"I am worshiping my flowers," said Nancy simply, "for I am going to be a nun."
CHAPTER VI
Nancy's sincerity shocked her companion into silence for the moment. But it was not likely to be a long silence. When they had shaken off the glamour of that golden afternoon and walked moodily home, stilling even Edward's chatter by a dumbness for which he could divine no reason, Kuei-lien began to recover the spirits which Nancy's perverse temper had dampened. "A nun!" The joke was too good to keep. Supported by the comfortable materialism of the dinner table with its bowls of steaming white rice, she could wax merry at Nancy's expense; the ghosts of blue flowers could not enter here to throw their depressing spell. Kuei-lien was like a man who has been through great fear and now tries to preserve the illusion of courage by laughing at the meagre thing that had frightened him.
Edward readily became her ally and laughed louder than any at his sister's new whim.
"You mustn't eat any meat," he jested, pushing the bowl of pork balls out of Nancy's reach, "and you must shave your head. Bring a knife, amah, and some incense and we'll make her a nun now. It will be lots of fun burning the nine spots on her head. Ah, but you will be a pretty sight, Nancy, just like a bald-headed old woman. When you come begging, we'll give you rice crusts. O-mi-t'o-fu! O-mi-t'o-fu!"
Nancy took his teasing good-naturedly, avoiding his attempt to seize her hair and making a nimble raid on the pork balls with her chopsticks; she was not yet Buddhist enough to forgo the delights of meat. She did not even resent the aspersions uttered against her future calling and listened composedly enough to tales about the depravity of nuns. They were all bad or ignorant women, said Kuei-lien, and became nuns because their parents were simpletons. No respectable girl ought even to talk of nuns, and if she became one her family could never lift up their heads again, such would be the disgrace she had brought. The old nurse had her share to add to the bantering: they were such dirty creatures. How could they have time for prayers when they were being consumed by vermin? And you can't kill the vermin, hai! that was forbidden; you must let them eat till they were fat. What was the holiness of being eaten by bugs?
The old nurse had been contaminated by the Western veneration of the bath.
Nancy listened to it all with the amused smile of one who enjoys being the topic of conversation. She was not seriously touched by their dissuasion because her latest ambition was still far from taking deep root. Suddenly attracted by the purity of heaven and earth and growing things, she had put into words an unformed wish, but the wish had no kinship to the sordid details of the dining-room gossip. There was momentary longing to be caught up from the turmoil of humankind, but the longing did not persist. Nancy was glad enough to jest with Kuei-lien and the amah, she needed the sight of Edward's cheerful face and relished the savoriness of the evening meal. It was good to be well fed and comfortable, good to sleep soundly in a warm bed. So Nancy felt no urgency to resist those who teased her, even though the impulse remained more faithful than she guessed, a passion to become one with the clean beauty of the sunlight and the blue sky.
She went to bed happily tired, but a glimpse of the stars, after she had puffed out her candle, was like seeing a golden net overspreading the earth to make her dreams captive.