“Too much talk from girls,” Mr. Kang said, but he was fond of this Linyi, because she was the prettiest of all his daughters, and he smiled at her.
Old Lady staggered to her feet. “I am going to bed,” she said. “I must prepare to be ill.”
Madame Wu rose. “Do go, Mother,” she said. “We will remain with the guests in the other room.”
She waited while two servants led Old Lady out, and all the guests stood. Then she looked at Mr. Wu.
“Will you take your guests to the main hall?” she directed gently. “The ladies will come into my own sitting room.” She moved away as she spoke and the women followed her, and the men went with Mr. Wu in dividing streams. Children were taken to the courts and held by their nurses while they slept.
Madame Wu paused at the door. “Take the sick little one to the bamboo bedroom,” she directed its nurse, “it is cool there. He must sleep awhile.” The child who had been wailing stopped suddenly at the sound of her voice.
The feast was over, but in her sitting room Madame Wu maintained her delicate dignity before the women. She spoke little, but her silence was not noticed because she was by habit a silent woman. Only when some decision had to be made did they turn to her by instinct, for they knew that in this house she made all decisions. Then whatever she had decided she made known in a few simple, clear words, her voice always pretty and smooth and gentle as water slipping over stones.
Around her the talk ebbed and flowed. A small troupe of actors had been hired for entertainment, and they performed their tricks. The children watched with pleasure, and the elders watched while they talked and sipped hot tea of the finest leaves plucked before summer rains fell. In the presence of younger women there was no talk possible between the older women, and Madame Kang slept a little. Once Madame Wu said to Ying, “Go and see if our Old Lady is ill.”
Ying went away and came back laughing. “She has been ill and has cast up everything,” she told Madame Wu. “But she still says it was worth it.”
Everyone laughed, and at the sound of the laughter Madame Kang woke. “It is time we went home,” she said to Madame Wu. “We must not weary you, Sister, for you are to live a hundred years.”
Madame Wu smiled and rose as one by one the guests came to her to say good-by. Packets of sweetmeats and gifts and money from the guests had been prepared for the servants, and now Ying brought these in on a tray and servants came in to receive them. They bowed before Madame Wu, their hands clasped politely on their breasts, and Madame Wu replied to each one courteously and gave him his gifts. All these servants had feasted, too, in the kitchens.
So at last she was alone again, and she allowed herself to be weary for one moment. Small muscles that held her bones gracefully erect relaxed at throat and breast and waist, and for a moment she looked wilted as a flower and now almost her age. Then she straightened her slender shoulders. It was too soon to be weary. The day was not yet ended.
An hour later, after she had rested, she rose and walked up and down the room seven times. Then she went to the window and leaned on the low sill. The window was long and wide, and the lattices were thrown back. Outside was the court where she had sat this morning with Madame Kang and then with Liangmo. She recalled their horror at what she was about to do, and unconsciously she smiled her pretty smile which was neither sad nor gay.
Ying at this moment appeared at the round moon gate of the court and she caught the smile. “Lady, you look like a young girl there in the moonlight!” she called.
Madame Wu’s smile did not change, but she turned and sat down at the toilet table. Ying came in and took off her garments down to the fine white silk of her innermost ones. Then she let down Madame Wu’s long hair and began to comb it in firm strong strokes with the fine-toothed sandalwood comb. She saw the quiet face in the mirror and saw how large and black the eyes looked tonight.
“Are you tired, Lady?” Ying asked.
“Not at all,” Madame Wu replied.
But Ying went on, “You have had a long day. And now, Lady, you are forty and beginning another kind of life, and I think you ought not to work so hard. You should give over the government of the house and shops to your eldest son, and you should let your son’s wife direct the kitchens, and even your second son’s wife could attend to the supervision of the servants. Now you should sit in the court and read and look at your flowers and remember how good your life is under this roof, and how your sons’ wives are bearing sons.”
“Perhaps you are right,” Madame Wu replied. “I have been thinking of such things myself. Ying, I shall ask my sons’ father to take a small wife.”
She said this so calmly that for a moment she knew it was not comprehended. Then she felt the comb stop in her hair, and she felt Ying’s hand holding her hair together tighten at the nape of her neck.
“It is not necessary for you to speak,” Madame Wu said. The comb began to move again too quickly. “You are pulling my hair,” Madame Wu said.
Ying threw the comb on the floor. “I will not take care of any lady but you!” she burst forth.
“It is not asked of you,” Madame Wu replied.
But Ying went down on her knees on the tiled floor beside Madame Wu, and she sobbed and wiped her eyes with the corner of the new sateen jacket which she had put on for the day. “Oh, my mistress!” she sobbed. “Does he compel you, my precious? Has he forgotten all your goodness and your beauty? Tell me just one thing—”
“It is my own will,” Madame Wu said firmly. “Ying, get up from your knees. If he comes in he will think I have been beating you—”
“You!” Ying sobbed. “You who could never put out your hand to pinch a mosquito, even when it sucks your blood!” Nevertheless she rose and took up the comb from the floor and, sniffling in her tears, again she combed Madame Wu’s hair.
Madame Wu began to speak in her quiet, reasonable voice. “I tell you first, Ying, so that I may tell you how to behave among the servants. There is to be no loud talk among you and no blaming this one and that. When the young woman comes—”
“Who is she?” Ying asked.
“I do not know yet,” Madame Wu said.
“When does she come?” Ying interrupted again.
“I have not decided,” Madame Wu said. “But when she comes she is to be received as one honored in the house, a little lower than I am, a little higher than any sons’ wives. She will not be an actress or a singing girl or any of those persons, but a good woman. Everything is to be done in order. Above all, there is not to be a word spoken against my son’s father or against the young woman, for it is I who will invite her to come.”
Ying could not bear this. “Lady, since we have been together so many years, is it allowed for me to ask you why?”
“You may ask, but I will not tell you,” Madame Wu said tranquilly.
In silence Ying finished combing the long hair and scenting it and braiding it. She wound it into a coil for Madame Wu’s bath, and then she supervised the pouring of the water in the bathroom. There stood a deep round jar of green-lined pottery, and two water carriers brought in great wooden buckets of hot and cold water through an outer door and poured it in and went away again. Ying tried the water with her hand and dropped in scent from a bottle and then, holding fresh soap and silken towels, she went into the other room.
“Your bath is ready, Lady,” she said as she said every night.
Madame Wu took off her last garments and walked, as slender as a young girl, quite naked across the room and into the bathroom. She took Ying’s hand and stepped into the tub, and sat cross-legged in the water while Ying washed her as tenderly as though she were a child. The water was clear, and Madame Wu’s exquisite flesh was ivory white against the deep green of the porcelain. The water was about her shoulders and as she thus sat submerged she reflected on her own wisdom. Her body was actually as beautiful as it had ever been. Mr. Wu had not allowed her to suckle her children, and her little breasts looked like lotus buds under water.
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When she stepped out Ying wrapped her in the silken sheet and pressed her flesh dry and put fresh silk night garments upon her, and tended the nails of her hands and her feet. Then when all was finished she opened the door of the bedroom. It was still empty, for Mr. Wu never came in until Ying had gone away. There were, of course, some nights when he never came at all, but these were few. Madame Wu stepped upon the long carved stool at the bedside, and from this into the high, silk-canopied bed.
“Shall I not draw the bed curtains?” Ying asked. “The moonlight is too bright.”
“No,” Madame Wu said, “let me see the moonlight.”
So the curtains remained behind the big silver hooks, and Ying felt of the teapot and of the little silver pipe which Madame Wu smoked sometimes in the night if she were sleepless, and she saw that the matches were beside the candle.
“Until tomorrow,” Madame Wu said.
“Until tomorrow, Lady,” Ying said and went away.
Madame Wu lay very still and straight under the silken sheet and the soft silk-stuffed summer quilt. The moonlight shone upon the wall opposite her bed. It was bright indeed, so bright that she could see the outlines of the picture on the scroll which hung there. It was a simple picture but painted by an artist. He had used space instead of much paint, and with only a few strokes of his brush he had suggested a cliff and a crest upon a mountain, and a small bent figure struggling upward. None could tell whether this was a man or a woman. It was only a human creature.
Sometimes, or so it appeared to Madame Wu, this small figure seemed higher on his climb than he did at other times. Sometimes he seemed to have fallen back many miles. She knew, of course, that this depended entirely upon how the light fell from the window. Tonight the edge of the window cut the picture with shadow and then light so that the human creature seemed suddenly to be very near the top of the mountain. But still she knew that he was exactly where he had always been, and neither higher nor lower.
She lay, not thinking, not remembering, but simply being all that she was. She was neither waiting nor expecting. If he did not come tonight she would presently fall asleep and tell him at another time. Times were chosen and appointed. If one forced them, they were wrong. All the quiet strength of her decision would gather around the opportune moment, and then it would become actually right.
At this moment she heard the footsteps of Mr. Wu coming solidly through the courtyard. He came through the outer room and into her sitting room. Then the door opened and he stood there in his bedroom. He had been drinking wine. Her sensitive nostrils caught the smell of heated wine as the alcohol distilled through his breath and his skin. But she was not disturbed, for he did not drink to excess at any time, and tonight of course he had been drinking with friends. What was more natural at the end of a feast day than such drinking? He had his pipe in his hand, and he was about to put it on the table. Then he delayed for an instant and stood holding it in his hand.
“Are you tired?” he asked abruptly.
“Not at all tired,” she replied tranquilly.
He put the pipe down and, loosening the curtains from their hook, he got into bed behind them.
After twenty-four years, there was, of course, a certain routine in their life. She would like to have varied it somehow, since this was the last night that he would spend with her. But she had already considered such variation and had decided against it. It would only be harder for her to convince him of the wisdom of her decision—that is, if he needed convincing. She had tried to prepare herself for the possibility that he might even be pleased. In that case it would be easier. But he might not be pleased. There was also the possibility that he would refuse to the end to accept her decision. But she thought he would not refuse, certainly not to the end.
She was careful, therefore, to be almost exactly the median of what she always was. That is, she was neither cold nor ardent. She was pleasant, she was tender. She saw to it that nothing was lacking, but that nothing was over and above. Fulfillment and not surfeit was her natural gift in all things.
She was, however, somewhat disconcerted to find that he himself was not quite as usual. He seemed disturbed and a little distracted.
“You were more beautiful today than you have ever been,” he murmured. “Everybody said so.”
She smiled up into his eyes that were above hers as she lay on the pillow. It was her usual pretty smile, but in the half-light of the single candle on the little table by the bed, she saw his dark eyes flicker and burn with a flame certainly more intense than she had seen for a long time. She closed her eyes, and her heart began to beat. Would she regret her decision? She lay as soft as a plucked flower for the next two hours, asking herself many times this question. Would she regret? Would she not regret?
At the end of the two hours, she knew she would not regret. When he slept she rose and went silently into her bathroom and bathed herself again in cool water. She did not go back to the bed where he lay outflung, sleeping in deep-drawn breaths. She picked up her own little pipe and filled its tiny bowl with sweet tobacco and lit it. Then she went to the window and stood watching the sky. The moon was almost down. In another five minutes it would have sunk behind the long lines of roofs of this ancient house. Peace filled her being. She would never sleep in this room again as long as she lived. She had already chosen her place. Next to Old Lady’s court was the empty one where Mr. Wu’s father had once lived. She would take that one, on the pretext that she could watch Old Lady by night as well as by day. It was a beautiful court in the very center of the great house. She would live there, alone and at peace, the single heart in all the life that went on about her.
From the big bed Mr. Wu suddenly yawned and woke. “I ought to go back to my own rooms,” he said. “You have had a long day and you should sleep.”
Whenever he said that, and he always said it, being a courteous man in love as well as in business, she always replied. “Do not move, I beg you. I can sleep very well.”
But tonight she did not say this. She replied, without turning her head, “Thank you, Father of my sons. Perhaps you are right.”
He was so astonished at this that he climbed out of the bed and fumbled for his slippers on the floor. But he could not find them, and then she came quickly and knelt and found them and still kneeling she put them on his feet. And he, like a big child, suddenly leaned his head on her shoulder and twined his arms about her body
“You are more fragrant than a jessamine flower,” he murmured.
She laughed softly in his embrace. “Are you still drunk?”
“Drunk,” he murmured, “drunk—drunk!”
He drew her toward him again, and she grew alarmed. “Please,” she said, “may I help you to rise?” She rose, suddenly steel-strong, and pulled him upward with her.
“Have I offended you?” he asked. He was now wholly awake. She saw his dark eyes clear.
“No,” she said. “How can you offend me after twenty-four years? But—I have come to an end.”
“Come to an end?” he repeated.
“Today I am forty years old,” she said. She knew suddenly that this was the moment, now, in the middle of the night when around them the whole house lay sleeping. She moved away from him as he sat there on the bed and lit the other candles with the one that burned. One after another they flared, and the room was full of light. She sat down by the table and he sat on the bed, staring at her.
“I have been preparing for this day for many years,” she said. She folded her hands on her knees. In her white silken garments, in the moonlight, her hands on her knees, she summoned all the strong forces of her being.
He leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees, still staring at her.
“I have been a good wife to you,” she said.
“Have I not been a good husband to you?” he asked.
“That, always,” she replied. “As men and women go, there could not be better than we have had. But now the half of my life is over.”
&nbs
p; “Only half,” he said.
“Yet the half of yours is far away,” she went on. “Heaven has made this difference between men and women.”
He listened as he listened to anything she said, as though he knew that her words always carried a weight of meaning beyond their bare frame and beyond, perhaps, his comprehension.
“You are a young man still,” she went on. “Your fires are burning and strong. You ought to have more sons. But I have completed myself.”
He straightened his lounging body, and his full handsome face grew stern. “Can it be that I understand what you mean?” he asked.
“I see that you do understand,” she replied.
They looked at each other across the twenty-four years they had spent together in this house where their children now slept, where Old Lady slept her light, aged sleep while she waited to die.
“I do not want another woman.” His voice was rough. “I have never looked at another woman. You have been more beautiful than any woman I ever saw, and you are still more beautiful now than any woman.”
He hesitated, and his eyes fell from her face to his hands. “I saw that young girl today—and I thought when I saw her, how much more beautiful are you than she!”
She knew at once what young girl he meant. “Ah, Linyi is pretty,” she agreed. Inwardly she renewed her decision. When the talk had proceeded to the matter of who should choose another woman for him, she would choose. It would be ill for the house if the generations were mingled, and Liangmo was already married to Meng, the sister of Linyi, who were both daughters of her own closest friend.
He pursed his smooth full lips. “No,” he said, “I will not agree to your plan. What would my friends say? I have never been a man to go after women.”
She laughed softly and was amazed as she laughed that she suffered a small pang in her breast, like the prick of a dagger that does not pierce the skin. If he could begin to think of how it would seem to his friends, then he would be soon persuaded, sooner than she had thought.
“It looks very ill for a woman over forty to bear a child,” she said. “Your friends would blame you for that, too.”