CHAPTER V.

       In Which Le-Ou Receives A Letter Which She Would Rather Not Have Received.

       Table of Contents

      “You have no letter for me yet?”

      “Eh! No, madam.”

      “Time seems so long to me, old mother!”

      Thus for the tenth time that day spoke the charming Le-ou in the boudoir of her house in Cha-Coua Avenue, Pekin. The “old mother” who answered her, and to whom she gave this title, usually bestowed in China on servants of a respectable age, was the grumbling and disagreeable Miss Nan.

Le-ou had married at eighteen a literary man of the highest distinction, who had contributed to the famous “Tse-Khou-Tsuane-Chou.”1 This savant was twice her age, and died three years after this unequal union.

      The young widow was left alone in the world when she was only twenty-one years old. Kin-Fo met her on a journey which he made to Pekin about this time. Wang, who was acquainted with this charming person, called the attention of his indifferent pupil to her; and Kin-Fo gradually gave himself up to the idea of modifying the conditions of his life by becoming the husband of such a pretty widow. Le-ou was not averse to the proposition: so the marriage, which was decided upon to the great satisfaction of the philosopher, was to be celebrated as soon as Kin-Fo, after having made the necessary arrangements at Shang-hai, should return to Pekin.

      It is not common in the Celestial Empire for widows to marry again,—not that they do not wish to as much as those of their class in Western countries, but because their wish is shared by few of the opposite sex. If Kin-Fo was an exception to the rule, it was because he was eccentric, as we know. Le-ou, if married again, it is true, would no longer have the right to pass under the commemorative arches, which the emperor has sometimes erected in honor of women celebrated for their fidelity to a deceased husband,—such as that in honor of the widow Soung, who never would leave her husband’s tomb; of the widow Koung-Kiang, who cut off an arm; and of the widow Yen-Tchiang, who disfigured herself as a sign of conjugal grief. But Le-ou thought she could do better in her twentieth year. She would resume that life of obedience which constitutes the whole rôle of woman in a Chinese family, give up talking of outside matters, conform to the precepts of the book “Li-nux” on domestic virtues, and the book “Nei-tso-pien” on marital duties, and again find that consideration enjoyed by the wife who, in the upper classes, is not the slave she is generally believed to be. So Le-ou, who was intelligent and well educated, understanding what place she would hold in the life of the rich ennuyé, and feeling herself drawn towards him by the desire of proving to him that happiness exists on the earth, was quite resigned to her new fate.

      The savant had left his young widow in easy, though moderate, circumstances; and the house in Cha-Coua Avenue was therefore unpretentious. The intolerable Nan was the only servant; but Le-ou was accustomed to her deplorable manners, which are not peculiar to the servants of the Empire of Flowers.

The young woman preferred to spend most of her time in her boudoir, the furniture of which would have seemed very plain, had it not been for the rich presents which, for two eventful months, had been arriving from Shang-hai. A few pictures hung on the walls; among others a chef-d’œuvre of the old painter2 Huan-Tse-Nen, which would have attracted the attention of connoisseurs among other very Chinese water-colors with green horses, violet dogs, and blue trees, the work of native modern artists. On a lacquer table were displayed fans, like great butterflies with expanded wings, from the celebrated school of Swatow. From a porcelain hanging-lamp drooped elegant festoons of those artificial flowers, so admirably manufactured from the pith of the Arabia papyrifera of Formosa, and rivalling the white water-lilies, yellow chrysanthemums, and red lilies of Japan, which crowded the jardinières of delicately carved wood. A soft light filled the room, as the screens of braided bamboo at the windows excluded the direct rays of the sun by filtering them, as it were. A magnificent screen, made of large sparrow-hawks’ feathers, on which the spots of color, artistically disposed, represented a large peony,—that emblem of beauty in the Empire of Flowers,—two bird-cages in the form of a pagoda, real kaleidoscopes of the most brilliant birds of India, a few aeolian “tiemaols,” whose glass plate vibrated in the breeze, and a thousand objects, in fact, which recalled the absent one, completed the curious adornment of this boudoir.

      “No letter yet, Nan?”

      “Why no, madam, not yet!”

      A charming woman was this young Le-ou, and pretty even to European eyes: for she was fair, not yellow, and had soft eyes, but slightly raised near the temples; black hair, which was ornamented with a few peach-blossoms, fastened by pins of green jade; small white teeth, and eyebrows faintly defined with a delicate line of India ink. She put no cosmetic of honey or Spanish white on her cheeks, as the beauties in the Celestial Empire generally do, no circle of carmine on her lower lip, no small vertical line between her eyes, nor a single layer of the paint which the imperial court dispenses annually for ten million sapeques. The young widow had nothing to do with these artificial ingredients. She seldom went out of her house at Cha-Coua, and for that reason could scorn this mask which every Chinese woman uses outside of her own house.

      As for her toilet, nothing could be more simple and elegant. A long robe, slashed on four sides, with a wide embroidered galloon at the hem, and, underneath this, a plaited skirt; at her waist a plastron embellished with braid in gold filagree; pantaloons attached to the belt, and fastened over hose of Nankin silk; and pretty slippers ornamented with pearls, composed her attire. We can mention nothing more to make the young woman charming, unless we add that her hands were delicate, and that she preserved her nails, which were long and rosy, in little silver cases, carved with exquisite art.

      And her feet? Well, her feet were small, not in consequence of that barbarous custom of deforming them, which, happily, is being done away with, but because nature had made them so. This custom has already lasted seven hundred years, and probably arose from the deformity of some club-footed princess, and not, as has been believed, from the jealousy of husbands. In its most simple application, the flexion of the four toes under the sole, while leaving the calcaneum intact, converts the leg into a sort of conical trunk, absolutely impedes walking, and predisposes to anemia. The custom had extended day by day from the conquest by the Tartars; but now one cannot find three Chinese women out of ten who have been forced to submit at an early age to a succession of those painful operations which causes the deformity of the foot.

      “It cannot be possible that a letter has not come to-day,” said Le-ou again. “Go and see, old mother.”

      “I have been to see,” answered Miss Nan very disrespectfully, as she left the room, grumbling.