Pearl Buck - Pavilion of Women

“Linyi does not mind that,” Madame Kang said heartily. “She dared not tell you, Ailien, but she hated those lessons, and she disliked the priest. She says he was always talking his religion.”

“But he never taught her his religion,” Madame Wu said with indignation. “I forbade his teaching Fengmo, and certainly he would not have taught Linyi. He understood my feelings.”

“It was not about gods that he spoke,” Madame Kang yielded thus far. “But he kept telling her how she should think and how she ought to feel toward her husband and toward you and toward all with whom she met and with whom she lived under the roof.”

“That was not religion,” Madame Wu said.

“She was made uncomfortable just the same,” Madame Kang said. “She said it made it hard for her to eat and sleep.”

“Ah, a good teacher does stir the soul,” Madame Wu said quietly.

“If Fengmo has grown like that foreign priest,” Madame Kang said, yawning, “it will go hard between them.”

She stared about the court, and Madame Wu saw that she wanted something.

“Are you in need, Meichen?” she inquired courteously.

“At this time I usually sup a bowl of rice and beans stewed together with chicken broth,” Madame Kang said. “I feel empty.”

One by one all who had been sent away were now drifting back into the courts. First the children ran in to play and no child in Madame Kang’s house was ever forbidden for long what it wanted. Then wet nurses ran after the children, and when they picked them up the children screamed and Madame Kang called out, “Let them be, then!”

The maids came back and the gruel was brought, and Madame Wu refused to share it, and Madame Kang supped it down loudly and let this child and that one drink from the side of the bowl, after she had blown it cool for them.

Madame Wu rose to go away again. She told herself that it might be her last visit to the house and perhaps she would never see her old friend again. They had parted already, long ago.

Nevertheless she had learned something from her visit, and she was not sorry she had come. André had taught Linyi her duty, and she would discover what he taught her.

All else Madame Wu now put aside in this expected coming of Fengmo. The temple children must wait for their school, and she would let Rulan and Ch’iuming wait. Her first duty was to prepare Linyi for her husband.

This she could do easily enough, for it was within her right to ask that her daughter-in-law come and visit her. In so great a house as this it was often that Madame Wu did not speak to one certain member for many days at a time, and so it had been with Linyi. She saw the girl almost daily at the main family meal, and she saw her at festivals and on days of honoring the ancestral tablets, and on all such family occasions. But she had no reason to ask for Linyi’s presence. The girl had lived in the house, been waited upon by the servants, had visited her sister, and idled her time away, except for the few duties which Madame Wu assigned on the written scroll for the arrangement of the household at the beginning of each season. Thus Madame Wu had marked for Linyi such duties as feeding the goldfish, placing flowers in the main hall, airing and sunning Fengmo’s fur garments and satin robes, and the supervision of the court where she lived, while Fengmo was away, with an old woman servant she had brought from home. Once or twice the girl had been ill, and Meng had tended her and had sent word to Madame Wu when she was well, and that was all that Madame Wu knew.

Now she must know much more. She did not deceive herself that it was all purely for her son’s sake. She wanted herself to hear from Linyi what André had taught her. She wanted to hear his very words, as well as to know how they had taken root in this young woman’s heart.

So Linyi came in, dressed and painted and powdered, and the ends of her hair were curled. Madame Wu welcomed her with her usual smile and the gesture of her hand which invited her to sit down and be at ease. She looked at Linyi from head to foot before she spoke. The young woman was very pretty, and she knew it and did not fear Madame Wu’s gaze. Madame Wu smiled at the bold innocent eyes. Were they not innocent? Yes, but they were also mischievous and idle and careless and gay.

“I smile when I think how times change,” Madame Wu said. “When I was a young girl, I would have wept to see the ends of my hair curled. To be straight and smooth and black — that was then considered beauty for the hair. But now curls are beautiful, are they? Meng must be glad, since her hair curls itself. But I believe Meng wishes it did not.”

Linyi laughed and showed small white teeth and a red tongue. “I think Fengmo will be used to curly hair,” she said in her fresh high voice. “All foreign women have curly hair.”

“Ah,” Madame Wu said. She looked suddenly grave. “Tell me why you have always been so fond of what is foreign.”

“Not of everything foreign,” Linyi said, pouting. “I was never fond of that hairy old priest.”

“But he was not old,” Madame Wu said in a low voice.

“To me he was old,” Linyi said. “And hairy — ah, how I hate hairy men!”

Madame Wu felt this talk was unbecoming to them both. She considered how to begin otherwise. “But he taught you very well,” she suggested. “I believe what he taught you was full of goodness and I should like you to recall it for me, if you please.”

When she said these words, “if you please,” it was in such a tone of voice that Linyi knew she must obey, and it was not whether she pleased. She frowned and drew down her long narrow brows and twisted one end of her black hair about her finger.

“I haven’t tried to remember,” she said, “but he was always saying that Fengmo was born to do a great work, and that my part in it was to make him as happy as I could so that he could work better.”

“How are you to make him happy?” Madame Wu inquired.

“He said I must find out the stream of Fengmo’s life,” Linyi said unwillingly, “and he told me I must clear away the straw and the sticks and things which hinder the flow, and I must do all I can to let the water rise to its level. The priest said I mustn’t be like a rock thrown into the clear stream and dividing it. I must not divide Fengmo’s life.”

Yes, Madame Wu thought, these could be André’s words. Knowing the mind of the girl, he would use such simple words and pictures. “Go on, my child,” she said gently. “These are good words.”

Linyi went on. She dropped the curl and her eyes were pensive as she talked. “And he said I must read books about what Fengmo did, and I must understand his thoughts. He said Fengmo would be lonely all his life if I did not follow closely behind him. Fengmo needs me, he said.”

She returned her eyes to Madame Wu’s face. “But I am not sure if Fengmo knows he needs me,” she said.

Madame Wu met the childlike gaze. “Do you love him?” she asked.

It was an amazing question for a lady to ask her son’s wife. Who besides Madame Wu would have cared? Tears filled Linyi’s eyes. “I could love him,” she whispered, “if he loved me.”

“Does he not love you?” Madame Wu asked.

Linyi shook her head so hard that the tears fell out of her eyes and lay in drops on the pale blue satin of her robe.

“No,” she whispered, “Fengmo does not love me.”

With these words she bent her head on her two hands and wept. Madame Wu waited. She knew that nothing was so good for woman’s troubles as tears. How often had she not longed to weep and could not!

She waited until Linyi’s sobs grew softer and then silent, before she spoke. “Ah,” she said, “Fengmo does not love anybody. That is his lack. We must heal it. I will help you, my child.”