One thing that No Fee told him in a burst of happiness rather vexed Sên
Ruben, and he grumbled of it to his mother in his next letter.
No had had a deal to tell him of her great girl friend C’hi Yamei and
it had not attracted Sên Ruben. C’hi Yamei was “emancipated.” Ruben was
not sure that so-called emancipation along Western lines had improved
any Chinese man, and he was sure that it had damaged and cheapened
Chinese women. C’hi Yamei had lived in Europe, her father often made
long stays there. When they were in Europe C’hi Yamei went everywhere
and did everything just as English girls did--did the dance with men,
went to the drama house with them. No Fee thought that admirable and
enviable. Sên Ruben did not. And when No Fee cried out in ecstasy
that Yamei was coming with her father to visit them, Sên Ruben was
exceedingly sorry to hear it.
Half their “flowery” rules would be relaxed, No asserted, while the
C’his were with them; relaxed in hospitality’s courteous veiling of
Sên C’hian Fan’s disapproval and detestation of his old friend C’hi Ng
Yelü’s dishonorable mistreatment and criminal disregard of old Chinese
sanctities. Oh! there would be high jinks while the C’his stayed. No
Fee was wildly delighted, half off her sleek little head at the riotous
prospect. Ruben foresaw the homestead’s charm of quiet broken and
spoiled; and even for little No’s sake he could not be glad that these
C’his were coming.
Of course it could not have happened, No prattled on, in the households
of many sash-wearers. Many chief-men would not have had it, and few,
if any, of their caste women would have brooked it. Sên Ya Tin! Sên
Ya Tin their Old-one would have raised the place first! But all his
women were tight and flat under C’hian Fan’s thumb, and would do and
smile as he bade them. Fortunately there wasn’t a strong woman in
Sênland now--unless she, No Fee herself, was one. Certainly she would
be a strong woman after her marriage; no being-under-thumb for her.
She’d rule her man, as Sên Ya Tin had ruled hers--and thousands of
other such wise and skillful women. And no mother-in-law for her. Long
ago she had instructed her father that her bridegroom was to be an
orphan. A grandmother mother-in-law was many times worse than a mother
mother-in-law, except of course that a grandmother-one would not live
so long to pester one.
Ruben laughed and told her that she was sinful, a sacrilegious
rebel--which she was. He did not add aloud that she was also very
lovable.
Sên Ruben might have missed the life and home of Ruben Sên, longed for
them, if it had not been for his cousin and playmate No Fee. And she
was his refuge as well as playmate.
There were things the Sêns did as a matter of course, some that they
took keen delight in doing, that rasped Ruben; a few that revolted him.
That is no small part of the Eurasian’s tragedy--the inevitable revolt
of self against self.
The sports of the younger of the Sên men delighted Ruben and disgusted
him. He joined in the polo they still played and excelled in as their
ancestors had when it was the favorite game of the T’ang Emperors,
and the palace ladies played it too, riding on their swift docile
donkeys whose saddles were inlaid and bridles jeweled; played polo
often at night, when the night-lantern hung full in the sky, or by the
illumination of thousands of gigantic candles. But he watched their
cock fights and the to-the-death struggles of their crickets with
lack-luster eyes and when he had watched one contest of their fighting
fish he had contrived not to see its finish, although he kept his place
in the excited ring of onlookers. And after that, whether it gave
offense or no, whether they laughed at him and scorned him for it or
not, he contrived to have something else to do, somewhere to roam far
afield with No Fee whenever a fish fight was on.
Sên Jo Hiêsen was greatly concerned, convinced that Sên Ruben’s liver
was badly disordered, a sad and dangerous ill to have befallen one so
young, and plied Ruben urgently with a parti-colored succession of
pills; not nonsensical Western pills, but good Chinese pills the size
of small plums and each deeply marked with characters of good omen
and restoration. Ruben accepted them meekly, and would have swallowed
them too--or attempted to swallow them--rather than have watched again
two infuriated little fighting fish gash and disembowel each other
for the amusement of men. But he was able to hoard them in his sleeve
instead, and up on the Cherry-Tree Hill he and No Fee played jackstones
with them until each and all had rolled away and been lost down in the
maiden-hair ferns and clumps of rose-colored pampas grass.
But the day of the great fight between the champion fish of Sên
Yolu-sun and that of Sên Pling, No refused flatly to scamper off with
Sên Ruben and announced to his horror that she intended to watch the
fun herself this time.
“No,” she owned, “women-ones and girls don’t as a rule. But I am
going to make my honorable father permit me that I do; and if C’hian
Fan forbid it, I know where I can hide and see it all. There’ll be
room for two in the hollow trunk of the soap tree, and C’hi Yamei
shall hide with me and watch too, for the lord C’hi and my dear one
Yamei reach us to-morrow in the hour before the dawn hour. Then the
fight begins--unless the rain comes. The fish-ones will not fight
if the rain-god spits down--but whoever heard of a rain-time in the
Magnolia Month! Yamei will love it. She loves all such brave sights, my
lion-hearted beautiful Yamei--and, oh, my heart leapt when Lord C’hi’s
runner panted in just before the rice-time and told the message that
they were nearly here! I adore Yamei; I adore that she comes. It will
be my happiness all the time she is here, and when she goes from me
again I shall sicken with my grieving. Yamei! My Yamei! Tell me, Sên
Ruben, thou thing of silence and frowns, dost think that C’hi Yamei
will come clad in her garments of Europe?”
“Probably,” Sên Ruben said glumly. The more he heard of this strident,
emancipated Miss C’hi, the more he disapproved her. Little No Fee was
merely a rogue and a romp--a wild-flower infinitely dainty and sweet,
but his heart was enraged that this Chinese “new” woman was to be
permitted to contaminate No. He’d be at the homestead but little while
the C’his were here.
“I hope she wears her dress of Europe!” No Fee chattered on. “Never
have I seen one of our women in the dress of Europe! A maiden in
petticoats! Ya-ya what fun!”
No Fee hid her face in her hands--in mock modesty--and giggled
immoderately, winking wickedly at Sên Ruben between her wee slender
fingers.
Sên Ruben pleaded a letter to write, and went off to his own pavilion.