Peony: A Novel of China

by Pearl S. Buck

  For a moment he was half angry. It was in his mind to go to his daughter and speak to her, since her mother cared so little what she did. Then he decided against it. It was too soon. Better it would be to wait until he had the proposal in his hand. Better even then to consider a while longer—his Little Three was very young. Nevertheless, he felt himself so disturbed that he knew his day of rest was ended. He turned his footsteps and moved in his slow stately fashion toward the great gate that opened to the street. His satin-curtained mule cart waited always ready for his coming. The gate-man shouted and the muleteer sprang to his feet. Kung Chen stepped into his cart.

  “Take me to my countinghouse,” he commanded. The muleteer cracked his whip and Kung Chen was on his way.

  At the synagogue on that Sabbath day Madame Ezra planned while she worshiped. Her busy mind ran hither and thither about her plan. Purposely she had not told Ezra that she would invite the Rabbi to be her guest for a while. For how long? Who knew? Perhaps a week, even a month—at least until David spoke his willingness to take Leah for his wife. Had she told Ezra, he would have exclaimed that David must not be forced. Yet it was not force she planned—it was the will of God.

  The will of God—the sweet peace of these words filled her spirit. But the synagogue was a place of peace. Ruin was not too evident—not yet. The curtains were old, but they were still whole, thanks to the women who mended them tenderly. Most of the Jews were poor, and their homes were clustered about the synagogue. Madame Ezra felt guilty sometimes that she did not share the poverty of the small community, all that was left of the once large one.

  Where had the Jews gone? It was a matter to puzzle them all. Without persecution or any sort of unkindness from the Chinese, they had disappeared, each generation fewer in number than the one before. Madame Ezra was angry when she thought of this. It was, of course, easier to sink into becoming a Chinese, easier to take on easygoing godless ways, than it was to remain a Jew. All the more reason, therefore, for her to live strictly, in spite of her wealth—perhaps, indeed, because of her wealth. A poor Jew might be constrained to choose between God and money. She had no such compulsion. With such thoughts she renewed her determination. As soon as the worship was over, she would stay behind and go to the Rabbi. When her plan was secure, she would tell Ezra. It was not difficult to stay behind, for in the synagogue a high carved wooden partition separated men from women, and it was her habit to worship separately from Ezra. Leah was at her side, and David was with his father. She would send Leah home with Wang Ma while she herself went to the Rabbi.

  Peace descended upon her as she saw her way clear, and she lifted her eyes to look at the Rabbi as he stood beside the Chair of Moses upon which the sacred Torah was placed. He wore long black robes and about his black-capped head was wrapped a fine white cloth that streamed down his back. He was reading aloud, while Aaron, dressed in the same fashion, except that his cap was blue, turned the pages. The Rabbi seemed to read, but actually he recited from memory, page after page. If he faltered, which was seldom, Aaron prompted him in a loud voice.

  When the service was over, Madame Ezra discovered that the Rabbi did not come easily to the house of Ezra. When she explained, when she begged him to come at once, he shook his great bearded head. “Let your son come here to me to learn from the Torah,” he said firmly.

  Madame Ezra wailed aloud at this. “Father, why should I hide anything from you? What if he does not come? Just now, yes, he is very eager. He is moved by what Kao Lien said of the murder of our people. But he is young. There will be days when he does not want to come. He will make an excuse of a game or of sleep or of playing with birds or the dog or writing a poem—anything! But if you are in the house, he cannot escape you.”

  The Rabbi considered this. “I am a servant of the Lord,” he declared at last. “It is of Him that I must inquire.”

  Now Madame Ezra, being a woman of impetuous nature, felt that she must say more. The will of God was clear to her and it must be made equally clear to this stubborn good old man.

  “You know, Father, I say without any vanity that ours is the leading Jewish family,” she now told him. She saw a certain smile flicker about the blind Rabbi’s mouth and she hastened on. “Yes, yes, I know that Ezra is a man divided in heart, and I can tell you with truth that many a night I have wept because of his pleasure-loving ways. But I have tried the more, Father, to do duty for us both, and you know that is true.”

  “I know,” the Rabbi said gently.

  “Yet I cannot live forever,” Madame Ezra went on, “and I must see my only son set in the way of his fathers. If he marries Leah—”

  The Rabbi looked surprised. “Is he not to marry her?” he asked.

  “Of course he is,” Madame Ezra said with some impatience. “But we cannot say he is married to her until the act is done. You do not understand young men and women these days, Father. I assure you that David, left to himself, would be the best of sons, but Chinese girls are always looking at him. I shall not be sure until—”

  “Does David look at them?” the Rabbi interposed.

  Madame Ezra evaded this. “He will not look at anybody after he is married to Leah.”

  “Why does he not marry Leah at once?” the Rabbi asked innocently.

  Madame Ezra sighed. “Father, to speak plainly, David must first want to marry her.”

  At this the Rabbi looked very grave indeed. “Does he not want to marry her?” he asked.

  “A young man often does not know what he wants until it is pointed out to him,” Madame Ezra retorted.

  The Rabbi considered this for some time, sitting with his head bowed and his hands clasped on his staff. Then he lifted his head as though he could see. “What have I to do with this?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Madame Ezra said quickly. “It is entirely my duty—and Leah will help me. But what you must do, Father, is to guide David into the way of Jehovah. Instruct him, Father, teach him the Torah, incline his heart to the Lord—and we will do the rest.”

  The Rabbi considered this. Then he said, “Still, I will go before Jehovah and inquire of Him. Leave me, my daughter.”

  Madame Ezra rose with vigor from her chair. “I will obey you, Father.” Her rich voice was angry. “May it be soon that you come to us!”

  She returned to her home and the Rabbi returned to the synagogue through a covered passage from his house. He knew every step of his way, and his feet fitted into the slightly worn hollows in the stones of the floor. It had been many years since he had seen the synagogue with his eyes, but he had other senses. Thus now he could smell mildew on the hangings, and he touched doors, table, altar, and he felt dust like sand between his too sensitive finger tips. By the soles of his feet he knew the floors had not been swept, even for the Sabbath. But it seemed to him that someone was here and he listened. Yes, he heard a slow deep breathing.

  “Who is asleep in the house of the Lord?” he asked loudly.

  The breathing ended in a snort. A half-strangled voice answered out of sleep, “Eh? It’s only me, Teacher—Old Eli! I fell asleep. Is the worship over?”

  It was Rachel’s husband, whose duty it was to keep the synagogue clean.

  “You should not sleep here,” the Rabbi said. “The worship is long over.”

  “It is so quiet here,” Old Eli said in apology. “Except on holy days there is no one here but you, Teacher, and this is not your hour.”

  “Come here,” the Rabbi commanded him suddenly. He waited until he heard the man’s shambling footsteps come near. Then he said, “Tell me—what of the silver vessels?”

  Old Eli coughed the tinny cough of the aged. “Those vessels,” he muttered. “Well—”

  “Tell me!” the Rabbi said sharply.

  “They’re pewter now,” Eli said.

  “I felt the difference,” the Rabbi muttered. “I knew it when I held them this morning.” He lifted his head and upon his face there was inexpressible pain.

  “Why do you trouble yours
elf, Teacher?” Eli asked in pity. “Young priests are always—” he broke off.

  The Rabbi began to tremble. “Tell me what my son has done,” he commanded.

  Old Eli coughed and delayed and wiped his head and face with his sleeve but he could not disobey. He laughed painfully to show nothing was sorrowful and then he said comfortingly, “The pewter vessels are silver-washed and they look just as the old ones did. You know the Chinese pewter workers are clever and when the young teacher told them—”

  “My son has sold the silver vessels from the synagogue!” the Rabbi muttered.

  “But do not let him know I told you,” Old Eli said in a small voice.

  “And only I knew the difference!” the old Rabbi muttered. “Those who came to worship—”

  “Not many come now, Teacher,” Old Eli said to comfort him.

  The Rabbi wavered and Eli tottered forward and put his hands under the Rabbi’s elbows. “Come with me, Teacher,” he said. “Come and rest. You are too old to grieve. Old people should be happy, like children. Now is your time to sleep and sit in the sun and eat good food and let all serve you.”

  “You talk like a Chinese,” the Rabbi said.

  He spoke bitterly but Old Eli laughed. “Eh, yes—but of my seven parts six parts are Chinese! Outside the synagogue they call me Old Li. I answer to the name.”

  As he spoke he guided the Rabbi tenderly out of the synagogue and into his house again, and there he sat him down and busied himself with everything to make him comfortable. He went to the kitchen and bade Rachel bring a bowl of broth, and the Rabbi let him do what he would. He sat like one stunned by a stone fallen upon his head. Only once he spoke while he supped his broth, and it was to say in the voice of a broken heart, “You are kinder to me than my own son is.”

  “Now, now,” Old Eli said, “young priests—it’s hard for them.”

  After Eli had gone, the Rabbi took these words and turned them over in his mind. “Yes,” he murmured after a long time, “yes, it is hard for my son. O Jehovah! If another is to take his place, Thy will be done. I will go to the house of Ezra.”

  Thus it was the Rabbi found the will of God. The next day after this Sabbath, taking with him Aaron, he went to the house of Ezra. But he bade Rachel stay in his house and keep it ready for their return. To Aaron, his son, the Rabbi said nothing, either in reproof or in sorrow.

  For three days Peony kept in her table drawer the poem that Kueilan had bade her give David, awaiting a proper time to give it to him. Such a time did not come. For after the Sabbath he withdrew himself, spending much time with his father in the counting-house. He was little at home, indeed, and when he came late in the evening, he avoided all women and sat alone in his rooms, reading. Peony waited for this mood to pass, knowing it useless to force his heart out of its hermitage. Then before she could find the moment she sought, the Rabbi came with his son, Aaron, and they were put into the court next to Ezra’s.

  Now David was cut off from her indeed. She served him in her usual ways, but more quietly than she had before, and her eyes were pensive. He did not seem to see her. He spent his mornings with the Rabbi and the old man commanded Aaron to sit with them too. Aaron, somewhat afraid in this great house where everything was under the eyes of Madame Ezra, did not rebel. Peony took care to be the one sometimes to bring hot tea to the room that she might see how it went with David, and she saw him poring over the books unrolled and open upon the table before him, and Aaron fidgeting and always ready to look up and out the door. This Aaron had learned to be silent whatever he did, so that his blind father could not know how his eyes roved and how he yawned. Then after a few days Leah came, too, to read the books. This was because David had told his mother how troublesome was Aaron and Madame Ezra grew alarmed lest Aaron anger David, and so she bade Leah be present, and if Aaron were disobedient, Madame Ezra declared, she herself would come. This Leah was to tell Aaron to frighten him, and she did.

  When Peony saw that every day Leah was to be there at David’s side she knew that she could not wait for an opportune time. One night when she took the last pot of hot tea to David’s sitting room as she used to do until this change had come into the house, she paused and coughed. He was in his bedroom, and some new delicacy now forbade her to go in as freely as she had.

  He came to the door at once to inquire what she wanted. He had taken off his outer robe and he stood in his white silk inner coat and trousers, his eyes clear, his cheeks red, and seeing him, Peony’s ready heart melted with love.

  “I bring you tea,” she said softly.

  “Why do you tell me?” he asked in surprise. “Why do you not bring it in as you always did?”

  Then she came in, and after she had set down the tea she put her hand into her pocket and drew out the folded paper and held it toward him. “I have waited to give you this,” she said, “but no good time seems to come because you are so busy now.”

  He took it and sat down and she stood while he read the poem, and he looked up and saw her standing. “Sit down,” he commanded her. So she sat down and he read the poem over again. Then he lifted his eyes to hers. “It is very pretty,” he said. “Did she write it?”

  “With her own brush I saw her write it,” Peony replied. Then she confessed to him, “I took her your poem—the unfinished one.”

  “You saw her?” he repeated, not seeming to care what Peony had done.

  She nodded.

  He leaned upon the table. “How did she look?” he asked.

  Peony shook her head. “It is better not to speak of her.”

  “And why?” he asked. His eyes were inscrutable, and he continued to hold the poem.

  Peony looked sorrowful. “She is gentle, young, pretty—so soft—she must not be crushed.”

  David flushed somewhat. “I do not know what you mean,” he argued.

  Peony looked steadily grave. “Ah, yes, you know,” she retorted. “Having seen you, she is ready to love you, poor little beauty, and when she knows—” She paused.

  “Knows what?” David prompted her.

  She shook her head and was silent and he grew angry. He threw the poem on the table. “Now, Peony, I command you to tell me what you mean. If there is one thing I hate above another it is a woman who hints in and out and around something that she has in her mind and will not speak it out.”

  At this Peony grew angry too, and she put her eyes full upon him and spoke passionately. “You must not see her—that is what I mean! She is beginning to think about you, and she must not!”

  “This is not for you to say,” he retorted. “Why do you want to part me from her?”

  Secretly David was amazed at his own guile. Had he not allowed Leah to think he loved her? The memory of that moment in the peach garden when Leah had stood in his arms came back to him, as it had many times in these few days. It was welcome and unwelcome. Sometimes his blood ran swifter at the thought of her. When he saw her face, earnest and lovely, bent above the Torah, or lifted to look with devotion at her father, he was moved. And yet David was coming to understand that his marriage was no ordinary one. When he chose, it would be for more than himself. However he might wish he were like other men, he knew he was not.

  “I am not thinking of you,” Peony said, “I am thinking of Kueilan.”

  He felt suddenly angry with Peony. “You used to think of me!” he cried.

  “Why should I any more?” Peony asked.

  Her voice rang with a harshness he had never heard before and her face was smooth and cold. He was shocked. “Peony!” he said. “What has happened to you?”

  She bent her head. “Nothing has happened to me,” she said. “It is you—”

  “But I am just the same,” he insisted.

  She shook her head. “Not now.”

  He put out his hand across the table and caught hers. She tried to pull hers away.

  “Let me go!” she cried.

  “No!” he cried back. “Not until you have told me how she looked!” Thi
s he said to cover his confusion.

  There was a long pause. He held her hand, locking his fingers into hers, and she could scarcely keep hers from trembling. She wanted to pull her hand from his and she wanted him to hold it. She was about to weep and her heart beat hard against her breast. Then she began in a small voice, not looking at him:

  “She—she wore a—a fern-green—”

  “Her face,” he commanded.

  “But you know she is very pretty,” she said.

  “Tell me how pretty,” he commanded.

  So she began again. “Well—well—her mouth is small, the lower lip a little more full than the upper, red as pomegranate—such small white teeth—a small tongue—when she wrote the poem I could see her tongue like a kitten’s, touching her lip.” She paused.

  “What else?” he demanded.

  “Her eyes—very black—and shaped like apricots—eyebrows like willow leaves, you know—and her face more long than round, perhaps—tiny pale ears—she had a rose in her hair.”

  “Go on,” David commanded.

  “I leaned over her while she wrote—her breath was as sweet as a flower—and her little hand—it is even smaller than mine.”

  He opened her hand upon his. “You have a small hand,” he said.

  She looked at him. “Do not make her love you,” she said pleadingly.

  Now he dropped her hand and she let it lie there, lonely on the table. “How do you know she thinks of me?” he asked.

  Peony withdrew her hand, and folded both hands into her wide sleeves. “I know,” she said in a low voice, and drooped her head.

  “Tell me!”

  “That I cannot. I only feel it.”

  Now silence fell between them and David rose and went to his shelves of books and stood looking at them. He was not thinking of them, she knew.

  “I wish to see her again for myself,” he said, not turning.

  She hid her smile behind her sleeves. “No,” she said.

  He strode to the table and struck it with the palm of his hand. “Yes!” he cried.