Chapter 9 No.9

My Dear One,

I cannot wait until the seventh day to write thee again, as my letter to

thee yestereve was full of sadness and longing. Now I have slept, and

troubles from a distance do not seem so grave.

Thine Honourable Mother has chided me gravely, but to my mind

unjustly, and, as thou knowest, I could not answer her words, though

they pierced me "like arrows from the strings of white-winged bows."

Poor Li-ti is in trouble again, and this time she has brought it upon

herself, yet she cannot he blamed. I as the head of the household, as

thine Honourable Mother has told me, should have protected her. I

told thee that she brought servants from her old home, and amongst

them her childhood's nurse, who, I am sure, loves Li-ti dearly; but, as

many women who have little to occupy their hands, she loves to sit in

the women's courtyard and gossip. If it had stopped within the

servants' courtyard all would have been well; but at the time of Li-ti's

dressing all the small goods she had gathered during the day were

emptied into the lap of Li-ti, who is too young to know that "as poison

that reaches the blood spreads through the body, so does the love of

gossip spread through the soul of woman." I do not know how it came

about, but comparisons were made between the households, that of

her home and that of her husband, and news was carried back to the

servants' quarters until at last our household was in a state of unrest

that stopped all work and made living quite impossible.

It seems small, but it is the retailing of little calumnies that disturbs

the harmony of kinsmen and ruins the peace of families. Finally I

found it necessary to talk to Li-ti's nurse, and I told her many things it

were good for her to know. I warned her that if she did not wish to

revisit her home province she must still her tongue. Things were better

for a time, but they commenced again, and I called her to my

courtyard and said to her, "The sheaves of rice have been beaten

across the wood for the last time. You must go." Li-ti was

inconsolable, but I was firm. Such quarrels are not becoming when we

are so many beneath one rooftree.

The servant went away, but she claimed her servant's right of reviling

us within our gate. She lay beneath our outer archway for three long

hours and called down curses upon the Liu family. One could not get

away from the sound of the enumeration of the faults and vices of thy

illustrious ancestors even behind closed doors. I did not know, my

husband, that history claimed so many men of action by the name of

Liu. It pleased me to think thou mayest claim so long a lineage, as

she went back to the dynasty of Ming and brought forth from his grave

each poor man and woman and told us of-- not his virtues. I should

have been more indignant, perhaps, if I had not heard o'ermuch the

wonders of thy family tree. I was impressed by the amount of

knowledge acquired by the family of Li-ti. They must have searched

the chronicles which evidently recorded only the unworthy acts of thy

men-folk in the past. I hope that I will forget what I have heard, as

some time when I am trying to escape from thine ancestors the

tongue might become unruly.

At the end of three hours the woman was faint and very ill. I had one

of the servants take her down to the boat, and sent a man home with

her, bearing a letter saying she was sickening for home faces. She is

old, and I did not want her to end her days in disgrace and shame.

But thine Honourable Mother! Thine Honourable Mother! Art thou not

glad that thou art in a far-off country? She went from courtyard to

courtyard, and for a time I fully expected she would send to the

Yamen for the soldiers; then she realised the woman was within her

right, and so restrained her-self. It nearly caused her death, as thou

knowest thine Honourable Mother has not long practised the virtue of

restraint, especially of the tongue. She was finally overcome taken to

her chamber, and we brought her tea and heated wine, and tried in all

our ways to make her forget the great humiliation. As she became no

better, we sent for the man of medicine from the Eastern Gate, and he

wished to burn her shoulders with a heated cash to remove the heat

within her. To this she objected so strongly that he hastily gathered

his utensils and departed looking fearfully over his shoulder from time

to time as he passed quickly down the hillside.

Then I thought of her favourite priest from the monastery down below,

and sent for him. He came with candle and incense and, I think, some

rose wine for which the monastery is justly famous; and he chanted

prayers, striking from time to time a little gong, until peace was

restored and sleep came to her eyelids.

In the morning she wished to talk to Li-ti; but I feared for her, and I

said, "You cannot speak of the ocean to a well-frog, nor sing of ice to

a summer insect. She will not understand. She said Li-ti was without

brains, a senseless thing of paint and powder. I said, "We will form

her, we will make of her a wise woman in good time. She replied with

bitterness, "Rotten wood cannot be carved nor walls of dirt be

plastered." I could not answer, but I sent Li-ti to pass the day with

Chih-peh at the Goldfish Temple, and when she returned the time was

not so stormy.

All this made me unhappy, and the cares of this great household

pressed heavily upon my shoulders. Please do not think the cares too

heavy, nor that I do not crave the work. I know all labour is done for

the sake of happiness, whether the happiness comes or no; and if I

find not happiness, I find less time to dream and mourn and long for

thee, my husband.

Thy Wife.