Pavilion of Women

VIII

IN THIS WAY BROTHER André came again into the house of Wu. He made no mention of the time since he had been here, nor of anything that had happened since. Fengmo came in the evening for his lesson and went away again. But when Brother André was passing through the court after the lesson, Madame Wu called to him gently. She was sitting in her accustomed place where she always sat in the evening until the autumn grew too cold. It was cold tonight, but because she was reluctant to let the summer escape her, she held fast to a night or two longer. Ying had complained against her for sitting outdoors, and now in the library a brazier of coals burned ready to cure the chill which Ying declared was ready to fall upon her.

“Good Brother André,” Madame Wu called.

Brother André’s tall figure stopped. He turned his head and saw her.

“Did you call me, Madame?” he asked.

“Yes.” She rose as she spoke. “If you have some time, please spare it to me to talk for a little while about this third son of mine. I am not pleased with him.”

Brother André inclined his great head.

“Bring tea, Ying,” Madame Wu told her, “and stay to mend the coals.” She remembered that Brother André was a priest, and she wished to spare him uneasiness at being alone with a woman.

If he was uneasy, he did not show it. He sat down when she motioned him to a chair and waited. His deep eyes were fixed on her face, but she knew that he did not think of her. The eyes might have been looking down out of heaven upon her.

“Why is Fengmo unhappy?” she asked him directly.

“He is too idle,” Brother André replied simply.

“Idle?” Madame Wu repeated. “But he has his duties. Every New Year’s Day I assign duties to each son and to each daughter-in-law. This year my eldest son is responsible for the oversight, under me, of the lands. And Tsemo must look to the buying and selling, and Fengmo is learning about the grainshops where we market our grains in the city. Since he has left school, he is busy at this for several hours every day.”

“Still he is idle,” Brother André said. “Fengmo has an unusual mind and a searching spirit. He learns quickly. You bade me teach him English. But with all he learns of the English, he takes in something more. Today, I found he had forgotten nothing. The knowledge I gave him months ago has rooted in him and has sent up tendrils like a vine, searching into the air for something upon which to climb and flower and fruit. Fengmo will always be idle, although you fill every hour of the day, until he has found the thing which uses his mind and his spirit.”

Madame Wu listened to this. “You are trying to persuade me to let you teach him your religion,” she said shrewdly.

“You do not know what my religion is,” Brother André answered.

“I do know,” she said. “Little Sister Hsia has read me often out of your sacred books, and she has explained to me your foreign ways of praying and all such things.”

“My religion is not hers, nor hers mine,” this strange man replied.

“Explain me yours,” she commanded him.

“I will not explain it, for I cannot,” he said. “Little Sister Hsia can read you out of a book and speak to you a way of praying, but these are not my ways. I read many books, I have no set ways of prayer.”

“Then where is your way of religion?” she demanded.

“In bread and in water,” he replied, “in sleeping and in walking, in cleaning my house and making my garden, in feeding the lost children I find and take under my roof, in coming to teach your son, in sitting by those who are ill, and in helping those who must die, that they may die in peace.”

“I wish I had called you when our Old Lady died,” she said suddenly. “I had a strange wish to call you. But I was afraid the family would still want the temple priests.”

“I would not have kept your priests away,” Brother André said. “I never forbid anyone who can bring comfort anywhere. We all need comfort.”

“Do you also?” she asked curiously.

“Certainly I also,” he said.

“But you are so solitary,” she exclaimed. “You have no one of your blood.”

“Everyone is of my blood,” Brother André said, “and there is no difference between one blood and another.”

“Is your blood like mine?” Madame Wu exclaimed.

“There is no difference,” he replied. “All human blood is of the same stuff.”

“Why are you only a priest?” she asked. This she knew to be rude, and so she made haste to be pardoned. “You must forgive me. I am too curious. I know that a priest is never to be asked why he became a priest. But I feel that, you have committed no crime and that you need no sanctuary.”

“Do not ask my pardon,” Brother André replied. “Indeed, I scarcely know how I became a priest, unless it is because I was first an astronomer.”

“You know the stars?” she asked in great surprise.

“Madame, no one knows the stars,” he replied. “But I study their rise and fall, their coming and their going across the heavens.”

“Do you still do this?” she inquired. She was ashamed of her curiosity concerning him, and yet she could not keep herself from it.

“Madame, when my day’s work is done, unless the night is cloudy, I do so,” he replied. His manner was so frank, so calm, that it piqued her. He answered her questions because she put them and because he had nothing to hide, but also as if he had no concern with her.

“You are very lonely,” she said abruptly. “All day you work among the poor and at night among the stars.”

“It is true,” he agreed calmly.

“Have you never wanted a home and wife and children?” she asked.

“Madame, I once did love a woman,” he replied, “and we were to be married. Then I entered into loneliness, and I no longer loved her nor needed her.”

“This was very unjust to her, I think,” Madame Wu said with dignity.

“Yes, it was,” he agreed, “and I felt it so, but I could only tell her the truth. Then I became a priest in order to follow my loneliness.”

“But your faith?” she inquired.

He looked at her with his full dark gaze. “My faith? It is in space and in emptiness, in sun and stars, clouds and wind.”

“Is there no god there?” she inquired.

“There is,” he said. “But I have not seen His face.”

“Then how can you believe in Him?” she asked.

“He is also in that which is around me,” Brother André replied. His grave voice spoke the large, simple words. “He is in the air and the water, in life and death, in mankind.”

“But your foundlings,” she urged. “If you love your loneliness and need no one, why have you taken these chance children?”

He looked down at his huge workworn hands. “These hands, too, must live and be happy,” he said, as though they were separate creatures and did not belong to him. “The flesh, too, must be employed if it is to let the soul be free.”

Madame Wu stared at him with ever-rising curiosity. “Are there other men like you?” she asked.

“No man is quite like any other one,” Brother André said. His sun-browned face took on a warm, almost smiling look, as though a light came on within him. “But your son, Madame, young Fengmo, I think he could become like me. Perhaps he will become like me.”

“I forbid it!” Madame Wu said imperiously.

“Ah!” Brother André said, and now he smiled. His lit, mysterious eyes glowed on her for an instant and then he said good-by.

And she sat gazing up into the handful of stars above her court. Twice Ying came out to scold her.

“Leave me,” Madame Wu told her. “I have things to think about.”

“Can you not think in your bed instead of in this chill night air?” Ying complained.

When Madame Wu did not reply, she went and fetched a fur robe and wrapped it about her knees. Still Madame Wu did not move. She leaned back in her chair, gazing at the stars. The walls of the court cut a square out of heaven as they did out of the earth, but up and down, beneath and above, her thoughts went deep and rose high.

In the earth beneath this house human roots ran down — the unseen, the unknown roots of all who had lived here of the Wu family. Here they had been born and here they died. The foundations were unshaken. And yet even before them there had been others. Old Gentleman had told her what he had heard from his own father, who had been told it by his father, that when the Wu house was founded, the hands that dug the earth out had placed the stones not upon earth but upon rubble and cracked porcelains and potsherds and fragments of tile. “No house can reach to the bottom of our earth,” Old Gentleman had told her. “City upon city, our ancestors have built five cities one upon another. Man has built upon man, and others will build upon us.”

In the thousands of years to come the Wu house would take its place to make the foundations for still other houses, and other eyes would look upon these stars. She comprehended the loneliness of Brother André, and yet she understood why he was content in it. She trembled upon the edge of this loneliness herself as she gazed up at the stars.

“Madame!” Ying cried out from the house in despair.

But Madame Wu did not hear her voice.

Ying grew frightened at last. She tiptoed near and looked down into Madame Wu’s face. It was pure and cold and fixed. Her great dark eyes continued to gaze into the sky. In the dimness of the court, lit only by the shaft of candlelight from the library, her face looked almost translucent in its creamy whiteness.

“Alas, her soul is fled!” Ying murmured and then clapped her hands to her mouth. She backed away in terror at what she saw and tiptoed across the court.

Madame Wu heard her dimly, without caring or knowing why Ying was afraid. She was free from these walls. They did not, as she had thought, reach up to the sky and cut out a square among the stars. Instead, when she had surmounted them she saw the whole earth lying before her, the seven seas and the countries and the peoples of whom she had heard only in books, the two poles of the earth and their unmelting ice and snow, the tropics and their earthy life.

“From the stars,” she thought, “doubtless all things are seen.”

For the first time in her life she longed to rise out of these four walls and travel everywhere upon the earth to see everything and to know all.

“But there would still be the stars,” she thought. “How can one reach the stars?”

She thought of Old Lady, now dissolved into free soul and coffin-bound dust. But Old Lady’s soul was hovering about this house.

“As soon as I am free,” Madame Wu thought, “I shall leave this house. I shall go straight up until I know what stuff the stars are.”

Thus dreaming, Madame Wu forgot that Ying had crossed the court and gone away, and now she did not see her come back with all three sons. Liangmo and Tsemo and Fengmo came together and stood gazing at their mother. Liangmo spoke first.

“Mother!” He made his voice gentle, for he feared that her soul had left her body, and when this happens the soul must be wooed and coaxed and not frightened, lest it never return. For the body is the cage and the soul is the bird, and once the door is left open and the bird goes forth free, why should it return to the cage? It must be tempted and deceived.

“Dear Mother,” Liangmo said gently, “your children are here — your children wait for you—”

But Madame Wu was in a trance. She heard no voice.

Her sons looked at one another in terror.

“Call our father,” Liangmo commanded Tsemo.

Tsemo made haste to obey, and in a few minutes, while the others waited in silence lest the runaway soul escape yet farther, Mr. Wu hurried into the court. Behind him, unnoticed, came Ch’iuming.

“How did this come about?” he demanded of Ying.

“The foreign priest left her so,” Ying replied.

They looked at one another in renewed fear.

“Mother of my sons!” Mr. Wu called gently. His large face was paper-colored.

Madame Wu did not answer.

“Ailien!” he called. He did not dare to touch her. Her hands hung from her wrists like limp white flowers.

But Ch’iuming said not a word. She knelt at Madame Wu’s feet and slipped off the narrow satin shoes and the white silk stockings and began to chafe the bare feet. They were cold, and she put them against her bosom. “You will wake her too quickly,” Mr. Wu urged.

“No, for she is not afraid of me,” Ch’iuming said. She knelt looking up at them, father and sons, in this house where Heaven had thrust her.

“She is afraid of no one,” Mr. Wu said with dignity.

“She is not afraid of me because she does not care for me,” Ch’iuming said strangely and looked down on the narrow bare feet she held.

At this moment Madame Wu brought down her eyes from the stars and saw her three sons. “You three?” she said. “What do you want?”

Ch’iuming quickly put on her stockings and shoes again. Madame Wu seemed not to see her. But she saw Mr. Wu.

“Why are you here?” she asked in a cold and distant voice.

All could see that her soul was unwilling to return to them.

“Mother, I think Meng is about to bear her child,” Liangmo said quickly.

“Mother,” Tsemo called, “I wish you would teach Rulan how to make honey cakes.”

“Mother,” Fengmo said in a low voice, “today I told you a lie.”

One by one, they called her back. Mr. Wu took his turn.

“Mother of my sons, the house needs you. And have you forgotten that it is time to allot the seed wheat for the land?”

So at last she returned. “You,” she murmured, “will you never be done with your troubles?”

“No,” Liangmo said, “never!”

She was fumbling with the robe about her knees, and now she rose and let it drop. She had come down from the stars and was here in the house again. She looked about her, dazed.

“Where is Ying? I am tired — I must sleep. Tomorrow — tomorrow.”

The men fell back and let Ying lead her into her room. Only Chi’uming slipped off into the darkness. But the men stayed in Madame Wu’s sitting room in silence, looking at one another, listening until Ying came out and told them, “She is safe now — she has fallen asleep.”

They went away then. “Can you explain this, Father?” Liangmo asked Mr. Wu as they went out of the court. “Her soul has never left this house before, has it?”

“I do not know what has come over her,” Mr. Wu grumbled. “Ever since her fortieth birthday she has been too strange.”

But Fengmo shook his head. “Not one of you understands our mother as I do. I know how she feels. She feels that she has wings and has never been allowed to fly — that is how she feels.”

His father and Liangmo and Tsemo only looked at him as though he were out of his mind, and the next moment they bade one another a grave good night.

Madame Wu woke the next morning with great dread of what had happened to her the night before. Nothing in her life had been as sweet as those moments of whole freedom when her soul had left her body behind. She knew that this freedom could become drink to the soul, a liquor which it could no more resist than a drunkard his wine. For while her soul had been wandering among the stars she had neglected all else, and the burdens of this great house had dropped from her. She had cast them off and left them behind her as surely as a nun escapes the travail of womanhood, as surely as a priest escapes the burden of manhood. She felt angry with Brother André this morning because he had tempted her to such freedom, and she was afraid of herself because she had yielded. When she woke guilt was as heavy on her as though she had given herself to a secret lover.

She rose immediately and with severity to herself. She called Ying to account sharply for several small faults. She pointed to dust swept behind a big chair which was seldom moved and to a cobweb which hung from a polished beam. After her meal she took accounts with the cook and directed him concerning the foods for many days ahead. “Now that winter is not too far away,” she said, “it is time you ceased to give us melon soups and cucumbers and such cooling things. It is time to brown pork and to stir-fry beef and beans and to put meats in the vegetables.”

He opened his little eyes widely at this. “Where have you been eating, Lady, that you have not seen that I have already begun to do these things? After these years, do I need to be told of the seasons?”

He was surprised by Madame Wu’s sharpness since, being so excellent a cook, he had his place in the house sure, and he was impudent when he liked, which was often, for he had the hot temper of all good cooks. But Madame Wu did not lessen her sharpness. “Go away,” she said. “Do not tell me what you do and do not do.”

She took no time for herself this day. No sooner was one gone than another came. She had not calmed herself from the cook when she saw Mr. Wu entering her court at a time earlier than he usually rose.

“Come in, Father of my sons,” she said. “I have been taking accounts with the cook. Sometimes I think we should change him. He grows too loose in the tongue.”

“But he is the only cook who makes crabs as I like them,” Mr. Wu said in alarm. “You know how I searched in seven and eight cities before I found him, and then I married him to your maid to secure him.”

“Ying is impudent, too,” Madame Wu said.

This was such unusual talk from her that Mr. Wu was more than a little disturbed. He sat down and drew out his pipe from his sleeve and filled it and lit it. “Now, Mother of my sons,” he said, “you do not feel well this morning. Your eyes are shadowy.”

“I am well,” Madame Wu insisted.

Mr. Wu took two puffs and put down his pipe. “Ailien,” he said in a low voice, first looking right and left to see that no one heard him, “you do very wrong to separate yourself from me. Truly, male and female have no health apart from each other. It is not only a matter of offspring. It is a matter of balance. Come, see yourself as you are. You are not toothless, your hair is still as black as it ever was, your flesh is firm, your blood quick. Have you forgotten how well we—”

“Cease there,” she said firmly. “You know I am not a changeable woman. I have arranged my life. Have you discontent in you that you come here and speak to me so?”

“Indeed I would welcome you,” he said frankly, “for I love you better than any other and must until I die, but I am not thinking of myself.”

“You need not think of me,” she insisted.

“I must think of you,” he declared. For a moment he had the monstrous thought that perhaps she had by some strange twist of nature become attached, through the soul, to the foreign priest. But he was ashamed to put forth this thought to her. He knew her fastidiousness in all matters. Aside from his priesthood the man was foreign. Even when Mr. Wu was young and impatient, he knew that it was better for him if he held his impatience and bathed himself and sweetened his breath and his body before he came near her. But foreigners were rank from the bone because of the coarseness of their flesh, the profuseness of their sweat, and the thickness of their woolly hair. He put his monstrous thought aside, lest with her magic instinct she divine it and accuse him.

He had recourse, therefore, to the one thing which he knew would always command her attention. He put on peevishness and complained that he himself did not feel well.

“Ah, you are right. I am old, too,” he sighed. “My belly rumbles, I wake up two and three times in the night. In the morning I am tired.”

But she was still cruel. “Eat only a little broth for supper — and sleep alone for a few nights.”

He gave up then and sat with his underlip thrust out, and she tapped her foot on the stone floor and sighed. Then she rose to pour tea for him. He saw her thin fingers tremble as she held the lid of the pot, but he said nothing. He drank tea, and she drank also from a bowl she poured for herself, and then he rose and went away. He had not reached the door when she called to him in that clear pure voice of hers which was as hard as silver, “You have forgotten your pipe yet again!”

He turned and his face was crimson. “Truly, I did forget it,” he said.

But she stood there on the threshold and pointed at it as though it were a filthy thing, and he went back like a beaten boy and snatched it up, and then he strode past her, his lips pursed and his cheeks red. For a moment she stood looking after him, and in her breast there was a spot which ached as though a blow had fallen there.

But before she could heed it, who then should come in but Little Sister Hsia? Of all mornings it seemed to Madame Wu that this was the last one on which this poor pale woman was welcome, but what could she do except to invite her to come in and sit down?

“I have not seen you for so long,” Little Sister Hsia said in her rapid broken way. Madame Wu had learned to understand her meaning without understanding the words, for Little Sister Hsia controlled neither breath nor tongue. The sounds tumbled out, dull where they should have been sharp and sharp where they should have been dull, and the rise and fall of her voice had nothing to do with the words.

“Have you been ill, Little Sister?” Madame Wu inquired.

“No,” Little Sister replied, “but somehow — the last time — I felt perhaps I intruded.”

“Can you intrude?” Madame Wu murmured politely.

“You are so kind,” Little Sister said. In her innocence she accepted the politeness. “Today I have come for something so special. Dear Madame, please, I have a plan and if you approve—”

“What is this plan?” she inquired.

“You know that priest?” Little Sister inquired.

“My son’s tutor,” Madame Wu murmured.

“He has a foundling home,” Little Sister said. “I have long felt that a woman should have some oversight of the girls there. He has only an old servant. But they should be taught, Madame. Do you not think so? I was wondering if you would ask him — that is, perhaps, I would like with your approval to offer my services as a teacher.”

“Why do you not ask him yourself?” Madame Wu inquired.

“You must know,” Little Sister Hsia said earnestly. “His religion is not mine.”

“How many religions have the foreigners?” Madame Wu inquired. “I am always hearing of a new one.”

“There is only one true God,” Little Sister Hsia said solemnly.

“Do you believe in this God?” Madame Wu asked.

Little Sister Hsia opened her pale blue eyes. She lifted her hand and brushed a lock of pale yellow hair from her cheek. “Why else do you think I left my home and my country to come to this strange land?”

“Is ours a strange land?” Madame Wu asked in some surprise.

“To me it is strange,” Little Sister Hsia said.

“Did your God tell you to come?” Madame Wu asked again.

“He did,” Little Sister Hsia replied.

“Did you hear His voice?” Madame Wu asked.

Little Sister Hsia blushed. She placed her long pale hands upon her breast.

“I felt it — I heard it here,” she said.

Madame Wu gazed at her. “But did your parents never try to betroth you?” she asked.

Little Sister Hsia clasped her bosom more closely. “In my country parents do not arrange marriages. Men and women marry for love.”

“Did you ever love?” Madame Wu asked in her calm voice.

Little Sister Hsia’s hands dropped into her gray cotton lap.

“Of course,” she said simply.

“But you did not wed?” Madame Wu asked.

“In my country,” Little Sister Hsia said painfully, “the man must ask the woman.”

Now Madame Wu was silent. She could easily have asked the next question, but she was too kind to do so. She knew that no man had asked Little Sister Hsia to marry him.

Little Sister Hsia lifted her eyes again bravely, although they were misted. “God had other plans for me,” she said. Her voice was bright.

Madame Wu smiled kindly at her and said, “Do I not know you well!”

She took up her tiny silver-bound pipe and lit it and smoked two puffs and put it down again. “Here in my country,” she said, “we do not leave so important a matter as marriage to men and women or God. Marriage is like food and drink and shelter. It must be arranged for, or some will have too much and others will starve. In my house I plan meals for all, even for the servants. Each has the right to his share. Some foods, of course, are liked better than others. But if I left foods to their choice, the children would eat nothing but sweets. My son’s father would eat nothing but crabs and fats. Some of the servants are greedy and would eat too much and leave nothing to the more timid ones, who would hunger. To each servant I allot a certain quantity, to each member of the family I allot a certain quality. Thus all are fed under my care.”

Little Sister Hsia’s fingers were knotting themselves. “I do not know how we came to talk about all this,” she said. “I came here to ask you something — really, I’ve forgotten what it was, now.”

“You have forgotten because it was not what was really in your mind,” Madame Wu said kindly. “I will answer you. No, Little Sister Hsia, you must leave Brother André alone. I assure you he is like a great high rock, hard because it is high. You must not beat yourself against that cliff. You will be wounded, your flesh will be torn, your heart will bleed, and your brains will be spilled like curds, but he will not know it. Occupy yourself with your own God — I advise it.”

Little Sister Hsia was now pale to the lips. “I don’t know what you mean,” she stammered. “Sometimes I think you are a very wicked woman. You think thoughts — you put thoughts into me — I don’t have such thoughts—”

“Do not be ashamed of your thoughts,” Madame Wu said kindly. “They are good thoughts, for you are a good woman; but you are very lonely. You do not want to be lonely. But you must be lonely. It is your doom. Life has not provided for you. Yours is the strange cruel country. Not even your parents provided for you when life did not. Little Sister Hsia, I would myself arrange a marriage for you were it possible. But there is no man of your kind here.”

Little Sister Hsia listened to her. Now her mouth opened and shut, she gasped, and suddenly she burst into tears of anger. “You are hateful!” she cried to Madame Wu. “You — you — I’m not like that — you’re all alike, you Chinese — just thinking of such — awful things.”

Madame Wu was deeply astonished. “Little Sister,” she said, “I speak of life, the life of man, the life of woman. I pity you, I would help you if I could—”

“I don’t want your help,” Little Sister Hsia sobbed. “I want only to serve God.”

“Poor soul,” Madame Wu murmured, “then go and serve your God.”

She rose and with a tender hand she took Little Sister’s hand and led her to the door and bade her farewell. She resolved never to see her again. Serenely she sat down, her eyes still full of brooding pity, when Ying came running in.

“The First Young Lord, his wife is beginning travail,” she cried.

“Ah,” Madame Wu said, “send for her own mother. Meanwhile I will go to her at once.” She rose and went into her bedroom and washed her hands thoroughly and changed her silk coat for one of clean blue linen. Then, perfuming her hands and cheeks, she went into Liangmo’s court.

She welcomed the news. Nothing was so exciting in a house as the birth of a child. She had not enjoyed the act of birth for herself, and yet each time she had given birth she had felt purged and renewed. She had no fears today for Meng. Meng was young and healthy and made for children.

It was the day of women, as all days of birth are. The main room of her eldest son’s court was full of excited women servants and female cousins and relatives. Even the children were excited and laughing as they tried to help carry pails of water and pots of tea. The great house was crowded enough and yet all welcomed the coming of another child. Moreover, since Meng was the wife of the eldest son, there was added dignity to this birth.

“Another son would be best,” an elderly cousin was saying when Madame Wu entered the court. “Then if something happens to the first one, here is the second. A house with many sons is always secure.”

At this moment Madame Wu entered and all rose. The highest seat had been kept for her, and she took it. Murmured greetings came from the suddenly silenced room. Rulan as the second daughter-in-law rose and poured tea. Even she was silent.

“Ah, Rulan,” Madame Wu said.

She looked with a sharp, swift gaze at the girl. Pale — she was looking pale. She never saw Rulan without remembering that once in the night she had wept aloud. Then Madame Wu saw Linyi sitting somewhat apart. She was cracking dried watermelon seeds between her teeth and blowing the shells on the floor. Madame Wu restrained a rebuke. In a few minutes Madame Kang would be here, and it was better not to disturb Linyi. The girl stood when she saw Madame Wu’s eyes on her.

“Ah, Linyi,” Madame Wu said.

Then she took up the affair of the birth. “How are matters?” she inquired of the midwife who had come running out of the bedroom when she heard the commotion of Madame Wu’s arrival.

“All is well,” the stout woman replied. She was a loud, coarse, hearty soul who performed her task everywhere, but who welcomed a birth in a rich house because her gifts would be rich, too, especially if she delivered the child whole and alive and if it were a boy.

“It is surely a boy,” she said. Her broad face beamed. “Our First Son’s Lady carried him high.”

But Meng’s voice raised in sudden screams now was clearly heard, and the midwife ran out of the room. In less than half an hour Madame Kang came hurrying in. She herself was already shapeless, although she had put on loose robes. Silence fell as she crossed the threshold. Curiosity and pity made the silence. She felt it and covered her shame with words.

“Sisters!” she exclaimed, “here you all are. How good you are to care for my child!”

Then she spoke to Madame Wu. “And you, Eldest Sister, how is she?”

“I have waited for your coming,” Madame Wu said. “Let us go in together.”

Together they went into the room where Meng lay upon a narrow couch. Sweat poured down her cheeks and wet her long hair. The two ladies went to her, one on either side, and held her hands.

“Mother,” Meng gasped, “Mother — it’s worse than last time.”

“Truly it is not,” Madame Kang comforted her. “It will be much quicker.”

“Do not talk!” Madame Wu commanded them both. “Now is the time for effort.”

To Madame Wu’s cool thin hand, to Madame Kang’s plump warm one, Meng clung. She longed to lean her head on her mother’s breast and weep, but she did not dare because it would not have been dutiful to her husband’s mother. The reek of hot blood filled the room. The midwife was suddenly very busy.

“He comes, the little lord of life!” she cried. “I see his crown.”

Meng shuddered and screamed and twisted the two hands she held. Neither flinched. She bent her head and bit her own hand that her mother held, and Madame Kang seized her hand and put it tightly against her bosom.

“Why wound yourself?” she exclaimed.

But Meng flung herself straight and made her body an arch of pain. She opened her mouth wide and put out a great groan that rose into a final scream. Madame Kang dropped her hand, pushed the midwife aside, and put out both hands and caught the child.

“Another boy,” she said reverently. As though he heard her, the child who had drawn in his breath now let it out with a yell.

Madame Wu smiled down into the small wrinkled, furious face. “Are you angry that you are born?” she asked the child in a tender teasing. “Hear him, Meng, he is blaming us all.” But Meng did not answer. She was released from pain and, her eyes closed, she lay like a flower beaten upon the earth after rain.

That night Madame Wu and Madame Kang sat together. All was well in the house. The child was sound. The young mother slept. In mutual content the two friends now sat. Madame Wu, to spare her friend pain, had not spoken all day of Madame Kang’s own shamefully swelling body. While they sat and talked of family matters and many small things and wove these in with memories of their youth, a long shadow fell across the open door. It was Brother André coming to give Fengmo his lesson as usual.

“The foreign priest?” Madame Kang asked.

“He comes here still to teach Fengmo,” Madame Wu said. It seemed very long to her since last night when her soul had climbed out of the walls of the house. Now tonight it was fast again, caught and tied afresh by this new child born today. This was another mouth, another mind for which she was responsible.

“I do no more understand a priest or nun than I understand a foreign language,” Madame Kang said.

Madame Wu smiled at her. “You,” she said, “you—”

Madame Kang laughed roguishly and patted her full belly. “When I am alone,” she confessed, “I am happy. I am glad to have one more child.”

In Madame Kang’s rosy face so far from youth Madame Wu saw to her amazement something of the same divine content which she had seen last night on Brother André’s face. This friendship had been always upon the level of their common womanhood. Madame Wu knew that her friend had never so much as learned to read. Indeed, Madame Kang would have thought it a waste of time to read when she could bear a child.

“Meichen,” Madame Wu said, half smiling, half tender, “you are insatiable. You are not willing to leave children to the young women. You are as good as bearing your own grandchild. Will you never leave off?”

“Alas,” Madame Kang sighed with mock shame, “I find such pleasure in it!”

“Do you truly never wish for anything else than what your life is?” Madame Wu asked curiously.

“Never,” Madame Kang replied. “If I could just keep on bearing a child every year — of what use am I if I cease bearing this fruit?”

The thin and graceful shadow of Fengmo crossed the threshold. Madame Wu glanced at its passing.

“Fengmo is come for his lesson,” she said.

Both ladies watched his slanting shadow move away.

“Linyi—” They both began and stopped, each waiting for the other.

“Go on,” Madame Kang said.

“No, you are her mother, you proceed,” Madame Wu insisted.

“No, I will not,” Madame Kang said.

“Well, then,” Madame Wu said after an instant, “I will proceed. Fengmo is not happy with your daughter, Meichen. It is a pity you did not teach her how to make him happy.”

“Fengmo!” Madame Kang exclaimed. Madame Wu was surprised at the tone of her voice. “Fengmo not happy!” Madame Kang repeated with some scorn. “Ailien, let me tell you, it is Linyi who is not happy!”

“Meichen,” Madame Wu said in her most silvery voice, “recall yourself.”

“Yes,” Madame Kang declared, “you think you have taught Fengmo well. But Linyi is not happy with him. In a marriage there must be two. Can there be hand-clapping with only one hand? You have not taught Fengmo his part in marriage.”

“I?” Madame Wu said sharply.

‘Yes,” Madame Kang said. “Liangmo is like his father. He is a man by instinct, and so Meng is happy with him. But Fengmo is like you.”

“That is to say, he demands something a little above the common,” Madame Wu said bitterly.

Madame Kang wagged her head. “Then let him find it outside,” she said. “Let him take up his book learning and let him find a work to soak up his discontent. It has nothing to do with Linyi.”

“Meichen, you affront me!” Madame Wu exclaimed.

“Linyi had better come home for a while,” Madame Kang replied. “You and Fengmo, you can study your books and do without her until you see her value.”

Madame Wu saw this friendship, deeply dear, tremble and crack. “Meichen, do we quarrel?” she exclaimed.

Madame Kang replied with passion, “I have been a good friend to you always, and I have never judged you even though I saw you thinking thoughts above a woman. But I have always known that you were too wise, too clever for happiness. I told your sons’ father so—”

“Have you two talked of me?” Madame Wu asked. Her voice was too quiet,

“Only for your sake,” Madame Kang replied. She rose as she spoke and gathered her loose robes about her and walked sturdily away from Madame Wu.

Late that night when Madame Wu was in her bed Ying said, “Do you know that Madame Kang took your third son’s wife home with her tonight, Lady?”

“I know,” Madame Wu said.

She closed her eyes as though for sleep. But she did not sleep. She had not believed that Madame Kang would reach into this house and take back her daughter, as though Linyi still belonged to her. She lay still, and she could scarcely sleep for anger all that night.

Had Madame Wu been a lesser woman she would merely have been angry with her friend and sure of herself, but she was not such a woman. She blamed herself for carelessness in her own behavior. She had always known that her friendship with Madame Kang was of house and family, earth and clay. Why had she not been content with this instead of opening a door which frightened her friend? Every soul is frightened when it is forced beyond its level. Now out of her carelessness the rift between Fengmo and Linyi was widened. For surely it is very grave when a young wife is taken out of her husband’s house and home again to the childhood shelter. Fengmo must go and bring her back. She sent for Fengmo.

He came in looking pale but quiet.

“Son,” she said, “I have sent for you to confess my own fault. Linyi’s mother and I quarreled. Like stupid women, each of us declared for her own child, and she took her daughter home again. I have to tell you this so that you will know it was not Linyi’s fault. Now we must invite her to come back to us.”

To her horror Fengmo shook his head. “I will not invite her. Mother,” he declared. “Let it be as it is. Linyi and I are not suited.”

“How can you say that?” Madame Wu asked. Her heart was beating so quickly that she could feel it throb against the thick satin of her coat. The morning was cold, and she had put on a lined garment. “Any man and any woman, with intelligence, can suit each other. Marriage is a family matter, Fengmo. It is a discipline. One may not consider himself only.”

“Mother, I know that is what you have been taught,” Fengmo replied. “And it is what you have taught us. Were I your only son, I might in duty accept it. But I have two brothers ahead of me. Mother, let me go free.”

Madame Wu leaned forward in her chair, her hands clasped together. “Fengmo,” she said, “tell me what happened between you and Linyi. I am your mother.”

“Nothing,” Fengmo said doggedly.

But Madame Wu took this literally. “Nothing,” she repeated aghast. “You mean you two went into the same bed and nothing happened?”

“Oh, Mother,” Fengmo groaned. “Why do you think that is the only thing which can happen between men and women?”

“But it is the first thing,” Madame Wu insisted.

Fengmo set his lips together. “Very well, then, Mother,” he said, “It was the first thing. Then you see, Mother, I expected something more.”

“What did you expect?” she asked.

He flung out his big thin hands. “Some kind of talk, some kind of understanding, companionship — something after the introduction. I mean, after you are through with the body, what then?”

“But at your age you are never through with the body,” Madame Wu said. She began to see that she had not understood Fengmo. She had taken it for granted that all men were only males. She had once laughed at a foreign story she had read, an ancient story of Greece, of a woman who had fallen in love with a man not her husband because his breath was sweet. For this woman had known only her husband and had thought a foul breath was a part of man and that all men had such breath in them. Now she perceived she was as silly as this woman to consider that all men were alike. She herself had given birth to a man who was more than a male. This so astonished her that for some time she sat looking at her son.

But Fengmo seemed unaware of her thoughtful eyes. He sat, his body bent, his elbows on his parted knees, his hands hanging clasped between.

“I feel I cannot command you to do anything,” she said at last in a low voice. “I see now that I have violated your being.”

He looked up and she saw tears in his eyes.

“What do you call freedom?” she inquired. “Tell me and I will give it to you.”

“I should like to go away out of this house,” he said.

These words wrenched her heart. But she only asked next, “Where would you like to go?”

“Brother André said he would help me to cross the sea,” Fengmo said.

“If Brother André had never come into this house,” she said, pricked with self-reproach, “would you have thought of this?”

“I would have thought of it,” he replied, “but I would not have known how to do it. Brother André has shown me the way.”

To this she said nothing. She sat mute and thoughtful. Then she sighed, “Very well, my son,” she said at last. “Go free.”