Part 49 (1/2)
”My lord,” stammered Dong-Yung, ”I did not understand your meaning.”
”I know that, little Flower in my House. The new meaning is hard to understand. I, too, am but a blind child unused to the touch of the road. But the kitchen G.o.ds matter no more; we pray to a spirit.”
Foh-Kyung, in his long apricot-coloured garment, crossed the threshold of the kitchen, crossed the shadow and sunlight that stripped the bare board floor, and stood before the kitchen G.o.ds. His eyes were on a level with theirs, strange, painted wooden eyes that stared forth inscrutably into the eating centuries. Dong-Yung stood half bowed, breathless with a quick, cold fear. The cook, one hand holding a s.h.i.+ny brown dipper, the other a porcelain dish, stood motionless at the wooden table under the window. From behind the stove peeped the frightened face of one of the fire-tenders. The whole room was turned to stone, motionless, expectant, awaiting the releasing moment of arous.e.m.e.nt--all, that is, but the creeping suns.h.i.+ne, sliding nearer and nearer the crossed feet of the kitchen G.o.ds; and the hissing steam fire, warming, coddling the hearts of the G.o.ds. Sun at their feet, fire at their hearts, food before them, and mortals turned to stone!
Foh-Kyung laughed softly, standing there, eye-level with the kitchen G.o.ds. He stretched out his two hands, and caught a G.o.d in each. A shudder ran through the motionless room.
”It is wickedness!” The porcelain dish fell from the hand of the cook, and a thousand rice-kernels, like scattered pearls, ran over the floor.
”A blasphemer,” the fire-tender whispered, peering around the stove with terrified eyes. ”This household will bite off great bitterness.”
Foh-Kyung walked around the corner of the stove. The fire sparked and hissed. The suns.h.i.+ne filled the empty niche. Not since the building of the house and the planting of the tall black cypress-trees around it, a hundred years ago, had the sunlight touched the wall behind the kitchen G.o.ds.
Dong-Yung sprang into life. She caught Foh-Kyung's sleeve.
”O my Lord and Master, I pray you, do not utterly cast them away into the burning, fiery furnace! I fear some evil will befall us.”
Foh-Kyung, a green-and-gold G.o.d in each hand, stopped and turned. His eyes smiled at Dong-Yung. She was so little and so precious and so afraid! Dong-Yung saw the look of relenting. She held his sleeve the tighter.
”Light of my Eyes, do good deeds to me. My faith is but a little faith.
How could it be great unto thy great faith? Be gentle with my kitchen G.o.ds. Do not utterly destroy them. I will hide them.”
Foh-Kyung smiled yet more, and gave the plaster G.o.ds into her hands as one would give a toy to a child.
”They are thine. Do with them as thou wilt, but no more set them up in this stove corner and offer them morning rice. They are but painted, plastered G.o.ds. I wors.h.i.+p the spirit above.”
Foh-Kyung sat down at the men's table in the men's room beyond. An amah brought him rice and tea. Other men of the household there was none, and he ate his meal alone. From the women's room across the court came a shrill round of voices. The voice of the great wife was loudest and shrillest. The voices of the children, his sons and daughters, rose and fell with clear childish insistence among the older voices. The amah's voice laughed with an equal gaiety.
Dong-Yung hid away the plastered green-and-gold G.o.ds. Her heart was filled with a delicious fear. Her lord was even master of the G.o.ds. He picked them up in his two hands, he carried them about as carelessly as a man carries a boy child astride his shoulder; he would even have cast them into the fire! Truly, she s.h.i.+vered with delight. Nevertheless, she was glad she had hidden them safely away. In the corner of the kitchen stood a box of white pigskin with beaten bra.s.s clasps made like the outspread wings of a b.u.t.terfly. Underneath the piles of satin she had hidden them, and the key to the b.u.t.terfly clasps was safe in her belt-jacket.
Dong-Yung stood in the kitchen door and watched Foh-Kyung.
”Does my lord wish for anything?”
Foh-Kyung turned, and saw her standing there in the doorway. Behind her were the white stove and the sun-filled, empty niche. The light flooded through the doorway. Foh-Kyung set down his rice-bowl from his left hand and his ivory chop-sticks from his right. He stood before her.
”Truly, Dong-Yung, I want thee. Do not go away and leave me. Do not cross to the eating-room of the women and children. Eat with me.”
”It has not been heard of in the Middle Kingdom for a woman to eat with a man.”
”Nevertheless, it shall be. Come!”
Dong-Yung entered slowly. The light in this dim room was all gathered upon the person of Foh-Kyung, in the gleaming patterned roses of his gown, in his deep amethyst ring, in his eyes. Dong-Yung came because of his eyes. She crossed the room slowly, swaying with that peculiar grace of small-footed women, till she stood at the table beside Foh-Kyung. She was now even more afraid than when he would have cast the kitchen G.o.ds into the fire. They were but G.o.ds, kitchen G.o.ds, that he was about to break; this was the primeval bondage of the land, ancient custom.
”Give me thy hand and look up with thine eyes and thy heart.”
Dong-Yung touched his hand. Foh-Kyung looked up as if he saw into the ether beyond, and there saw a spirit vision of ineffable radiance. But Dong-Yung watched him. She saw him transfigured with an inner light. His eyes moved in prayer. The exaltation spread out from him to her, it tingled through their finger-tips, it covered her from head to foot.
Foh-Kyung drooped her hand and moved. Dong-Yung leaned nearer.
”I, too, would believe the Jesus way.”