Yang Kuei-fei answered for them: “I have often had orders from the Emperor, but I have not always shown such haste to obey them. Nevertheless, I quite understand.”
Ah Lai asked: “May I speak to your stewards, to see about the Emperor’s men?”
She answered: “I have no stewards. Lo Chin, go with him and do what he says.” When Ah Lai and one of the servants had gone out, she went on: “You will honour me by coming to our part of the house? You must be tired after your journey. Men are expected to do such things without feeling tired, but with us it is different. Father Peng is sleeping now. You shall meet him later. My son is out on the farm, but my two daughters will make it their pleasure to see to your comfort.”
“It is good to know that you have your father living,” Kuei-fei answered, as she made to follow the Lady of the Tapestry. “The climate must be healthy. But your name . . . Was it given to you in youth, or have you gained it by prowess with the needle?”
She followed the other through passages towards the women’s quarters, marvelling as she went that the sturdy figure before her was the centre and hub of the house, that everything round her was controlled by that capable mind, and that she, an Emperor’s mistress, should feel for the first time awkward in the house of another. She finally put it down to a return to the sort of house in which she had been born, before they had taken her away to Chang-an. Values here were very different; the soil and its products loomed larger here than in the artificial atmosphere of the Palace. She felt a little homesick.
The women’s quarters, as they should be in a well-run house, were very separate from the remainder of the buildings. The Lady of the Tapestry led the way to the eastern wing, past servants pursuing their duties without obvious displeasure, into a room where two girls sat sewing.
“These are my daughters,” she said. “The eldest is not here any longer.”
The taller of the two girls had risen and bowed, followed by her sister. They stood waiting for their mother to speak.
Kuei-fei said: “It is all very different from what I have experienced for a long while. There are space—and time . . .”
The Lady of the Tapestry said: “They work as the seasons dictate. They tend their silk-worms, weave silk, dye it—perhaps embroider. I am myself fond of embroidery. You will have heard the name by which they all call me here. I do not object, for in the making of patterns I find delight. But I must not keep you here, looking at my insignificant daughters. If the eldest had been here, now. . . . I will show you your room.” She was wondering if her hasty messenger to her son, telling him to keep out of sight and remain in the village, had done his duty.
Kuei-fei found it utterly impossible, in this atmosphere of peace and productive work, to explain how she came to be on her way with the Emperor to exile in the western provinces. It seemed wrong, somehow, to obtrude considerations of politics and the necessities of palace life upon this scene. The quick fingers of the girls, the quiet, the slowly swinging reed curtain, the distant noise of house activity, filled her with almost a sense of shame, and she followed without speaking. The girls sat down again to their work.
Lo Chin, though tall, was spare. He babbled to Ah Lai as they walked.
“I have seen forty summers and five more,” he was saying, “and I have always served this family. It is a pity that my master was not here to welcome you.”
Ah Lai said, shortly: “I have met him, and look forward to meeting him again. That is all the family, counting the son, who is on the farm?”
Lo Chin replied: “There is, of course, Peng Lao, who sits and writes poems in his room, yonder where the little bamboo is planted. We call him Father Peng. At least, I hear that he writes poems, and sometimes one may see him at his door, saying words to the air, as if someone were listening to him. What is the good of saying words to the air?”
“I must pay him a visit now, if only for a moment,” Ah Lai said, for he had been well schooled, and knew the deference which is not always paid to the aged. “You must introduce me. My family name is Kuen and I am a nephew of the poet, Li Po.”
Lo Chin bowed as he walked, and Ah Lai wondered how he managed it. They came to the door by the little bamboo plant, and Lo Chin went in first, halting inside the door and performing a full kotow. Ah Lai could hear his voice as he spoke.
“This is the honourable Kuen Ah Lai, who has come to see you, sir. He is the nephew of the great poet Li, and begs the privilege of speaking with you.”
There was a great todo inside the door, and Lo Chin backed out, still bowing. Father Peng followed him, with great sleeve-flapping after title manner enjoined by Confucius, bowings and handshakings inside his sleeve, as he cried: “Alas, that I was not told of the arrival of the nephew of so famous a man as Li Tai Po!” He used the society name of the poet. “Had I but been aware of your footfall on the threshold, I should have come before, but this stupid fellow leads you to my door instead of giving me the opportunity of coming, myself, to greet you!”
He retired backwards through the door, still bowing, and Ah Lai had to follow the wizened figure, whiskered, white-bearded, the bright button of his cap bobbing at every step, as he vanished into the darker room.
Here, while he made the conventional difficulties about sitting down first, Ah Lai had leisure (since his politeness was almost automatic) to notice the single scroll on the wall, the cedar chest under it, the porcelain stools, the high k’ang bed at one end and the small table bearing writing materials, from which the old man had clearly risen only a moment before. On this table lay a sheet of rough paper on which three lines had been written in the style of the spider.
“I try to occupy my time so that no harm shall come to posterity from my activities,” the old man said, when they had finally seated themselves. “I saw you glancing at my unworthy effort of to-day.”
Ah Lai said: “Poetry can never harm posterity. If it could do so, it would not be poetry. My uncle also spoils paper.”
The old man replied: “Your uncle is famous in court and hovel. Wherever men have learned to rise above the level of the beasts, his poetry is known. To meet you is an honour which overwhelms my white hairs. Have you anything of his with you?”
“I regret that we parted yesterday in too much haste for me to ask him for a scrap of verse to elevate my mind while travelling,” the boy answered. “But I see that you are lacking one line of a ‘stop-short’, unless I am mistaken in your metre.” He indicated the three lines on the table.
“An unworthy outpouring of an old man’s complaints,” the other said. “Besides, I see no prospect of ever achieving the fourth line. If you would care . . .”
Ah Lai accepted the paper and read:
They sat for a minute, looking at the lines together. Then Ah Lai said: “I would make this in the first line into a, and (with your permission) conclude with a sombre thought.”
Old Peng agreed: “Yes, a would improve it. Poems should always be as indefinite as is consistent with clarity. You remember the Master’s If language is lucid, that is enough? But what of your sombre thought? Can you be more precise?”
The boy smiled. “It is not for me, who have so few years,” he said, “to suggest, to you, an accomplished poet. But, if you insist . . .”