Chapter VI: Part 2: Preface (4)

I think, from hearing the gossip from thy son's courtyard, that when China is again peaceful, there will be more chance for the men within her borders, who can then stay beside their fires and earn their food. Our land is a land of fertile soil, of rich minerals, and great rivers. It is said that there are millions and millions of acres on which food or other products can be grown, and that a great part of China may be made one vast garden. The German scientist who is trying to get a coal mine concession from the government told my husband that there were tens of millions of tons of coal of the best quality in China, and that the single province of Shansi could supply the entire world for a thousand years. No wonder the Germans are looking with longing eyes on China! But we want these riches and this labour for our people. If it is worth the time of men of other countries to come to this far-off land in search of what lies beneath our soil, it is worth our while to guard it and keep it for our own.

We hear news of battles and of secret plottings, and I am worried about my son, who is in Canton, the province that seems to be the centre of rebellion and the breeding-place of plots and treachery. I wonder what will be the outcome of it all; if after all this turmoil and bloodshed China will really become a different nation? It is hard to change the habits of a nation, and I think that China will not be changed by this convulsion. The real Chinese will be the same passive, quiet, slow-thinking and slow-moving toiler, not knowing or caring whether his country is a republic or whether he is ruled by the Son of Heaven. He will be a stable, peaceable, law-abiding citizen or subject, with respect for his officials so long as they are not too oppressive; not asking whether the man who rules him is called a governor or a futai, so long as work is plentiful and rice is cheap. These patient, plodding men of China have held together for countless thousands of years, and I am sure that their strength is derived from qualities capable of bearing great strain; and our government, even the government which we are trying so hard to overturn and mould on Western lines, must have suited the country and the people, because nothing ever persists generation after generation, century after century, without being suited to its environment and more or less adapted to the changes which time always brings.

Confucius said, "When I was on a mission to Ch'u State, I saw a litter of young pigs nestling close to their dead mother. After a while they looked at her, then all left the dead body and went off. For their mother did not look at them any more, nor did she seem any more to be of their kind. What they loved was their mother: not the body which contained her, but that which made the body what it was."

That is the way with our country. She may leave the dead forms of her old government, perhaps it will be her misfortune to leave her religion, but the spirit of her government and the spirit of her religion she will always love.

But I must not gossip more with thee over my dearly loved country and her people. I know I talk to thee o'ermuch of politics and the greedy eyes of foreigners which are fixed upon our land, but one cannot live in Shanghai, even behind the women's archway, without hearing, night and day, the things that move this, our world, so strongly. Even my small children play at war, shoot their rebels, build their fortresses and drive the foreigners from off their piles of sand.

I cry to thee, my Mother, because a heart must speak its bitterness, and here our lips are sealed to all. I dare not even tell thy son, my husband, all that passes in my mind as I look from out my window at this fighting, struggling, maddened world that surges round me. We are more than troubled about our son.

Thy daughter, Kwei-li.

20 My Dear Mother, I send to thee some silken wadding for the lining of thy coat, also a piece of sable to make a scarf for Su-su, and a box of clothing for her new-born son. The children each have written her a letter, and the candles have been lighted before Kwan-yin, to show our joy.

We have a guest, old General Wang, who is on his way to visit with my father. He is of the old, old China, and wags his head most dolefully over the troubles of his country, and says a republic never will succeed. My husband was bewailing the fact of the empty strong-box, and Wang said, "Why don't you do what I did when I was in command of the troops? When money was scarce, I simply stopped a dollar a month from each man's pay, and, lo, there was the money." He was quite shameless in regard to the old-time "squeeze" and said it was necessary. When he was general he received the salary of an ill-paid servant and was expected to keep up the state of a small king. But there were many ways to fill the empty pockets. When a high official was sent to inspect his troops, men were compelled to come from the fields, the coolies to lay down their burdens, the beggar to leave his begging-bowl, and all to stand straight as soldiers with guns within their hands. But when the officer was gone each went his way with a small present in his hand and did not appear again until the frightened official was compelled to sweep the highways and byways to find men enough to agree with lists paid by the government.

But those times are past, and these old-time officials find it safer to retire to homes within their provinces.

He told us of Chung-tai, who was Taotai of our city at one time. Dost thou remember him? He made many millions in the exportation of rice at time of famine. He was asked to go to Peking, and promised a high position. He sent as answer the story of Chung Tzu the philosopher, who was fishing in the Piu when the Prince of Ch'u sent high officials to ask him to take charge of the State. Chung went on fishing and without turning his head said: "I have heard that in Ch'u there is a sacred tortoise which has been dead now some three thousand years, and that the Prince keeps this tortoise carefully enclosed in a chest on the altar of the sacred temple. Now would this tortoise rather be dead and have its remains venerated, or be alive and wagging its tail in the mud?" "It would rather be alive and wagging its tail in the mud," said the officials. "Begone" said Chung. "The tortoise is a symbol of longevity and great wisdom. It would not befit me to aspire to greater wisdom than the tortoise. I, too, prefer the mud."

Chung spoke bravely in sending this reply to Peking; but no sooner was it sent than he gathered his family and his sycee and departed for Shanghai, where he feels more sure of the protection of the foreign settlements than he does of the kindly intentions of His Excellency Yuan toward his dollars.

The children have come home and are clamouring for their supper. They are growing rougher and noisier each day, and, I fear, are spending far too many hours in the servants' courtyard, where they hear of things not seemly for young ears. Canst thou send me Wong-si for a few months? She might be able to keep some order in my household, although I doubt a person of a nature not divine being able to still the many tongues I have now about me.

We send thee love, and greetings to thy new-born great-grandson.

Kwei-li.

21 My Dear Mother, I have been in the country with my friend Ang Ti-ti. It was the time of pilgrimage to the graves of her family at the temple near Wu-seh. My household gave me many worries, and my husband said it was a time of rest for me, so we took a boat, with only a few servants, as I am tired of chattering women, and spent three long happy days amongst the hills. We sat upon the deck as the boat was slowly drawn along the canal, and watched the valley that autumn now is covering with her colours rare. All the green of the fields is changed. All the gay foliage of the trees upon the hillsides will soon be dead and crumbling. These withered leaves that once waved gaily in the air are lying now in clustered heaps, or fluttering softly to the ground like dull, brown butterflies who are tired with flight. The only touch of colour is on the maple-trees, which still cling with jealous hands to coverings of red and gold. The autumn winds wailed sadly around our cabin windows, and every gust brought desolation to tree and shrub and waving grass. Far away the setting sun turned golden trees to flame, and now and then on the sluggish waters of the canal would drift in lonely splendour a shining leaf that autumn winds had touched and made into a thing of more than beauty.

We anchored the first night by a marshy bank girdled with tall yellow reeds and dwarf bamboo, and from our quiet cabin listened to the rainy gusts that swept the valley. Out of the inky clouds the lightning flashed and lighted up each branch and stem and swaying leaf, revealing to our half-blinded eyes the rain-swept valley; then darkness came with her thick mantle and covered all again.

We discussed the past, the present, and the future; and then, as always when mothers meet, the talk would turn to children. How we are moved by our children! We are like unto the Goddess of the Pine-tree. She came out from her rugged covering and bore a man-child for her husband's house, and then one day the overlord of all that land sent to cut down the pine-tree, that its great trunk might form the rooftree of his temple. At the first blow of the axe the soul glided back into its hiding-place, and the woman was no more. And when it fell, three hundred men could not move it from its place of falling; but her baby came and, putting out his hand, said, "Come," and it followed him quite quietly, gliding to the very doorway of the temple. So do our children lead us with their hands of love.

On the second day we went to the temple to offer incense at the family shrine of Ang Ti-ti. We Chinese ladies love these pilgrimages to these shrines of our ancestors, and it is we who keep up the family worship. We believe that it is from the past that we must learn, and "the past is a pathway which spirits have trodden and made luminous." It is true, as Lafcadio Hearn has written, "We should be haunted by the dead men and women of our race, the ancestors that count in the making of our souls and have their silent say in every action, thought and impulse of our life. Are not our ancestors in very truth our souls? Is not every action the work of the dead who dwell within us? Have not our impulses and our tendencies, our capacities and our weaknesses, our heroisms and our fears, been created by those vanished myriads from whom we received that all-mysterious gift of life? Should we think of that thing which is in each of us and which we call 'I' should it be 'I' or 'they'? What is our pride or shame but the pride or shame of the unseen in that which they have made? And what is our conscience but the inherited sum of countless dead experiences with all things good and evil?"

"In this worship that we give the dead they are made divine. And the thought of this tender reverence will temper with consolation the melancholy that comes with age to all of us. Never in our China are the dead too quickly forgotten; by simple faith they are still thought to dwell among their beloved, and their place within the home remains holy. When we pass to the land of shadows we know that loving lips will nightly murmur our names before the family shrine, that our faithful ones will beseech us in their pain and bless us in their joy. We will not be left alone upon the hillsides, but loving hands will place before our tablet the fruits and flowers and dainty food that we were wont to like, and will pour for us the fragrant cups of tea or amber rice-wine."

"Strange changes are coming upon this land, old customs are vanishing, old beliefs are weakening, the thoughts of to-day will not be the thoughts of to-morrow; but of all this we will know nothing. We dream that for us as for our mothers the little lamp will burn on through the generations; we see in fancy the yet unborn, the children of our children's children, bowing their tiny heads and making the filial obeisance before the tablets that bear our family name."

This is our comfort, we who feel that "this world is not a place of rest, but where we may now take our little ease, until the landlord whom we never see, gives our apartment to another guest."

As I said to thee, it is the women who are the preservers of the family worship and who are trying hard to cling to old loved customs. Perhaps it is because we suffer from lack of facility in adapting ourselves to new conditions. We are as fixed as the star in its orbit. Not so much the men of China but we women of the inner courtyards seem to our younger generation to stand an immovable mountain in the pathway of their freedom from the old traditions.

In this course we are only following woman nature. An instinct more powerful than reason seems to tell us that we must preserve the thing we know. Change we fear. We see in the new ideas that our daughters bring from school, disturbers only of our life's ideals. Yet the new thoughts are gathering about our retreats, beating at our doorways, creeping in at the closely shuttered windows, even winning our husbands and our children from our arms. The enclosing walls and the jealously guarded doors of our courtyards are impotent. While we stand a foe of this so-called progress, a guardian of what to us seems womanhood and modesty, the world around us is moving, feeling the impulse of a larger life, broadening its outlook and clothing itself in new expression that we hardly understand. We feel that we cannot keep up with this generation; and, seeing ourselves left behind with our dead Gods, we cry out against the change which is coming to our daughters with the advent of this new education and the knowledge of the outside world. But--.

All happy days must end, and we floated slowly back to the busy life again. As we came down the canal in the soft moonlight it recalled those other nights to me upon the mountain-side, and as I saw the lights of the city before us I remembered the old poem of Chang Chili Lo:

"The Lady Moon is my lover, My friends are the Oceans four, The Heavens have roofed me over, And the Dawn is my golden door. I would liefer follow a condor, Or the sea-gull soaring from ken, Than bury my Godhead yonder, In the dust and whirl of men."

Thy daughter, Kwei-li.

22 My Dear Mother, I have not written thee for many days. I came back from my happy country trip to find clouds of sorrow wrapping our home in close embrace. We hear Ting-fang is in deep trouble, and we cannot understand it. He is accused of being in league with the Southern forces. Of course we do not believe it, my son is not a traitor; but black forebodings rise from deeps unknown and the cold trail of fear creeps round my heart.

But I cannot brood upon my fears alone; this world seems full of sorrow. Just now I have stopped my letter to see a woman who was brought to the Yamen for trying to kill her baby daughter. She is alone, has no one to help her in her time of desolation, no rice for crying children, and nothing before her except to sell her daughter to the tea-house. She gave her sleep; and who can blame her?

Mother, send me all that thou canst spare from out thy plenty. I would I could give more. I would be a lamp for those who need a lamp, a bed for those who need a bed; but I am helpless. O, He who hears the wretched when they cry, deign to hear these mothers in their sorrow!

Thy daughter, Kwei-li.

23 I know that thou hast heard the news, as it is in all the papers. Ting-fang is accused of throwing the bomb that killed General Chang. I write to reassure thee that it cannot be true. I know my son. Thou knowest thy family. No Liu could do so foul a deed.

Do not worry; we will send thee all the news. The morrow's tidings will be well, so rest in peace.

Kwei-li.

24,a. I thank thee from my heart for the ten thousand taels telegraphed for the use of our son. Father has sent fifty thousand taels to be used in obtaining his freedom. I am sure it will not be needed, as my son is not the culprit. And if he were, it is not the olden time when a life could be bought for a few thousand ounces of silver, no matter how great the crime. We will not bribe the Courts of Law, even for our son.

But I am sure it will pass with the night's darkness, and we will wake to find it all a dream. I know, my mother's heart assures me, that my boy is innocent.

Do not speak or think of coming down. We will let thee know at once all news.

Kwei-li

24,b. [-Telegram_] We are leaving to-night for Canton.

25 We are entering Canton. The night denies me sleep, and my brain seems beating like the tireless shuttles upon a weaving-loom. I cannot rest, but walk the deck till the moon fades from the dawn's pale sky, and the sun shows rose-coloured against the morning's grey. Across the river a temple shines faintly through its ring of swaying bamboo, and the faint light glistens on the water dripping from the oars that bring the black-sailed junks with stores of vegetables for all that greedy city of living people. The mists cling lovingly to the hill-tops, while leaves from giant banyan-trees sway idly in the morning wind, and billows of smoke, like dull, grey spirits, roll up-ward and fade into a mist of clouded jade, touched with the golden fingers of the rising sun.

I see it all with eyes that do not see, because the creeping hours I count until I find my son.

26 Ting-fang has been tried and found guilty. The runners have brought me hour by hour the news; and even his father can see nothing that speaks in favour of his innocence. It is known and he confesses to having been with the men who are the plotters in this uprising. He was with the disloyal officers only a few hours before the bomb was thrown, but of the actual deed he insists that he knows nothing. All evidence points to his guilt. Even the official who sentenced him, a life-long friend of ours, said in the open court that it hurt him sorely to condemn a man bearing the great name of Liu, because of what his father and his father's father had been to China, but in times such as these an example must be made; and all the world is now looking on to see what will be done.

I will write thee and telegraph thee further news; I can say no more at present; my heart is breaking.

Kwei-li.

27 A man came to us secretly last night and offered to effect my son's escape for fifty thousand taels. He said that arrangements could be made to get him out of the country-- and we have refused! We told him we could give no answer until the morning, and I walked the floor the long night through, trying to find the pathway just.

We cannot do it. China is at the parting of the ways; and if we, her first officials, who are taking the stand upon the side of justice and new ideas of honour, do not remain firm in hours of great temptation, what lesson have we to give to them who follow where we lead? It ust not be said that our first acts were those of bribery and corruption. If my son is a traitor, we let him pay. He must give his life upon the altar of new China. We cannot buy his life. We are of the house of Liu, and our name must stand, so that, through the years to come, it will inspire those who follow us to live and die for China, the country that we love.

28 My Mother, From the red dawn until the dense night fell, and all the hours of darkness through, have my weary feet stumbled on in hopeless misery, waiting, listening for the guns that will tell to me my son is gone. At sunset a whispered message of hope was brought, then vanished quite again, and I have walked the lengthened reach of the great courtyard, watching as, one by one, the lanterns die and the world is turning into grey. Far away toward the rice-fields the circling gulls rise, flight on flight, and hover in the blue, then fly away to life and happiness in the great beyond. In the distance, faint blue smoke curls from a thousand dwellings of people who are rising and will greet their sons, while mine lies dead. Oh, I thought that tears were human only, yet I see each blade of shining grass weighed down with dewdrop tears that glimmer in the air. Even the grass would seem all sorrow filled as is my heart.

The whole night through the only sound has been the long-drawn note of the bamboo flute, as the seller passes by, and the wind that wailed and whistled and seemed to bring with it spirits of the other world who came and taunted me that I did not save my son. Why, why did I not save him! What is honour, what is this country, this fighting, quarrelling, maddened country, what is our fame, in comparison to his dear life? Why did we not accept the offer of escape! It was ours to give or take; we gave, and I repent-- O God, how I repent! My boy, my boy! I will be looking for his face in all my dreams and find despair.

.......

Dost thou remember how he came to me in answer to the Towers of Prayer I raised when my first-born slept so deep a sleep he could not be wakened even by the voice of his mother? But that sorrow passed and I rose to meet a face whose name is memory. At last I knew it was not kindness to mourn so for my dead. Over the River of Tears their silent road is, and when mothers weep too long, the flood of that river rises, and their souls cannot pass but must wander to and fro. But to those whom they leave with empty arms they are never utterly gone. They sleep in the darkest cells of tired hearts and busy brains, to come at echo of a voice that recalls the past.

.......

My sleeve is wet with bitter rain; but tears cannot blot out the dream visions that memory wakes, and the dead years answer to my call. I see my boy, my baby, who was the gift of kindly Gods. When I first opened my eyes upon him, I closed them to all the world besides, and my soul rested in peace beside the jewel within its cradle. The one sole wish of my heart was to be near him, to sit close by his side, to have him day by day within my happy sight, and to lay my cheek upon his rose-tipped feet at night. The sun's light seemed more beautiful where it touched him, and the moon that lit my Heaven was his eyes.

As he grew older he was fond of asking questions to which none but the Gods could give reply, and I answered as only mothers will. When he wished to play I laid aside my work to play with him, and when he tired and wished to rest, I told him stories of the past. At evening when the lamps were lighted I taught him the words of the evening prayer, and when he slept I brought my work close by his cradle and watched the still sweetness of his face. Sometimes he would smile in his dreams, and I knew that Kwan-yin the Divine was playing shadow-play with him, and I would murmur a silent prayer to the Mother of all Mercies to protect my treasure and keep him from all harm.

.......

I can see my courtyard in far Sezchuan; and in the wooden box within my bedroom are all his baby-clothes. There are the shoes with worn-out toes and heels that tried so hard to confine restless, eager feet; the cap with Buddha and his saints, all broken and tarnished where tiny, baby teeth have left their marks; and, Mother, dost thou remember when we made him clothing like the soldier at the Yamen? And the bamboo that the gateman polished he carried for a gun...

O my son, my son! How can I rise to begin the bitter work of life through the twilights yet to come!

29 How can I tell thee, Mother mine, of the happiness within my heart! It is passed; it was but a dream, a mirage. He is here, my boy, his hand in mine, his cheek against my cheek; he is mine own again, my boy, my man-child, my son.

It was not he; the culprit has been found; and in the golden morning light my son stood free before me. I cannot write thee more at present, I am so filled with joy. What matter if the sun shines on wrinkles and white hair, the symbol of the fulness of my sorrow-- I have mine own again!

30 My Dear Mother, I can talk to thee more calmly, and I know thou hungerest for full news. Dost thou remember Liang Tai-tai, she whom I wrote thee was so anxious for the mercy of the Gods that she spent her time in praying instead of looking after household duties and her son? He was the one who tried to pass the Dark Water and I talked to him and we sent him to the prefect at Canton. It was he who found the man for whom my son was accused. It seemed he felt he owed us much for helping him in his time of trouble, and now he has repaid.

I feel that I have laughed too oft at Liang Tai-tai and her Gods, but now I will go with her from temple shrine to temple shrine. I will buy for her candles, incense, spirit money, until the Gods look down in wonder from their thrones. I am so filled with gratitude that when I see my friend, I will fall before her feet and bathe them with my happy tears for having trod the path of motherhood and given to the world a man-child, who has saved for me my son.

Kwei-li.

31 My Mother, We are home, and have not written thee for long, but have telegraphed thee twice daily, so that thou hast been assured that all is well.

We found our dear one, our Li-ti, bending o'er her babe, holding it safely, nestling it, murmuring, softly, whispers of mother love. This son, born in the hour of trouble and despair, is a token of the happiness to come, of the new life that will come forth from grief and sorrow.

He has learned a lesson, this boy of mine, and he will walk more carefully, guard more surely his footsteps, now he is the father of a son.

Kwei-li.

32 O Mother of graciousness, we are coming to thee! When all the hills are white with blossoms, we shall set forth, our eager hearts and souls one great, glad longing for the sight of thee standing in the archway, searching with earnest gaze the road, listening for the bearers' footsteps as we mount the hillside.

We leave this place of trial and turmoil. I want my children to come within the shelter of thy compound walls, where safety lies; and with the "shell of forgetfulness" clasped tightly in our hands, we will forget these days of anguish and despair. Then only, when my dear ones are far from here, shall my soul obtain the peace it craves, forgetful of the hostile, striving, plotting treachery of this foreign world I fear.

We are coming home to thee, Mother of my husband, and I have learned in life's great, bitter school that the joy of my Chinese woman-hood is to stand within the sheltered courtyard, with my family close about me, and my son's son in my arms.

Kwei-li.