Peony: A Novel of China

by Pearl S. Buck

  Thus he read aloud from the vertical tablets such lines as these:

  Acknowledging Heaven, Earth, Prince, Parent, and Teacher, you are not far from the correct road of Reason and Virtue.

  When looking up in contemplation of what Heaven has created, I dare not withhold my reverence and my awe.

  When looking down, in worship of our ever-living Lord, I ought to be pure in mind and body.

  These sayings were hung on the pillars of the central door of the Front Great Hall, and Kung Chen admired them very much. He turned to David and said with surprise and pleasure, “Why, young sir, your people and mine believe in the same doctrines! What is there different between us?”

  And before David could answer he read aloud another that said this:

  From the time of Abram, when our faith was established, and ever after, we the Jews of China have spread the knowledge of God and in return we have received the knowledge of Confucius and Buddha and Tao.

  Kung Chen wagged his big smooth head in approval, and so he went from one tablet to another, increasing his approval of each. But the one that he liked best was one that said:

  Before the Great Void, we burn the fragrant incense, entirely forgetting its name or form.

  Side by side David and the great Chinese walked through the synagogue, and the heart of each pondered its own desires. Kung Chen said to himself that he need not fear to give his daughter to a house where the wisdom was so nearly that of the Sages, and David felt that the weight that had descended upon him in the days since Kao Lien came back from the West was somehow gone. The very presence of Kung Chen was cheering and enlightening, and the bands about David’s spirit loosened. Surely this good man could not be altogether wrong, and perhaps the Rabbi was not altogether right. Small glints of hope and comfort began to creep into the crevices of David’s being, and after these many days without pleasure he longed for it again. He longed suddenly to go out into the sunlit streets, where the dust was laid by the rain, and wander about in his old idle fashion. He felt as if he had been away on a journey into a dark land and that he was home again. And he knew that it was Kung Chen who made him feel so, this ample, slow-moving, kindly figure at his side.

  Now as they walked, Kung Chen admired all he saw, stone monuments and memorial archways, the big lotus-shaped stone bowls placed in the courtyards, the bathing house, and the slaughterhouse. Of these last two he inquired of David, wondering that in a temple these should be found. When he heard that the Jews believed the body must be clean before the rites were observed, he nodded his head, approving, but he wondered when David said that their faith demanded that the sinews be plucked from an animal killed for sacrifice, and he asked why this was. When he heard the story of one called Jacob who wrestled with an angel, he smiled his unbelieving smile. “For myself,” he said, “I am inclined against taking life even for worship.” Then he laughed aloud. “So I say, and yet when a dainty dish of pork is set before me, I eat it as eagerly as the next man does! We are all human.”

  By this time David was beginning to be troubled lest the Rabbi had not left the inner chamber. What if he were there, and what if he were angry that David returned bringing a Chinese with him? He walked slowly and delayed at every possible place, but he was compelled at last to come to the door of the Holy of Holies, and there indeed he saw the Rabbi before the Ark, in prayer. To his shame he was glad for this moment that the old man was blind, so that if he lifted his head he could not see. Kung Chen stopped on the threshold and looked at David.

  “The old teacher!” he whispered.

  “He is praying,” David whispered back.

  They were about to withdraw, but the Rabbi lifted his head. His hearing was very acute and he had heard both footsteps and whispering voices.

  “David, my son,” he called in a loud voice, “you have come back!”

  The Rabbi had regretted his anger and he had stood before the Lord, praying that David come, and he thought now that his prayer was answered. He went toward the door, his hands outstretched. David would have drawn back, but Kung Chen’s ready mercy overflowed and he stepped forward.

  “Old Teacher, please be careful,” he said.

  The Rabbi stopped and his hands dropped. “Who is here?” he demanded.

  Kung Chen felt no wrong, and so he answered at once. “It is I, Kung Chen the merchant. I saw my friend Ezra’s son at the gate, and being curious, I asked him to bring me inside your temple.”

  At this the Rabbi was suddenly overcome with rage. He cried out to David, “How is it that you bring a stranger into this place?”

  Kung Chen might have let this go as the superstition of an old priest, but he felt it only just to defend David, and so he said in an amiable voice, “Calm yourself, Old Teacher. It was not he who asked me to come. Blame me.”

  “You are a son of Adam,” the Rabbi said with sternness, “but he is a son of God. The blame is on him.”

  Kung Chen was much surprised. “I am no son of Adam,” he declared. “Indeed, there is no such name among my ancestors.”

  “The heathen people are all the sons of Adam,” the old Rabbi declared.

  Now Kung Chen felt his own wrath rising. “I do not wish to be called the son of a man of whom I have never heard,” he declared. His voice was mild, for he would have considered it beneath him as a superior man to show his anger, especially to an old man. But it boiled in him, and he had much trouble to hide it as he went on. “Moreover, I do not like to hear any man call only himself and his people the sons of God. Let it be that you are the sons of your god if you please, but there are many gods.”

  “There is only one true God, and Jehovah is His name,” the Rabbi declared, trembling all over as he spoke.

  “So the followers of Mohammed in our city declare,” Kung Chen said gravely, “but they call his name Allah. Is he the same as your Jehovah?”

  “There is no god beside our God,” the Rabbi said in a loud high voice. “He is the One True God!”

  Kung Chen stared at him. Then he turned to David. “This old teacher is mad,” he observed. “We must pity him. So it often happens when men think too much about gods and fairies and ghosts and all such imaginary beings. Beyond this earth we cannot know.”

  But the Rabbi would not have his pity. “Beyond this earth we can know!” he cried in a loud firm voice. “It is for this that God has chosen my people, that we may eternally remind mankind of Him, Who alone rules. We are gadfly to man’s soul. We may not rest until mankind believes in the true God.”

  All the anger faded from Kung Chen’s heart and he said in the kindest voice, “God—if there is a God—would not choose one man above another or one people above another. Under Heaven we are all one family.”

  When the Rabbi heard this he could not bear it. He lifted up his head and he prayed thus to his God: “O God, hear the blasphemy of this heathen man!”

  David had stood with bent head and clasped hands while the two elders argued, and he said nothing. His soul hung between these two men.

  Now Kung Chen turned to him. “Let the Old Teacher pray thus, if it eases him. I believe in no gods and so none can hurt me or mine … I bid you both farewell.”

  He moved with great dignity to the door and then eastward toward the gate. David was torn between pity and shame, and he ran after Kung Chen and caught him at the gate.

  “I beg your forgiveness,” he said.

  Kung Chen turned his benign face to the young man. There was no trace of anger left in him. He spoke very gravely. “I feel no wrong and so there is no need to forgive. Yet for your sake I will say something. None on earth can love those who declare that they alone are the sons of God.”

  With these words Kung Chen went his way. David hesitated on the threshold, and the words burned themselves into his brain. He could not to save himself return to the Rabbi. Yet the desire for careless pleasure was gone from him, too. The weight of his people fell on him again with the heaviness of all the ages.

  He felt a sob c
ome into his throat, and turning back into the synagogue he hid himself inside an archway and wept most bitterly.

  On that sultry summer morning Peony saw David go away with the Rabbi, and she ran to peer through a window and see if Leah was with them. But Leah sat working upon her embroidery, and so Peony went away again unseen. Late in the day David came home again, and she went to him to ask if he wished anything, but he sent her away, wanting to be alone.

  Everybody in this house wants to be alone, she thought half angrily. She felt a strange impatience fall upon her. Since she had given him the poem, David had said no more to her. He had not sent for her once, nor had he written any poem. All that Peony knew was this: The poem he thought Kueilan had written was in the drawer of his desk. Each day when he was gone, she opened the drawer and saw it there, under a jade paperweight. She could only wait until the day was over.

  Now Peony had clever skill in her fingers to smooth away an ache in heart or muscle. Wang Ma had taught her this, and she taught her the centers of pain in the body and the long lines of nerves and veins. Sometimes Peony smoothed out a pain for Madame Ezra and sometimes for David. To her surprise Ezra, on this hot day, although the storm had cooled the air, sent for her to press his temples and soothe his feet. Never before had she known this stout hearty master of hers to have pain anywhere. But this night when she entered his room he sat in his chair, and when she stepped behind him to begin her work she felt the fullness of blood in his temples and the hard knot of pain at the base of his skull.

  “Your spirit is distressed, Master,” she murmured. She could discern the kinds of pain there were in a human body, some the pains of flesh and some the pains of spirit and still others those of the mind.

  “I am distressed,” Ezra answered. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes and allowed her to do her work.

  She did not speak again, nor for a while did he, and she stroked the nerves and pressed the veins in his head and persuaded the blood to recede.

  Then he said suddenly, “What soft power there is in your hands! Who taught you this wisdom?”

  “Wang Ma taught me some, but some I know of myself,” she replied.

  “How do you know?” he asked. His eyes were still closed, but his lips smiled slightly.

  “I am sometimes sorrowful, too,” she said in her cheerful little voice.

  “Now, now,” he said playfully. “You, here in this house where we all are kind to you?”

  “You are kind,” she said, “but well I know I do not belong in this house. I am not born here, nor am I of your blood.”

  “But I bought you, Peony,” Ezra said gently.

  “Yes, you paid money for me,” she answered, “but that does not make me yours. A human creature cannot be bought whole.”

  He seemed to muse on this while she stroked the strong muscles of his neck. Then stooping she took off his shoes and began to heal his feet. He sat up refreshed while she did this and he said, “Yet you are like my own daughter. See, if I did what was right, I would not let you heal my feet. Your people would think it strange. But in the country of my people a daughter may do what you do. Yes, and in India too. When I once went with the caravan through India, I saw this healing for the feet.”

  “The feet bear the burden of the body, the head the burden of the mind, and the heart the burden of the spirit,” Peony answered sweetly. “And it does not matter what my people say. What would they say? Only that it is a foreign custom. You know how kind my people are. They allow all.”

  “I know,” Ezra said. “They are the kindest people in the world, and to us the best.”

  He sighed so deeply that Peony knew his thoughts. Nevertheless, she asked, “Why do you sigh, Master?”

  “Because I do not know what is right,” Ezra replied.

  She laughed softly at this. “You are always talking of right and wrong,” she said. Now she was pressing the soles of his feet. They were hard and broad, but supple. She went on in her cheerful way. “Yet what is right except that which makes happiness and what is wrong except that which makes sorrow?”

  “You speak so because you are not confused between Heaven and earth,” he said.

  “I know I belong to earth,” she said simply.

  “Ah, but we belong to Heaven,” he rejoined.

  Now she had finished her task and she put his shoes on his feet again. “You and I speak of Heaven and earth,” she said, “but we are thinking of something else.”

  “Of what?” he asked. But he knew.

  She sat back on her heels and looked up at him. “We are thinking of David,” she said softly.

  “You think of him, too,” Ezra said.

  “I am always thinking of him,” Peony replied. Then kneeling and looking at him she decided that she would tell him everything. “I know that it is foolish of me, Master, but I love him,” she said simply.

  “Of course you love him,” Ezra said, in his usual hearty voice. “You have grown up as brother and sister.”

  “Yes, but we are not brother and sister,” she said. “It is not thus that I love him.”

  Ezra looked uncomfortable indeed. Had he taken thought he must have known that a young, soft, pretty girl could not live and serve David without love. He remembered his own youth, when he had felt a fancy for Wang Ma. It made him blush to think of it now, for so long had she been no more than a serving woman. But he could remember very well himself about sixteen and she the same age, when she had been beautiful enough to make him tell his father that he would have no other woman. Flower of Jade had been her name. Flower of Jade! When he remembered this name something long dead stirred again. She had been prettier than Peony, her skin more fair, her frame taller, her nose straighter, and her lips more delicate.

  His father had roared with laughter. “But the girl is a bondmaid!” he had shouted. “My son cannot marry a servant!”

  “She will not be a servant if I make her my wife,” young Ezra had said hotly.

  His father had suddenly stopped laughing. “Do not be a fool,” he had commanded his son. “What you do with a bondmaid is not my business if I do not hear of it. But your wife will be Naomi, the daughter of Judah ben Isaac.”

  He had been startled. Naomi was known then among the young men of their community as the most beautiful Jewess in the city. He had been susceptible enough, vain enough, to imagine the envy of his friends when he told them. And Judah ben Isaac belonged to a family so rich that its wealth had rebuilt the synagogue after the flood in the last century. True, they had taken a Chinese surname, Shih. But Judah said it was only for business.

  Ezra said to Peony, still on her knees and looking up at him, “Keep your love to yourself, my child, let there be no confusion in the house. One thing at a time, I pray.”

  Thus in his own way he repeated what his father had said in his youth. To Peony it would have been folly to use the word “concubine,” for Madame Ezra would never allow her son a concubine. But Peony understood all his meaning and she remained as still as a small image, looking at him with her clear eyes, which could be so gay and which now were sad.

  “David will be very unhappy if he marries Leah,” she said in a small voice.

  Ezra shrugged his heavy shoulders and spread out his hands. “You will bring on my headache again,” he complained. “Go away, good child, and leave me alone.”

  She saw that he would say no more. Although he would be always generous and indulgent as a master, he would refuse to remember that she was more than a bondmaid, a pretty comfort in his house. Her heart grew hard in her. She rose and bowed and was about to go, when Ezra’s kind heart smote him. He lifted his hand. “Stay, child. I have a little gift the caravan brought for you. The house has been in such turmoil that I have forgotten to give it to you. Open that box and see what is in it.”

  He nodded toward a lacquered box on the table and Peony went to it and lifted the lid of the box. Within it lay a gold comb.

  “For me?” she asked, opening her eyes prettily.
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  “For you,” Ezra said, smiling. “Put it in your hair.”

  “Without the mirror?” Peony exclaimed, pretending to dismay.

  Ezra laughed. “Well, well, take it and be happy.”

  “Thank you, Old Master,” Peony said. “Thank you many times.”

  “There, do not thank me,” Ezra replied, but she saw he was comforted. He loved to give gifts and he wanted everyone happy. It pleased him to see Peony’s smiles, and she took care to show delight. It was a pretty comb indeed, and well she liked every pretty thing. But she was no longer a child, and a toy could not content her. She went away and her heart continued hard.

  After she had gone Ezra sat in most uncomfortable thought. He sighed many times, heavily and restlessly. He had already been so foolish as to make one or two meaningful jests with Kung Chen about his third daughter and David. Without being so discourteous as to mention her name he had said, “Your house and my house, eh, Elder Brother? What is a business contract compared to children and grandchildren growing from double roots?”

  Kung Chen had smiled and had nodded his head without speaking. Now everything was confused, Ezra told himself. He often wondered why, when he was a man inclined only toward happiness for everyone, including himself, he should be so often in circumstances that could not bring happiness for anyone, least of all for himself. Thus he found it very uncomfortable to have the Rabbi living in his house—a good man, of course, but thinking of nothing except the old ways of the Torah. The Torah was a rabbi’s business, but it brought confusion into a house. Nobody could be comfortable if he was always being reminded of the past. Thus even he, here in his own house, was uncomfortable when he met the blind old man feeling his way along the corridors. He wanted to escape him, and if he met the Rabbi alone, he descended to standing still and not speaking, thus taking advantage of the old man’s blindness.

  Then Ezra thought of Leah for a while. She was more beautiful and more modest than his Naomi had been. He scarcely ever spoke to Leah, but sometimes in the evening she was in the peach-tree garden. He saw her pacing back and forth under the trees, and sometimes she put up her hand and plucked a fruit. The peaches were fine this year. She did not announce herself by her very presence as Naomi had done even as a young girl. Perhaps David could be happy with her. David was stronger than he himself had been as a young man, and more able to cope with headstrong women. Ezra remembered next that he saw very little of David lately. While the Rabbi had been teaching his son, he had allowed days to pass with no more than a greeting at mealtime. He got to his feet in his impetuous fashion and determined now to go to his son’s room, late as it was.