“Well, yes, sometimes. We Chinese men have been kept so separate. Our women are reserved, demure. They reveal nothing. And to a young man—and your brother is young—these others, these foreign women, with their beautiful, swan-white flesh, their exquisite bodies offering themselves in the dance—”
“Hush, my lord,” I said with dignity. “This is men’s talk. I will not hear it. Are these people really as uncultivated and savage as this sounds on your lips?”
“No,” he replied slowly. “It is partly because their nation is young, and youth takes its pleasures in crude form. But I speak of this because your brother is young, too. And even if you do not like to hear it, yet it is not to be forgotten that the lips of his betrothed are wide and curved like a rice-sickle.” He smiled again, and seating himself he fell to staring at the moon.
My husband is wise. I cannot lightly cast aside his words. From what he has said I begin to perceive that there is some transient charm about the uncovered flesh of these foreign women. Hearing him speak, I am disturbed by it. It makes me remember the glittering eyes and the laughter of my father and his favorite concubine. I shudder, and yet I cannot draw my thoughts away.
I pondered, therefore. It is true that my brother is a man. Moreover, his continued silence is an evil sign. It has ever been his way from childhood to let silence deepen with determination. As a babe if our mother forbade him something, Wang Da Ma said he would grow suddenly silent and seize the thing yet more firmly.
I placed the harp in its lacquered case at last with a sigh. The moon had yielded itself to the clouds utterly, and a light rain began to fall. The night’s mood changed; we went into the house. I slept ill.
XII
THE DAWN CAME THIS day under a still, gray sky. The air is heavy with late heat and full of dampness. The child frets, although I can find no sickness in him.
The servant returning to-day from his inquiry at my mother’s house brought word that my father has come. It seems that Wang Da Ma took courage to send him a letter through the professional letter-writer who sits at the temple gate, begging humbly that he come because my mother’s strength does not increase. Day after day she sits in her chamber. She cannot eat. My father, receiving the letter, has come home for two days.
I determined, therefore, to go to see him. I dressed my son in red. It is the first time my father has seen him.
I found my father seated by the pool in the Court of the Goldfish. Since the air was hot, and since he is now exceedingly fat, he sat beside the pool clad only in his inner coat and trousers of summer silk, pale as the water under the willows. The Second Lady stood beside him fanning him, although the perspiration rolled down her own cheeks from the unaccustomed exertion; and on his knees sat one of his children in gala dress for his return.
When I entered the court he clapped his hands and cried,
“Aha—aha—here comes the mother and her son!”
He set his child from his knee and bade my son approach, enticing him in a low voice and with smiles. I bowed deeply and he nodded, his eyes still fixed on my son. Then I folded my son’s hands and bade him bow. My father was greatly pleased.
“Aha—aha—” he kept repeating softly. He lifted my son to his knee and felt his round arms and legs, and laughed at his wide, astonished eyes.
“Such a man!” he cried in delight. “Let a slave bring sweetmeats for him! Let the candied persimmons be brought, and the little larded cakes!”
I was dismayed. My child has but ten teeth at best. How then could he eat candied persimmons?
“O my honored father!” I begged. “Consider his tender years. His little stomach is used only to soft food. I beg you—”
But my father waved his hand to silence me and talked to the child. I was compelled to submit.
“But you are a man! And does your mother still feed you on pap? My daughter, I have had sons also—many sons, four or five?—I cannot remember. At any rate, I know more about sons than the mother of only one, even of such an one!” He rumbled a great laugh and continued, “Ah, if my son, your brother, but breeds me such a one as this by the daughter of Li to worship my old bones!”
Since he had mentioned my brother I was emboldened to ask,
“But if he weds a foreigner, my father? It is this fear which wastes away my mother’s heart until she is day by day weaker in body.”
“Pst! He cannot,” he replied lightly. “How can he wed without my consent? It is not legal. Your mother is needlessly agitated over this whole affair. I have said to her this very morning,
“‘Cease your foolish fretting. Let the lad play with his foreigner. He is twenty-four years old, and his blood urges him. It is nothing. At his age I had three singing girls whom I loved. Let him have his pleasure. When he wearies of her—say, in two moons or, if she be really a beauty, in four or five, perhaps, although I do not expect that—he will settle the more readily to his marriage. Can it be supposed that he will live a monk for four years, even though he is in a foreign country? Are not foreign women yet women?’
“But your mother has ever been incomprehensible. From the very first she has been possessed by some strange intensity. Nay, I do not speak ill of her. She is wise, and under her hands my gold and silver is not carelessly spent. I do not complain. She never lashes about me with her tongue as some women do. There are times when I wish she would, so that I be not met with this silence that baffled me even in the beginning. Oh, it is nothing now—it does not matter. No one understands the caprices of women. But since her youth she has had this fault, a gravity too intense for ease in daily life. She seizes upon some thought, some imagined duty, and then that becomes life itself to her. It is very trying—”
He broke off his speech in an irritation I had never seen in him before. He took the fan from the hand of the Second Lady and began fanning himself sharply. He set my son on the ground and seemed to forget him. He went on almost in anger,
“And now she has some strange woman’s fancy that our son’s first union should produce a grandson for us—a superstitious idea that the child will thereby be more gifted of heaven. Ah, women are willful! And the best of them are ignorant, having been shut away from the world.”
He closed his eyes and fanned himself in silence for a few moments, and his irritation passed away. His usual look of peaceful, smiling good humor came over his face. He opened his eyes and pressed cakes upon my son, saying,
“Eat, my little one! What does it all matter? Do not fret yourself, my daughter. Can a son disobey his father and live? I cannot be troubled.”
Still was I not content, and after a silence, I had more that must be spoken.
“But, my father, if he refuse to marry his betrothed? I have heard that in these changed times—”
But my father would have none of it. He waved his hand lightly and smiled.
“Refuse? I have not heard anywhere that a son may refuse his father. Calm yourself, my daughter. A year from now he will have begot a son according to the law, by the daughter of Li. Such a one as thou, my little man!”
And he patted my son’s cheek.
I told my husband what my father had said, and he heard and replied thoughtfully,
“The trouble in all this may be that the foreigner is not willing to accept a subordinate position. It is not customary in their country for men to have secondary wives.”
I had nothing to say in immediate answer. It had not occurred to me to think of her or what she would think of our customs. Had she not succeeded in enticing my brother? What more then could she desire? I had thought thus far only of my brother and of his duty to his parents.
“You mean she would expect to be my brother’s only wife all her days?” I asked.
I was even a little indignant. How could she expect to forbid my brother what was his legal right according to the law of his country? How could she demand more of him than my honored mother had demanded of my father? I told my husband this.
“It is very simple, I think,”
I said in conclusion. “If she marries a man of our race, she must give him the freedom to which he is accustomed. She cannot bring her foreign ways here.”
My husband looked at me and smiled most curiously. I could not understand him. Then he spoke,
“Suppose I said that I wished to take a small wife—a concubine?”
Something cold smote me like snow thrust into my bare bosom. I whispered,
“Oh, no, my lord—you never could—not now! I have given you a son!”
He leaped to his feet, and I felt his arm about my shoulders. He was murmuring,
“No, no, my little heart—I do not mean that—I would not—could not, indeed—”
But his other words had been too sudden. They are the words which many a wife fears and even expects, but I had not, since he loved me. Now without warning he had driven into my heart all the anguish of my mother and the anguish of a hundred generations of women who loved their lords and lost their favor. I fell to sudden weeping that I could not control.
Then my husband comforted me, holding my hands and murmuring—but I cannot tell you his words, My Sister. Spoken again even between us they would shame me. I am made shy when I think of them. They were love made most exquisite. My weeping stilled itself, and I was comforted.
When we had been silent a space he asked me,
“But why did you weep?”
I hung my head, and I felt the quick blood leap into my cheeks. He raised my head in his hands.
“Why—why?” he persisted, and as ever in answer to his questions, truth came to my lips.
“Because my lord dwells in my heart,” I faltered, “and fills it utterly and I would—”
My voice fell of its own accord into silence, but his eyes answered. Then he said in a low voice and most tenderly,
“And what if she loves your brother thus? Her nature does not differ from the nature of all women because she happens to be born over the western seas. You are women, and you are alike in your spirit and your desires.”
I had not thought of her like this. I see that I have understood nothing clearly. It is ever my husband who teaches me.
“Oh, I am afraid—afraid! I begin to understand a little now. What shall we do if there is this love between the foreign one and my brother?”
XIII
A LETTER HAS COME from my brother! He has written a letter to me and to my husband, pleading for our help. He beseeches me to intercede with our parents for him. And then he speaks of her—of the foreigner! He uses lightning words to tell of her beauty. He says she is like a pine tree covered with snow for great beauty.
And then, O My Sister, then he says that he is already married to her according to the law of her country! He is bringing her home, now that he has received our mother’s letter demanding his presence. He pleads as for his very life that we will help them—because they love each other!
I am undone. Because of what lives between my husband and me I am undone utterly. I cannot hear my mother speak now. I do not remember her sadness. I do not remember that my brother has disobeyed her. By nothing else than this could my brother have persuaded me; if she loves him as I love my lord, how can I refuse them anything?
I will go to my mother.
Three days have now passed, My Sister, since I approached my mother. I prepared myself to enter her presence with humbleness. I chose my words previously as a bridegroom chooses jewels for his bride. I went into her room alone, and I stood before her. I spoke delicately, beseeching her.
She understood nothing—nothing, My Sister! We are estranged, my mother and I. She accuses me silently of befriending the foreigner and of taking my brother’s part against his mother. Although she does not say this, I know in her heart she speaks thus to herself. She will hear nothing of my explanations.
This, though I had planned my speech with all care! I said in my heart,
“I will awaken in her memories of her own marriage and of those first days of my father’s love, when she was at the time of her own great beauty and youth.”
But how can such stiff and formal molds as words contain the spirit-essence of love? It is as if one tried to imprison a rosy cloud within an iron vessel. It is like painting butterflies with a harsh brush of bamboo. When I spoke, hesitating because of its delicacy, of this spell of love between the young, of that secret harmony binding one heart unexpectedly to another, she grew scornful.
“There is no such thing as this between man and woman,” she said haughtily. “It is only desire. Do not use poetical expressions in regard to it. It is only desire—the man’s desire for the woman, the woman’s desire for a son. When that desire is satisfied, there is nothing left.”
I tried afresh.
“Do you remember, my mother, when you and my father were wed, how your spirits spoke?”
But she struck her thin hot fingers against my lips.
“Do not speak of him. In his heart there have been a hundred women. To which one does his spirit speak?”
“And your heart, my mother?” I asked softly, taking her hand. It lay in my hand, quivering, and then she withdrew it.
“It is empty,” she said. “It awaits my grandson, the son of my son. When he shall have been taken before the tablets of his ancestors, I may die in peace.”
She turned away from me and refused to speak further.
I came away sad. What has separated me so far from my mother? We cry aloud, but we do not hear each other. We speak, but we do not understand each other. I feel I am changed, and I know I am changed by love.
I am like a frail bridge, spanning the infinity between past and present. I clasp my mother’s hand; I cannot let it go, for without me she is alone. But my husband’s hand holds mine; his hand holds mine fast. I can never let love go!
What of the future then, My Sister?
I pass my days in waiting. I seem to dream, and the dream is always of blue water and upon it a white ship. It is speeding like a great bird for the shore. If I could, I would stretch out my hand to mid-ocean and seize that ship and hold it there that it might never come. How else can my brother be happy in what he has done? There is no place for him now in his home under his father’s roof.
But my feeble hands can stop nothing. I only dream, and I can think of nothing clearly. Nothing can make the ship seem remote except my son, smiling and babbling his first words. I keep him beside me all day. But at night I wake up, and I hear the thunder of the waves about me. Hour by hour the ship rushes on, and nothing can stay it from coming nearer.
What will it be like when my brother comes, bringing her? I fear such strangeness. I am dumb in this time of waiting. I know neither good nor ill, only waiting.
Seven days, my husband says, and the white ship will reach the harbor at the mouth of the river, the great Son of the Sea, which flows past the North gate of the city. My husband cannot understand why I cling to the hours to stretch them longer and put further into the future the eighth day. I cannot put into words for him my fear of this strangeness to come.
He is a man. How can he understand the heart of my mother? I cannot forget how she dreads my brother’s coming. I have not been to see her again. We have nothing now to say to each other. Only I cannot forget her and that she is alone.
Yet I cannot forget either my brother and that one whom he loves. I am torn hither and thither like a frail plum-tree in a wind too passionate for its resistance.
XIV
I COULD NOT WAIT for your leisure, My Sister! I have come afoot. I have left my son, thrusting him into his nurse’s arms, regardless of his screams when he saw me departing. No—no tea! I must return immediately. I ran only to tell you—
They have come! My brother and the foreign one, they have come! They came two hours ago and they have eaten with us. I have seen her. I have heard her speak, but I can understand nothing she says. She is so strange that I stare at her even against my will.
They came in as we sat at breakfast. The gate-man rushed into our presence, and scarcel
y stopping to bow he gasped,
“There is a man at the gate with a person whose like I have not seen! I do not know even whether it is male or female. It is tall like a man, and yet the face has the look of a woman’s face!”
My husband looked at me and laid his chopsticks down.
“It is they,” he said quietly in answer to my astonished eyes.
He went to the gate himself then, and immediately they entered the house. I stood to greet them, and when I saw the tall, foreign figure, speech dried in my mouth. I scarcely saw my brother at all. I was conscious only of her, the foreigner, of her height, slender in some dark blue robe that fell straight below her knees.
But my husband was not confused at all. He bade them be seated at the table with us, and he ordered fresh tea and rice. I said nothing. I could only look at her and look at her again.
Even now I can only say over and over again,
“What shall we do with this strange woman? How can she ever belong in our life?”
I do not remember that my brother loves her. I am confused with astonishment at her presence here in my house. It is like a dream which, even while one dreams, seems untrue and soon to pass, because it is too unreal.
You ask what she is like? I scarcely know how to tell you, although, as I said, I have done nothing but stare at her since she entered the door. Let me think what she is like.
She is taller than my brother. Her head is shorn. Yet her hair does not lie decorously about her ears; it is as if blown by the four winds, and it is tawny, the color of tiger-bone wine. Her eyes are like the sea under a stormy sky, and she does not smile easily.
At once I asked myself when I saw her, is she beautiful? But I answer, she is not beautiful. Her eyebrows are not delicate and moth-like, as we love to see a woman’s brows. They are dark and heavily marked above her brooding eyes. Beside hers, my brother’s face appears youthful, with rounded flesh and slighter bones. Yet she is only twenty—four years younger than he.
As for her hands, were her hands placed beside my brother’s and their bodies concealed, I would say his were the woman’s hands. His are soft with olive flesh. The bones of her hands protrude beneath the skin, and her wrists are much coarser than mine. When she grasped my hand I felt her palm was knotted and hard against mine. I mentioned it to my husband after breakfast when we were an instant alone. He said it is because of a game called tennis, which these foreign women play with their men—I suppose, to amuse them. How strangely do the foreign women woo love!
East Wind: West Wind Page 9