by Mo Yan
Sun Bing fell to his knees and kowtowed.
The commoners in attendance sighed with deep emotion.
The local gentry drenched the Magistrate in flattering words.
Sun Meiniang remained kneeling, looking into the face of the venerable Magistrate Qian with rapt concentration.
“Daughter of the Sun family, you have proven your impartiality, and though you are a woman, you have the pluck of a man, a rarity in this world.” Magistrate Qian turned to his revenue clerk and said, “Reward her with an ounce of silver!”
CHAPTER SIX
Competing Feet
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A clear and very bright moon hung high in the sky, looking like a naked beauty. The third-watch gong had just sounded, and the county town lay in stillness. Smells of nature—plants and trees and insects and fish—were carried on the summer-night breeze to cover heaven and earth like fine gauze decorated with pearl ornaments. The naked moon shone down on Sun Meiniang as she strolled alone in her courtyard. She too was naked; she and the moon enhanced each other’s beauty. Moonbeams flowed like water in which she swam like a large silvery fish. This was a fully bloomed flower, a piece of ripe fruit, a youthful, vigorous, and graceful body. From head to toe, with the exception of her feet—which were large and unbound—she was flawless. Her skin was glossy, the only blemish a scar on her head that was hidden by her lush hair.
That scar was the result of a bite from a donkey before she had taken her first step as an infant. Unaware that her mother lay dead on the kang from swallowing opium, she had crawled up on her mother’s neatly dressed body, like climbing a resplendent mountain range. She was hungry, searching for the nipple, but in vain. She cried, and in the process she fell to the floor, where she cried even louder. No one came. So she crawled out the door, attracted by the smell of milk. No sooner had she reached the yard than she saw a young donkey drinking its mother’s milk. The ill-tempered adult had been tied to a tree by her owner, and when the little girl crawled up to feed alongside, or in place of, her baby, the donkey bit down on the girl’s head, gave her a shake, and flung her away, where she was immediately stained by her own blood. This time her terrified wails reached a neighbor woman, who picked her up and covered the wound with powdered lime to stop the bleeding. The injury was so severe that most people believed she would not survive. Even her normally buoyant father was sure she would die, but she hung on tenaciously. For the first fourteen years of her life, she was a scrawny, frail girl with a conspicuous scar on the back of her skull. She tagged along behind her dieh as he made the opera circuit, taking the stage in a variety of parts: little girls, little demons, even kittens. But in her fifteenth year, like a desiccated wheat sprout nourished by a spring rain, she grew like a weed, and at the age of sixteen, her hair grew lush and black, the way dense new shoots burst forth from a willow tree whose canopy has been lopped off. The scar disappeared beneath all that hair. At seventeen, she fleshed out, and people discovered that she was a girl. Prior to this, because of her unbound feet and sparse hair, most of the performers in the troupe had assumed that she was a nearly bald little boy. At eighteen, she had become the prettiest maiden in Northeast Gaomi Township.
“If not for her big feet,” people lamented, “the girl could become the Imperial Consort!”
It was this damning flaw—big, unbound feet—that caused her to be considered unmarriageable at the age of twenty, and was why, with no other prospects, Sun Meiniang, still lovely as a flower, was forced by harsh circumstances to marry Zhao Xiaojia, a butcher who lived and worked on the east side of town. When Meiniang moved in, Xiaojia’s bound-footed mother was still alive. She hated the sight of her daughter-in-law’s big feet, and tried to get her son to trim them down to size with his boning knife. When he refused, she decided to do it herself. Having lived up till then among a performing troupe, Meiniang knew all the acrobatic moves for the opera stage, and she had never been schooled in the traditional feminine imperatives of “three obediences”—first to father, then to husband, and finally to son—and the “four virtues” of fidelity, physical charm, propriety, and fine needlework. She was, not surprisingly, an untamed young woman who, now that she was married, found it suffocating to keep her temper in check and hold back her sobs. So when her mother-in-law came at her on her tiny feet, knife in hand, Meiniang’s pent-up anger burst to the surface. She leaped up and let loose a flying kick, a perfect demonstration of the “virtues” of unbound feet and testimony to her training and hard work in the troupe. Not particularly steady to begin with, her bound-footed mother-in-law was knocked to the floor. Meiniang rushed up, straddled her like Wu Song on the back of a tiger, and beat her with her fists until the poor woman could only scream piteously and soil herself, front and back. In the wake of this beating, the distraught old woman’s abdomen became dangerously distended, which soon led to her death. It was, for Sun Meiniang, a liberation, for she stepped up as head of the household. She converted a room with a southern exposure, facing the street, into a little public house that featured warm millet spirits and stewed dog meat for the general public. Burdened with a dullard of a husband, she relied upon her beauty to ensure a thriving business. All the local dandies entertained thoughts of finding their way into her favor, but none succeeded. Sun Meiniang was known by three nicknames: Big-Footed Fairy, Half-Way Beauty, and Dog-Meat Xishi, a play on the name of a legendary beauty.
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2
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Even ten days after the battle of the beards, the people’s excitement over Magistrate Qian’s striking appearance and broad-minded approach to governing had not abated, and they now looked forward with eager anticipation to the festive day on which they would meet his wife. Custom dictated that on the eighteenth day of the fourth month, the doors of the three halls, access to which was severely restricted, even to leading yamen officials, the rest of the year, were thrown open for women and children for the day. The wife of the County Magistrate would rise early in the morning and, in her finest attire, sit beneath the eaves of the Third Hall in the company of her husband, smiling broadly as she received members of the local populace. A gesture of goodwill toward the people, it also served as a grand display of the adage “A revered husband deserves an honored wife.”
Many of the county’s ordinary residents had been witness to His Eminence’s elegant bearing, and details of his wife’s background and education had early on filled local women’s ears. Anticipation leading to this special day had reached a fever pitch. What they yearned to know was, what sort of woman was a worthy spouse to a virtually celestial County Magistrate? Comments and opinions swirled above streets and byways like willow catkins: some said that the Magistrate’s wife was a woman of unrivaled beauty, capable of toppling a city with a smile; others said that the face of the Magistrate’s wife was scarred by pockmarks, that she was a demon in disguise. These two diametrically opposed views ignited avid curiosity among local women. Younger women were natural proponents of the view that the County Magistrate’s wife must be favored with the beauty of fresh flowers and fine jade. Slightly older, more experienced women doubted that this romantic view was sustainable in the world in which they lived, and were more inclined to accept the folk adage that says “A desirable man is burdened with an undesirable wife, while an ugly man marries a lovely maiden.” They cited as proof of this view the so-called “flower and moon” beauty of the former Magistrate’s wife, he of the wretched features. But younger women, especially the unmarried maidens, were firm in their desire to believe that the wife of the new Magistrate must be the sort of beauty who had fallen to earth from heaven.
Sun Meiniang looked forward to this day more fervently than any other woman in the county. She had already seen the County Magistrate on two occasions, the first on a drizzly night in early spring. While she was trying to hit a cat that had run off with a fish, the missile struck the Magistrate’s palanquin by mistake.
Inviting him into her establishment, she noted his elegant appearance and demeanor in the candlelight, and was taken by his poise and easy manner, almost as if he had stepped out of a New Year’s painting. His conversational skills were extraordinary, his attitude one of pure affability, and even when he discussed serious matters, a unique sense of intimacy and gentility was ever-present. Any comparison of that man with her hog-butchering husband… well, there was no comparison. If truth be known, at that moment there was no room anywhere in her heart or mind to accommodate the image of Xiaojia. She walked as if floating on air, her heart raced, and her cheeks burned. She masked her confusion with excessively polite conversation and frenetic industry in order to keep busy, but in the process she knocked over a wineglass with her sleeve and overturned a bench with her knee. All that time, with everyone’s eyes on him, the Magistrate maintained the airs of his office, but she could tell, either from his coughs, which did not seem natural, or from the limpid expression in his eyes, that tender feelings lay beneath His Eminence’s tough exterior. The second time she saw him was at the battle of the beards. On that occasion, as the person chosen to validate the outcome, she was close enough not only to drink in His Eminence’s features with her eyes, but to smell the exquisite fragrance emanating from his body. Her lips were so close to his thick, glossy queue and his powerful neck, so very close… she seemed to recall that her tears fell on his neck: Ah, Your Eminence, how I hope that my tears really did fall on your neck… To acknowledge her impartiality, His Eminence rewarded her with an ounce of silver. But when she went to claim her reward, the goateed revenue clerk looked at her askance, with a strange gleam in his eye, resting on her feet for a very long time, which abruptly brought her back to earth. She guessed, from the look in his eyes, what he was about to say, and her heart cried out in silent agony: Oh, heaven, oh, earth, oh, Dieh, oh, Niang, my feet have spelled my doom! If only I had let my mother-in-law pare my feet with that boning knife when I had the chance, no matter how great the pain. If having small feet cost ten years of my life for each, I would gladly die twenty years before my time. Those thoughts produced a loathing for her dieh. Dieh, you not only caused the death of my niang, but might as well have caused mine as well; you cared only for your own romantic escapades and had no thoughts for your daughter; you raised your daughter like a son and refused to bind her feet… even if your beard had been superior to that of His Eminence, I would still have declared him the winner. Though, in fact, yours is inferior to his.
Sun Meiniang returned home with the County Magistrate’s gift of silver, her passion rising whenever she recalled the look of tenderness in his eyes; but icicles formed on her heart when she conjured up the censorious look in the eyes of the revenue clerk. As the day to see the Magistrate’s wife drew near, women flocked to the shops to buy cosmetics and fussed over new clothes, like maidens preparing for their wedding. But Sun Meiniang still had not made up her mind to go. Although she had seen His Eminence on but two occasions, at which he had not bestowed upon her any sweet words or honeyed phrases, she stubbornly clung to the belief that they had feelings for one another and that one day they would be together like a pair of mandarin ducks with their necks entwined. When women on the street engaged in debate over what the Magistrate’s wife, whom they would soon see in person, looked like, her cheeks burned as if they were talking about a member of her family. Truth be told, she could not say whether she wished His Eminence’s wife to be angelically lovely or demonically hideous. If she had the face of an angel, would that not be the end of her dream? But if she had the features of a demon, would His Eminence not be an object of pity? So she looked forward to the arrival of the special day, yet was simultaneously apprehensive of it. The day would surely come anyway, however, whether its inevitability filled her with hope or with apprehension.
She awoke amid a chorus of cockcrows. Somehow she had survived till dawn. Having no interest in making breakfast, she was even less inclined to dress up. Time and again she went outside, only to walk right back into the house, catching the eye even of Xiaojia, her gnarled log of a hog-butcher husband.
“What’s wrong with you, wife,” he asked, “the way you’re going in and out of the house? Do you have itchy soles? I can scratch them for you with a chunk of bottle gourd.”
Itchy soles? I’ve got a bloated belly, and I have to walk to keep from going crazy! That is what she thought of her husband’s good intentions. A pomegranate tree beside the well was so red with flowers that it seemed to be on fire; she plucked one of the flowers and said a silent prayer: If the petals come out even, I’ll go to the yamen to see the First Lady, but if they come out odd, I won’t go, and I’ll give up my dream of ever being with him.
And so she began: one petal, two petals, three… nineteen. An odd number. A chill settled over her heart; her mood plummeted to the depths. No, that didn’t count. My prayer lacked devotion, so it doesn’t count. She plucked another flower from the tree, bigger and fuller than the first one. This time she held it in both hands, closed her eyes, and mouthed a new prayer: Gods in the heavens, Immortals on earth, give me a sign… She began with the petals in a mood of extreme solemnity: one petal, two petals, three… twenty-seven. Again, an odd number. She tore up what was left of the flower and flung it to the ground. Her head hung disconsolately on her chest. Xiaojia walked up.
“Do you want to wear a flower, my wife?” he asked in a cautious, fawning tone. “Here, let me pick one for you.”
“Get away from me!” she thundered before spinning around and storming into the house, where she lay down on the kang, covered her face with the comforter, and sobbed.
Crying helped a little. She got up, washed her face, and combed her hair. Then she took a pair of half-sewn shoe soles out of her dresser, sat cross-legged on the kang, and began to sew to keep her restlessness under control and avoid having to listen to the animated chatter of the women out on the street. Her husband, foolish as ever, followed her into the house.
“They’re all going to see the Magistrate’s wife. Aren’t you going?”
That threw her back into a state of turmoil.
“People say they’re going to pass out sweets. Take me along so I can grab some.”
With an exasperated sigh, she said to him, as if speaking to a child, “Are you still a little boy, Xiaojia? This is an event for women only. Why in the world would you want to go, a hulking man like you? Aren’t you afraid the yayi would drive you off with their clubs?”
“But I want to grab some sweets.”
“Go out and buy some if you want them so badly.”
“They don’t taste as good as the ones you grab.”
The lively chatter of the women on the street rolled into the house like a fireball and singed her painfully. She jabbed her awl into the shoe sole; it snapped in two. She threw the sole, with the embedded awl, down onto the kang, and threw herself down on it right after. Upset and confused, she pounded the bed mat with her fists.
“Is your belly bloated again?” Xiaojia asked timidly.
Grinding her teeth, she shouted:
“I’ll go! I’ll go see what that dignified wife of his is like!”
She jumped down off the kang and drove all thoughts of the recent flower petal fiasco out of her mind, acting as if there had never been any hesitation where the matter of meeting the Magistrate’s wife at the yamen was concerned. Once again she filled the basin and washed her face, then sat down at her mirror to put on makeup. The face looking back at her, powdered and rouged, had slightly puffy eyes, but remained as lovely as ever. Reaching into her wardrobe, she took out the new clothes she had hung in preparation for the visit, and dressed in front of her husband, who was aroused at the sight of her naked breasts. “Be a good boy, Xiaojia,” she said, as if he were a child, “and wait for me at home. I’ll grab some sweets for you.”
Dressed in a red jacket atop green trousers beneath a floor-length green skirt, Meiniang looked like a cockscomb flower transplanted onto the street.
Warm southern breezes carried the fresh fragrance of ripe yellow wheat on that resplendent sunlit day. It was the season for women in love, teased by those warm spring breezes. Burning with impatience, Meiniang wished that she could transport herself to the yamen in a single step, but the full-length skirt kept her from walking briskly. A restive heart agonized over the slow pace and was tormented by the distance that lay before her. So she scooped up the train of her skirt, lengthened her stride, and quickly overtook all the bound-footed women, who proceeded in mincing steps, hips undulating from side to side.
“What’s the hurry, Mistress Zhao?”
“Where’s the fire, Mistress Zhao?”
She ignored the women’s queries, intent on making a beeline from Dai Family Lane all the way to the yamen’s secondary gate. Half of the flower-laden branches of a pear tree at the home of Dai Banqing spread over the wall above the street. A subtle sweet aroma, the buzzing of bees, the twittering of swallows. She reached up and plucked one of the flowers and tucked it behind her ear, the barely perceptible noise drawing a string of barks from the always alert Dai family dog. With one final brush of nonexistent dust from her clothing, she let the hem of her skirt drop to the ground and entered the compound. The gate guard nodded, she responded with a smile, and before she knew it, she found herself in front of the entrance to the Third Hall courtyard, her body moistened by a thin coat of perspiration. Attending the gate was a young, fierce-looking yayi whose accent marked him as an out-of-towner, the one she’d seen at the battle of the beards. She knew that he was one of the Magistrate’s trusted aides. He nodded, and once again she responded with a smile. The courtyard was filled with women, children running freely in their midst. Meiniang pushed her way into the crowd, slipping sideways up to the front, where she had an unobstructed view of a long table in the passageway beneath the Third Hall eaves. Two chairs behind the table were occupied—the one on the left by Eminence Qian, the one on the right by his wife. In her phoenix coronet and ceremonial dress, she sat with her back perfectly straight. Her red dress shone like a rosy cloud under the sun’s bright rays, while her face was covered by a gauzy pink veil, which allowed for a blurred view of the shape, but none of the features. The sight had an immediate calming effect on Meiniang, for now she knew that what she had feared more than anything else was that the Magistrate’s wife had a face like moonbeams and flowers. Her unwillingness to show her face in public must mean that she was, in fact, unattractive. Instinctively, Meiniang threw out her chest, as hope was rekindled in her heart, just as she detected the heavy aroma of lilacs. She looked around and spotted a pair of mature lilac trees, one on each side of the courtyard, in full bloom. She also spotted a row of swallow nests beneath the Third Hall eaves, busily attended by adult birds flying in and out, accompanied by the chirps of fledglings inside. Legend had it that swallows never built their nests in government yamens, choosing instead the homes of good and decent farmers. But there they were, flocks of them, all tending their nests, which could only be a wonderful omen, good fortune brought to them by His Eminence, with his immense talent and strong moral character, but, needless to say, not by his veiled wife. Meiniang’s gaze drifted over from her face to his, and their eyes met. To her it felt as if his eyes held the promise of adoration, and tender feelings welled up in her heart. Your Eminence, oh, Your Eminence, how could someone who is nearly an immortal take as his wife a woman who must cover her face so as not to be seen? Do pockmarks scar her face? Does she have scabby eyelids, a flat nose, a mouth full of blackened teeth? I grieve for you, Your Eminence… Meiniang’s thoughts were a wild jumble, but then she heard a tiny cough, and that sound from his wife dispelled the intensity in the Magistrate’s eyes. He turned and had a whispered conversation with her. A maidservant, her hair combed into tufts above her ears, walked up with a basket filled with dates and peanuts, which she tossed to the crowd by the fistful. Chaos erupted as the children fought over the scattered delicacies. Meiniang watched as the First Lady casually adjusted her skirts, revealing a pair of tiny, pointed golden lotuses. A gasp of admiration rose from the crowd behind her. The woman had exquisite feet, and Meiniang felt ashamed to show her face. Granted, Meiniang’s skirt covered her feet, but she could not help feeling that the woman knew that her feet were big and ugly. And there was more—she knew about Meiniang’s infatuation with her husband. Revealing her golden lotuses had been a conscious act, intended to humiliate her, to go on the offensive. Meiniang did not want to look, was unwilling to look at the woman’s bound feet, but she could not help herself. They had pointed, slightly upturned tips like water chestnuts. And what beautiful little shoes, green satin embroidered with red flowers. The First Lady’s feet were magical weapons that subdued Meiniang, the girl from the Sun family, as she felt a pair of mocking rays pass through the pink gauze and land unerringly on her face. No, not her face—they passed through the veil and her skirt to land on her big feet. Meiniang was sure she saw a haughty smile on the lips of the Magistrate’s wife, and she knew she had been beaten, roundly defeated. She had the face of a goddess, but the feet of a serving girl. Her thoughts in total disarray, she began backing up. Was that mocking laughter behind her? And then it dawned on her that she had set herself apart from the others, putting on a performance in front of the Magistrate and the First Lady. Her humiliation now complete, she backed up in earnest, feet moving all over the place, ultimately stepping on the hem of her skirt and ripping it just before she fell backward in the dirt.