Pearl Buck - Pavilion of Women

In a few minutes she heard Fengmo’s step. She knew the step of each son. Liangmo’s was slow and firm, Tsemo’s quick and uneven, and Yenmo ran everywhere. But Fengmo walked with a rhythm, three steps always quicker than the fourth. He appeared at the door of the library, wearing his school uniform of dark-blue cloth. On his head was a visored cap of the same cloth, and on the cap was a band giving the name of his school, the National Reconstruction Middle School.

Madame Wu smiled at her son and beckoned to him to come in.

“What is the meaning of this National Reconstruction?” she inquired half playfully.

“It is only a name, Mother,” Fengmo replied. He sat down on a side chair, took off his cap and whirled it like a wheel between the fingers of his two hands.

“It means nothing to you?” Madame Wu inquired.

“Of course we all want national reconstruction,” Fengmo replied.

“Without knowing what it means?” Madame Wu asked in the same half-playful manner.

Fengmo laughed. “At present I am having difficulty with algebra,” he replied. “Perhaps when I have overcome that I will understand National Reconstruction better.”

“Algebra,” Madame Wu mused. “In India several such studies were first devised and then found their way to Europe.”

Fengmo looked surprised. He never expected his mother to have any knowledge out of books, and Madame Wu knew this and enjoyed surprising him.

“You look pale,” she said suddenly. “Are you taking your tonic of deers’-horn powder?”

“It tastes worse than rotten fish,” Fengmo objected.

Madame Wu smiled her pretty smile. “Then don’t take it,” she said comfortably. “Why take what you dislike so much?”

“Thank you, Mother,” Fengmo said, but he was again surprised.

Madame Wu leaned forward, and her hands fell clasped into her lap. “Fengmo,” she said, “it is time we talked about your life.”

“My life?” Fengmo looked up and stopped whirling the cap.

“Yes,” Madame Wu repeated, “your life. Your father and I have already discussed it.”

“Mother, don’t think I will consent to your choosing a wife for me,” Fengmo said hotly.

“Of course I would not,” Madame Wu said quickly. “All that I can do is to bring certain names to you and ask you if you like any of them. Naturally I have considered your tastes, as well as the position of the family. I have put aside any thought of such a girl as the Chen family’s second daughter, who has been brought up in old-fashioned ways.”

“I would never have such a girl,” Fengmo declared.

“Of course not. But there is another difficulty,” Madame Wu said in her calm way. “The girls are also demanding much today. It is not as it was when I was a girl. I left all such things in my mother’s hands, and my uncle’s who took my dead father’s place. But now the girls — the sort you would want, Fengmo — do not want a young man who cannot speak at least one foreign tongue.”

“I study some English in school,” Fengmo said haughtily.

“But you cannot speak it very well,” Madame Wu replied. “I do not know that language myself, but certainly I hear you stammer and halt when you make those sounds. I do not blame you, but so it is.”

“What girl will not have me?” Fengmo asked angrily.

Madame Wu rode to her goal upon this anger as a boat rides the surf to the shore. “Madame Kang’s third daughter, Linyi,” she said, and while she had seen no interest pass between them, Fengmo’s present anger was enough. He was immediately interested.

“That girl!” he muttered. “She looks too proud. I hate her looks.”

“She is really very handsome,” Madame Wu retorted. “But that is not the important thing. I do not speak of her except as one of others. If Linyi, who knows our family and position, still objects to you, can we look higher?”

“You could send me away to a foreign school,” Fengmo said eagerly.

“I will not do that,” she replied in her pretty voice that was nevertheless as inexorable as sun and moon. “There will be war over the whole world in a few years from now. At such a time all my sons must be at home.”

Fengmo looked at her astounded. “How can you tell such things, Mother?”

“I am not a fool, though all the world around me are fools,” Madame Wu said quietly. “When certain steps are taken and none prevents them, then more steps are taken.”

The boy was silent, his eyes fixed on his mother’s face. They were large and black like hers, but they had not the depth of her eyes. He was still too young. But he did not speak, as though he were struggling to comprehend the things of which she spoke.

“I have heard there is a foreign priest here in the city,” she went on, “and he is a learned man. It is possible that for a sum he would teach you to speak other languages. For this are you willing? Foreign languages may serve you well some day. It is not of marriage only that I think. The times ahead are due for change.”

Her voice, so clear, so musical, was nevertheless full of portent. Fengmo loved and feared his mother at the same time. To him she was always right, and the few times that he had disobeyed her she had not punished him, but he was always punished nevertheless. Slowly and hardly he had learned that what she said carried wisdom. But, being a boy, he demurred for a moment.

“A priest?” he repeated. “I do not believe in religions.”

“I do not ask you to believe in religions,” she said in reply. “It is not of that we speak.”

“He would try to convert me,” Fengmo said sullenly. “Little Sister Hsia is always trying to convert everybody in the house. Whenever she passes me she hands me a gospel paper.”

“Do you need to yield to conversion?” Madame Wu asked. “Are you so weak? You must learn to take from a person that which is his best and ignore all else. Come, try the priest for a month, and if you wish then to stop his teaching, I will agree to it.”

It was the secret of her power in this house that she never allowed her will to be felt as absolute. She gave time and the promise of an end, and then she used the time to shape events to her own end.

Fengmo began to whirl the cap slowly again between his hands. “A month then,” he said. “Not more than a month if I do not like it.”

“A month,” Madame Wu agreed. She rose. “And now, my son, we will go to the night meal together. Your father will have begun without us.”

In the Wu household men and women ate at separate tables. Thus at the threshold of the great dining room Fengmo parted from his mother and went to one end, where his father and brothers and the men cousins were already seated, and Madame Wu walked with her usual grace to the tables where the women were seated. All rose at her approach. She saw at once that Ch’iuming had taken her place among them. The girl sat shyly apart from the others and held a small child on her knee. With this child still in her arms she rose and managed to shield her face with the child. But Madame Wu had taken a full look at her before she did this. The girl was grave, but that was natural in a strange household. It was enough that she was here.

“Please sit down,” Madame Wu said courteously to all and to no one. She took her own place at the highest seat and picked up her chopsticks. Meng had been serving the others, and Madame Wu put her chopsticks down again. “Proceed for me, please, Meng,” she said. “I have been busy all day with household matters, and I am a little weary.”

She leaned back smiling, and in her usual way she gave a word to each of her daughters-in-law, and she spoke to Meng’s little boy whom the nurse held. The child was fretting, and Madame Wu took her chopsticks and chose a bit of meat and gave it to him. Then she spoke directly to Ch’iuming.