Golden Lilies Read online

  It was most exciting for all of us, as we go rarely within the city gate. It was market day, and the streets were made more narrow by the baskets of fish and vegetables that lined the way. The flat stones of the pavements were slippery and it seemed our bearers could not find a way amongst the crowd of riders on horses and small donkeys, the coolies with their buckets of hot water swinging from their shoulders, the sweetmeat sellers, the men with bundles, and the women with small baskets. They all stepped to one side at the sound of the Ah-yo of our leader, except a band of coolies carrying the monstrous trunk of a pine tree, chanting as they swung the mast between them, and keeping step with the chant. It seemed a solemn dirge, as if some great giant were being carried to the resting place of the dead.

  But sadness could not come to us when shopping, and our eager eyes looked long at the signs above the open shopways. There were long black signs of lacquer with letters of raised gold, or red ones with the characters carved and gilded. Above a shoe shop was a boot made for the King of the Mountains, and in front of a pipe shop was a water pipe fit for his mate. From the fan shop hung delicate, gilded fans; and framing the silk shop windows gaily colored silk was draped in rich festoons that nearly swept the pathway.

  We bought silks and satins and gay brocades, we chatted and we bargained and we shopped. We handled jade and pearls and ornaments of twisted gold, and we priced amulets and incense pots and gods. We filled our eyes with luxury and our ahmas’ [maids’] chairs with packages, and returned home three happy, tired, hungry women, thinking with longing of the hissing tea urn upon the charcoal brazier.

  That crowded, bustling, threatening city seems another world from this, our quiet, walled-in dwelling. I feel that here we are protected, cared for, guarded, and life’s hurry and distress will only pass us by, not touch us. Yet—we like to see it all, and know that we are a part of that great wonder-thing, the world.

  I am your happy, tired Wife

  8

  My Dear One,

  I am carrying a burden for another that is causing me much sorrow. Do you remember Chen-peh, who is from my province and who married Ling Peh-yu about two moons after I came to your household? She came to me yesterday in dire distress. She is being returned to her home by her husband’s people, and, as you know, if a woman is divorced shame covers her until her latest hour. I am inexpressibly saddened, as I do not know what can be done. The trouble is with his mother and, I fear, her own pride of family. She cannot forget that she comes from a great house, and she is filled with pride at the recollection of her home. I have told her that the father and mother of one’s husband should be honored beyond her own. I can see that she has failed in respect; and thus she merits condemnation. We have all learned as babes that “respect” is the first word in the book of wisdom. I know it is hard at times to still the tongue, but all paths that lead to peace are hard.

  She will remain with me two nights. Last night she lay wide-eyed, staring into the darkness, with I know not what within her soul. I begged her to think wisely, to talk frankly with her husband and his mother, to whom she owes obedience. There should be not pride where love is. She must think upon the winter of her days, when she will be alone, without husband and without children, eating bitter rice of charity, though ’tis given by her people. I put her in remembrance of that saying of the poetry:

  Rudely torn may be a cotton mantle,

  yet a skillful hand may join it;

  Snapped may be the string where pearls are threaded,

  yet the thread all swiftly knotted;

  But a husband and his wife, once parted,

  never more may meet.

  I must not bring you the sorrows of another. Oh, dear one, there will never come between you and me the least small river of distrust. I will bear to you no double heart, and you will cherish me and love me always.

  Your Wife

  9

  My Dear One,

  I cannot wait until the seventh day to write to you again, as my letter to you yestereve was full of sadness and longing. Now I have slept, and troubles from a distance do not seem so grave.

  Your Honorable Mother has chided me gravely, but to my mind unjustly, and, as you know, I could not answer her words, though they pierced me “like arrows of white winged bows.” Poor Li-ti is in trouble again, and this time she has brought it upon herself, yet she cannot be blamed. I, as a head of the household, as your Honorable Mother has told me, should have protected her. I told you that she brought servants from her old home, and amongst them her childhood’s nurse, who, I am sure, loves Li-ti dearly; but, as many women who have little to occupy their hands, she loves to sit in the women’s courtyard and gossip. If it had stopped within the servants’ courtyard all would have been well; but at the time of Li-ti’s dressing all the small goods she had gathered during the day were emptied into the lap of Li-ti, who is too young to know that “as poison that reaches the blood spreads through the body, so does the love of gossip spread through the soul of woman.” I do not know how it came about, but comparisons were made between the households, that of her home and that of her husband, and news was carried back to the servants’ quarters until at last our household was in a state of unrest that stopped all work and made living quite impossible.

  It seems small, but it is the retelling of little calumnies that disturbs the harmony of kinsmen and ruins the peace of families. Finally I found it necessary to talk to Li-ti’s nurse, and I told her many things it was good for her to know. I warned her that if she did not wish to revisit her home province she must still her tongue. Things were better for a time, but they all commenced again, and I called her to my courtyard and said to her, “The sheaves of rice have been beaten across the wood for the last time. You must go.” Li-ti was inconsolable, but I was firm. Such quarrels are not becoming when we are so many beneath one rooftree.

  The servant went away, but she claimed her servant’s right of reviling us within our gate. She lay beneath our outer archway for three long hours and called down curses upon the Liu family. One could not get away from the sound of the enumeration of the faults and vices of your illustrious ancestors even behind closed doors. I did not know, my husband, that history claimed so many men of action by the name of Liu. It pleased me to think you may claim so long a lineage, as she went back to the dynasty of Ming and brought forth from his grave each poor man and woman and told us of—not his virtues. I should have been more indignant, perhaps, if I had not heard overmuch of the wonders of your family tree. I was impressed by the amount of knowledge acquired by the family of Li-ti. They must have searched the chronicles, which evidently recorded only the unworthy acts of your menfolk in the past. I hope that I will forget what I have heard, as sometime when I am trying to escape from your ancestors the tongue might become unruly.

  At the end of three hours the woman was faint and very ill. I had one of the servants take her down to the boat, and sent a man home with her, bearing a letter saying she was sickening for home faces. She is old, and I did not want her to end her days in disgrace and shame.

  But your Honorable Mother! Your Honorable Mother! Are you not glad that you are in a far-off country? She went from courtyard to courtyard, and for a time I fully expected she would send to the Yamen [official residence] for the soldiers; then she realized the woman was within her right, and so restrained herself. It nearly caused her death, as you know your Honorable Mother has not long practiced the virtue of restraint, especially of the tongue. She was finally overcome and taken to her chamber, and we brought her tea and heated wine, and tried in all our ways to make her forget the great humiliation. As she became no better, we sent for the man of medicine from the Eastern Gate, and he wished to burn her shoulders with a heated can [cup] to remove the heat within her. To this she objected so strongly that he hastily gathered his utensils and departed, looking fearfully over his shoulder from time to time as he passed quickly down the hillside.

  Then I thought of her favorite priest from the monastery d
own below, and sent for him. He came with candle and incense and, I think, some rose wine for which the monastery is justly famous; and he chanted prayers, striking from time to time a little gong, until peace was restored and sleep came to her eyelids.

  In the morning she wished to talk to Li-ti; but I feared for her, and I said, “You cannot speak of the ocean to a well frog, nor sing of ice to a summer insect. She will not understand.” She said Li-ti was without brains, a senseless thing of paint and powder. I said, “We will form her, we will make of her a wise woman in good time.” She replied with bitterness, “Rotten wood cannot be carved nor walls of dirt be plastered.” I could not answer, but I sent Li-ti to pass the day with Chih-peh at the Goldfish Temple, and when she returned the time was not so stormy.

  All this made me unhappy, and the cares of this great household pressed heavily upon my shoulders. Please do not think the cares too heavy, nor that I do not crave the work. I know all labor is done for the sake of happiness, and whether the happiness comes or not, I find less time to dream and mourn and long for you, my husband.

  Your Wife

  10

  My Dear One,

  We have been to a great festival at the Temple of the Goddess of a Thousand Hands. Your Honorable Mother decided that we should go by boat part of the way, so the chairs were told to meet us at the Western Village Rest House.

  We hired from the city one of those great pleasure boats, but it was not too great for us all. There was the August One, and four of her friends, then Li-ti, Mah-li, and myself. We took the cook, the steward, and three amahs, and it was indeed a time of feasting. It was the first time I had been upon the canal, and it was different from seeing it from the terrace. As we passed slowly along we could watch the life of the water people. On the banks were the great waterwheels turned by the village buffalo. In the deserted districts women were gathering reeds to make the sleeping mats and boat covers. The villages with their blue-gray houses and thatched roofs nestling among the groves of bamboo looked like chicklets sheltering under the outstretched wings of the mother hen.

  We pushed our way through the crowded waterways of the cities, where we could catch glimpses of the guests in the teahouses or the keepers of the shops, or could watch the children leaning over the balconies. On the steps between the houses that led to the waterside women were washing clothes or the dyers were cleansing the extra dye from the blue cotton that clothes all China’s poor. We caught small bits of gossip and heard the laughter of all these people, who seemed happy at their work.

  When we could again pass to the open canal we would watch the boats. I did not know there were so many boats in all the world. They floated slowly past us—big boats, little boats, those that went by sail, and those that went by oar. There were the boats of mandarins and merchants, those for passengers, and great unwieldy boats for rice. We saw the fishing boats with their hungry, fierce-eyed cormorants sitting quietly in their places, waiting for the master to send them diving into the water for the fish they may not eat.

  The canal was a great broad highway. Even the towpaths had their patrons. Travelers on wheelbarrows, rich men in sedan chairs, soldiers, coolies, chanting as they tramped along with their burdens swinging from the bamboo on their shoulders, all going to or coming from the great city to which we drew nearer with each stroke.

  At the rest house the bearers were awaiting us, and we were carried up the long paved roadway to the temple. It seemed as if all the world had turned to praying—all the world of women, that is. They were here, rich and poor, peasant and official’s wife, but in the temple all of a sisterhood. We descended from our chairs in the courtyard and put our spirit money in the great burner, where it ascended in tiny flames side by side with that of the beggar women, to the great God in the Heavens. We entered the temple, placed our candles, and lighted our incense. We made our obeisance to the Many-Handed Goddess and asked her blessing on our household for the year to come. Then I went to the Mother of Mercies, Kwan-yin, and made my deepest reverence, because for her my heart is full of love and gratitude. The other gods I respect and make them all due worship, but I feel they are far away from me. Kwan-yin is the woman’s God, and I feel her love for me. She shapes my way, and I know it is to her I owe it that my life flows on as a gentle stream, and I know that she cares for me and guards me now that you are away and I have no one on whom to lean. She is my Kwan-yin, my Mother of Mercy, and each day I do some little deed for her, some little thing to show remembrance, so she will know the hours are not too full or the days too short for me to place my offering on an altar built of love.

  As we turned to leave the temple I glanced back at the great dark chamber and I saw the God of Light, the Buddha, sitting there so calm upon his throne, with the light of many candles before him and clouds of incense that floated to the roof. I thought, “He is all powerful. I only prayed to him out of my lips, not with my heart. Perhaps—” So I returned. I prayed the mighty God with humble prayer to bring my loved one swiftly home to me; and then we left the temple. We walked slowly through the courtyards, looking at the great trees that stood like tall, grim sentinels guarding the place of prayer. Then we were taken by our bearers to the Goldfish Monastery in the hills. Do you remember it? You and I were there once in the springtime.

  We bought the small round cakes from the priests and fed the greedy fish. They swarmed over the pool, pushing, nudging, fighting one another to get the morsels we threw them. Tiring of that, we had tea and sweetmeats served upon the terrace; then, after chatting for a time, we left for the boat. We drifted slowly homeward. Your Mother and her friends discussed the earth, the moon, the sun and stars, as well as smaller matters, such as children, husbands, servants, schools—and as you know, it is a sore subject with her, this matter of the new education. I heard her say: “All my sons have book knowledge. Of what use is it in the end? The cock crows and the dog barks. We know that, but the wisest of my sons cannot say why one crows and the other barks, nor why they crow or bark at all.” Can you hear her, and see her shake her head dolefully over the dismal fact that you have left the narrow way of Confucius and the classics?

  We came to the pathway just at sunset, and as I looked up at the old palace a little hurt came to my heart that you were not close by my side. It lay so peaceful there and quiet, the curving roofs like flights of doves who had settled down with their wings not yet quite folded. It brought remembrance that for me it was an empty palace. I will see no one—as Li-ti will—within the archway.

  Your Wife Who Loves You

  11

  My Dear One,

  Your letter and the photographs received. You say it is a “flashlight” of a reception to your master, the prince. I do not know exactly what that means, but there seem to be many people and—ladies. I have not shown your Honorable Mother the picture, as she might ask you to return at once. I do not criticize your friends, nor could our prince go to a place not fitting to his dignity, but—the ladies seem in my poor judgment most lightly clad.

  The papers here are full of your reception in that foreign land and of the honor that is paid the embassy. Your brother read to all within the courtyard of the feasts that are given in honor of His Highness, and we were full proud, knowing well you stood close by him at the time. Your letters are a joy to me. We read them many times, and then I read those you sent to Chih-peh, which talk of things I do not understand. You must not give the boy foolish ideas, as he prates the most glibly of “republics” and “government of the people by the people,” after he has received your letters. That is for men of wisdom like you, but not for foolish boys to carry with them to the teahouse.

  Kwei-li

  12

  My Dear One,

  You asked me if I still care for you, if the remembrance of your face has grown less dear with the passing of days. Dear one, you know we Chinese women are not supposed to know of love, much less to speak of it. We read of it, we know it is the song of all the world, but it comes not to us unless by cha
nce. We go to you as strangers, we have no choice, and if the gods withhold their greatest gift, the gift of love, then life is gray and wan as the twilight of a hopeless day. Few women have the joy I feel when I look into my loved one’s face and know that I am his and he is mine, and that our lives are twined together for all the days to come.

  Do I love you? I cannot tell. I think of you by day and I dream of you by night. I never want to hurt you or cause you a moment’s sorrow. I would fill my hands with happiness to lay down at your feet. You are my life, my love, my all, and I am yours to hold through all the years.

  13

  My Dear One,

  It is the time of school, and now all the day from the servants’ courtyard I hear their droning voices chanting the sayings of Confucius. I did not know we had so many young lives within our compound until I saw them all seated at their tables. I go at times and tell them tales—which they much prefer to lessons—but of which your Honorable Mother does not approve. I told them the other day of Pan-gu. Do you remember him? How at the beginning of Time the great god Pan-gu with hammer and chisel formed the earth? He toiled and he worked for eighteen thousand years, and each day increased in stature six feet, and, to give him room, the Heavens rose and the earth became larger and larger. When the Heavens were round and the earth all smooth, he died. His head became mountains, his breath the wind and the clouds, his voice the thunder. His arms and legs were the four poles, his veins the rivers, his muscles the hills and his flesh the fields. His eyes became the stars, his skin and hair the herbs and the trees, and the insects that touched him became people. Does not that make you think of childhood’s days?