The Street of Precious Pearls

by Nora Waln

They had traversed more than half the entire length of the street when Madame Yen’s chair came to a stop before a shop with rich filigree carvings and double entrance doors of heavy velvet with brass frames. At the sound of their approach, two attendants of the door stepped forward and swung it wide, that the chair-bearers might carry the ladies into a tiny inner courtyard before they need dismount, saying as they bowed, “Honorable ladies, enter the humble shop.” Thereupon, the narrower inner curtains of the shop itself were held open and Madame Yen and her relatives, bowing low, returned the formal greeting and passed within.

At the entry of customers, numerous clerks and underlings, so it seemed to Kuei Ping, swarmed forward with greetings and formal offerings of stools upon which to sit and with cups of tea to drink. The head of the shop and his partners flicked their long-stemmed pipes from sleepy lips and rose, as though from deep meditation, struggling a bit with the light that would penetrate into their eyes, even in the darkened room, as they bowed, offering the courtesy of “the miserable place to the pleasure of their honorable guests.”

The eldest among them with his own hand took from an attendant each cup of tea as it was brought and offered it with a low bow to his guest. Kuei Ping, lifting her gaze now and then from the floor, caught a glint of joy of the coming bargain in the corners of the shrewd old dealer’s mouth and in her grandmother’s eyes, even in the midst of courtesy and greeting.

Rich jewels were brought forth, for Kuei Ping’s own grandfather was a well known silk merchant and the coming alliance with an official family was not beyond the knowledge of Wong Lui, dealer in jewels. Madame Yen gave but a sweeping glance to the first display placed before her. Kuei Ping had slipped into the background, but her mother and the relative looked over the jewels and then up at Madame Yen as if to agree that they were not worthy of attention. Wong Lui held various secret conferences with his head clerk, and boys slipped away into dark recesses to bring forth rarer treasures. Madame Yen and her daughter preferred pearls, and from the mysterious caverns of the shop they were brought. Exquisite gems, each wrapped separately, were removed from their covers and glowed in a wondrous heap on the dark velvet cover of the teakwood table.

Kuei Ping liked rich warm color but she liked it best subdued in the luminous pearls. She was a favorite with her grandmother and this preference was no secret to Madame Yen who placed her chair now, as the hour grew on, that Kuei Ping might get the full value of the beauty of the fabulous heap. Carefully, one by one, the preferred gems were separated from those of lesser beauty by the two women. And still at intervals, as though he had just awakened to some almost forgotten knowledge, Wong Lui would cease caressing his drooping moustaches with his slender hands and wave a clerk away to bring even rarer treasure.

But all things come to end in time and these mysterious errands grew farther and farther apart and finally ceased. Wong Lui had placed his best before them. Kuei Ping from under her modestly lowered lashes caught glimpses of bright eyes that glowed from the darkness of the inner rooms, the curious little clerks and underlings who peered through the dividing parchment, eagerly following the tableau in the center of the shop.

Not until the selected heap was before her did Madame Yen speak of price and then only as a question. Kuei Ping had seen her grandmother bargain before and so she scarce drew her attention away from the lustrous heap of jewels even to listen. Wong Lui, too, was seasoned at the game which both dearly loved and so with the skill of chess players they moved slowly, each toward his goal, each carefully measuring the other’s power to yield from his quoted price. At intervals, when the conflict might have grown a trifle sharp, cups of tea were served.

Kuei Ping, resting her eyes upon the pearls so soon to be hers, drank deep draughts of their beauty. Impelled by their drawing power she gathered a handful of them up in her soft pink palm, unmindful of the bargainers but not unnoted by them. The quick eyes of each had counted the number and the face of Madame Yen had softened as she looked upon the girl. Wong Lui had noted that also and put it down in his favor in the game before them.

The girl, holding the jewels thus in her hand that she might feel their nearness, saw them glow into warmer color as she held them, as though her touch breathed life into them. In after years she was to think often of the care with which they had been selected and to pay homage in memory to the experience and knowledge which made possible that rare power of choice, for even Wong Lui, seasoned dealer in jewels, had shown respect for Madame Yen’s judgment.

With a suddenness so abrupt as to make her feel she must have jerked physically, Kuei Ping was back in memory, as she was so often these days, at the little mission school where she had been sent when she could go no farther in lessons with her brothers at home. This too had been an indulgence upon the part of her family, gained by her nearness to her grandmother.