is made up of many parts,” she said. “As a woman grows older she perceives this.”
“I believe in the equality of man and woman,” Rulan insisted.
“Ah,” Madame Wu said, “two equals are nevertheless not the same two things. They are equal in importance, equally necessary to life, but not the same,”
“That is not what we think nowadays,” Rulan said. “If a woman is content with one man, a man should be content with one woman.”
Madame Wu put down her pipe. “You are so young,” she said reflectively, “that I wonder how I can explain it. You see, my child, content is the important thing—the content of a man, the content of a woman. When one reaches the measure of content, shall that one say to the other, ‘Here you must stop because I am now content?’ ”
“But Liangmo told us our father does not want another one,” Rulan said doggedly.
Madame Wu thought, “Ah, Liangmo has been talking to his father today!” She felt a moment’s pity for her husband, at the mercy of his sons for no fault of his own.
“When you have lived with a man for twenty-five years as his wife,” she said gently, “you have lived with him to the end of all knowledge.”
She sighed and suddenly wished this young woman away. And yet she liked her better than she ever had before. It took courage to come here alone, to speak these blunt, brave, foolish words.
“Child,” she said, leaning toward Rulan, “I think Heaven is kind to women, after all. One could not keep bearing children forever. So Heaven in its mercy says when a woman is forty, ‘Now, poor soul and body, the rest of your life you shall have for yourself. You have divided yourself again and again, and now take what is left and make yourself whole again, so that life may be good to you for yourself, not only for what you give but for what you get.’ I will spend the rest of my life assembling my own mind and my own soul. I will take care of my body carefully, not that it may any more please a man, but because it houses me and therefore I am dependent upon it.”
“Do you hate us all?” the girl asked. Her eyes opened wide, and Madame Wu saw for the first time that they were very handsome eyes.
“I love you all more than ever,” Madame Wu said.
“Our father, too?” the girl inquired.
“Him, too,” Madame Wu said. “Else why would I so eagerly want his happiness?”
“I do not understand you,” the girl said after a moment. “I think I do not know what you mean.”
“Ah, you are so far from my age,” Madame Wu replied. “Be patient with me, child, for knowing what I want.”
“You really are doing what you want to do?” Rulan asked doubtfully.
“Really, I am,” Madame Wu replied tenderly.
Rulan rose. “I shall have to go back and tell them,” she said. “But I do not think any one of them will understand.”
“Tell them all to be patient with me,” Madame Wu said, smiling at her.
“Well, if you are sure—” Rulan said, still hesitating.
“Quite sure,” Madame Wu said.
She was glad once more of the loneliness and the silence when Rulan had gone. She smiled a little to think of the family gathered together without her, all in consternation, all wondering what to do, because for the first time in their knowledge of her she had done something for herself alone. But as she smiled she felt full of peace. Without waiting for Ying, since she was two hours before her usual time for bed, she bathed and put on her white silk night garments and lay down in the huge dark-curtained old bed. When Ying came in an hour later she was frightened at the silence and ran to the bedroom. There behind the undrawn bed curtains she saw her mistress lying small and still upon the bed. She ran forward, terror in her heart, to gaze upon that motionless figure.
“Oh, Heaven,” Ying moaned, “Our Lady is dead!”
But Madame Wu was not dead, only sleeping, although Ying had never seen her sleep like this. Even her outcry did not wake the
The Katres' Summer: Book 3 of the Soul-Linked Saga