My mother—my mother!
We have perfumed her body with the oil of acanthus flowers. We have wrapped her in length upon length of yellow silken gauze. We have placed her in one of the two great coffins made each of the trunks of immense camphor trees and prepared for her and for my father many years ago when my grandparents died. Upon her closed eyes lie the sacred jade stones.
Now the great coffin has been sealed. We have called the geomancer and consulted him to find the day ordained for her funeral. He has searched the book of the stars and has discovered that it is the sixth day of the sixth moon of the new year.
We have called priests, therefore, and they have come decked in the scarlet and yellow robes of their office. With the sad music of pipes and in solemn procession we have conducted her to the temple to await the day of burial.
There she lies under the eyes of the gods, in the stillness and the dust of the centuries. There is not a sound to break her long sleep; there is forever only the muffled chant of the priests at dawn and at twilight, and through the night the single note of the temple bell struck at long intervals.
I can think of no one but of her.
XIX
CAN IT BE FOUR moons have passed between us, My Sister? I wear in my hair the white cord of mourning for her, my Ancient One. Although I go about my life, I am not the same. The gods have cut me off from my source, from the flesh which formed my flesh, and the bone of which my bones are made. Forever I bleed at the point of separation.
Yet I ponder the matter. Since Heaven would not grant my mother her great desire, was it in kindness after all that the gods, seeing it, removed her whom they loved from a world of change she could never have understood? It is an age too difficult for her. How could she have endured what has come to pass? I will tell you everything, My Sister.
Scarcely had the funeral procession passed from the great gate before the concubines began to quarrel among themselves as to who should now be first. Each desired to be the First Lady in my mother’s place, and each desired to wear the coveted red garments, which as Small Wives they had never been allowed. Each desired the privilege of being carried through the great gate at death, for you know, My Sister, a concubine in her coffin may pass only through a side gate. Each of the foolish ones bedecked themselves afresh to win again my father’s glances.
Each, I say? I forget that one, La-may.
All these months, lingering now into years, she has been on the family estates in the country, and we forgot in the stress of the hour of my mother’s death to write her; and it was ten days before the word was carried to her by the hand of my father’s steward. Yes, she has lived there quite alone, save for the servants and her son, ever since there was talk of my father’s adding a concubine after her. It is true that he never did it, since his interest in the woman waned before the matter was finally arranged, and he decided that she was not worth the amount of money demanded for her by her family. But La-may could not forget that he had desired another. She never came back to him, and since he hates the country, she has known that he would not come to her there.
But when she heard of my mother she came at once and went to the temple where my mother’s body lay, and casting herself upon the coffin she wept silently for three days without food. When Wang Da Ma told me of it I went to her and raised her up in my arms and brought her to my own house.
She is changed indeed. All her laughter and restlessness is gone, and she dresses no longer in gay silks. She has ceased to paint her lips, and they are carven and pale in her pale face. She is still and gray and silent. Only the old scornfulness remains, and when she heard of the concubines’ disputes among themselves her lips curled. She alone cares nothing to be first.
She avoids all mention of my father. I have heard that she has promised to take poison if he ever comes near her again. Thus has love curdled within her to hatred.
When she heard of the foreign wife of my brother she was silent as if she had heard nothing of what I said. When I spoke to her again of the matter, she listened coldly and replied in a small voice as thin and as sharp as ice,
“It is a great agitation and talk about something which is already decided by nature. Can the son of such a father be faithful? He is all passion now. I know what that is. But wait until her child is born, and her beauty is torn from her as a cover is torn from a book. Does she think he will care to read the book then, even though its pages speak of nothing but love for him?”
And she was not interested. No other word did she speak of my father during the four days she was in my house. All that was once gayety and desire for love in her has died. She is only angry now, always angry at everything, but her anger has no heat. It is cold and reasonless, like a serpent’s anger, and full of venom. I was frightened of her sometimes, and I told my husband after she had gone, and I put my hand into his. He held my hand for a long time between both of his, and at last he said,
“She is a woman scorned. Our old customs have held women lightly, and she was not one who could love easily and so endure it.”
How terrible a thing is love unless it can flow fresh and unchecked from heart to heart!
As for La-may, she returned to the country after the period of mourning for my mother.
In the matter of the other concubines nothing could be decided until my brother’s wife had been recognized, since his legal wife would be the natural one to take his mother’s place as First Lady. The affair now became the more pressing because the house of Li, to whose daughter my brother was still betrothed, began to send messages almost daily through the go-between, urging that the marriage be consummated at once.
Of course my brother did not tell this to the foreign one, but I knew it, and I understood therefore why his face became harried and more anxious as these complications closed in around him. My father received the go-between and while my brother did not actually see them or hear their words, my father did not fail to repeat with affected carelessness and laughter what they said.
Since our mother’s death my brother and the foreigner had renewed their love to each other, and this in itself made like a knife twisted in his vitals all talk to my brother of any other marriage. Although the foreigner had never loved my mother, nevertheless when my brother reproached himself at last for his harshness to his mother in her feebleness, and struck his breast when he thought of how he had hastened her end, she, his wife, bore with him most tenderly.
She listened to his remorse and turned his thoughts gently to the coming child and to the future. She is wise. A woman with a smaller mind would have resented his lamentations for his mother. But when he spoke of the virtues of his mother, as one will speak of those dead, she agreed with him, and with much grace she was silent concerning my mother’s attitude toward herself. She even added to his praises her respect for the strength of my mother’s spirit, turned against her as it was. Pouring himself out thus to his wife, my brother emptied his sorrow, and into that emptiness his love for his wife entered and filled him anew.
Together, then, they remained in their own courts, apart from everything. For a space I myself scarcely saw them. It was as though they lived alone in some far country, and nothing, no one, could touch them. When I went into their presence, although they always welcomed me, quickly and without knowing it they forgot me. Their eyes met secretly and spoke to each other, even while their lips spoke to me. If they were apart so much as the length of the room, they drifted nearer, unconscious of it themselves, but restless until they were within reach of each other.
I think it was during these days of renewal of love that my brother began to see clearly what he must do. A certain calm spread over his spirit as he became willing to give up everything for her, and his body ceased its restlessness.
Watching them I marveled that only warmth came into my heart for them. Had I ever seen them thus before my marriage I should have sickened at such emotion between man and wife. It would have been a sight without dignity in my eyes, since I could not
have understood it. I should have belittled love itself and thought it fit only for concubines and slave-girls.
And now, you see how I am changed, and how my lord has taught me! I knew nothing indeed until he came.
Thus they lived together, waiting for the future, these two, my brother and his foreign wife.
And yet my brother was not wholly happy. She was happy! It was nothing to her now that she was not a member of my brother’s family. With the passing of his mother, in spite of her sympathy, a sort of bondage dropped from her. With the knowledge of her child living within her, she was relieved of some fear she had had before. She thought of nothing now except her husband and herself and their child. Feeling the child stirring she smiled and said,
“It is this little person who will teach me everything. I will learn from him how to belong to my husband’s country and race. He will show me what his father is like—what he was from the time he was a baby until manhood. I can never be separate and alone any more.”
And again she said to her husband,
“It does not matter whether your family will receive me or not, now. Your bone and blood and brain have entered into my being, and I will give birth to the son of you and of your people.”
But my brother was not satisfied with this law of the spirit. He reverenced her when she spoke thus, but he went from her presence, his anger hot against his father. He said to me,
“We can live alone forever, we two, but shall we deprive the child of his heritage? Have we the right if we would?”
But I could not answer him anything, for I do not know what is wise.
When the time for the child’s birth drew near, therefore, so that it might be hourly expected, my brother went yet once more to my father to ask his formal recognition of his wife. I will tell you, My Sister, what my brother told me.
He said he went into his father’s apartments, trying to reassure himself with the favor which his father in the past had shown to his wife. While much that had been done and said was not courteous in meaning, yet my brother hoped that there might be some growth of real liking come out of it. He bowed his head before his father. He said,
“My honored Father, now that the First Lady, my honored mother, has departed to dwell beside the Yellow Springs, I, your unworthy son, beg you to deign to hear me.”
His father was sitting beside the table drinking. Now he inclined his head, smiled, and still smiling, he poured wine from the silver jug and sipped it delicately from the tiny jade wine bowl in his hand. He answered nothing. My brother therefore was encouraged to continue.
“The poor flower from a foreign land now seeks to ascertain her position among us. According to western marriage customs we were legally married, and in the eyes of her countrymen she is my First Lady. She wishes to be established now according to the laws of our country. This is the more important since she is about to bear my first child.
“The Ancient First Lady has departed, and we mourn her loss forever. But it is necessary to place the First Lady of her son in the rightful order of generation. The foreign flower wishes to become one of us, to belong to our root, as a plum tree is grafted upon the parent stem, before it bears fruit. She wishes her children to belong to our ancient and celestial race forever. It remains now but for our father to recognize her. She is the further encouraged by our father’s gracious favors to her in the past.”
Still his father said nothing. He continued to smile. He poured forth more wine, and he drank again from the jade cup. At last he said,
“The foreign flower is beautiful. How beautiful are her eyes like purple jewels! How white, like almond meats, is her flesh! She has amused us well, has she not? I congratulate you that she is about to present you with a little toy!”
He poured wine from the jug and drank again, and continued with his usual affable manner.
“Sit down, my son. You fatigue yourself unduly.”
He opened the drawer of the table and brought forth a second wine bowl and motioned my brother to seat himself. He poured the second bowl full of wine. But my brother refused it and continued to stand before him. His father went on speaking, his thick, soft voice rolling easily along,
“Ah, you do not love wine?” He smiled and sipped, and then wiping his lips with his hand, he smiled again. He said at last, seeing that my brother was determined to stand before him until he was answered,
“As for your request, my son, I will consider it. I am very busy. Moreover, your mother’s passing has filled me with such sorrow that I cannot fix my mind now on any matter. To-night I go to Shanghai to find some diversion for my mind, lest I fall ill through excess of sorrow. Convey my compliments to the expectant one. May she bear a son like a lotus! Farewell, my son—Good son! Worthy son!”
He rose, still smiling, and passed into the other room and drew the curtain.
When my brother told me of all this, his hatred was such that he spoke of my father as of a stranger. Ah, we learned in the Sacred Edicts when we were only little children even, that a man must not love his wife more than his parents. It is a sin before the ancestral tablets and the gods. But what weak human heart can stem the flowing of love into it? Love rushes in, whether the heart will have it or not. How is it that the ancients in all their wisdom never knew this? I cannot reproach my brother any more.
Strangely enough, it is now the foreign one who suffers most keenly. The antagonism of my mother did not grieve her like this. She is broken-hearted over the carelessness of my father. At first she was angry and spoke coldly of him. She said when she heard what had passed between her husband and his father,
“Was all his friendliness pretense, then? I thought he really liked me. I felt I had a friend in him. What did he mean—oh, what a beast he is, really!”
I was shocked at such open speech concerning an elder and looked at my brother to see what he would say to reprove her. But he stood silent with bowed head, so that I could not see his face. She looked at him, her eyes wide as though in terror, and suddenly without warning, for her manner of speaking had been most cold and detached, she burst into sobbing and ran to him crying,
“Oh, dearest, let us leave this horrible place!”
I was amazed at her sudden emotion. But my brother received her into his arms and murmured to her. I withdrew myself, therefore, filled with pain for them and with doubt of the future.
XX
NOW HAS OUR FATHER decided, My Sister! It is hard to receive his decision, but it is better to know it than to remain in false hope.
Yesterday he sent a messenger to my brother, a third cousin-brother, an official in the clan of my father’s house. He bore our father’s will to my brother in these words, when he had taken tea and refreshment in the guest hall.
“Hear, son of Yang. Your father replies plainly to your petition thus, and the members of the clan agree with him; even to the lowest they uphold him. Your father says,
“‘It is not possible that the foreign one be received among us. In her veins flows blood unalterably alien. In her heart are alien loyalties. The children of her womb cannot be sons of Han. Where blood is mixed and impure the heart cannot be stable.
“‘Her son, moreover, cannot be received in the ancestral hall. How could a foreigner kneel before the long and sacred line of the Ancient Great? One only may kneel there whose heritage is pure, and in whose flesh is the blood of the Ancients unadulterated.’
“Your father is generous. He sends you a thousand pieces of silver. When the child is born, pay her, and let her return to her own country. Long enough you have played. Now resume your duties. Hear the Command! Marry the one chosen for you. The daughter of Li becomes impatient at this long delay. The family of Li have been patient, preferring to allow the marriage to wait until your madness—known throughout the city, so that it is a scandal and a disgrace to the clan—is past. But now they will wait no longer; they demand their rights. The marriage can no longer be postponed. Youth is passing, and the sons begot and borne in youth are be
st.”
And he handed to my brother a heavy bag of silver.
But my brother took the silver and threw it upon the ground. He bent forward, and his eyes were like double-edged knives, seeking the other’s heart. His anger had been mounting under his icy face, and now it burst forth as terrible as lightning unforeseen out of a clear sky.
“Return to that one!” he shouted. “Bid him take back his silver! From this day I have no father. I have no clan—I repudiate the name of Yang! Remove my name from the books! I and my wife, we will go forth. In this day we shall be free as the young of other countries are free. We will start a new race—free—free from these ancient and wicked bondages over our souls!”
And he strode out of the room.
The messenger picked up the purse muttering,
“Ah, there are other sons—there are other sons!”
And he returned to my father.
Ah, My Sister, do you see now why I said it was well that my mother died? How could she have endured to see this day? How could she have endured to see the son of a concubine take the place of her only son, the heir?
My brother has nothing now, therefore, of the family estates. With his share they will placate the house of Li for the outrage done them, and already, Wang Da Ma says, they are looking for another husband for that one who was my brother’s betrothed.
With what a sacrifice of love has my brother loved this foreigner!
But he has told her nothing of the sacrifice, her, the expectant one, lest it darken her happiness in the future. He said only,
“Let us leave this place now, my heart. There can never be a home for us within these walls.”
And she was glad and went with him joyfully. Thus did my brother leave forever his ancestral home. There was not even one to bid him farewell, except old Wang Da Ma, who came and wept and bowed her head into the dust before him, crying,