Peony in Love by Lisa See Read Free Book Online Page A

death?”
    “I’ve told you before, Peony will not die from words.”
    Mama and Baba seemed to have forgotten I was in the room, and I didn’t move for fear they would notice me. Just yesterday I’d heard them argue about this subject. I rarely saw my parents together. When I did, it was for festivals or religious rites in the ancestral hall, where every word and action was set in advance. Now I wondered if they were like this all the time.
    “How will she learn to be a good wife and mother if she keeps coming here?” Mama demanded.
    “How will she not?” Baba asked, no concern in his voice. To my great surprise and my mother’s disgust, he loosely quoted Prefect Du speaking about his daughter. “A young lady needs an understanding of letters, so that when she marries she will not be deficient in conversation with her husband. And Peony’s role is to be a moral guardian, is it not? You should be happy that she cares little for pretty dresses, new hairpins, or painting her face. While she is lovely, we need to remember that her face is not what distinguishes her. Her beauty is a reflection of the virtue and talent she keeps inside. One day she will offer comfort and solace to her husband through reading to him, but ultimately we are training our daughter to be a good mother—no more, no less. Her role is to teach her daughters to write poetry and perfect their womanly skills. Most of all, she will help our grandson in his studies, until he is old enough to leave the women’s chambers. When he completes his studies, she will have her day of glory and honor. Only then will she shine. Only then will she be recognized.”
    My mother could not argue this point; she acquiesced. “Just so long as her reading doesn’t cause her to cross any boundaries. You wouldn’t want her to become unruly. And if you must tell our daughter stories, can’t you tell her of the gods and goddesses?”
    When my father wouldn’t agree, Mama’s eyes came to rest on me. She said to my father, “How much longer will you keep her?”
    “Just a little while.”
    As quietly as she’d come, my mother disappeared. My father had won the argument, I think. At least he didn’t seem particularly perturbed as he made a notation in an account book and then set down his calligraphy brush, got up, and walked to the window to look out to Solitary Island.
    A servant came in, bowed to my father, and handed him a sealed letter with an official red chop. My father fingered it thoughtfully, as though he might already know what was written inside. Since he didn’t seem to want to open it with me sitting there, I rose, thanked him again for giving me the edition of
The Peony Pavilion,
and left the library.

Desire
    ANOTHER LUSH AND WARM NIGHT. IN OUR WOMEN’S chambers we enjoyed a banquet that included beans dried in spring sunshine and then steamed with dried tangerine peel, and red seventh-month crabs, which were the size of hen’s eggs and available from our local waters only at this time of year. Special ingredients were added to the married women’s dishes to help them get pregnant, while others were left out for those who were or might be with child: rabbit meat, because everyone knows it can cause a hare lip, and lamb, because it can cause a baby to be born ill. But I wasn’t hungry. My mind was already in the Riding-the-Wind Pavilion.
    When the cymbals and drums called us to the garden, I lagged behind, doing my best to be gracious and make small talk with my aunts, the concubines, and the wives of my father’s guests. I joined the last group to leave our chambers. Only cushions on the outer edge of the women’s area remained. I took one and looked around to make sure I’d made the right decision. Yes, my mother, as the hostess, sat in the middle of the group. Tonight all the unmarried girls but me had been clustered together. Tan Ze—whether of her own accord or because my mother had insisted on it—had been relegated to the section with