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diff --git a/57382-0.txt b/57382-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e9ce2c --- /dev/null +++ b/57382-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2755 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57382 *** + + + + + + + + + +MY CHINESE MARRIAGE + +By M. T. F. + +JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LIMITED +LONDON MCMXXII + + +_Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner, _Frome and London_ + + +TO MY CHINESE FATHER AND MOTHER +WITH THE GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION +OF THEIR AMERICAN DAUGHTER THIS +VOLUME IS DEDICATED + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAP. PAGE + I IN AMERICA 3 + + II IN SHANGHAI 49 + +III FIRST DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 97 + + IV THE ETERNAL HILLS 141 + + + + +I + +IN AMERICA + + +I saw Chan-King Liang for the first time on a certain Monday morning in +October. It was the opening day of college, and the preceding week had +been filled with the excitement incidental to the arrival of many +students in a small town given over to family life. Every household +possessed of a spare room was impressed with the fact that good +citizenship demanded that it harbour a student. Therefore, when I saw +trunks and boxes and bags being tumbled upon the front porch of our +next-door neighbour, I said to Mother, "Mrs. James has succumbed!" and +set out for my first class with Celia, an old friend. + +As we crossed the campus, we noticed a group of boys, gathered on the +steps of College Hall and talking among themselves. Celia turned to me. +"Do you see the one with very black hair, his face turned away a +little--the one in the grey suit, Margaret? Well, that is the new +Chinese student, and the boys all say he is a wonder. My cousin knew him +last year in Chicago, where he was a freshman. Going in for +international law and political science--imagine!" + +I turned and glanced with a faint interest at the foreign student, on +whose black hair the sun was shining. My first impression was of a very +young, smiling lad. "Looks well enough," I said rather ungraciously, and +we passed on. + +I was a busy student, eagerly beginning my freshman year's work, and I +thought no more of the young Chinese. But a day or so later I +discovered him to be the owner of those trunks and bags I had seen +assembled on Mrs. James's porch. Chan-King was my next-door neighbour. + +We were never introduced to each other, as it happened, and, though we +shared studies in German and French, we did not exchange a word for some +time. Later I found myself admiring his feat of learning two foreign +languages through the medium of English, a third, and doing it so very +well. At the same time, though I was not then aware of the fact, he was +also admiring me for proficiency in these subjects, in which I was +working hard, because I intended to teach languages. + +The progress of my interest in him was gradual and founded on a sense of +his complete remoteness, an utter failure to regard him as a human being +like the rest of us. He was the first of his race I had ever seen. But +finally we spoke to one another by some chance, and, after that, it +seemed unnecessary to refuse to walk to class with him on a certain +morning when we came out of our houses at the same moment. + +We parted at College Hall door with an exchange of informal little nods. +I was happily impressed, but my impulse to friendship suffered a quick +reaction from all that Chan-King was, when viewed against the background +of his race as I saw it. I had no intention whatever of continuing our +association. + +Naturally, Chan-King knew nothing of this. I think I was probably a +trifle more courteous to him than was necessary. I remember being uneasy +for fear of wounding him by some thoughtless remark that would reveal my +true state of mind about China. I lost sight of the race in the +individual. I even pretended not to notice that he was waiting for me +morning after morning when I emerged, always a trifle late, hurrying to +classes. By the close of the first semester, we were making the trip +together almost daily as a matter of course. + +He was gay and friendly, with a sort of frank joyousness that was his +own special endowment for living. I enjoyed his companionship, his talk, +his splendid spirit. His cheerfulness was a continual stimulant to my +moody, introspective, static temperament. I used to study his face, +which in repose had the true Oriental impassivity--a stillness that +suggested an inner silence or brooding. But this mood was rare in those +days, and I remember best his laughter, his shining eyes that never +missed the merriment to be had from the day's routine events. + +For a while we were merely two very conventional young students walking +sedately together, talking with eagerness on what now seem amusingly +sober and carefully chosen subjects. We were both determined to be +dignified and impersonal. I was nineteen, and Chan-King was two years +older. + +Finally, Chan-King asked to call and he appeared at the door that +evening, laden with an enormous, irregular package, a collection of +treasures that he thought might interest us. We all gathered about the +library table, where he spread a flaming array of embroidered silks, +carved ivory and sandalwood and curious little images in bronze and +blackwood. They gave out a delicious fragrance, spicy and warm and +sweet, with a bitter tang to it, a mingling of oils and lacquers and +dust of incense. + +He was very proud of half a dozen neckties his mother had made him, +patterned carefully after the American one he had sent her as a +souvenir. "She sews a great deal, and everything she does is beautiful," +he said, stroking one of the ties, fashioned of wine-coloured silk and +embroidered in a thin gold thread. + +The simple words, the tangle of the exotic things lying on the table, +in that moment set the whole world between us. I saw him as alien, far +removed and unknowable; I realized how utterly transplanted he must be, +moving as he did in a country whose ideals, manners and customs must +appear, at times, grotesquely fantastic to him. "How queer we must seem +to you!" I exclaimed impulsively, lifting a solid, fat little idol in my +hand. + +"Queer? Not at all--but wonderfully interesting in everything. You see, +to me it is all one world!" Our eyes met for a second. Then he offered +me a small embroidered Chinese flag. I hesitated, looking at the +writhing, fire-breathing dragon done in many-coloured silks. Again the +old prejudice swept over me. I was about to refuse. But I saw in his +eyes an expression of hesitating, half-anxious pleading, which touched +me. I took the flag, puzzled a trifle over that look I had surprised. + +Chan-King became a frequent visitor at our home in the evenings, making +friends with my father and mother, with true Chinese deference. I like +to remember those times, with all of us sitting around the big table, +the shaded lamp casting a clear circle of light on the books and papers, +the rest of the room in pleasant dimness. It was during these evenings +that Chan-King told us about his father, typical Chinese product of his +clan and time, who had early perceived the limitations of a too +nationalistic point of view and had planned Western education for his +sons, of whom Chan-King was the eldest. From his talk I reconstructed a +half-picture of his home in southern China. It was a large household of +brothers and relatives and servants ruled over by his mother during the +prolonged absences of his father, whose business interests lay in a +far-away island port. + +Once he brought a faded photograph of a small boy formally arrayed in +the Chinese velvets and satins of an earlier period. "Myself at the age +of six," he explained. + +I examined the picture closely. "Why, Mr. Liang," I said, in wonder, +"you are wearing a--wearing a--queue!" + +He smiled, delighted at my confusion. "Yes, a very nice queue it was," +he declared, "bound with a scarlet silk cord. I remember how it waved in +the wind when I flew my kite on the hills!" + +"You wore a black queue yourself, Margaret," interposed my mother, her +eyes twinkling, "shorter than this, but often tied with a red silk +ribbon." + +"You see, we had that in common, at least," said Chan-King. And he +flashed a grateful smile at Mother. There was a well-established +friendship between my kindly, understanding mother and Chan-King while +my feeling for him was still uncertain. + +Yet, in spite of all these reasons for close sympathy with Chan-King, I +felt towards him at times something amounting almost to dislike. Against +such states of mind my sense of personal justice, a trait I had directly +from my Scotch inheritance, instantly rebelled. I was careful in no way +to reveal my feelings, though I probably should have done so had I even +remotely realized that friendship was verging upon love. As it was, I +had an ideal of genuine comradeship, of a pleasant interlude destined to +end with our college days. + +Towards the end of the winter, as our acquaintance advanced, there came +to me a series of those revulsions. I assured myself that so ephemeral a +relation as ours must be was hardly worth the time I was giving to it. I +remembered that, fine as Chan-King was, he belonged to the Chinese race. +I decided to put an end to the entire episode at once. The way in which +I carried out this plan was unnecessarily abrupt. I avoided him +unmistakably, going to class and returning home by a roundabout way, and +refusing to see him either in class or on the campus. + +Then, one afternoon at the end of two weeks, he was waiting for me +before the main door of College Hall. I did not speak. He joined me +without a word and walked in silence to the campus edge. I turned +suddenly toward a side street. "Go that way if you like," I said rudely. +"I have an errand this way." + +He came with me. "I wish to talk with you," he said, with an oddly +restrained, patient tone of weariness. Our eyes met, and I saw in his a +gentle and touching determination to understand and be understood, which +would have been more significant to me if I had been less engrossed in +my own emotions. + +"Why do you wish to end our friendship?" he asked quietly, with his +characteristic frankness. + +"I--because I thought it was best," I stammered, completely disarmed. + +"It is never best to give up a friendship," he said. "But it happens +that our friendship may end soon after all. It is possible I shall +return to China. To-day I received a cablegram from my father, saying my +mother is dangerously ill. I shall know within a day or so whether I am +to go or to stay." + +Human sympathy triumphed over race prejudice. "Come home with me," I +said, "and let Mother talk to you. She always knows what to say." + +Another cablegram two days later brought the good news of his mother's +improvement. Chan-King's anxiety during those two days wrung me. He said +nothing, but his face was strained and lined. He walked and we talked a +good deal of other things, and he gave me definite outlines of his +"life-plan," as he called it. He regarded the diplomatic service of his +country as his final goal, but, on the way to it, he wished to take part +in constructive teaching and sociological work in China. He was keenly +enthusiastic about the ancient arts and natural beauties of China and +venerated many of her old customs. "I hope introducing modern education +will not destroy the beauty of the East," he told me, but he was solidly +convinced of the need for new ideas in all the Orient. I began to see +his country through new eyes. + +We were soon going about together a great deal. I remember many happy +parties on the lantern-lighted campus, many field-days and tennis +matches, all the innocent freedom of college life that we enjoyed +together. I was rather remote in my personal friendships, and very +little was said to me regarding my association with the Chinese student. +But now I began to hear small murmurs, a vague hum of discussion, and +to observe an interested watching of us by the students and townspeople. +I could not help seeing that curious glances followed us when we entered +a tea-room or concert hall together. + +Several friends of my mother's spoke disapprovingly to her of the +matter. "What if they should fall in love--marry?" asked one +conventional-minded old lady. But my mother was born without prejudices +and never sees boundary lines or nationalities. She was infinitely +tactful and kind. I know now that she was rather uneasy, for she felt +that marriage is a difficult enough relation when each person knows the +other's heritage and formulas; but she said nothing to make me +self-conscious, not even repeating the remarks of her acquaintances +until long afterwards. + +However, I heard comments from other sources, which irritated me a +trifle and had the perfectly natural effect of stimulating my loyalty +to Chan-King and arousing at times a yearning tenderness to shield him +from injustice. At this time we tentatively expressed our views on +intermarriage. We were sitting in the porch late one afternoon. "I +believe marriage between alien races is a mistake," I said, in the +decisive way I cultivated at that time. "It is better to marry one's own +kind." + +"No doubt there are fewer difficulties," he answered without conviction. +"It is all so much a personal problem. Marriages between Americans do +not seem to be always successful." + +I flared. "We hear only of the unhappy ones," I retorted. + +"But there are many, many unhappy ones, then," he returned gently. "I +wonder if unhappy marriage in all countries is not due to selfishness +and lack of love and to unwillingness to compromise on unimportant +differences." + +We could not possibly quarrel here, and our talk proceeded amiably. + +My thoughts at dinner that night seem very amusing to me as I recall +them now. Chan-King was so like one of us, as we sat at table together, +that I found myself wondering if it was true that a Chinese wife did not +eat at the same table with her husband; if she actually did wait upon +him and obey him without question in everything; if Chan-King would +return to China soon and there become an insufferable, autocratic +Eastern husband. The thought oppressed me unbearably. Since Chan-King +was leaving next day on a summer-vacation trip, this was a farewell +dinner. He insisted on helping me with the dishes afterwards, for ours +was a simple household, and we usually had no maid. We were very merry +over the task. "In China," he confided, as he stacked the saucers, "the +lot of women is much easier. They have servants for everything of this +kind. I know an Englishwoman who married a Chinese, and she afterwards +taught in a college for the sake of something to do." + +"She did quite right," I said. "Idleness is not good for anyone." + +"Chinese wives are not idle," he answered gravely, "they have many +duties for everyone in their household." + +At this he turned his eyes upon me, with an intent, inner look. Because +I was impressed, I chose to be flippant. + +"If I obstruct your view, I will move," I said. + +"It would do no good," he answered. "You are always there--wherever I +want to look." + +Later he was writing his name in Chinese characters on a photograph he +had given my mother. I stood beside him. He dropped the pen, turned to +me and took both my hands in his own. He bent toward me, and I drew +away, shaking my head decisively. I wrenched one hand free, and the +kiss he meant for my lips reached my fingers instead. I was overwhelmed +with a sense of invasion. We quarrelled, but without bitterness or real +anger. I was simply convinced that, since love was not for us, we were +bound by all ethics to keep our relations in the outward seeming of +friendship. For a moment I felt that one of my ideals had been rudely +shattered. + +"Oh, but you have mistaken me!" he declared earnestly, refusing to +release my hand. + +"Kisses are not for friendship," I managed to say. + +"I'm sorry," he confessed, but I saw in his eyes that he regretted my +misunderstanding of him, nothing more. + +During his summer travels he wrote me many letters. I had time to think, +and in my thoughts I admitted that to be a friend of Chan-King was +better than to have the love of anyone else in the world. + +When he returned, we wandered together one evening down to the campus +and sat on a stone bench in the moon-shade of a tall tree. I had +overheard a remark, tinged with race prejudice, that had awakened again +in my heart that brooding maternal tenderness, and when Chan-King's eyes +pleaded wistfully I gave him, as a sacrificial offering, the kiss before +denied. + +That autumn he transferred for a year to a New England university. He +told me long afterwards it was so that absence might teach me to know my +own heart. I loved him now and admitted it to myself with bitter +honesty. But all fulfilment of love seemed so hopeless and remote, the +chasm fixed between our races seemed so impassable, that I gave up in my +heart and put away his letters as they came, smiling with affected +youthful cynicism at the memory of that kiss, which could mean nothing +more to us than a sweet and troubled recollection. + +He came back unexpectedly at the end of the college term. There was an +indescribably hopeful, anxious look in his eyes as he took my hands. My +first sight of his face, grown older and graver in those long months, +brought a shock of poignant happiness, very near to tears. Off guard, we +met as lovers, with all antagonisms momentarily swept away, all +pretences forgotten. I went to his arms as my one sure haven. For this +hour love made everything simple and happy. + +My father and mother were astonished when we told them of our intention +to marry. With gentle wisdom, Mother suggested that we should allow +ourselves a year of engagement, "in order to be sure," as she expressed +it. We were very sure, but we consented. + +Chan-King wrote at once to his people in south China, telling of his +engagement. For me, he had one important explanation, made in his frank, +straightforward way. "In China," he told me, "it is usual for parents to +arrange their children's marriages, often years in advance. When I was +very young, it was generally understood that I would later marry the +daughter of my father's good friend, three years younger than I. There +was no formal betrothal, and, when I left home to study, I asked my +father not to make any definite plans for my marriage until my return. +The subject has never been mentioned since, and I don't know what his +ideas are now. But they can make no difference with us--you understand +that, Margaret, dear?" Again I felt myself in spiritual collision with +unknown forces and wondered at his calmness in opposing the claims of +his heredity. + +His family replied to his letter with a cablegram, forbidding the +marriage. I had never seriously expected any other decision. A letter +followed, conciliatory in tone, in which his father explained that, +since Chan-King's foreign education was nearly completed, arrangements +had been made for his marriage to Miss Li-Ying immediately upon his +return home. He gave a charming description of his bride, whom Chan-King +had not seen for twelve years. She was, he said, young and modest and +kind, she was beautiful and wealthy, and, moreover, had been given a +modern education in order to fit her for the position of wife to an +advanced Chinese. The match was greatly desired by both families. In +conclusion, the letter urgently requested that Chan-King would not make +it impossible for his father to fulfil the contract he had entered into +with a friend, and very gently intimated that by so doing he would +forfeit all right to further consideration. + +There were other letters. An American friend, a missionary, wrote--oh, +very tactfully--of the difficulties he would have in keeping an American +wife happy in the Orient. A Chinese cousin discussed at length the +sorrows a foreign daughter-in-law would bring into his house--the +bitterness of having in the family an alien and stubborn woman, who +would be unwilling to give his parents the honour due to them or to +render them the service they would expect of their son's wife. + +Many letters of this kind came in a group. There was a hopeless tone of +finality, a solid clan consciousness in those letters that frightened me +a little. I was uneasy, uncertain. I had found no irreconcilable +elements in our minds, for I was very conservative West, and he was very +liberal East. But here were represented the people with whom his life +must be spent and the social background against which it must +harmoniously unfold. I felt with terrific force that it was not +Chan-King, but Chan-King's traditions and ancestors, his tremendous +racial past, that I must reckon with. + +Also, I did not wish to stand in the way of his future. I doubt if I +could have found courage to marry Chan-King, if I had then realized the +importance--especially in diplomatic and political circles--of clan and +family influence in China. But he gave it up so freely, with such +assured and unregretful cheerfulness, that I could not but share his +mood. + +In these calm, logical, impersonal family letters, which Chan-King +translated for me, there was a strain of sinister philosophy that +chilled me as I read. The letters dealt entirely with his duty in its +many phases--to his parents, to his ancestors, to his country, to his +own future. Nothing of love! Only one relative--a cousin--mentioned it +at all, and in this wise: "You are young now, and to youth love seems +of great importance. But, as age replaces youth, you will find that love +runs away like water." + +"That is not true, Chan-King," I said, with solemn conviction. "Love is +greater than life or age; it lives beyond death. It is love that makes +eternity!" + +At this time, Chan-King did not quite comprehend my mystical +interpretation of love. But he answered very happily, "To have you for +my wife is worth everything else the world can offer." + +Chan-King continued to write to his family briefly and respectfully, +declining to be influenced in any way. Replies came at lengthening +intervals and then ceased. There was no open breach, no violent tearing +asunder of bonds. Courteously, quite gently, the hands of his people +were removed, and he stood alone. + +"But surely your mother will not give you up!" I exclaimed one day when +it dawned on me that not one message had she sent in all the +correspondence. + +"Not in her dear heart," he said, with unshaken faith, "but of course +she will not write to me if my father disapproves." + +"But a mother, Chan-King!" I protested. "Surely her feelings come first +always!" + +Chan-King's tone was patient after the manner of one who has explained +an obvious fact many times. "In China," he reminded me again, "the +family comes always before the individual. But with you and me, Margaret +beloved, love has first importance." + +His never-failing insistence upon viewing ours as an individual +instance, not to be judged by any ordinary standards, was a source of +great strength to me always. During the short period that followed +before our marriage, we tiffed a few times in the most conventional +manner, with fits of jealousy that had no foundation; small distrusts +that on my part were mere efforts to uphold what I considered my proper +feminine pride, and on his, were often failures to discount this +characteristic temper of mine. Only, somehow, there was never any +rancour in our quarrels. Not once would we deny our love for each other. + +So we planned to be married immediately. There were no reasons why we +should delay further. That is to say, none but practical reasons, and +what have they to do with young people in love? "It is a little late for +us to begin practical thinking," said Chan-King cheerfully, when we +discussed ways and means. "But we might as well make the experiment." + +Chan-King was no longer merely a student with a generous allowance from +a wealthy father. On his own resources, with his education not +completed, he was about to acquire a foreign wife and to face an +untried world. We were strangely light-hearted about all this. Chan-King +had regularly put by more than half of his allowance since coming to +America. I meant to be a teacher of languages, economically independent +if circumstances required such aid for a man beginning a career. Our +plans were soon completed. At the end of another term, which we would +finish together, Chan-King would be graduated, and then, after a year of +practice in his profession, he would return to China, there to begin his +life work. I was to follow later. Nothing could have been more +delightfully simple so far as we could see. A few days later we were +married in my mother's house by an Anglican clergyman. "Of course you +will live here with us until you go to China," my parents had said. "We +want our children with us, if you can be happy here." + +This seemed a very natural arrangement to Chan-King, accustomed as he +was to family life. But I was apprehensive. The popular Western idea +that people cannot be friends if they are related by law was heavy on my +mind. I did not expect any drastic readjustment of temperament between +my Chinese husband and me, but I did look forward somewhat timorously to +a trying period of small complications due to differences in domestic +customs and the routine of daily living. + +I need not have worried a moment; a wonderful spirit of family +co-operation was an important part of Chan-King's Oriental heritage. +From the day of our wedding he took his place with charming ease and +naturalness as a member of the household. The affection that existed +between my husband and my parents simplified that phase of our relation +perfectly, and left us free to adjust ourselves to each other and the +world, though the latter we took very little into account. Until I met +Chan-King, the idea of being conspicuous was unendurable to me. But when +I early perceived that to appear with him anywhere was to invite the +gaze of the curious, I discovered with surprise that it mattered not at +all. (I was very proud of my husband and loved to go about with him.) We +were happy from the beginning. + +Discovering life together proved a splendid adventure, which renewed +itself daily. The deep affection and tenderness between us created +subtle comprehensions too delicate to be put into words. A quick look +interchanged during a pause in talk would often convey a complete +thought. I always felt that Chan-King had acuter perceptions, more +reserve, and more imagination than I. Also he was meticulous--as I was +not--in regard to small amenities. I had always been used to having my +own way without causing discomfort to anyone else, but I found that I +could not speak carelessly or act thoughtlessly without the risk of +violating his sense of the fitness of things. My greatest difficulty in +the first few months of our marriage came from my constant effort to +adjust my mode of thought and action to meet a highly trained and +critical temperament, to whom the second-bests of association, spiritual +or mental or material, were not acceptable. Yet, if he exacted much, he +gave more. In everything, he had a generosity so sincere and spontaneous +that it aroused a like quality in me. + +I am in many ways the elemental type of woman, requiring, I know, a +certain measure of domination in love. It was imperative that I should +respect my husband, and it pleased me to discover, in our several slight +domestic crises, that his was far the stronger will. I had taken my vow +to obey, having specified that the word was not to be omitted from the +marriage ceremony. How I should have kept it under a tyrannical will I +do not know, for Chan-King was not a domestic dictator. He took it for +granted that we were partners and equals in our own departments of life. +He trusted my judgment in the handling of my share of our affairs, and +in later years often came to me for advice in his own. Nevertheless, +morally, the balance of power was in his hands, and I was glad to leave +it there. Often our disagreements would end in laughter because each one +of us would give way gradually from the position first assumed, until we +had almost changed sides in the discussion. This happened again and +again. + +From the very beginning, I saw clearly, by some grace, the point at +which Chan-King's Oriental mind and Occidental education came into the +keenest conflict: my attitude towards other men and their attitude +toward me. He was never meanly jealous or suspicious, but there was in +him that unconquerable Eastern sense of exclusiveness in love, that +cherishing of personal possession, so incomprehensible to the average +Western imagination. + +I had planned to instruct a young man in French during the summer +months, as a part of my vacation work, and I casually announced my +intention to Chan-King. He opposed it at once, I thought unfairly. I was +a great while persuading him to admit his real reasons for objecting. +Finally I said, somewhat at random, "If my pupil were a girl, you would +not care." + +"You have enough work as it is," he persisted, but without firmness, and +his eyes flickered away from mine. I laughed a little. He turned to me a +face so distressed that my smile died suddenly. "Oh, don't laugh!" he +said, painfully in earnest. "You must keep in mind what you are to me. +I--cannot be different. I am sorry." + +I gave up my harmless young pupil and said nothing more. From that +moment I began to form my entire code of conduct where men were +concerned on a rigidly impersonal and formal basis. It was not +difficult, for my first and only affection was centred in my husband, +and the impulse to coquetry was foreign to my nature. + +My husband's determination to leave my individuality untrammelled was +sometimes overborne, in small ways that delighted me, by his innate +sense of fitness. We played tennis and he played excellently. One day, +as we left the courts, he said to me, "Tennis just isn't your game, +Margaret. Your dignity is always getting in the way of your drive. I +don't want you to give up your dignity--it is too much a part of you. +But you might leave tennis alone and try archery. I am sure that is +more suited to your type." The amused obedience with which I took his +suggestion soon became enthusiasm for the new sport. + +To me, marriage had always seemed the most mystic and important of human +relations, involving at times all the rest--and particularly parenthood. +I am a born mother, to whom the idea of marriage without children is +unthinkable. Since I put away my dolls, dream children had taken their +place in the background of my fancy. I saw them vaguely at first, but +with the coming of love I knew quite clearly how they would look. Now +that I had married Chan-King, I should have liked a child at once as a +surer bond between us and a source of comfort for myself while he would +be making his start in China. I knew that he loved children, for on +several occasions I had deliberately put a tiny neighbour in his way +and had taken note of his warm friendliness and gentleness with the wee +thing. But, fearing that he would be unwilling to accept a new +responsibility while our affairs were still unsettled, I put aside my +desire for a child, though my loved books were growing strangely +irksome. I did not know that my husband shared the usual foreign belief +that the American woman is an unwilling mother. + +Then one day he went to call on a friend of his, a Chinese student whose +wife and little son were with him. "I saw the Chinese baby," he told me +with boyish eagerness. "He is going to have a little brother soon. Lucky +baby!" + +"Lucky parents!" I corrected him, and sighed enviously. Chan-King looked +at me, the wonder on his face growing into a delighted smile. "Do you +mean it, Margaret?" he asked incredulously. Then we talked long and +earnestly of our children. To Chan-King's old-world mind, children +should follow marriage as naturally as fruit the blossom, and his +happiness in discovering that my ideals were exactly his own brought us +to another plane of understanding and contentment with each other. +Besides, he explained, a grandchild would do much to reconcile his +parents to our marriage. + +Happily, when the school term was over, I put aside my books for a +needle. I had always been fond of sewing, but never had I found such +fascinating work as the making of those tiny garments of silk and +flannel and lawn. My practical mother protested against so much +embroidering, but my husband only smiled as he rummaged gently through +the basket of small sewing. + +"You are a real Chinese wife, after all," he would say. "A Chinese wife +sews and embroiders a great deal. She even makes shoes for the family." + +"Shoes, Chan-King?" + +"Shoes, no less. To make shoes beautifully is a fine art, and a Chinese +woman takes pride in excelling at it. She is proud of her feet and makes +all her own shoes." + +Then he would tell me stories of his childhood and recall memories of +the closed garden in his old home, where he played at battledore with a +tiny girl, while her mother and his mother sat together, embroidering +and talking in low tones. The two young mothers were friends and were +planning for the marriage of their son and daughter, which would +strengthen the friendship into a family bond. + +I took great interest in this little girl, who flitted through +Chan-King's stories like a brilliant butterfly seen through a mist. Her +name was Li-Ying and she was only three years old when she ran, with her +little feet still unbound, through those sweetly remembered green +gardens of his childhood. Somewhere now she was sitting, her lily feet +meekly crossed, embroidering shoes, waiting until her father should +betroth her to another youth. + +When Chan-King showed me a portrait of himself, taken in a group with +his mother and father when he was eight years old, I examined very +thoughtfully the austerely beautiful face of the woman who had brought +him into life. She sat on one side of the carved blackwood table. Her +narrow, panelled skirt was raised a trifle to show her amazingly tiny +feet. On the other side of the table sat Chan-King's father, an +irreconcilably stern and autocratic-looking man, magnificently garbed in +the old style. Beside him stood a small, solemn boy, wearing a round +cap, his queue still bound, he told me, with a red cord, his hands lost +in the long velvet sleeves that reached almost to his knees. I put my +finger on the head of this boy. "I hope our son will look exactly like +him," I said. + +At last the hoped-for son was born and laid in my arms. He was swaddled +and powdered and new and he wept for obscure reasons. But my husband and +I smiled joyfully at the delicious, incredible resemblance of that tiny +face to his own. Chan-King looked at him a long time, a quizzical, happy +smile in the corners of his mouth. Then he kissed me very gently and +said, "He's a real Liang baby, Margaret. Are you glad?" I answered that +I was glad, as I had been for everything love had brought to me. + +Our plans progressed favourably, and, when our son Wilfred was five +months old, Chan-King returned to China. I bid him good-bye in the way I +knew would please him most--calmly and without tears. But, when it came +to the last moment, I felt unable to let him go. Mutely I clung to him, +the baby on my arm between us. + +"It won't be for long, this," he assured me. "We shall all be together +at home very soon. You are brave and dear and true, Margaret. You shall +never be made sorry. Be patient." + +His first letters told of his new work in one of the older colleges for +which Shanghai is famous. He also began his practice of law in an +official capacity. His first step toward the diplomatic service had been +taken. + +At the end of four months, I received his summons and went about making +ready for the journey to China with my young son. My life-work was to +help my husband in making a home. His life-work was in China. The +conclusion was so obvious that neither I nor my parents had ever +questioned it. But, now that the moment had come, the friends of the +family were very much excited. They asked strange questions. Are you +really going? How can you leave your mother? How can you give up +beautiful America? Aren't you afraid to go to China? I answered as +patiently and reasonably as I could. They wearied me very much. + +Of China itself I had no clear conception, in spite of Chan-King's +letters, for, though my old prejudice had passed away, still I saw all +the country only as a background for my husband's face. + +I followed Chan-King's minute instructions concerning travelling +arrangements, and Wilfred and I had a pleasant voyage. Early one morning +I looked through the port-hole and saw about me the murky waters of the +Yangtze, alive with native craft, while dimly through the mist loomed +the fortifications of Woosung. Already the tender was waiting, and soon +we were aboard, moving rapidly up the mouth of the river. The mist +cleared, green banks arose on each side, and through distant trees +gleamed red brick buildings like any at home, side by side with the +white-plastered walls and tip-tilted roofs of China. In that long ride, +Shanghai grew upon me gradually, a curious mixture of the known and the +unknown, tantalizing me with the feeling that I had seen all this before +and ought to remember it better. In the water about me, steamer, launch +and battle-ship mingled with native junk, river-barge and house-boat. +Suddenly in the waiting group on the customs jetty I saw my husband. In +another moment we had drawn alongside the wharf and he was in the tender +beside me, greeting me in the formally courteous manner he deemed suited +to public occasions. Taking Wilfred in his arms, he drew me up the steps +and to a waiting carriage. + +Here again was the confused mingling of the strange and the familiar: +clanging tram-cars, honking motor-cars, smooth-rolling rickshaws, +creaking wheel-barrows and lumbering, man-drawn trucks; dark +coolie-faces under wide straw hats, gently bred features beneath pith +helmets, black, bearded countenances below huge, gay turbans; a +bewildering jumble of alien and English speech. + +Even in Chan-King I found it. He was wearing American dress, his face +had not changed, the tones of his voice were the same, but he was +speaking Chinese, and his directions to the _mafoo_ were to me a +meaningless succession of sounds. + +But, when he was beside me in the carriage and the horses had started, +he turned suddenly and smiled straight into my eyes. Then, Shanghai, +Borneo or the North Pole--all would have been one to me. I asked no +questions; I was with my husband and child, driving rapidly towards the +home prepared for me. I had come home to China. + + + + +II + +IN SHANGHAI + + +My first impressions of Shanghai are a blur. My husband and I drove +rapidly along the Bund, over Garden Bridge, which might have been any +bridge in America, past the Astor House, which was very like any +American hotel, and then along the Soochow Creek, which could be only in +China. + +On North Szechuan Road we stopped at a _li_, or terrace, of newly built +houses in the style called semi-foreign. This _li_, which was in the +International Settlement, was very bright and clean. It opened upon the +main thoroughfare. The heavy walls of bright red brick were interrupted +at intervals by black doors bearing brass plates. At one of these my +husband stopped and touched a very American-looking push-button. A bell +trilled within, and the door was opened by a smiling "boy" in a long +blue cotton gown. We crossed a small courtyard bright with flowers and +vines, and, coming to the main entrance, stepped directly into a large +square room. It was cool, immaculate and restful. The matting-covered +floors, the skilfully arranged tables, chairs and sofa, the straight +hangings of green and white, threaded with gold, were exactly what I +should have wished to choose for myself. I was pleasantly surprised by +the gas chandelier with its shades of green and gold and white. A dark +green gas radiator along one wall suggested that Shanghai was not always +so warm as then. It was a very modest little home, befitting a man with +his own way to make, Chan-King explained, as he led me through the rooms +for a hasty survey. Then Wilfred was surrendered to his _amah_, a +fresh-cheeked young woman in stiffly starched blue "coat," white +trousers and apron, while we made ready for a tiffin engagement with +Chinese friends of Chan-King's. + +After a short rickshaw ride--novel and delightful to me--we turned from +the main road into another series of terraces and entered a real Chinese +household. The host and hostess, who had both been in America and spoke +excellent English, were very cordial in their welcome. I felt more at +home than I had believed could be possible. Tiffin was served in the +Chinese fashion, the guests seated at a great round table, with the +dishes of meat, fish and vegetables placed in the centre, so that each +one could help himself as he chose. Individual bowls of rice, small +plates, chopsticks and spoons were at each plate. Set at intervals, were +small, shallow dishes containing soy, mustard or catsup and also +roasted melon-seeds and almonds. When my hostess, who had thoughtfully +rounded out her delicious Chinese menu with bread and butter and velvety +ice-cream, as thoughtfully produced a silver knife and fork for me, my +husband explained that I was rather deft in the use of chopsticks. +Though he had taught me, during the early days of our marriage, to use a +slender ivory pair that he possessed, I was now very nervous, but I felt +obliged to prove his delighted assertion. So my social conformity as a +Chinese wife began there, before a friendly and amused audience, who +assured me that I did very well. + +On the way home Chan-King said, "Will this be difficult for you, +Margaret?" + +"Chopsticks?" I asked gaily, well enough knowing that he did not mean +chopsticks. "No, I like them!" + +"I mean everything," he said very gravely, "China--customs, people, +home-sickness, everything." + +"You will see whether you haven't married a true Oriental," I answered +him. "As for home-sickness, why, Chan-King--I am at home." + +The most important thing at first, materially speaking, was that +Chan-King must make his own way without help of any sort. And for the +upper class Chinese this is very difficult. He was teaching advanced +English in one of the largest colleges in Shanghai, maintaining a legal +practice and giving lectures on international law. He was glad to be at +home again, filled with enthusiasm for his work, hopeful as the young +returned students always are at first, and, through sheer inability to +limit his endeavours, working beyond his strength. + +Our happiness at being together again made all things seem possible. +From its fragmentary beginnings in America, we gathered again into our +hands the life we expected to make so full and rich. My part, I +recognized, was to be a genuinely old-fashioned wife--the rôle I was +best fitted for, and the one most helpful to Chan-King. And I began by +running my Chinese household with minute attention to providing for his +comfort in small ways that he liked and never failed to appreciate. + +Our two-story house consisted of two big rooms downstairs and sleeping +apartments and a tiny roof-garden upstairs. In this roof-garden I spent +most of my time, and there Wilfred and his _amah_ passed many +afternoons. It was a pleasant, sunny place, furnished with painted +steamer chairs, rugs and blooming plants in pottery jars. At the back, +rather removed from the main part of the house, were the kitchen, +servants' quarters and an open-air laundry. We were really very +practical and modern and comfortable. Our kitchen provided for an +admirable compromise between old and new methods. It had an English +gas-range and a Chinese one. But the proper Chinese atmosphere was +preserved by three well-trained servants who called themselves Ah Ching, +Ah Ling and Ah Poh. Most Shanghai servants are called simply "Boy" or +"Amah" or "Coolie," but ours chose those names, as distinctive for +servants there as "James" and "Bridget" are with us. Ah Ching did most +of the house-work and the running of errands; Ah Ling did the marketing +and cooking, giving us a pleasantly varied succession of Chinese and +foreign dishes; Ah Poh, the _amah_, looked after Wilfred and attended to +my personal wants. + +From the first I was fond of Ah Poh, with her finely formed, intelligent +features, her soft voice and gentle, unhurried manner. She had served an +American mistress before coming to me, but showed a surprising +willingness to adopt my particular way of doing things, whether in +making beds, in keeping my clothes in order or in entertaining Wilfred. +On the other hand, Ah Ching, elderly, grave and full of responsibility, +was very partial to his accustomed way of arranging furniture and of +washing windows and floors. If left to himself, he would dust odd nooks +and corners faithfully, but if I made any formal inspection of his +labours he would invariably slight them, to intimate that I should not +be suspicious, as a friend explained--a form of logic that I found +highly amusing. Ah Ling, aside from his culinary ability, was chiefly +interesting because his eyes were really oblique--as Chinese eyes are +supposed to be, and usually are not, and because his hair really +curled--as Chinese hair is supposed never to do, and does occasionally. + +For a young pair bent on thrift, we may have seemed very extravagant +indeed. In similar circumstances in America, I should probably have +thought it extravagant to have even one servant. But this household was +a very small one for China and, on our modest income, we maintained it +with a satisfactory margin. + +Chan-King was helpful and showed great tact and understanding in getting +our establishment under way. I would not confess to my utter +bewilderment in trying to manage servants who did not understand half of +what I said to them. I think he became aware that I was holding on +rather hard at times during those first months, and he never failed me. +In turn, I helped him revise his papers in the evenings and assisted him +with his letters, and he used to call me his secretary. We discovered +during that first year in China that we had formed a true partnership. + +Our social life was very pleasant. We entertained a great deal, in a +simple way. We belonged to a club or two and kept in close touch with +the work of the returned students, who have become an important factor +in the national life. Though wishing to conserve what is best in the +civilization of China, they are bringing Western ideas to bear upon the +solution of political, sociological and economic problems. Many of these +students, as well as other interesting people, both Chinese and foreign, +gathered at our house for dinners and teas. + +There was a veteran of the customs service, a portly gentleman with +bristling white moustache, who had been one of the first group of +Government students sent to America fifty years before. He told +interesting stories of the trials and joys of those early days and +humorously lamented the fact that real apple-pie was not to be obtained +in China. There was a distinguished editor of English publications, a +tall, spare figure, whose very quietness suggested reserves of mental +power. With him often was a short, energetic man in early maturity--a +far-sighted educator and convincing orator. I remember a lively +discussion opened up by these two concerning the need for a Chinese +magazine devoted to the interests of the modern woman of China--an early +dream, which is now being fulfilled. There was a retired member of +Parliament with an unfailing zeal for political discussion, who has +since returned to the service of his Government. Also a smiling young +man, who went about persuading Old China of her need for progress, but +who could on occasion put aside his dignity to indulge a talent for +diverting bits of comedy. There was the Chinese-American son of a former +diplomat, who--born in America and coming to China as a grown +man--seemed definitely to recognize his kinship with the land of his +fathers, a fact that Chan-King and I found interesting for its possible +bearing on the future of our own sons. Naturally, most of our friends +were the younger modern folk, who were loosening the ancient bonds of +formality in their daily lives. But many of the older and more +conservative people also used to come to our evening gatherings, where +my husband and I received side by side. + +As I came to know the Chinese, I was delighted with their social +deftness. They look upon grace of manner and courtesy as the foundations +of all social life. I was pleasantly impressed by the measure of +deference that they showed to wives, daughters, sisters and friends--so +different from the contempt that Western imagination supposes to be +their invariable share. Occasionally I noticed a husband carefully +translating that his wife might fully enjoy the conversation. Many of +the women, however, spoke English excellently. All our receptions and +dinners were delightfully free and full of good talk. The Chinese have +so beautifully the gift of saying profound things lightly; they can +think deeply without being heavy and pedantic. + +I remember the first dinner-party I attended in Shanghai. It was rather +a grand affair, with many guests, all Chinese save me--"And I'm almost +Chinese," I said to my husband. The men and women all sat together +around one great table, in excellent humour with each other, and the +talk was very gay. + +A little Chinese woman whom I knew rather well said to me later, "And +think of it--only last year in this house we should have been at +separate tables!" When I asked her to explain, she said that once men +did not bring their guests to their homes at all. Then they brought +them, but entertained them in the men's side of the house. Later they +admitted women to dine in the same room, but at separate tables, and +now, here we are, chatting and dining together quite in Western fashion. +"I like this much better," the little lady decided. + +I was glad to see that all of them wore Chinese dress, for it is most +impressively beautiful. I wore my first jacket and plaited skirt that +night, a combination of pale green and black satin, and now and then I +would see Chan-King's eyes turned upon me with the look I best loved to +see there--a clear, warm affection shining in them, a certain steady +glow of expression that had love and friendship and understanding in it. +I think the sight of me in the dress of his country confirmed in his +mind my declaration that I loved China--that I wanted to be a real +Chinese wife. + +After this, though for certain occasions the American fashion seemed +more appropriate, I wore Chinese dress a great deal. I remember a day +when Dr. Wu Ting-fang came to dinner, and, as he bowed to me, obviously +took note of my garb. + +He looked at me very keenly for a moment, as if he meant to ask a +serious question. Then he said, in his abrupt manner, "You are happy in +that dress?" + +"Indeed I am," I answered. + +"You like it better than you like American clothes?" he persisted. + +I nodded firmly, smiling and catching my husband's eye. + +"Then wear it always," said the Doctor, with a pontifical lifting of his +fingers. + +Oddly enough, my husband did not care for the native feminine fashion of +trousers and never permitted me to wear them. I considered them very +graceful and comfortable, but gladly adopted the severely plain skirts +with the plaits at the sides. + +I had put on China, to wear it always, in my heart and mind, and thought +only of my husband, his work and his people. In the beginning, I should +have been perfectly content to remain cloistered, to meet no one save a +few woman friends, to go nowhere. Life flowed by me so evenly that I was +happy to drift with it, filled with dreams. The noises of hurrying, +half-modernized Shanghai reached me but vaguely, deep within my cool, +quiet house where the floors were spread with white matting and the +walls were hung with symbolic panels. The click of the ponies' feet on +the pavement, the thud of the rickshaw coolies' heels as they drew their +noiseless, rubber-tyred vehicles, the strident scream of the motor +horns, the strange, long cries of the street venders, all came to me +muffled as through many curtains that sheltered me from the world. But +my husband insisted that I should go about with him everywhere that he +felt we should go, that I should help him entertain, that I should meet +and mingle with many people, both foreign and Chinese. + +He was always ready to advise me on social matters, a more difficult +undertaking than might be supposed. I have already spoken of the many +gradations in the meeting of East and West. These alone are confusing +enough, and there are further complexities due to the fact that in the +two civilizations the fine points of etiquette are often entirely at +variance. A single example will suffice--the custom of serving a guest, +as soon as seated, with some form of refreshment. In the very +conservative Chinese household, if the visitor even touches the cup of +tea, placed beside him on a small table, he is guilty of a gross breach +of good manners. In the ultra-modern household, he must drink the iced +summer beverage or the piping hot winter drink, to avoid giving offence. +Then there are the variously modified establishments, where he attempts +an exact degree of compromise, whether acknowledging the offering +merely by a gracious bow, or going further by raising it to the lips for +a dainty sip, or being still more liberal and consuming one-half the +proffered amount. That such situations are often baffling, even to Young +China, I have heard it laughingly confessed in many lively discussions. +But, though occasional errors are inevitable, sincere good-will is truly +valued and seldom misunderstood. Chan-King's ability to consider all +points of view at once was very helpful to me. + +But he forgot to warn me that in Shanghai social calling is proper at +any hour of the day from nine o'clock in the morning until ten o'clock +at night. I was therefore three days in learning, during a short absence +of his, that early morning and late evening calling was an institution, +and not an accidental occurrence, as I at first supposed. Finally, Ah +Ching gave me a hint. I was in _négligé_, preparing for a morning of +lazy play with Wilfred and hoping there would be no interruptions, when +Ah Ching appeared and announced callers. My face must have expressed +surprise and a shade of annoyance, as it had for three days previously +at these summonses, for Ah Ching hesitated a moment and then vouchsafed +what he plainly considered a valuable piece of information. "In +Shanghai," said Ah Ching, "he all time go to see--all time come to see." +He paused. "_All_ time!" he added firmly and departed. I found this to +be literally true and I therefore formed my habits of dress on the +assumption that callers demanding the utmost formality of behaviour and +appearance might be announced at any moment. + +Needless to say, Ah Ching's "he" was pidgin-English for "she," for my +personal visitors were all women. They were of many +nationalities--Chinese of course, and also American, Canadian, English, +Scotch and French. With the Chinese women, especially, I found myself in +perfect harmony. Nowhere, I believe, do sincerity and good-will meet +with a warmer response. They accepted me with a cordiality that was very +real and rendered invaluable assistance in my initiation into the new +life. They took me calling, shopping and marketing until Shanghai ceased +to be a bewildering maze of crowded thoroughfares; they helped me to +understand the complexities of Chinese currency; they explained the +intricate points of fashion in dress and recommended skilful tailors. + +From the first we were deeply interested in the meeting and blending of +East and West that went on about us everywhere, in every field of +endeavour. We found unique opportunity for fresh impressions in the +Second Far Eastern Olympics held at Shanghai that spring. In the +presence of many thousand spectators, China, the Philippines and Japan +strove for supremacy in athletic prowess. The affair was managed +entirely by Chinese, and during most of the contests my husband was busy +on the grounds in an official capacity. I sat in the grandstand with +Chinese women friends, some of whom were returned students, and the +rousing cheers, the whole-hearted enthusiasm, brought to us vivid +memories of college days in America. The evenings were filled with +receptions and garden parties in honour of the visitors. Of course our +pleasure in the whole affair was immeasurably heightened by China's +well-earned triumph. + +As the months passed, Chan-King's high-hearted enthusiasm, his dauntless +will to carry through great work in the education of Young China, +flagged to some degree, from terrible disillusionment. + +This is the problem all returned students have sooner or later to face +and conquer. They come home brimming with hope and filled with +aspirations towards their country's betterment. And gradually they are +forced to acknowledge one enormous fact--that China has been her +glorious, grim old self for too many centuries, her feet are sunk too +deeply in the earth of her ancient traditions, to be uprooted by one +generation of youth--or two or three or a hundred. + +Chan-King chafed and worried and worked too hard. Strangely enough, he +grew home-sick for America, though I did not. + +"America strides like a young boy, and China creeps like an old woman!" +he said bitterly one day after attending a meeting of the college board, +where his modern ideas of education had suffered a defeat at the hand of +the reactionary body. + +"But China is a wise, wise old woman!" I replied gently. + +And very often during this time I would uphold the traditions of the +East while Chan-King championed the ways of the Western world. + +My husband underwent disappointments, irritations and trials that would +have been unendurable in a less securely poised nature. As it was, he +suffered so in the great things that he had but little patience for the +small ones, and I often found him sudden of temper, with a quick +asperity of tone and finality of judgment that showed me clearly how +great a strain he was under. + +But with us there was always love. And Chan-King was very careful to +make me understand, even in the midst of small disappointments and +vexations, that these things were the universal human annoyances that +had nothing to do with regrets or a sense of alienation. I broke into +tears one day when a sharp little scene occurred over nothing at all. +"Oh, Margaret, my dearest!" he said, taking me in his arms, "these +moods mean nothing between us, when we love each other so! Don't take +them seriously! What could destroy our happiness now?" In spite of the +world-wide difference in our race and upbringing, whatever difficulties +of temperamental adaptation we had to meet were merely such as must be +faced by any husband and wife in any land. + +Yet Chan-King's personal fascination for me, his never-failing appeal to +my imagination, were definitely founded on the Oriental quality in him. +I found throughout the years, in every phase of our relation, a +constant, irresistible, always recurring thrill in the idea that we were +not of the same race or civilization. + +Once when I confessed this fact to him, he said, "Do you love me only +because I am Chinese?" + +"No--I think I should have loved you no matter what race you came of. +But how can I know?" + +"I like to feel that you love the essential _me_." + +"Yes, but the essential _you_ is Chinese." + +He thought a moment. "Chinese, yes, but a most respectable member of the +Dutch Reformed Church of America!" + +"I won't let that injure you in my eyes!" I assured him, laughing. I was +of the Anglican faith, and we often referred to the strange mixture of +nationalities in our creeds. + +My husband, in spite of his firm faith, was not of a deeply religious +mind, and of the two I was much more mystical in my beliefs. Love, +divine and human, had come to mean everything to me, in a literal and +spiritual sense. I believed, obscurely at first, but with increasing +surety and faith as time went on, that human love also was not of time +only, but of eternity as well. And, when I found that Chan-King did not +share this belief, I felt, for the only time in all my marriage, alien +to him, shut out by an impalpable veil from his profoundest inner life, +which I wished passionately to share in everything. The discovery came +hand in hand with our first shadow--only the shadow of a shadow, I might +call it, so vague, at the beginning, that we could not feel more than an +uneasiness. + +Chan-King fell ill, though not seriously, and he recovered quickly. But +on the up-curve of returning health he never quite regained the old +plane of physical well-being. Signs--oh, the very smallest of +signs--warned us of a grave, slow breaking down of his system under +phthisis. We could not quite believe it. + +His physician advised him to ease the strain of work as much as he +could. We talked together in the early hours of many nights, Chan-King +always insisting that his depression was the result of temporary +fatigue, sure to pass away with a few weeks' repose in the open air of +the hills. + +It was during this time that I spoke to him of the everlastingness of +love and my faith in a life farther on. "Where could death take one of +us that the other could not follow?" I asked him, in strange triumph. + +His eyes held mine a long minute. His face was very sad. "I am not sure +of that. I have no idea of what we shall be to one another in another +life. I am only sure that we are all things to each other now." + +An inexpressible sense of fear took hold of me. Chan-King seemed at once +terribly alien and removed; I could not speak, for I had the feeling of +calling in a strange language across a great chasm. I said nothing for +fear of distressing him, but he must have sensed my disquietude, for he +took my hands and held them to his face and let his eyes shine upon me. +"Don't look like that," he said. "We have much time yet to think of +eternity." But from the day of this illness the shadow was never once +removed from me. + +Now we were lured by the residential charms of the French Concession, +with its broad, tree-lined avenues and fresh, windswept spaces. So we +took a new house in a terrace fronting on Avenue Joffre. We liked our +large rooms, each with its tiled fireplace, its polished floors laid +with Tientsin rugs, its electric lights. There was a grassy lawn with +Chinese orchids and a border of palms and magnolias, and just around the +corner from us was a public garden where, to Wilfred's delight, dozens +of children played each day under the care of their respective _amahs_. +Our staff of servants was now increased to five by the addition of a +rickshaw coolie and a second _amah_. + +Chan-King received shortly after this a letter from his father, the +first communication he had had from his family since our marriage. It +contained an invitation to return home for a visit, since his mother +wished very deeply to see him again. + +"I can interpret this in only one way, Margaret," he said in a puzzled +tone. "It is an offer of reconciliation. That means that they do not +know you are with me." + +"Go and see for yourself what it is," I told him. For I would have +consented, for his sake, to a reconciliation on almost any terms. I had +seen enough of Chinese family life to understand the powerful bonds of +affection and interest that bind the clan together, and I felt in my own +heart the cruelty of breaking those between mother and son and brother +and brother. + +"I want to tell them about you," Chan-King answered. "This is my +opportunity." + +Before accepting their invitation, Chan-King wrote and told them that +his wife was with him. And their replies to this proved him right in his +first surmise. His family knew he had returned to China and, having +heard nothing further of his marriage, had supposed that it was all +over. This was not exactly a surprising conclusion for them to reach. +More than one foreign woman has refused to accompany her Chinese husband +home. I myself came in contact with an occasional half-household, in +which a Chinese was held in China by his business affairs while his wife +waited for him on the other side of the world. Sometimes, too, she did +not wait, and the marriage ended in the conventional way--that is, in +the divorce court. Chan-King's people imagined that something of the +sort had occurred to him, and were quite ready to wipe out old scores +and resume the ties of relationship. + +After having written the initial letter of reconciliation, they held to +their attitude in a thoroughbred way, only amending their welcome a +trifle by requesting him to visit them alone. Very tactfully and gently +they put it like this: his father was growing old and any sudden change +disturbed him; the household had lately been added to by marriage and +births, and he would find everything very much more comfortable if he +should come alone. + +He went, firmly resolved to change the mind of his family toward me. And +I, too, was anxious for them to know that a foreign marriage had not +harmed Chan-King. During the six weeks of his absence his letters were +cheerfully non-committal, though he spoke of his happiness in being in +his mother's house again. I thought a great deal about that house, the +intricate lives of the people in it and their many degrees of kinship +and authority. Chan-King had told me enough to give me a fairly clear +picture of them. I had always admired their ability to sustain difficult +relations under the same roof with the utmost good temper and mutual +courtesy. + +Yet I was Western enough to feel that Chan-King and I knew each other +better and had been more free to learn each other thoroughly, alone in +our own household, which was growing into quite a Chinese fashion. I +expected my second child and looked forward, with much hope, to the new +life, for I had always been deeply maternal and wanted several children. +But to Chan-King and me our love for each other was the greatly +important thing in life--the reason for all the rest of our existence. +We accepted the fact of birth as naturally as we did the change of +seasons. Children were an essential to our happiness, but not the +dominant essential. We ordered our home for ourselves, as two lovers who +had elected to pass their life together. + +Chan-King expressed our views thus: "The Chinese idea is that the family +is the end, the children the means of keeping it up. In the West, the +children are the end, and the home merely the means of keeping them up. +You and I have it perfectly adjusted, I think--the home is for all of +us, and all of us have proper places in it." + +Chan-King returned early one morning, and I knew, from my first glimpse +of his face, that his visit had been a fruitful one. I flew to his arms, +and, as he kissed me, I saw that his eyes were serene and contented. + +"How is your august mother, my lord?" I asked him with a bow. + +"My mother is in good health and wishes to meet her daughter-in-law," +he answered, and, in spite of the bantering tone, I knew he was in +earnest. + +I wanted to know how this change of feeling had come about. + +"When I told them of you," said Chan-King, "my mother was visibly +amazed. 'I did not understand!' she kept repeating. 'I did not +understand!' And before I left, she said to me, 'If she is all you tell +me she is, why do you not bring her here?' I didn't mention the fact +that this was our first invitation, Margaret! Should you like to go, my +dearest?" + +I hesitated a moment. "Yes, but not yet," I answered. + +"We will not go for a while," Chan-King assured me. + +We talked a great deal about my husband's visit, and I gained new light +on the actual facts of his estrangement from his family and the enormous +significance that his marriage assumed in the minds of his Chinese +relatives. + +I can hardly exaggerate the importance of the position held by the +eldest son in the higher class Chinese household. After his father, he +is the male head of the family. His wife is the attendant shadow, the +never-failing companion of his mother. Our phrase, "A man marries," is +expressed in Chinese as "He leads in a new woman." Under the old regime +he literally did so, for he invariably brought his bride to his +ancestral home. The phrase for the marriage of a girl is, "She goes +forth from the family." "A new woman" is the term for a bride. The +Western education of many young men of the Chinese upper class has +resulted in some acute readjustment in the ancestral households. Often +these elder sons return, marry according to the old custom and live in +their parental homes. But often, too, they marry advanced Chinese women, +set up establishments and professions of their own, far from their +native cities, and live after semi-foreign ways. + +In this respect, our case was somewhat typical. As I have already +related, Chan-King's mother had been looking forward for years to the +marriage of her eldest son with the little Miss Li-Ying. She had +expected in her middle age the usual release of the Chinese woman from +the bonds of youth. Having been a faithful and obedient wife and +daughter-in-law, she rightfully expected to assume authority over her +family, leaning on the arm of her son's wife. This younger woman would +take her place in the long chain of dutiful daughters; she would help to +welcome guests; she would keep up the family shrines; she would perform +all manner of household duties under the supervision of her +mother-in-law. On the death of her husband's mother, she would become +the woman head of the family, responsible for everything, her +privileges and authority growing with her years, especially if she were +the mother of sons. Her great mission would be to furnish children to +the clan, in order that the ancestral shrines might never be without +worshippers. I explain these matters at this point in order that I may +not be mistaken for a moment when I tell the incident that follows. By +this time, I had lived long enough in China to be almost thoroughly +orientalized, in so far as my sympathies were concerned at least, and +yet, when Chan-King, after talking for a while about the events of his +visit home, came to a full pause and said uncertainly, "There is one +thing I wish to tell you, but I am not sure you will understand," I was +a trifle apprehensive. + +But I answered at once: "Of course I shall understand. China has been +kind to me. What have I to fear?" + +Chan-King then went on deliberately: "Not until I saw my mother again +did I understand that I had done a really cruel thing to her, in +depriving her of a daughter-in-law on whom she could lean in her old +age. Oh, Margaret, woman's lot is not easy, with all the complexities of +parents and brothers and children! And I would have atoned for my share +in all this if I could--but of course there was nothing I could do, +nothing at all." + +And very calmly he told me that shortly after his arrival at home his +mother had conferred with him seriously on her need of a +daughter-in-law. In accordance with ancient customs she wished him to +take a Chinese secondary wife, who would live in the family home, who +would be, in a fashion, proxy for me in the rôle of daughter-in-law. +Chan-King's mother offered to arrange this marriage for him and assured +him that the secondary wife and her children would be well cared for and +treated kindly during his long absences. + +I listened incredulously, and the question I could not ask was in my +eyes. I knew, of course, that the custom of taking secondary wives was +not unusual among wealthy families in China, even where both wives lived +under the same roof. But I had given it only the most casual thought. +And not once had it occurred to me that the problem would touch my life. +Brought suddenly level with it, I suffered a shock at the very +foundation of my nature. I could not think, of course, in the moment +that followed my husband's recital. I only felt a great roaring tide of +pain rising about me, a sense of complete helplessness, such as I have +never known before or since. I wonder now at my instant subjective +readiness to believe that my husband had conformed to this custom of his +country; that he had shaken off his Western training at his first +renewed contact with the traditional habits of his race. + +"Did--you----?" I asked finally, and stopped. + +He came to me instantly, his arms about me. When he saw the distress in +my face, he frowned, with an odd, remorseful twist of the brows. + +"I wonder that you ask," he said. "How could I come back to you--and to +your loyalty and trust--with the shadow of that deception between us? I +made it very clear to my mother that I would never have any wife but +you. It's you and I together, dear one, and no one else so long as we +both shall live." + +And his words had the solemn sound of a vow renewed. This high honesty +of Chan-King's with me was a rock on which I founded my faith. And his +final repudiation of an accepted form among his people represented a +genuine sacrifice on his part, so far as his material welfare was +concerned. As generously and unhesitatingly as he had made the first +one, at our marriage, he laid the second votive offering on the altar +of our love. He had, you see, according to the view of his father and +mother, hopelessly injured them in his marriage. Above all, he had +denied in himself the great racial instinct of the Chinese to obey his +parents. If he wished to please them, here was his last opportunity. The +taking of a Chinese secondary wife would have been a complete atonement +in their eyes. At the same time it would have meant his instant +restoration to his rightful place among them--first in their affections +and inheritance. The family assistance would have placed him at once in +the position towards which, without it, he would probably have to +struggle for years. + +And later I understood how very easily he might have complied without my +needing ever to know of the fact. Indeed, I could have lived in his +mother's house with a second wife and never have suspected that she was +there in that position, so securely welded and impassive is the clan +sense, the reserve and remoteness of the personal relation when the +family peace and dignity are to be considered. + +Some of these matters I had been aware of since my life in China began, +some of them I learned that day in talking with Chan-King, and others, +as I have said, I discovered gradually afterwards. But from that day, +certainly, our relation subtly shifted and settled and crystallized. We +both became for ever certain that we could not fail each other in any +smallest thing. Into my heart came a warmth of repose, like a steadily +burning lamp. We were assured of our love beyond any possibility of +doubt, ever again. And for a time we experienced a renascence of +youthful happiness, a fine fervour of renewed hopes and ambitions, as +though spring had come again miraculously, when we had expected October. + +The family letters came now regularly to Chan-King, with always a +kindly message for me. Evidently relations were to be resumed on the +plane of a good friendship, nothing more. But that was so much more than +we had dared to hope for that we were perfectly happy to have it so. + +Chan-King must have mentioned his slowly failing health, for his mother +sent a worried letter to him and asked him to come home for a while once +more. Chan-King decided that his affairs would not warrant his absence +and wrote to her to that effect. + +One morning as I sat in the sun-porch, sewing, Ah Ching appeared +suddenly before me. + +"Master's mother, he downstairs," he announced calmly. + +I gazed at him without understanding. + +"What do you say?" + +Ah Ching came nearer. He held up one hand and counted his words off on +his fingers slowly. "Missee-sabe-master-have-got-one mother?" he +inquired patiently. + +"Yes, yes!" + +"Well, he just now have come. He downstairs!" + +I got to my feet. I was more frightened and nervous than I had ever +been. I remembered to be grateful. I was wearing complete Chinese +dress--a black skirt and blue velvet jacket. This fact assumed an +amusing importance in my mind as I stood there, struggling to get myself +in hand. I had planned this meeting a thousand times, and now that it +was fairly upon me I was totally without resource. I progressed +downstairs confusedly, running a few swift steps and then stopping short +and beginning again slowly. If Chan-King had been there, I should have +fled to him and left the entire situation in his hands; but I was alone +and certain of one thing only--I meant to win the love of my Chinese +mother if I could. Subjectively, all the tales I had heard of Chinese +mothers-in-law must have impressed me more than I had admitted, for I +remembered something Chan-King had told me long before: "I cannot +describe to you the importance of the mother in the Chinese household. +She is a complete autocrat, with almost final authority over her sons, +daughters-in-law, servants, relatives, everybody except her husband, who +is usually absent on his business. Her old age is a complete reversal of +the restraint and discipline of her youth." + +I stopped short at the door of the drawing-room. I saw my husband's +mother for the first time. She had become to me a personality of almost +legendary grandeur, and I felt a little wave of surprise go over me that +she looked somehow so real and alive and genuine. She sat in a big, +tall-backed chair, her hands spread flat on her knees. Her face was the +face of the young mother in the photograph Chan-King had shown me, only +grown older and a trifle more severe. She was dressed in black brocade, +its stiff folds and precise creases accentuating her dignity. Under the +edges of her skirt glimmered her tiny grey shoes, embroidered in red and +green. At her side stood the male relative who had accompanied her--a +Chinese gentleman of the old school, in a long gown of dark silk. Behind +her chair stood a maid and two menservants. + +I knew that she spoke no English, and as yet I had no knowledge of her +southern dialect. There was a sharp pause in the dead-silent room while +we regarded each other. + + + + +III + +FIRST DAUGHTER-IN-LAW + + +I clasped my hands in the Chinese way, smiled and bowed. My Chinese +mother rose at once and took a step towards me, balancing on her tiny +feet with the aid of a thick, gold-headed cane. I saw that she was +unusually tall. Then, surprisingly, she extended her hand, American +fashion, and I shook it, the eyes of each of us still searching the +other's face. I saw in hers the look I needed for reassurance--the +mingled kindness and apprehension--a trace of the anxiety that I am sure +was the very counterpart of my own expression. I knew then that her +heart was no more certain than mine was, and that this meeting was as +important to her as it was to me. + +Ah Ching brought forward my chair and we sat down together, smiling at +each other, letting our gestures speak for us. Finally she stretched +forth her right hand, palm down, measuring the height of a small child +from the floor, inclining her head towards me, her eyebrows up in a +question. I made a pillow of my two hands, laid my head upon it, eyes +closed, and then pointed up. We were both delighted at this simple +pantomime. The elderly man--her cousin--looked pleased in sympathy and +even the three solemn servants smiled a little. She asked me in gestures +where my husband was. I waved widely and comprehensively towards the +street, in the general direction of the city. She nodded, settling back +a trifle, drawing a long breath. We had reached the end of our power to +converse without the aid of an interpreter. + +When I heard Chan-King's ring at the gate, I hurried out to meet him +with the news. He was even more excited than I was and hastened ahead +of me to the house. I walked very slowly in order that they might have +their first greeting undisturbed, and, when I arrived, they were beaming +upon each other and talking the South Province dialect over a very +sleepy and cherubic infant, whom Chan-King, with paternal pride, had +ordered down to greet his grandmother at once. + +The retinue settled, Chan-King informed me that our mother would remain +with us for six weeks. During this time, I learned the art of pantomime +beyond anything I had ever hoped for in one of my undemonstrative +nature. My Chinese mother and I conversed with eyebrows, hands, smiles, +noddings and shakings of the head, much turning of the eyes. I had an +instant affection and admiration for her, and she adopted towards me a +gently confidential attitude that pleased me very much. + +She had brought presents for us, in the Chinese way: for me, a +delicately wrought chain of Chinese gold in a box of carved sandalwood; +for Wilfred, a dozen suits of Chinese clothes in the bright patterns +worn by children of the Orient, and so becoming to the proud, wee man +that, arrayed in them, he seemed already to be coming into his heritage. +She also brought great hampers of fresh fruits--pomeloes, lichees and +dragon's-eyes--and countless jars of preserved fish and meats and +vegetables, which had been Chan-King's favourites when he was a boy at +home. + +Madame Liang had the Chinese woman's love for shopping. Accompanied by +her cousin and the servants, we went from silk merchant to porcelain +dealer, and from brass worker to rug weaver, gathering treasures. Though +she carried on most of her negotiations through her cousin, she +bargained with a firmness and a sense of values that I admired very +much. In the silk shops she bought marvellous brocaded satins and +embroidered silks and she made me select the pattern I wanted for +myself. Though she preserved most carefully the distinctive features of +the dress of her own province, she was much interested in Shanghai +styles and examined my wardrobe critically, noting the short sleeves +with tight-fitting undersleeves and the skirts with seven plaits--not +five, as in Canton, for example--at each side. + +Notwithstanding the popular Western fancy that fashions never change in +China, the Chinese woman is painstakingly particular as to the exact +length and fullness--or scantiness--of her coats, skirts and trousers. +She is carefully precise about the width of bias bands or braid or lace +that she uses for trimming, the number and arrangement of fastenings, +the shape and height of her collar. All of these details vary as +tyrannically from season to season--under Shanghai guidance--as certain +style features do with us under the leadership of New York or Paris. +Moreover, as against our four seasons, the fashion devotee of China +takes account of eight, each with its appropriate style and weight of +clothing. + +At home Mother sewed a great deal, using her hands gracefully and very +competently in spite of the long curved fingernails on her left hand. My +American sewing-machine fascinated her. She had an excellent hand-power +machine at home, Chan-King explained, but mine worked with a treadle and +she wished to try it. I took the tiny, brightly shod feet in my hands +and set one forward and one backward on the iron trellis. And she moved +them very well, alternately, and ran several seams with energy. + +Chan-King, his mother and I went to Chinese cafés together and Madame +Liang was pleased and amused to see that I not only used chopsticks with +ease but had a real taste for Chinese food. We used to treat ourselves +to all sorts of epicurean dishes: spiced chicken and duck, sharks' +fins, bird's-nest soup with pigeon eggs (my favourite delicacy), seaweed +and bamboo shoots, candied persimmons, lotus-seeds and millet pudding +with almond tea. + +Once, in a roof-garden café, where I was wearing American clothes, my +use of chopsticks aroused considerable interest among neighbouring +groups of diners, and stray comments reached us, for the Chinese are +always pleased to see foreigners familiar with their customs. "No doubt +she is a missionary lady," a young woman remarked in my husband's native +dialect. Hearing and understanding, Mother immediately said, in clear, +gracious tones, "My son, perhaps your wife would like to have some +American food now." Chan-King translated for me both comment and +suggestion, and I felt pleased to learn that, at any rate, my Chinese +mother was not ashamed, in a public place, to acknowledge her American +daughter. + +Mother was fond of the drama and, since Shanghai had some excellent +theatres, we made up several parties during her stay. + +The great semicircular stage on which a famous old historical play that +we saw was acted was hung with gorgeous embroideries, laid with a thick +Peking rug of immense size and brilliantly lighted by electricity--as +was the entire theatre. The actors wore the magnificent official and +military robes of an early dynasty. As on the Elizabethan stage, women's +parts were taken by men, who achieved by cleverly constructed shoes the +effect of bound feet. I found the deafening drums and gongs a little +trying, at moments, and the crude property makeshifts somewhat +incongruous with the wonderfully elaborate hangings and costumes. But, +being familiar with the story, I understood the action and so evidently +enjoyed it that Mother was surprised anew, as Chan-King afterwards told +me. We sat in our balcony box, above the vague tiers of lower seats +packed with a restless audience of men, women and many children in the +arms of their _amahs_. On the wide front rail of our box was the +inevitable pot of tea, with room also for such fruits, sugar-cane, +melon-seeds, or meat-and-rice dishes as we wished to purchase from the +endless variety offered by eager boys in round caps and blue cotton +gowns. Now and then an attendant came with a huge teakettle to refill +our teapot, and once he offered us the usual steaming hot towels for +sticky fingers. Chan-King waved these away energetically. "Awful +custom," he said to me. "Unhygienic. How can they do it?" And he added +something of the kind to his mother in Chinese. She regarded him with +comprehension, a tiny gleam of superior wisdom in her eyes. But she made +no reply. + +She had taken a fancy to Wilfred, who by this time had a fair vocabulary +of Chinese, which he always used in talking to his _amah_. He was a +handsome child, typically Chinese, very charming in his manner, very +fond of his _amah_ and his indulgent grandmother. Madame Liang would +take his chin in her hands and study his features intently, nodding her +head with approval. Then she would stroke his round black poll and give +him melon-seeds or almonds from her pocket. Wilfred used a weird mixture +of dialects--a confusion of Mandarin and the Shanghai vernacular, with a +dash of Cantonese from his _amah_. Madame Liang set out patiently to +teach him her own dialect as well. + +When her visit was ended, our mother said to Chan-King, "This is a +Chinese house, with a Chinese wife in it. Everything is Chinese. I could +never have believed it without seeing, for I thought your wife was a +Western woman. I am happy." And she told him again that we must come and +visit her, for she needed us. + +Chan-King's father, a member of an old, established firm in the import +and export trade in the Philippines, was away, looking after his +business or exchanging visits with friends of his own age and rank. His +home-comings were in the nature of a vacation. The management of the +household depended on Madame Liang. + +As she talked, I realized by her face, by Chan-King's answers, by all +that I knew of Chinese family life, that we were a part of that clan and +should be so always. A hint of the solidarity I now feel with my +husband's family came to me. We were not separate from them; nor should +we be. + +After our mother was gone, Chan-King said something of this sort to me, +quoting what she had said about my not being Western. "But I love you to +be Western in this sense," he told me, "that you and I have +companionship and freedom and equality in our love. That is what makes +me happiest." + +Before Chan-King and I closed the house in Shanghai to depart for the +southern hills, our second son, Alfred, was born. An American woman +asked me, when he was about six weeks old, if I did not feel a sense of +alienation at the sight of the wee, Oriental face at my breast. Quite +simply and truthfully I answered no. My husband was not in any way alien +to me. How, then, could our child be so? + +His coming provided me with a welcome excuse to remain at home quietly +for a short while. I now attempted to learn, at the same time, both +Mandarin and the dialect of Chan-King's province--a method of study that +hampered me constantly at first. But my husband was an encouraging +teacher, and I began uncertainly to use my new knowledge, trying it +mostly on my young son Wilfred, who was the real linguist of the family. +He took my Chinese very seriously. I cannot say so much for Chan-King, +who was greatly amused at my inflection. + +Towards the close of the year, I decided to take a place as teacher of +English and history in a Chinese girls' high school. Chan-King was +surprised when I told him that I wished to teach, but he offered no +objection, and watched with interest my progress through the year. I +loved my teaching. Still more I loved the girls in my classes. +Collectively and individually I found them supremely worth while in +spirit and mind. I cannot say how lovely the young womanhood of China +seemed to me. I began to yearn for a daughter, and when, towards the +close of the second term, I found that I might, perhaps, have my heart's +desire, I realized that my husband shared it. + +In the early autumn, our mother wrote and asked us to come south for the +cold season. She also expressed the hope that the coming grandchild +might be born in her own province. Chan-King had been encouragingly +strong for over a year, but he had always found the northern winters +hard. We decided that the time had come to fulfil our promise of +visiting the ancestral home. Chan-King secured six months' leave of +absence. + +Within ten days we had closed our affairs temporarily, dismissed the +servants, with the exception of the _amah_ and the faithful Ah Ching, +got our boxes together and bidden our friends farewell. The leaves were +falling in the avenue; the plants were shrivelled at the edges in the +sun porch; the winds blew ominously shrill under the eaves. Chan-King +grew pale and began to cough again. Out of the teeth of the terrible +Shanghai winter we fled into the hospitable softness of the South. + +By a large steamship we started out on what was ordinarily a brief +journey. But, by those war-time schedules, changes and delays were the +invariable rule. After three unforeseen changes and as many delays we +reached a port just over the line in my husband's province. There we +stopped, intending to go on three days later by the little, battered, +tramp steamer that puffed noisily at the dock, putting off dried fruits +and dyes, taking on rice and cloth and sandalwood. But we did not go on, +as it happened. Instead, a tiny, smiling, competent woman physician, +wearing the southern costume and possessed of a curious fund of +practical wisdom in medical matters, attended me in her native hospital +at the birth of our daughter Alicia. + +On a vaguely grey, gently stimulating winter morning, ten days later, +our bouncing little ship--for I had cajoled Chan-King into allowing me +to travel--stood to, out from port, and sampans came to meet us. Like +giant fish, bobbing and dipping and swaying upon the waves, these +sampans with their great eyes painted on each side of the prow and their +curious, up-curved sterns, came towards us in a gala-fleet, rowed by +lean, over-muscled men in faded blue cotton garments. I was very gay and +much exhilarated by the soft sunshine that broke through the mist as I +climbed down with Chan-King's help into one of these boats. + +The harbour was busy with small craft--flat-bottomed gigs or +baggage-boats besides the junks, whose square brown sails swung creaking +in the wind. Two Chinese men-of-war rose over us, their vast, bulky +sides painted battle-ship grey. + +Out and beyond, an island not more than a mile long turned its irregular +profile towards us, a long mass of huge grey boulders jutting abruptly +from a sparkling sea. As we were being rowed in to the mainland, we were +near enough to the island to see quite plainly the tile-roofed houses +surrounded by arched verandas, repeated again and again in long, +undulating lines that gave a pleasantly lacy effect. The island was +shaded with trees in winter foliage, not the brilliant green of summer, +but the sage-green and pale tan of November. Through this intermittent +curtain the walls of the houses shone in dull blue and coral pink and +clear grey. Jagged cacti shot up among the bulbous rocks and everywhere +the scarlet poinsettia set the hills aglow with patches of brilliant +colour. I loved this island instantly. I said to Chan-King, "This is our +Island of the Blest, where we shall live when we are old." + +At the jetty, Ah Ching went up to hail sedan-chair bearers, and soon I +was borne rapidly along a few yards ahead of my husband's chair. + +I was filled with a delicious elation at being in Chan-King's province, +so near to the very village that he knew as a little boy. With enormous +curiosity, I peeped through the curtain-flaps, which were transparent +from within. We were passing through the town that lay along the water's +edge--a bright, open little place, where the small houses, with curved +tiled roofs, hugged the ground. We went through the crooked streets, +which were really nothing more than broad paths, at a steady pace. We +left the ragged edges of the town and began to ascend the hills. I +raised my curtains a trifle and ventured to look out freely. Emotion +surged up in me. I wished to cry for joy in this home-coming, for it was +our real home-coming together, and I felt a secret share in all the life +my husband had known here. + +Up the narrow, twisting path we wound, toward the hills, which were +covered with a smoky, amber mist. Scattered closely along the upward +road, apart from the dwellings, were small terraces enclosing plots of +cultivated ground, filled with growing things. Wherever the folk could +find a lush, flat place on the stony hills, robbed by deforestation of +all but grass, they had planted their vegetables. These little patches +of colour, coaxed by thrifty gardeners out of the soil washed into the +hill-pockets, added a festive, humorous note to the winter landscape, +otherwise so brown and sear. I thought frivolously of a solemn giant +wearing his party nosegays. The hills billowed away immensely, until +they were silhouettes against the dull orange and ashy purple of the +morning sun struggling through the clouds. Solid, steeply curved, narrow +bridges of stone made us a path over the frequent streams that rushed +downward to the valley. + +Here we came full upon the ancestral village of my husband's family. It +lay, compact and many-roofed, upon the side of a hill, as intricately +woven and inevitable-looking as a colony of birds' nests, as naturally a +part of the earth as though it had sprung from planted seeds. Rows of +walls ran along the main thoroughfare. There were few people astir yet +and the doors were closed in all the low-eaved plaster and stone houses. + +Our chairs were set down before a tall, hooded gate in a wall of +stone-grey. Ah Ching knocked. The gates were opened, and servants came +hurrying out, accompanied by three leaping black Chow-dogs, which barked +in frantic challenge till Chan-King spoke to them and changed their +menace into joyous welcome. + +We entered a spacious courtyard and crossed an exquisite garden, one of +the most beautiful I saw in China. An artificial lake rippled placidly, +disturbed only by the darting goldfish. Laurel- and magnolia-trees +darkened the paths. A thicket of bamboo wavered and cast its reflection +in the water at the edge of the lake. + +Chan-King helped me from the chair and together we passed into the main +hall through the wide-flung doors. Madame Liang, early apprised of our +arrival, was standing there, and my first sight of her gave me a renewed +sense of home-coming. I was dimly aware of a large hall, at the back of +which stood a high altar, with wreaths of sweet-smelling smoke rising in +straight columns before lettered tablets and brilliant images under +glass cases. The glitter of golden and scarlet embroideries against the +wall splintered the dimness with rays of light like sunshine through a +prism. Heavily carved blackwood chairs with tea-tables and also +marble-topped stools with gay, brocaded cushions were ranged about the +room. + +We passed through this main hall into the apartment of Madame Liang, +where I was given a chair, and I sat down, suddenly remembering that I +was very tired. + +Other members of the family, distant relatives and first cousins, and +guests, all women, came in and I was presented to them. Madame +Springtime, wife of the second son, did first honours for the family. +She was so very youthful--only seventeen--and so wistfully other-worldly +that among those mature housewives, clever and practical managers of +their households and husbands' estates, she seemed like a branch of +peach-bloom. In festal garb of jade-green and lavender, embroidered +shoes on her tiny feet and an embroidered head-dress crowning her +shining black hair and framing the oval of her shy, smiling face, with +its sloe-black eyes, she came bearing a lacquered tray and presenting to +each of us sweet tea, in cups of finest porcelain with standards and +covers of silver and with tiny silver spoons having flower-shaped bowls. + +The pretty little tea ceremony was then repeated by various members of +the family, while the small sons were given hot milk and cakes. An eager +group gathered about the tiny new daughter, still sleeping peacefully. + +A bubbling, busy little lady, about the age of Madame Liang, leaned over +me, with a quizzical smile, and bobbed her gay, pretty head emphatically +at me when my mother introduced her as Madame Chau. Elaborately dressed +in rich colours, in direct contrast to my soberly garbed mother, she was +as merry as Madame Liang was grave and she tripped about on her almost +invisible "golden lily" feet with an energy that yet did not destroy the +grace of her "willow walk." + +But the many-coloured costumes, the great curtained bed on one side, the +voices--all suddenly seemed far away. And, as I wavered, smiling +determinedly, I heard my husband's voice. "Mother thinks you are tired; +so this woman will show you to your room, where you must lie down and +rest." + +Some time later, as I lay resting--with Alicia sleeping on my arm--on +the bed, which had purple curtains and soft white blankets, Chan-King +stepped quietly into the room. + +"Feel as comfortable as you look?" he asked and, when I nodded drowsily, +he touched a box of cakes. + +"These were brought to you by Madame Chau, the busy little lady out +there. You know"--he hesitated a moment--"she would have been my +mother-in-law, if I hadn't insisted on your mother instead!" and he gave +my cheek a gentle pinch. + +I was now wide-awake. "The little bird-lady out there--mother of +Li-Ying?" I asked. "Where is Li-Ying, then?" + +"They didn't tell me anything directly," Chan-King answered. "But I +gather from several pointed conversations carried on in my hearing that +Madame Chau has just returned from her daughter's house in Singapore. +Just imagine: little Li-Ying is married too, and also has three +children--two girls and a boy. I think," said my Chinese husband, with +charming complacence, putting a hand over mine and stooping to kiss +Alicia's pink, sleeping face, "our arrangement is much better. Sons +should be older; then daughters are properly appreciated!" + +At noon, after an hour's quiet sleep, I was again aroused by Chan-King, +who stood beside a maidservant with a tray. + +I sat up. "I expected to be out for luncheon," I said, preparing to +rise. + +Chan-King looked perturbed. "Stay where you are," he warned. "My mother +has just been scolding me for allowing you to travel with a ten-days-old +baby. 'As if I could do anything about it!' I told her, blaming it all +on Eve in the most approved Christian fashion! She admires your spirit, +but thinks that, for your health's sake, you should rest two weeks +longer at least!" + +I lay down meekly. "Very well," I said. "Obedience is my watchword!" + +And for the prescribed time I lay in my pretty room--all my senses +deeply responsive to the life going on in a Chinese household: the clang +of small gongs that summoned the servants; much laughter coming in +faintly or clearly as my doors were opened or shut; the tap of lily feet +along the passage; the glimmer of Madame Springtime's radiant pink or +blue robes as she entered to inquire after my welfare or bring some new +delicacy that had been procured for me; the smoke of incense from the +altar floating into the room at intervals, with a pungent sweetness that +roused vague memories and emotions. Everything in the house--hangings, +clothes, furnishings--was saturated with this aroma. Mingled with a +bitter smell, which is distilled by immense age, and touched with the +irritative quality of dust, this odour now means China to me and it is +more precious than all other perfumes in the world. + +"But, Chan-King, life is nothing but food!" I protested, about the third +day, when my fourth meal had been served to me early in the afternoon. + +"But the quantities are small," he answered. "Much better way, don't you +think, than taking great meals many hours apart?" + +Early in the morning, the young maid assigned to me would bring in a +bowl of hot milk and biscuit. In our apartment, at half-past eight, she +would serve breakfast, consisting of soft-boiled rice--congee--with +various kinds of salty, sweet and sour preparations. At eleven o'clock +there was turtle soup or chicken broth. At noon came tiffin, which +consisted of substantial meat and vegetable dishes, fish and soup, and +dry-boiled rice. Our mid-afternoon refreshment was noodles of wheat or +bean-flour, or perhaps a variety of fancy cakes. Tea, kept hot by a +basket-cosy, was always on hand in every room. At seven the family +dined, and, after the two weeks were up, I joined them, sitting at the +first table with Mother and my husband. Dinner was an elaborate meal, in +courses, with rice at the close. At bedtime came hot milk again, or +sweet congee or perhaps tea, brewed from lotus-seed or almonds. I was +continually nibbling. I thought Chinese food delicious, particularly in +my husband's province, noted for its delicious "crunchy" fried things. + +But Chan-King had yearnings for American dishes. I gave the head cook +minute instructions for preparing fricasseed chicken, fresh salads, +beefsteak with Spanish sauce--even American hot cakes, and he enjoyed +the American canned goods, with butter, cheese, jams and bread, which +were brought in frequently from the port. + +An episode that caused much merriment was Chan-King's initiation of his +family into the mystery--and history--of chop suey. The rich joke of +that "made-in-America" Chinese dish is penetrating to every household +where the returned student is found. In Shanghai we had heard with +amusement how the bewildered _chef_ of the Y.M.C.A. café had gone down +to one of the great trans-Pacific liners lying in port, to learn from +the head cook on board just what this "chop suey," which all his +returned student patrons were demanding, might be. Now, with memories of +old college club activities prompting us, and with a skilful cook to +carry out our directions, Chan-King and I introduced into the ancestral +home that most misunderstood dish in all the world. The family agreed +that, though vaguely familiar, it was unlike anything they had ever +tried before, and they decided without dissenting vote that it was +superior to fricasseed chicken, Spanish steak or hot cakes. + +At this time, my husband's brother, Lin-King, came home for a brief +stay. I decided from photographs that he resembled his father, who was +still away. Lin-King and Madame Springtime seemed well-suited to each +other and happy, although the marriage had been arranged by their +families and they had never seen each other before the ceremony. I +decided that the old custom had much merit, after all--for other +people--and said so to my husband, adding, "When our children are +grown, we must have them all marry Chinese." Chan-King looked at me long +in silence and then, sighing humorously, he asked, "What of their +father's example my dear?" + +Since my Chinese was still bookish and unpractised in the all-important +matters of tone and local idiom, I could not converse with the family, +and at the dinner-table and in my mother's apartment I was as silent and +meek and pleasant of manner as Madame Springtime herself. Madame +Springtime served formal tea to our many guests in absolute silence, +with a sweet, fixed smile at the corners of her red mouth. I watched her +with consuming interest, for she was acting as first daughter-in-law in +my stead. + +The machinery of life ran with the smoothness of long habit and complete +discipline. The meals were served, the apartments kept in exquisite +order and the children cared for by a corps of servants trained in +minutiæ by an exacting mistress, who knew precisely what she wanted. Our +days were left free for the practice of small courtesies, the exchange +of pretty attentions and the care of the ancestral altar. + +From the ceremonies that took place before this altar at various times, +my husband kept himself, his wife and children sedulously aloof. It was +neither asked nor expected that he would do otherwise, just as our +attendance at the little mission church was accepted without question. +At other times, however, I had ample opportunity to study the altar and +to enjoy the beauty of its massive carvings, its elaborate +incense-burners and candlesticks, its exquisitely wrought embroideries. +A porcelain image of the Buddhistic Goddess of Mercy in her character of +Son-Giver, set within a large glass case, fascinated me by its +remarkable resemblance to certain Catholic images. But the ancestral +tablets interested me more, and the respect that I have always accorded +objects sacred to others was in this instance mingled with profoundly +personal feelings: the inter-blended characteristics of those men and +women so many years dead and gone lived on in the man who was my +husband; their life currents pulsed warmly in the veins of my children; +perhaps some deep insight gained beyond the grave enabled them to know +how truly I acknowledged my debt to them, how earnestly I hoped those +children might not prove unworthy of their heritage. + +With the help of Chan-King's coaching and my personal observations, I +soon learned the gracious routine of the house. At ten o'clock every +morning I presented myself at the door of Madame Liang's apartment and +sat with her for several hours, often over tiffin, even till tea-time, +if she signified a desire for my company. If the weather was fair, we +would walk in the garden, she leaning lightly on my arm, her cane +tapping on the flagstones. At times, also, tea was served here, with the +small children joining us for hot milk and sweet cakes. + +I was several days in getting the members of the household identified in +their proper relations, for there were thirty persons gathered in that +big, low-roofed, rambling compound behind the high, enveloping wall. +They were nearly all women, and two-thirds of them servants. The quiet, +soft-mannered woman relatives spent nearly all of their time in their +own apartments. Madame Liang's powerful personality, silent and +compelling, paled the colours of nearly all the temperaments around her. +Her friend, Madame Chau, was immensely comforting to her, for she could +not be persuaded to take anything very seriously. Madame Liang laughed +with her more than with anyone else. While they busily embroidered, they +gossiped, and I listened to their musical speech with its soft southern +accents and chiming, many-toned cadences. + +I used to think, as I sat in a deep-cushioned chair, nursing the small +Alicia, with a pot of tea at my elbow, that Madame Liang, in her +gorgeous, heavily carved, black-and-orange bed, enclosed on three sides +by panels of painted silk and draped over the front with silk curtains +held back by tasselled brocaded bands, was a link in the Chain of +Everlasting Things. She had come into the house exactly as "new women" +had done century after century, and she had lived out her life +unquestioningly according to their precepts and example. There was a +monumental, timeless dignity about her as she sewed and talked of simple +matters. In her presence, I felt young and facile and terribly +unanchored. + +I talked these things over with Chan-King in the dark of the night, when +all the household was silent. He was interested in my reactions, +knowing they were the outcome of a profound personal love for his family +and sympathy with everybody in it. Spiritually, Chan-King also was in +sympathy with his family. Practically--well, as I have said, there were +moments when he longed for American food, and his first deed in the +house was to order the bed curtains removed from our apartment. + +They were removed, and nothing was said. A wonderful spirit of courtesy +and toleration prevailed in the family life, with a complete absence of +that criss-cross of personal criticism that our Western freedom of +speech permits. Not that there were not undercurrents, intimate +antagonisms here and there, personal sacrifices and sorrows. But they +were not recognized, for in Chinese life individual claims are eternally +relinquished in the interest of clan peace and well-being. There was one +authority, and it was vested in Madame Liang. Such a system makes for +harmony and preserves the institution of the family, on which all China +is founded. + +Making no conscious effort, I myself yet became so imbued with this +spirit that, when the Government summons came for Chan-King to report in +Peking early in the new year, I choked down my anguish and said, "How +splendid for us all, Chan-King! When are you going?" + +We were in the last week of the old year, and at Madame Liang's earnest +entreaty my husband delayed his departure (as the summons permitted), +that, in the midst of his family, he might celebrate the most delightful +of all holidays. Delicious cooking odours now drifted about everywhere, +new clothes for every one were made ready, and faces took on a shining +happiness. + +One evening after a visit to his mother, Chan-King came to me, laughing +heartily. "Mother reminds me," he said, "that for three days it is +customary for the maids, when sweeping the floor, to pile the dust +carefully in a corner instead of throwing it out, lest the family good +fortune should be thrown out with it. But she says of course it is only +an old superstition and if you like you may tell the maid to remove the +sweepings as usual." I laughed too. Then I said, "Tell Mother we shall +do our part towards keeping good fortune in the family." "For three +days, also," continued Chan-King, "no harsh or scolding word is to be +spoken by anyone. And therefore," he went on sonorously, "your +tyrannical Chinese husband will cease to lecture his American wife--who +is certain to need it, though." I looked into his eyes, bright with +irrepressible gaiety, and suddenly I kissed them shut, my own eyes +misty. "Oh, my dearest," I whispered, "you are just a little boy at home +again, in spite of the silver threads." And I smoothed the black locks, +already sprinkled with grey. "Chan, I love the Chinese New Year!" I +said. + +Even now I see it all again. My husband was wearing a long, dignified +gown of dark green satin--unfigured, as is customary for officials--dark +green trousers, short brown jacket, lined with soft fur, black satin cap +and black boots. Wilfred was quite a young gentleman in long gown of +blue-green silk, braid-trimmed jacket of dark green, blue trousers and +red-tufted cap. Chubby Alfred was dressed in lavender jacket, scarlet +trousers, a tiger-face apron of red, white and black, embroidered shoes +and a gay little knitted cap. Alicia, whom the whole family loved best +in her frilled white American dresses, added now a pink silk jacket and +an adorable little pink and black cap, which gave an Oriental grace to +her features. I wore my latest Shanghai creation, in pale +lilac-and-black figured satin. Guests came and went incessantly, and we +made our calls in the village. The air was filled with odours of spice, +molasses, roasted meats, seed-cakes and millet candy and with sounds of +fire-crackers, gongs and happy voices. + +But it was over at last. The time for my husband's departure had come. + +With silent expertness, Ah Ching set about packing. In three days +Chan-King was ready to go. He was coaching me in the household phrases I +should need most in making myself understood without his help. Madame +Liang decided that, during my husband's absence, I should assume my +position as first daughter-in-law. I had no apprehension in regard to +the minute, exacting duties that would devolve upon me as a right-hand +companion to my husband's mother, for I loved her, but I was not sure of +my tact or my deftness, and I felt strung up painfully at the thought of +my immediate future. + +After the hourly companionship of months, parting from Chan-King was +very terrible indeed. He was in and out of our apartment, moving about +the house with restless energy, arranging final details. At last he came +and stood beside me. "Say good-bye now, dearest," he whispered. +"Afterwards--out there--we shall have no opportunity." He drew me close +and we kissed with deep feeling, the tears in my eyes refusing to be +suppressed any longer. + +"Don't cry," he begged, with unaccustomed emotion. "Don't cry, or I +can't leave you!" Then he held my face up and dried my tears with his +handkerchief and said solemnly, "Smile at me!" And I smiled. + +We went across to his mother's apartment, and she came out, the tears on +her cheeks not stanched. Joined by the rest of the family, we +accompanied him to the entrance and then to the gate, which stood open, +almost blocked by the waiting sedan-chair. Chan-King was in Chinese +dress, and as he stood there--profile towards me--among the group of +servants, giving his final directions, he seemed more Oriental, more +absorbed into his country, than I remembered ever to have seen him. + +He made a profound bow to his mother, with formal words of leave-taking, +and gave me a grave little nod. Then, without looking back, he stepped +into the chair, the curtains were drawn, and the coolies trotted off +down the steep path, followed a little way by the bounding black dogs. + +Mother and I stood together, after the others had gone, and watched his +chair jostling down the narrow, paved way. Then we turned and looked at +each other--rueful smiles on our mouths, tears in our eyes. We shook our +heads at each other. I half raised a hand to my heart, then let it fall. +I think both of us found our lack of mutual language a welcome excuse +for silence. + +Madame Liang turned toward the house. The gates closed behind us. I +gave her my arm in support until we reached the doorway; then I stepped +a pace behind her as she entered. Without speaking, I waited until she +had knelt at the altar, and the incense was rising in clouds before the +imperturbable images under their glass cases. Then I attended her to her +own apartment. My life as a real Chinese daughter-in-law had begun. + + + + +IV + +THE ETERNAL HILLS + + +As I followed my Chinese mother into her apartments, I thought of the +benevolent croakings of friends. Their words rattled through my memory +like pebbles shaken in a pail: "She can never be happy with a Chinese +husband!" Later it was, "It is all very well in America, but wait until +she goes to China." When I had happily established myself there, "Heaven +help her," said they, "if she tries to live with her Chinese +mother-in-law!" In Shanghai, foreign friends had predicted, "Oh, yes, +she's lovely in _your_ house, but wait until you try living in _her_ +house!" + +"This is the last ditch, Margaret," I said to myself. "Take it clear! +Either you are about to make one more argument against intermarriage or +you are going to settle the question for ever so far as your case is +concerned." + +Mother and I went in to dinner together, somewhat later than usual. We +attacked our food very bravely, eyes down. I glanced up inadvertently, +and the sight of tears on her cheeks released mine too. I leaned forward +and took her hand and we struggled with a sentence or two. "No tears!" I +said. "Be patient!" she answered. + +Next morning after the _amah_ had dressed young Alicia, while the +cheerful child was following me about the room with her eyes and talking +merry baby talk, I took her up and went, earlier than usual, to see +Mother. I found her sitting up in bed. She was dressed for the day, and +the blankets were rolled back against the side of the wall, making a +comfortable couch for her. Thinking of Chan-King, I looked at the row +of little cabinets extending across the back, half-way up towards the +canopy. I remembered Chan-King's telling me of the year when he was +still small enough to stand under these fascinatingly carved cabinets, +where his mother stored her trinkets and toilet articles, embroidery +silks, perfumes and the endless paraphernalia of her quiet life, and of +the pride he felt when he bumped his head one day and found that he must +stoop to be comfortable. + +Wilfred was just high enough now to stand easily under the cabinets, +but, in some mysterious fashion, the little image of him presented at +this moment to my fancy became that of the small, far-away Chan-King, +whom I was for ever re-creating in my mind as I went about the house +where he had lived his pleasant youth. + +This morning I laid Alicia on the bed near Madame Liang. She bent over +her and made a _moue_ into the rosy face. I was much pleased when +Madame Liang was unusually attentive to Alicia, though my sense of +justice always reminded me that my own Scotch mother would probably have +made more of the boys. But our Alicia was the first daughter in two +generations of my husband's family, and, even though the sons were of +priceless value to the clan, she was loved and cherished tenderly. It +seemed to me at times that the household was more fond of her than of +all the boys together, including Madame Springtime's young Kya-Song, who +filled the left wing of the compound with his shouts of glee as he +played riding-horse on his precarious bamboo stool. I remembered with +amusement the Western idea that daughters are unwelcome, always, in +Chinese families. + +While Madame Liang patted the baby, talking to her coaxingly, I asked +what she wished me to do. + +She indicated on her dressing-table a box of stereoscopic views, which +I brought to her. They formed a complete story, but had become very much +confused. As I could read the foreign titles, would I kindly arrange the +pictures in proper sequence? The ease and speed with which I +accomplished this task won her instant approbation. + +This was merely one of the numberless small things I did for her +thereafter. In my new estate I was in attendance on my mother during +many hours of the day. I walked with her in the garden in fine weather, +I sat with her and sewed, threading needles as for my own mother and +even helping her to make those marvellous small shoes that she fashioned +so carefully to the form of her feet. One day I told her how amazed I +had been when I first learned from Chan-King that Chinese wives made the +family shoes, but how readily I could understand, when I saw the dainty +embroidered foot-wear he referred to, that shoemaking was indeed a +womanly craft. + +She and Madame Chau used to take great pride in making for themselves +the most frivolous of shoes. Madame Chau's were the smaller, being +barely two and a half inches long, whereas those of my mother were twice +that length and different in shape. I discovered the reason for this: +Madame Chau clung tenaciously to the old style; but Mother had gradually +let out her bandages and altered their arrangement, keeping pace with +the change that followed the abolition of the old custom. + +I became deeply interested in the custom of foot-binding. In Shanghai, +all the pupils of my school and (with certain notable exceptions) the +women of my social world had natural feet, and the majority of them wore +American pumps and Oxfords or English boots. Bound feet, though I saw +them frequently in public, seemed very remote. But now, save the girls +of twelve and under, who had profited by the new order of things, the +women among whom I lived all had bound feet. It may be worth noting, +when one remembers how America, with its own great unwashed, jokes at +the expense of the Chinese of whatever rank or station, that, in +accordance with the fastidious cleanliness of upper-class Chinese, the +bound feet were exquisitely cared for, and the narrow, white, specially +woven bandages were changed every two or three days. As I watched the +daintily shod women of my mother's household, I realized that never +before had I appreciated, in reading the literature of my adopted +country, the aptness of comparing the walk of a woman with bound feet to +the grace of bamboo swaying in the breeze. Never had I suspected the +charm attached to twinkling flashes of embroidery beneath a panelled, +many-plaited skirt. My own number-four feet assumed alarming +proportions. I grew positively ashamed of them. One day as Mother and I +sat together in arm-chairs, with a blackwood tea-table between us, I +placed my feet in line with hers and said, sighing, "Ah, they look very +bad, indeed!" She waved a deprecating hand. "Never mind," she said with +courtesy and truth, "they may not look so well, but they certainly walk +better." + +Of course I was glad that the small Alicia belonged to Young China, and +would purchase no golden lilies with a cask of tears, as I had often +read that every woman with bound feet must do. But I now decided that +the cask must have been filled in the years of girlhood. For the women +about me seemed to suffer no pain--only an occasional numbness, relieved +by brisk massage from knee to ankle under the hands of a maid. I was +surprised at the ease and energy with which they got about, merely +balancing with small forward and backward steps when stopping--unless +they had a servant's arm, or a cane, for support. + +I thought our mother infinitely superior in the grace and dignity of her +carriage. Madame Springtime, who had slightly enlarged her feet, at the +command of her husband, moved slowly and with a lack of grace +characteristic of the younger generation. Madame Chang moved ponderously +and with difficulty. Madame Chau hurried with quick, fluttering steps. +On occasion she would even run races with Alfred, our merry second son, +now two and a half years old. She would catch his hand, lean forward and +hurry him the length of the hall, the two of them laughing gaily. Now +and then I would fold my hands, balance on my heels and essay a "willow +walk," to the great amusement of Mother and Madame Chau. + +Life went on very evenly for me in my Chinese mother's house after my +husband's departure. His father had not come home for his semi-annual +visit, and the second son was away again. Even the quiet-mannered third +son, who looked just like his mother, and who used to bring me roses +from the garden every day, had sailed for the island port to take his +place in the family business. We were under a benevolent matriarchate in +the snug compound among the brown hills now brightening to springtime +green. + +Madame Liang was infallibly generous and kind. I never heard her speak +sharply except occasionally to servants who had by their carelessness +caused something to go amiss, impeding the smooth progress of daily +family life. I used to watch her with interest as she directed the +household affairs from the throne of her great bed. She rarely gave her +orders at first hand, but would summon a relative or an upper servant, +who would receive and pass them down to those for whom they were +intended. This imparted to her orders an empress-like finality and +importance. The servants gave her complete allegiance. + +She took great pride in conducting me through the complicated structure +where generations of Liangs had lived and died. Extending back from the +main establishment was a series of smaller ones like it, each with its +own courtyard, its main hall containing the family altar, its private +chambers opening on each side. Similar chains of "homes within a home" +extended east and west, at right angles to this central chain. Mother +showed me the rooms she had occupied as a bride, with the chamber where +Chan-King was born, when the older Madame Liang ruled affairs with a +firm yet kindly hand. I felt deeply moved by all this, more than ever a +part of the family. + +I made many small mistakes, I know, in my effort to practise the +toleration, industry and courtesy exemplified in that family group, but +Mother, unlike many of the over-sensitive, easily offended Chinese women +of her class, was divinely patient. She never asked of me anything that +she deemed unfitting for me and she showed a wise discrimination in all +the small tasks she assigned. I sometimes accompanied her to the temple, +or to the ancestral graves, but only as a spectator. Her religious +toleration required no compromise. She wanted me to see where +grandparents and great-grandparents were laid to rest. She knew I was +interested and filled with respect. To Madame Springtime fell the task +of caring for the family altar and keeping up the daily devotions before +the sacred shrine. + +This young wife was in every way so typical of the old-fashioned Chinese +woman, trained but not educated, disciplined but not broken, that I +found her a continual source of interest. She was naturally shy and +silent, but after a time we talked a little, and one day she showed me +her bridal trunks of white lacquer with red and gold decorations, filled +to the top with her bridal finery, exquisitely folded, and the clothes +for her first child, which had been provided by her parents as a part of +her wedding outfit. + +This latter custom of Chan-King's native province appealed to me. It was +typical of the many simplicities I found among my adopted people. Those +small, brilliant-coloured garments of padded silk and brocade and linen +were symbols of hope, good omens for happiness and a fruitful marriage. +Accustomed as I was to falsely Puritanic ideals concerning the important +realities of life--marriage and birth--their frank attitude toward +fundamentals, their unquestioning acceptance of the facts of existence +came as a pleasant surprise to me. + +I liked also the curious contrast between their simple view of +elemental things and the formality and rigour of their personal +etiquette. It is the manner of an old and ever cultivated race, who have +long since ceased building at the foundation and are now occupied with +the decorations of life. + +Their scheme of daily living is based on the firm belief that the normal +mode of human existence is family life. To this end it must be preserved +at any cost. Life cannot develop in discord. If the amenities are worth +anything at all, they are worth preserving constantly and at whatever +personal sacrifice. + +Life behind the arched gate was so pleasant and so filled with small, +daily occupations that I thought little of going about. The village had +no theatre. On festal days performances were given by travelling +troupes, on temporary stages, in temples or private houses. But we +occasionally attended the theatre in the great city near, and, when we +had guests staying with us for several days, they sometimes accompanied +us. We were rather an impressive sight, I fancy, borne at a brisk trot, +in half a dozen sedan-chairs, down the irregular path at dusk, preceded +and followed by menservants carrying lanterns. + +The children led a sheltered, happy existence, with servants and young +relatives to amuse them indoors or without, as the weather permitted. +They were liberally supplied, by their indulgent grandmother, with +pocket-money in the form of handfuls of coppers instead of the strings +of cash that sufficed an earlier generation. From passing venders they +bought bows and arrows of brightly painted bamboo, whistling birds and +theatrical figures of coloured earthenware, inflated rubber toys and an +endless variety of rice-flour cakes, sesame-seed confections, peanut +taffy and millet candy. On festal days the choice was wider than ever, +with fluffy bunches of sugar wool (fine-spun syrup) and brittle candy +toys blown from molten taffy with all the glass-blower's art, in the +form of lanterns, birds and fish, mounted on slender sticks. At certain +seasons, there were huge fish made of bamboo frames, paper-covered and +realistically painted, which swam in a breeze with lazy grace, or kites +similarly fashioned to represent birds and dragons which winged upward +in fascinating flight. + +There was a limited foreign settlement in this same city and several of +the American and British women came to call on me. Some of them were +frankly curious to know how I had come through the "ordeal by family," +as one of them expressed it, though of course they were very tactful. + +Mother was much interested in these visitors, many of whom--if able to +speak Chinese--I presented to her. When they left, she would often ask +questions as to their nationality, their husbands' occupation, the +number of their children. As for that question, most of them confessed +to one child or, occasionally, two. But I shall never forget the call of +a strikingly handsome, auburn-haired woman and the conversation that +followed her departure. In reply to the usual inquiry, I said, "No +children at all! But she has five _dogs_ and has just bought, in +Shanghai, two more, which are coming down on the next steamer." + +"No children at all, and five--_seven dogs_!" said Mother in tones of +horror. And then we burst out laughing. But quickly she grew sober. +"Foreign women do not care for children," she said. + +"I do," I protested. "I like many children." + +"You," said my mother with a smile, "are a Chinese wife." + +But happily my next caller was a sweet-faced American woman, the proud +mother of six, two of whom she brought with her. So our national +reputation was saved. + +In these days, I thought a great deal about intermarriage as a problem. +When in Shanghai, a returned student who stayed with us for several days +had said to Chan-King afterward, "I almost married an American girl +while I was in college. I wish now I had been brave enough to do so." At +that time I felt very sorry for the unknown girl who had missed all the +happiness that was coming to me, and now I was more sure than ever of +the true quality of my happiness. There was no doubt at all on that +score. But I realized the many, many ways in which everything might have +been spoiled. Had my husband been less considerate, less sincere and +loyal, had his family been less kindly and broad-minded, had I myself +been capricious and wilful or unable to adapt myself to surroundings, I +might every day have plumbed the depths of misery. I decided that no +rules could be made about intermarriage. It was an individual problem, +as indeed all marriage must be. So, when a young girl from home wrote to +me for advice, believing herself in love with a Chinese classmate, and +concluded, "You, Mrs. Liang, must settle the question for me," I +answered, as I should not have done a year earlier: "That is a question +that you two alone are competent to settle. No one can advise you +safely, for a mistake either way may result in lifelong unhappiness. But +I might venture to suggest that love strong enough to stand the test of +intermarriage does not seek advice. It is sure of itself." + +In a household where only my eldest son and I spoke English, my lingual +struggles were unexpectedly mild. Chan-King had left me a list of +everyday phrases, and my ear grew very keen in my constant efforts to +understand the rapid speech going on around me all day long. In a short +while I could understand virtually everything said to me. + +During the long conversations that Mother and I had in the quiet of the +evening, we talked much of Chan-King and she displayed treasured relics +of his boyhood: a small jacket of deep red velvet, a worn cap, a silver +toy and the identical schoolbook in which he began the study of English. +I loved them all, loved her the more for cherishing them and was made +supremely happy by being given a photograph of Chan-King at an earlier +age than any he possessed. She was very much interested in all our +photographs too. She was vastly amused at Chan-King arrayed for college +theatricals and, when I brought out pictures of myself at all ages, of +my parents and grandparents, she traced family resemblances with +unerring perception. Sometimes we looked at magazines that Chan-King +sent us from the capital or talked of various foreign customs. I soon +found it very easy to talk with her and with her help I learned also to +read and write simple Chinese characters, for a very liberal-minded +father had given her educational advantages enjoyed by few girls of her +generation. + +When the hands of her small ebony clock pointed to twelve, she would +touch my hand gently and say, "Time for you to sleep." + +"But first I must write to Chan-King," I would answer. + +She would shake her finger at me with kindly caution. "It is too late," +she would answer. "You must sleep." + +I would hold out firmly on this point. "But, my mother, if I do not +write to Chan-King, I cannot sleep!" + +She would assent then, and next day I would carry the pages to show her, +for my letters to Chan-King and his voluminous responses were a source +of much amusement to her. I translated these letters to her as +faithfully as my limited Chinese would allow, and in my letters always +added messages dictated by her. + +I was learning the romanized method of writing Chinese, which for our +dialect has been remarkably developed and standardized. Mother was much +interested when I showed her how to write familiar words with foreign +letters, and Chan-King always answered these messages in kind, though +his mother and he carried on a regular correspondence in the Chinese +characters. + +"Those children write long letters to each other, fifteen and twenty +pages at a time," she often told her friends with manifest delight. + +Beyond this personal companionship with my mother, which I enjoyed very +much, there was no restraint put upon me in any way. I was free to walk +out alone, to return calls and to shop in the city. + +My own sense of fitness prompted me always to present myself at the door +of my mother's apartment before I left the house, to explain to her the +nature of my errand and to ask for her approval. Accepting the little +formality for the courtesy it was, she never once demurred. She was +accustomed to this respect, and I saw no reason for withholding it. All +the invitations I received from acquaintances, either foreign or +Chinese, I declined or accepted as she advised, because I relied upon +her unfailing knowledge of people and social customs. + +Twice during those months of Chan-King's absence death came near. Once +it was a clever young boy, an only son, in whom high hopes had been +centred; and, then, the young girl who had accompanied Mother to +Shanghai. She was no servant in the ordinary sense, but an orphaned +distant relative of Mother's. Madame Liang was always kind and generous +with her, and when, soon after her return from the trip to Shanghai, +which had been a great event in her quiet life, a promising marriage +offer was made, she was sent forth to her new home with a complete +bridal outfit. Hearing at last of our presence in the family home, she +put on her wedding-dress of pale green and came to see me. Her evident +pleasure in the meeting touched me poignantly. With bright eagerness she +told me of her husband, her kind mother-in-law. With pride she described +her tiny son. After a gay hour with the children she left, promising to +come again. But I never saw her afterwards. Death took her abruptly from +her happiness. + +I began to think of death as something not so remote after all. Several +times a group of us--children and cousins and friends and servants--made +short chair-trips into the hills. The sight of thousands of graves, +their stones whitening the hillsides for miles in some places, impressed +me more and more with the comparative shortness of life. + +Scattered over many of these hills are curious monuments of stone, +called "widow arches," each one standing alone, usually by a roadside, +in commemoration of a faithful wife who, in ancient days, killed herself +at the death of her husband. A widow who wished to make this sacrifice +would, after a short lapse of time, announce her intention of committing +suicide. The members of her family would erect a high stage for her and +invite relatives and friends to attend the ceremony. At the chosen hour, +the lady would hang herself, and a high stone arch would later be +erected as a memorial of her devotion and heroism. + +In the Chinese family, the widow who does not remarry receives honour +and veneration second only to the mother-in-law. With age, she acquires +added authority. She is not forbidden to remarry, but the conditions of +second marriage are made difficult enough to discourage any but the +most intrepid. The children of her first husband remain in the house of +his people, and the family of her second husband do not give her any too +cordial a welcome. + +One naturally prefers free will in these things. Yet I had a +whole-hearted sympathy with the idea of life-widowhood, long before I +dreamed it was to be my portion. Painful as the sight of the "widow +arches" was to me at first, my convictions made the Chinese view of them +seem not unnatural, though I knew the custom had been forbidden by +imperial edict some two centuries earlier. + +Even in the days when Chan-King and I believed that our love would +somehow give us earthly immortality, the idea was strong in me that, to +those who loved truly, death could only extinguish the torch for a +moment to relight it in the clearer flame of eternity. Then, I cherished +this thought in the background of my mind. Now, I live by it. + +For this reason, too, I have always found the Chinese attitude towards +the dead very comforting. They never for a moment relinquish hold on +their loved ones. The anniversary of the day of death is as festal an +occasion as the day of birth. The pageant of life marches without a +break, birth to death and beyond, and birth again, the generations +endlessly touching mystical hands, until the individual feels himself to +be part of an endless procession that passes for a moment into a white +light and out again, feels himself touching those who came before and +those who come after--one of a long line, bound together irrevocably. + +With all their ethics of personal sacrifice and their preoccupation with +the idea of eternity, the Chinese have no ascetic contempt for the +material world and they earnestly desire and seek length of days. Among +the varied symbols and characters used to express good wishes--as +health, honour, riches--those for "long life" hold pre-eminence. They +are wrought in rings, bracelets, hair ornaments, and are sewed into +bridal garments and upon children's little coats and caps. I always felt +this enormous respect for life in all their daily customs--the preparing +of the baby clothes when the bride left her father's house, the +nurturing and strengthening of the clan with many children, the reverent +regard for the graves of the ancestors to whom the living owed their +grace of existence. + +On several occasions I accompanied my mother on her visits to the +ancestral graves. I remember the last time, only a few days before +Chan-King's return, that I walked with her, holding one of her hands, +while with the other she grasped her gold-headed cane. She wore a light +costume--a plaited black skirt and lavender "coat" and lovely black kid +shoes. Servants followed with her baskets of offerings. + +We stood at a respectful distance, in silence, while she performed her +rites. All about were placed papers, weighted with small stones. She +knelt and, clasping her hands, devoutly repeated her prayers under her +breath. Then, assisted by a servant, she burned the paper symbols of +refreshment and replenishment for the dead. Fire-crackers were exploded +to clear the air of evil spirits, and the ceremony was over. + +As we returned to the village, everywhere people called out to her from +their doorways and she invariably replied with friendly courtesy. In the +outskirts we stopped for rest and a visit to the house of a cousin. When +we left, many of the relatives and friends went with us a little way, +crying out repeatedly, "Good-bye!" and "Come again, come again soon!" I +saw the sunlight on Tiger Mountain; I smelled the saltness of the sea. +As we passed around the great boulders that hid them from our sight, the +modulated cadence of their "Come again, come again soon!" floated to +us. It was the last time I should hear it as I was then, and I did not +even dream that it was so. + +For a month I had been expecting the arrival of Chan-King. His letters +were always love-letters, with added paragraphs saying that he was +getting on well with his work and would have much to tell me of it when +he came home. At last a letter told us to expect him by a certain +steamer, on a certain day. But schedules were still in confusion because +of the war. That steamer was delayed, and Chan-King sailed for another +port, meaning to change there. More delays followed. More letters of +explanation. More delays again. Mother and I both became heart-sick with +hope deferred. At last, one morning, worn out with watching, I slept +later than usual, and on that morning Chan-King came home. + +Awakened out of a long drowse, I heard a stir in the quiet house, the +clang of a gong, a rush of padded footfalls in the outer hall. Happy +voices mingled in greeting at the door of my mother's apartment. I threw +on my robe, tucked Alicia under my arm and ran across the room, flinging +the door open even as Chan-King had his hand raised to knock at the +panel. I saw him dimly in the wavering light. He was smiling, and behind +him stood his mother, also smiling. Each of us solemnly spoke the +other's name, trying to erase, with a long look, the memory of all those +months of absence. Then he saw the baby. "Li-Sia, my thousand catties of +gold!" he said, in Chinese. Alicia smiled and held out her arms to him. +"She recognizes him!" said Mother, in pleased surprise. We three stood +together a moment, silently, gathered around the child. I felt myself +more deeply absorbed into the clan--a Chinese woman, dedicated anew, +heart and spirit, to my adopted people. + +Later, Chan-King explained to me the reason for his home-coming. His +legal service for the Government had been completed and his expected +appointment had come at last. We were to return to America, where he +would be in the Chinese consular service. After a period in this work, a +bright future in the diplomatic field seemed assured. It meant leaving +my beloved China, where I had firmly taken root. But we agreed that the +exile would be for only a few years and that we would return surely to +our Promised Land, there to enjoy our span of "long life with honour." + +Now our leisurely existence was broken up to a degree. Almost +immediately we set about preparations for our new life in America. +Chan-King looked forward with absorbing interest to the change, almost +as if he were going home. My instant reaction was one of joy, swiftly +followed by sorrow at giving up things now loved and familiar. I wanted +to appear cheerful, as a duty to those around me. I did not want to +seem too cheerful, lest Mother should think me glad to go. + +In this period, at last, I met my Chinese father. One beautiful day in +early autumn, Chan-King and I went down to the city, returning in +mid-afternoon. As our chairs were set down before the entrance, the +gatekeeper announced to Chan-King his father's arrival. I was filled +with swift apprehension. Again chance had decided my costume: I was +wearing, not the conservative Chinese garb in which I had met my mother, +but a frilly American dress of blue and white summer silk, a white lace +hat with black velvet and pink rosebuds and white kid shoes. Chan-King +had on white flannels and a Panama hat. The latter he handed to a +servant, as also his cane. As we entered the main room together, a +figure rose from beside Mother to receive us. I saw an elderly man of +medium height, with grim, smooth-shaven face and grey hair. He was +wearing a long gown of deep blue silk, with a black outer jacket and the +usual round cap of black satin. My husband first greeted him and then +presented me. While I stood uncertain, there was a courteous inclination +of the grey head, the grimness of expression dissolved in a wonderfully +winning smile, and, surprisingly, as Mother had done, my Chinese father +extended his hand. I felt that he was interpreting me in the light of +all she had told him, that his cordial handclasp and kindly words of +welcome were his ratification of her judgment. Then, with a courtly +gesture, he assigned me to his lately occupied chair beside Mother, +while he and Chan-King took seats together opposite us. Mother smiled +into my eyes with her happiest expression. I felt that Chan-King's +background was complete. Long before, I had conceived of it as harsh and +threatening, but I had now proved it to be wholly kind and protecting. +At my recent fear of this last test I wondered and smiled. + +Father was much gratified at finding his grandsons able to converse +fluently in his native tongue. He would gather them all about him for an +hour at a time, asking questions to test their practical knowledge, or +telling stories to amuse them. Alicia also delighted him. At simple +Chinese commands, she would now clasp her hands or fold them and bow +profoundly. Mother was very proud of her wee granddaughter and would +often say, "She is just as Chan-King was at her age!" And her husband +would invariably assent with an indulgent smile. There existed between +these two--conservative types though they were--an evidence of mutual +affection and respect, of real companionship, that touched me +profoundly. I was glad that Father was to be with Mother when Chan-King +and I took ourselves and our three children from the home where, +according to the old Chinese custom, we all rightfully belonged. + +The question of leaving one or more of our children there for a time was +discussed one afternoon later. + +"Under ordinary circumstances," said Father to Chan-King, "you would go +alone, as your brother does, leaving your entire family with us. At the +very least, you would allow one child to remain in your stead. But of +course your mother and I understand that these are not ordinary +circumstances. Your wife is an American. She has been considerate of our +point of view in many ways--more than we expected--and in this matter we +do not fail to consider hers, which is no doubt your own as well. We +understand that according to the American view the children belong with +their parents, always. We cannot, of course, deny your right to this +manner of living. But we want you to feel that, if you can leave even +one child with us, we shall be very happy. You understand what +protection and care will be given it." + +For a moment there was silence. My heart was very full, and, even had it +been my place to speak, I should have been unable to do so. Mentally I +pictured Mother's loneliness at losing so many of her children. Vainly I +tried to imagine our home in America with even one small face missing. I +watched my husband, noted the tiny traces of conflict in his face, +impassive perhaps to the casual glance. At last he spoke. + +"Father, mother," he began earnestly, "we do indeed appreciate your +great kindness and generosity. You will understand that, just as you +understand most truly our situation. We know that here with you our +children would have many advantages that we, perhaps, cannot give them. +But which one could we leave to enjoy those advantages? Not Wilfred, for +he is our eldest son, on whom we place great dependence. And Alfred--of +us all he seems least fitted for the southern climate. The summer heat +has left him a little pale and listless. He needs the sea voyage. As for +Alicia, she is the baby, and our only daughter. Do not think us +unmindful of all you have done. But I fear we should not know how to +make our home without our children." + +After all, it was evidently not unexpected. They shook their heads a +trifle ruefully at each other and then smiled. + +"Very well," Father assented. "But this you must promise: that at +intervals, whenever your work permits, you will come back--all of +you--and spend a year with us again. Do not let the children forget us +nor their Chinese speech. In four years, at most, all come back +together." + +We promised readily, Mother and I repeating the phrase to each other, +"In four more years, all come back together." Our eyes were full of +tears. + +That night I said to my husband, "We should have left one of them." + +But Chan-King was a clearer thinker, just then, and knew the truth of +this situation better than I did. "Which one?" he asked me +significantly, in a tone that made me see the essential hollowness of my +protest. + +On the Sunday before our ship sailed, Chan-King and I bade farewell to +China. In company with our parents and many other relatives we walked to +the top of a very high hill, where an old temple, which commanded a +magnificent view for miles around, crouched contentedly among the rocks, +in the grey sunshine. It was a temple of the three religions, with huge +stone images of Confucius, Buddha and Lao-tse grouped in its outer +court. Together, Chan-King and I climbed to the crest of the terraced +rock. I looked about me, down upon the proud, bright little village, +alert and colourful on the hill-side, upon the scattered fertile +patches in the midst of the barren mountains where tigers build their +lairs. The eternal hills swept the lowering, clouded skies, rolling away +from us, silent, shadow-filled. A surging love of the very soil under my +feet, a clinging to the earth of China, overwhelmed me. I wished to +kneel down and kiss that beloved dust. "Oh, Chan-King," I said, shaking +with emotion, "This is home! I wish we were not leaving, even for a +day!" + +"We will come again soon," he said, in Chinese, "and we will live here +when we are old." + +That evening we sat together in the quiet garden. From Mother's +apartments came the sound of her young nephew's voice as he chanted his +morrow's lessons. We heard the subdued merriment of two little maids, +teasing each other in the hall beyond. Along the outer path a +sedan-chair passed with rhythmic sway, the bamboo supports creaking a +soft accompaniment to the pad-pad of the bearers' sandalled feet. + +From varying distances came the clang of a brass gong, shuddering on the +stillness, the staccato sound of slender bamboo sticks shaken together +in a cylindrical box, the measured beat of a small drum-rattle, as the +different street venders announced their wares. Over the hills, now +purple in twilight, the round moon swung leisurely into the violet sky. +Strange breaths of incense were wafted about us. The sea-breeze stirred +the branches of a dragon's-eye tree close by, where the ripening +fruit-balls tapped gently against each other like little swaying +lanterns. For long moments we sat in silence, with clasped hands. + +Out of that silence my husband spoke softly, words I had long yearned to +hear: "Absence, Margaret, teaches many things. Once it showed you your +own heart. This time it has taught me to believe with you in the +immortality of love like ours. Physically, we may be separated at +times, but mentally, spiritually, you and I are one for all eternity." + +The moon rose higher, golden, perfect, even as our love. + +A few days later, we sailed for America. The rest may be told in a few +words, for, after all, no words could adequately tell it. A week after +our arrival in America, Chan-King was stricken with influenza. For +several years he had been in the shadow of a slow illness, but with +stout resistance and such buoyant recurring periods of good health that +we had for a time almost forgotten that early and sinister threat. But +those years of struggle were all thrown into the balance against him +when the decisive hour came. After six days, he died. Quietly, with +terrible implacability, death closed over him. We feared a sudden end, +it is true, but were still incredulous of such a calamity. We gave each +other what assurance we could: our ultimate farewells were simple +renewals of faith, a firmer tightening of our hands for our walk in +darkness. "Of all the world, you are my love," he said, many times. +"More than anyone else you have understood, you have been unfailing--you +have been my wife." And, almost as he spoke, my arms held no longer my +living beloved, but only the clay where his spirit had been and would +come no more. + +So, by the visible evidences, my history is finished. But it has begun +anew for me, not as I wished, not as I hoped, but on a level that I can +endure. For I have my children and my memories and my home in China, +which waits with the gentle healing of sight and sound and place ... and +I have learned that in love, and only in love, we can wring spiritual +victory out of this defeat of the body. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Chinese Marriage, by +Katherine Anne Porter and Mae M. Franking + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57382 *** |