My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard Part 6

But, first, I will astonish thee-- Ting-fang is home! Yes, I can hear thee say, "Hi yah!" And I said it many times when, the evening before last, after thy son and the men of the house-hold had finished the evening meal, and I and the women were preparing to eat our rice, we saw a darkness in the archway, and standing there was my son. Not one of us spoke a word; we were as if turned to stone; as we thought of him as in far-off America, studying at the college of Yale. But here he stood in real life, smiling at our astonishment. He slowly looked at us all, then went to his father and saluted him respectfully, came and bowed before me, then took me in his arms in a most disrespectful manner and squeezed me together so hard he nearly broke my bones. I was so frightened and so pleased that of course I could only cry and cling to this great boy of mine whom I had not seen for six long years. I held him away from me and looked long into his face. He is a man now, twenty-one years old, a big, strong man, taller than his father. I can hardly reach his shoulder. He is straight and slender, and looks an alien in his foreign dress, yet when I looked into his eyes I knew it was mine own come to me again.

No one knows how all my dreams followed this bird that left the nest.

No one knows how long seemed the nights when sleep would not come to my eyes and I wondered what would come to my boy in that far-off land, a strange land with strange, unloving people, who would not care to put him on the pathway when he strayed. Thou rememberest how I battled with his father in regard to sending him to England to commence his foreign education. I said, "Is not four years of college in America enough? Why four years' separation to prepare to go to that college? He will go from me a boy and return a man. I will lose my son." But his father firmly said that the English public schools gave the ground-work for a useful life. He must form his code of honour and his character upon the rules laid down for centuries by the English, and then go to America for the education of the intellect, to learn to apply the lessons learned in England. He did not want his son to be all for present success, as is the American, or to be all for tradition, as is the Englishman, but he thought the two might find a happy meeting-place in a mind not yet well formed.

But thoughts of learning did not a.s.suage the pain in my mother-heart.

I had heard of dreadful things happening to our Chinese boys who are sent abroad to get the Western knowledge. Often they marry strange women who have no place in our life if they return to China, and who lose their birthright with the women of their race by marrying a Chinese. Neither side can be blamed, certainly not our boys. They go there alone, often with little money. They live in houses where they are offered food and lodging at the cheapest price. They are not in a position to meet women of their own cla.s.s, and being boys they crave the society of girls. Perhaps the daughter of the woman who keeps the lodging-house speaks to them kindly, talks to them in the evening when they have no place to go except to a lonely, ugly room; or the girl in the shop where they buy their clothing smiles as she wraps for them their packages. Such attentions would be pa.s.sed by without a thought at ordinary times, but now notice means much to a heart that is trying hard to stifle its loneliness and sorrow, struggling to learn in an unknown tongue the knowledge of the West; in lieu of mother, sister, or sweetheart of his own land, the boy is insensibly drawn into a net that tightens about him, until he takes the fatal step and brings back to his mother a woman of an alien race.

One sorrows for the girl, whatever may be her station, as she does not realize that there is no place for her in all the old land of China.

She will be scorned by those of foreign birth, and she can never become one of us. Dost thou remember the wife of w.a.n.g, the secretary of the emba.s.sy at London? He was most successful and was given swift promotion until he married the English lady, whose father was a tutor at one of the great colleges. It angered Her Majesty and he was recalled and given the small post of secretary to the Taotai of our city. The poor foreign wife died alone within her Chinese home, into which no friend had entered to bid her welcome. Some say that after many moons of solitude and loneliness she drank the strong drink of her country to drown her sorrow. Perhaps it was a bridge on which she crossed to a land filled with the memories of the past which brought her solace in her time of desolation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mylady14.]

But I have wandered, Mother mine; my mind has taken me to England, America, to Chinese men with foreign wives, and now I will return and tell thee of thine own again, and of my son who has returned to me. When at last the G.o.ds gave us our breath, we asked the many questions which came to us like a river that has broken all its bounds. Thy son, the father of Ting-fang, was more than angry-- he was white with wrath, and demanded what Ting-fang did here when he should have been at school. My son said, and I admired the way he spoke up boldly to his father, "Father, I read each day of the progress of the Revolution, of the new China that was being formed, and I could not stay on and study books while I might be helping here." His father said, "Thy duty was to stay where I, thy father, put thee!" Ting-fang answered, "Thou couldst not have sat still and studied of ancient Greece and Rome while thy country was fighting for its life;" and then he added, most unfilially, "I notice thou art not staying in Sezchuan, but art here in Shanghai, in the centre of things. I am thy son; I do not like to sit quietly by the road and watch the world pa.s.s by; I want to help make that world, the same as thou."

His father talked long and bitterly, and the boy was saddened, and I crept silently to him and placed my hand in his. It was all I could do, for the moment, as it would not be seemly for me to take his part against his father, but-- I talked to thy son, my husband, when we were alone within our chamber.

The storm has pa.s.sed. His father refused to make Ting-fang a secretary, as he says the time is past when officials fill their Yamens with their relatives and friends. I think that as the days go on, he will relent, as in these troublous times a high official cannot be sure of the loyalty of the men who eat his rice, and he can rely upon his son. A Liu was never known to be disloyal.

There is too much agitation here. The officials try to ignore it as much as possible, believing that muddy water is often made clear if allowed to stand still. Yet they must be ready to act quickly, as speedily as one springs up when a serpent is creeping into the lap, because now the serpent of treachery and ingrat.i.tude is in every household. These secret plottings, like the weeds that thrust their roots deep into the rice-fields, cannot be taken out without bringing with them some grain, and many an innocent family is now suffering for the hot-headedness of its youth.

I sometimes think that I agree with the wise governor of the olden time whose motto was to empty the minds of the people and fill their stomachs, weaken their wills and strengthen their bones. When times were troublous he opened the government granaries and the crowds were satisfied.

But the people are different now; they have too much knowledge. New ambitions have been stirred; new wants created; a new spirit is abroad and, with mighty power, is over-turning and recasting the old forms and deeply rooted customs. China is moving, and, we of the old school think, too quickly. She is going at a bound from the dim light of the bean-oil brazier to the dazzling brilliance of the electric light; from the leisured slowness of the wheelbarrow pushed by the patient coolie to the speed of the modern motor-car; from the practice of the seller of herbs to the science of the modern doctor. We all feel that new China is at a great turning-point because she is just starting out on her journey that may last many centuries, and may see its final struggle to-morrow. It is of great importance that the right direction shall be taken at first. A wrong turn at the beginning, and the true pathway may never be found. So much depends upon her leaders, on men like Yuan, Wu, and thy son, my husband; the men who point out the road to those who will follow as wild fowl follow their leader. The Chinese people are keen to note disinterestedness, and if these men who have risen up show that they have the good of the people at heart much may be done. If they have the corrupt heart of many of the old-time officials, China will remain as before, so far as the great ma.s.s of her men are concerned.

I hear the children coming from their school, so I will say good-by for a time. Ting-fang sends his most respectful love, and all my household join in sending thee good wishes.

Kwei-li.

4 My Dear Mother, Dost thou remember Liang Tai-tai, the daughter of the Princess Tseng, thine old friend of Pau-chau? Thou rememberest we used to laugh at the pride of Liang in regard to her mother's clan, and her care in speaking of her father who was only a small official in the governor's Yamen. Thou wert wont to say that she reminded thee of the mule that, when asked who was his father, answered, "The horse is my maternal uncle." She comes to see me often, and she worries me with her piety; she is quite mad upon the subject of the G.o.ds. I often feel that I am wrong to be so lacking in sympathy with her religious longings; but I hate extremes. "Extreme straightness is as bad as crookedness, and extreme cleverness as bad as folly." She is ever asking me if I do not desire, above all things, the life of the higher road-- whatever that may mean. I tell her that I do not know. I would not be rare, like jade, or common, like stone; just medium. Anyway, my days are far too full to think about any other road than the one I must tread each day in the fulfillment of the duties the G.o.ds have given me.

Some people seem to be irreverently familiar with the G.o.ds, and to be forever praying. If they would only be a little more human and perform the daily work that lies before them (Liang's son is the main support of the Golden Lotus Tea-house) they might let prayer alone a while without ceasing to enjoy the protection of the G.o.ds. It is dangerous to over-load oneself with piety, as the sword that is polished to excess is sometimes polished away. And there is another side that Liang should remember, her husband not having riches in abundance: that the rays of the G.o.ds love well the rays of Gold.

But to-day she came to me with her rice-bowl overflowing with her sorrows. Her son has returned from the foreign lands with the new education from which she hoped so much, but it seems he has acquired knowledge of the vices of the foreigner to add to those of the Chinese. He did not stay long enough to become Westernised, but he stayed long enough to lose touch with the people and the customs of his country. He forgets that he is not an American even with his foreign education; he is still an Oriental and he comes back to an Oriental land, a land tied down by tradition and custom, and he can not adapt himself. He tries instead, to adapt China to his half-Europeanised way of thought, and he has failed. He has become what my husband calls an agitator, a tea-house orator, and he sees nothing but wrong in his people. There is no place in life for him, and he sits at night in public places, stirring foolish boys to deeds of treason and violence. Another thing, he has learned to drink the foreign wines, and the mixture is not good. They will not blend with Chinese wine, any more than the two civilisations will come together as one.

Why did the G.o.ds make the first draught of wine to curse the race of men, to make blind the reason, to make angels into devils and to leave a lasting curse on all who touch it? "It is a cataract that carries havoc with it in a road of mire where he who falls may never rise again." It seems to me that he who drinks the wine of both lands allows it to become a ring that leads him to the Land of Nothing, and ends as did my friend's son, with the small round ball of sleep that grows within the poppy. One morning's light, when he looked long into his own face and saw the marks that life was leaving, he saw no way except the Bridge of Death; but he was not successful.

His mother brought him to me, as he has always liked me, and is a friend (for which I sorrow) of my son. I talked to him alone within an inner chamber, and tried to show to him the error of his way. I quoted to him the words spoken to another foolish youth who tried to force the gates of Heaven: "My son, thou art enmeshed within these world's ways, and have not cared to wonder where the stream would carry thee in coming days. If thou mere human duties scorn, as a worn sandal cast aside, thou art no man but stock-stone born, lost in a selfish senseless pride. If thou couldst mount to Heaven's high plain, then thine own will might be thy guide, but here on earth thou needs must dwell. Thou canst well see that thou art not wanted in the Halls of Heaven; so turn to things yet near; turn to thy earthly home and try to do thy duty here. Thou must control thyself, there is no escape through the Eastern Gateway for the necessity of self-conquest."

He wept and gave me many promises; and I showed him that I believed in him, and saw his worth. But-- we think it wiser to send him far away from his companions, who only seek to drag him down. Thy son will give to him a letter and ask the Prefect of Canton to give him work at our expense.

I felt it better that Liang Tai-tai should not be alone with her son for several hours, as her tongue is bitter and reproaches come easily to angry lips, so I took her with me to the garden of a friend outside the city. It was the Dragon Boat Festival, when all the world goes riverward to send their lighted boats upon the waters searching for the soul of the great poet who drowned himself in the olden time, and whose body the jealous Water G.o.d took to himself and it nevermore was found. Dost thou remember how we told the story to the children when the family all were with thee-- oh, it seems many moons ago.

The garden of my friend was most beautiful, and we seemed within a world apart. The way was through high woods and over long green plots of gra.s.s and around queer rocks; there were flowers with stories in their hearts, and trees who held the spirits of the air close 'neath their ragged covering. Pigeons called softly to their mates, and doves cooed and sobbed as they nestled one to the other. We showed the children the filial young crow who, when his parents are old and helpless, feeds them in return for their care when he was young; and we pointed out the young dove sitting three branches lower on the tree than do his parents, so deep is his respect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mylady15.]

When the western sky was like a golden curtain, we went to the ca.n.a.l, where the children set their tiny boats afloat, each with its lighted lantern. The wind cried softly through the bamboo-trees and filled the sails of these small barks, whose lights flashed brightly from the waters as if the Spirits of the River laughed with joy.

We returned home, happy, tired, but with new heart to start the morrow's work.

Thy daughter, Kwei-li.

5 My Dear Mother, We are in the midst of a most perplexing problem, and one that is hard for us to cope with, as it is so utterly new. My children seem to have formed an alliance amongst themselves in opposition to the wishes of their parents on all subjects touching the customs and traditions of the family. My son, as thou rememberest, was betrothed in childhood to the daughter of his father's friend, the Governor of Chili-li. He is a man now, and should fulfill that most solemn obligation that we, his parents, laid upon him-- and he refuses. I can see thee sit back aghast at this lack of filial spirit; and I, too, am aghast. I cannot understand this generation; I'm afraid that I cannot understand these, my children. My boy insists that he will marry a girl of his own choice, a girl with a foreign education like unto his own. We have remonstrated, we have urged, we have commanded, and now at last a compromise has been effected. We have agreed that when she comes to us, teachers shall be brought to the house and she shall be taught the new learning. Along with the duties of wife she shall see the new life around her and from it take what is best for her to know.

I can understand his desire to have a wife with whom he may talk of the things or common interest to them both, a wife who can share with him, at least in part, the life beyond the woman's courtyard. I remember how I felt when thy son returned from foreign lands, filled with new sights, new thoughts in which I could not share. I had been sitting quietly behind closed doors, and I felt that I could not help in this new vision that had come to him. I could speak to only one side of his life, when I wished to speak to all; but I studied, I learned, and, as far as it is possible for a Chinese woman, I have made my steps agree with those or my husband, and we march close, side by side.

My son would like his wife to be placed in a school, the school from which my daughter has just now graduated; but I will not allow it. I am not in favour of such schools for our girls. It has made or Wan-li a half-trained Western woman, a woman who finds music in the piano instead of the lute, who quotes from Sh.e.l.ley, and Wordsworth, instead of from the Chinese cla.s.sics, who thinks embroidery work for servants, and the ordering of her household a thing beneath her great mental status.

I, of course, wish her to marry at once; as to me that is the holiest desire of woman-- to marry and give men-- children to the world; but it seems that the word "marry" has opened the door to floods of talk to which I can only listen in silent amazement. I never before had realised that I have had the honour of bearing children with such tongues of eloquence; and I fully understand that I belong to a past, a very ancient past-- the Mings, from what I hear, are my contemporaries. And all these words are poured upon me to try to persuade me to allow Wan-li to become a doctor. Canst thou imagine it? A daughter of the house of Liu a doctor! From whence has she received these unseemly ideas except in this foreign school that teaches the equality of the s.e.xes to such an extent that our daughters want to compete with men in their professions! I am not so much of the past as my daughter seems to think; for I believe, within certain bounds, in the social freedom of our women; but why commercial freedom? For centuries untold, men have been able to support their wives; why enter the market-places? Is it not enough that they take care of the home, that they train the children and fulfill the duties of the life in which the G.o.ds place women? My daughter is not ugly, she is most beautiful; yet she says she will not marry. I tell her that when once her eyes are opened to the loved one, they will be closed to all the world beside, and this desire to enter the great world of turmoil and strife will flee like dew-drops before the summer's dawn.

I also quoted her what I told Chih-peh many moons ago, when he refused to marry the wife thou hadst chosen for him: "Man attains not by himself, nor woman by herself, but like the one-winged birds of the ancient legend, they must rise together."

My daughter tossed her head and answered me that those were doubtless words of great wisdom, but they were written by a man long dead, and it did not affect her ideas upon the subject of her marriage.

We dare not insist, for we find, to our horror, that she has joined a band of girls who have made a vow, writing it with their blood, that, rather than become wives to husbands not of their own choice, they will cross the River of Death. Fifteen girls, all friends of my daughter, and all of whom have been studying the new education for women, have joined this sisterhood; and we, their mothers, are in despair.

What can we do? Shall we insist that they return to the old regime and learn nothing but embroidery? Why can they not take what is best for an Eastern woman from the learning of the West, as the bee selects honey from each flower, and leave the rest? It takes centuries of training to change the habits and thoughts of a nation. It cannot be done at once; our girls have not the foundation on which to build. Our womanhood has been trained by centuries of caressing care to look as lovely as nature allows, to learn obedience to father as a child, to husband as a wife, and to children when age comes with his frosty fingers.

Yet we all know that the last is a theory only to be read in books.

Where is there one so autocratic in her own home as a Chinese mother? She lives within its four walls, but there she is supreme. Her sons obey her even when their hair is touched with silver. Did not thy son have to ask thy leave before he would decide that he could go with His Highness to the foreign lands? Did he not say frankly that he must consult his mother, and was he not honoured and given permission to come to his home to have thy blessing? Dost thou remember when Yuan was appointed secretary to the emba.s.sy in London, and declined the honour because his mother was old and did not wish her only son to journey o'er the seas; he gave up willingly and cheerfully the one great opportunity of his life rather than bring sorrow to the one who bore him.

A similar case came to our ears but a few days since. Some priests of a foreign mission came to my husband and wished him to intercede, as Governor, and command the Taotai of Soochow to sell to them a piece of land on which to erect a temple of their faith. When the Taotai was asked why he was so persistent in his refusal to carry out the promise of the man before him in the office, he told the Governor that the temple where his mother worshipped was in a direct line with the proposed new foreign house of worship. His mother feared that a spire would be placed upon its rooftree that would intercept the good spirits of the air from bringing directly to her family rooftree the blessings from the temple. My husband tried to persuade him that the superst.i.tions of a woman long in years should not stand in the way of a possible quarrel with men of a foreign power, but the Taotai only shrugged his shoulders and said, "What can I do? She is my mother. I cannot go against her expressed commands;" and-- the temple to the foreign G.o.d will not be built.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mylady16.]

But it is as foolish to talk to Wan-li as "to ask the loan of a comb from a Buddhist nun." She will not listen; or, if she does, a smile lies in the open lily of her face, and she bows her head in mock submission; then instantly lifts it again with new arguments learned from foreign books, and arguments that I in my ignorance cannot refute.

I feel that I am alone on a strange sea with this, my household; and I am in deadly fear that she will do some shocking thing, like those girls from the school in Foochow who, dressed in their brothers'

clothing, came to Nanking and asked to be allowed to fight on the side of the Republic. Patriotism is a virtue, but the battle-field is man's place. Let the women stay at home and make the bandages to bind the wounded, and keep the braziers lighted to warm returning men.

I will not write thee more of troubles, but I will tell thee that thy box of clothing came and is most welcome; also the cooking oil, which gave our food the taste of former days. The oils and sauces bought at shops are not so pure as those thy servants make within the compound, nor does the cook here prepare things to my taste. Canst send me Feng-yi, who understands our customs? Thy son has no great appet.i.te, and I hope that food prepared in homely ways may tempt him to linger longer at the table. He is greatly over-worked, and if he eat not well, with enjoyment of his rice, the summer will quite likely find him ill.

Thy daughter and thy family who touch thy hand, Kwei-li

6 My Dear Mother, Thy letter came, and I thank thee for thy advice. It is most difficult to act upon. I cannot shut Wan-li within an inner chamber, nor can I keep her without rice until she sees the wisdom of her ways. The times are truly different; we mothers of the present have lost our power to control our children, and cannot as in former days compel obedience. I can only talk to her; she laughs. I quote to her the words of the Sage: "Is any blessing better than to give a man a son, man's prime desire by which he and his name shall live beyond himself; a foot for him to stand on, a hand to stop his falling, so that in his son's youth he will be young again, and in his strength be strong." Be the mother of men; and I hear that, that is China's trouble. She has too many children, too many thousands of clutching baby fingers, too many tiny mouths asking for their daily food. I am told, by this learned daughter of mine, that China has given no new thing to the world for many tens of centuries. She has no time to write, no time to think of new inventions; she must work for the morrow's rice. "How have you eaten?" Is the salutation that one Chinese makes to another when meeting on a pathway; and in that question is the root of our greatest need. I am told that we are a nation of rank materialists; that we pray only for benefits that we may feel or see, instead of asking for the blessings of the Spirit to be sent us from above; that the women of my time and kind are the ruin of the country, with our cry of sons, sons!

But if our girls flaunt motherhood, if this thought of each one for himself prevails, what will become of us, a nation that depends upon its worship of the ancestors for its only practical religion? The loosening of the family bonds, the greater liberty of the single person, means the lessening of the restraining power of this old religion which depends upon the family life and the unity of that life. To do away with it is to do away with the greatest influence for good in China to-day.

What will become of the filial piety that has been the backbone of our country? This family life has always been, from time immemorial, the foundation-stone of our Empire, and filial piety is the foundation-stone of the family life.

I read not long since, in the Christian's Sacred Book, the commandment, "Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy G.o.d hath given thee," and I thought that perhaps in the observance of that rule is to be found one of the chief causes for the long continuance of the Chinese Empire.

What is there to compare in binding power to the family customs of our people? Their piety, their love one for the other and that to which it leads, the faithfulness of husband to his wife-- all these, in spite of what may be said against them by the newer generation, do exist and must influence the nation for its good. And this one great fact must be counted amongst the forces, if it is not the greatest force, which bind the Chinese people in bonds strong as ropes of twisted bamboo.

Our boys and girls will not listen; they are trying to be what they are not, trying to wear clothes not made for them, trying to be like nations and people utterly foreign to them; and they will not succeed. But, "into a sack holding a ri, only a ri will go," and these sacks of our young people are full to overflowing with this, which seems to me dearly acquired knowledge, and there is not room for more. Time will help, and they will learn caution and discretion in life's halls of experience, and we can only guard their footsteps as best we may.

In the meantime, Mother mine, my days are full and worried, and I, as in the olden time, can only come to thee with my rice-bowl filled with troubles and pour them all into thy kindly lap. It is my only comfort, as thy son is bitter and will not talk with patience, and it would not be seemly for me to open wide my heart to strangers; but I know thou lovest me and art full of years and knowledge and will help me find the way.

Kwei-li.