Peony: A Novel of China

by Pearl S. Buck

  “Wang Ma—here’s death! The Jewess and our young master quarreled. She flung the sword at him, at his head.”

  “Oh, Heaven,” Wang Ma muttered. She jumped up. “Where?” she cried.

  “In his courts. Wait! Wang Ma, she turned the sword on herself.”

  “Both—dead?” Wang Ma’s voice was a whisper of terror.

  “No—only she.”

  “Do the old ones know?”

  “Shall I tell them, or will you?”

  The two women looked at each other. Both were thinking fast.

  “I will go and prepare for what the old ones must see,” Wang Ma decided. “Do you go to tell them.”

  So they parted, and Peony went to Madame Ezra. It was better to tell her first, she thought, but when she came to the door, there was Ezra too, and so there was nothing but to tell them both.

  They cried out at the sight of her face. “What is wrong with you?” Madame Ezra exclaimed.

  “Be silent, Naomi,” Ezra commanded her. He rose but Peony beckoned with both her hands. She could not tell them, after all. They must see for themselves. “Come—come—the two of you! Oh—oh!”

  She began to weep and to run back again from where she came, and they looked at one another and without another word they hastened after her.

  With what fearful hearts did these two parents follow after Peony when they saw her footsteps turn toward David’s court! They said not one word but hastened on and Madame Ezra was ahead.

  At the moon gate Peony stopped. “I must tell you …” she began.

  But Madame Ezra pushed her aside and went on.

  Ezra hesitated. “Is David—?” he asked, and his lips were dry.

  “No,” Peony said. “Not he—but oh, Master, be ready—Leah has taken her own life—with that sword!”

  Now Ezra cried out and he pushed past her, too, and he followed Madame Ezra and then Peony followed. But the room where Leah had lain was empty. Wang Ma had caught Old Wang by the collar as she passed him and together they had hastened on. Together they had lifted Leah from the floor and they had carried her into the room in the next court where the Rabbi had taught David the Torah, and there upon a couch they laid her and Wang Ma tore a curtain from a door and covered her with it. While she did this Old Wang went back and took off his jacket and sopped up the blood upon the tiles and dipped water from the pool and wiped the place clean.

  So now when Madame Ezra looked in she saw only emptiness, and then she hastened into David’s room and there he lay upon his bed. Peony had bound her own white silk girdle about his head to stanch the wound, and he lay as though he slept, but breathing hard and fast. Madame Ezra was wild with fear. She screamed his name and when he did not answer she abused Peony.

  “Wait, Naomi,” Ezra commanded her. “We must send for the physician.”

  “But why did you not tell me he had wounded himself?” Madame Ezra cried at Peony, and she took the girl by the shoulders and shook her and Ezra had to come between them. Peony did not say a word for she did not blame her mistress. She knew that sorrow distracted Madame Ezra and that it would ease her to let her anger out. Old Wang came in at this moment and Wang Ma too, and Ezra commanded Old Wang to go at once for the physician and Wang Ma to go and brew herbs.

  So Peony was left alone to tell what had happened. This she did in a few simple words. Ezra and Madame Ezra listened, their hearts beating, their eyes wide, and Madame Ezra sat down beside David and began chafing his hands, and she said nothing.

  “But why did they quarrel?” Ezra asked in sad wonder.

  “I do not know,” Peony said. “I thought only of him when I saw him lying there, and while I bound his head she—”

  Madame Ezra burst into sudden loud weeping. “Oh, that wicked, wicked girl—and I treated her as though she were my own daughter! What if she has killed my son!”

  “Leah was not wicked,” Ezra said sorrowfully. “Something drove her mad—but now we will never know what it was.”

  Madame Ezra stopped weeping suddenly. “I shall never forgive her,” she said.

  “Even if David lives?” Ezra asked.

  “She tried to kill him,” she replied.

  At this moment David stirred and opened his eyes, and looked from one face to the other.

  “Leah?” he asked faintly.

  “Hush!” Madame Ezra said.

  “But she—never meant …” His voice trailed away.

  “Hush!” Madame Ezra said fiercely.

  “Do not speak, my son,” Ezra said. He came near and took David’s hand, and thus the parents waited. But David closed his eyes again and spoke no more. Now Wang Ma brought the bowl of herb tea and a spoon and Peony fed the tea to David slowly until at last the doctor came. He was a small, stooped, silent man and he wore great horn-rimmed spectacles and he smelled of ginger and dried bones.

  They rose and stood when he came in and stood waiting and watchful while he examined the wound and felt the pulse and meditated a while.

  “Will my son live?” Ezra asked at last.

  “He will live,” the physician said, “but for a long time his life will not be secure. The wound is not only of the flesh. His spirit has received a blow.”

  “What shall we do?” Madame Ezra implored.

  “Give him his way in everything,” the physician answered.

  VIII

  DAVID WOKE. HE WAS in his bed. It was night and dark except for the glimmer of light from the small bean-oil night lamp set on the table outside the bed curtains. Night? But the sun had been shining!

  “Leah,” he called faintly.

  Peony heard him instantly. She was sitting on a hard stool, purposely uncomfortable so that she would not doze and would hear the slightest change even in David’s breathing. Now she tiptoed to the bed, parted the curtains, and looked down on him. His waking eyes looked up at her.

  “Leah,” he whispered again.

  “Leah is asleep,” Peony said.

  She took her soft silk handkerchief and wiped his cheeks and lips.

  “I feel—weak,” he muttered.

  “You need food,” she replied. “Lie still.” She let the curtains fall, and going to a small charcoal brazier set on the table she took the lid from a pot simmering on the coals, and with a long-handled ladle she dipped the soup of rice and red sugar into a bowl. She moved in quietness, soft in all she did, and she went back to the bed.

  “I will feed you,” she said tenderly.

  She feared lest David ask her how he came to be lying in his bed. But he did not ask. He drank slowly, mouthful by mouthful, the warm sweet mixture. Red sugar was to make blood. Then he had lost much blood. That was why he was weak. His head pained him greatly. He remembered why this was. Leah had struck him with the sword. He saw her wild beautiful face, her hands holding the uplifted sword. As long as he lived he would remember. Nothing she could say or do would make him forget. And she was sleeping!

  “My head hurts me,” he muttered.

  “I will give you a little opium,” Peony said, going back to the table. She prepared the opium pipe, heating the pill of opium until it was soft, and then going back to the bed she put the mouthpiece to David’s lips.

  “Breathe it in, Young Master,” she said.

  He breathed it in again and again and the fumes curled about the paths of his brain. The pain eased and in the gradual relief he saw Peony’s face, surrounded by light.

  “How kind—how—how kind—how kind—” he began, and he could not leave off babbling.

  She put her hand on his lips and stilled them. “I love you,” she said distinctly. “I could never hurt you—I love you. Do you hear me?”

  He smiled in delightful drowsiness and could not answer. He sank into velvet softness, smelled fragrance, heard music, saw Peony’s face over and over again, tender with love, and his eyes closed.

  When Peony was sure he slept, she felt the pulse in his wrist. It was stronger than it had been. She could leave him safely for the few moments
she needed to go and tell Madame Ezra that he had waked and had eaten and now was sleeping again. Silently she went into the other room and passed Old Wang, sleeping in a chair beside the table, his head on his folded arms. Ezra had commanded him to stay the night, ready for Peony’s bidding. Pitying him in his sleep, Peony went on without waking him.

  The house was strange at night, silent in the soft darkness. She walked lonely through one court and the next. At each gate a paper lantern was hung to guide her, and she followed the dim light. When she passed her own court Small Dog heard her and pattered after her, sniffing and yawning.

  Thus they came to Madame Ezra’s court. A light burned in the bedroom and there Peony went. Madame Ezra was sitting up against pillows, asleep in her bed. She had not meant to sleep, doubtless, but weariness had been too much for her. Her head was thrown back, her mouth was slightly open, and she was breathing deeply.

  Peony stood between the parted curtains, and dreaded to wake her. “Mistress—Mistress,” she called. She made her voice very soft at first, then louder, winning back the wandering troubled soul.

  Madame Ezra choked and started. “Eh!” she cried, and opening her eyes, she started forward and stared at Peony. Her soul was still only halfway home, and Peony took her hands and clapped them.

  “Nothing but good news,” she murmured. “Our young lord waked, he ate, he sleeps again.”

  Madame Ezra came fully to herself. “Is he asking for me?”

  Now Peony did not want to say that he had not asked for his mother, so she replied, “He was still confused with pain in his head, and after he had eaten I made the pipe ready, and eased him. He is asleep again.”

  “Did he say nothing?” Madame Ezra demanded. She pulled her hands away from Peony’s.

  “He called Leah’s name,” Peony replied.

  “What did you tell him?” Madame Ezra demanded.

  “I told him she was sleeping,” Peony said.

  Madame Ezra leaned back and sighed.

  “I must return to him,” Peony went on.

  “When he wakes do not tell him Leah is dead,” Madame Ezra commanded her.

  “I will not,” Peony promised, and she went back again, pausing only to lock Small Dog into her room lest David wake.

  David was still sleeping when she came to him, and Peony herself felt very weary. Now that he had eaten she did not fear so much that he might die, and she crept upon the foot of his bed and curled herself small on top of the covers and thought how she would conceal Leah’s death for a day or two, at least. So tender was David’s conscience that he would blame himself somehow for what had happened. Yet how was anyone to blame except Leah herself, and her own god-driven soul?

  “How to make him believe this!” Peony murmured distressfully.

  Yet he must believe it, or Leah’s power would continue over him as long as he lived. He would cling, as all his people did, to his own suffering.

  “We must distract him,” Peony told herself resolutely. “We must amuse him and make him happy in spite of himself.”

  Upon this resolution she fell asleep.

  Yet how could Leah’s death be hidden from David? When he woke in the morning he asked no one where she was, but his eyes were thoughtful. Peony felt him stir and she was up and tending him and Ezra came in soon after dawn, before he had washed or dressed, and Madame Ezra came, wrapped in a great quilted robe, and Wang Ma came and Old Wang, and servants peered in at the door to see their young master so that they could carry the news outside. Still David asked no question of anyone. The old doctor came again and took off the silk bandages that bound David’s wound, and he stared at the black plasters that held the edges together, and declared that all was as well as possible, and he ordered the best of blood puddings.

  “Pig’s blood is best,” he declared.

  Ezra looked at his Naomi. “We do not eat pig, Elder Brother,” he said gently to the old Chinese physician, “but if it is necessary for my son’s life—”

  “He is young and strong,” the Chinese replied, “and chicken blood will do. Were he very old I would recommend woman’s milk instead of blood.”

  So chicken blood was jelled into a pudding with the liver, and red rice was cooked with spinach roots and raw eggs mingled with it, and all this went to mend David’s wasted blood. His mother sat beside him all day and his father came and went restlessly, and still David asked no one of Leah.

  But the next day and the next, as he grew stronger, his ear caught certain sounds in the house. Stealthy feet came and went, and once he heard the Rabbi’s voice raised in a cry. Toward evening he heard the pounding of a carpenter’s hammer. His father and mother were with him, and Peony was heating water on the charcoal brazier.

  “Mother,” David said.

  Madame Ezra rose from the chair in which she was sitting and went to his bed. “Yes, my son?” Her voice was so sad and her whole manner so subdued that she seemed strange.

  “Where is Leah?” David asked distinctly.

  Madame Ezra turned to look at Ezra. He sat beside the table moving one thumb slowly around the other. “We had better tell him, Naomi,” he muttered.

  “Have you punished Leah, Mother?” David cried out. “Ah, that was wrong.”

  “God has punished her, my son,” Madame Ezra said. Suddenly she began to weep. This tall, strong, hearty woman, who all her life had taken her own way, fell into an agony of weeping. She could say no more and she hastened from the room and Ezra went after her. There was only Peony left, and it was Peony who had to tell David. She went to him and she told him in soft, gentle, quick words.

  “Leah went alone into the other room, while I stood here stanching your blood with my silk girdle. She took up the sword and drew it across her own throat—and her life flowed away.”

  He closed his eyes. That blade, melting through the coarse cloth of the caravan loads! He saw it sink into Leah’s flesh. Suddenly he was sick and Peony cried out and held the quilt under his mouth.

  “Even dead she hurts you!” she wailed.

  David fell back on his pillow exhausted. “Hush!” he gasped. “You can—never understand.”

  These words dropped like stones into Peony’s soft heart. She did not reply; she could not, indeed. She lifted the quilt and took it away to be cleansed, and before she could return to David she paused behind a door and wiped her eyes with her sleeves for a moment. Then she turned aside and she entered the room where the carpenter had finished his work. The heavy camphorwood coffin was made, and the lid stood ready against the wall. Within it servants had already placed Leah’s body. They had finished their task. Peony had done nothing, nor had Wang Ma. The undermaids had worked alone. Now only one young maid remained to smooth the robes and put a candle into the folded hands, to light the dead girl’s soul upon its way.

  “I covered her neck,” the maid whispered. She had thrown a fold of silk across the wound.

  Peony went and looked upon Leah. The blood had drained away, and Leah’s face looked thin and unreal, as though it were made of some clear white substance. Her eyes were sunken and the long dark lashes were thick shadows on her cheeks. Her fine black hair fell back from her pale forehead and her lips were fixed and hard.

  Someone stumbled at the threshold and Peony looked up. It was the Rabbi, leaning on his staff. He stretched out his hands, feeling his way on the unfamiliar ground.

  “Will someone lead me to my child?” This he asked in his deep sorrowful voice, and Peony went and took his hand and led him in, and stood by him while he seemed to look at Leah’s face.

  “I see my child,” he said at last. “I see her with her mother. Her mother went down to fetch her out of Hell. She will take her child before Jehovah, and she will cry to Him until He hears.”

  Muttering to himself, the old Rabbi went on. “The mother will weep—she will beat her breast and Jehovah will hear her voice. Leah, my child, the Lord searcheth all hearts and understandeth all the imagination of the thoughts. If thou seek Him He wil
l be found of thee.”

  So passionate was this old man in his lonely murmuring to the dead girl that the little maid grew frightened and went away and Peony was left. She was frightened too, but she pitied the father. “Come and rest, Old Teacher,” she said sweetly, and she took the edge of his sleeve and pulled it.

  At the sound of her voice the Rabbi turned on her. His blind eyes opened wide and his long white beard quivered. “Who are you, woman?” he cried in a loud voice.

  Peony stood unable to move. This tall old man, towering above her, drove terror into her soul.

  His great voice shouted suddenly above her head. “God hath deprived this woman of wisdom! Neither hath he imparted to her understanding! She seeketh her prey and her eyes are afar off. Where the slain are, there is she.”

  He stretched out his arms as though to seize her, and Peony, seeing those great thin hands, beautiful and terrible in their strength, turned and fled as though she were indeed pursued.

  The Rabbi heard her flying footsteps. He listened and a smile of cunning pleasure passed over his face. “Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity,” he muttered. He lifted his eyes and seemed to look about triumphantly. Then he sighed and with difficulty he felt his way about the room. Around and around he went, and then he came unaware to the coffin again and he felt it carefully up and down and he put in his hand and touched Leah, her feet and knees, and her cold hands. When he found the candle he took it away and threw it on the ground. Then very slowly with trembling horror on his face and agony in his finger tips he felt her wounded throat and then her thin blood-drained face. He had been told that Leah had lifted the sword against herself. Ezra had told him but he had not understood. Now the knowledge came into him and it was too much. He fell down upon the stone floor, unconscious, and so he was found, hours later, when the burial women came to fill the coffin with lime and the carpenter to close the lid. They lifted the old man up and placed him on a couch and went to tell Ezra and Madame Ezra.

  “Let Aaron be brought,” Madame Ezra commanded.

  But no one could find Aaron. Rachel declared that he had not come home the whole night before. There was nothing to do but tend the old man back again, and under Madame Ezra’s direction this was done. He was carried to his bed in the house and laid upon it.