Mrs. Spring Fragrance
“Your husband comes for you today. Does the thought make you glad?”
questioned Koan-lo the First.
Sie smiled and blushed.
“I shall be sorry to leave you,” she replied.
“But more glad than sad,” said the old man. “Sie, your husband is now a
fine fellow. He has changed wonderfully during his years of probation.”
“Then I shall neither know nor love him,” said Sie mischievously. “Why,
here he—”
“My sweet one!”
“My husband!”
“My children, take my blessing; be good and be happy. I go to my pipe,
to dream of bliss if not to find it.”
With these words Koan-lo the First retired.
“Is he not almost as a god?” said Sie.
“Yes,” answered her husband, drawing her on to his knee. “He has been
better to me than I have deserved. And you—ah, Sie, how can you care for
me when you know what a bad fellow I have been?”
“Well,” said Sie contentedly, “it is always our best friends who know
how bad we are.”
THE THREE SOULS OF AH SO NAN
I
The sun was conquering the morning fog, dappling with gold the gray
waters of San Francisco’s bay, and throwing an emerald radiance over the
islands around.
Close to the long line of wharves lay motionless brigs and schooners,
while farther off in the harbor were ships of many nations riding at
anchor.
A fishing fleet was steering in from the open sea, scudding before the
wind like a flock of seabirds. All night long had the fishers toiled in
the deep. Now they were returning with the results of their labor.
A young Chinese girl, watching the fleet from the beach of Fisherman’s
Cove, shivered in the morning air. Over her blue cotton blouse she wore
no wrap; on her head, no covering. All her interest was centred in one
lone boat which lagged behind the rest, being heavier freighted. The
fisherman was of her own race. When his boat was beached he sprang to
her side.
“O’Yam, what brings you here?” he questioned low, for the curious eyes
of his fellow fishermen were on her.
“Your mother is dying,” she answered.
The young man spake a few words in English to a Greek whose boat lay
alongside his. The Greek answered in the same tongue. Then Fou Wang
threw down his nets and, with the girl following, walked quickly along
the waterfront, past the wharves, the warehouses, and the grogshops, up
a zigzag hill and into the heart of Chinatown. Neither spoke until they
reached their destination, a dingy three-storied building.
The young man began to ascend the stairs, the girl to follow. Fou Wang
looked back and shook his head. The girl paused on the lowest step.
“May I not come?” she pleaded.
“Today is for sorrow,” returned Fou Wang. “I would, for a time, forget
all that belongs to the joy of life.”
The girl threw her sleeve over her head and backed out of the open door.
“What is the matter?” inquired a kind voice, and a woman laid her hand
upon her shoulder.
O’Yam’s bosom heaved.
“Oh, Liuchi,” she cried, “the mother of Fou Wang is dying, and you know
what that means to me.”
The woman eyed her compassionately.
“Your father, I know,” said she, as she unlocked a door and led her
companion into a room opening on to the street, “has long wished for an
excuse to set at naught your betrothal to Fou Wang; but I am sure the
lad to whom you are both sun and moon will never give him one.”
She offered O’Yam some tea, but the girl pushed it aside. “You know not
Fou Wang,” she replied, sadly yet proudly. “He will follow his
conscience, though he lose the sun, the moon, and the whole world.”
A young woman thrust her head through the door.
“The mother of Fou Wang is dead,” cried she.
* * * * *
“She was a good woman—a kind and loving mother,” said Liuchi, as she
gazed down upon the still features of her friend.
The young daughter of Ah So Nan burst into fresh weeping. Her pretty
face was much swollen. Ah So Nan had been well loved by her children,
and the falling tears were not merely waters of ceremony.
At the foot of the couch upon which the dead was laid, stood Fou Wang,
his face stern and immovable, his eye solemn, yet luminous with a
steadfast fire. Over his head was thrown a white cloth. From morn till
eve had he stood thus, contemplating the serene countenance of his
mother and vowing that nothing should be left undone which could be done
to prove his filial affection and desire to comfort her spirit in the
land to which it had flown. “Three years, O mother, will I give to thee
and grief. Three years will I minister to thy three souls,” he vowed
within himself, remembering how sacred to the dead woman were the
customs and observances of her own country. They were also sacred to
him. Living in America, in the midst of Americans and Americanized
Chinese, the family of Fou Wang, with the exception of one, had clung
tenaciously to the beliefs of their forefathers.
“All the living must die, and dying, return to the ground. The limbs and
the flesh moulder away below, and hidden away, become the earth of the
fields; but the spirit issues forth and is displayed on high in a
condition of glorious brightness,” quoted a yellow-robed priest,
swinging an incense burner before a small candle-lighted altar.
It was midnight when the mourning friends of the family of Fou Wang left
the chief mourner alone with his dead mother.
His sister, Fin Fan, and the girl who was his betrothed wife brushed his
garments as they passed him by. The latter timidly touched his hand—an
involuntary act of sympathy—but if he were conscious of that sympathy,
he paid no heed to it, and his gaze never wavered from the face of the
dead.
II
“My girl, Moy Ding Fong is ready if Fou Wang is not, and you must marry
this year. I have sworn you shall.”
Kien Lung walked out of the room with a determined step. He was an
Americanized Chinese and had little regard for what he derided as “the
antiquated customs of China,” save when it was to his interest to follow
them. He was also a widower desirous of marrying again, but undesirous
of having two women of like years, one his wife, the other his daughter,
under the same roof-tree.
Left alone, O’Yam’s thoughts became sorrowful, almost despairing. Six
moons had gone by since Ah So Nan had passed away, yet the son of Ah So
Nan had not once, during that time, spoken one word to his betrothed
wife. Occasionally she had passed him on the street; but always he had
gone by with uplifted countenance, and in his eyes the beauty of piety
and peace. At least, so it seemed to the girl, and the thought of
marriage with him had seemed almost sacrilegious. But now it had come to
this. If Fou Wang adhered to his resolve to mourn three years for his
mother, what would become of her? She thought of old Moy Ding Fong and
shuddered. It was bitter, bitter.
There was a rapping at the door. A young girl lifted the latch and
stepped in. It was Fin Fan, the sister of her betrothed.
“I have brought my embroidery work,” said she, “I thought we could have
a little talk before sundown when I must away to prepare the evening
meal.”
O’Yam, who was glad to see her visitor, brewed some fresh tea and
settled down for an exchange of confidences.
“I am not going to abide by it,” said Fin Fan at last. “Hom Hing is
obliged to return to China two weeks hence, and with or without Fou
Wang’s consent I go with the man to whom my mother betrothed me.”
“Without Fou Wang’s consent!” echoed O’Yam.
“Yes,” returned Fin Fan, snapping off a thread. “Without my honorable
brother’s consent.”
“And your mother gone but six moons!”
O’Yam’s face wore a shocked expression.
“Does the fallen leaf grieve because the green one remains on the tree?”
queried Fin Fan.
“You must love Hom Hing well,” murmured O’Yam—“more than Fou Wang loves
me.”
“Nay,” returned her companion, “Fou Wang’s love for you is as big as
mine for Hom Hing. It is my brother’s conscience alone that stands
between him and you. You know that.”
“He loves not me,” sighed O’Yam.
“If he does not love you,” returned Fin Fan, “why, when we heard that
you were unwell, did he sleeplessly pace his room night after night
until the news came that you were restored to health? Why does he
treasure a broken fan you have cast aside?”
“Ah, well!” smiled O’Yam.
Fin Fan laughed softly.
“Fou Wang is not as other men,” said she. “His conscience is an
inheritance from his great-great-grandfather.” Her face became pensive
as she added: “It is sad to go across the sea without an elder brother’s
blessing.”
She repeated this to Liuchi and Mai Gwi Far, the widow, whom she met on
her way home.
“Why should you,” inquired the latter, “when there is a way by which to
obtain it?”
“How?”
“Did Ah So Nan leave no garments behind her—such garments as would well
fit her three souls—and is it not always easy to delude the serious and
the wise?”
“Ah!”
III
O’Yam climbed the stairs to the joss house. The desire for solitude
brought her there; but when she had closed the door upon herself, she
found that she was not alone. Fou Wang was there. Before the images of
the Three Wise Ones he stood, silent, motionless.
“He is communing with his mother’s spirit,” thought O’Yam. She beheld
him through a mist of tears. Love filled her whole being. She dared not
move, because she was afraid he would turn and see her, and then, of
course, he would go away. She would stay near him for a few moments and
then retire.
The dim light of the place, the quietness in the midst of noise, the
fragrance of some burning incense, soothed and calmed her. It was as if
all the sorrow and despair that had overwhelmed her when her father had
told her to prepare for her wedding with Moy Ding Fong had passed away.
After a few moments she stepped back softly towards the door. But she
was too late. Fou Wang turned and beheld her.
She fluttered like a bird until she saw that, surprised by her presence,
he had forgotten death and thought only of life—of life and love. A
glad, eager light shone in his eyes. He made a swift step towards her.
Then—he covered his face with his hands.
“Fou Wang!” cried O’Yam, love at last overcoming superstition, “must I
become the wife of Moy Ding Fong?”
“No, ah no!” he moaned.
“Then,” said the girl in desperation, “take me to yourself.”
Fou Wang’s hands fell to his side. For a moment he looked into that
pleading face—and wavered.
A little bird flew in through an open window, and perching itself upon
an altar, began twittering.
Fou Wang started back, the expression on his face changing.
“A warning from the dead,” he muttered, “a warning from the dead!”
An iron hand gripped O’Yam’s heart. Life itself seemed to have closed
upon her.
IV
It was afternoon before evening, and the fog was rolling in from the
sea. Quietness reigned in the plot of ground sacred to San Francisco’s
Chinese dead when Fou Wang deposited a bundle at the foot of his
mother’s grave and prepared for the ceremony of ministering to her three
souls.
The fragrance from a wall of fir trees near by stole to his nostrils as
he cleared the weeds and withered leaves from his parent’s resting
place. As he placed the bowls of rice and chicken and the vase of
incense where he was accustomed to place it, he became dimly conscious
of a presence or presences behind the fir wall.
He sighed deeply. No doubt the shade of his parent was restless,
because—
“Fou Wang,” spake a voice, low but distinct.
The young man fell upon his knees.
“Honored Mother!” he cried.
“Fou Wang,” repeated the voice, “though my name is on thy lips, O’Yam’s
is in thy heart.”