“And have you been happy?” she had asked him with a little malice.
“I have possessed myself,” he had replied. …
Now, alone in the library where nowadays she always sat because his presence was there, too, she pondered upon the man and the woman. The woman Eve, she considered, must not be blamed because into her had been put the endless desire to carry on life. The man left to himself would never go further than himself. He had made the woman a part of himself, for his own use and pleasure. But she, in all her ignorance and innocence, used him in her endless creation of more life. Both were tools, but only the woman knew she was a tool and gave herself up to life.
“Here,” she told André, “is the difference between man and woman, even between you and me.”
The air came in mild and soft as she sat alone, and no wind blew. A small blue-tailed lizard came out from the crevice between the brick wall and the stone floor, and lay basking in a bar of sunlight. She sat so still it thought her part of the room, and in its meager way it made merry, turning its flat head this way and that and frisking its bright tail. Its eyes were shining and empty. She did not move. It was good luck to have small harmless animals about a house. They felt the house eternal and made their home in it.
She mused on, motionless while the lizard played. Such, then, was the unhappiness that lay between men and women. Man believed in his own individual meaning, but woman knew that she meant nothing for herself, except as she fulfilled her place in creating more life. And because men loved women as part of themselves, and women never loved men except as part of what must be created, this was the struggle that made man forever dissatisfied. He could not possess the woman because she was already possessed by a force larger than his own desire.
Had she not created even him? Perhaps for that he never forgave her, but hated her and fought her secretly, and dominated her and oppressed her and kept her locked in houses and her feet bound and her waist tied, and forbade her wages and skills and learning, and widowed her when he was dead, and burned her sometimes to ashes, pretending that it was her faithfulness that did it.
Madame Wu laughed aloud at man and the lizard rushed into hiding.
Once, when André had sat in the chair across from hers, she had said to him, “Is man all man and is woman all woman? If so, they can never come together, since he lives for his own being and she lives for universal life, and these are opposite.”
André had answered gravely enough, “God gave us each a residue for our own; that is, a part simply human, and neither male nor female. It is called the soul. It is unchanging and unchangeable. It can comprehend also the brain and its functions.”
“But a woman’s brain is not the same as a man’s?” she had asked.
“It is the same only when it is freed from the needs of the flesh,” André had replied. “Thus a woman may use her brain only for her female duties, and a man may use his only in pursuing women for himself. But the brain is a tool, and it may be put to any use that the creature wishes. That I cut cabbages with a fine knife is not to say that I cannot use that knife to carve an image of the Son of Man. If the Son of Man is in my heart, and within the vision of my soul’s sight, then I will use my tool, the brain, to make him clear.”
“The soul, then, is a residue neither male nor female,” she had repeated.
“It is so,” André had replied.
“And what is the soul in its stuff?” she had pressed him on.
“It is that which we “do not inherit from any other creature,” he had said. “It is that which gave me my own self, which shapes me a little different from all those who came before me, however like to them I am. It is that which is given to me for my own, a gift from God.”
“And if I do not believe in God?” she had inquired.
“It does not matter whether you believe or not,” he had answered. “You can see for yourself that you are like no other in this world, and not only you, but the humblest and the least beautiful creature also has this precious residue. If you have it, you know it exists. It is enough to know that. Belief in its giver can wait. God is not unreasonable. He knows that for belief we like to see with the eyes and hear with the ears, that we like to hold within our hands. So does the child also know only what its five senses can tell it. But other senses there are, and these develop as the being grows, and when they are fully developed we trust them as once we trusted only our senses.”
Remembering these words of his, she looked across the table. The chair was empty, and she heard no voice. But his face was as clear to her with its grave smile, his voice as deep as ever she had seen or heard.
“I only begin to understand,” she murmured. “But I do begin. And with my soul I thee love.”
Was it not possible that there could be love and friendship between souls ?
“It is possible,” she told him.
Now, Madame Wu was a practical woman, and what she learned she put to use. Within this house, which was her world, there were two disordered beings—that is, two who were not in right relation to the house and therefore to the universe. These, two were Rulan and Linyi.
Without haste, and allowing many days to pass, she nevertheless approached the day when she chose in her mind to speak with them, and first she would speak with Rulan, who was the elder.
It had been many months since Tsemo and Fengmo had left the home. Letters came to Madame Wu regularly, for the two were good sons. These letters were addressed to their father and to her, and after she had read them first and pondered over them, she sent them to Mr. Wu. After he had read them, he sent them to Liangmo, who more and more was taking over all the duties of the lands and shops, in preparation for the day when he would be the head of the family, and he read them and then put them in the family records.
From these letters Madame Wu had discerned clearly that her two sons were growing in opposite ways. Fengmo had wished to go abroad to study. She had given her permission and had sent the money which he required. There was some haste, he said, for the ocean roads were closing because of approaching war, and were he not to be caught, he must set sail without taking the long inland journey back to his home.
Had he been an only son Madame Wu would never have allowed this, but since she had so many sons, she did not press him to return before he went. He had set sail on a late winter day, he had crossed the seas in safety, and his letters now bore a strange postmark and stamp. These were American, but for this Madame Wu cared nothing. All outer countries were equally interesting and even alike to her, if they lay beyond the four seas. Fengmo pursued the studies which André had begun. Madame Wu was relieved to see that they had nothing to do with priesthood and religions. They had nothing to do with gods, and everything to do with men.
But Tsemo had not asked to cross the waters. Instead, he had gone to the capital and there had found a good place through his family’s wealth and influence. This did not amaze either Mr. Wu or Madame Wu herself, for however large her mind was, still it seemed only natural to her that everywhere the family should be known. Then Tsemo wrote the real reason why he had been so fortunate. Were there to come the war which threatened, the government would retreat inland, and there it would depend very much on the highest citizens and their families, of whom in their province the Wu family was the greatest and most ancient. Tsemo was given much preference, therefore, and had to endure jealousy and envy and some malice from others who were put aside. But he was young and hard and drove his own way for himself.
Madame Wu could not discover from his letters what he was. Fengmo she understood better. In his own way he was opening his mind and heart even as she had done. He was growing into a man and, more than that, his own residue, as André had called it, was growing also. But Tsemo seemed possessed. What possessed him she did not know.
The matter of Tsemo was hastened by the sudden news of attack by the East Ocean people that year on the coast. Madame Wu heard this, and she sent for newspapers, which she never read usually, to dis
cover what had taken place. What she read was common enough in the history of the country. So other attacks had been made in many previous centuries by other peoples, and the nation had always stood. It would stand now, and she was not troubled. It was not likely that enemies would pierce the hundreds of miles inland to this province where the house of Wu had stood so long. But she was grateful to the past generations in the family that they had not yielded, as so many had, to new times, and so had not pressed toward the sea to build new houses on the coast. The Wu family had built upon its ancestral lands and had remained there. Today they were safe. True, this enemy attacked also from the air. Yet there were no great cities near here, and it was not likely that the ignorant East Ocean people would know the name of one family above another. Madame Wu felt safe in her own house.
But the attack forced a swift change, nevertheless. The government was moved inland, and Tsemo came with it. He wrote one day in the next early autumn that he would come home for ten or twelve days.
With this letter, Madame Wu knew she must not delay the matter of Rulan. She sent for the young woman by Ying as messenger.
Now, it is not to be supposed that in all these months Madame Wu had not seen her daughter-in-law. She had seen Rulan often. At the table she had seen her among the others, and at the usual festivals of spring and winter Rulan was there, always quiet and sober in her dress. There were also times when Madame Wu had wished some writing done for the records of the family and for the harvests, and she had called upon Rulan for this, because of them all Rulan brushed the clearest letters. She had been kind to her young daughter-in-law at all times, and once she had even said, “It is well enough to have one daughter-in-law who is learned.”
To this Rulan had replied with only a few necessary words of thanks.
But at no time had Madame Wu drawn the girl out of her place in the family. Now, with Tsemo’s last letter in her hands, she knew the time had come.
Rulan walked quietly through the courts. She no longer wore the hard leather shoes which she had brought with her from Shanghai. Instead she wore velvet ones, cloth-soled. Madame Wu did not hear her footsteps, and when the tall shadow fell across the floor she looked up in surprise.
“Daughter, how softly you walk,” she exclaimed after greetings.
“I put aside my leather shoes, Mother,” Rulan replied. She sat down, not sidewise, but squarely on her chair, which was against a sidewall and so was lower than the one Madame Wu used. They sat in the sitting room, not in the library.
Madame Wu did not at once approach what was in her mind to say. Instead she said courteously, “It has been in my thoughts these several weeks to ask about your family in Shanghai. When the enemy attacked, did they escape?”
“My father took the household to Hong Kong,” Rulan replied.
“Ah, a long way,” Madame Wu said kindly.
“But not long enough,” Rulan said with some energy. “I have told my father so.”
“You believe that the enemy will dare to attack so far?” Madame Wu inquired. She could not but be impressed with the girl’s quickness.
“It will be a long war,” Rulan replied.
“Indeed!” Madame Wu remarked.
“Yes,” Rulan went on, “for it has been long in preparation.”
“Explain this to me, if you please,” Madame Wu said. The girl’s certainty amused her.
So Rulan explained: “Mother, the East Ocean people have long been afraid, centuries afraid. And of what? Of foreign attack. They have seen one country after another attacked and possessed. Out of the West have the conquerors come. Even when Genghis Khan came and conquered our nation, the East Ocean people began to be afraid. Then men came out of Portugal and Spain, out of Holland and France, and took countries for themselves. And England took India, and we have been all but taken, too, again and again, by these greedy Westerners. ‘Why,’ thus the East Ocean people reason, ‘should we be spared?’ So out of fear they have set out to seize lands and peoples for their own, and we are their nearest neighbor.”
This was monstrous talk for a young woman, and Madame Wu was amazed by it. Even André had not said these things.
“Where did you get all this knowledge?” Madame Wu asked.
“Tsemo writes me every week,” Rulan said.
Madame Wu felt her heart loosen with relief. She smiled. “You two,” she said, “are you good friends again?”
Rulan’s cheeks grew red. By nature she was pale, except for her crimson lips, and the flush was plain enough, but she did not turn her head away.
“We agree wonderfully when we are not together,” she said. “As soon as he comes we will quarrel again—I know it. I have told him so. We both know it.”
“But if you know it,” Madame Wu said with laughter, “can you not guard against it? Which of you begins it first—you or he?” In spite of her amusement she was pleased that the girl did not try to hide anything.
“Neither of us knows,” Rulan said. “We have sworn to each other this time, in our letters, that whoever begins, the other will speak to stop it. But I have no faith in our ability. I know Tsemo’s temper. It comes up like thunder in the summer. Without reason it is there, and when he is angry, then I am angry.” She paused and frowned. She searched herself, and Madame Wu gave her time. She went on, “There is something in me which he hates. Now that is true. He says there is nothing, but there is. When we are parted he does not feel it. When we come together it is there. If I knew what it was I would take a knife and cut it out of myself.”
“Perhaps it is not something which is there, but something which is not there,” Madame Wu said gently.
Rulan lifted her head. Her eyes, which were her beauty, looked startled. “That I never thought of,” she said. Then she was downcast again. “But that will make it very hard. It would be easier to take something out of myself that I have than to put something in which I have not.”
“This need not be true,” Madame Wu told her. “It depends altogether on your love for Tsemo. If you think of your marriage as something only for your two selves, well, then you must always quarrel unless you can determine to stay apart from each other.”
“You mean—” Rulan said and could not finish. In the female part of her being she was very shy.
“I do mean that,” Madame Wu said. She went on speaking out of a wisdom which she knew came to her from her own knowledge of love. Now she knew that between men and women there is no duty. There is only love—or no love.
She reached for her silver pipe and began to fill it slowly. She did not look at her daughter-in-law for a while. Instead she gazed into her court, where the orchids were yellow at this season. The bamboos fluttered their leaves like tassels in the slight wind. It was the sort of day that she and André had loved best because of its peace.
“In the first place, you must know that neither of you owes anything to the other,” she began at last.
Rulan interrupted her with surprise. “Mother, this is the strangest thing I ever did hear said from a mother-in-law to her son’s wife.”
“I have learned it only recently,” Madame Wu said. She smiled with secret mischief. “Credit me, child, that I am still learning!”
She was pulling Rulan by the heart. The girl had come prepared for her mother-in-law’s anger and humbled to receive it. Now hope moved in her. It was not anger that she was to receive, but wisdom. She leaned forward like a tall lily waiting for rain.
“Trouble between men and women always arises from the belief that there is some duty between them,” Madame Wu went on. “But once having given up that belief, the way becomes clear. Each has a duty only to himself. And how to himself? Only to fulfill himself. If one is wholly fulfilled, the other is fulfilled also.”
She paused, lit her pipe, smoked two puffs, and blew out the ash. Then she went on, “And why is this true? Because, in the words of sages, ‘The husband is not dear for the husband’s sake but for the self’s sake, and the wife is not dear to him for her sake,
but for his own sake.’ It is when the one is happy that the other is happy, and it is the only happiness possible for both.”
Rulan sat motionless, listening.
Madame Wu went on, “As for procreation, it is a duty not to him nor to you. It is your common duty to our kind. Where you have made your mistake is that you have confused the bearing of children with your love for Tsemo. And by your confusion you have confused Tsemo. That is why he is so easily angry with you.”
“Mother,” Rulan begged her, “speak on to me. You are coming into the heart.”
“You and Tsemo departed from the usual tradition,” Madame Wu said plainly. “You chose each other because you loved each other. This is dangerous because the chances of what may be called happiness are much lessened thereby. You and Tsemo thought only of yourselves, not of your children, not of your family, not of your duty to carry on your kind. You thought only of yourselves, as two beings separate from all others. But you are not separate, except in a small part of yourselves. Now you are trying to force all your lives into that small part of yourselves. The begetting, conceiving, and bearing of your children, the living together in all ways of eating and sleeping and dressing and coming in and going out—all you are trying to force into that small separate place. But it will not contain so much. It is crowded, and you are choking each other at your sources. You are too close. You will hate each other because that part of you which is you, yourselves—your residue, your soul—has no space left in which to breathe and to grow.”
Now she looked at Rulan. The girl’s whole being was listening.
“Separate yourself, my child,” she said. “Let him separate himself. Accept as a matter of course, as a duty to our kind, that you will bear children. They are not his children nor yours. They are the children of the race. Bear them as naturally as you breathe and eat and sleep and perform all your other functions as a physical creature. Begetting and conceiving have nothing to do with your souls. Do not test the measure of his love for you by the way in which he expresses his body’s heat. He is not thinking of you at those times. He is thinking of himself. Think you also of yourself. Does one man’s passion differ from another’s? It does not. And no more does one woman bear children differently from another. In such things we are all alike. Do not imagine that in this he or you is different from the commonest man and woman.” She paused, and a strange feeling of exhaustion came over her.