登陆注册
15479000000042

第42章 THE TEARS OF AH KIM(4)

And there was no discussing the matter. As things were, Ah Kim knew his mother was right. Not for nothing had Li Faa been born forty years before of a Chinese father, renegade to all tradition, and of a kanaka mother whose immediate forebears had broken the taboos, cast down their own Polynesian gods, and weak-heartedly listened to the preaching about the remote and unimageable god of the Christian missionaries. Li Faa, educated, who could read and write English and Hawaiian and a fair measure of Chinese, claimed to believe in nothing, although in her secret heart she feared the kahunas (Hawaiian witch-doctors), who she was certain could charm away ill luck or pray one to death. Li Faa would never come into Ah Kim's house, as he thoroughly knew, and kow-tow to his mother and be slave to her in the immemorial Chinese way. Li Faa, from the Chinese angle, was a new woman, a feminist, who rode horseback astride, disported immodestly garbed at Waikiki on the surf-boards, and at more than one luau (feast) had been known to dance the hula with the worst and in excess of the worst, to the scandalous delight of all.

Ah Kim himself, a generation younger than his mother, had been bitten by the acid of modernity. The old order held, in so far as he still felt in his subtlest crypts of being the dusty hand of the past resting on him, residing in him; yet he subscribed to heavy policies of fire and life insurance, acted as treasurer for the local Chinese revolutionises that were for turning the Celestial Empire into a republic, contributed to the funds of the Hawaii-born Chinese baseball nine that excelled the Yankee nines at their own game, talked theosophy with Katso Suguri, the Japanese Buddhist and silk importer, fell for police graft, played and paid his insidious share in the democratic politics of annexed Hawaii, and was thinking of buying an automobile. Ah Kim never dared bare himself to himself and thrash out and winnow out how much of the old he had ceased to believe in. His mother was of the old, yet he revered her and was happy under her bamboo stick. Li Faa, the Silvery Moon Blossom, was of the new, yet he could never be quite completely happy without her.

For he loved Li Faa. Moon-faced, rotund as a water-melon seed, canny business man, wise with half a century of living--nevertheless Ah Kim became an artist when he thought of her. He thought of her in poems of names, as woman transmuted into flower-terms of beauty and philosophic abstractions of achievement and easement. She was, to him, and alone to him of all men in the world, his Plum Blossom, his Tranquillity of Woman, his Flower of Serenity, his Moon Lily, and his Perfect Rest. And as he murmured these love endearments of namings, it seemed to him that in them were the ripplings of running waters, the tinklings of silver wind-bells, and the scents of the oleander and the jasmine. She was his poem of woman, a lyric delight, a three-dimensions of flesh and spirit delicious, a fate and a good fortune written, ere the first man and woman were, by the gods whose whim had been to make all men and women for sorrow and for joy.

But his mother put into his hand the ink-brush and placed under it, on the table, the writing tablet.

"Paint," said she, "the ideograph of TO MARRY."

He obeyed, scarcely wondering, with the deft artistry of his race and training painting the symbolic hieroglyphic.

"Resolve it," commanded his mother.

Ah Kim looked at her, curious, willing to please, unaware of the drift of her intent.

"Of what is it composed?" she persisted. "What are the three originals, the sum of which is it: to marry, marriage, the coming together and wedding of a man and a woman? Paint them, paint them apart, the three originals, unrelated, so that we may know how the wise men of old wisely built up the ideograph of to marry."

And Ah Kim, obeying and painting, saw that what he had painted were three picture-signs--the picture-signs of a hand, an ear, and a woman.

"Name them," said his mother; and he named them.

"It is true," said she. "It is a great tale. It is the stuff of the painted pictures of marriage. Such marriage was in the beginning; such shall it always be in my house. The hand of the man takes the woman's ear, and by it leads her away to his house, where she is to be obedient to him and to his mother. I was taken by the ear, so, by your long honourably dead father. I have looked at your hand. It is not like his hand. Also have I looked at the ear of Li Faa. Never will you lead her by the ear. She has not that kind of an ear. I shall live a long time yet, and I will be mistress in my son's house, after our ancient way, until I die."

"But she is my revered ancestress," Ah Kim explained to Li Faa.

He was timidly unhappy; for Li Faa, having ascertained that Mrs.

Tai Fu was at the temple of the Chinese AEsculapius making a food offering of dried duck and prayers for her declining health, had taken advantage of the opportunity to call upon him in his store.

Li Faa pursed her insolent, unpainted lips into the form of a half-opened rosebud, and replied:

"That will do for China. I do not know China. This is Hawaii, and in Hawaii the customs of all foreigners change."

"She is nevertheless my ancestress," Ah Kim protested, "the mother who gave me birth, whether I am in China or Hawaii, O Silvery Moon Blossom that I want for wife."

"I have had two husbands," Li Faa stated placidly. "One was a pake, one was a Portuguese. I learned much from both. Also am I educated. I have been to High School, and I have played the piano in public. And I learned from my two husbands much. The pake makes the best husband. Never again will I marry anything but a pake. But he must not take me by the ear--"

"How do you know of that?" he broke in suspiciously.

"Mrs. Chang Lucy," was the reply. "Mrs. Chang Lucy tells me everything that your mother tells her, and your mother tells her much. So let me tell you that mine is not that kind of an ear."

"Which is what my honoured mother has told me," Ah Kim groaned.

同类推荐
  • 九转流珠神仙九丹经

    九转流珠神仙九丹经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 玉室经

    玉室经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 古本难经阐注

    古本难经阐注

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • The Mucker

    The Mucker

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 责汉水辞

    责汉水辞

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 邪魔仙尊

    邪魔仙尊

    自三皇五帝开始,五千年来,龙一直被华夏人奉若神明,并且自称为龙的传人,龙的长相奇特骆头、蛇身、龟眼、鱼鳞、鹿角、鹰爪、牛耳。龙有善恶之分,蛇修千年为蛟,蛟修千年化龙,成龙之蛟是为邪龙。
  • 和垓下歌

    和垓下歌

    十五年的等待!终于要开花结果了。今夜,我归来了!
  • 凡仙脉

    凡仙脉

    仙凡之差天地之隔,凡亦可通天地。人有九脉,天缺一脉。少年林青本是池天宗小小杂役,十脉无一。补之天脉逆行之上,九天之主凡仙之尊
  • 龙震

    龙震

    远古时期,世间昌盛繁荣,强者辈出……远古一战,绝顶高手世间不现,八神兵遗落人间一段历史莫名掩埋,留下无尽传言一场战争究竟结局如何,无人知晓隐藏的危机,世间的战乱少年于危机中崛起,一曲铁血战歌,一曲柔情似水。
  • 乱天魔尊

    乱天魔尊

    从一个没落的小家族走出的他,有着大起大落的经历,不甘就此堕落,坚毅不拔,造就了一代绝世魔尊……
  • 飘摇的路

    飘摇的路

    二十年风雨变迁,最初的路一直不变,心中那份坚韧,会为生活拨开阴云,迎来灿烂的明天
  • 太平江山

    太平江山

    那一日,他在数十万臣民面前,自断一指!那一日,他在数十万冤魂面前,许下诺言!总有一天,朕要创下一片太平江山,让尔等来世免受战乱之苦!
  • 逐鹿天下(上册)

    逐鹿天下(上册)

    明朝天启年间,宦官魏忠贤把持朝政,号称九千岁,并暗中修练宫廷绝学“还婴大法”,欲练成神功,做回一个正常的男人,篡夺朱家的天下。平云重大将军之子平一峰逃脱魔掌,流亡天涯,巧得肉舍利,功力大增,结识龙门世家之女龙门雪,魔教圣姑徐如莹,在两个绝代美女的帮助之下,数度死里还生。最后他却面临着在两个武林美女之间做出选择?
  • 我要当后母

    我要当后母

    刚被父母赶出门的米虫白雪儿,手里提着一个箱子走在大街上,嘴里嘟囔着......为什么这样对我吗,人家也只不过刚毕业,想找个后母当当,这可是人家最大的心愿......没想到就刚好捡到一个小可爱,粉嫩的小脸,圆都都的,才想着抱回家,人家宝宝的老爸就出现了,还要告她拐卖小孩......哦,这回死定了,晕。
  • 九天残尊

    九天残尊

    这个世界上是有天才存在,但主角不是。这个世界上是有真君子存在,但主角不是。这个世界是有鸿福齐天,但主角不是。主角的成就来自执着、铁血、搏命与至情至性的赤子之心。这是一条可歌可泣的人生路。一段生死不弃的兄弟情。一缕背叛与不解的恩怨仇。一曲至情至性的缠绵绝唱。一幅跌荡起伏的山水画轴。一股铁血杀戮的豪情风暴。聆听您的心跳,追随主角的步伐,让我们一同感动,一同伤心,一同见证《九天残尊》之崛起,喜乐哀愁与君共舞!