The Last Rite by Lee Yu-Hwa
  It
  
      Chou Nan-an reached home before sunset. In the
first courtyard he did not meet anyone. At the threshold
of the second court his heart beat faster. The place
looked unusually empty without his grandmother
sitting in the low bamboo chair on the broad veranda. A
pungent sensation crept up his nose. As long as he could
remember she had been sitting there, rain or shine,
ready to greet anyone who walked into the court. In his
childhood this was the heart of the house.  He was
always sure that his grandmother would be there to
receive him, and inside the wide folds of her sleeves, he
would find cookies, candies or fruits of the season.
      He ran through the stone-paved courtyard and
up the few steps to the raised veranda.  He was met by
his mother who had just come out of the room to the
right of the center altar room.
      “Is she…” he asked.
      She nodded and held him for a moment to look at
him; she had not seen him in three years.
      His grandmother’s bedroom seemed full of silent
women, her kinfolk, there to sit with her, according to
custom, taking turns at night, until she either recovered
or passed away in their loving care.  The women all
looked up when he entered.  He followed his mother on
tiptoe to the big built-in by an oil lamp on a nearby
table.  His grandmother was resting with her eyes
closed.  Her brown face was furrowed and her features
sunken.
      It seemed a long time before his grandmother
stirred and asked for tea.  Someone quickly handed his
mother a bowl of the pale clear reddish broth of dried
dates, believed to have the power of fortifying a
weakened life.  His mother kneeled on the low bench in
front of the bed to feed the broth to the old woman.  The
old woman drank the broth with her eyes closed.  After
a few spoonfuls she asked, “Has my son come home
yet?”
      “Not yet.  Shio-An-Erh is here.  He has come
home to see you, grandma.”
      The old woman opened her eyes slowly. Chou’s
mother got up quickly and stepping back, pushed her
son to the foreground.  He knelt on the low bench and
took his grandmother’s hand.
      “I am home, grandma.”
      “Shio-An-Erh, I did not think I would see you
again.  You took a long time to come home.”  She spoke
slowly and with great effort, then she nodded agreeably
and closed her eyes, her hand clasping his.
      His grandmother fell asleep with his hand in
hers.  He patiently kept his kneeling pose so as not to
disturb her sleep.  He loved his grandmother more
dearly than he did his parents.  In his childhood his
mother was always too busy with housework to play
with him, and his father had always treated him in the
traditional way, serving as his strict disciplinarian.  His
grandmother had for him all the leisure and the
unrestrained affection privileged to grandparents.
was to his grandmother he had made his childish vows
to love her always.  The memories of these vows
brought him back home to her bedside.  Watching the
old woman sleeping with a sweet smile on her face, he
was glad that he had come home.
      In her sleep his grandmother frowned, made a
little frightened sound and grasped his hand hard as if
she had had a bad dream.  Chou patted her hand with
his free hand.  She opened her eyes with a far-away look
and when she finally focused them on him, she smiled. 
“I knew you would come home, I told them so,” she said,
pleased and somewhat boastfully.
      In the evening his father walked in, still in his
street robe, and kneeled on the low bench to have a look
at his grandmother who was now asleep.  When his
father got up, his eyes swept about the room for Chou. 
He nodded to Chou and went out.
      Chou delayed as long as possible leaving his
grandmother to go to his father as requested by that
look.  He had hoped that his grandmother would wake
up in time to furnish an excuse for him to postpone
seeing his father alone.  But since his grandmother went
on sleeping peacefully and his mother kept casting
worried glances at him, he got up and left.
      As he came down the steps of the raised veranda
and drew close to his father’s room, Chou became
panicky.  He was seized by that old familiar fear that he
was not going to be able to speak clearly.  Words would
get stuck in his throat as in the old days whenever his
father shouted at him.  And his conversation with his
father had never failed to produce thunder.
           Yet in the years he had been away he had come
to see his father in a different light.  His father was not,
as he had thought, his tormentor, nor was his father so
staunch a believer in the old system.  He did not oppose
the new ways and the new people for what they were. 
He had not really had a taste of the good old days under
the rule of the emperor.  Just under twenty when the
revolution of 1911 broke out, he had never had the
chance to take the Imperial Civil Service Examinations
and be appointed to an office, the first proof of a man’s
ability in his times and the first reward for his years of
diligent study.  The overthrow of the emperor nipped
his budding dream of a useful successful life.  If the
revolutionists had made Sun Yat-Sen an emperor, things
would have been fine, his father had often said.  When
Chou had been away from home, away from his father,
he read a deeper meaning into this comment of his
father’s.  His father did not really care that the emperor
had been overthrown or that the revolution had taken
place.  All he wanted was that there should be another
emperor to hold the world together which he was born
to and educated for.  The personal disappointment
made him hostile to the new world and the new people
of whom Chou was one.  It was a very tragic thing that
happened to his father; the revolution had reduced fresh tea.  His father’s intent stare made him tremble
him from a young man with as big a future as he and spill some tea in the saucer.
could make it to a man who spent his life taking care       “What did they teach you in the last three years?”
of the family land.  “A housekeeper,” his father often his father asked, sipping his tea.
called himself. When he understood this, Chou was “English, chemistry, physics…”
sorry for his father and forgave him for the unfair Before he could finish recounting the curriculum,
treatment he had suffered at his his father waved for him to stop.  He was not impressed
hand.                                                                                              by the titles of these strange foreign studies.
      “I mean what have you learned? What
                             
knowledge is taught in the modern school?”
      During the last two days on the boat trip home
“It is complicated to explain…” The frown on his
Chou often thought that with this new understanding of
father’s face cut Chou short.  He paused and thought for
his father he would have known how to handle him.  In
a second. “In the modern school knowledge is much
a way his father was like a disturbed youth who had not
broader.  The students are taught a general
yet out-grown his young manhood’s disappointment. 
understanding of the cultures of various peoples and a
Chou even went further towards this dream of
fundamental knowledge of science – studies made on
reconciliation with his father.  He had imagined many
the natural aspects of the universe.  And then the
dialogues to convert his father, keyed to the various
student proceeds to specialize in a branch of study
philosophical views of his father’s that were familiar to
chosen according to his interests and ability.”
him.  Now in the grips of his fear to meet his father
      “Complicated and broader! Hern!” His father
alone, he hoped only to summon enough courage to lift
sneered.  “What can be more complicated than to live
up the door drape and step over the threshold, let alone
the life of a man? Incidentally, in case they did not tell
engage in conversation.
you this at school, let me tell you that the old-fashioned
His father was in the study, actually the
Chinese education teaches one to be a man.”
bookkeeping room where he went over the domestic
Chou did not retort; again he had to face up to the
accounts with the servants and kept no books worth
impossibility of discussing anything with his father.
reading.  He had removed his street robe, rolled the
      “We were taught our duties, duties to the
sleeves of his white silk undergarment above the
emperor and duties to our parents.  And we live by
elbows, and was washing his face and hands in a
them.” His father waited and then impatiently shouted,
porcelain basin.  He dried his face with a plain cotton
“What do you have to say for yourself?”
cloth.  His eyes were bloodshot and his square jaw
“Things are changing…” Chou faltered.
jutted out under the two strokes of a black mustache. 
      “What is changing and who does the changing? 
He studied his son attentively.
The same things go on?  Spring planting, fall harvest,
      Dinner was set in the center of a long table, at
rent collecting, paying taxes, feeding the family and
one end of which were a blue cloth-bound ledger,
going to the post office to send you money.  Nothing is
abacus, brushes and an inkstone.  His father sat at the
changing here.”
table and rolled down his sleeves. At a slight motion of
Chou withdrew to greater depths of silence.
his hand, Chou hurried forward to pour tea, holding the
      “You have been gone three years and you come
cup respectfully in both hands and at chest-level while
home without learning a thing.  If good money was
his father took his time fastening the top button of his
wasted to buy you common sense, I will teach you
under-jacket and gave his collar a few pulls to make it
myself.  The first duty you owe to me and to the old
stand upright.  When he took the cup his head bent a
woman, who is lying there dying, waiting for you, is to
trifle to acknowledge the courtesy his son had shown
get yourself married.  I do not want to remind you of the
him.
agony and humiliation you have inflicted upon your
      “Sit down,” his father said as he picked up his
fiancée and her family because you do not understand –
chopsticks.
you never had any understanding.”
In the silent room the clinking of chinaware was
      “I cannot…” Chou’s voice failed him in the middle
exaggeratedly and uncomfortably loud.  Chou sat
of the sentence.
straight on the edge of his chair.  He wanted to lean back
      “I know.  You never could do a good thing.” His
but could not move. His body seemed to be better
father snorted.  “But you do not have to trouble
disciplined than his mind; in the presence of his father,
yourself.  I have taken care of everything, and I have
it behaved independently from his will, in compliance
checked the calendar, too.  The day after tomorrow is a
with his childhood training.  He remained sitting
fair day and I only hope your grandmother can last that
respectfully on the edge of his chair. 
long to see you married.”  His father dismissed him with
His father did not seem to enjoy his dinner.  He ate
a wave of his hand.
absentmindedly, absorbed in his own thoughts. 
Next morning after breakfast his sister came to see
Occasionally his eyes would rest on his son, but gave no
him.  She filled in the details of the wedding
indication of recognition.  When he finished his dinner,
arrangements.  The family had been waiting for him to
Chou, again according to custom, got up and poured him
come home after the alarming telegram about their
grandmother’s illness had been sent to him.  They had
prepared everything, since it was also the
grandmother’s wish for him to get married on the first
propitious day after his arrival.  There would be no
celebration or wedding party.  These would follow
either when his grandmother got well or on the
hundredth day after her funeral.  The east wing
chambers were decorated as a bridal suite.  From his
room he could see that the windows were done up in
red paper.
      “Why are you so excited?” he said.
      “I shall have someone to talk to and to sew with.        “Mind is more important that physical
She is so very nice, she really is.”
      “What do you know about her? You hardly ever
had a chance to see her.” Chou was surprised, since
according to tradition his fiancée should not have come
in contact with any member of his family until the
wedding.
      “But I do know her well,” his sister said. “Since
last year we have been going to the same school.”
      “School! What for?”
      “What does anyone go to school for?” Her voice
came quick and angry.
He ignored her anger, since they both knew his
fiancée’s purpose in obtaining an education was to raise
his estimation of her.
      “She wants me to give you this.” His sister
pointed to the package which she had put on his desk
when she came in.
Shooting a glance at the tissue-wrapped package he
said, “I cannot marry her.  Doesn’t anyone understand
that is why I have not come home in three years?”
      “What should she do?”
      “It is not my concern!”
      “She is your fiancée.”
“You, too! Have you forgotten what we used to talk
about before I went away?”
“I remember.  But I have grown up and understand
things better.  She is your fiancée, you have
responsibilities towards her.”
“Responsibilities and duties! That is all I have been
hearing.  And false responsibilities and duties at that! Of
course, I have a great sense of responsibility and duty;
but only to myself, as an individual, and to a better
future for mankind.  My outmost responsibility and duty
are to destroy your type of responsibility and duty.”
“But why destroy her?”
“She must fight her own way out!”
“How?”
“First and foremost, by freeing herself from this
feudalistic culture, rejecting the teachings and patterns
of living formed and arranged for her before she was
born and then by finally insisting on her individual
rights.”
“Do not make speeches! You are not on a platform,”
his sister said.  “Just tell me how is she going to
accomplish all this?  She cannot set foot outside her
house without her parents’ permission.”
“They have done a lot of harm to you.  You have
learned to yield and to compromise,” Chou said
regretfully.  “I will take you with me this time when I
leave.  I shall introduce you to new friends who will help
you to consolidate your thinking.”
For reply, his sister looked at her bound feet.  “Their
feet are not like mine.”
An awkward moment lapsed as Chou was reminded
of this overlooked impediment to his sister’s
emancipation.
appearance.  You must not let this small hindrance
prevent you from living a full life.”
“Without this small hindrance, your fiancée would
stand more of a chance to please you.”
“Your mind is poisoned.  I do not wish to marry her
because she is not the type of woman I would choose.”
His voice was raised to the pitch of impatience and
temper, characteristics of student debates. “I do not
care for women who consider uppermost the task of
pleasing their husbands.”
“But you can teach her new ways and new ideas. 
She is just as bright and willing to learn as I am.”
“It is not a question of my willingness to help her.  I
would like to help her if at the same time I can preserve
my independence, my freedom and my integrity.”
“I used to think new ways and people with new
ideas were better.  But now I am grateful that my fiancé
does not mind my bound feet and wants to marry me.”
She burst into tears and ran out of the room.
His talk with his sister was not what he had
expected.  He had counted on her as a mediator
between him and his parents.  And if that were to fail, he
had taken it for granted that she would help him run
away.
His father had taken, as expected, the precaution of
posting a servant near him.  On the pretext of being
waited upon, he founded that he was not left alone. 
While he was in his room the servant stayed in the room
next to his, and when he walked about the house, he
was followed.
A servant brought him a silk robe and said that his
father wished him to wear it.  He removed his student’s
cotton suit.  He came out to the courtyard, went up to
the broad veranda and lingered a moment near his
grandmother’s chair, his early refuge.  Thousands of
times he had run here to enlist her power against
unpleasant orders from his parents.  He touched the
worn arm of the low chair and wished that once more
his grandmother would exercise that authority on his
behalf.
      He sat down in her chair, the big square
courtyard bare before his eyes.  He saw every open and
shut window and door and anyone who came in or went
out of the gate.  He realized that this was how the feeble
old woman had participated in the activities of her
household and knew so much about them.
His eyes dwelt upon the suite of three rooms at the
upper end of the east chambers.  How many hours, he
asked himself, had his grandmother spent looking at the
lattice windows and hoped to see them papered red.
His mother came out to the veranda and took the
low roomy cushioned chair of the grandmother which
he vacated for the stool that used to be his mother’s.
“Grandmother’s is taking a nap.  You have done her
good.  The doctor said this morning that her pulse is
stronger.”
“Good! Then we do not have to rush into this thing.”
“It will be tomorrow.  Your grandmother and father
agreed,” his mother said gravely.  “It is not rushing.  rejoiced in it, too.  After dinner, they all crowded into
Your fiancée’s getting to be an old maid.  Eighteen years
old and still she stays at home and braids her hair.  the Chou descendants and signaled Chou to come
Besides, there is your sister.  You are holding up her
wedding, too.  Her fiancé’s family is anxious to have a
daughter-in-law.”
His mother looked at him curiously and warily.
“No one wants to listen to me.  I cannot marry this
girl because I am already married. Now, do you
understand?”
“Married,” his mother repeated dubiously and then
corrected him, “you mean you have taken a woman.”
“I said I am married, married to a girl who goes to
the same college with me.”
“Ah, a modern girl,” his mother said.  She looked
thoughtful.  He waited impatiently for the serious
nature of his marriage to penetrate her mind.  “Do not
tell your father,” she said finally, “till this is over.” She
jutted her chin towards the red-papered lattice
windows.
He walked angrily away from his mother.  He had
been away too long and had forgotten the paradoxical
aspects of their morality.  Laxity and indulgence loop-
holed a rigid code of behavior.  His mother’s attitude
represented that of his family.  To divulge his marriage
to them would not matter in the least so far as their
preparations to celebrate his wedding were concerned.  her awareness of his reluctance to marry her, begged
A marriage which was not arranged by the family was
not a marriage.  And a girl, despite her upbringing and
the prestige of her family, was not respectable if she
entered into marriage unauthorized and unrecognized
by the families of both sides.  The most his wife could
hope for was to come and beg humbly for recognition as
his second wife.
      His talk with his mother ended all hope of
understanding from his family.  Were he to tell his
father of his marital status, his father would ignore him
and send him tomorrow anyhow, on schedule, in a
green sedan to bring home his childhood betrothed.
      He had not written his family earlier of his
marriage because he had thought it was the only way to
avoid a break in relations – his father would instantly
have cabled back cutting off his allowance and
threatening to disown him.  But as he now realized, it
was a dimly felt distrust of his family that had
prevented him from announcing the marriage.  The
repercussions of this great offense and disobedience, he
must have subconsciously felt, would be more than
disinheritance.  His marriage could not alter the fact, in
his parents’ eyes, that he, their son, was meant to fit in
their scheme of things and should be brought around to
marry the girl they had engaged him to in his
childhood.  And his father was capable and
unscrupulous.  He had not been able to score an easy
victory over him.
In the evening Chou had dinner with his cousins. 
One of them brought along a jug of wine.  The excuse for
their merry-making was that their grandmother
the grandmother’s room.  The old woman looked over
forward.  He knelt on the low bench, but his
grandmother gestured for him to sit on the edge of her
bed.
“They say I have spoiled you, but I know you will
make up for everything.  I will hang on –“ she pointed in
mid-air as if her life were being dispersed there, “till
tomorrow.”
“Do not talk like that!  You will live for many, many
years yet.”
Tears rushed down Chou’s cheeks.
“Not many years but…” The old woman paused to
gather strength and smiled sweetly at her last wish.
“The last banquet and all the friends and relatives to
celebrate it.”
Chou nodded; he had lost his voice.
He was sent to sleep in his own room and did not
stay up to care for the sick woman.  The lingering effects
of the dinner wine made him sleep soundly.
In the morning when he woke up he noticed the
package on the desk.  He picked it up and opened it.  It
was an embroidered writing brush-holder, a pet
souvenir women gave to men.  Inside the brush-holder
he found a letter from his fiancee.  She acknowledged
for tolerance and thanked him for being merciful to
allow her to assume his name.  “I know only,” she wrote,
“of the traditional way of living.  I shall be obedient to
you as I am obedient to my parents.  And I shall not
question the propriety of anything you do since I cannot
question what I do not understand.”
      He put the letter aside and concluded that she
was a cunning woman.  She pleaded for his sympathy
and affection and at the same time hinted that he was
free; she would not hold him to the conventional
responsibility of a husband.
There was much activity in the suite with the red-
papered lattice windows.  The door was open and the
windows propped up.  The servants kept going in and
out.
      After his visit to his grandmother he was sent to
bathe and dress in formal gowns.  At the propitious
hour he was carried in a green sedan to his bride’s
house and came home followed by her red sedan.  They
held a simple ceremony without music.  Afterwards,
when they went to the grandmother’s room, the sick old
woman was propped up on pillows to receive them.  he was not hurt by it nor could he pretend that it was
Chou’s parents stood by the bed and behind them stood
the uncles, aunts, and cousins.  The crowded room was
hushed; only the sound of the dangling pearls of the
bride’s headdress and the rustling of her stiff brocade
were heard when they kowtowed to the grandmother.
      During dinner he drank rounds of drinks with
his cousins.  Tottering, he was helped into the bridal
chamber.  He sat down in a red-lacquered armchair by a
long red-lacquered table on which two thick red
columnar candles were burning.  The candles were to
last out the night.  So was the oil lamp under the bed.  other.  She refused to be addressed as Mrs. Chou, using
They were symbols of their long life together.  Placed
around the oil lamp were five kinds of nuts, symbolic of
their prosperity.  A red silk quilt was spread on the bed.  needless and endless explanations to the conventional.
His bride, still in her wedding gown, sat on the edge of
the bed, her head bowed a little.  A servant brought in
strong tea, good for sobering up, and fastened the door
on the outside.  Chou drank two cups of tea.
      “Go to sleep.” He said to the girl who sat so still
amidst the blazing red of the room.  This was the one
thing they could not force him to do, he said to himself.  conventional male prerogatives were much at fault for
Yung-Chu, his wife by choice, might understand, he
persuaded himself, if he held out at the last step and
proved that he gave in to his family only on superficial
grounds.  He fulfilled his obligation to them as their son
to take this woman into their house to be their
daughter-in-law.  She was as much his wife as he was
their son, by circumstances and not by affection or
choice.
Besides there was no other way for him to leave
home and to go back to the city except through this
compromise.  But compromise was one word that Yung-
Chu was afraid of.  One compromise led to another, she
had often warned him.  She, too, was a student from a
distant country who had come to the city to study.  Like
many young people around her, she lived as though she
had no family and no awareness of the society around
her.  She cared for her approval of herself and for the
approval of those who shared similar rebellious
thoughts with her.  When he first knew her, he was
awed and, in turn, admired her for her advanced views
and her resolution and courage to act upon them.  When
she found herself responding to his love, she came to
live with him.  There was no fuss and no bother about
the significance of their union in relation to society.  She
did not tell him whether she had written her family
about her marriage nor did she inquire about what he
had done concerning his.  The Chinese family, to her,
was the remnant of a bankrupt society and the last
restraint to young Chinese attempting to find a new life
for themselves.  When he showed her the telegram
about this grandmother’s illness, she merely looked at
him, offended, and said in a challenging tone, “You must
deal with it yourself.  It is your own affair.”
      Chou understood and approved of his wife’s
attitude but at the same time he could not pretend that
easy to live with a woman who constantly imposed
upon themselves such unprecedented views.  With her
he had had some of the grandest moments of his life. 
Their visions of live conveyed him to a state in which he
believed that life as it ought to be was within their
reach, were the ones to live this good life, although in
reality his life with Yung-Chu vas very painful.  When
they were not talking about ideas, they seemed to be
lost.  They did not know how to do the least little thing
without getting into a serious argument with each
only her own name, Lu Yung-Chu, if she had to assume a
family name, and as a result involved themselves in
 
She did the cooking and cleaning one week and he did it
the next.  The judicious distribution of housework
afforded a good source of friction and Yung-Chu fought
vigorous and valiant battles against the opposite sex in
her own home.  But all in all, she was the woman he
loved and valued and he had admitted that these
the difficulties in his life with a woman like Yung-Chu. 
There was no doubt in his mind that she was the
woman he wanted to go back to and the life with her
was what he had chosen through his own free will.
      Turning his chair away from the woman dressed
in red who sat on the bed spread with red silk, he
cushioned his head with his folded arms on the table
and calculated the earliest possible date when he could
leave.  His grandmother was expected to die within a
few days—the family had prepared for his wedding in
the first and second main courts while in the third court
preparations for the funeral went on steadily.  In that
case he had no choice but to wait till she died.  But if the
doctor gave a contrary prediction, then he would leave
as soon as he could persuade his parents of his urgent
desire to go back to school.  He expected them to be
lenient since he had compromised in marrying this
woman, even though his father had hinted that he
needed someone to help him manage the family estate
and that his son had had enough education.  Chou took
this as another outburst of his father’s hostility towards
the new world; without the emperor there was no
career worthwhile for a man to work at.
      The sooner he could get back to the city, the
better chance Chou had to explain to Yung-Chu what
had happened.  It would not be an easy task.  He did not
see how he could manage to convey to her his intricate
relationship with his family, no more that he could
explain to his family how he and Yung-Chu were just as
dogmatic as his father.  She would judge him harshly
and call his sympathy and love for his family cowardice. 
If she should condemn him as a coward and a renegade
to their ideas, she would leave him.  She and the friends
they both had were, so he often wore blinders in order
to pursue without distraction their single minded
purpose of finding a new pattern of living for China. 
They would have wanted him to ignore, to destroy and
to deny his feelings for everybody in this house where
an old woman lay dying and a young girl waited to be
made into a woman.  But he did have feelings for them
all, even for this girl whom he had just turned his back
on.  He was responsible for her, as his sister had said.  If
he did not go to take her home in the red sedan today he
would have abandoned her to the sad life of an old
maid.  She would never be able to marry again and
would be disgraced all her life through no fault of her
own.
      He turned around and saw that his bride had not
moved.  She sat in exactly the same pose, almost a part
of the red decorations of the room, as though she were
going to sit there guarding the edge of the bed
throughout the night.
The red candles flickered and he had an impulse to
blow them out.  But this would have given alarm if
someone were watching his windows.
      “Go to sleep,” he said.
The girl in red did not move.
Fine obedience! Chou was getting angry at her.  It
was not only his name she wanted, she was waiting for
him to lift her headdress, to exercise his right as her
husband.
      “I said go to sleep!”
      She trembled but made no move.  The pearl
curtain of her jeweled headdress was shaking.  He went
to her and parted the strings of pearls hanging down
from her headdress.  She was weeping quietly.  Her eyes
were downcast and tears were streaming down her
powdered and rouged cheeks.  She looked exceedingly
beautiful in the candle light.
      He let fall the strings of pearls and walked away
from her.  He knew that she was worrying about the
next morning’s questioning by her mother-in-law of the
evidence of premarital chastity.  He went back to her
and took off her jeweled headdress.  She had not raised
her eyes but her tears had stopped, her lips were parted
slightly and the rouge on her cheeks had deepened in
color.  His hand touched her black silky hair, which, for
the first time in her life, was combed back and knotted
into chignon, and he felt for the essential gold pin that
held the chignon in place.  When he pulled the gold pin
her hair fell loose and hung down her back, scattering
the rest of the ornamental jeweled pins on the
embroidered red silk quilt.