Pavilion of Women

IV

MR. WU DID NOT come near Madame Wu, and she let it be so. After the many years, she knew what was going on in his mind. Had he been resolute against the girl, he would have come to tell Madame Wu so, with temper and decision, possibly even with laughter. But that he had stayed away proved to her that he was not unwilling for the girl to come into his court, and that he was secretly ashamed before Madame Wu because he was not unwilling. She knew him well enough to know that he might even be inwardly disgusted with himself, though in a degree too small to help him against his inclination. In short, he was what Madame Wu knew him to be, of a nature able to know what were the qualities of a great man, to admire and wish for all of these qualities, and yet hamstrung in his soul by the demands of his body.

Thus, as he was never able to resist a well-seasoned dish at the table, so he would not be able, however he longed for perfection, to deny himself the pleasure of a young woman. He was not austere, although he had been able for years to be satisfied with Madame Wu as his wife. But Madame Wu without conceit knew that, had she been less beautiful and less conscientious as a wife, he might have been led elsewhere. She had been careful to keep him satisfied in all things. Did he feel a desire for knowledge concerning any matter to be found in books, she informed herself and then told him. Did he mention a curiosity concerning foreign things, she learned and let him know. In all their years he had not an unsatisfied desire. But she knew without pain that this was because she had studied his wishes and when they were vague, by careful discourse she helped them to emerge clearly, even to himself, and when they were sharp and immediate she wasted no time in satisfying him. She had been a good wife.

Nor had she been discontented with him. She had no sudden disappointment in him. At first she had taken his willful curiosities as the stirrings of a mind impeded because his mother had indulged him from the moment he was born. Old Lady had never allowed Old Gentleman any power over their only child, unduly precious because he was the one left alive out of several births. At first Old Lady had quarreled openly and violently when Old Gentleman wished to discipline his son. This occurred when the boy was seven years old. Until that time, after the custom of all such families, Old Gentleman had allowed the boy to live in his mother’s courts. But at seven, he told Old Lady, it was time the boy came into his own court.

One excuse after another did Old Lady then put out. First the boy had a weak throat and she must have him where he could be watched at night, and next he had a small appetite and must be coaxed at meals. When Old Gentleman grew stern she wept, and when he was angry, she was more angry. But Old Gentleman was harder than a rock, and she was compelled to yield. When their child was nine years old he had been moved into a small room next to his father’s bedroom, and Old Gentleman undertook the teaching and discipline of his only son.

Alas that this small room had also a side door through which the handsome, willful boy could creep at night to his mother! Old Gentleman patiently and tenderly instructed his son to no avail. For instead of the self-discipline which he taught, she, out of the excess of her love, helped him play when he should have been studying. She gave him rich and delicate foods, and when his young belly was overstuffed and ached she taught him to puff an opium pipe to relieve the pain. It was only the boy’s own health and restlessness which saved him from this opium smoking. As it was, by the time he was twenty, Old Gentleman perceived that Old Lady had won over him, and with a last hour of admonition he had yielded up his son.

“My son,” thus he had ended his admonition, “you have chosen woman over man, your mother rather than your father, ease rather than achievement. Let it be so. It now remains for the sake of our house to find you a wife who will give strength to your weakness.”

The boy had been frightened by the gravity of his father’s voice and, as he always did when he was frightened, he had hastened away as quickly as he could to his mother, and in a few minutes he had forgotten his discomfort.

Madame Wu had come to the house soon afterward. On the tenth day after the marriage, Old Gentleman had sent for her to come to his library, and had talked with her thus about his son: “He is what you will make him. Some men make themselves, but he will always be made by women. Yet you must not let him know this. Never reproach him with his own weakness, for then he will become wholly weak. Never let him feel that but for you he would be useless, for then he will indeed become useless. You must search for the few strong threads in him and weave your fabric with those, and where the threads are weak, never trust to them. Supply your own in secret.”

She had been very young then, and her bridegroom was handsome and gay, and she was drunk with marriage. She was afraid of nothing.

“I love him,” she had said simply to Old Gentleman.

He had looked startled, for it was not usual for a woman to speak so boldly. But the voice in which she had uttered these extraordinary words was very soft and pretty, and she had looked so delicate and innocent as she spoke them that he had not the heart to reproach her.

Instead of reproach he had merely inclined his head and said, “Then you have a woman’s sharpest weapon in your hand.”

It had been perhaps ten years before Madame Wu had come to the full comprehension of the man to whom she was married and whom she loved still, with tenderness. So slowly, so gradually that she had not felt the pain of disappointment, she had found all the boundaries of his mind and soul. The space within these boundaries was small. The curiosities and questions which had at first excited her because she had taken them to be stirrings of intelligence, she saw now had no root. They were no more than ways to pass the time. They led to no end. At any moment he might grow weary of a question and cease to pursue it, and then she must discover the way the next wind blew.

It was at this time that she herself had stepped out beyond his boundaries and had let her own spread as far as they would. But this she did not tell him. Indeed, why should she, since he would not have understood what she said? Enough of her remained within his boundaries so that he thought she was still there with him. But she had already begun to dream of her fortieth birthday and to plan for what she would do when the day came.

Now she made up her mind that she must go and tell Mr. Wu herself that Ch’iuming had been found and was ready. He would have heard it from servants, but still she must tell him. There should not be delay, since Fengmo had seen the girl. For a young man to see a young woman might mean nothing, but it might mean much. There is a moment in the tide of youth when any such meeting, however accidental, may be as dangerous as a rendezvous. If Mr. Wu were in the right mind, she would send Ch’iuming to him as quickly as she could get her ready.

Ch’iuming was happy enough on this bright summer morning. Madame Wu had sent Ying to a cloth shop for flowered cotton cloth of good quality and silk of medium quality, and a clerk had brought bolts of such goods. From these Madame Wu now chose enough to make Ch’iuming three separate changes of garments. She wished to please the girl, and so she allowed her to point out which were her favorite colors and patterns, and she was pleased that the girl chose small patterns and mild colors. She was still more pleased when the girl set to work at once to make the garments herself.

Ch’iuming stood at the square table and spread the printed cotton on the table first. Then she paused, the iron scissors uplifted.

“Shall I cut them like your garments, Elder Sister?” she asked. Her own clothes were wide-sleeved and short in the coat as country people’s are.

“Ying will help you to make the proper fashion for this house,” Madame Wu replied.

So Ying had measured and marked with a piece of chalky white stone and then had cut the cloth to fit Ch’iuming’s slender curved body.

And while this was going on the girl stood in a trance of pure pleasure. “In my whole life I have never had a garment from new cloth,” she murmured.

When the pieces were cut she threaded her needle and slipped the brass ring of her thimble over her forefinger and sat down in a dream of joy. Slowly and carefully she stitched, while Ying looked on to examine the stitches for smallness and evenness. Watching Ch’iuming, Madame Wu felt again that strange pang of vague guilt, as though she were about to do this girl a wrong. She decided at once to go and find Mr. Wu and beckoned to Ying to come aside for a moment in the other room. There beyond the hearing of the girl she said:

“You must help her. See that she has a full set of undergarments quickly, and one outer set. I may send her from here tomorrow, depending on what the day shows me.”

“Yes, Lady,” Ying said, guarding her face and her voice against showing pleasure or sadness.

Now Madame Wu went out of her own court for the first time since she had moved here. In duty she stopped to see Old Lady. She found her well, sitting in the sun outside her door, and unusually cheerful while a maid rubbed oil into her feet and ankles which happened that day to be a little swollen.

“It was crabs,” Old Lady said. “Crabs always make my feet swell. But since I am about to descend into the grave at any moment, shall I refuse crabs for this cause? My feet and ankles are little good to me anyway. I drank much wine with the crabs, too, to take away the poison.”

Old Lady seemed to have forgotten entirely that she had been angry with her daughter-in-law about the concubine, and Madame Wu did not remind her. She stopped and examined Old Lady’s swollen feet and bade the maid rub them upward so that the blood would ascend rather than descend. Then she went on her way.

She had expected to find Mr. Wu in her old courts rather than in his, and so there she went. In that court her silver orchids were fading. She stooped to see if there were aphids on the leaves, but there were none. It was at this moment that she saw Mr. Wu sitting inside the room in his easy garments. Because of the heat he wore a pair of white silk trousers loose around the ankles, and a silk jacket unbuttoned over his smooth chest. He was fanning himself with a white silk fan painted with green bamboos, and in his hand was a tea bowl. The empty dishes of his breakfast were on the table. She discerned embarrassment and some sullenness on his well-fed, handsome face, and out of old habit she spoke cheerfully to him, “I think it is time we planted peonies again in this court. What do you say, Father of my sons?”

“I never cared for those little gray orchids,” he replied. “I like something with color.”

“I will have them taken away and peonies planted this very day,” she went on. “If we buy them in pots, they will go on blooming without being disturbed.”

He rose and sauntered out of the room and into the court and stood at her side, looking down at the orchids. “Red and pink peonies,” he said judiciously, “and a white one to each five, say, of the red and pink.”

“A good proportion,” she agreed. “Where is Yenmo?” she asked. Her youngest son was usually somewhere near his father.

“I sent him yesterday to the country,” Mr. Wu said with solemnity. “He is too young for the turmoil in this house.”

“That was thoughtful of you,” she told him. “You are entirely wise.” She looked up at him affectionately. He was a tall man, somewhat fat, for he was fond of food. “How are you this morning?” she asked. “You look like a prince of Chu.”

“Well,” he replied, “very well.” But she discovered a certain impatience in him. She smiled.

“I have not forgotten you,” she said. Her pretty voice was rich with tenderness.

“I feel as though you had,” he grumbled. He opened his jacket and fanned his bare breast swiftly and hard for a moment. “I have been very lonely, waiting for you to make up your mind. I am a good husband, Ailien! Another man would not have stood for this separation for so long. All these days! Enough, I say!”

“I have not forgotten you for one moment,” she said. “I have diligently searched, and the young woman is here.”

A fine red sprang into Mr. Wu’s face. “Ailien,” he said, “do not speak of that again.”

“You must have heard she was here,” Madame Wu went on in her clear voice.

“I pay no heed to servants’ talk,” he said and looked lordly. But this she knew as merely his picture of himself. He listened to all his manservant told him and laughed at his jokes, for the man was a clown and knew that his master liked to laugh.

Madame Wu moved gracefully to a garden seat. “The young woman is truly suitable,” she murmured. Her delicate hands fell into their usual tranquillity upon her lap. “Healthy, young, pretty, innocent—”

“Do you have no jealousy whatever?” he interrupted her harshly. The clear sunlight fell upon him as he stood, and she appreciated the picture it made of him — shining black hair, smooth golden skin, handsome lips, and large bold eyes.

“You are so handsome,” she said smiling, “that I might be jealous were she not so much a child, so simple, so less than nothing between you and me.”

“I cannot understand why you have grown so monstrously cold overnight,” he complained. “Ailien, last week you were — as you have always been. This week—”

“I have passed my fortieth birthday,” she said for him, still smiling. Then she motioned to the seat beside her. “Come,” she coaxed him, “sit down.”

He had scarcely taken his seat when she saw Fengmo pass the door. He looked in, saw his parents side by side, and went away quickly.

“Fengmo!” she called. But the boy did not hear her and did not return.

“We must marry that third son of ours,” she told Mr. Wu. “What would you say if I spoke to Madame Kang at once — perhaps tomorrow — and asked for Linyi?”

“You have always chosen the boys’ wives,” he returned.

“Tsemo chose his own,” she reminded him. “I wish to avoid that mistake with Fengmo.”

“Well enough,” he said. She was pleased to see that there was no interest in his voice at the thought of Linyi. He had forgotten her. He was thinking only of himself. She decided to speak directly, as though she had ordered him a new suit of clothes or a pair of shoes.

“Unless you are unwilling, I will send the girl to you tomorrow,” she said.

The bright red came back again to Mr. Wu’s cheeks. He put his thumb and forefinger into the small pocket of his jacket and brought out a package of foreign cigarettes, took one out and lit it. “I know you are so devilish stubborn a woman that I could kill myself beating against your wish,” he muttered between clouds of smoke. “Why should I kill myself?”

“Have I ever made you less happy by my stubbornness?” she inquired. Her voice was bright with laughter. “Has it not always been stubbornness for your sake?”

“Do not talk to me about this matter,” he said. He blew a sudden gust of smoke. “Never mention the girl to me again!”

“There is no reason why we should talk about her,” Madame Wu agreed. “I will send her to you tomorrow night.”

She saw a second shape at the gate to the court and recognized her eldest son, Liangmo. He also was passing by, or so it seemed.

“Liangmo!” she called. But Liangmo also went and did not return.

Mr. Wu rose abruptly. “I now recall I promised to meet a man at the teahouse,” he told Madame Wu. “The land steward thinks we should buy that pocket of a field that my grandfather, three generations ago, gave to one of his servants who saved his life. The man’s descendants are ready to sell, and it would restore the land to its old shape.”

“A very good thing,” she said, “but it must not cost more than seventy-five dollars to the fifth of an acre.”

“We might give him eighty dollars,” Mr. Wu said.

“I shall be happy if it is no more,” she told him. “We must think of our children.”

“Not more than eighty,” Mr. Wu promised. He turned and went into the house, and she too rose and prepared to go on her way. But at the threshold Mr. Wu stopped and turned. He looked at her. “Ailien,” he cried, “I cannot take the blame for anything!”

“Who will blame you?” she replied. “And, by the bye, I have forgotten to tell you her name. It is Ch’iuming. She will be brightness in your autumn.”

Mr. Wu heard this, opened his mouth, closed it, and walked away.

Madame Wu looked down at the fading orchids with thoughtful eyes. “He wanted to curse me,” she thought, “but he did not know how to do it.”

She suddenly felt timid and longed to return to her own quiet rooms. But she knew she must not, in duty to her sons, who would be expecting her. Son by son she must visit them all.

She found Liangmo in the next court which was his and his family’s own home. It was a happy, lively home. Liangmo’s small son was playing with his nurse in the court, and he came to Madame Wu when she came in. She fondled his cheeks and stooped to smell his sweet flesh.

“Little meat dumpling,” she said tenderly. “Ah, your cheeks are fragrant!”

Liangmo heard her voice and came out of the house. He was dressed for the street. “Here I am, Mother. I was about to go outside the city and see how the rice is growing. It’s time to measure the harvest.”

“Put off your going, my son,” she said. He held out his arm and she placed her hand on it for support and thus he led her to a garden seat under a pine tree that had been trained to curve over it like a canopy.

“I have come to ask that you go with your father to the teahouse. He is thinking of buying back the parcel of land that the Yang family have had these three generations. The present son is an opium smoker, as you know, and it is a good chance to secure that land again into our own holding. But you must go and see that not more than seventy dollars is offered. Your father talks eighty. But it can be had for seventy. People rob us because they think we are rich, and no one is rich enough to be robbed.”

“I will go, Mother, of course,” he said. She saw him hesitate and knew at once that he wished to ask about Ch’iuming. But she had made up her mind that she would not talk of the girl with any son. It was not well to allow one generation to discuss another.

“Where is Meng?” she asked. “I have not seen her since my birthday. I want to ask her — and you, too, my son — what do you think of Linyi for Fengmo’s wife?”

“Linyi?” Liangmo had not thought of it. “But will Fengmo let you decide for him?”

“If he will not, then I will let him decide for himself to marry Linyi,” Madame Wu said with her pretty soft laugh. “I never compel anyone to anything.”

At this moment Meng came out of the house. Her chief fault was that she was sleepy in the morning and slatternly for an hour or two after she rose. This morning when she heard Madame Wu she had been sitting in her night garments with her hair uncombed. She had hastened into the inner room and made herself decent. Now she came out looking like a rose, neither bud nor full blown. Her new pregnancy made her soft and mild with lassitude. Her great eyes were liquid, and her lips were parted. In her ears she had put the pearls that Madame Wu had given her.

“Mother,” she called in greeting, “are you come?”

“How the pearls suit you,” Madame Wu said. She looked at Liangmo. “Go, my son,” she said with the pretty authority that never seemed real because it was so light. “Meng and I will talk a while.”

When he was gone she surveyed Meng from head to foot. “Do you vomit in the morning yet?” she inquired affectionately.

“I am just beginning to do it,” Meng replied. “That is, I am roiled but nothing comes up.”

“Another ten days and you will begin,” Madame Wu said. “A healthy child, especially if it is a boy, always makes the mother vomit for three months.”

“That little turnip did,” Meng said, pursing her red underlip at her small son who was now riding his nurse for a pony.

Madame Wu had always to take time to approach real conversation with Meng. None of Madame Kang’s children had their mother’s largeness of mind and body. Madame Wu reflected upon this as she looked at Meng’s little plump figure and exquisite small face and hands. It was as though her friend had divided herself into nine parts in her children. Madame Wu herself in giving birth to her own children had been conscious of no division of herself. She had created them entirely new, and they were separate from her from the moment of their birth. But Meichen was never separate from her children. She clung to each as to a part of herself.

“Meng, my child,” Madame Wu now began, “I come to you for advice. What do you think of asking your mother for your sister Linyi for Fengmo? They are almost the same age — your sister is, I think, four months younger than Fengmo. She is pretty, and Fengmo is well enough. Both are healthy. I have not yet consulted the horoscopes, but I know their birth months are suitable. She is water and he is stone.”

“How I would like to have my sister here!” Meng cried. She clapped her hands and her rings tinkled together. Then her hands dropped. “But, Mother, I must tell you. Linyi thinks Fengmo is old-fashioned.”

“But why?” Madame Wu asked, astonished.

“He has never been away to school. He has only grown up here in this house,” Meng explained.

“Your mother should never have let Linyi go to school that year in Shanghai,” Madame Wu said. Severity hardened the beautiful lines of her mouth.

“Of course Fengmo could still go away to school,” Meng said. She covered a yawn behind her dimpled hand.

“I will not send Fengmo away at the time when he is not yet shaped. I wish this house to shape my sons, not a foreign school.” Madame Wu replied.

Meng never argued. “Shall I ask Linyi?” she now inquired.

“No,” Madame Wu said with dignity. “I will speak with your mother myself.”

Madame Wu felt out of sorts with Meng for a moment. But before she could consider this a startled look passed over Meng’s childish face.

“Oh, Heaven,” she cried and clasped her hands over her belly.

“What now?” Madame Wu asked.

“Could it be the child I feel — so early?” Meng said solemnly.

“Another boy,” Madame Wu proclaimed. “When it quickens so early it is a boy.”

It would have been unbecoming to allow herself impatience with Meng at such a time, and so she controlled it. In young women one asked nothing except that they fulfill their functions. This Meng was doing.

She rose. “You must drink some warm broth, child,” she said. “Rice broth is the best. When the child stirs, he is hungry.”

“I will,” Meng said, “even though I have only finished my morning meal. But I am hungry day and night, Mother.”

“Eat,” Madame Wu said. “Eat your fill and the child’s.”

She went away, and as she walked through the beautiful old courts she felt herself taken out of her own being and carried as she so often was upon the stream of this Wu family which she had joined so many years ago. Life and marriage, birth and new birth, the stream went on. Why should she be impatient with Meng, who could think of nothing but giving birth?

“With my own sons I, too, have carried on my share of that river of life,” Madame Wu told herself. Her present duty was only to keep the flow pure and unimpeded in each generation. She lifted her head and breathed in the morning air. Beyond this duty she was free.

But now there still remained Tsemo. Fengmo she would not see until she knew Linyi’s mind. Yenmo was gone. As soon as she had greeted Tsemo and Rulan she would have completed her tasks for the day.

Tsemo’s court was the least pleasant of all. As she stepped into the cramped space she repented the revenge she had taken on him for his marriage. There were only two rooms, and they faced north. The sun did not warm them in winter, and in summer they were damp.

She found Tsemo inside the main room. He was mopping up some foreign liquid ink which he had spilled out of its bottle, and she saw him first and saw he was in a surly mood. This son of hers was often surly, his handsome mouth down-turned, his eyes cruel. So was he today.

Madame Wu stopped on the threshold.

“Well, son?” she said in greeting. “Are you alone?”

“Rulan is ill,” he replied, throwing his inky cloth on the floor.

“Ill? No one told me.” Madame Wu stepped over the high door sill and came in.

“She did not look well, and I told her to stay in bed,” Tsemo said.

“I will go in and see her,” Madame Wu said.

She put aside the red silk curtain that hung between the two rooms and went in. It was the first time Madame Wu had entered this room since Rulan came, and she saw it was changed. The bed was curtain-less, and there were, instead, curtains at the window. Some foreign pictures hung on the walls, and among the books on the shelves along the walls there were foreign books.

On the bare bed Rulan lay. Her head was on a high pillow, and her short hair fell away from her face and showed her ears. They were small and pretty as little shells. Madame Wu noticed them at once.

“I never saw your ears before,” she said kindly. “They are very nice. You should wear earrings. I will send you a pair of gold ones.”

Rulan turned her dark brilliant eyes upon Madame Wu. “Thank you, Mother,” she said with unusual meekness.

Madame Wu was alarmed at this meekness. “I am afraid you are very ill,” she exclaimed.

“I am tired,” Rulan admitted.

“You have happiness in you, perhaps?” Madame Wu suggested.

But Rulan shook her head. “I am only tired,” she repeated. She began to pleat the silk coverlet with her brown fingers.

“Rest yourself, then,” Madame Wu said. “Rest yourself. There is nothing in this house that cannot be done by someone else.”

She nodded and smiled and went out again to Tsemo. He was writing foreign letters, one after the other, a foreign pen in his hand, He rose when she came back, the pen still in his fingers.

“What do you write?” she asked.

“I am practicing my English,” he said.

“Who teaches you?” she asked.

He flushed. “Rulan,” he replied. She understood at once that he was ashamed, and so she said something else quickly.

“Rulan is tired. She must rest.”

“I shall compel her,” he said eagerly. “She is too active. Yesterday she went to a meeting of the National Reconstruction Committee at the City Council House and was chosen its president. When she came home she was exhausted.”

“National Reconstruction again?” Madame Wu’s voice was silvery. “Ah, that is very exhausting.”

“That is what I told her,” Tsemo agreed.

She nodded and went away after that and walked with unwonted briskness into her own court. Ch’iuming was sitting on a stool in the court, sewing on the new garments. Madame Wu stopped beside her and the girl made to rise. But Madame Wu pushed her down gently, her hand on Ch’iuming’s shoulder. “Stay by your sewing,” she commanded her. “Tomorrow is the day, and you must prepare yourself.”

The girl sank back and picked up the needle which had fallen and was hanging by the thread. She did not speak one word. Bending her head, she began to sew again with quick nimble movements of finger and hand. Madame Wu, looking down on that bent young head, saw a flush as red as peach flowers rise from between Ch’iuming’s shoulders and spread up the back of her round neck and into the roots of her soft black hair.

Madame Wu had by the end of the next day made up her mind as to the manner of Ch’iuming’s entrance into the court of Mr. Wu. The least disturbance would be caused if it were done quietly and at night. There was no reason for celebration. This was an affair of her own generation and Mr. Wu’s, and to allow the younger generation any part in it would be to embarrass them.

The next day, therefore, she directed Ying to help the girl in certain small details of her toilet, of which Ch’iuming would naturally be ignorant. She herself spent the day in the library. She had no desire to take up again the forbidden books. Now indeed she felt she might never open one again. What more had she to do with man? Instead she chose a book of history and began to read from the beginning of time, when earth and Heaven were not separate, but mingled together in chaos.

The day passed as though she were out of her body and traveling in space. No one came near her. She knew that all the household waited to see what would be her will, and until she had settled Ch’iuming, no one would come here. No one knew how to talk so long as affairs in the center of the family remained confused. Her only visitor was the land steward, who sent word in the late afternoon that he would like to report the matter of the land purchase. She gave orders that he was to come, and when he appeared upon the threshold of the library she looked up from her book and without closing it bade him come in. He came in and stood before her and drew a folded paper from his breast.

“Lady,” he said, “I have brought the deed of purchase for the Wang lot. We paid eighty for it. Had our lord stayed out of it, I might have had it for seventy, but he remembered that the land had been a gift and he would not be hard.”

“I will take the deed,” she said, without answering his complaint against Mr. Wu. She put out her hand and he placed in it the deed.

“Is that all?” she asked. Beyond doubt this man knew what was happening in the house. She saw him cast a quick look around as though his eye searched for a new face.

“Is that all?” she repeated.

He brought back his eyes but, being a coarse common man, he could not hide what he thought. She saw the loosening of the corners of his thick lips, the wavering of his eyes, and read his thoughts as clearly as though she were reading the forbidden book.

“Well?” she asked sharply.

He dropped his glance at that sharpness. “There is nothing more, Lady,” he said. “Except, unless you forbid it, I will plant the new land to beans. It is late for any other crops.”

“Beans and then winter wheat,” she directed.

“That is what I thought,” he agreed.

She nodded and then knew that he expected some small gift on the purchase. She rose and took a key from her inner pocket and fitted it to a wooden chest that stood against the wall and, opening the door of this, she took out an ironbound wooden box, opened this and took out some silver dollars, counting ten before his eyes.

“With this I thank you,” she said courteously.

He held out his hand in protest, drew back, rolled his head to deny the gift, and then took it. “Thank you, Lady, thank you,” he said over and over again and then backed from her presence and so out of the door. In the court she saw him straighten himself and look right and left as he walked to the gate.

But she was pleased that Ch’iuming was not to be seen. The girl had the grace, to stay hidden. That was more favor added to her. Madame Wu closed the book she had laid upon the table open and put it away into the covers and went into the sitting room. Ying had brought her night meal and with it Ch’iuming’s. Madame Wu examined the food that the girl was to eat. Then she bent and smelled it.

“You have not put in garlic or onion or any strong-smelling thing?” she inquired of Ying.

“I know what should be done,” Ying said shortly.

“No pepper?” Madame Wu persisted. “It makes heartburn.”

“Nothing a baby could not eat,” Ying replied. She had made her kind face unfriendly and indifferent to show her mistress she had not relented. Madame Wu smiled at the angry eyes and pursed mouth of her maid.

“Ying, you are faithfulness itself,” she said. “But if you would really serve me, then know that I do only what I wish.”

But Ying would not answer that. “Lady, your meal is in your room,” she said, still shortly.

So Madame Wu ate her own meal alone in her own room with her usual dainty slowness, and she loitered over it and smoked her little pipe. Then she walked into the court where all day a gardener had been busy transplanting the orchids. She had given him directions as to their placing, and now the work was done. He had pinched off flower and bud and had cut off the outer leaves, but to each stalk a single spire of new leaf remained. They would live. The court where they had bloomed today was planted with blooming peonies.

When darkness had fallen she waited an hour, and after the hour of darkness she went into the house again. Ch’iuming had bathed herself and combed her hair. She had put on the new garments. Now she sat upright on the edge of the narrow bed, her hands clasped on her lap. Her young face was fixed and told nothing. But from under her hair, smoothed over her ears, Madame Wu saw two fine streams of sweat pouring down. She sat down beside the girl.

“You must not be afraid,” she said. “He is a very kind man.”

The girl threw her a quick look from under her lowered eyelids, and looked down again.

“You have only to obey him,” Madame Wu said. But she felt somehow cruel even as she said these words. Yet why should she feel cruel? The girl was no longer a child. The man who was to have been her husband had died. Had she lived on in the house of her foster mother, what could she have hoped as her lot except to be married, as a young widow never wed, to some other farmer whose wife had died and left him with many children? Surely this fate was better than that!

So Madame Wu tried to harden herself. But the girl put up her hand stealthily and wiped the sweat from her cheeks and remained silent.

“You had better take her now,” Madame Wu said abruptly to Ying, who stood waiting.

Ying stepped forward and took the girl’s sleeve between her thumb and finger. “Come,” she said.

Ch’iuming rose. Her full red mouth opened, and she began to pant softly and to hang back. Her eyes grew wide and very black.

“Come,” Ying said hardily. “For what else have you been brought into this house?”

The girl looked from Ying’s face to Madame Wu’s. Then, seeing nothing in either face to give her escape, she bent her head and followed Ying out of the room, out of the gate, and so out of the court.

Left alone, Madame Wu sat for some time without moving her body. Nor did a thought stir her mind. She sat in a state of blind feeling, and she let feeling take its course. Did she suffer pain? She knew she did not. Did she regret? No, she had no regrets. In this state of emptiness so might a soul find itself lost in death.

Then she lifted her head. Her mouth quivered. Did not a soul unborn exist also in the womb in just such emptiness? So she, too, might now be born again. She rose and went out into the court and lifted her face to the dark sky. The night was soft and black, and the square of sky above the courtyard was covered with clouds through which no stars shone. There would be rain before morning. But she always slept well on a rainy night.

Ying came back and passed her, not seeing her in the darkness. She went into the empty house and was startled by its emptiness.

“Oh, Heaven!” Madame Wu heard her mutter. “Where has she gone now? Mistress — Mistress!” Ying’s voice screamed out.

“Here I am, stupid,” Madame Wu said tranquilly at the door. “I stepped into the court to see if it would rain.”

Ying was as green as old bean curd. She held her hand to her heart. “Oh, Mistress,” she gasped. “I thought — I thought—”

Madame Wu laughed. “If you would only stop thinking, you would be much happier. You should leave thinking to me, Ying. You have no need of it.”

Ying sighed, and her hand dropped. “Do you want to go to bed now, Mistress, as usual?”

“Why not?” Madame Wu asked in her pretty voice. “It is beginning to rain. I can hear it on the roof.”

An hour later she climbed into the high big bed. Freshly bathed freshly dressed in her white silk night garments, she laid herself down.

Ying suddenly began to sob. “What bride is as beautiful as you?” she cried between her sobs.

Madame Wu had laid her head on her pillow. Now she lifted it again. “How dare you weep when I do not?” she said.

Swallowing her sobs, Ying loosened the curtains and drew them across the bed. And shut behind their satin splendor, Madame Wu folded her hands on her breast and closed her eyes. Upon the tiled roof above her head she heard the steady soothing downpour of the rain.

Ch’iuming had stepped through the darkness in a direction strange to her. She had not once left Madame Wu’s court since entering it. Now sent from it, she felt completely homeless, as orphaned as she had been when the woman who bore her had put her down outside a city wall and left her there. Then she had not known her plight. Now she knew it.

But such had been her life that long ago she had learned to be silent, for no voice would hear her if she called. Ying still held her sleeve by thumb and forefinger, and she felt this slight pull guiding her steps. But she did not speak to Ying.

And Ying, too, had kept silent as she trod the stones through one court into another. Old Lady’s court was quiet, for that old soul went to bed at sunset. From somewhere to the west a child cried. It was the Eldest Son’s child. To the north Ying heard or thought she heard a woman sobbing. She stopped to listen. “Hark!” she said. “Who is that crying in the night?”

Ch’iuming lifted her head.

“I cannot hear it now,” Ying said. “Perhaps it was only a mourning dove.”

They went on again. Ch’iuming’s heart began to throb. Every sense was quickened. She felt the air damp on her skin. Yes, she did hear a woman sobbing. But what woman wept in these courts? She did not ask. What could she do if she knew who it was? Her helplessness rose in her and frightened her, and she, too, wanted to weep. She must speak, she must reach out to some living soul and hear an answering voice, though it be only this servant woman’s.

“I think it strange they wanted me,” she gasped. “I should think he would want a girl from a flower house, someone, you know, who knows how to— I have only lived in the country—”

“Our mistress would not have such a girl in our house,” Ying said coldly.

Before Ch’iuming could speak again they were there. The court was full of peonies. A lantern shone down on them, and they glowed in the shadows.

“No one is here,” Ying announced. She led the way, and Ch’iuming followed. She saw a large room, the largest she had ever seen. The furniture was rich and dark, and paintings hung upon the walls. In the doorways the night wind swung satin curtains gently to and fro. They were scarlet against the ivory walls. She stepped in timidly. Here she was to live — if she pleased him.

But where was he?

She did not ask, and Ying did not speak of him. In the same cold fashion Ying helped her to make ready for bed. Only when the girl sat on the edge of the bed, and Ying saw her pale face, did she take pity.

“You are to remember that this is an honorable house,” she said in a loud voice. “If you do your duty here, you have nothing to make you afraid. He is kind, and she is wise as well as kind. You are lucky among women, and so why are you afraid? Have you a home to run to or a mother to receive you back again?”

Ch’iuming shook her head, and the red flooded into her cheeks. She lay down and closed her eyes. Ying drew the curtains and went away.

Behind the curtains Ch’iuming lay alone and full of terror. Within the next hour or two, what would befall her? The great house enclosed her. From somewhere she heard the clacking of mah jong pieces. The servants were gambling — or was it the sons? Or was it he, with his friends? Was ever a concubine brought into such a house in this fashion without having seen him? It was as though she were a wife instead of a concubine. But the elder lady was the wife, not she. And how could she ever be so beautiful as that wife, and how could she please him after that one, whose every look was beauty?

“I am so coarse,” she thought. “Even my hands!” She raised them in the darkness and let them fall again. They were rough, and the fine silk of the quilt caught at them.

She remembered the woman sobbing. Who were the others in the house? Sons and sons’ wives, she must make her peace with them all, lest they hate her. And the many servants, could they be so kind as Ying? And what did one call the servants? She who had nothing to pay them when she wanted a service done, would she be allowed to serve herself?

“I wish I were in my own bed again,” she moaned under her breath. She had slept all her life in a little lean-to, next to her foster mother’s room. Her bed had been boards stretched on two benches, and at night she could hear the breathing of the ox and the flutter of the few fowls that roosted in its stall. On the boards had been a cotton quilt which she had wrapped around her for mattress and covering. Sometimes in the morning she was waked by the droppings of birds on her face, for the sparrows sheltered under the rafters.

Then she thought of the boy she had grown up with, her foster mother’s son, but never her brother. From the time she knew anything she knew that she had been brought into the house to be his wife. She had not loved him because she knew him too well. He was a farm boy like all the others in the village. She saw his round face and fat cheeks now when she thought of him, as he used to be when she was a little girl. Then he had grown tall and thin and she was just beginning to be shy of him when he died. She had not even made any wedding clothes. He had died so young, before she had begun to think of him really as her husband. When he died her foster mother had blamed her.

“You have brought a curse on my house,” she had said. “I ought to have left you to die by the city wall. You were not meant for my son.”

She remembered how these words had hurt her. The farmhouse was her only home, the woman her only mother. The woman had not been unkind. But when she had said these words Ch’iuming knew that she was no more than a foundling again, and she did not belong to that house. When Liu Ma had come and the bargain had been struck, she had said nothing.

“So what could I do but come here?” she now asked herself.

At this moment she heard a footstep, and her blood stopped in her veins. She snatched the silk quilt and drew it to her chin and stared at the closed curtains. They parted. She saw a handsome heavy face, neither young nor old, and reddened with drinking. The smell of wine spread into the alcove of the bed. He stared at her for a full minute, then he closed the curtains again softly.

For a long time she heard nothing at all. Had he gone away? She dared not move. She lay in the close darkness waiting. If he did not like her, she would be sent away tomorrow. But where could she go? If they sent her away would they give her a little money? What happened to concubines who did not please? She grew so frightened of such a fate that now it seemed anything would be better than that.

She sat up impetuously and parted the curtains with one hand and looked out. There he sat motionless in a great chair. He had taken off his outer garments and had on only his inner ones of white silk. But how had he moved so quietly that she had not heard?

She looked at him and he at her. Then she closed the curtains quickly and lay down and hid her face in her hands. He was coming! She heard his soft heavy footstep upon the tiles of the floor. The silk curtains opened as though they were ripped, and then she felt his hands pulling her hands away from her face.