WHEN Kuei Ping was a child of six, playing at games with the little cousins who dwelt in the Yen compound, or teasing to learn to read with her brothers, soothsayers, upon examination of a document from the house of Chia, had found that her destiny was entwined with that of Chia Fuh Tang, ten years her senior. With care the grey old man, whose judgment Madame Yen trusted, had taken the card upon which were drafted the eight characters indicating the year, the month, the day, and the hour at which Fuh Tang had entered the world and, comparing them with the similar characters of the girl, had returned a favorable report of the auspiciousness of the union. With deliberation and due patience he had compared the combination of their characters with each of the five elements, metal, wood, water, fire and earth, to make sure that in the proposed marriage there was no destroying omen such as the uniting of wood and fire. He next discovered that the two cyclic animals that had presided over the birth of the youthful couple were not at variance with each other. Thereon it was ascertained that the two would abide together in harmony.
Later, the Imperial Calendar being consulted as to the black and yellow days which would govern the lives of the two, a second document was sent from the house of Chia, informing the family of Yen that the fourteenth day of the month had been found to be the day most favorable to the conclusion of an engagement and asking that, if found agreeable to them, a return document, setting the month, be returned. Fate had already decided the month as the second of the Chinese calendar year by causing the girl to be born under the sign of the tiger. The culmination of the alliance had waited but the year to be set by the contracting families as the eighteenth spring of Kuei Ping’s life.
The month, corresponding to April on the western calendar of that year, came with a touch of summer on its breath. Soft rains fell early. From the wind-dried earth sprang a carpet of velvety green. By the middle of the month brown-green orchids had pushed out to the light, azaleas and the wild wisteria were opening buds, the yellow mustard scattered gold over the country-sides, and the southeast wind was languid with the sickening sweet perfume of the purple soi bean.
Kuei Ping, wearing the heavy wedding garments in which she had been dressed, felt near to suffocation in the close room. Yet she shuddered as from a chill when Chang An, having put the finishing touches to the married way of hair-dressing, placed the vanity case before her, urging the girl to teach her own fingers the arrangement.
The old woman felt the shudder and the tense strain of the girl’s body as she fastened the tiny buttons of the collar of Kuei Ping’s dress. Looking down at her she said tenderly, “Be not alarmed, little flower of our hearts. Thou needest have no fear. Look but into the mirror at thy beauteous face before the veil is dropped over it. What man living could pass by the fire of thy deep eyes untouched! Look now, as I hold the veil of pearls before thy eyes, and see that they out-rival the lustre of the gems. Even thy hands are shaped like the petals of the new opened lotus, and thy grace is as exquisite as that of the wind-swayed blossom. Take the incense burner and make thy heart a lake of peace upon which thy beauty may float with the serenity of the flower thou dost resemble.”
Kuei Ping, gazing deep into the mirror as into a wondering dream, reached out her hands for the many-wired burner Chang An brought ere she left the little bride alone. Slowly, one by one, the girl smoothed out the twisted curves until the interlacing grooves were one continuous whole in which the incense burned before the Goddess of Mercy without a break.
The hours hung heavy upon her. Over the door that closed her from the feasting came stray bits of gossip. She heard the click of ivory dominoes as the dowagers gambled at sparrow. The plaintive call of stringed instruments came to her as from a great distance. Now and then, as a minstrel took up the refrain, she caught the words of some old love song, or heard repeated in chant the valor of a departed family hero.
The clamor outside grew greater and then subsided into the murmur of conversation. The one o’clock feast had passed. The shadows of late afternoon sank into darkness. A servant came to light a taper beside her mirror. Chang An returned and put the finishing touches to her toilet. Her mother wrapped the long band of red satin around her head over the new hair arrangement signifying that they bound her to the will of the family to which they sent her. Madame Yen with loving fingers placed the inner veil of red chiffon and then dropped over it the veil of pearls that had come the day before from the bridegroom. The long strip of red silk carpet was laid by servants that she might go to kneel before the family altar and then be placed in the waiting sedan chair without touching her feet to the polluting ground.
The time of departure was near. The rooms and courtyards in which she had lived were strangely unfamiliar with their elaborate decking in honor of the event. Heavily veiled and her eyes lowered, she felt rather than saw the crowded mass of her relatives. The minstrel took up the wail of separation and loss. She heard the tossing of the four cakes which were to bring luck to her family, and the rattle of the sieve placed over her wedding chair to ward off evil spirits as she was sealed into it.
The journey which she must make in darkness began. Ahead of her, almost a mile long, the procession of her attendants went. Sitting strained and still she could hear the clash and clang of brass cymbals, the shifting of burdens from tired shoulders at regular intervals, and now and then, as she strained her eyes, the flare of waving torches. Half way to the end of the tiring journey the noise increased, and she gathered that they had been met by members of the bridegroom’s family. Dull red balls of light swung above the entrance gates. Her chair was borne through the double rows of the procession which had preceded her and set down in a reception room. She heard the murmuring words of good omen uttered as she was helped from her cramped seat and out onto a second strip of red carpet that led to the part of the compound that was to be hers.
Kuei Ping saw Chia Fuh Tang for the first time in one swift stolen glance from behind her veil. He stood with his back to her as she entered the doorway. In that glance she knew that he was taller than her father, that he wore a long mandarin garment with a square of heavy embroidery in the center of the back, over which a black queue hung; she saw the flash of a jewel in the front of his hat as he turned toward her. Then she must lower her eyes to the floor where his dark slippers made a spot of contrast with the bright carpet.
He came forward to meet her. Kuei Ping, hidden beneath the concealing veils, was led forward a few steps by her attendants. Then, as custom dictated, both sat for a few minutes side by side. Kuei Ping, still wrapped in the long veil that reached to the hem of her wedding garments, too weary to stand alone, leaning upon Chang An and another attendant was then led forth to kneel with Fuh Tang before the family altar in worship of heaven and earth and to make low obeisance before the Chia ancestral tablets. Here Chang An lifted the edge of her veil that she might drink with the bridegroom from a goblet of wine ere she was led back into her room to dress for the wedding feast.
Her tired nerves seemed almost to snap at the continued twang of the stringed instruments. Chang An cooled her hot brow with calming hands as she took away the heavy veils and helped to dress her in the lighter dainty pink garments from her trousseau chest. And Kuei Ping, remembering that Madame Yen had told her that Fuh Tang too had attended a foreign school, and the evidences of ill ease he had shown in the ordeal that had passed, wondered whether he knew of the western custom of personal choice, and stilled her own trembling with the realization that he had not seen her as yet.
Fuh Tang saw her first thus, with tenderness and something akin to pity in her eyes, when he came to sit and wait for the serving of the feast. Food was placed before them but custom forbade the bride to eat or sleep for three days. She must sit with downcast eyes, her face immovable while the feasting about her went on, the target of all eyes, the subject of ribald jokes. Long hours passed again in which she had need of all the patience gained with the little incense burner. They left as a memory the odor of heavy perfume that came from hot rooms, the clatter of chopsticks and bowls, the glimmer of many-colored robes and the glitter of jewels of the men guests, strangers and relatives, who came in an almost ceaseless stream during that first twelve hours to gaze upon the beauty of the bride. Their remarks burned as a searing iron across her consciousness.
Two more days the feasting lasted. Women kinsfolk of the family who had not met together for many months, gossiped and drank tea, adding color to the women’s side of the large compound with their rich garments of brocade and satin. Some of them swayed on small bound feet with a “golden lily” glide. They went about examining the chests of wedding gifts, commenting upon the hundred and twenty boxes filled with garments and linens, discussing the charms put here and there to bring good luck.
In the other side of the vast dwelling place the men drank wine and made merry, their long-skirted garments of silk in seafoam green and saffron and deep blue, and their chains of amber and jade and the settings of diamonds and pearls on their hands and in their hats outdoing the vivid glory of the women’s dress. Here Fuh Tang went at intervals to offer hospitality in food and wine, and to joke with his guests.
On the morning of the third day Kuei Ping came forth to find the guests for the most part dispersed, to worship at the ancestral tablets with her husband, to make low obeisance to her honorable new mother and father and the elder relatives, and to show her respect before the household Kitchen God.
Thus Kuei Ping became an integral part of the family of Chia.