Oh, how eagerly I gazed at everything! It seemed that somehow there must be a great change. But everything was its natural self, ordered and quiet and accustomed in the courtyards, except for the laughter of the concubines’ children and the bustling of busy servants, smiling and shouting in greeting as they saw me. The sunshine of early autumn streamed across the flower walls and glazed tiles in the courts, and shone upon the shrubs and pools. The latticed doors and windows on the south side of the rooms were thrown wide to catch the warmth and light, and the sun, filtering through, caught the edge of carven wood and painted beams within. Although I knew my place was no longer there, my spirit in spite of this rested in its true home.
I missed only one thing, one fair, teasing face.
“Where is the Fourth Lady?” I asked.
My mother called a slave to fill her pipe and then answered casually,
“La-may? Ah, I sent her to visit in the country for a change of air.”
From her tone I knew better than to question further. But afterwards in the evening when I was preparing for sleep in my childhood room, old Wang Da Ma came in to brush out my hair and braid it as she always used to do. Then in her gossip of many things she told me that my father was thinking of taking a new concubine, a Peking girl who had been educated in Japan, and the Fourth Lady, when she heard of it, had swallowed her best jade earrings. She told no one for two days, though she suffered greatly, and then my mother discovered it.
The girl was at the point of death, and the old doctor who was called in could do nothing, although he pierced her wrists and ankles with needles. A neighbor suggested the foreign hospital, but my mother did not consider such a thing a possibility. We knew nothing of foreigners. Besides, how could a foreigner know what was wrong with a Chinese? Foreign doctors may understand the diseases of their own people, who are quite simple and barbarous in comparison with the highly complex and cultivated Chinese. My brother, however, happened to be at home just then for the Eighth Moon Festival, and he himself asked the foreign woman doctor to come.
She brought a very curious instrument with a long tube attached. This she thrust down the Fourth Lady’s throat, and instantly the rings came up. Everyone was much astonished except the foreigner, who packed her instrument and walked calmly away.
The other concubines were very angry with the Fourth Lady that she should have swallowed her good jade earrings. The fat one asked,
“And could you not have eaten a box of match heads, then, which may be bought for ten small cash?”
The Fourth Lady had nothing to say to this; they say that no one saw her eat or heard her speak while she was recovering. She lay on her bed with her curtains drawn. She has lost a great deal of face by being unsuccessful in her attempt. Indeed, it was for this my mother pitied her and sent her away to escape the taunts of the women.
Such matters, however, were mere small household gossip and had no place in the conversations I held with my mother. It was only because I loved the home so well that I felt I must know the details of everything, and so I listened to the chatter of Wang Da Ma. She has been with us so long that she knows all our affairs. Indeed, she came with my mother from her distant home in Shansi when my father was married, and she it is who received into her arms my mother’s children at birth. When my mother dies she will go to my brother’s wife and care for my mother’s grandsons.
Only one matter heard thus was of more than passing importance. My brother has determined to go abroad, to America, for further study! My mother said nothing of it to me, but Wang Da Ma told me in whispers, when she brought the hot water the first morning after my return, that my father had laughed at his son’s new ideas but in the end had given his consent to his going because it has become fashionable to send one’s sons abroad for study, and his friends are doing it. My mother was greatly distressed when she heard of it—more distressed than she has been over anything in her life, Wang Da Ma said, except when my father took his first concubine. When she saw that my brother was really going she refused food for three days and spoke to no one. At last seeing that he would go at any cost across the Peaceful Sea, she begged him to be married first to his betrothed, that she might bear a son. My mother said,
“Since you will not perceive that your flesh and blood are not yours alone, since you are willful and careless and run into the dangers of that barbarous country without consideration for your duty, at least transmit to another the sacred line of your ancestors, so that if you die—O my son!—at least I may behold my grandson!”
But my brother replied obstinately,
“I have no desire for marriage. I wish only to study more science and learn all concerning it. Nothing will happen to me, my mother. When I return—but not now—not now!”
Then my mother sent messages to our father, urging that he compel his son to marry. But my father was careless in the matter, being absorbed in the arrangements for the new concubine, and my brother had his own way.
I sympathized with my mother. This generation is the last of my father’s line, since my grandfather had no other sons than my father. My mother’s other sons died young, also, and it is therefore imperative that my brother as quickly as possible have a son, in order that my mother’s duty may be performed to the ancestors. For this he has been betrothed since childhood to the daughter of Li. Although I have not seen her, it is true I have heard that she is not beautiful. But what is that in comparison to our mother’s desires?
For several days I was troubled for my mother because of my brother’s disobedience. But she never spoke of it to me. She buried this sadness, like all others, in the unseen places of her spirit. It has always been her way, when she perceived suffering to be inevitable, to close her lips upon it forever. Therefore I, surrounded by the familiar faces and walls, and accustomed to my mother’s silences, gradually thought no more of my brother.
Of course the first thought I saw in all eyes was the one I feared and expected—what were my prospects of a son? Everyone asked the question, but I parried them all, merely accepting, with a grave inclination of my head, the good wishes given. No one should know that my husband did not care for me—no one. And yet I could not deceive my mother!
One night, after I had been at home for seven days, I sat idly in the doorway that opened into the large courtyard. It was twilight, and the slaves and the servants were bustling about the evening meals, and the odors of baked fish and brown duck were fragrant upon the air. It was just at the late edge of twilight, and in the courtyard the chrysanthemum plants were heavy with promise. The love of home and of old surroundings was warm within me. I laid my hand, I remember, upon the very carving of the door panel, loving it, feeling safe there where my childhood had passed so gently that, before I was aware, it was gone. It was all well beloved; the still dusk falling over the curved roofs, the candles beginning to gleam in the rooms, the spicy smell of food, and the voices of the children and the soft sound of their cloth shoes upon the tiles. Ah, I am the daughter of an old Chinese home, with old customs, old furniture, old well-tried relationships, safe, sure! I know how to live there!
Then I thought of my husband, sitting alone now at the table in the foreign house, wearing his western clothes and looking an alien in every way. How could I fit into his life? He had no need of me. My throat was stiff with tears I could not shed. I was so lonely, so much more lonely than I had ever been as a girl. Then, as I have told you, My Sister, I looked forward to the future. Now, the future had come to pass. There was only bitterness in it. The tears would force themselves out. I turned my head away toward the twilight lest the candle light fall upon my cheeks to betray me. Then the gong rang, and I was called in to the meal. I wiped my eyes secretly and slipped into my place.
My mother withdrew early to her room, and the concubines went to their quarters. As I sat alone, drinking my tea, suddenly Wang Da Ma appeared.
“Your honorable mother commands your presence,” she said.
I wondered and said,
“Nevertheless, she commands you. I have just come from her room,” rejoined Wang Da Ma; and she passed on without further explanation.
When her footsteps had receded into the courtyard I put aside the satin curtain and entered into my mother’s room. To my surprise she was lying on the bed with a single tall candle lit on the table beside her. I had never seen her there in my life before. She looked exceedingly frail and tired. Her eyes were closed and her lips pale and drawn down. I went softly to the bedside and stood there. Her face was absolutely colorless, a grave, delicate face and very sad.
“My mother,” I said gently.
“My child,” she answered.
I hesitated, not knowing whether she wished me to sit or to remain standing. She put out her hand then, and motioned me to seat myself on the bed beside her. I obeyed and waited in silence until she wished to speak. I said within myself, “She is grieving for my brother in far countries.”
But it was not of my brother she was thinking; instead she turned her face to me slightly and said,
“I perceive that all is not well with you, my daughter. Ever since you returned I have observed that your usual manner of quiet content is gone. You are restless in spirit, and tears come too easily to your eyes. It is as though some secret grief clung to your thoughts, although your lips do not speak of it. What is wrong? If it is that you are not yet with child, have patience. It was two years before I gave your father a son.”
I did not know how to tell her. There was a bit of silk thread loosened from the embroidered curtain of the canopy, and this I twisted back and forth between my thumb and finger as, within, I twisted my thoughts.
“Speak!” she said somewhat sternly to me at last.
I looked at her, and oh, foolish, foolish tears! I could not utter a word for them. They welled up and welled up until I thought I had no breath with which to live. Then they burst forth in one hard sob and I buried my face in the quilt that covered my mother’s body.
“Oh, I don’t know what he means!” I cried. “He tells me to be equal with him, and I do not know how! He hates my feet and says they are ugly and draws such pictures! Although how he knows I cannot say, for I have never, never let him see them.”
My mother sat up.
“Equal with him?” she said mystified, her eyes growing large in her pale face. “What does he mean? How can you be equal with your husband?”
“A woman is, in the West,” I sobbed.
“Yes, but we are people of understanding here. And your feet? Why does he draw pictures of them? What do you mean?”
“To show me they are ugly,” I whispered.
“Your feet? But surely you have been careless, then. I gave you twenty pairs of shoes. You have not chosen wisely.”
“He does not draw the outside—it’s the bones he draws, all crooked.”
“Bones! Who has seen the bones in a woman’s foot? Can a man’s eyes pierce the flesh?”
“His can because he is a western doctor, he says.”
“Ai-ya, my poor child!” My mother lay back again, sighing, and shook her head. “If he knows western magic—”
And then I found myself telling it all—all, until I whispered even these bitter words,
“He does not even care whether we have a son. He does not love me. O my mother, I am still a maid!”
There was a long silence. I hid my face again in the quilt.
I think I felt my mother’s hand fall lightly on my head and remain for an instant—I cannot be sure; she was never one for outward signs. But at last she sat erect and began to speak.
“I cannot think that I have made a mistake in the manner in which you have been reared. I cannot think that you could fail to please a true Chinese gentleman. Can it be that you are married to a barbarian? Yet he is of the family of K’ung! Who could suspect it? It is the years abroad. I prayed to see your brother dead before he went to the outer countries!” She closed her eyes and lay back. Her thin face grew sharper.
When she spoke again, her voice was high and weak as though she were exhausted.
“Nevertheless, my child, there is only one path in this world for a woman—only one path to follow at all costs. She must please her husband. It is more than I can bear that all my care for you must be undone. But you no longer belong to my family. You are your husband’s. There is no choice left you save to be what he desires.—Yet, stay! Put forth once more every effort to beguile him. Clothe yourself in the jade green and black. Use the perfume of water-lilies. Smile—not boldly, but with the shyness that promises all. You may even touch his hand—cling to it for an instant. If he laughs, be gay. If he is still unmoved, then there is nothing left but to bend yourself to his will.”
“Unbind my feet?” I whispered.
My mother was silent a space.
“Unbind your feet,” she said wearily. “The times are changed. You are dismissed.” And she turned her face to the wall.
VI
HOW SHALL I TELL of my heavy heart, My Sister?
The day of my departure dawned gray and still. It was near the end of the tenth moon, when brown leaves are beginning to drift silently to earth, and the bamboos shiver in the chill of dawn and sunset. I walked about the courtyards, lingering in the places I had long loved best and impressing their beauty freshly and more sharply upon my memory. I stood beside the pool listening to the faint wind crackling the dead pods and leaves of the lotus plants. I sat an hour beneath the gnarled juniper tree which for three hundred years has stood in the rock garden in the third court. I plucked a branch of the heavenly bamboo trees in the court of the great gate, delighting in the vivid scarlet berries hanging against the dark green leaves. And then, that I might have something to keep of all the beauty of the courts, I chose eight pots of chrysanthemums to take back with me. They were at the moment of perfection, and I thought their red and gold and pale purple might mitigate a little the bareness of the house. Thus I returned to my husband.
He was not at home when I entered the little hall. The servant told me he had been called at sunrise by an urgent message, she did not know whither. I placed the chrysanthemums carefully about the little parlor, meditating how to dispose them to good advantage as a surprise for him. But when I had done my best I was disappointed. Richly as they had glowed in the old courtyard, against the black carvings of the passageways, here against whitewashed walls and yellow paint they faded to a mere artificial prettiness.
Ah, and so it was with me as well! I put on the jade satin trousers and coat and the black velvet sleeveless jacket. I dressed my hair with the jade and onyx ornaments, and I hung jade in my ears. I wore black shoes, made of velvet and cunningly wrought with tiny beads of gold. I had learned from La-may, the Fourth Lady in my mother’s house, the guile of colorless cheeks and a lower lip touched with vermilion, and the witchery of scented, rosy palms. I spared no pains for that first evening with my husband. I saw that I was beautiful.
When I was dressed, I sat waiting to hear his step on the threshold. If I could have pushed aside a scarlet satin curtain and appeared before him in the subtle light of an old Chinese room, I might have succeeded. But I had to come unsteadily down the creaking stairway and then join him in that parlor. There was nothing there to help me. I was like the chrysanthemums—merely pretty.
As for my husband, he came in late and looked very tired. By that time my own freshness had gone, and although he greeted me kindly enough, his eyes did not cling to me. He only asked that the servant should hasten with the evening meal, because he had been working all day with a sick person and had had no food since morning.
We ate in silence. I could scarcely swallow for the stupid tears, and he finished his rice hastily and then sat frowning over his tea, with an occasional sigh. At last he rose wearily and said,
“Let us go into the parlor.”
We seated ourselves and he aske
d perfunctorily about my parents. He paid so little heed to my answers that I faltered in my endeavor to interest him and finally fell silent. At first he scarcely noticed that I had ceased to speak. Then he roused himself and said more kindly,
“I beg that you will not mind me. I am truly glad that you have returned. But this whole day I have been fighting against superstition and sheer stupidity, and I have lost. I can think of nothing else but that I have lost. I keep asking myself—did I do all that could be done? Was there an argument that I did not bring forward to save that life? But I think—I am sure—that I did everything—and still I lost!
“Do you remember the Yu family next to the Drum Tower? Their Second Lady tried to commit suicide to-day by hanging herself! It seems she could no longer endure the viperish tongue of her mother-in-law. They called me in and, mind you, I could have saved her! She had only just let go the rope when they found her—only just! I prepared the remedies at once. Then in came the aged uncle who is a wine merchant. Old Mr. Yu, you remember, is dead, and the wine merchant is the head of the family now. He came in blustering and angry and at once demanded that the old methods should be used. He sent for the priests to beat the gongs to call the woman’s soul back, and her relatives gathered about and placed the poor unconscious girl—she is not twenty yet—into a kneeling position on the floor; then they deliberately filled her nose and mouth with cotton and cloth and bound clothing around her face!”
“But—but—” I said, “it is the custom—it is what is always done. You see, so much of the spirit is already escaped that they must keep the rest in by closing the orifices.”
He had begun to walk around the room in his agitation. Now he stopped before me, his lips pressed together. I could hear his quick breathing. He actually glared at me.
“What!” he shouted. “You, too?”
I shrank back.
“Did she die?” I whispered.
“Die? Would you die if I did this long enough?” and he seized my hands in one of his and placed his handkerchief roughly over my mouth and nose. I twisted free and tore it away. He gave a laugh as hard as a dog’s bark and sat down with his head in his hands, and we remained in silence as heavy as pain. He never saw the chrysanthemums I had arranged with such care about the room.
East Wind: West Wind: The Saga of a Chinese Family Page 4