hobby was reading plays, especially tragedies. As there were no theaters there yet, she bought all the well-known plays by modern Chinese playwrights that she could find and read them over carefully. She would underline in red pencil such lines in the dialogue as “We must be brave, brave, brave!” or “Enjoy life to the full and die unflinchingly,” or “When the night is so dark, can day be far behind?” then read them over silently as though they held the very answer to life’s riddles. Only at unhappy moments, such as when a beautiful moon aroused personal thoughts, or when she was carrying out her duties as “women’s adviser,” and the women students, instead of accepting her advice, muttered, “She’s nothing more than a college graduate herself. What makes her qualified to be our adviser? About all she can do is watch over the maids or issue toilet paper,” she discovered at such times that these pithy epigrams were of little help. Life was not in fact so enjoyable, and dying wasn’t so easy either. Love in tragedies was for the most part loftily romantic. She also felt that before marriage there must be great mental traumas. But there was one matter she could not resolve. She had heard that the more experience in love a woman had, the more charm she had over men. She had also heard that men would only marry a woman whose heart was still chaste and pure. If Chao Hsin-mei courted her, which approach should she take? The day before the dinner, in a moment of “inspiration on the eve of good fortune,” she conceived of a perfect attitude to take. She would let it be known that many people had been madly in love with her, but she herself had never loved anyone, so this was still her first love.
By a stroke of good luck, when she went shopping that day, the shop’s cashier asked her, “Are you a student, Miss?” This one question made her feel six or seven years younger. She walked gaily along as though she had springs on her feet. When she got back to the school, she told Miss Sun about being mistaken for a student.
Miss Sun said, “I could have asked the same thing. You are just like a schoolgirl.”
Miss Fan chided her for being less than honest.
Miss Fan was a bit nearsighted, and though she didn’t know the American poetess’ words of wisdom: “Men seldom make passes/ At girls who wear glasses,” she didn’t wear glasses. In her student days, when she was copying from the blackboard in class, she had to wear glasses, because among her classmates there was no one she knew well enough from whom she could borrow a notebook to copy. Women classmates who had the help of men students would never freely lend out those original and complete, revised and enlarged editions of their notes, which were the result of joint efforts. As for the women students who hadn’t had the services of men students—humph! Despite being a woman herself, Miss Fan did not have a very high regard for the transcribing abilities of other members of her sex. Like all women who were very studious and concerned about their looks as well, she wore rimless glasses with platinum temple pieces. Rimless glasses seem to “make no distinctions.” They blend in with the face so that wearing them or not wearing them is all the same. They aren’t like rimmed glasses with a clearly demarcated border. Putting such glasses on is like hanging out the sign of the female pedant. Now the only time she needed to wear glasses was when she watched a play. Beyond this, when she went out to a dinner party such as the one that day, she would put them on only to take a close look at herself while combing her hair and putting on her makeup and, when she had finished her toilet and changed her clothes, especially to get a general view of herself from a distance in the half-length mirror. She felt her eyes looked much too listless. It was from being too excited to sleep well the night before. Mrs. Wang had some mascara to put on her eyelashes. It wouldn’t hurt to go over early and borrow some to bring out a hazy, dreamlike expression in her eyes. She could ask Mrs. Wang for comments on her overall attire and make the corrections ahead of time. Miss Fan, who was the women students’ adviser, looked upon Mrs. Wang as the adviser of the women students’ adviser.
She arrived at the Wangs shortly after five o’clock, saying she had come early to help. Mr. Wang said that since there weren’t many guests that evening, they had ordered the dishes from the best restaurant in town, so there was no need for help. He lamented
that their wonderful family cook had died during the escape, and that their present servant’s cooking was not up to serving to guests.
Mrs. Wang said, “Don’t tell me you believe her! She didn’t come here to help. She came here to show off her talents, so Chao Hsin-mei will know she isn’t just well educated and attractive but can manage the house as well.”
Miss Fan stopped her from saying any more nonsense and asked in a whisper for her comments. Mrs. Wang felt she hadn’t put on enough red and, saying she should add a little more gay coloring, pulled her into her room to apply some more rouge for her. In the end Miss Fan went to the party looking as triumphantly red as American Indians on the warpath. She then asked Mrs. Wang if she could borrow her mascara, explaining that she did not have pink eye, so there was no danger of infection. From outside Wang Ch’u-hou heard nothing but uninterrupted laughter. If he had known English, no doubt he would have thought of the saying, “Where there are chickens and ducks, there is plenty of manure, and where there are young women, there is plenty of laughter.”
Miss Liu was the last to arrive. She had a warm frank-looking face and an ample figure. Her clothes were quite tight so that creases appeared at her slightest movement. When Hsin-mei and Hung-chien saw that these were the two to be introduced, they were so disappointed they wanted to laugh. They had all met before but never spoken.
Miss Fan seemed to have drawn an invisible circle around herself and Hsin-mei and kept up such a tight conversation that not even water could have been splashed through. Hsin-mei began by saying the town was boring and that there were no places for entertainment.
“Isn’t it though?” said Miss Fan. “I don’t find many people I can talk to around here either. It really is dull.”
Hsin-mei asked her how she amused herself. She told him she liked reading plays and asked if he did too.
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