Pearl Buck - Pavilion of Women

When Ying came in with the morning’s tea and sweetmeats she said after greeting, “As soon as I have eaten I will talk with that old Liu Ma.”

“Yes, Lady,” Ying said sadly.

In silence she helped Madame Wu to rise and dress. She brushed the long satin-smooth hair and coiled it, and then she went away and came back with Madame Wu’s breakfast. All this time she did not speak a word, nor did Madame Wu speak either. She let herself be dressed, her thin beautiful body as limp as a doll’s in Ying’s hands. But she ate well and felt content.

She had scarcely finished the last sup of tea when Ying brought Liu Ma. Be sure Liu Ma knew already why she had been called. She had her paid spies in every rich household to tell her when discontent rose between men and women. Her flat broad nose had as delicate a scent for mating man and woman as a hound’s has for wild flesh. Thus she knew that a concubine was to be found for Mr. Wu. But she was too knowing to let Madame Wu see that she had any such knowledge. Instead she pretended that of course the reason for this meeting was that Madame Wu must want to betroth Fengmo, her third son.

But Madame Wu was wise also in the ways of human beings, and she was sure that Liu Ma knew everything from servant’s mouth to servant’s ear, and so she allowed Liu Ma to think she was deceiving.

“You are early, Lady,” Liu Ma panted as she came in. She was a short fat woman who in her girlhood had been in a flower house. But she grew fat very early and found that she could earn more money by bringing other women to men than herself, and so she had married a small shopkeeper, giving him for dowry the money she had saved, and she took up the profession of go-between for good families.

“I like the early morning,” Madame Wu replied gently.

She did not rise since Liu Ma was her inferior, but she motioned the old woman kindly to a seat, and Ying poured tea for her and went away.

Liu Ma supped her tea loudly. She made no remark on Madame Wu’s having moved to this court. Instead she said in her hoarse voice, “You are more beautiful than ever. Your lord is very lucky.”

This she said by way of introducing the subject of concubines. For now, she thought, Madame Wu would sigh and say, alas, that her beauty stood her in no stead. But Madame Wu only thanked her.

Liu Ma took out a square of white cotton cloth and coughed into it. She knew better than to spit on the floor in this house. Everyone knew that Madame Wu was as particular as a foreigner in such matters. Then she began again.

“I thought that you might be wanting a fine young girl for your third son, and so I brought some pictures with me.”

She had on her knees an oblong package tied up in a blue cotton kerchief. This she untied. Inside was an old foreign magazine which had pictures of motion picture actresses. She opened this and took out some photographs.

“I have now three young girls, all very good bargains,” she said.

“Only three?” Madame Wu murmured, smiling.

This old Liu Ma always roused her secret laughter. Her merchandise was the passion between men and women, and she bartered it as frankly as though it were rice and eggs and cabbage.

“I do not mean to say three is all I have,” Liu Ma made haste to reply. “Surely I have as good clients as any other go-between in the city. But these are my very best. These three young girls have good families who are able to give money and the finest furniture and wedding garments.”

“Let me see that foreign book,” Madame Wu said. Now that the moment had come to choose a woman to take her place she felt half-frightened. Perhaps she had undertaken more than she knew.

“None of those young women are mine,” Liu Ma said. “They are only the electric shadow of women in America.”

“I know that,” Madame Wu said, laughing her soft laughter. “I am only curious to see what the foreigners think is beautiful in a woman.”

She took from Liu Ma the paper book she held out. It was soiled but not wrinkled, for Liu Ma prized it. Neither of them could read the foreigners’ language and so the names were unknown to them.

Madame Wu turned the pages and gazed at one gay face after another. “They all look alike,” she murmured, “but then all foreigners do look alike, of course.”

Liu Ma laughed loudly. “Certainly Little Sister Hsia does not look like these,” she said. “I could marry off these, but not Little Sister Hsia!” Everybody in the city knew Little Sister Hsia, and jokes about her were told over counters, in shops, and in courtyards and teashops. All declared her good at heart, but they relished their laughter nevertheless. Only her one servant, an old man, defended her.

“Do not tell me you can understand what she says,” a fish man at the market had teased the old man, while he weighed a small fish for Little Sister’s noon meal.

“I can,” the old man had sworn. “If I know what she is going to say, I can even understand her easily.”

“Little Sister Hsia is a nun,” Madame Wu replied to Liu Ma. “A foreign nun. Nuns are not women. Where did you get such a book as this?”

“I bought it,” Liu Ma said proudly. “A friend was going to Shanghai some five or six years ago, and I said I wanted such a book and he brought it back. I paid five dollars for it.”

“Why did you want a book of foreign women?” Madame Wu inquired.

“Some men like to look at such faces,” Liu Ma explained. “It rouses their desire and gives me business. Then also there are the new men who want modern women, and they point to one of these and say ‘I want one like this.’ I find a girl somewhere who will make herself look as near as she can to the one chosen.”

Madame Wu closed the book quickly and gave it back to Liu Ma. “Let me see the three photographs,” she said.

She took them without touching Liu Ma’s dirty old hand and looked at them, one by one.

“But these three faces also look alike,” she objected.

“Do not all young girls look alike?” Liu Ma retorted. “Bright eyes, shining hair, little noses and red lips — and if you take off their clothes what difference is there between one woman and another?” Her belly shook with laughter under her loose coat of shoddy silk. “But we must not tell the men that, my precious, else my business will be gone. We must make them think that each young girl is as different from another as jade is from pearls — all jewels, of course!” Her belly rumbled with her laughter.

Madame Wu smiled slightly and put the photographs down on the table. The young faces, all pretty, all set in smooth black hair, looked up at her. She turned them over, faces down.

“Have you any girls whose families live at a distance?” she asked.

“Tell me exactly what you want,” Liu Ma said. She felt now that they were coming to the heart of this hour, and she put her entire shrewd mind upon the matter.

“I seem to see the woman I want,” Madame Wu said, half-hesitating.

“Then she is as good as found,” Liu Ma said eagerly, “if she is on the earth and not already gone to Heaven.”

“A young woman,” Madame Wu said, still in the same half-hesitating voice. She had not faltered at all before her family in speaking of the young woman, but before this hard old soul who dealt in men and women as her trade, she knew she could hide nothing.

Liu Ma waited, her sharp small eyes fixed on Madame Wu’s face. Madame Wu turned her head away and gazed into the court. It was a fine morning, and the sun lay on the newly cleaned stones, and they showed faint colors of pink and blue and yellow.

“A pretty woman,” Madame Wu said faintly, “very pretty but not beautiful. A girl — a woman, that is — about twenty-two years old, round-cheeked and young and soft as a child, ready in her affection to love anybody and not just one man — someone who does not, indeed, love too deeply any man, and who will, for a new coat or a sweet, forget a trouble — who loves children, of course, good-tempered — and whose family is far away so that she will not be always crying for home—”