WhereinKuei Pingpreparesfor apilgrimage
KUEI PING made her preparations for departure carefully and quietly. She put into the parcel of clothing only the barest necessities, leaving the warmer garments and her dowry pearls, which she had still clung to even when everything else of value had been sacrificed for the use of the others of her household. She made sure that there was a fair supply of rice in the house and that Chang An had prepared some in readiness for the morning meal. She wrote a short note telling of her departure. Then she steeled her heart against entering the room where her husband and little son lay sleeping. It was better thus, she told herself, that she should go away in the night without any fuss or staying of steps. She knew that she must go if she was to find the truth for which she sought, and the desire to find it was the controlling motive of her life. What she had left of material things would last until the news of her departure reached the Chia compound. Then they would call Fuh Tang back with eager voices to the ease and plenty of his family, and he would take the little son with him. Kuei Ping felt that it was right that he should, but she knew that if she was to hold to that resolution she must not enter the room for one last look at the sleeping boy.
It was night, the second time in her life that she walked through the city streets alone, but she felt no fear. They led her to freedom. As she passed from the dusty courtyard and through innumerable hutungs on the outer side of grey walls, she was filled with a longing to tell the women shut within those walls of what she had learned and why she went. Lanterns hung at gateways threw out feeble rays of light along the narrow passageways. Turning into Hatamen Street she found a sleepy chair-bearer who carried her out to one of the farther city gates. There she dismissed him, for she sought peace and quiet in which to prepare for her new life of service. Shut within the walls of her home she could make no plans. A guard lay asleep at one of the gateways leading to the top of the city wall. She passed by him unnoticed and found a secluded spot on beyond an overlooking watch tower.
Here in the quiet above the city she prayed, seeking for knowledge. A gentle dew seemed to moisten the parched earth as she waited. Then there came the hush of nature that precedes dawn. A faint touch of gold appeared in the sky behind the purple western hills. The gold was shot with rays of flame color that melted into warm amberwhich became softened around the edges with lavender and wisteria shades; then in the ever-changing heavens amid the glory of color rose the sun, complete in its magnificence, giving light unto the entire world.
Kuei Ping stilled her prayer to gaze in wonder at the beauty of the sunrise and then to look down upon the city as it roused itself for the tasks of the day. What she saw were but familiar things in a new light. She saw an old man taking down the shutters from his shop. She saw the dark lurking figures, the petty thieves and marauders of the night, slink away through side alleys, and in their places came the familiar traveling restaurant with its bowls of steaming morning broth. She heard the restaurant carrier’s voice mingled with the call of the hucksters from the country. She heard the feeble cry of a waking baby. Over the wall in the compound just below her she watched a little lad patting earth about a leafless plant with his two hands while an amah urged him in to eat his morning rice.
Kuei Ping turned to her worn book to read again the words of Jesus as He had told of the Father to all those who had eyes to see and ears to hear. She read of love and of patience and of understanding for the trialsof others and of forgetfulness of self. Patience and quiet which she had thought of until now as attributes only of Buddha she saw welded into the personality of the Son who had come to dwell on earth that those who sought Him might know more of his Father. Her vague longing for knowledge and for service became a desire to live as He had lived, simply and lovingly sharing whatever knowledge was trusted to her as He had shared with those of his own household and the small section of the world where He had dwelt.
Below her within the city she saw not only dusty walls that shut out the light, but lights too which shone from within. She came down from her morning of prayer no longer crying out for freedom. Freedom she had gained through forgetfulness of self. She was filled with a deep abiding sense of joy as she went back through the awakening streets to her own husband and child.
Bo Te had crawled down from his bed and sat in the corner of the room playing with the broken bits of the little ivory idol Chang An had kept hanging about his neck. He reached out eager hands to his mother asking her to fix it again. She held him close, a song of happiness throbbing in her heart.
Fuh Tang still lay in the stupor of drugged sleep, but as she leaned over him she saw in his blue-lined face something of the price that he had paid for her freedom thus far. For the first time she saw the real contrast between him and the handsome gallant man who had loved her enough to break down the walls of custom for her and sacrifice his own career to earn her bread by daily work. She saw him not as a destroyer of her trust, but as the victim of circumstances which had been too great for both of them until now. She saw thus now because she measured their love not by her need of him, but by his need of her. She read, too, in the repeated calls from his household for their return more than just the desire to enforce old traditions. She felt something of the weight of the household burdens upon the tired shoulders of Madame Chia, and the patience and understanding which it required to keep life going on smoothly and happily in a home. And she knew that according to custom it was her duty, as the wife of the eldest son of the family, to relieve Madame Chia and to be ready to take her place when she should be called to the world beyond.
She saw her path of service within her own small world first in ministering to those whohad need of her and then perhaps out through them to others.
With an abiding peace in her heart Kuei Ping unfolded and put back in the familiar pigskin chests the garments she had prepared for her pilgrimage.