Achmed Abdullah

“ He had said so to Chung-hsi; and she had sighed, not altogether convinced.
"She"—this had been after Fanny had given birth to her child—"she is the mother of your son!"
"No more than you! For no goal is gained by simple abandonment to action. No child is created by the simple gesture of the body. He who lives by action and gesture alone weaves the boat of his life with withered leaves. The heart and mind, too, help to conceive. ”

“ But, since she had given Yeh Ming-shen no son of her own body to worship him, after his death, with hiao, or filial submission, it made it so much more incumbent upon her to look after his earthly happiness. Happiness meant tranquil serenity, and she knew that, as breath stains a mirror and rust a sword, thus anger stains the delicate: crystal of the soul, and that there is no anger more corrosive than the anger of the flesh called jealousy. ”

“ Her husband had seen, had understood, had tried to explain,
"One looks carefully after the new field that is yellow with the glint of kerning corn," he had said. "One looks carefully after the woman about to bear a child."
Then, when Chung-hsi, afraid of losing face, had not replied, he had continued:
"Old woman, an elephant is not afraid of fishes, and it has also been said that if a mouse be as big as a bullock, yet it would be the slave of the cat. You are the wife of my youth, my great wife, my gold wife. ”

“ Yeh Ming-shen had quoted. "The little buds of plum and lotus you speak of are foreign-born, American-born. Their ideas are curiously independent and immoral. Their perception of what love is is abominable. Such a little bud will not be satisfied with being the pearl-wife. She will want to be the gold-wife. She will demand that I divorce Chung-hsi—whom I love." ”

“ But though the English words had been strange to the latter, their meaning had been clear; and then flickers of sudden rage had darted through her calm, bland philosophy, causing her to pray to her painted gods for the eternal and intransmutable tao, the changeless principle without labor, without desire, without emotions—without the seething, black passions of the flesh, or the passions, as seething, as black, of the twisting, imagining, lying mind. ”

“ Love without children is an indecency and a blasphemy, especially condemned by Tzeng Tzu, the great philosopher. Love without children is like the aim of the archer who misses a hairbreadth at the bow and a mile at the butt. ”

“ He knew, as all Pell Street knew, that from the first day of their marriage Fanny had loved him with that overpowering, unreasoning passion which once in a while—perhaps to give the lie to the cut-and-dried romantic standards—a young girl brings to a much older man. ”

“ When finally, overwhelmed by the massive surge of Pell Street public opinion, Yeh Ming-shen had given in and had told Chung-hsi that he would take a second wife—that he would "sip vinegar," as he had expressed it—she, too, had said that it was his duty.
"I myself shall pick her out," she had added. "A stout, full-breasted, wide-hipped woman. A girl who will bear men children to you." ”

“ Ask your wife. It is both her right and her duty to choose the mother of your children. Also, having lived in close intimacy with you for many years, she will know what type of woman is best for your honorable happiness. ”

“ They knew that Chung-hsi was the "great" wife of Yeh Ming-shen; that she was still kuei jen, the "honorable person," though it was Fanny who was entered on the marriage register as Mrs. Ming-shen. Moreover, they were all familiar with the reason, and approved of it, on moral as well as on sociological grounds.
For Chung-hsi had borne no man child to her husband, not even a daughter; and it was proper that he should have married again. ”

“ They don't do it just out o' beast wickedness as them Bowery toughs do, and give the goil the doity end o' the stick. And then I'm sorta fond of Yeh. He's nice and solid and—oh, smooth, like some piece of Chinee silk, see? And his old goil ain't so bad—and, say, she's a swell cook. You oughta taste the way she fixes up duck conked sweet and sour! Take it from me, kid, this three-in-one is goin' to pan out all right, all right!"
And it had, from the very first, thought Chung-hsi, as she bent over her work.
Of course, Fanny was young, and had the sweeping sublimity and selfishness of youth. ”