The Street of Precious Pearls

by Nora Waln

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.