Pavilion of Women

V

MADAME WU WOKE OUT of the deepest sleep she had ever known. It was morning, and she had slept all night without waking once. She could not remember when she had done this. The new candle which Ying had put on the table last night beside her bed had still its white wick.

Her first feeling was one of complete rest. Fatigue was gone out of her body and out of her soul. But there was something familiar, too, in this relief. She sent her mind backward over her rich life and found the memory. Thus she had felt after each of her children had been born. Each time through the ten moon months the burden within her had grown heavier, closer, and more invading until only her most careful self-control had made it possible for her to keep the gentle poise which was her atmosphere. Then had come the birth of the child. But to her it was not birth so much as reclaiming her own body. Her first thought when the pain stopped abruptly and when she heard that sharp cry of the separate child was always of her own freedom. As soon as the child was brought to her, washed and dressed, she began to love him for what he was, but never because he was a part of herself. She did not, indeed, wish for any division of herself. She wanted only to be whole again.

So this morning she felt the same wholeness, but deeper and more complete. All her duty was now fulfilled. No one in this house lacked anything which he needed.

… But her third son Fengmo came into her mind. Alas, until he was wed she was not quite free!

She rose at this thought and put her little narrow feet into the embroidered black satin slippers which Ying always set on the long bench by the bed. Madame Wu’s feet were a little narrower than they might have been by nature. This was because many years ago when she had been a child of five her mother had begun to bind them. Her father was then traveling in foreign countries with Prince Li Hung Chang. She had looked at her father’s pictures taken in those foreign countries, and her nurse had told her about his wisdom and his goodness. Her mother, too, spoke of him often, but always to correct some waywardness in her. “What would your father say to you now?” her mother had inquired often. Because the little girl could not answer this, since she did not know, she always gave up her waywardness. When the mother called the child to her one day, and the child saw the long white bandages of cotton cloth she began to cry. She had seen all this happen to her older sister, that sister who had once run and played so joyfully and now sat all day silent over her embroidery, unwilling even to stand upon the sore bound feet.

The mother had stopped to stare at her second daughter severely. “What would your father say if he came home and found your feet splayed like a farmer’s wife’s feet?” she had demanded.

The little girl’s sobs had sunk into a whimper, and she had let her feet be bound.

To this day Madame Wu remembered the month of that agony. Then the letter came saying her father was coming home. She endured half a month more, for her father’s sake. When he came home she had forced herself to walk to him on those little feet. What joy was like to the joy that came next? Before she had had time to see his face or to call his name, he had given a harsh cry and had lifted her in his arms.

“Take these bands from off the child’s feet!” he had commanded. There had been hubbub and outcry. She could never remember a single word of that battle between her elders, but she never forgot the storm. Her mother had cried and her grandmother had screamed with anger and even her grandfather had kept shouting. But her father had sat down and kept her on his knees, and with his own hands he had taken off the bandages and made her feet free. She could still remember the pain, the joy, of the freed feet. He took them in his hands, one and then the other, and rubbed them gently to bring in the blood again, and the blood running into the pinched veins had been first agony and then joy.

“Never — never,” he had muttered.

She had clung to him crying. “What if you had not come home!” she had cried into his breast. He had come in time to save her. She could run again in a few months. But it was too late for her sister’s feet. The bones were broken.

After this there had been nothing but disturbance for three years in the household. Her father had learned new ways in new countries, and he had insisted that she be taught to read. When he died of a sudden cholera at the end of a hot summer three years later, it was too late to bind her feet again, and too late for ignorance because she already knew how to read. She was even allowed to keep on with her reading because she was betrothed and Old Gentleman was pleased that she could read and that her feet were not bound. “We are very lucky,” her mother had said, “to find a rich family so lenient.”

Now she remembered her father at this moment when she put her narrow feet into her slippers. Something of that joy of freedom was in her again, too. She smiled, and Ying came and caught her smiling.

“You, Mistress,” Ying chided her. “You are too happy this morning!” She looked at her and against all her wish to behave decorously she could not keep from smiling. “You do look like a mischievous child,” she said.

“Do not try to understand me, good soul,” Madame Wu said gaily. “Why should you harass yourself? Let us only be as we always are. Tell me, is the day fair?”

“As though there had never been rain,” Ying replied.

“Then,” Madame Wu said, “dress me for visiting. I shall go to see Madame Kang as soon as I have eaten. I have a matter to talk about with her. What do you think of her Linyi for our Fengmo?”

“Two knots on the same rope,” Ying replied musingly. “Well, Mistress, better to repeat a good thing than a bad one. Our eldest young lord is happy enough with the eldest Kang daughter. But our second lord beat his wife last night.”

“Tsemo beat Rulan?” Madame Wu exclaimed.

“I heard her sobbing,” Ying said. “It must be she was beaten.”

Madame Wu sighed. “Will I never have peace under this roof?”

She ate her breakfast quickly and rose and went to Tsemo’s court. But Tsemo had risen even earlier and was already gone. Rulan was still in bed sleeping, the servant said. Madame Wu would not ask a servant why her son had beaten his wife, and so she said, “Tell my son I will see him tonight.”

She went on then as she usually did each day to inspect the kitchens and family courts, and when she had examined all parts of the house, had praised here and corrected there, she returned to her own court.

Two hours later she stepped out of the gate of the Wu house. Mr. Wu had some two years before bought a foreign motorcar, but the streets were so narrow that Madame Wu would never willingly use it. She disliked to see the common people flatten themselves against the walls of the houses while the big car spread itself across the street. At the same time she did not enjoy the openness of the ricksha which Mr. Wu had once given her as a present. She still liked best the privacy of this old-fashioned sedan chair which had been part of her wedding furniture. She told Ying, therefore, to follow in the ricksha. Then one of the four bearers lifted the curtain and Madame Wu stepped in and sat down and he let the curtain fall. From the small glass window in this curtain she could see enough of the streets for her own interest and yet not be seen.

Thus borne through the crowded streets by the four bearers, she felt she did harm to no one. Her weight was easy for the men, and the sedan was so narrow that none was pushed from his path. Moreover, she liked the courteous call of the head bearer as he cried out to those in his way, “I borrow your light — I borrow your light!” So ought the rich to be courteous to the poor and the high to the low. Madame Wu could never bear oppression of any sort. Since she had been mistress in the Wu house no slave had been beaten nor any servant offended. Even though it was sometimes necessary to dismiss an unfaithful or incapable servant, it was never done on this ground but on some other which, though he knew it was false, yet comforted him before his fellows. She was the more distressed, therefore, when she considered what Ying had told her — that Tsemo had beaten Rulan.

“I will not believe it,” she thought, “until I have inquired for the truth.” Thus she put the matter from her mind.

The distance between the houses of Wu and Kang was not short, being indeed almost across the entire city. But Madame Wu had no sense of haste. She enjoyed the sunshine falling into the streets still wet with the night’s rain. The stones were washed and clean and the people gay and glad of the brightness of the sky. Markets were busy and farmers were already carrying into the city their loads of fresh green cabbages, baskets of eggs and bundles of fuel grass. The sight of all this life going on always soothed Madame Wu. In this city the Wu family was only one house. It was pleasant to think that there were all these others where men and women lived together and brought forth their children and children’s children. And in this nation there were many more such cities, and around the world many other nations where in different ways men and women lived the same life. She liked to dwell upon such thoughts. Her own life took its proportion. What was one grief among so many like it, or what was one joy in a world of such joys?

In something under an hour the sedan was set down before the gate of the Kang house. Ying had, of course, sent a manservant ahead to tell of Madame Wu’s coming, and so she was expected. The great red varnished gates swung open, and a servant was waiting. Ying hastened forward from her ricksha to help Madame Wu out of her chair. She carried under her arm Madame Wu’s small traveling toilet case, lest she wish to smooth her hair or touch her face with powder.

Then they entered the gates, but before they had crossed the first court Madame Kang herself came to greet her friend. The two ladies clasped hands.

“How good of you, Sister!” Madame Kang cried eagerly. She was anxious to hear from Madame Wu’s own lips all that had happened. She knew, since the servants in the two houses came and went, that Madame Wu had fulfilled her plan. She knew even that last night Ch’iuming had gone into Mr. Wu’s court.

“I have come to talk about many things, Sister,” Madame Wu replied. “But I come too early — I disturb you.”

“How can you say that!” Madame Kang replied. She searched her friend’s fresh and lovely face. It was not in the least way changed. The tranquil eyes, the composed and exquisite mouth, the pearl-pale skin, all were at their best.

“How beautiful you always are,” Madame Kang said tenderly, and was conscious, though without the least pain, of her own hair as yet unbrushed.

“I rise early,” Madame Wu said. “Now let us go inside and while your hair is brushed I will wait.”

“Do not mind my hair,” Madame Kang urged. “I get it combed in the afternoon. Somehow the mornings pass too quickly.”

She looked around and laughed as she spoke, for behind her a dozen children seemed to come from nowhere. Children and grandchildren were mingled together. She stooped and picked up the smallest one, not yet able to walk, but hung on his feet by a cotton cloth passed round his middle and held at the two ends by a little bondmaid. The child was unwashed and none too clean, although his coat was of satin, but Madame Kang smelled him with love, as though he were fresh from the tub, and held him close.

Together the two friends walked into the house and through two courts until they reached Madame Kang’s own court. There she put down the child whom she had carried all this time, and waved her two plump hands at the children and small bondmaids who had followed her. “Away with you!” she cried heartily. Then, seeing their faces fall, she put her hand into her loose coat and brought out a handful of small cash. These she pressed into the hands of the eldest bondmaid. “Go and buy peanuts for them all,” she commanded her. “With shells!” she called after the eager child, “so that it will take a long time for them to be eaten!”

She laughed her rich rolling laughter at the sight of the children scampering toward the street. Then she seized Madame Wu’s hand again and led her into her own room and closed the door.

“Now we are alone,” she said. She sat down as soon as Madame Wu was seated, and she leaned forward, her hands on her knees. “Tell me everything,” she said.

But Madame Wu looked at her friend. A certain blankness mingled with surprise appeared in her eyes.

“It is a strange thing,” she said after a second’s pause, “but I feel I have nothing to tell.”

“How can that be?” Madame Kang cried. “I am as full of questions as a hen of eggs. The girl — who is she — did you like her? Did he like her?”

“I like her,” Madame Wu said. Now she knew, as her friend paused, that she had been willfully not thinking of Mr. Wu and Ch’iuming this morning. Did he like her? She forced herself to go on without answering this question that sprang up like a snake in her heart.

“I gave her a name — Ch’iuming. She is only an ordinary girl, but a good one. I am sure he will like her. Everybody will like her, because there is nothing about her to dislike. No one in the house will be jealous of her.”

“Heaven!” Madame Kang exclaimed in wonder. “And you say all this as though you had hired a new nurse for a grandchild! Why, when my father took a concubine my mother cried and tried to hang herself, and we had to watch her night and day, and when he took a second concubine the first one swallowed her earrings, and so it went until he had the five he ended with. They all hated one another and contended for him.” Madame Kang’s big laughter rolled out of her. “They used to hunt his shoes — he would leave his shoes in the room of the one he planned to visit that night. Then another would steal them. At last, for peace, he divided his time among them equally.”

“They must have been silly women, those concubines,” Madame Wu said calmly. “I do not mean your mother, Meichen. Of course it is natural she might have believed in a man’s heart. But the concubines!”

“There never was a woman like you, Ailien,” Madame Kang said fondly. “At least tell me could you sleep last night?”

“Last night,” Madame Wu said, “I slept very well because of the rain on the roof.”

“Oh, the rain on the roof!” Madame Kang cried and went into gusts of laughter so that she had to wipe her eyes with her sleeves.

Madame Wu waited, smiling, until this was over. Then she said seriously, “I do have a matter to talk about with you, Meichen.”

Madame Kang grew grave whenever she heard this tone in her friend’s voice. “I will laugh no more. What is it?”

“You know my son Fengmo,” Madame Wu said. “Do you think I should send him away to school?”

This question she put very skillfully. If Madame Kang declared it was not necessary, she would at once ask for Linyi. If on the other hand—

“It is altogether a matter of what this boy will do with himself,” Madame Kang answered. Her large round face fell into lines.

“He has never shown what he wants,” Madame Wu said. “He has until now merely been growing up. But after seventeen a mother must begin to watch a son.”

“Of course,” Madame Kang agreed. She pursed her lips and thought of Fengmo, his arrogant bladelike body and proud head.

“Come,” Madame Wu said frankly, “why do I not speak the truth to you? I had thought of pouring our blood into the same stream again. Fengmo and Linyi — what do you say?”

Madame Kang clapped her hands twice together. “Good!” she cried. Then she let her plump hands drop. “But that Linyi,” she said, mournfully. “It is one thing for me to say good. How do I know what she will say?”

“You should never have let her go to a foreign school,” Madame Wu said. “I told you that at the time.”

“You were right,” Madame Kang said sadly. “Nothing at home is good enough for her now. She complains about everything. She quarrels at her father when he spits on the floor, poor soul. She wants us to put jars on the floor for spittle. But the babies pick up the jars and drop them and break them. And Linyi is angry because she wants all the babies to wear cloths tied about their little bottoms. But with thirteen small grandchildren under this roof still not able to contain their water, how can we tie cloths about all of them? Our ancestors taught us wisdom in seatless trousers. Shall we flout their wisdom? We have three wash maids as it is.”

“In our house she would not be troubled with any small children except our own,” Madame Wu said. “And with her own a woman learns wisdom.”

She was too kind to tell Madame Kang that in this matter she secretly felt sympathy with Linyi. The wet nurses and maids in this house were continually holding out the babies to pass their water on the floor until one did not know where to step. Madame Wu had never allowed these easy-going ways in her own house. The maids had always commands to take the small children into certain corners or behind trees.

Madame Kang looked doubtfully at her friend. “I would be glad for you to have her,” she said. “She needs to be married and have her mind taken up. But I love you too well not to tell you her faults. I feel she will demand foreign learning in Fengmo even if she is willing to marry him. She will think it shameful that he speaks no foreign language.”

“But with whom would he speak it?” Madame Wu asked. “Would she and he sit together and talk foreign tongues? It would be silly.”

“Certainly it would,” Madame Kang agreed. “But it is a matter for pride, you know, in these young women, nowadays, to chatter in a foreign tongue.”

The two ladies looked thoughtfully at each other. Then Madame Wu said plainly, “Either Linyi must be satisfied with Fengmo as he is, or I shall have to let the matter drop. War is in the air, and my sons may not go off to coastal cities. Here we are safe, for we are provinces away from the sea.”

“Wait!” Madame Kang was suddenly cheered. “I have it,” she said. “There is a foreign priest in the city. Why do you not engage him as a tutor for Fengmo? Then when I speak to Linyi, I can tell her Fengmo is learning foreign tongues.”

“A foreign man?” Madame Wu repeated doubtfully. “But how could we have him come into the house? Would there not be disturbances? I hear all Western men are very lusty and fierce.”

“This is a priest,” Madame Kang said. “He is beyond such thoughts.”

Madame Wu considered the matter still more thoughtfully. “Well,” she said at last, “if Linyi should insist upon this, it would be better than sending Fengmo away from us into a foreign school.”

“So it is,” Madame Kang agreed.

Madame Wu rose. “Then you will speak to Linyi and I will speak to Fengmo.”

“If Fengmo will not?” Madame Kang asked.

“He will,” Madame Wu said, “for I will choose the right time. With a man, young or old, the important thing is the choice of the time.”

“How well you know,” Madame Kang murmured.

The two ladies rose and hand in hand wandered out of the room. Tea was set in the court and some cakes.

“Will you not stay and refresh yourself, Sister?” Madame Kang asked.

But Madame Wu shook her head. “If you will forgive the discourtesy,” she said, “I will go home. Today may be the right time for me to speak to Fengmo.”

She did not like to tell even Madame Kang that Fengmo might be disturbed because he had seen Ch’iuming before she had gone into his father’s courts. She said good-by and left some money for a gift to the maid who had prepared tea, and Ying came from the servants’ rooms where she had been gossiping, and so Madame Wu went home again.

The first person whom she saw, however, upon her return was not Fengmo, but the foreigner, Little Sister Hsia. Even as all the servants in all the houses of the city knew what went on in the Wu family house and the Kang family house, who were the two great families, so Madame Wu knew that Little Sister Hsia’s cook also had heard and told the news.

Little Sister Hsia was just crossing the main court inside the gate when she saw Madame Wu. She stopped at once and cried out, “Oh, Madame Wu, I have just heard—it can’t be true?”

“Come in,” Madame Wu said kindly. “Is it not a fair day? The air is not often so clear at this season. We will sit outdoors, and Ying must bring us something to eat. It must be nearly noon.” She guided Little Sister Hsia across the general court and into the one which was her own.

“Please sit down,” she said. “I must go to my own rooms for a moment. But rest yourself. Enjoy the morning.”

Smiling and making her graceful bows, Madame Wu withdrew into her own rooms. Ying followed her sourly.

“It must be we shall have rain, again,” she muttered. “The devils are out.”

“Hush,” Madame Wu said. But she smiled as she sat down before the mirror. She smoothed a hair out of place, touched her cheeks with powder, and changed her earrings from plain gold ones to her jade flower ones. Then she washed and perfumed her hands and went outdoors again.

Little Sister Hsia’s pale face was twisted with sympathy. She rose from her chair with the awkward swiftness which was her habit.

“Oh, good friend,” she sighed, “what a trial has come on you! I never dreamed — Mr. Wu seemed so different from other men — I always thought—”

“I am very glad you have come this morning,” Madame Wu said lightly, with her warm smile. “You can help me.”

They were seated. Little Sister Hsia leaned forward in her intense way, her hands clenched together. “Anything,” she murmured, “anything! Dear Madame Wu, sometimes the Lord punishes those whom he loves—”

Madame Wu opened her large eyes widely. “Do you wish to preach gospel this morning, Little Sister?” she inquired. “If you do, I will postpone what I was about to say.”

“Only to comfort you,” Little Sister Hsia said, “only to help you.”

“But I am very well,” Madame Wu said in surprise.

“I heard, I thought—” Little Sister Hsia faltered, much bewildered.

“You must not heed the gossip of servants,” Madame Wu said gently. “They always wish to be bearers of some exciting news. Had they their way we should all be ill today and dead tomorrow and risen again on the third day.”

Little Sister Hsia looked sharply at Madame Wu. Was she making a joke? She decided not to be angry. “Then it is not true?” she asked.

“I do not know what is not true or true,” Madame Wu returned. “But I can assure you that nothing happens in this house without my knowledge and my permission.”

She took pity on the slight purplish blush that now spotted the pale foreign face at which she looked. “You are always kind,” Madame Wu said gently. “Will you help me?”

Little Sister Hsia nodded. Her hands fell limply apart. A shade of disappointment hung about her pale lips and eyes.

Madame Wu touched her own pretty lips with her perfumed silk handkerchief. “I feel my third son needs more education,” she said in her gentle voice, whose gentleness seemed always to put distances between her and the one to whom she spoke. “I have decided, therefore, to have him taught by a suitable foreign man to speak a foreign language and read foreign books. After all, what was enough for our ancestors is not today enough for us. The seas no longer divide the peoples, and Heaven is no more our own canopy. Can you tell me if there is a foreign man in the city whom I can invite to teach Fengmo?”

Little Sister Hsia was so taken aback by this request that had nothing to do with what she had heard that for a moment she could not speak at all.

“I hear that there is a foreign priest,” Madame Wu went on. “Can you tell me about him?”

“Priest?” Little Sister Hsia murmured.

“So I hear,” Madame Wu said.

Little Sister Hsia looked doubtful. “If it is the one I think you must mean,” she said, “I don’t think that you would want him for your son.”

“Is he not learned?” Madame Wu inquired.

“What is the wisdom of man, dear friend?” Little Sister Hsia asked. “He is as good as an atheist!”

“Why do you say that?” Madame Wu asked.

“I cannot think he is a true believer,” Little Sister Hsia said gravely.

“Perhaps he has his own religion,” Madame Wu said.

“There is only one true religion,” Little Sister Hsia said positively.

Madame Wu smiled. “Will you ask him to come and see me?” she asked.

She was astonished to see a flying dark blush sweep over the plain face before her.

“He is unmarried,” Little Sister Hsia said. “I don’t know what he would think if I were to visit him.”

Madame Wu put out a kind hand and touched the bony fingers lying on Little Sister Hsia’s lap. “None could suspect your virtue,” she said.

The kindness melted the foreign woman’s shyness. “Dear Madame Wu,” she said, “I would do anything to help you.”

The edge of intensity crept into her voice again, but Madame Wu put it off gracefully, disliking intensity above all things. “You are so good,” she said. She clapped her hands, and Ying came in with the tray of tea and sweetmeats.

For half an hour Madame Wu busied herself with this. Then she took steps to help her guest to leave.

“Now,” she said in her sweet way, “would you like to make a prayer before you go?”

“I’d love to,” Little Sister Hsia said.

She closed her eyes and bowed her head, and her voice began its fervent address to someone unseen. Madame Wu sat in graceful silence while this went on. She did not close her eyes. Instead she watched Little Sister Hsia’s face with forebearing comprehension. How empty was this soul, so alone, so far from home! She had come across the sea to do her good works. All knew of her, of her weekly meeting to teach sewing to beggar women. All knew that she lived poorly and gave away most of what she had. But how lonely the woman in this poor creature! A kind affection stirred in the depths of Madame Wu’s heart. Little Sister Hsia was ignorant, of course, and one could not listen to her, but she was good and she was lonely.

When Little Sister Hsia opened her eyes she was astonished at the liquid warmth she saw in the great beautiful eyes of Madame Wu. For a moment she thought her prayer had been miraculously answered. Perhaps God had touched the heart of this heathen woman?

But Madame Wu rose and by that firm movement bade Little Sister Hsia farewell. “You will send the priest to me soon?” she asked and made it a command in the asking.

Against her will Little Sister Hsia found herself promising that she would.

“How can I repay you?” Madame Wu said courteously. “At least, let me say this, Little Sister. In return for your kindness in arranging a teacher for my third son, please pray for me whenever you like.” So she dismissed her visitor.

All day during this day Madame Wu had not forgotten what Ying had told her, that she had heard Rulan sobbing in the night. But Madame Wu had long ago learned that the affairs of a great household must be managed one by one and in order. This order was first in her own mind. She had tried to see Tsemo and Heaven had prevented it. The time was not ripe, therefore. And as she had learned to do, while she pondered on large things, she acted on small ones.

She sent for the cook to bring in his monthly accounts, which had been due two days earlier but which he had withheld, feeling the confusion in the house. Madame Wu read these accounts and remarked on the high price of the fuel grass.

Now, Ying always took care to be present when the accounts were presented, for she believed that her husband, although a better cook than any could find, was nevertheless not clever at anything else. When Madame Wu spoke of the fuel, she knew at once that some other servant had reported the matter, and she guessed that it was a certain middle-aged woman servant who had once approached the cook with offers of love. But Ying’s husband knew better than to look at another woman, and now the woman had turned sour and could not find enough fault with Ying and the cook.

When Madame Wu mentioned the fuel, Ying cried out to her husband, “You bone, I told you not to get it at the West Gate Market! Everything is more dear there.”

“We should not buy any fuel at all as early as this,” Madame Wu said. “The fuel from our own lands should be enough until the eighth month, when new grass can be cut.”

“The steward has plowed some of the grass lands,” the cook replied.

Madame Wu knew it was not necessary to carry the matter further. She accepted his excuse since she had administered her rebuke, and she closed the books and gave them to him. Then she went to her money, box and brought out what was due on the past month and enough to use as cash for the next month. The family numbered something over sixty persons, including all mouths, and the sum was never small.

The manservant in charge of the clothing and repairs came next, and with him the two sewing women, and Madame Wu discussed with them the summer garments required for servants and family, the changes of bedding, and such matters. When these were finished, carpenters came in to estimate the costs of repairs to two leaking roofs, and the building of a new outhouse for storage.

To all such affairs Madame Wu gave her close and entire attention. It was her talent that whatever she did, it was with the whole of her mind and for that time nothing else was. When one affair was settled, her mind went wholly to the next one. Thus during this day she accepted one task after the other. It was only when dusk came on and the household matters were finished that she acknowledged her own thoughts again. They centered on Fengmo.

“I have this day proceeded very far toward the decision of his life,” she thought. She had not risen from the big chair by the library table, at which she had worked all day. While she was now more than ever firm in her decision that he should marry Linyi, nevertheless it was only just that she should talk with him and allow him some freedom first to rebel. She summoned Ying from the next room where she was preparing the bed for the night.

“Go and tell Fengmo to come here,” she said. She hesitated while Ying waited.

“And when you have summoned my son,” Madame Wu went on, “invite the Second Lady to appear at the family meal tonight.”

Ying pursed her mouth and went away, and Madame Wu sat, her finger and thumb to her lip, while she waited. At this time Fengmo would be in his room, since it was about the hour for the evening meal. If Fengmo were in good humor with what she decided, she would eat tonight with the family instead of alone, as she had done during the last few days. It was time for her to come out and take her place among them again.

In a few minutes she heard Fengmo’s step. She knew the step of each son. Liangmo’s was slow and firm, Tsemo’s quick and uneven, and Yenmo ran everywhere. But Fengmo walked with a rhythm, three steps always quicker than the fourth. He appeared at the door of the library, wearing his school uniform of dark-blue cloth. On his head was a visored cap of the same cloth, and on the cap was a band giving the name of his school, the National Reconstruction Middle School.

Madame Wu smiled at her son and beckoned to him to come in.

“What is the meaning of this National Reconstruction?” she inquired half playfully.

“It is only a name, Mother,” Fengmo replied. He sat down on a side chair, took off his cap and whirled it like a wheel between the fingers of his two hands.

“It means nothing to you?” Madame Wu inquired.

“Of course we all want national reconstruction,” Fengmo replied.

“Without knowing what it means?” Madame Wu asked in the same half-playful manner.

Fengmo laughed. “At present I am having difficulty with algebra,” he replied. “Perhaps when I have overcome that I will understand National Reconstruction better.”

“Algebra,” Madame Wu mused. “In India several such studies were first devised and then found their way to Europe.”

Fengmo looked surprised. He never expected his mother to have any knowledge out of books, and Madame Wu knew this and enjoyed surprising him.

“You look pale,” she said suddenly. “Are you taking your tonic of deers’-horn powder?”

“It tastes worse than rotten fish,” Fengmo objected.

Madame Wu smiled her pretty smile. “Then don’t take it,” she said comfortably. “Why take what you dislike so much?”

“Thank you, Mother,” Fengmo said, but he was again surprised.

Madame Wu leaned forward, and her hands fell clasped into her lap. “Fengmo,” she said, “it is time we talked about your life.”

“My life?” Fengmo looked up and stopped whirling the cap.

“Yes,” Madame Wu repeated, “your life. Your father and I have already discussed it.”

“Mother, don’t think I will consent to your choosing a wife for me,” Fengmo said hotly.

“Of course I would not,” Madame Wu said quickly. “All that I can do is to bring certain names to you and ask you if you like any of them. Naturally I have considered your tastes, as well as the position of the family. I have put aside any thought of such a girl as the Chen family’s second daughter, who has been brought up in old-fashioned ways.”

“I would never have such a girl,” Fengmo declared.

“Of course not. But there is another difficulty,” Madame Wu said in her calm way. “The girls are also demanding much today. It is not as it was when I was a girl. I left all such things in my mother’s hands, and my uncle’s who took my dead father’s place. But now the girls — the sort you would want, Fengmo — do not want a young man who cannot speak at least one foreign tongue.”

“I study some English in school,” Fengmo said haughtily.

“But you cannot speak it very well,” Madame Wu replied. “I do not know that language myself, but certainly I hear you stammer and halt when you make those sounds. I do not blame you, but so it is.”

“What girl will not have me?” Fengmo asked angrily.

Madame Wu rode to her goal upon this anger as a boat rides the surf to the shore. “Madame Kang’s third daughter, Linyi,” she said, and while she had seen no interest pass between them, Fengmo’s present anger was enough. He was immediately interested.

“That girl!” he muttered. “She looks too proud. I hate her looks.”

“She is really very handsome,” Madame Wu retorted. “But that is not the important thing. I do not speak of her except as one of others. If Linyi, who knows our family and position, still objects to you, can we look higher?”

“You could send me away to a foreign school,” Fengmo said eagerly.

“I will not do that,” she replied in her pretty voice that was nevertheless as inexorable as sun and moon. “There will be war over the whole world in a few years from now. At such a time all my sons must be at home.”

Fengmo looked at her astounded. “How can you tell such things, Mother?”

“I am not a fool, though all the world around me are fools,” Madame Wu said quietly. “When certain steps are taken and none prevents them, then more steps are taken.”

The boy was silent, his eyes fixed on his mother’s face. They were large and black like hers, but they had not the depth of her eyes. He was still too young. But he did not speak, as though he were struggling to comprehend the things of which she spoke.

“I have heard there is a foreign priest here in the city,” she went on, “and he is a learned man. It is possible that for a sum he would teach you to speak other languages. For this are you willing? Foreign languages may serve you well some day. It is not of marriage only that I think. The times ahead are due for change.”

Her voice, so clear, so musical, was nevertheless full of portent. Fengmo loved and feared his mother at the same time. To him she was always right, and the few times that he had disobeyed her she had not punished him, but he was always punished nevertheless. Slowly and hardly he had learned that what she said carried wisdom. But, being a boy, he demurred for a moment.

“A priest?” he repeated. “I do not believe in religions.”

“I do not ask you to believe in religions,” she said in reply. “It is not of that we speak.”

“He would try to convert me,” Fengmo said sullenly. “Little Sister Hsia is always trying to convert everybody in the house. Whenever she passes me she hands me a gospel paper.”

“Do you need to yield to conversion?” Madame Wu asked. “Are you so weak? You must learn to take from a person that which is his best and ignore all else. Come, try the priest for a month, and if you wish then to stop his teaching, I will agree to it.”

It was the secret of her power in this house that she never allowed her will to be felt as absolute. She gave time and the promise of an end, and then she used the time to shape events to her own end.

Fengmo began to whirl the cap slowly again between his hands. “A month then,” he said. “Not more than a month if I do not like it.”

“A month,” Madame Wu agreed. She rose. “And now, my son, we will go to the night meal together. Your father will have begun without us.”

In the Wu household men and women ate at separate tables. Thus at the threshold of the great dining room Fengmo parted from his mother and went to one end, where his father and brothers and the men cousins were already seated, and Madame Wu walked with her usual grace to the tables where the women were seated. All rose at her approach. She saw at once that Ch’iuming had taken her place among them. The girl sat shyly apart from the others and held a small child on her knee. With this child still in her arms she rose and managed to shield her face with the child. But Madame Wu had taken a full look at her before she did this. The girl was grave, but that was natural in a strange household. It was enough that she was here.

“Please sit down,” Madame Wu said courteously to all and to no one. She took her own place at the highest seat and picked up her chopsticks. Meng had been serving the others, and Madame Wu put her chopsticks down again. “Proceed for me, please, Meng,” she said. “I have been busy all day with household matters, and I am a little weary.”

She leaned back smiling, and in her usual way she gave a word to each of her daughters-in-law, and she spoke to Meng’s little boy whom the nurse held. The child was fretting, and Madame Wu took her chopsticks and chose a bit of meat and gave it to him. Then she spoke directly to Ch’iuming.

“Second Lady,” she said kindly, “you must eat what you like best. The fish is usually good.”

Ch’iuming looked up and flushed a bright red. She rose and gave a little bow, the child still clutched in her arms. “Thank you, Elder Sister,” she said in a faint voice. She sat down and did not speak again. When a servant put a bowl of rice before her she fed the child first.

But by this kind address Madame Wu told the whole house that Ch’iuming’s place was set, and that the life of the family must now include this one added to it. All heard the few words, and a moment’s silence followed them. Then servant spoke to servant and nurse to child to cover the silence.

Madame Wu accepted the food given her and began to eat in her delicate slow fashion. The little grandson, wooed by the gift of the meat, now clamored suddenly to come and sit on her knee. Meng reproved him tenderly. “You with your face and hands all dirty!”

Madame Wu looked up as though she had been in a dream. “Is it me the child wants?” she asked.

“He is so dirty, Mother,” Meng said.

“Certainly he is to come to me,” Madame Wu said. She put out her hands and took the heavy child and set him on her knee. Then with her instinctive daintiness she took up a pair of clean chopsticks and found bits of meat in the central bowls and fed them to the child. She did not speak, but she smiled at each mouthful.

The child did not smile back. He sat as though in a dream of content, opening his little mouth and chewing each bit with silent pleasure. It was Madame Wu’s usual effect on children. Without effort she made them feel content to be near her. And she took content from the grandchild. In him her duty to the house was complete, and in him, too, her secret loneliness in this house was assuaged. She did not know she was lonely, and had anyone told her that she was, she would have denied it, amazed at such misreading. But she was too lonely for anyone to reach her soul. Her soul had outstripped her life. It had gone out far beyond the four walls within which her body lived. It roamed the world, and reached into the past and climbed toward the future, and her many thoughts played about that constant voyaging. But now and again her soul came home to this house. It came back now. She was suddenly fully aware of this child and of his meaning. The generations marched on, hers ending, his beginning.

“Son of my son,” she murmured and continued to put bits of meat into his small red mouth, opened for what she gave. When he was fed she gave him to his mother.

But before the others had finished she was finished, and she rose begging them to continue, and walked slowly out of the room. As she passed Mr. Wu and her sons they greeted her, half-rising from their seats, and she smiled and inclined her head and went on her way.

That night again she slept the whole night through and did not wake.

But to Ch’iuming the half-hour of Madame Wu’s presence was her marriage ceremony. The night had left her confused. Had she pleased him or not? Mr. Wu had not spoken one word to her, and he had left her before dawn. She had slept after that until noon. No one had come near her all afternoon except a woman servant. Then she had been bidden by Ying, at evening, to join the family meal. She had hastened to make herself ready for this, and when the time came she had slipped into the dining room late, and had quickly taken the child from his nurse. He had not cried. But children never cried with her. In the village she had cared for many babies of farm mothers. One by one the ladies who were now her relatives had greeted her, half carelessly, half shyly, and she had only bent her head a little in reply. Nor could she eat.

But after Madame Wu had left the room, she suddenly felt ravenous and, turning herself somewhat so that she did not face the others, she ate two bowls of rice and meat as quickly as she could.

When the meal was over she stood waiting in deepening shyness while Meng and Rulan went away. But Meng in her gentle kindness stayed a moment to speak to her. “I will come to see you tomorrow, Second Lady,” she said.

“I am not worthy,” Ch’iuming replied faintly. She could not meet Meng’s eyes, but she was comforted and happy. She lifted her eyes, and Meng saw the timid desolate heart.

“I will come and bring my child,” she promised.

And Ch’iuming went out with the women and children, hiding herself among them from the men. But they looked at her, each in his own secret fashion.

That night Mr. Wu came early to the peony court, and she was not yet in bed. She was sewing upon her unfinished garments when she heard his step. She rose as he entered and turned her face away. He sat down while she stood, and he cleared his throat, put his hands on his knees, and looked at her.

“You,” he began, not calling her by name, “you must not be afraid of me.”

She could not answer. She clung to the garment she held with both hands and stood like stone before him.

“In this house,” Mr. Wu began again, “there is everything to make you happy. My sons’ mother is kind. There are young women, my sons’ wives, and young cousins’ wives, and many children. You look good-tempered, and certainly you are obliging. You will be very happy here.”

Still she did not answer. Mr. Wu coughed and loosened his belt a little. He had eaten very heartily, and he felt somewhat breathless. But he had not finished what he wished to say.

“For me,” he went on, “you have only a few duties. I like to sleep late. Do not wake me if I am here. In the night, I like tea if I am wakeful, but not red tea. I am hot in blood, and cannot have two quilts even in winter. These and other things you will learn, doubtless.”

The garment dropped from her hand. She looked at him and forgot her shyness. “Then — I am wanted?” She put the question to him out of her longing to find shelter somewhere under Heaven.

“Certainly,” he said. “Have I not been telling you so?” He smiled, and his smooth handsome face lit from a sudden heat from within him. She saw it and understood it. But tonight she would not be afraid. It was a little price to pay, a very little price to pay a kind man, for a home at last.