 CHAPTER 3 OF MY CHINESE MARRIAGE I clasped my hands in the Chinese way, smiled and bowed. My Chinese mother rose at once and took a step toward me, balancing on her tiny feet with the aid of a thick, gold-headed cane. I saw that she was unusually tall. Then surprisingly she extended her hand, American fashion, and I shook it, the eyes of each of us still searching the other's face. I saw in hers the look I needed for reassurance, the mingled kindness and apprehension, a trace of the anxiety that I am sure was the very counterpart of my own expression. I knew then that her heart was no more certain than mine was, and that this meeting was as important to her as it was to me. A Qing brought forward my chair, and we sat down together, smiling at each other, letting our gestures speak for us. Finally she stretched forth her right hand, palm down, measuring the height of a small child from the floor, inclining her head toward me, her eyebrows up in a question. I made a pillow of my two hands, laid my head upon it, eyes closed, and then pointed up. We were both delighted at this simple pantomime. The elderly man, her cousin, looked pleased in sympathy and even the three solemn servants smiled a little. She asked me in gestures where my husband was, I waved widely and comprehensively toward the street in the general direction of the city. She nodded, settling back a trifle, drawing a long breath. We had reached the end of our power to converse without the aid of an interpreter. When I heard Chang King's ring at the gate I hurried out to meet him with the news. He was even more excited than I was, and hastened ahead of me to the house. I walked very slowly in order that they might have their first greeting undisturbed, and when I arrived they were beaming upon each other and talking the south province dialect over a very sleepy and cherubic infant, whom Chang King with paternal pride had ordered down to greet his grandmother at once. The retinue settled, Chang King informed me that our mother would remain with us for six weeks. During this time I learned the art of pantomime beyond anything I had ever hoped for in one of my undemonstrative nature. My Chinese mother and I conversed with eyebrows, hands, smiles, noddings and shakings of head, much turning of eyes. I had an instant affection and admiration for her, and she adopted toward me a gently, confidential attitude that pleased me very much. She had brought presents for us in the Chinese way. For me a delicately wrought chain of Chinese gold in a box of carved sandalwood. For Wilfred a dozen suits of Chinese clothes in the bright patterns worn by children of the Orient, and so becoming to the proud we-men that arrayed in them he seemed already to be coming into his heritage. She also brought great hampers of fresh fruits, pomelos, lichis and dragon-size, and countless jars of preserved fish and meats and vegetables, which had been Chang King's favourites when he was a boy at home. Madame Liang had the Chinese woman's love for shopping, accompanied by her cousin and the servants. We went from silk-emergent to porcelain-dealer, and from brass-worker to rug-weaver, gathering treasures. Though she carried on most of her negotiations through her cousin, she bargained with the firmness and a sense of values that I admired very much. In the silk-shops she bought marvellous braided satins and embroidered silks, and she had me select the pattern I wanted for myself. Though she preserved most carefully the distinctive features of the dress of her own province, she was much interested in Shanghai styles and examined my wardrobe critically, noting the short sleeves with tight-fitting undersleeves, and the skirts with seven plates, not five as in Canton, for example, at each side. Notwithstanding the popular Western fancy that fashions never change in China, the Chinese woman is painstakingly particular as to the exact length and fullness or scantiness of her coats, skirts, and trousers. She is carefully precise about the width of bias bands or braid or lace that she uses for trimming, the number and arrangement of fastenings, the shape and height of her collar. All of these details vary as tyrannically from season to season, under Shanghai guidance, as certain style features do with us under the leadership of New York or Paris. Moreover as against our four seasons, the fashion devotee of China takes account of eight, each with its appropriate style and weight of clothing. At home mother sewed a great deal using her hands gracefully and very competently, in spite of the long curved fingernails on her left hand. My American sewing machine fascinated her. She had an excellent hand-powered machine at home, Chan King explained. But mine worked with the treadle, and she wished to try it. I took the tiny brightly shot feet in my hands and set one forward and one backward on the iron trellis, and she moved them very well, alternately, and ran several seams with energy. Chan King, his mother and I, went to Chinese cafes together, and Madame Liang was pleased and amused to see that I not only used chopsticks with these, but had a real taste for Chinese food. We used to treat ourselves to all sorts of Epicurean dishes, spiced chicken and duck, shark's fins, bird's nest soup with pigeon eggs, my favorite delicacy, seaweed and bamboo shoots, candied persimmons, lotus seeds, and millet pudding with almond tea. Once in a roof-garden cafe where I was wearing American clothes, my use of chopsticks aroused considerable interest among neighboring groups of diners, and stray comments reached us, for the Chinese are always pleased to see foreigners familiar with their customs. No doubt she is a missionary lady, a young woman remarked in my husband's native dialect. Thinking and understanding, Mother immediately said in clear, gracious tones, My son, perhaps her wife would like to have some American food now? Chan King translated for me both comment and suggestion, and I felt pleased to learn that, at any rate, my Chinese mother was not ashamed in a public place to acknowledge her American daughter. Mother was fond of the drama, and since Shanghai had some excellent theaters, we made up several parties during her stay. The great semi-circular stage on which the famous old historical play that we saw was acted was hung with gorgeous embroideries, laid with a thick-paking rug of immense size and brilliantly lighted by electricity, as was the entire theater. The actors wore the magnificent official and military robes of an early dynasty. As on the Elizabethan stage, women's parts were taken by men, who achieved by cleverly constructed shoes the effect of bound feet. I found the deafening drums and gongs a little trying at moments, and the crude property makeshifts somewhat incongruous with the wonderfully elaborate hangings and costumes. But being familiar with the story, I understood the action, and so evidently enjoyed it that mother was surprised anew, as Chan King afterward told me. We sat in our balcony-box above the vague tiers of lower seats, packed with the restless audience of men, women, and many children in the arms of their amaz. On the wide front rail of our box was the inevitable pot of tea, with room also for such fruits, sugar cane, melon seeds, and meat and rice dishes, as we wished to purchase from the endless variety offered by eager boys in round caps and blue cotton gowns. Now and then an attendant came with a huge tea kettle to refill our teapot, and once he offered us the usual steaming-hot towels for sticky fingers. Chan King waved these away energetically. Awful custom, he said to me, unhygienic, how can they do it? And he added something of the kind to his mother in Chinese. She regarded him with comprehension, a tiny gleam of superior wisdom in her eyes. But she made no reply. She had taken a fancy to Wilfred, who by this time had a fair vocabulary of Chinese, which he always used in talking to his amaz. He was a handsome child, typically Chinese, very charming in his manner, very fond of his amaz and his indulgent grandmother. Madame Liang would take his chin in her hands and steady his features intently, nodding her head with approval. Then she would stroke his round black pole and give him melon seeds or almonds from her pocket. Wilfred used a weird mixture of dialects, a confusion of Mandarin and the Shanghai vernacular, with a dash of Cantonese from his amaz. Madame Liang set out patiently to teach him her own dialect as well. When her visit was ended our mother said to Chan King, This is a Chinese house with a Chinese wife in it. Everything is Chinese. I could never have believed it without seeing, for I thought your wife was a Western woman. I am happy. And she told him again that we must come and visit with her, for she needed us. Chan King's father, a member of an old established firm in the import and export trade in the Philippines, was away, looking after his business or exchanging visits with friends of his own age and rank. His homecomings were in the nature of a vacation. The management of the household depended on Madame Liang. As she talked I realized by her face, by Chan King's answers, by all that I knew of Chinese family life, that we were a part of that clan and should be so always. A hint of the solidarity I now feel with my husband's family came to me. We were not separate from them, nor should we be. After our mother was gone Chan King said something of this sort to me, quoting what she had said about my not being Western. But I love you to be Western in this sense, he told me, that you and I have companionship and freedom and equality in our love, that is what makes me happiest. Before Chan King and I closed the house in Shanghai to depart for the southern hills, our second son Alfred was born. An American woman asked me, when he was about six weeks old, if I did not feel a sense of alienation at the sight of the wee oriental face at my breast. Quite simply and truthfully I answered no. My husband was not in any way alien to me, how then could our child be so? His coming provided me with a welcome excuse to remain at home quietly for a short while. I now attempted to learn at the same time both Mandarin and the dialect of Chan King's province, a method of study that hampered me constantly at first. But my husband was an encouraging teacher and I began uncertainly to use my new knowledge, trying it mostly on my young son Wilfred, who was the real linguist of the family. He took my Chinese very seriously. I cannot say so much for Chan King, who was greatly amused at my inflection. Toward the close of the year I decided to take a place as teacher of English and history in a Chinese girl's high school. Chan King was surprised when I told him that I wished to teach, but he offered no objection and watched with interest my progress through the year. I loved my teaching, still more I loved the girls in my classes. Collectively and individually I found them supremely worthwhile in spirit and mind. I cannot say how lovely the young womanhood of China seemed to me. I began to yearn for a daughter and when toward the close of the second term I found that I might, perhaps, have my heart's desire, I realized that my husband shared it. In the early fall our mother wrote and asked us to come south for the cold season. She also expressed the hope that the coming grandchild might be born in her own province. Chan King had been encouragingly strong for over a year, but he had always found the northern winters hard. We decided that the time had come to fulfill our promise of visiting the ancestral home. Chan King secured six months' leave of absence. Within ten days we had closed our affairs temporarily, dismissed the servants, with the exception of the Amma and the faithful A'ching, got our boxes together and bidden our friends farewell. The leaves were falling on the avenue, the plants were shriveled at the edges on the sun porch, the winds blew ominously shrill under the eaves. Chan King grew pale and began to cough again. Out of the teeth of the terrible Shanghai winter we fled into the hospitable softness of the south. By a large steamship we started out on what was ordinarily a brief journey, but by those wartime schedules changes and delays were the invariable rule. After three unforeseen changes and as many delays we reached a port just over the line in my husband's province. There we stopped, intending to go on three days later by the little battered tramp-steamer that puffed noisily at the dock, putting off dried fruits and dyes, taking on rice and cloth and sandalwood. But we did not go on, as it happened. Instead, a tiny, smiling, competent woman physician, wearing the southern costume and possessed of a curious fund of practical wisdom in medical matters, attended me in her native hospital at the birth of our daughter, Alicia. On a vaguely gray, gently stimulating winter morning, ten days later, our bouncing little ship, for I had cajoled Chan King into allowing me to travel, stood to, out from port, and sampans came to meet us. Like giant fish bobbing and dipping and swaying upon the waves, these sampans with their great eyes painted on each side of the prow, and their curious up-curved sterns came toward us in a gala fleet, rowed by lean, overmuscled men in faded blue cotton garments. I was very gay and much exhilarated by the soft sunshine that broke through the mist as I climbed down, with Chan King's help, into one of these boats. The harbour was busy with small craft, flat-bottomed gigs or baggage boats besides the junks, whose square brown sails swung creaking in the wind. Two Chinese men of war rose over us, their vast bulky sides painted battleship gray. Out and beyond an island, not more than a mile long, turned its irregular profile towards us, a long mass of huge gray boulders jutting abruptly from a sparkling sea. As we were being rowed into the mainland, we were near enough to the island to see quite plainly the tile-roofed houses surrounded by arched verandas, repeated again and again in long undulating lines that gave a pleasantly lacy effect. The island was shaded with trees and winter foliage, not the brilliant green of summer, but the sage-green and pale tan of November. Through this intermittent curtain the walls of the houses shone in dull blue and coral pink and clear gray. Jagged cacti shot up among the bulbous rocks, and everywhere the scarlet poinsettia set the hills aglow with patches of brilliant color. I loved this island instantly. I said to Chan King, this is our island of the blessed, where we shall live when we are old. But the jetty aching went up to hail sedan chair-bearers, and soon I was born rapidly along a few yards ahead of my husband's chair. I was filled with a delicious elation at being in Chan King's province, so near to the very village that he knew as a little boy. With enormous curiosity I peeped through the curtain flaps, which were transparent from within. We were passing through the town that lay along the water's edge, a bright, open little place where the small houses with curved, tiled roofs hugged the ground. We went through the crooked streets which were really nothing more than broad paths at a steady pace. We left the ragged edges of the town and began to ascend the hills. I raised my curtains a trifle and ventured to look out freely. Emotion surged up in me. I wished to cry for joy in this homecoming, for it was our real homecoming together, and I felt a secret share in all the life my husband had known here. Up in the narrow, twisting path we wound toward the hills which were covered with a smoky, amber mist. Closed closely along the upward road, apart from the dwellings, were small terraces in closing plots of cultivated ground, filled with growing things. Wherever the folk could find a lush, flat place on the stony hills, robbed by deforestation of all but grass, they had planted their vegetables. These little patches of color, coaxed by thrifty gardeners out of the soil washed into the hill-pockets, added a festive, humorous note to the winter landscape, otherwise so brown and sear. I thought frivolously of a solemn, giant wearing his party nose-gaze. The hills billowed away immensely until they were silhouettes against the dull orange and ashy purple of the morning sun, struggling through the clouds. Stained, steeply curved, narrow bridges of stone made us a path over the frequent streams that rushed toward the valley. Here we came full upon the ancestral village of my husband's family. It lay compact and many-roofed, upon the side of a hill, as intricately woven and inevitably looking as a colony of bird's nests, as naturally a part of the earth as though it had sprung from planted seeds. The rows of walls ran along the main thoroughfare. There were a few people astir yet, and the doors were closed in all the low-eaved plaster-and-stone houses. Our chairs were set down before a tall, hooded gate in a wall of stone gray. Arching knocked. The gates were opened and the servants came hurrying out, accompanied by three leaping black chow-dogs, which barked in frantic challenge till Cheng Qing spoke to them and changed their menace into joyous welcome. We entered a spacious courtyard and crossed an exquisite garden, one of the most beautiful I saw in China. An artificial lake rippled placidly, disturbed only by the darting goldfish. Laurel and magnolia trees darkened the paths. A thicket of bamboo wavered and cast its reflection in the water at the edge of the lake. Cheng Qing helped me from the chair, and together we passed into the main hall through the wide, flung doors. Madam Liang, early apprised of our arrival, was standing there, and my first sight of her gave me a renewed sense of homecoming. I was dimly aware of a large hall at the back of which stood a high altar, with wreaths of sweet-smelling smoke rising in straight columns before lettered tablets and brilliant images under glass cases. The glitter of golden and scarlet embroideries against the wall splintered the dimness with rays of light like sunshine through a prism. Heavily carved blackwood chairs with tea-tables and also marble-topped stools with gay, brocaded cushions were ranged about the room. We passed through this main hall into the apartment of Madam Liang, where I was given a chair, and I sat, suddenly remembering that I was very tired. Other members of the family, distant relatives and first cousins, and guests, all women, came in and I was presented to them. Madam Springtime, wife of the second son, did first honors for the family. She was so very youthful, only seventeen, and so wistfully, other worldly that among those mature housewives, clever and practical managers of their households and husband's estates, she seemed like a branch of peach-bloom, in festal garb of jade-green and lavender, embroidered shoes on her tiny feet and an embroidered head-dress crowning her shining black hair and framing the oval of her shy, smiling face with its slow black eyes. She came bearing a lacquered tray and presenting to each of us sweet tea in cups of finest porcelain with standards and covers of silver and with tiny silver spoons having flower-shaped bowls. The pretty little tea ceremony was then repeated by various members of the family, while the small sons were given hot milk and cakes. An eager group gathered about the tiny new daughter still sleeping peacefully. A bubbling, busy little lady about the age of Madam Liang leaned over me with a quizzical smile and bobbed her gay pretty head emphatically at me when my mother introduced her as Madam Chow. Elaborately dressed in rich colors, in direct contrast to my soberly garbed mother, she was as merry as Madam Liang was grave and she tripped about on her almost invisible golden lily feet with an energy that did not destroy the grace of her willow walk. But the many-colored costumes, the great curtained bed on one side, the voices all suddenly seemed far away. And as I wavered, smiling determinedly, I heard my husband's voice. Mother thinks you are tired, so this woman will show you our room where you must lie down and rest. Time later as I lay resting, with Alicia sleeping on my arm, on the bed, which had purple curtains and soft white blankets, Chan King stepped quietly into the room. Feel as comfortable as you look, he asked, and when I nodded drowsily, he touched a box of cakes. These were brought to you by Madam Chow, the busy little lady out there, you know. He hesitated a moment. She would have been my mother-in-law if I hadn't insisted on your mother instead. And he gave my cheek a gentle pinch. I was now wide awake. The little bird lady out there, mother of Li Ying, I asked. Where is Li Ying then? They didn't tell me anything directly, Chan King answered. But I gather from several pointed conversations carried on in my hearing that Madam Chow has just returned from her daughter's house in Singapore. Just imagine, little Li Ying is married, too, and also has three children, two girls, and a boy, I think, said my Chinese husband, with a charming complacence, putting a hand over mine and stooping to kiss Alicia's pink sleeping face. I think our arrangement is much better. Sons should be older, then daughters are properly appreciated. At noon, after an hour's quiet sleep, I was again aroused by Chan King, who stood beside a maid-servant with a tray. I sat up. I expected to be out for luncheon, I said, preparing to rise. Chan King looked perturbed. Stay where you are, he warned. My mother has just been scolding me for allowing you to travel with a ten days old baby. As if I could do anything about it, I told her, blaming it all on Eve in the most approved Christian fashion. She admires your spirit, but thinks that, for your health's sake, you should rest two weeks longer at least. I lay down meekly. Very well, I said. Obedience is my watch-word. And for the prescribed time I lay in my pretty room all my senses deeply responsive to the life going on in a Chinese household, the clang of small gongs that summoned the servants, much laughter coming in faintly or clearly as my doors were opened or shut. The tap of lily-feet along the passageway, the glimmer of madam's springtime's radiant pink or blue robes as she entered to inquire after my welfare or bring some new delicacy that had been procured for me. The smoke of incense from the altar floating into the room at intervals with the pungent sweetness that roused vague memories and emotions. Everything in the house, hangings, clothes, furnishings, was saturated with this aroma, mingled with a bitter smell, which is distilled by immense age, and touched with the irritative quality of dust, this odor now means china to me, and it is more precious than all other perfumes in the world. But, Chan King, life is nothing but food! I protested about the third day when my fourth meal had been served to me early in the afternoon. But the quantities are small, he answered. Much better way, don't you think, than taking great meals many hours apart? Early in the morning the young maid assigned to me would bring in a bowl of hot milk and biscuit. In our apartment at half past eight she would serve breakfast consisting of soft-boiled rice, congee, with various kinds of salty, sweet, and sour preparations. At eleven o'clock there was turtle soup or chicken broth. At noon came tiffin, which consisted of substantial meat and vegetable dishes, fish and soup, and dry-boiled rice. Our mid-afternoon refreshment was noodles of wheat or bean flour, or perhaps a variety of fancy cakes. Tea kept hot by a basket cozy was always on hand in every room. At seven the family dined and after the two weeks were up I joined them, sitting at the first table with mother and my husband. Dinner was an elaborate meal in courses with rice at the close. At bedtime came hot milk again, or sweet congee, or perhaps tea, brewed from lotus seed or almonds. I was continually nibbling. I thought Chinese food delicious, particularly in my husband's province, noted for its delicious, crunchy fried things. But Chan King had yearnings for American dishes. I gave the head cook my newt instructions for preparing fricasseed chicken, fresh salads, beef steak with Spanish sauce, even American hot cakes, and he enjoyed the American canned goods with butter, cheese, jams, and bread, which were brought in frequently from the port. An episode that caused much merriment was Chan King's initiation of his family into the mystery and history of Chapsui. The rich joke of that made in America Chinese dish is penetrating to every household where the returned student is found. In Shanghai we had heard with amusement how the bewildered chef of the YMCA Cafe had gone down to one of the great Trans-Pacific Liners lying in port to learn from the head cook on board just what this Chapsui, which all his returned student patrons were demanding, might be. Now with memories of old college club activities prompting us, and with a skillful cook to carry out our directions, Chan King and I introduced into the ancestral home that most misunderstood dish in all the world. The family agreed that, though vaguely familiar, it was unlike anything they had ever tried before, and they decided without dissenting vote that it was superior to frequency chicken, Spanish steak, or hot cakes. At this time my husband's brother, Lin King, came home for a brief stay. I decided from photographs that he resembled his father, who was still away. Lin King and Madam Springtime seemed well-suited to each other and happy, although the marriage had been arranged by their families, and they had never seen each other before the ceremony. I decided that the old custom had much merit after all, for other people, and said so to my husband adding, when our children are grown we must have them all marry Chinese. Chan King looked at me long in silence and then, sighing humorously, he asked, what of their father's example, my dear? Since my Chinese was still bookish and unpracticed, in the all-important matters of tone and local idiom, I could not converse with the family, and at the dinner table and in my mother's apartment I was as silent and meek and pleasant of manner as Madam Springtime herself. Madam Springtime served formalty to our many guests in absolute silence, with a sweet fixed smile in the corners of her red mouth. I watched her with consuming interest, for she was acting as first daughter-in-law in my stead. The machinery of life ran with smoothness of long habit and complete discipline. The meals were served, the apartments kept in exquisite order, and the children cared for by a core of servants trained in minutiae by an exacting mistress who knew precisely what she wanted. Our days were left free for the practice of small courtesies, the exchange of pretty attentions, and the care of the ancestral altar. From the ceremonies that took place before this altar at various times, my husband kept himself, his wife, and children sedulously aloof. It was neither asked nor expected that he would do otherwise, just as our attendance at the Little Mission Church was accepted without question. At other times, however, I had ample opportunity to study the altar and enjoy the beauty of its massive carvings, its elaborate incense burners and candlesticks, its exquisitely wrought embroideries. A porcelain image of the budistic goddess of mercy in her character of sun-giver, set within a large glass case, fascinated me by its remarkable resemblance to certain Catholic images. But the ancestral tablets interested me more, and the respect that I have always accorded objects sacred to others was in this instance mingled with profoundly personal feelings. The interblended characteristics of those men and women, so many years dead and gone, lived on in the man who was my husband. Their life currents pulsed warmly in the veins of my children. Perhaps some deep insight gained beyond the grave enabled them to know how truly I acknowledged my debt to them, how earnestly I hoped those children might not prove unworthy of their heritage. With the help of Chan King's coaching and my personal observations, I soon learned the gracious routine of the house. At ten o'clock every morning I presented myself at the door of Madame Liang's apartment and sat with her for several hours, often over Tiffin, even till tea-time, if she signified a desire for my company. If the weather was fair we would walk in the garden, she leaning lightly on my arm, her cane tapping on the flagstones. At times also tea was served here, with the small children joining us for hot milk and sweet cakes. I was several days in getting the members of the household identified in their proper relations, for there were thirty persons gathered in that big low-roofed, rambling compound behind the high enveloping wall. They were nearly all women, and two-thirds of them were servants. The quiet, soft-mannered woman relatives spent nearly all of their time in their own apartments. Madame Liang's powerful personality, silent and compelling, paled the colors of nearly all the temperaments around her. Her friend, Madame Chao, was immensely comforting to her, for she could not be persuaded to take anything very seriously. Madame Liang laughed with her more than with anyone else. While they busily embroidered, they gossiped, and I listened to their musical speech with its soft southern accents, and chiming, many-toned cadences. I used to think, as I sat in a deep-cushioned chair, nursing the small Alicia with a pot of tea at my elbow, that Madame Liang, in her gorgeous, heavily carved black and orange bed, enclosed on three sides by panels of painted silk, and draped over the front with silk curtains, held back by tasseled, brocaded bands, was a link in the chain of everlasting things. She had come into the house exactly as new women had done century after century, and she had lived out her life unquestioningly according to their precepts and example. There was a monumental, timeless dignity about her as she soared and talked of simple matters. In her presence I felt young and facile and terribly unanchored. I talked these things over with Cheng Qing in the dark of the night, when all the household was silent. He was interested in my reactions, knowing that they were the outcome of a profound personal love for his family and sympathy with everybody in it. Spiritually, Cheng Qing also was in sympathy with his family. Practically, well, as I have said, there were moments when he longed for American food, and his first deed in the house was to order the bed curtains removed from our apartments. They were removed and nothing was said. A wonderful spirit of courtesy and toleration prevailed in the family life with a complete absence of that crisscross of personal criticism that our Western freedom of speech permits. Not that there were not undercurrents, intimate antagonisms here and there, personal sacrifices and sorrows but they were not recognized for in Chinese life individual claims are eternally relinquished in the interest of clan peace and well-being. There was one authority and it was vested in Madame Liang. Such a system makes for harmony and preserves the institution of the family on which all China is founded. Making no conscious effort, I myself yet became so imbued with this spirit that when the government summons came for Cheng Qing to report in Peking early in the new year, I choked down my anguish and said, How splendid for us all, Cheng Qing, when are you going? We were in the last week of the old year and at Madame Liang's earnest entreaty my husband delayed his departure as the summons permitted that in the midst of his family he might celebrate the most delightful of all holidays. Delicious cooking odors now drifted about everywhere, new clothes for everyone were made ready and faces took on a shining happiness. One evening after a visit with his mother, Cheng Qing came to me, laughing heartily. Mother reminds me, he said, that for three days it is customary for the maids, when sweeping the floor, to pile the dust carefully in the corner instead of throwing it out, lest the family good fortune should be thrown out with it. But she says, of course it is only an old superstition, and if you like you may tell the maid to remove the sweepings as usual. I laughed too. Then I said, tell mother we shall do our part toward keeping good fortune in the family. For three days also continued Cheng Qing, no harsh or scolding word is to be spoken by anyone and therefore he went on sonorously. Your tyrannical Chinese husband will cease to lecture his American wife, who is certain to need it though. I looked into his eyes bright with irrepressible gaiety and suddenly I kissed them shut, my own eyes misty. Oh my dearest, I whispered, you are just a little boy at home again in spite of the silver threads. And I smoothed the black locks already sprinkled with gray. Chan, I love the Chinese New Year, I said. Even now I see it all again. My husband was wearing a long, dignified gown of dark green satin, unfigured, as is customary for officials, dark green trousers, short brown jacket lined with soft fur, black satin cap and black boots. Wilfred was quite a young gentleman in long gown of blue green silk, braid trimmed jacket of dark green, blue trousers and red tufted cap. Chubby Alfred was dressed in lavender jacket, scarlet trousers, a tiger face apron of red, white and black, embroidered slippers and a gay little knitted cap. Alicia, whom the whole family loved best in her frilled white American dresses, added now a pink silk jacket and an adorable little pink and black cap, which gave an oriental grace to her features. I wore my latest Shanghai creation in pale lilac and black-figured satin. Guests came and went incessantly and we made our calls in the village. The air was filled with odours of spice, molasses, roasted meats, seed cakes and millet candy and with sounds of firecrackers, gongs and happy voices. But it was over at last. The time for my husband's departure had come. With silent expertness, A Qing said about packing. In three days Chan King was ready to go. He was coaching me in the household phrases I should need most in making myself understood without his help. Madam Liang decided that, during my husband's absence, I should assume my position as first daughter in law. I had no apprehension in regard to the minute exacting duties that would devolve upon me as a right-hand companion to my husband's mother. For I loved her, but I was not sure of my tact or my deftness, and I felt strung up painfully at the thought of my immediate future. After the hourly companionship of months, parting from Chan King was very terrible indeed. He was in and out of our apartment, moving about the house with restless energy, arranging final details. At last he came and stood beside me. Tell me goodbye now, dearest, he whispered. Afterward, out there, we shall have no opportunity. He drew me close and we kissed with deep feeling, the tears in my eyes refusing to be suppressed any longer. Don't cry, he begged, with unaccustomed emotion. Don't cry or I can't leave you. Then he held my face up and dried my tears with his handkerchief and said solemnly, Smile at me. And I smiled. We went across to his mother's apartment and she came out, the tears on her cheeks not stanched. Joined by the rest of the family we accompanied him to the entrance and then to the gate, which stood open, almost blocked by the waiting sedan chair. Chan King was in Chinese dress and as he stood there, profiled toward me, among the group of servants, giving his final directions, he seemed more oriental, more absorbed into his country than I remembered ever to have seen him. He made a profound bow to his mother with formal words of leave-taking and gave me a grave little nod. Then, without looking back, he stepped into the chair, the curtains were drawn, and the coolies trotted off down the steep path, followed a little way by the bounding black dogs. Mother and I stood together after the others had gone and watched his chair jostling down the narrow paved way. Then we turned and looked at each other, rueful smiles on our mouths, tears in our eyes. We shook our heads at each other. I half raised a hand to my heart and then let it fall. I think both of us found our lack of mutual language, a welcome excuse for silence. Madam Liang turned toward the house, the gates closed behind us. I gave her my arm in support until we reached the doorway. Then I stepped a pace behind her as she entered. Without speaking I waited until she had knelt at the altar, and the incense was rising in clouds before the imperturbable images under their glass cases. Then I attended her to her own apartment. My life as a real Chinese daughter-in-law had begun. CHAPTER IV THE ETERNAL HILLS As I followed my Chinese mother into her apartments, I thought of the benevolent croakings of friends. Their words rattled through my memory like pebbles shaken in a pail. She can never be happy with a Chinese husband. Later it was. It is all very well in America, but wait until she goes to China. When I had happily established myself there, heaven help her, said they, if she tries to live with her Chinese mother-in-law. In Shanghai foreign friends had predicted, oh yes, she's lovely in your house, but wait until you try living in her house. This is the last ditch, Margaret, I said to myself. Take it clear. Either you are about to make one more argument against intermarriage, or you are going to settle the question forever, so far as your case is concerned. Mother and I went to dinner together somewhat later than usual. We attacked our food very bravely, eyes down. I glanced up inadvertently, and the sight of tears on her cheeks released mine too. I leaned forward and took her hand, and we struggled with a sentence or two. No tears, I said. Be patient, she answered. Next morning after the Amma had dressed young Alicia, while the cheerful child was following me about the room with her eyes, and talking merry baby-talk, I took her up and went earlier than usual, to see Mother. I found her sitting up in bed. She was dressed for the day, and the blankets were rolled back against the side of the wall, making a comfortable couch for her. Thinking of Chan King, I looked at the row of little cabinets extending across the back, half way up toward the canopy. I remember Chan King's telling me of the year when he was still small enough to stand under these fascinatingly carved cabinets, where his mother stored her trinkets and toilet articles, embroidery silks, perfumes, and the endless paraphernalia of her quiet life, and of the pride he felt when he bumped his head one day and found that he must stoop to be comfortable. Wilfred was just high enough now to stand easily under the cabinets, but in some mysterious fashion the little image of him presented at this moment to my fancy became that of the small, far away Chan King, whom I was forever recreating in my mind as I went about the house where he had lived his pleasant youth. This morning I laid Alicia on the bed near Madam Liang. She bent over her and made a moi into the rosy face. I was very much pleased when Madam Liang was unusually attentive to Alicia, though my sense of justice always reminded me that my own scotch mother would probably have made more of the boys. But our Alicia was the first daughter in two generations of my husband's family, and even though the sons were of priceless value to the clan, she was loved and cherished tenderly. It seemed to me at times that the household was more fond of her than of all the boys together, including Madam Springtime's Young Kyung Song, who filled the left wing of the compound with his shouts of glee as he played riding-horse on his precarious bamboo stool. I remembered with amusement the western idea that daughters are unwelcome, always in Chinese families. While Madam Liang padded the baby, talking to her coaxingly, I asked what she wished me to do. She indicated on her dressing table a box of stereoscopic views which I brought to her. They formed a complete story but had become very much confused. As I could read the foreign titles, would I kindly arrange the pictures in proper sequence? The ease and speed with which I accomplished this task won her instant approbation. This was merely one of the numberless small things I did for her thereafter. In my new estate I was in attendance on my mother during many hours of the day. I walked with her in the garden in fine weather, I sat with her and sewed, threading needles as for my own mother, and even helping her to make those marvellous small shoes that she fashioned so carefully to the form of her feet. One day I told her how amazed I had been when I first learned from Chan King that Chinese wives made the family shoes, but how readily I could understand when I saw the dainty embroidered footwear he referred to, that shoemaking was indeed a womanly craft. She and Madam Chao used to take great pride in making for themselves the most frivolous of shoes. Madam Chao's were the smaller, being barely two and a half inches long, whereas those of my mother were twice that length and different in shape. I discovered the reason for this. Madam Chao clung tenaciously to the old style, but mother had gradually let out her bandages and altered their arrangement, keeping pace with the change that followed the abolition of the old custom. I became deeply interested in the custom of foot-binding. In Shanghai all the pupils of my school and with certain notable exceptions the women of my social world had natural feet and the majority of them wore American pumps and oxfords or English boots. Bound feet, though I saw them frequently in public, seemed very remote. But now saved the girls of twelve and under who had profited by the new order of things, the women among whom I lived all had bound feet. It may be worth noting, when one remembers how America, with its own great unwashed, jokes at the expense of the Chinese of whatever rank or station, that in accordance with the fastidious cleanliness of upperclass Chinese the bound feet were exquisitely cared for and the narrow, white, specially woven bandages were changed every two or three days. As I watched the daintily shod women of my mother's household I realized that never before had I appreciated in reading the literature of my adopted country the aptness of comparing the walk of a woman with bound feet to the grace of bamboo swaying in the breeze. Never had I suspected the charm attached to twinkling flashes of embroidery beneath a paneled, mini-plated skirt. My own number four feet assumed alarming proportions. I grew positively ashamed of them. One day as mother and I sat together in armchairs with a blackwood tea-table between us I placed my feet in line with hers and said sighing, ah, they look very bad indeed. She waved a deprecating hand. Never mind, she said, with courtesy and truth. They may not look so well, but they certainly walk better. Of course I was glad that the small Alicia belonged to young China and would purchase no golden lilies with a cask of tears as I had often read that every woman with bound feet must do. But I now decided that the cask must have been filled in the years of girlhood, for the women about me seemed to suffer no pain, only an occasional numbness relieved by brisk massage from knee to ankle under the hands of a maid. I was surprised at the ease and energy with which they got about, merely balancing with small, forward and backward steps when stopping, unless they had a servant's arm or a cane for support. I thought our mother infinitely superior in the grace and dignity of her carriage. Madam Springtime, who had slightly enlarged her feet at the command of her husband, moved slowly and with a lack of grace characteristic of the younger generation. Madam Chang moved ponderously and with difficulty. Madam Chow hurried with quick, fluttering steps. On occasion she would even run races with Alfred, our merry second son, now two-and-a-half years old. She would catch his hand, lean forward and hurry him the length of the hall, the two of them laughing gaily. Now and then I would fold my hands, balance on my heels, and assay a willow walk to the great amusement of mother and madam Chow. Life went very evenly for me in my Chinese mother's house after my husband's departure. His father had not come home for his semi-annual visit and the second son was away again. Even the quiet, mild-mannered third son, who looked just like his mother and who used to bring me roses from the garden every day, had sailed for the island port to take his place in the family business. We were under a benevolent matriarchate in the snug compound among the brown hills, now brightening to springtime green. Madam Liang was infallibly generous and kind. I never heard her speak sharply, except occasionally to servants who had by their carelessness caused something to go amiss, impeding the smooth progress of daily family life. I used to watch her with interest as she directed the household affairs from the throne of her great bed. She rarely gave her orders at first hand, but would summon a relative or an upper servant, who would receive and pass them down to those for whom they were intended. This imparted to her orders an empress like finality and importance. The servants gave her complete allegiance. She took great pride in conducting me through the complicated structure where generations of Liang's had lived and died. Extending back from the main establishment was a series of smaller ones like it, each with its own courtyard, its main hall containing the family altar, its private chambers opening on each side. Similar chains of homes within a home extended east and west at right angles to this central chain. Mother showed me the rooms she had occupied as a bride, with the chamber where Cheng Qing was born, when the older Madam Liang ruled affairs with a firm yet kindly hand. I felt deeply moved by all this, more than ever a part of the family. I made many small mistakes I know in my effort to practice the toleration, industry, and courtesy exemplified in that family group. But Mother, unlike many of the oversensitive, easily offended Chinese women of her class, was divinely patient. She never asked of me anything that she deemed unfitting for me, and she showed a wise discernment in all the small tasks she assigned. I sometimes accompanied her to the temple or to the ancestral graves, but only as a spectator. Her religious toleration required no compromise. She wanted me to see where grandparents and great-grandparents were laid to rest. She knew I was interested and filled with respect. To Madam Springtime fell the task of caring for the family altar and keeping up the daily devotions before the sacred shrine. This young wife was in every way so typical of the old-fashioned Chinese woman, trained but not educated, disciplined but not broken, that I found in her a continual source of interest. She was naturally shy and silent, but after a time we talked a little, and one day she showed me her bridal trunks of white lacquer with red and gold decorations filled to the top with her bridal finery, exquisitely folded, and the clothes for her first child, which had been provided by her parents as a part of her wedding outfit. This letter-custom of Changqing's native province appealed to me. It was typical of the many simplicities I found among my adopted people. Those small, brilliant-colored garments of padded silk and brocade and linen were symbols of hope, good omens for happiness, and a fruitful marriage. Accustomed, as I was, to falsely puritanic ideals concerning the important realities of life, marriage and birth, their frank attitude toward fundamentals, their unquestioning acceptance of the facts of existence came as a pleasant surprise to me. I liked also the curious contrast between their simple view of elemental things and the formality and rigor of their personal etiquette. It is the manner of an old and ever cultivated race who have long since ceased building at the foundation and are now occupied with the decorations of life. Their scheme of daily living is based on the firm belief that the normal mode of human existence is family life. To this end it must be preserved at any cost. Life cannot develop in discord. If the amenities are worth anything at all, they are worth preserving constantly and at whatever personal sacrifice. Life behind the arched gate was so pleasant and so filled with small daily occupations that I thought little of going about. The village had no theatre. On festal days performances were given by travelling troops on temporary stages in temples or private houses. But we occasionally attended the theatre in the great city nearby, and when we had guests staying with us for several days they sometimes accompanied us. We were rather an impressive sight, I fancy, born at a brisk trot in half a dozen sedan chairs, down the irregular path at dusk, pre-seated and followed by men's servants carrying lanterns. The children led a sheltered happy existence with servants and young relatives to amuse them indoors or without, as the weather permitted. They were liberally supplied by their indulgent grandmother with pocket-money in the form of handfuls of coppers instead of the strings of cash that sufficed an earlier generation. From passing vendors they bought bows and arrows of brightly painted bamboo, whistling birds and theatrical figures of coloured earthenware, inflated rubber toys and an endless variety of rice flour cakes, sesame seed confections, peanut taffy and millet candy. On festal days the choice was wider than ever with fluffy bunches of sugar wool, fine spun syrup, and brittle candy toys blown from molten taffy with all the glass blower's art in the form of lanterns, birds, and fish mounted on slender sticks. At certain seasons there were huge fish made of bamboo frames, paper covered and realistically painted, which swam in a breeze with lazy grace, or kites similarly fashioned to represent birds and dragons, which winged upward in fascinating flight. There was a limited foreign settlement in this same city and several of the American and British women came to call on me. Some of them were frankly curious to know how I had come through the ordeal by family, as one of them expressed it, though of course they were very tactful. Mother was much interested in these visitors, many of whom were very interested in these visitors, many of whom, if able to speak Chinese, I presented to her. When they left she would often ask questions as to their nationality, their husband's occupation, the number of their children. As for that question most of them confessed to one child or occasionally two, but I shall never forget the call of a strikingly handsome, alburn-haired woman and the conversation that followed her departure. In reply to the usual inquiry I said, no children at all, but she has five dogs, and has just bought in Shanghai two more which are coming down on the next steamer. No children at all, and five, seven dogs, said Mother in tones of horror, and then we burst out laughing, but quickly she sobered. Foreign women do not care for children, she said. I do, I protested, I like many children. You, said my Mother with a smile, are a Chinese wife. But happily my next caller was a sweet-faced American woman, the proud mother of six, two of whom she had brought with her. So our national reputation was saved. In these days I thought a great deal about intermarriage as a problem. Back in Shanghai a returned student who visited in our home for several days had said to Cheng King afterward, I almost married an American girl while I was in college. I wish now I had been brave enough to do so. At that time I felt very sorry for the unknown girl who had missed all the happiness that was coming to me, and now I was more sure than ever of the true quality of my happiness. There was no doubt at all on that score, but I realized that many, many ways in which everything might have been spoiled. Had my husband been less considerate, less sincere and loyal, had his family been less kindly and broad-minded, had I myself been capricious and willful, or unable to adapt myself to surroundings, I might every day have plumbed the depths of misery. I decided that no rules could be made about intermarriage. It was an individual problem, as indeed all marriage must be. So when a young girl back home in America wrote to me for advice, believing herself in love with the Chinese classmate, and concluded, you, Mrs. Liang, must settle the question for me, I answered as I should not have done a year earlier. That is a question that you too alone are competent to settle. No one can advise you safely, for a mistake either way may result in lifelong unhappiness. But I might venture to suggest that love strong enough to stand the test of intermarriage does not seek advice. It is sure of itself. In a household where only my eldest son and I spoke English, my lingual struggles were unexpectedly mild. Chan King had left me a list of everyday phrases, and my ear grew very keen in my constant efforts to understand the rapid speech going on around me all day long. In a short while I could understand virtually everything said to me. During the long conversations that mother and I had in the quiet of the evening, we talked much of Chan King, and she displayed treasured relics of his boyhood. A small jacket of deep red velvet, a worn cap, a silver toy, and the identical schoolbook in which he began the study of English. I loved them all, loved her the more for cherishing them, and was made supremely happy by being given a photograph of Chan King at an earlier age than any he possessed. She was very much interested in all our photographs too. She was vastly amused at Chan King arrayed for college theatricals, and when I brought out pictures of myself at all ages of my parents and grandparents, she traced family resemblances with an unerring perception. Sometimes we looked at magazines that Chan King sent us, from the capital, or talked of various foreign customs. I soon found it very easy to talk with her, and with her help I learned also to read and write simple Chinese characters, for a very liberal-minded father had given her educational advantages enjoyed by few girls of her generation. When the hands of her small ebony clock pointed to twelve, she would touch my hand gently and say, Time for you to sleep. But first I must write to Chan King, I would answer. She would shake her finger at me with kindly caution. It is too late, she would answer. You must sleep. I would hold out firmly on this point. But my mother, if I do not write to Chan King, I cannot sleep. She would assent then and next day I would carry the pages to show her, for my letters to Chan King and his voluminous responses were a source of much amusement to her. I translated these letters as faithfully to her as my Chinese would allow, and in my letters always added messages dictated by her. I was learning the Romanized method of writing Chinese, which for our dialect has been remarkably developed and standardized. Mother was much interested when I showed her how to write familiar words with foreign letters, and Chan King always answered these messages in kind, though his mother and he carried on a regular correspondence in the Chinese characters. Those children write long letters to each other, fifteen and twenty pages at a time. She often told her friends with manifest delight. Beyond this personal companionship with my mother, which I enjoyed very much, there was no restraint put upon me in any way. I was free to walk out alone, to return calls and to shop in the city. My own sense of fitness prompted me always to present myself at the door of my mother's apartment before I left the house to explain to her the nature of my errand, and to ask for her approval. Accepting the little formality for the courtesy it was, she never once demurred. She was accustomed to this respect, and I saw no reason for withholding it. All the invitations I received from acquaintances, either foreign or Chinese, I declined or accepted as she advised, because I relied upon her unfailing knowledge of people and social customs. Twice during those months of Chan King's absence death came near. Once it was a clever young boy, an only son in whom high hopes had been centered, and then the young girl who had accompanied mother to Shanghai. She was no servant in the ordinary sense but an orphaned, distant relative of mother's. Madam Liang was always kind and generous with her, and when, soon after her return from the trip to Shanghai, which had been a great event in her quiet life, a promising marriage offer was made, she was sent forth to her new home with the complete bridal outfit. Hearing at last of our presence in the family home, she put on her wedding dress of pale green and came to see me. Her evident pleasure in the meeting touched me poignantly. With bright eagerness she told me of her husband, her kind mother-in-law. With pride she described her tiny son. After a gay hour with the children she left, promising to come again. But I never saw her afterward. Death took her abruptly from her happiness. I began to think of death as something not so remote after all. Several times a group of us, children and cousins and friends and servants, made short chair trips into the hills. The sight of thousands of graves, their stones whitening the hillsides for miles in some places, impressed me more and more with the comparative shortness of life. Scattered over many of these hills are curious monuments of stone called widow arches, each one standing alone, usually by a roadside, in commemoration of a faithful wife, who in ancient days killed herself at the death of her husband. A widow who wished to make this sacrifice would, after a short lapse of time, announce her intention of committing suicide. The members of her family would erect a high stage for her and invite relatives and friends to attend the ceremony. At the chosen hour the lady would hang herself and a high stone arch would later be erected as a memorial of her devotion and heroism. In the Chinese family the widow who does not remarry receives honor and veneration second only to the mother-in-law. With age she acquires added authority. She is not forbidden to remarry but the conditions of second marriage are made difficult enough to discourage any but the most intrepid. The children of her first husband remain in the house of his people and the family of her second husband do not give her any too cordial a welcome. One naturally prefers free will in these things, yet I had a wholehearted sympathy with the idea of life, widowhood, long before I dreamed it was to be my portion. Painful as the widow arches was to me at first my convictions made the Chinese view of them seem not unnatural, though I knew the custom had been forbidden by imperial edict some two centuries earlier. Even in the days when Changqing and I believed that our love would somehow give us earthly immortality the idea was strong in me that those who loved truly death could only extinguish the torch for a moment to relight it in the clearer flame of eternity. Then I cherished this thought in the background of my mind. Now I live by it. For this reason too I have always found the Chinese attitude toward the dead very comforting. They never for a moment relinquish hold on their loved ones. The death day anniversary is as festal and occasion as the day of birth. The pageant of life marches without a break, birth to death and beyond, and birth again. The generations endlessly touching mystical hands until the individual feels himself to be part of an endless procession that passes for a moment into a white light and out again, feels himself touching those who came before and those who came after. One of a long line bound together irrevocably. With all their ethics of personal sacrifice and their preoccupation with the idea of eternity the Chinese have no ascetic contempt for the material world and they earnestly desire and seek length of days. Among the varied symbols and characters used to express good wishes as health, honor, riches, those for long life hold preeminence. They are wrought in rings, bracelets, hair ornaments, and are sewed into bridal garments and upon children's little coats and caps. I always felt this enormous respect for life in all their daily customs. The preparing of the baby clothes when the bride left her father's house, the nurturing and strengthening of the clan with many children, the reverent regard for the graves of the ancestors to whom the living owed their grace of existence. On several occasions I accompanied my mother on her visits to the ancestral graves. I remember the last time, only a few days before Chen Qing's return, that I walked with her holding one of her hands while with the other she grasped her gold-headed cane. She wore a light costume, a plated black skirt and lavender coat, and lovely black kid shoes. Servants followed with her baskets of offerings. We stood at a respectful distance in silence while she performed her rites. All about were placed papers weighted down with small stones. She knelt, and clasping her hands devoutly repeated her prayers under her breath. Then assisted by a servant she burned the paper symbols of refreshment and replenishment for the dead. Firecrackers were exploded to clear the air of evil spirits, and the ceremony was over. As we returned to the village, everywhere people called out to her from their doorways, and she invariably replied with friendly courtesy. In the outskirts we stopped for rest and a visit at the home of a cousin. When we left many of the relatives and friends went with us a little way, crying out repeatedly, good-bye, and come again, come again soon. I saw the sunlight on Tiger Mountain. I smelled the saltness of the sea. As we passed around the great boulders that hid them from our sight, the modulated cadence of their, come again, come again soon, floated to us. It was the last time I should hear it as I was then, and I did not even dream that it was so. For a month I had been expecting the arrival of Chan King. His letters were always love letters, and with added paragraphs saying that he was getting on well with his work, and would have much to tell me of it when he came home. At last a letter told us to expect him by a certain steamer on a certain day, but schedules were still in confusion because of the war. That steamer was delayed, and Chan King sailed for another port, meaning to change there. More delays followed, more letters of explanation, more delays again. Mother and I both became heart-sick with hope deferred. At last one morning, worn out with watching, I slept later than usual, and on that morning Chan King came home. Awakened out of a long drows, I heard a stir in the quiet house, the clang of a gong, a rush of padded footfalls in the outer hall. Happy voices mingled in greeting at the door of my mother's apartment. I threw on my robe, tucked Alicia under my arm and ran across the room, flinging the door open even as Chan King had his hand raised to knock at the panel. I saw him dimly in the wavering light. He was smiling, and behind him stood his mother, also smiling. Each of us solemnly spoke the other's name, trying to erase, with a long look, the memory of all those months of absence. Then he saw the baby. Lia Xia, my thousand caddies of gold, he said in Chinese. Alicia smiled and held out her arms to him. She recognizes him, said mother in pleased surprise. We three stood together a moment, silently, gathered round the child. I felt myself more deeply absorbed into the clan, a Chinese woman dedicated a new heart and spirit to my adopted people. Later Chan King explained to me the reason for his home coming. His legal service for the government had been completed and his expected appointment had come at last. We were to return to America, where he would be in the Chinese consular service. After a period in this work, a bright future in the diplomatic field seemed assured. It meant leaving behind my beloved China, where I had firmly taken root. But we agreed that the exile would be only for a few years, and that we would return surely to our promised land, there to enjoy our span of long life with honor. Now our leisurely existence was broken up to a degree. Almost immediately we set about preparations for our new life in America. Chan King looked forward with absorbing interest to the change, almost as if he were going home. My instant reaction was one of joy, swiftly followed by sorrow at giving up things now loved and familiar. I wanted to appear cheerful, as a duty to those around me. I did not want to seem too cheerful lest mother think me glad to go. In this period at last I met my Chinese father. One beautiful day in early autumn, Chan King and I went down to the city returning in mid-afternoon. As our chairs were set down before the entrance, the gatekeeper announced to Chan King his father's arrival. I was filled with swift apprehension. Again Chan's had decided my costume. I was wearing not the conservative Chinese garb in which I had met my mother, but a frilly American dress of blue and white summer silk, a white lace hat with black velvet and pink rose buds, and white kid pumps. Chan King had on white flannels and a Panama hat. The latter he handed to a servant, as also his cane. As we entered the main room together a figure rose from beside mother to receive us. I saw an elderly man of medium height with grim, smooth-shaven face and gray hair. He was wearing a long gown of deep blue silk with a black outer jacket and the usual round cap of black satin. My husband first greeted him and then presented me. While I stood uncertain there was a courteous inclination of the gray head, the grimness of expression dissolved in a wonderfully winning smile, and surprisingly, as mother had done, my Chinese father extended his hand. I felt that he was interpreting me in the light of all she had told him, that his cordial hand clasp and kindly words of welcome were his ratification of her judgment. Then with the courtly gesture he assigned me to his lately occupied chair beside mother, while he and Chan King took seats together opposite us. Mother smiled into my eyes with her happiest expression. I felt that Chan King's background was complete. Long before I had conceived of it as harsh and threatening, but I had now proved it to be wholly kind and protecting. At my recent fear of this last test I wondered and smiled. Father was much gratified at finding his sons able to converse fluently in his native speech. He would gather them all about him for an hour at a time, asking questions to test their practical knowledge, or telling stories to amuse them. Alicia also delighted him. At simple Chinese commands she would now clasp her hands or fold them and bow profoundly. Mother was very proud of her wee granddaughter and would often say, she is just as Chan King was at her age, and her husband would invariably assent with an indulgent smile. There existed between these two conservative types, though they were, an evidence of mutual affection and respect, of real companionship that touched me profoundly. I was glad that father was to be with mother when Chan King and I took ourselves and our three children from the home where, according to the old Chinese custom, we all rightfully belonged. The question of leaving one or more of our children there for a time was discussed one afternoon later. Under ordinary circumstances said father to Chan King, you would go alone, as your brother does, leaving your entire family with us. At the very least you would allow one child to remain in your stead. But of course your mother and I understand that these are not ordinary circumstances. Your wife is an American. She has been considerate of our point of view in many ways, more than we expected, and in this matter we do not fail to consider hers, which is no doubt your own as well. We understand that according to the American view the children belong with their parents always. We cannot of course deny your right to this manner of living, but we want you to feel that if you can leave even one child with us we shall be very happy. You understand what protection and care will be given it. For a moment there was silence. My heart was very full and even had it been my place to speak, I should have been unable to do so. Mentally I pictured mother's loneliness at losing so many of her children. Vainly I tried to imagine our home in America with even one small face missing. I watched my husband, noted the tiny traces of conflict in his face, impassive perhaps to the casual glance. At last he spoke. Father, mother, he began earnestly. We do indeed appreciate your great kindness and generosity. You will understand that just as you understand most truly our situation. We know that here with you our children would have many advantages that we perhaps cannot give them, but which one could we leave to enjoy these advantages? Not Wilfred, for he is our eldest son on whom we place great dependence, and Alfred, of us all he seems least fitted for the southern climate. The summer heat has left him a little pale and listless. He needs the sea voyage. As for Alicia she is the baby and our only daughter. Do not think us unmindful of all you have done, but I fear we should not know how to make our home without our children. After all it was evidently not unexpected. They shook their heads a trifle roofily at each other and then smiled. Very well, Father assented, but this you must promise, that at intervals, whenever your work permits, you will come back, all of you, and spend a year with us again. Do not let the children forget us nor their Chinese speech. In four years at most, all come back together. We promised readily, mother and I, repeating the phrase to each other, in four more years all come back together. Our eyes were full of tears. That night I said to my husband, we should have left one of them. But Chen Qing was a clearer thinker and knew the truth of this situation better than I did. Which one, he asked me, significantly in a tone that made me see the essential hollowness of my protest. On the Sunday before our ship sailed, Chen Qing and I bade farewell to China. In company with our parents and many other relatives, we walked to the top of a very high hill, where an old temple which commanded a magnificent view for miles around, crouched contentedly among the rocks in the grey sunshine. It was a temple of the three religions, with huge stone images of Confucius, Buddha and Lao Tse, grouped in its outer court. Together Chen Qing and I climbed to the crest of the terraced rock. I looked about me down upon the proud, bright little village, alert and colourful on the hillside, upon the scattering fertile patches in the midst of the barren mountains where tigers built their lairs. The eternal hills swept the lowering clouded skies, rolling away from us silent, shadow-filled. A surging love of the very soil under my feet, a clinging to the earth of China, overwhelmed me. I wished to kneel down and kiss that beloved dust. O Chen Qing, I said, shaking with emotion. This is home. I wish we were not leaving, even for a day. We will come again soon, he said in Chinese, and we will live here when we are old. That evening we sat together in the quiet garden. From mother's apartments came the sound of her young nephew's voice as he chanted his morrow's lessons. We heard the subdued merriment of two little maids teasing each other in the hall beyond. Along the outer path, a sedan chair passed with rithmic sway, the bamboo supports creaking a soft accompaniment to the pad-pad of the bearer's sandaled feet. From varying distances came the clang of a brass gong shuddering on the stillness, the staccato sound of slender bamboo sticks shaken together in a cylindrical box, the measured beat of a small drum-rattle as the different street vendors announced their wares. Over the hills, now purple in twilight, the round moon swung leisurely into the violet sky. Strange breaths of incense wafted about us. The sea breeze stirred the branches of a nearby dragon's eye tree, where the ripening fruit-balls tapped gently against each other, like little swaying lanterns. For long moments we sat in silence with clasped hands. Out of that silence my husband spoke softly, words I had long yearned to hear. Absence, Margaret, teaches many things. Once it showed you your own heart. This time it has taught me to believe with you in the immortality of love, like ours. Physically we may be separated at times, but mentally, spiritually, you and I are one for all eternity. A few days later we sailed for America. The rest may be told in a few words, for, after all, no words could adequately tell it. A week after our arrival in America, Chen Qing was stricken with influenza. For several years he had been in the shadow of a slow illness, but with stout resistance and such buoyant recurring periods of good health that we had for a time almost forgotten that early and sinister threat. But those years of struggle were all thrown into the balance against him when the decisive hour came. After six days he died. Quietly, with terrible implacability, death closed over him. We feared a sudden end, it is true, but we're still incredulous of such a calamity. We gave each other what assurance we could. Our ultimate farewells were simple renewals of faith, a firmer tightening of our hands for our walk in darkness. Of all the world you are my love. He said, many times. More than anyone else you have understood. You have been unfailing. You have been my wife. And almost as he spoke, my arms held no longer my living beloved, but only the clay where his spirit had been, and would come no more. So, by visible evidences, my history is finished. But it has begun anew for me, not as I wished, not as I hoped, but on a level that I can endure. For I have my children and my memories, and I have my life, and my life, and my life, and my life, and my life, and my life. But on a level that I can endure. For I have my children and my memories, and my home in China, which waits with the gentle healing of sight and sound and place. And I have learned that in love, and only in love, we can ring spiritual victory out of this defeat of the body. Thank you.