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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-
On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales
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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.
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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
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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:
On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales
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89
"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.
"Which is what your honoured mother told Mrs. Chang Lucy, which is
what Mrs. Chang Lucy told me," Li Faa completed equably. "And I
now tell you, O Third Husband To Be, that the man is not born who
will lead me by the ear. It is not the way in Hawaii. I will go
only hand in hand with my man, side by side, fifty-fifty as is the
haole slang just now. My Portuguese husband thought different. He
tried to beat me. I landed him three times in the police court and
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each time he worked out his sentence on the reef. After that he
got drowned."
"My mother has been my mother for fifty years," Ah Kim declared
stoutly.
"And for fifty years has she beaten you," Li Faa giggled. "How my
father used to laugh at Yap Ten Shin! Like you, Yap Ten Shin had
been born in China, and had brought the China customs with him.
His old father was for ever beating him with a stick. He loved his
father. But his father beat him harder than ever when he became a
missionary pake. Every time he went to the missionary services,
his father beat him. And every time the missionary heard of it he [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]