Читать книгу Go Ask the River - Evelyn Eaton - Страница 16

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HUNG TU’S MOTHER was the Second Lady of the House of Hsueh. She had come from a great merchant’s house in Changan, where she was only a concubine, as the First Lady often pointed out. Worse, she bore her husband nothing but a slave, a girl. His sons were First Lady’s.

These unkind public reflections wounded Hung Tu deeply, more than they seemed to hurt her mother, who sat serenely through them, gently acquiescing in anything that Elder Sister chose to say.

When, as a child, Hung Tu was stung to bursts of weeping, disgracing them both, Second Lady would take her quietly away to their own pavilion. She never scolded. She never encouraged rebellion or admitted that Elder Sister was unkind. But once, when Hung Tu in a passion of helpless fury shouted, “I hate her! I hate her!” Second Lady said, “Then do as I do, never give her the satisfaction of your tears.”

After that Hung Tu grew more cunning and more observant. One thing she observed, and saw others observing while they pretended to be blind. This was that her father’s sleeping mat was spread more often in Second Lady’s pavilion than in Elder Sister’s. Second Lady was gentle, she was pretty, her mind upon the pillow must have been satisfactory, a source of strength and comfort to her husband, although she had never learned script. When Hsueh Yun emerged from Second Lady’s door he was always smiling and content. People could ask him favors then, or tell him disquieting news. When his mat was spread in Elder Sister’s pavilion it was better to efface oneself that day, at least until the noon.

These reflections helped Hung Tu to endure the nagging of Elder Sister, the indifference of her brothers, and the rudeness of them all to her mother. Second Lady lived in as much seclusion as Elder Sister would permit, and in this way the daily life went on, with undercurrents of victory this side or that, beneath a surface of decorum.

Second Lady’s small name was Harmonizing Reed. It suited her essence. She could play several instruments—the harp, the lute, the guitar. Her voice was like silver raindrops. She had a prodigious memory for hundreds of songs. Long before Honorable Tutor introduced Hung Tu to the classics, she already knew the words of many by heart, from her mother’s songs. This was an advantage her brothers did not have, and one reason why she outstripped them at their lessons. As long as she could remember, Second Lady sang her to sleep with a different song each night. Sometimes her father came to listen. Then Second Lady played and sang for him alone, and Hung Tu was quite forgotten.

This was the union between them, the single mind, the undivided part, the heart the leaves attested of her poem. To their harmonious union she owed her existence and the indulgence with which she was treated in the House of Hsueh although she was a girl.

When she discussed this puzzling question, the misfortune of being born a girl, a disgrace to Hsueh Yun and Second Lady, and what she had done to be so evil, Second Lady paid serious attention, as though the words in her mouth were important. This was soothing to Hung Tu, wilting over what her brothers often said.

“If they were not so unkind, I would like being a girl.”

Second Lady smiled at her.

“It is wisdom to enjoy being oneself. When your brothers speak against you rudely, bend as the bamboo does to the breeze. It is but air in their mouths. How can it hurt you?”

“But they say it and say it all the time!”

“A true thing, daughter, need only be uttered once, sometimes not at all, to be evident and acceptable. A doubtful thing is repeated many times, loudly, with anger and with argument. This does not make it true or acceptable.”

“But Elder Sister…”

“Elder Sister speaks for our good, and sometimes from unhappiness. Remember that.”

“If Elder Sister is unhappy, she deserves to be. She makes everyone unhappy, even my father.”

“Elder Sister is First Lady of the House of Hsueh,” Second Lady said quickly. “We will speak of her with proper respect.”

“Well, but I would rather give my husband joy than two dull sons.”

“The breath of your mouth is evil,” Second Lady said severely, but her own mouth trembled, hiding a quick smile. She changed the subject from Elder Sister to Hung Tu’s difficulties as a girl.

“There are precepts to be observed,” she said. “A woman must do what she does better than a man would do it, and be sure that it goes unnoticed, to be acceptable to men. It is therefore wise to restrict one’s occupations to those a man does not generally desire to do.”

“But I want to be a poet,” Hung Tu said sullenly. “And when I brush good words I am in disgrace.”

“Not because you brush good words. You could brush good words all day and nobody would mind. It is because you jostle your brothers’ elbows. You claim attention for your words, while some of the greatest poets let theirs go unclaimed.”

Hung Tu pondered this.

“It is never wise to insist on praise from unwilling lips. You would do better to praise your brothers’ words and offer to copy them. You might set them to music and sing them to your father, or to all of us, in the garden.”

“I had rather sing my own words.”

“You may do that too, when they are good enough, and when you have worked harder at your instrument. When I was your age I could play the p’i-pa as well as I do now, and I had already sung before the Emperor.”

It was rare that Second Lady mentioned her childhood, and when she did it usually put an end to the conversation. Hung Tu bowed and went about her duties, but she thought about these things and grew more confident.