“It does not matter whether you believe or not,” he had answered. “You can see for yourself that you are like no other in this world, and not only you, but the humblest and the least beautiful creature also has this precious residue. If you have it, you know it exists. It is enough to know that. Belief in its giver can wait. God is not unreasonable. He knows that for belief we like to see with the eyes and hear with the ears, that we like to hold within our hands. So does the child also know only what its five senses can tell it. But other senses there are, and these develop as the being grows, and when they are fully developed we trust them as once we trusted only our senses.”
Remembering these words of his, she looked across the table. The chair was empty, and she heard no voice. But his face was as clear to her with its grave smile, his voice as deep as ever she had seen or heard.
“I only begin to understand,” she murmured. “But I do begin. And with my soul I thee love.”
Was it not possible that there could be love and friendship between souls?
“It is possible,” she told him.
Now, Madame Wu was a practical woman, and what she learned she put to use. Within this house, which was her world, there were two disordered beings — that is, two who were not in right relation to the house and therefore to the universe. These, two were Rulan and Linyi.
Without haste, and allowing many days to pass, she nevertheless approached the day when she chose in her mind to speak with them, and first she would speak with Rulan, who was the elder.
It had been many months since Tsemo and Fengmo had left the home. Letters came to Madame Wu regularly, for the two were good sons. These letters were addressed to their father and to her, and after she had read them first and pondered over them, she sent them to Mr. Wu. After he had read them, he sent them to Liangmo, who more and more was taking over all the duties of the lands and shops, in preparation for the day when he would be the head of the family, and he read them and then put them in the family records.
From these letters Madame Wu had discerned clearly that her two sons were growing in opposite ways. Fengmo had wished to go abroad to study. She had given her permission and had sent the money which he required. There was some haste, he said, for the ocean roads were closing because of approaching war, and were he not to be caught, he must set sail without taking the long inland journey back to his home.
Had he been an only son Madame Wu would never have allowed this, but since she had so many sons, she did not press him to return before he went. He had set sail on a late winter day, he had crossed the seas in safety, and his letters now bore a strange postmark and stamp. These were American, but for this Madame Wu cared nothing. All outer countries were equally interesting and even alike to her, if they lay beyond the four seas. Fengmo pursued the studies which André had begun. Madame Wu was relieved to see that they had nothing to do with priesthood and religions. They had nothing to do with gods, and everything to do with men.
But Tsemo had not asked to cross the waters. Instead, he had gone to the capital and there had found a good place through his family’s wealth and influence. This did not amaze either Mr. Wu or Madame Wu herself, for however large her mind was, still it seemed only natural to her that everywhere the family should be known. Then Tsemo wrote the real reason why he had been so fortunate. Were there to come the war which threatened, the government would retreat inland, and there it would depend very much on the highest citizens and their families, of whom in their province the Wu family was the greatest and most ancient. Tsemo was given much preference, therefore, and had to endure jealousy and envy and some malice from others who were put aside. But he was young and hard and drove his own way for himself.
Madame Wu could not discover from his letters what he was. Fengmo she understood better. In his own way he was opening his mind and heart even as she had done. He was growing into a man and, more than that, his own residue, as André had called it, was growing also. But Tsemo seemed possessed. What possessed him she did not know.
The matter of Tsemo was hastened by the sudden news of attack by the East Ocean people that year on the coast. Madame Wu heard this, and she sent for newspapers, which she never read usually, to discover what had taken place. What she read was common enough in the history of the country. So other attacks had been made in many previous centuries by other peoples, and the nation had always stood. It would stand now, and she was not troubled. It was not likely that enemies would pierce the hundreds of miles inland to this province where the house of Wu had stood so long. But she was grateful to the past generations in the family that they had not yielded, as so many had, to new times, and so had not pressed toward the sea to build new houses on the coast. The Wu family had built upon its ancestral lands and had remained there. Today they were safe. True, this enemy attacked also from the air. Yet there were no great cities near here, and it was not likely that the ignorant East Ocean people would know the name of one family above another. Madame Wu felt safe in her own house.
But the attack forced a swift change, nevertheless. The government was moved inland, and Tsemo came with it. He wrote one day in the next early autumn that he would come home for ten or twelve days.
With this letter, Madame Wu knew she must not delay the matter of Rulan. She sent for the young woman by Ying as messenger.
Now, it is not to be supposed that in all these months Madame Wu had not seen her daughter-in-law. She had seen Rulan often. At the table she had seen her among the others, and at the usual festivals of spring and winter Rulan was there, always quiet and sober in her dress. There were also times when Madame Wu had wished some writing done for the records of the family and for the harvests, and she had called upon Rulan for this, because of them all Rulan brushed the clearest letters. She had been kind to her young daughter-in-law at all times, and once she had even said, “It is well enough to have one daughter-in-law who is learned.”
To this Rulan had replied with only a few necessary words of thanks.
But at no time had Madame Wu drawn the girl out of her place in the family. Now, with Tsemo’s last letter in her hands, she knew the time had come.
Rulan walked quietly through the courts. She no longer wore the hard leather shoes which she had brought with her from Shanghai. Instead she wore velvet ones, cloth-soled. Madame Wu did not hear her footsteps, and when the tall shadow fell across the floor she looked up in surprise.
“Daughter, how softly you walk,” she exclaimed after greetings.
“I put aside my leather shoes, Mother,” Rulan replied. She sat down, not sidewise, but squarely on her chair, which was against a sidewall and so was lower than the one Madame Wu used. They sat in the sitting room, not in the library.
Madame Wu did not at once approach what was in her mind to say. Instead she said courteously, “It has been in my thoughts these several weeks to ask about your family in Shanghai. When the enemy attacked, did they escape?”
“My father took the household to Hong Kong,” Rulan replied.
“Ah, a long way,” Madame Wu said kindly.
“But not long enough,” Rulan said with some energy. “I have told my father so.”
“You believe that the enemy will dare to attack so far?” Madame Wu inquired. She could not but be impressed with the girl’s quickness.
“It will be a long war,” Rulan replied.
“Indeed!” Madame Wu remarked.
“Yes,” Rulan went on, “for it has been long in preparation.”
“Explain this to me, if you please,” Madame Wu said. The girl’s certainty amused her.
So Rulan explained: “Mother, the East Ocean people have long been afraid, centuries afraid. And of what? Of foreign attack. They have seen one country after another attacked and possessed. Out of the West have the conquerors come. Even when Genghis Khan came and conquered our nation, the East Ocean people began to be afraid. Then men came out of Portugal and Spain, out of Holland and France, and took countries for themselves. And England took India, and we have been all but taken, too, again and again, by these greedy Westerners. ‘Why,’ thus the East Ocean people reason, ‘should we be spared?’ So out of fear they have set out to seize lands and peoples for their own, and we are their nearest neighbor.”