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PROLOGUE MY MOTHER’s BETROTHAL

1

In our village the Princes’ Fair held every autumn was one of the most festive of our religious observations. But this year the Princes’ Fair was a source of disappointment to many.

Now we saw a troop of umbrella-bearers passing by in the procession. These were only the old satin umbrellas proved by the various families of the village, nothing very novel. Everyone was saying that folks at the Hengyu silk store had had a special umbrella made, studded with real pearls, but they were afra to produce it for the occasion for fear of Master Three’s disapproval.

There were four troops of K’unshan Opera singers this year, which was not a bad showing. The singers and musicians were all dressed in what was called “half-length gowns,” with white bamboo-cloth tops and lower halves made of lake-colored silk. From the small finger of each performer was suspended an exquisite little fan of speckled-bamboo frame, and these fans dangled to and fro beneath the bamboo flutes and mouth-organs as the players marched playing along.

For theatricals this year there were six productions, all of them “straight dramas” and not one comedy. This was also in deference to Master Three’s wishes. The boys in the back village had wanted to stage a selection from the naughty “Emerald-Screen Hill,” but rather than risk being talked to by Master Three, had changed it to a heroic episode from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. As it was, under the hot sun of the Seventh Month, even the sedate ladies of this show soon appeared bedraggled, and there would not have been much chance for saucy P’an Ch’iao-yün of “Emerald-Screen Hill” to have displayed herself to advantage. Still, in the heart of the assembled onlookers there was this lingering regret: what a pity that that handsome lad Hsiao-Ti from back village was not to have been given a chance to impersonate P’an Ch’iao-yün!

But the greatest let-down of this year was that there were no “elevated floats” at all. The back village folks had long since rehearsed a couple of tableaux for the floats called “The Dragon-Tiger Battle” and “Sweeping the Tombs.” No one had expected that when Master Three came home this year and saw the fair grounds he remarked that it would be quite dangerous for youngsters to be play-acting on those highly-raised platforms, lest they fall off under the effect of the heat. He had vigorously opposed it, and the elevated floats had to be dropped.

The noisy bands and the K’unshan Opera troupes passed by one after another, and so d the theatrical productions. Then came the sedan-chair bearing the shrine of the Princes. The onlookers by the wayse prodded their children and shouted to one another: “Bow down! Bow down!” And the multitude of men, women and children, in their homespun cloth of white-and-blue patterns, all clapped their hands together and made obeisance.

Right behind the shrine chair came the pilgrims. Some were dressed in long gowns of summer-cloth, holding the incense sticks cupped in their hands; some in short jackets, bearing incense-burners in which were burnt incense spirals. There were still others with deeper pledges to God which they were here today to redeem by the extreme sacrifice of “hanging incense.” These people all wore white cotton jackets on top of red-and-green cotton skirts, so that from the distance you could hardly tell the men from the women. Their incense-burners were hung by brass hooks which were sunk into the flesh of their wrists, smeared with incense ashes to avo bleeding. This year there were especially many pilgrims who came to “hang incense”—some with the burner hooked to the left wrist, some with one to each wrist, some with only a small incense-burner, while others even had two burners on one wrist in a greater effort to demonstrate their faith by enduring suffering. These were all devout pilgrims with pledges to redeem: they walked for miles behind the shrine chair, the incense-burners hanging from their wrists, and although there were attendants following to cool them off with the fan now and then, a pilgrim would drop by the wayse, prostrate by the heat.

*　*　*　*　*

Feng Shun-ti held her little brother by the hand and stood bese her aunt on a stone ledge to watch the procession. She was a girl of fourteen, whose home was ten li away in Mdle Village. This aunt of hers was married here in Upper Homestead, whose turn it was this year to conduct the fair, and she and her brother had been invited over by the relatives to see the fair.

A daughter of the farm, fourteen-year-old Shun-ti had learned much from the experience of poverty and had early acquired an adult’s good sense. As she stood there by the wayse she listened to the various comments on the fair, and it seemed that every sentence had something to do with Master Three. “Master Three is home for the fair this year, and he sure spoilt the fair for us all.” “Isn’t that the truth? No floats, even!” “Before Master Three got home the opium dens over in Eight Town had all closed down; the gambling places also dn’t dare stay open. No gambling, no opium-smoking at a Seventh Month fair—that’s something that has not happened in years.”

The villagers gathered for the fair carried on with one comment after another, and all of this talk was absorbed by the attentive Shun-ti. She thought in her heart: Master Three must be quite a man, if he can make the gambling and opium places afra to open their doors.

Now the procession of the fair was over, and the crowd slowly dispersed. Suddenly she heard a voice murmur: “Here comes Master Three!” She looked up, and saw that people were falling back right and left to make way for the newcomer and heard many voices raised in greeting, “Master Three!”

Two men walked up. One was a big, mdle-aged man, with bronzed complexion, some short whiskers, and a compelling light in his eyes that made people avo his glance; he had on a loose-fitting jacket and trousers and a pair of hemp sandals, and in his hand he held a long pipe stick. Walking with him was an old man of lean frame and a graying beard, who wore the same type of short jacket and also held a long pipe.

Shun-ti’s aunt whispered to her, saying, “The dark one is Master Three; the other is Master Yüeh-chi, whose school is right in front of our house. They say Master Three is a government official in the North, way beyond the Great Wall, where no human beings live and where it’s so cold in the winter your nose gets frozen off and so hot in the summer mosquitoes are as big as flies. Master Three is a man who can stand all the hardships and fears no sun nor wind. He has lived these many years outse the Great Wall; his face got burnt as black as Lord Pao the Great Judge.”

By this time, Master Three and Master Yüeh-chi had come up in front of the group and, having paused to exchange a final word, Master Three walked on down the slope by himself. Master Yüeh-chi turned to greet Shun-ti’s aunt, and walked home with the three of them.

Seeing Shun-ti, Master Yüeh-chi asked, “Sister Ts’an, is this your Brother Chin-tsao’s little girl?”

“Yes. Shun-ti! Ch’eng-hou! Come and greet Master Yüeh-chi.”

Catching sight of Shun-ti’s long braed hair, Master Yüeh-chi exclaimed, “Sister Ts’an, look at this young lady’s hair, reaching all the way to the ground. It speaks of good fortune! Good fortune! Promised to any family yet?”

At this query Shun-ti’s face flushed a deep red and, taking her little brother by the hand, she ran on ahead, oblivious of her aunt.

The good woman quickened her steps, calling after them, “Watch out you don’t fall!” and, turning to Master Yüeh-chi, “No, not promised to anyone yet. She’s a fine girl, that child, and quite understanding. Our Brother Chin-tsao always wanted to find her a nice husband, so she is fourteen now and still not promised to any family.”

“Why don’t you look up her Eight Characters for me?” Master Yüeh-chi sa to the aunt. “And let me take a reading for her and see. Don’t forget about it.”

When he reached his own home he turned around and reminded her: “Don’t forget, now. Ask Brother Ts’an to have the girl’s Eight Characters copied for me.”

2

Shun-ti stayed in Upper Homestead until the end of the fair, and then her uncle took the sister and brother back to Mdle Village. In the hot and long day of the Seventh Month, they d not start on their journey until about sunset and by the time they had walked the ten li or so to reach home it was not yet completely dark.

Shun-ti’s mother had just locked the cow in the barn, and she now hustled to entertain the uncle and put him up for the night.

“Papa not home yet?” asked Shun-ti.

” Chieh-chieh, let’s go and meet him!” Without waiting for the mother’s reply, brother and sister dashed out of the house.

When they came to the edge of the village they spied their father coming toward the village with a load of rocks. They ran up calling, “Papa,” and sister and brother each took a rock from the father’s load and carried it after him. The father carried his load to an old building site on his land, where he emptied the rocks onto the slightly sunken ground. Then he jumped in and la the rocks level before he shouldered his carrying-pole and empty baskets and made his way home.

“Was that the third load?” asked Shun-ti.

Her father nodded without comment, but only asked the children how they liked the fair and if the show was any good, as they walked home together.

*　*　*　*　*

Shun-ti’s father was surnamed Feng, with the given name of Chin-tsao. His family, for generations peasants, had by dint of bitter struggle managed to acquire a modicum of property, consisting of a few mou of land and a house of their own. When Chin-tsao reached the age of thirteen or fourteen the “Long-Hair Bandits” of the T’aip’ing Rebellion descended on Hweichow, and Mdle Village, being on the highway in the northern countryse of the town of Chich’i, was completely burned to the ground by the Long Hairs. All the members of Chin-tsao’s family, old and young, were killed except himself, and he was knapped. In the army of the Long Hairs the men saw that he was a hardy, able little boy and so they had the words “T’aip’ing Heavenly Kingdom” tattooed on his face so that he would not run away. An army tailor took pity on the boy and took him in as an apprentice. Chin-tsao learned to have a fine hand at tailoring and he got by for years in the Long Hair camps, following the rebels from Chich’i to Ningkuo and to Kwangteh before he finally managed to make his escape. But because he had a tattooed face, which meant a reward for anyone who turned him in to the government, he d not dare show his face in broad daylight. Each day he would he in broken-down houses until nightfall before he would dare take to the road. Thus he endured all hardships and finally made his way back to his native village, only to find that nothing was left but scorched earth and some charred ruins, and of able-bodied males in the village only twenty or thirty had survived.

Chin-tsao proved himself a hard-working young man. After his return home he searched out the neglected fields of the family farm and set about ploughing and planting with all his might. With his spare energy he worked the fields for other families and plied his tailoring trade. It was not ten years before he had built himself a home from the half-burnt remains of a brick house and had taken himself a wife. Now husband and wife both worked hard and ate bitterness and in time managed to put away some money and raised a family of their own.

Their first-born was a daughter. Coming right after a great upheaval, daughters were not particularly welcome, so this one was named Shun-ti(Toward Brother) in the fond hope that she would bring a little brother at the next birth. Several years later it d come about that a son was born to the Feng family, and they were all very happy.

As a man, Chin-tsao was most good-hearted; he was much in demand in nearby villages for his workmanship as a tailor, and everybody knew him to be an honest, industrious man. People from other villages greeted him with respect and called him Brother Chin-tsao.

But all these years there was a great unfulfilled desire in Chin-tsao’s heart. It had always been his wish to rebuild his family heritage, the old ancestral home that had been burned down by the Long Hairs. All his folks had been killed, leaving him alone to survive, and he felt that Heaven had spared him for just this purpose—to restore the ancestral property. He had made a secret pledge to himself: he would build on the site of the old house a new one that would be bigger and even more elaborate.

He had put in a great deal of his spare time, cleaning away the rubble from where the old house used to stand and digging up the ground, preparatory to raising a new foundation on which to erect a building that would be high and dry. He would rise every day before dawn; daybreak would find him by the village stream picking out rocks to carry home in big loads for the filling of his building site. He would go back and forth until he brought three loads each morning before he would go to work on the farm; in the evening after work-hours he would go back for three more loads before sitting down to his supper. When the busy season was over and he hired himself out to other villages to work as a tailor he would also fill his daily quota of three loads of rocks every morning before going about his trade and another three loads after the evening meal before he would rest for the day.

This was the daily schedule he had set himself, the fulfillment of a pledge well known to his wife and children. The women of the family could not help him carry rocks and they could not persuade him to have more rest, and it would be of no use even if they tried. Sometimes when he was really fatigued after having moved his rocks, he would slump back on his bamboo chair and smoke his pipe stick, his eyes fixed on his teen-age daughter and small son, breathing a long quiet sigh.

Shun-ti was already a sensible girl, and she felt sick in her heart at the sight of her father bent over such toil and labor. She often hated herself for not being a man so that she could go to the stream to carry rocks for her father. All she could do was to be at the edge of the village each morning and evening to meet her father, and to take one or two rocks from his load and help carry them to the building site, in this way to share a bit of his chores.

Even as they watched it daily the ground level was raised higher and higher, but building materials like bricks and tiles and lumber were nowhere to be had. The new house that would be so magnificent remained in the family’s dreams. Sometimes Shun-ti would actually dream that she was a man, and that she was returning home to visit her parents from her post as a high official. She was returning to the new house that had already been completed, and she alighted from her sedan-chair in front of its shiny black-lacquered doors. But once she stepped off the sedan-chair it seemed again that the high official was not she herself but her younger brother.

3

That year Shun-ti reached the age of seventeen.

One afternoon Chin-tsao was engaged in his tailoring over at Chang Family Shop, three li away, when in walked a mdle-aged woman who called out, “Uncle Chin-tsao!” He recognized her to be Sister Hsing-wu of Upper Homestead, whose maternal home was not far from Mdle Village and whom he had known since childhood. She was Master Three’s aunt on the paternal se; her husband Master Hsing-wu being one of Eight Town’s well-known gentry, she was known everywhere as “Master Hsing-wu’s Lady.”

Chin-tsao invited her to sit down, and she forthwith announced: “What a coincence! I was on my way to Mdle Village to see you and when I had come as far as Chang Family Shop I was told that you are working here. Really a coincence! Uncle Chin-tsao, what I wanted to see you about was to have your Shun-ti’s Eight Characters written out for me.”

Chin-tsao asked for whose family it was intended.

Master Hsing-wu’s Lady sa: “You know, we are thinking of our eldest nephew, Brother Three.”

“Master Three?”

“Yes. Brother Three is forty-seven this year, and his first married, Jade-ring, has been dead these ten years or more. Jade-ring had left him a heap of children—three sons and three daughters—all grown up now. But being an official away from home, he found it really inconvenient without a helpmate. So he had written home and asked that we fixed him up to be married again.”

Chin-tsao replied: “What call a farmer’s daughter has to aim to be an official lady? I beg you not even to mention this thing.”

Master Hsing-wu’s Lady sa: “This Brother Three of ours is rather odd-tempered. He wrote home this year particularly insisting that he wished to take the daughter of a farming family for a wife.”

“What reason is there in that?”

“He sa that the daughter of a farming family would have good health and would not be a consumptive like Jade-ring. He also sa that one who comes from a farming family would know what it means to struggle against hardships.”

Chin-tsao sa: “This thing would never work. First of all, we are no match for any official family. Secondly, my old lady would not think of giving her daughter to somebody for a second wife. Thirdly, Master Three’s own children are all grown-up, the eldest son and daughter both several years older than Shun-ti. It would not be easy to act as step-mother in a family like that. So you might as well forget about the Eight Characters.”

Master Hsing-wu’s Lady sa: “Now don’t you be modest. Shun-ti is a sedate girl, and she is one blessed with good fortune too. Uncle Chin-tsao, please don’t blame me for being frank. Shun-ti is seventeen this year; in the twinkling of an eye she will be all of twenty, and where would you expect to find her a black-haired youngster? And what’s wrong with being a second wife? Brother Three says in his letter, once the bre comes over he will take her along to his new post. As for his children, the eldest daughter has been married off; the eldest son will marry this year and is staying at home; the second daughter has been given away for adoption since she was a baby; and the third daughter also is staying at home. When he goes to his post he will only have the fifteen-year-old twins with him, and they will be sent to school. There wouldn’t be much trouble in taking care of that family.”

Chin-tsao was a good man, and he could see that the woman had made some irrefutable points in her case. According to the custom of our native village, a daughter usually got engaged by the time she was thirteen or fourteen. A girl reaching seventeen or eighteen years of age would more often than not be married off as a second wife. But in their love and indulgence for Shun-ti he and his wife had always hoped to marry her into some bookish family, and thus unavoably had delayed her. This happened to have been a load on the mind of the two parents, and it gave him pause today.

Perceiving his hesitation, Master Hsing-wu’s Lady added: “Uncle Chin-tsao, now don’t you be of many minds. You go back and consult Auntie Chin-tsao and have the girl’s Eight Characters made out. I am going to my mother’s today, and tomorrow I’ll come by and pick them up. Nobody can tell whether or not the Eight Characters would match, whether the birth dates and hours would be suited. Anyway, there’s no harm in having the Eight Characters made out and seen.”

Chin-tsao thought about it, and true enough there seemed to be no harm in having the Eight Characters made out, and so he promised.

*　*　*　*　*

When he came home from Chang Family Shop that day Shun-ti and her brother were still out grazing the cows. After setting down his packet of thread and needles and his iron, he seated himself on a bench by the door-step and puffed away at his pipe. His wife saw that there was something on his mind, and she lost no time questioning him about it. He related to her what Sister Hsing-wu had sa.

Upon hearing it she became very angry, and she hastened to ask: “You dn’t promise her to write out the Eight Characters, d you?”

He sa: “I told her I would come home and talk it over. But there is no harm in having the Eight Characters made out for that family, it seems.”

She sa: “That won’t do. I would not marry my daughter to an old man of nearly fifty. They have a heap of children in that family, and it’s not going to be easy to be a step-mother there. Beses, these official families look down upon us farm folks, and in the future when people take advantage of our daughter who will be there to stick up for us? I won’t give them the Eight Characters.”

He mumbled his words slowly, “Shun-ti is seventeen this year, and it is not an easy thing to find the right family. Master Three is a fine man—”

His wife became angrier than ever. “All right, it’s all my fault. I should not have aimed high, thus delaying our daughter’s lifelong happiness. Since nobody is interested in our daughter, you are thinking of giving her away as a second wife, as a step-mother. It is all right to be a second wife, but not in Master Three’s family. They are official folk, and people will say for sure that it is because we are achieving for prestige, not hesitating to sell out a daughter in order to have some official for a son-in-law. I would not dare to endure this wicked name. Another family is all right, but I won’t stand it if it is Master Three’s family. So nobody wants our daughter, I am willing to support her for the rest of her life.”

The husband and wife had a quarrel over this, and finally Chin-tsao sa: “Let us not argue any more. This is Shun-ti’s own affair. After supper let us ask her for her own opinion. How is that?” To which she consented.

When supper was over, Shun-ti saw that her brother went to bed and then seated herself bese the vegetable-oil lamp to stitch a shoe. Chin-tsao opened his mouth and started saying, “Shun-ti, there is something your mother wanted to ask you.”

Shun-ti looked up to inquire of her mother what it might be, and her mother sa, “It is your Pa wanted to ask you something; don’t shove it on my shoulders.”

Shun-ti saw that her mother was somewhat angry and, not knowing what it was all about, turned to her Pa. Her Pa sa to her: “Master Three of Upper Homestead wanted to take a second wife, and somebody from his family was sent over for your Eight Characters. Your Ma d not like it because he is too old, forty-seven—thirty years older than you. They also have a heap of children in that family, and not easy to be a step-mother to. We fear it might be something that would ruin your whole life, so we would like to have your own opinion.”

He went on and repeated what Sister Hsing-wu had told him that day.

Shun-ti had long since buried her head in her needlework, and d not utter a word for some time. Her Ma had also shut up without offering a word.

Her Pa d not add anything to what he had sa.

Although Shun-ti d not open her mouth, in her heart she was busy thinking. It seemed that she had shut her eyes and saw her father carrying a heavy load of rocks at daybreak from outse the village; she saw the big piece of land that was to be a building site on which was piled load after load of rocks; she saw her father in the evenings seated in the dark shadows, thinking and sighing. Then her thoughts flitted to that scene of her triumphant return as a high official, stepping down from her sedan-chair in front of the doors of the new house. Again, there appeared before her eyes the image of the bronzed face of Master Three, and the eyes with their compelling light. …

She thought to herself as follows: Here at last comes the opportunity for her to help out her parents. To be a second wife usually means a larger wedding gift to the bre’s family. Since this is an official family, with many children from the former marriage, the gift from the groom of money and such should be even more handsome. Maybe she could even find ways of helping her parents later. This means the dream of her father’s lifetime, the new house, will have a chance to come true. …And Master Three is a fine man; everybody respects him, and only those people who run the gambling places and opium dens fear him and hate him. …

Her mother’s voice raised in speech broke off her train of thought. Her Ma was saying, “To your parents what is there that you cannot say? Now, you speak up!”

Shun-ti lifted up her eyes and saw that both her Pa and Ma were watching her. She lowered her head and, flushing a deep red, sa: “As long as you two think he is all right, you will please dece.” Then she added this comment: “For a man, forty-seven is not consered very old.”

Her Pa heaved a long sigh. Her Ma leapt to her feet in anger, and she sa indignantly: “That’s fine! You like to be an official lady! All right! It is just as you please!”

When Shun-ti heard this remark she felt both shame and anger; her sewing dropped to the floor, and she could not help her tears coming streaming down. She picked up her sewing and, without another word, went to her own room to cry.

*　*　*　*　*

From this family counsel Shun-ti’s Ma knew that her daughter was willing; what she d not know was the girl’s painful dedication of herself to the a of her parents, and so she d not aim to see this marriage proposition succeed.

She was afra that once the Eight Characters were written out for the family, if the birth dates and hours happened to match, it would be hard to refuse; and if the Eight Characters should prove unsuited, they would be the laughing-stock of the neighborhood for having tried in vain to marry into high officialdom. She made up her mind to fake a set of Eight Characters for the go-between. The next morning, she went to the school in the ancestral hall and ask the teacher to look up Shun-ti’s Eight Characters, but in doing so purposely gave a wrong date and a wrong hour for the girl’s birth. The teacher looked up the characters and the signs in his Ten-Thousand-Year Almanac, copied them down on a piece of paper, and gave it to her to take home to Chin-tsao.

In the afternoon, Master Hsing-wu’s Lady repaired to Chang Family Shop, where she picked up the Eight Characters certificate and went home in great elation. Back in Upper Homestead, she sought out Master Yüeh-chi and requested that he pair up the respective Eight Characters of Shun-ti and Master Three and see if they matched.

Master Yüeh-chi looked at the certificate and inquired whose daughter it was.

“It’s Brother Chin-tsao’s Shun-ti over at Mdle Village.”

Master Yüeh-chi sa, “Then these Eight Characters are wrong. To think a village school-teacher not knowing how to use an almanac even. He’s got four of these characters wrong.”

Master Hsing-wu’s Lady asked: “How do you know that the Eight Characters are wrong?”

Master Yüeh-chi replied: “I happened to have looked up the girl’s Eight Characters before, and I still remember them. Three years ago I saw this young lass at the Seventh Month Fair. Isn’t she the niece of Sister Ts’an? Roundish face, a bit of freckles, long hair reaching all the way down, is that the one? Not a pretty girl, but very sedate, not like the daughter of a farming family. At the time I remember asking Sister Ts’an for her Eight Characters to reckon with. The Eight Characters that I have looked up I do not forget in three to five years.”

He pulled out a drawer of his writing desk and found a strip of paper, exclaiming, “Dn’t I say so? Here it is!” He picked up his writing-brush and made the necessary corrections on Shun-ti’s birth certificate, and at one se he wrote down Master Three’s Eight Characters. He figured at it for a while, and then addressed Master Hsing-wu’s Lady: “The Eight Characters matched all right. You don’t have to check any further. Sister Hsing-wu, you have a good eye. This would make a good match for Brother Three. Looks are not important; even Eight Characters are not important, but I know there is good upbringing in Brother Chin-tsao’s family. Why don’t you get the gift list drawn up tomorrow. I shall write to Brother Three myself.”

*　*　*　*　*

Two days later, Master Hsing-wu’s Lady went over to Mdle Village to talk over the “gift list” with Brother Chin-tsao. She started grumbling, “Your village teacher is really no good, even got the Eight Characters half wrong—almost spoilt a good match, he d.”

Sister Chin-tsao knew very well in her heart what had caused the mistake, but she asked who it was who had discovered it. Thereupon Master Hsing-wu’s Lady rendered an account of what Master Yüeh-chi had sa, from beginning to end. Chin-tsao husband and wife were amazed at this, saying to each other that this must have been a match Fate had ordained. Now Sister Chin-tsao no longer held to her opposition. They promised to work out a gift list and b her to come back for it in a few days.

Feng Shun-ti was my mother, and Master Three was my father whose name was T’ieh-hua. In my father’s diary there were the following entries:

“[The 15th Year of Kuanghsu (1889), Second Month] 16th, arrived home after traveling fifty li. …

21st, dispatched go-between to the Fengs, fixed the date 12th of the Third Month for wedding. …

11th, Third Month, dispatched sedan-chair to Mdle Village of Seven Town to fetch the bre, née Feng.

12th, Miss Feng arrived. Wedding ceremony held. Pa respects in ancestral hall.

13th, 14th, reception for guests. …

6th, Fourth Month, to Mdle Village to pay respects to Father-in-law and Mother-in-law.

7th, returned from Mdle Village. …

9th, Fifth Month, started on journey to Shanghai. Rain. Lodged at Newbrge in Ching, after traveling fifty-five li.”