Golden Lilies Read online

  Since hearing my husband talk I see those babies with other eyes, with eyes of knowledge and dislike. I see them becoming one of the two great classes in Japan—merchants with grasping hand to hold fast all they touch, or men of war. There is no other class. ...

  We have a proverb, “Even a monkey falls”; and some distant day the Western world that thinks so highly of Japan will see beneath the surface and will leave her; the great pagoda she has built without foundation will come tumbling down like the houses of sand my children build in the garden. It will be seen that they are like their beautiful kimonos, which hang so gracefully in silken folds. But take away the kimonos, and the sons and daughters of that empire are revealed in all their ugliness—coarse, heavy, sensual, with no grace or spirit life to distinguish them from animals.

  Do I speak strongly, my Mother? We feel most strongly the action of the Japanese in this, our time of trouble. We have lost friends; the husbands, brothers, fathers of our womenfolk are lying in long trenches because of training given to our rebels by members of that race. I should not speak so frankly, but it is only to you that I can say what is within my heart. I must put the bar of silence across my lips with all save you; sitting here within the courtyard I hear all that goes on in Yamen, shop, and women’s quarters. One need not leave one’s doorway to learn of the great world. I hear my sons speak of new China, and many things I do not understand; my husband and his friends talk more sedately, for they are watching, thoughtful men, trying hard to steer this, our ship of state, among the rocks that now beset it close on every side. My daughters bring their friends, my servants their companions, and the gossip of our world is emptied at my feet.

  The clock strikes one, and all the world’s asleep except

  Kwei-li

  11

  Dear Mother,

  She is here, my daughter-in-law, and I can realize in a small degree your feelings when I came to your household. I know you were prepared to give me the same love and care that my heart longs to give this, the wife of my eldest son. I also know how she feels in this strange place, with no loved faces near her, with the thought that perhaps the new home will mean the closed door of a prison, and the husband she never saw until the marriage day the jealous guardian thereof. I have tried to give her welcome and let her see that she is heart of our hearts, a part of us.

  She is different from the young girls I have seen these latter days, different from my daughters, and—I may say it to you, my Mother—a sweeter, dearer maiden in many ways. She has been trained within the courtyard in the old-fashioned customs that make for simplicity of heart, grace of manner, which give obedience and respect to older people; and she has the delicate, high-bred ways that our girls seem to feel unnecessary in the hurry of these days. She takes me back to years gone by, where everything is like a dream, and I can feel again the chair beneath me that carried me up the mountainside with its shadowing of high woods, and hear the song of water falling gently from far-off mountain brooks, and the plaintive cry of flutes unseen, which came to welcome me to my new home.

  With her dainty gowns, her tiny shoes, her smooth black hair, she is a breath from another world, and my sons and daughters regard her as if she were a stray butterfly, blown hither by some wind too strong for her slight wings. She is as graceful as the slender willow, her youthful charm is like the cherry tree in bloom, and the sweet thoughts natural to youth and the springtime of life flow from her heart as pure as the snow-white blossoms of the plum tree. She does not belong to this, our modern world; she should be bending with iris grace above goldfish in the ponds, or straying in gardens where there are lakes of shimmering water murmuring beneath great lotus flowers that would speak to her of love.

  We are all more than charmed, and gather to the sunshine she has brought. As they knelt before us for our blessing, I thought what a happy thing is youth and love. “Kings in their palaces grow old, but youth dwells forever at contentment’s side.”

  But I must tell you of the marriage. Instead of the red chair of marriage, my new daughter-in-law was brought from the house of her uncle in that most modern thing, a motor car. I insisted that it be covered with red satin, the color of rejoicing; and great rosettes trailed from the corners to the ground. The feasting was elaborate and caused me much care in its preparation, as not only had been provided the many different kinds of food for our Chinese friends, but foreigners, who also came, were served dishes made expressly for them, and with foreign wines, of which they partook most liberally. The Europeans, men and women, ate and drank together with a freedom that to me is most unseemly, and I cannot understand the men who have no pride in their women’s modesty but allow them to sit at table with strange men close by their side. Behind the archway, we Chinese women “of the old school,” as my daughter calls us, feasted and laughed our fill, just as happy as if parading our new gowns before the eyes of stranger-men.

  Li-ti is delighted with your gift, the chain of pearls. It is a most appropriate present, for “pearls belong of right to her whose soul reflects the color of youth’s purity”; and I, I am so happy in this new life that has come to dwell beneath our rooftree. I had many fears that she would not be to my liking, that she would be a modern Chinese woman; and another one, oh, Mother of mine, would fill to overflowing my bowl of small vexations; but the place is perfumed by her scent, the scent of sandalwood, which represents the China that I love, and flowers of jessamine and purple hyacinths and lilies-of-the-valley, which speak to us of youth and spring and love and hope.

  Your daughter, who gives the messages from all your family, who touch your hand with deep respect.

  12

  My Dear Mother,

  I am sorry that you have been troubled by news of fighting within the province. All is well with us, as we sent you word by telegraph. If anything happens that touches any of your household, we will send you word at once.

  This town is a hotbed of rebellion, and it is all because the rebels have been enabled to perfect their plans through the existence of the foreign settlements. How I dislike these foreigner adventurers! I wish they would take their gilded dust, their yellow gold, and leave us to our peace; but they walk our streets as lord and masters, and allow the plotting traitors to make their plans, and we are helpless. If I were China’s ruler and for one day had power, there would not be one white man left within the borders of my country. We hear each day of friends who give their lives on the field of battle—these battles and this conflict that would not exist were it not for the foreign powers, who within these settlements, protect the low-browed ruffians who are plotting China’s ruin. ...

  These foreigners rate China low, who have never met a Chinese gentleman, never read a line of Chinese literature, and who look at you with ignorance if you mention the names of our sages. They see no Chinese except their servants, and they judge the world about them from that low point of view. I know a lady here who is a leader in their society, a woman who has lived within our land for many tens of years; when asked to meet a prince of our house imperial, she declined, saying she never associated with Chinese. A prince to her was no more than any other yellow man; she said she would as soon think of meeting her gate coolie at a social tea. How can there be a common meeting ground between our people and the average European, of whom this woman is a representative and who is not alone in her estimation of the people amongst whom she lives but whom she never sees? They get their knowledge of China from servants, from missionaries who work among the lower classes, and from the newspaper reports that are always to the disadvantage of our people. ...

  Poor China! She is first clubbed on the head and then stroked on the back by these foreigners, her dear friends. Friends! It is only when the cold season comes that we know the pine tree and the cypress to be evergreens, and friends are known in adversity. The foreigners who profess to be our friends are waiting and hoping for adversity to come upon us, that they may profit by it. They want our untouched wealth, our mines of coal and iron and gold, and
it is upon them they have cast their eyes of greed. ...

  Your son has been trying to settle a foreign case. Some men from America went to Ningpo, and talked long and loud of the darkness of the city, its streets dangerous in the nighttime, its continual fires caused by the flickering lamps of oil that are so constantly overturned by the many children. They told the officials that the times were changing, that to walk the streets with a lighted lantern in the hand is to lose step with the march of progress. They showed the benefits of the large lights of electricity blazing like a sun on each corner of the great city, making it impossible for robbers and evildoers to carry on their work in darkness. They promised to turn nighttime into day, to put white lights in Yamen, office, and household. There should be a light beneath each rooftree, at no greater expense than the bean-oil lamp. They were most plausible, and many thousands of silver dollars were brought forth and given to the men as contract money. They left us to buy machinery; the years have passed; they never have returned. Ningpo still has streets of darkness, men still walk abroad with lighted lanterns, the bean-oil lamp is seen within the cottage and—will be until the hills shall fade, so far as the officials are concerned, who once dreamed dreams of a city lit by the light as of myriad suns.

  “When a man has been burned once with hot soup he forever after blows upon cold rice”; so these men of China will think long before trusting again a foreigner with their silver.

  How can the missionaries have the face to come here with their religion, when the dissolute white man is in every port manifesting lust and greed and brutality, which Chinese are accustomed to associate with the citizenship and religion attributed to Christianity. No wonder it is hard for them to make converts among the people who have business dealings with these men from Christian nations.

  But China will not forever bear the ill-treatment of men from Western lands. She is awake to all the insults; she has learned in the bitter halls of experience. She sleeps no longer; she will rise in self-defense and fight aggression; and the nations who have misused her must remember that when she moves it will be the movement of a mighty people aroused by the thought of their great wrongs. She is peaceful and long-suffering, but she is different from the old-time China. She has now a national spirit that has been brought about by better means of communication between provinces. In the olden time it was difficult for one part of the empire to know the conditions in another. But now the telegraph and the daily newspaper come to all the smallest villages. I am sure that the watchman by your outer gate reads as he guards your household, and learns in far Szechwan what has happened today in Peking, or the southern city of Canton, and the news is discussed in the tea shops and on corners by men from farm and shop and office.

  The foreigners are mistaken in their belief that China can ever be united. She has been one for centuries, in beliefs, in morals, in education, and in religion, and now she will be more united in her stand against the hated white man who covets her treasures. She may quarrel with her brothers within her borders; but that is nothing but a family feud, and in time of danger from outside, like all families, she will unite to fight for her own until the last red lantern fades and the morning star is shining.

  Enough of politics and bitterness! I hear your son, who is coming for his evening cup of tea.

  Your daughter,

  Kwei-li

  13

  My Dear Mother,

  The times here are very bad; people are fleeing from the inland cities and coming to Shanghai by the thousands. The place is crowded to suffocation.

  Wu Ting-fang was here and talked long into the night with my husband. My son, who, I am afraid, does not think too highly of this great man, says that he is with the party that is “on top,” that he spends most of his time sitting on the fence—whatever that may mean. I drove past his house the other day and did not see him sitting on the fence, but on his veranda, calmly drinking tea.

  Sun Yat-sen has violated his word of honor and has joined the southern forces. We feel he has acted most dishonorably and (my son again) should have “stayed bought.” Gossips say he received many millions of taels, presumably for the railroads, but that was only an excuse to slip the money into his wide and hungry pockets.

  It is decided to send my son to Canton, into the office of the governor of that province. We are glad to get him away from Shanghai, which is a nest of adders and vipers, conspiring and raising their poisonous heads in the dark. One does not know whom to trust, or who may prove to be a traitor.

  Li-ti, his wife, wishes to go with him, and weeps the whole day through because we will not permit it. She is not well, and we tell her she will not really be separated from her husband, because, as the poets tell us, people who love, though at a distance from each other, are like two lutes tuned in harmony and placed in adjoining rooms. When you strike the kung note on one, the kung note on the other will answer, and when you strike the cho note on the one the cho other will give the same sound. They are both tuned to the same pitch, when the influence of the keynote, love, is present.

  I took my son aside the other night and said, “I am your mother and I want to speak words to you straight from the heart. You are to have the joy of work, and remember the pride of work lies in the thought ‘For me alone is the task.’ “I tried to make him understand that praise, glory, and honors are good, but they do not make for long life, and especially in these times it is better to work quietly without attracting too much attention. It is more safe, for “he who raises himself on tiptoe cannot stand, and he who stretches his legs wide apart cannot walk.”

  His father was especially anxious that he not be pierced with the arrow of treachery that poisons the blood and finds the weak spot in the armor of so many of our young men. He told him to keep himself above suspicion, to avoid those entangled in the nets of double dealing of whom one is uncertain, because “the red glow of the morning sun seems to stain even the pure whiteness of the new-fallen snow.”

  Why, Mother of mine, did you send the old priest from the temple down here? He abides in the courtyard, squatting on his heels, serving the spirits neither of Heaven nor of earth, but he sits and talks and talks with the women of the courtyards. There are some of them I would send to a far-off province, especially Fang Tai, the mother of our gateman.

  “A woman with a long tongue is a flight of steps leading to calamity.”

  This priest of yours has been quarreling with her now over the question of the son of Wong Tai, who is accused of being on too friendly terms with some of the leaders of the rebellion. He made the unfortunate remark that perhaps the man was innocent but “one does not arrange his headdress under an apricot tree, nor his foot gear in a melon patch, if he wishes to be above suspicion,” and this simple remark has called down upon his priestly head the wrath of all the women. I think he will go to the monastery within the city to pass the night—at least if he has wisdom equal to his years.

  Yesterday I thought that I might make some use of him, and I felt when he was working he would not be stirring up the courtyards. I bade him write the Sage’s words upon a scroll of satin for my boy to take with him to his new home. He did it very beautifully, as he is a real artist with the brush. This is the reading of the scroll:

  There are three things for a man to guard against:

  The lusts of the flesh in early years,

  The spirit of combativeness in middle-age,

  And ambition as the years go on.

  There are three things to command your reverence:

  The ordinances of Heaven,

  Great men, and the words of the sages.

  There are three times three things to be remembered:

  To be clear in vision,

  Quick in hearing,

  Kindly in expression,

  Respectful in demeanor,

  True in word,

  Serious in duty,

  Inquiring in doubt,

  Self-controlled in anger,

  And just and fair when the chair of
success is before your door.

  I made a roll of it and placed it upon his desk, and when he opened it he found within another scroll of silk, the same in color, size, and finish, written by his most unfilial sisters, which read:

  Remember that thou art young.

  What thou dost know is not to be compared

  With what thou dost not know.

  It made him angry at first, but I do not know but that the shorter scroll contains the greater wisdom.

  I am anxious for this boy of mine, who is starting to sail his ship of manhood across the Broad River of Life in these most perilous times. I think he is strong enough to conquer all, but I have lighted candles and bought fine incense to persuade the gods to temper winds to untried hands.

  Your daughter,

  Kwei-li

  14

  My Dear Mother,

  I have not written you for several days. We are in Nanking, where my husband is presiding at a meeting of the officials in order to discuss the question of a compromise, or to try in some way to settle the questions that are causing this dreadful rebellion, without more loss of life. He is also acting as judge in the case of some of the men who have been caught pillaging and destroying the homes of innocent people. It is hard for him to act with strict justice, remembering the many friends he has lost, and it is necessary to see things without their individuality in order to be wise in all judgments. I came, ostensibly to see the friends of my childhood, but really to take care of your son and see that he eats with regularity and takes his rest. He is working far too hard. He gives himself to whatever task arrives, greedy for the work, like one who lusts in the delight of seeing tasks accomplished. But he is trusted by all, both sides agreeing to rest on his decisions, all realizing that personal feeling is put far into the background of his mind when the interests of new China are at stake.