Part 2
In the other side of the vast dwelling place the men drank wine and made merry, their long-skirted garments of silk in seafoam green and saffron and deep blue, and their chains of amber and jade and the settings of diamonds and pearls on their hands and in their hats outdoing the vivid glory of the women’s dress. Here Fuh Tang went at intervals to offer hospitality in food and wine, and to joke with his guests.
On the morning of the third day Kuei Ping came forth to find the guests for the most part dispersed, to worship at the ancestral tablets with her husband, to make low obeisance to her honorable new mother and father and the elder relatives, and to show her respect before the household Kitchen God.
Thus Kuei Ping became an integral part of the family of Chia.
_Wherein there is a departure from family custom and Kuei Ping goes with her husband to live in Peking_
Moonlight on which the white magnolia flowers floated as birds about to take wing, filled the courtyard and touched the town with a magic of pale green gold. Kuei Ping could not sleep. She lay wide-eyed, following the pattern that a moonbeam made as it filtered through the parchment window. Unable to resist longer the call of the path of light she slid from her bed to the floor. Cautiously pulling about her the long garment that lay waiting for the morning, she crept through the door of her pavilion into the courtyard. Still holding her slippers in her hand she listened for sounds of others awake. From the rooms of her honorable women relatives came only the rhythmic breathing of deep sleep.
She passed safely out of the women’s division of the compound, stealing through the intricate lacery of courtyards and curious-shaped gateways, stopping to dabble her fingers in the waters of a fountain and then, at a disturbed quack from the pet heron who stood sleeping with one foot drawn up beneath him, she sped carefully away. Her shadow mingled with that of the flowering magnolia trees as she slipped from place to place like a long-caged bird trying its wings in newly gained freedom, stooping now over the fragrant heart of a rose, brushing gently the stiff little potted evergreens that stood in a row at the base of the spirit screen, turning back to feel the velvet of the purple iris, holding up her hands to let the full-blown wisteria petals flutter through them.
From over the walls came a mysterious groping after expression from the strings of some blind wandering musician. It vibrated on the heart of Kuei Ping, calling her beyond the confines of the compound she had entered as a bride two months earlier. Square across the entrance gateway, placed so that evil spirits flying in to bring disaster would be flung back, stood the high, many-colored spirit screen guarding the household, while it slumbered, from disaster. Her hand still touching the familiar potted trees on the inner side of the screen, Kuei Ping crept around it. No sound save that of irregular snoring came from the gatekeeper’s house. Her fingers trembled as they sought for the open link in the chain that held the bar across the outer gate. A wild rose that had clambered up beside the gateway and dared to cross the bits of broken glass that made more impassable the top of the wall gave her courage. Noiselessly she slid the bar and stood without the compound.
How soft the dust felt beneath her feet as they touched it for the first time. Pilgrimages she had made with her honorable mother-in-law to pay respect to the ancestral hall, to worship at the temple of Buddha, and to ask after the health of Madame Yen and her household, but it was not fitting that the new bride should soil her feet upon the common ground. Chair-bearers came within the courtyard to bear her forth upon those journeys.
Leaning back against the wall, Kuei Ping drew a deep breath of air. Now near and now far away the music called. Thither along the road to his former place in the world of other affairs Fuh Tang had returned six days after their marriage. Above her head the wood-rose nodded in the breeze. Men went out and beyond. Women in that far-away land from which Miss Porter came, walked, too, in similar paths of freedom.
She looked up at the venturesome rose. It wafted down fragrant perfume. On her questioning mind came a consciousness of a change in the music--loneliness and a vague hunger that died away in a vibration of despair. There came upon the heart of Kuei Ping an overpowering sense of walls that stretched along the dusty hutung, closing in upon the lives of uncountable women. Even the roots of the wood-rose held her body within the compound. With cold hands and eyes blinded by tears she put the bar back in place. Her feet caught in the skirt of her long mandarin robe as she stumbled back into her room.
The morning would bring its round of regular hours in which she, the wife of the eldest son, would continue her lessons in family duties, ready to take the burden when it should fall from the ageing shoulders of Madame Chia.
The noon of the day brought its difference. Kuei Ping sat on the folded rug at the feet of her new mother, putting tiny stitches in a piece of satin embroidery, when the sounds of welcoming voices came from the outer court. The women’s conversation about small household affairs was stilled as they heard the gateman repeating the name of Fuh Tang, and the other servants take up the cry, “You bring us unexpected joy by your presence, most gracious master.” A needle prick from which a drop of red blood stained Kuei Ping’s embroidery was the only trace of excitement the quiet little bride showed as she rose to greet him with his mother. Within her there fluttered a hope that he had come upon this unexpected visit in answer to a call from her heart. She breathed a prayer of thanksgiving to the Goddess of Merciful Gifts that she had been given patience to perform the tasks of the day in quietness, and that she had donned for the afternoon the most becoming of the wisteria silk garments from her trousseau chests. The wistful light in her eyes changed to one of sure gladness as they met his. She heard the explanation of his coming as put into words to their most gracious mother, but Kuei Ping knew without words that he had come because he loved her.
Throughout the week and on into the next Fuh Tang lingered. The full moon had become a waning quarter, making the lighting of the many-colored lanterns in the courtyard necessary to turn it into a fairy land at twilight time. A messenger came calling him back to his post, and Madame Chia, fearing family dishonor, urged upon her son the necessity for immediate departure as soon as the next day should dawn.
Kuei Ping, bringing back to the gracious mother the household keys with which she had been entrusted to dole out the next day’s supplies to the cooks, heard the last words of Fuh Tang’s reproval.
It was in the courtyard, where the scattered petals of the blown magnolia flowers were bruised under their feet as they walked, that Fuh Tang told Kuei Ping that he must return upon the morrow to his waiting work. His voice had trembled as he spoke, and Kuei Ping, crushing consciously beneath her tiny embroidered slippers the blossoms that had seemed to dare to float out to freedom and then had dropped in a withered mass on the paved courtyard, had begged him to let her go with him. He had stayed his steps, startled at the suggestion. His calm hands folded into opposite coat sleeves, he had listened with ears that could not believe they heard aright.
Fuh Tang did not depart when morning came. The orders of an Emperor waited. The elders of the two august families of Yen and Chia met together to bring wisdom to the minds of the two young people who contemplated so drastic a departure from family custom. Separately and together they were called before the family tribunal. Faithfully and completely until now both of them had submitted to the rules of tradition; mechanically and faithfully they performed the small duties given them now. Kuei Ping listened to the daily words of her grandmother with reverently bowed head and modestly lowered eyes. Words were futile, for no one among the women spoke to let her know if by chance they understood.
In humiliation Kuei Ping’s heart was lighter than ever before. She knew that Fuh Tang would not depart without her. His younger brother was dispatched to fill Fuh Tang’s too long neglected orders.
In early autumn they left the protection and the guidance of their families in disgrace. Love for each other, so strong that it broke down old barriers to personal freedom, set them out upon the road of life a unit separate from the complex life of the compound. Fuh Tang, appealing to the principal of the school he had attended, secured through him a position as clerk with the British consul at Peking.
In the Tartar City just west of the entrance to the Forbidden City they found a small dwelling place.
_Wherein a son is born and there is great rejoicing_
From the time of Kuei Ping’s earliest memory she had known that among her people the crown of womanhood was the bearing of a son who would perpetuate the name and the virtue of his ancestors. Feeling the first stirring of a new life entrusted to her, she was filled with joy in the privilege that was hers, a joy that was at times almost overpowered by the fear that she might fail in fulfillment of that trust. Daily she went to the temple of the Merciful One begging the Goddess of One Hundred Children to grant unto her a male child.
Other women waited in the temple also for their turn within the prayer gate, buying faggots of incense to burn before the altar, dropping gifts of money and touching infants’ shoes to the hem of the Goddess’ robe. At times, in these new days of life in the small courtyard where Fuh Tang had founded their home, her thoughts turned to those earlier teachings in school, precepts from the foreign Bible. Kuei Ping had even whiled away idle hours, while she waited for her husband’s return from his duties as clerk, by reading the translation her teacher had given her. But now in her time of greatest need she turned back to old familiar ways of worship through which her mother before her had reached toward an unknown power, behind the wall of earthly life.
Carried by the devious ways of tongue and ear, by which news can travel the length of an empire without need of telephone wires, the knowledge of Kuei Ping’s hopes reached the heart of the Yen compound. One morning as she walked with Fuh Tang to the outer gateway, Chang An stood requesting admittance from the gateman. She offered no explanation of her coming save that Madame Yen could no longer give her shelter and that she had come to them for a roof. Thus without loss of face on the part of her elders Kuei Ping was given the comfort of an older woman.
Under the busy fingers of the two the garments prepared for the child grew to a needlessly large heap. Kuei Ping, eager in her preparation, made tiger caps and sewed bright buttons like eyes in the toes of shoes that she knew in her thoughtful moments were in sizes large enough for walking children. Chang An gave suggestions as to the cutting of innumerable padded coats and long hooded caps for winter, and for the scanty garments of bright red for summer. Together they made ready the cradle of peach wood that the child might be rocked safely into a long life.
Twice during the last days of waiting Miss Porter, visiting a friend in the city, came to call upon Kuei Ping. Once the friend, a mission doctor, had accompanied her. This accounted for the stiff white foreign skirt that fluttered before her eyes as Kuei Ping struggled back to a full consciousness of the room and its surroundings.
No joy in anticipation had prepared the young mother for the wonder of the babe as it lay nestled within her arm. Watching with languid eyes the quick deft movements of the foreign woman as she made the bed more comfortable, and beyond her the familiar figure of Chang An lighting the tapers of the Lamp of Seven Wicks to warn disaster from the new-born son, Kuei Ping slipped into a dream in which her child grew up to see both East and West and interpret the best of each to the other.
The months that followed were rich in happiness. Winter melted into spring. Flowers bloomed in the courtyard. Street vendors came each morning with great bunches of long-stemmed violets. On starlit evenings Fuh Tang carried his little son out into the courtyard where they sat talking of their happiness and his future.
It was on a late afternoon when fruit hung ripe on the hawthorn trees, and soft autumn breezes swayed the leaves of the moonflower vine that the sturdy baby made his first attempt to walk. Fuh Tang and Kuei Ping, both leaving him to stand in Chang An’s hands, moved away, a double inducement for him to take his first step. Intent upon the child they did not hear the sound of a guest entering the courtyard gate. Daring at last to make the venture, the baby toddled into Fuh Tang’s outstretched arms, and it was not until he stood holding the child that they perceived their aged father, Chia Sung Lien, looking in upon them.
Fuh Tang, going each day to his duties at the office of the British consul, brought back news of the events of the outside world, but Kuei Ping, her life full to overflowing in her love for her husband and child and occupied with the tasks of making the slender income supply the daily needs of the household, had scarce realized that men outside were at war. The news that the father bore them brought close the realization. Fuh Tang’s only brother, dispatched more than a year ago to fill his place in ignored orders, had fallen in battle under General Tso in a vain attempt to defend the city of Pingyang from the Japanese.
The aged man’s eyes followed hungrily the movements of his sturdy grandchild, while they brought him a chair and tea and offered the courtesies due to age from youth. He took from his pockets gifts to the little son who held out his baby hands, unafraid, to receive them.
When the women and child had retired into the house and Fuh Tang sat with his father alone in the gathering twilight the old man spoke of the need of a man child to carry on the traditions of the Chia household, to give rest to the departed dead and minister to the spirits of those who wandered in the unknown beyond. He spoke almost with fear of the sonlessness of the brother who had gone, and he asked that the little grandson be returned to his rightful place in the family even if his parents must pursue a foolish and selfish desire for freedom.
Bowed with a heavier sorrow than when he entered, with even the shadow of dread lurking in his eyes, Chia Sung Lien turned back from his fruitless errand. Youth with its new spirit of freedom had refused to place upon the altar of old tradition its most precious gift.
Fuh Tang and Kuei Ping, talking the matter over alone, had come to know that each believed that if their ideal for their son was to be realized he must live his life in the freer atmosphere of their own home.
Untouched by the near tragedy in the lives of his elders, little Bo Te played happily with the pearl charm Chang An had hung from a silver chain about his neck.
_Wherein shadows throw their length across the tidy courtyard_
Fuh Tang lay ill. The heaviness upon his chest grew more and more. Kuei Ping, straightening the fever-tossed coverlets, knew that the charms of the medical man who had been summoned had no power to heal her husband. A great fear laid hold of her--a fear that drove her out into the icy night alone. No chair-bearer came in answer to her frantic call and the slender means of the household did not support a private chair. Bending her head to break the force of the wind she struggled somehow to the door of the mission doctor who had eased her own pain a year ago. With bare fists she pounded against the gate for admittance; in staccato breaths she cried out her need to the sleepy gateman.
The old man who opened the door told her that the doctor had been away since early evening. Many people were ill and the foreign doctor took no rest but he would tell her the instant she returned.
Kuei Ping refused to come inside and wait. The lonely return through the streets had no terror for her equal to the fear that Fuh Tang might call for her and find her gone when he wanted her most. The doctor came into the little courtyard, weary from a long day and night without sleep, just as the first feeble rays of dawn lit the sky. The doctor’s weariness seemed to drop from her like her outer garments as she began work upon her patient. Noon-day showed a marked change in his breathing and evening found him sleeping quietly.
Knowledge and careful nursing brought Fuh Tang back to life again but never again did he recover his old strength. A slight cough persisted long after spring was with them and Fuh Tang had returned to his work, a cough that grew more frequent as summer came on. All about them men and women and little children died of such coughs, blinked out like candles after five or six years of slow burning weariness. He did not speak of it to Kuei Ping but a great dread came over him which grew into a weariness that made work almost impossible. He did not have the disease, thus Fuh Tang argued with himself, his fatigue was but the result of his long illness, yet some foreboding kept him from going to a foreign doctor to confirm his belief that he did not have it.
It was then that he began to smoke a long-stemmed pipe. Just a few whiffs of opium quieted his nerves and gave him pleasant dreamless sleep from which he woke rested and ready for work. Upon his salary the daily food for his family depended. In leaving the family compound the two had become in reality a separate economic unit. Fuh Tang’s earnings, plus some money he had possessed at the time of their taking the small home in Peking, had been sufficient for only a very simple mode of life. During his illness his pay had come regularly. For this Fuh Tang was grateful, but he grew anxious lest he be unable to perform his daily tasks.
At first short smokes gave him relief from worry. Just one on the way to work in the morning stilled the desperate growing pain in his chest, seemed even to still his coughing. Then as the months went by, the amount needed for relief grew greater. He came to have a hunted desperate look in his face if he did not get the opium at the usual time. The smoking made necessary his leaving home earlier than formerly if he was to keep from Kuei Ping the knowledge of his fear. He laid the first stone in the barrier which grew up between them when he did not share with her his anxiety. Kuei Ping, carrying her second child, was more sensitive than in normal times.
The frosts of late autumn had turned to dried husks the beauty of the garden. Was it to be so with their love which had begun with such happiness? Thus Kuei Ping found herself questioning day after day. Even little Bo Te did not seem to call unto himself as much of his father’s attention as formerly, yet he grew more fascinating every day, his mother felt.
Fuh Tang, fighting the weariness that crept further upon him, came to leave the shelter of his home with a sense of relief. Outside he could smoke and let down under the strain of pain and the necessity to struggle against his growing absent-mindedness.
Thus the first shadows of a wall of doubt separating Kuei Ping and Fuh Tang cast their length across the tidy courtyard of their youthful love.
_Wherein there is deepening sorrow_
Kuei Ping’s second son lived but a few hours. Chang, preparing the burial rites, sobbing her grief and disappointment even as she summoned the soothsayer to examine the Imperial Calendar for the lucky day upon which to place the small body in its coffin, felt utterly baffled by the quiet passiveness of the mother. It was to Fuh Tang that she must turn for every decision and whom she must help to still his grief while the message requesting burial in the Chia family burial grounds was written and dispatched by messenger.
It was Chang An who placed the mirror above the door of Kuei Ping’s room, hoping that it would change the evil that had entered the house into real happiness. It was she who procured the blue papers to paste upon the entrance gateway announcing a death within the compound. It was she who tied about the neck of the deceased child two wisps of cotton wool in order that he might bear away the misfortune of the family and save it from a too numerous brood of girl children.
Chia Sung Lien, fearing that this may have been a frustrated attempt by his younger son to come to the aid of his family by re-entering the world through the body of the child, returned with the messenger to make sure that the soul be given the most careful attention, and that the burial rites be attended with more elaboration than usual for a baby.
To Kuei Ping the weeks and months that followed were one long weary night-mare. By day she haggled with tradesman and food-shop keepers over the price of a bit of cloth for garments for Bo Te, over shrimp for soup or vegetables and rice for food. At night she lay shivering under the coverlets, listening to the restless tossing of her husband, kept awake by her own thoughts and his loud breathing.
Fuh Tang sank lower and lower into the lethargy of opium smoking until one day he returned home to announce that the British consul had no more work for him that season. He no longer strove to hide the use of the drug from her, his only desire was to get it. Day after day he sat dreaming his colorless dreams while she struggled with the problem of keeping a roof over their heads, one by one pawning their possessions until little save the bare walls remained.
These walls, closing in upon her daily, became menacing shadows at night. Bitterly she condemned her own blindness in believing that she had hoped to find freedom in this way.
Thus the poison of the poppy stilled into pleasantness the dreams of Fuh Tang and the poison of selfish despair did its work upon the heart of Kuei Ping.
Meanwhile the winds grew colder and winter came upon them.
_Wherein the heart of a woman is occupied with one desire_
Kuei Ping, struggling against the sense of walls that shut her off from life and any understanding of it, spoke quick words of rebellion when Chang An urged upon her a more frequent attendance at the temple of Buddha. Borne in upon the heart of Kuei Ping came a desire to pierce through and beyond the walls that menaced her, to force her way through the shadowy darkness she could no longer tolerate and find the way to the light of which Miss Porter had spoken in early morning chapel long ago.
In her earlier times of need she had instinctively turned to worship of the Merciful One, but now she could force her blinding eyes to see nothing save the smirking smile on the face of the lacquer god. The routine of prayers seemed but a mockery; the burning of incense faggots before the fat squatting creature but added to the ugliness of his already over-smoked and oily figure. Peace she no longer brought upon herself in the temple, because peace was no longer what she wanted.
Out and beyond herself and all of the women of her race she wanted to go, out to find and serve that God whom she had heard called the God of Life and of Light. Turning through her slender book of translations from the western Bible she marked, as she read, all the phrases which called her out to service, marked them until they stood in bold relief upon the pages overshadowing with their prominence all the other words.