Peony: A Novel of China

by Pearl S. Buck

  Across the city Peony sped on foot, her head down, her hands empty. The gate of the nunnery was open and she entered it. The courts were still, but she cried out, “Oh, Mother Abbess, I am here!”

  A gentle old woman dressed in gray robes came out and her hands were outspread to receive. “Come in, poor soul,” she said.

  “I am in danger,” Peony gasped.

  “Here the gods protect us from all men,” the Mother Abbess replied.

  “Ah, lock the gate!” Peony begged. Now that she was here she was terrified at what she had done to herself. She seized the old woman’s hand. “If I ask to go out—do not allow me!” she implored.

  “I will not,” the Mother Abbess promised, and she drew the iron bar across the gate.

  How could David believe that Peony would not come back to his house? He waited for several hours, his mind thick with confusion. Then, too restless for longer waiting, he sent for Wang Ma and bade her go to the nunnery and see if Peony were there. So dark was his look that Wang Ma did not dare ask a question, and she went off in silent consternation.

  In his secret heart David was afraid lest Peony had thrown herself into the river, and his spirits lifted when Wang Ma came back in an hour to say that Peony was indeed in the nunnery. He heard this news in silence, and then, knowing that it would soon spread in the house, he saw that he must tell Kueilan immediately what had happened. That is, he would tell her that Peony had feared lest the chief eunuch reach out his arm and seize her in spite of all that could be done. He would not tell Kueilan of the confusion that had been in his own heart or of the strange stillness that he now felt when a gate had been locked between him and Peony. Yet had not she left him? He was somehow wounded that she could leave him, running out of his house like a beaten slave, although he had loved her from their childhood so well that he did not know when childish love had changed into something more. He feared to face this love, whatever it had become, and fearing it now, he turned away from it and reproached Peony in his heart. She had no right to leave me so suddenly, he told himself, and feeling ill used, he let himself be angry with her, and upon this anger he went to find his wife.

  As it chanced, Kueilan was this day in her sweetest mood. She enjoyed being the mistress of the house and knowing that her husband was master, and that there were no elders above them. All that was foreign here was now gone, and she smiled easily and was patient with servants and children. When David came to the moon gate of her court, he saw a picture that might content the heart of any man. This pretty woman who was his wife sat surrounded by her children playing about her. His sons had taken a holiday since Peony had not come to teach them, and the eldest was playing shuttlecock and the second was playing with a cricket on a string and Kueilan held the third in her lap. Chrysanthemums were blooming in the terraces against the walls and the afternoon sun shone down upon flowers and children. Now David saw again what sometimes he forgot—how great was Kueilan’s beauty. Her creamy skin was as smooth in the clear light as the baby’s, her lips were red, her hair, under Peony’s long care, was shining black and oiled. This very morning Peony had put jade pins into the knot of rich hair to match jade earrings and a coat of apple green.

  Why should I not be happy? David inquired of his own heart.

  He paused at the gate and now they all saw him. Kueilan rose and the boys ran to their father. The maids were busy elsewhere and Kueilan followed him. The sun had been as kind to David as to her, and for the same moment he had seen again how beautiful she was, Kueilan had seen her husband as he stood at the gate, tall and at the best of his manhood. He had never allowed his beard to grow too long, as some foreigners did, and his smooth face, large dark eyes, firm lips, and above all his strong frame stirred her heart. She loved her husband, but in the round of days she had forgotten how well. She sat down near him, and their eyes kindled to each other. David took his youngest son from her arms. “Let me see how big he is,” he said.

  Kueilan made haste to put under the child a padded cloth. “Not so big, naughty fellow, that he cannot wet you!” she exclaimed.

  David laughed, and the two elder boys, hearing this, came and leaned their elbows on his knees. Above the three fine children, the eyes of the parents met again and smiled.

  “How is it you are home at this hour?” Kueilan inquired.

  “A very strange thing has happened,” David said. “You remember the chief eunuch, who wanted Peony?” How easily he said this to his wife! He was amazed at his own calm.

  “Do not tell me he still wants her!” Kueilan exclaimed with lively interest.

  David nodded. “Since Peony will not go, there is only one way to escape without bringing danger to our house.”

  Kueilan was watching his face very closely. He felt—ah, but he knew—that he could never tell her the depths of his heart. Did he himself know those depths? What man knows what is dearest to him when all he has is weighed and measured, one love against another?

  “She has gone to the nunnery,” he said quietly.

  “To stay?” Kueilan asked, her eyes very wide.

  “How else can she be safe?” he replied.

  Now the children began to ask questions. “Will Peony never live here any more?” the eldest asked.

  “If she is a nun she must live in the temple,” Kueilan said.

  The younger son began to cry. “I want to see Peony again,” he sobbed.

  “Be quiet!” his mother said. “She can come to see us—as soon as she is a real nun.”

  David sat silent, toying with his little son’s hand. Upon his open palm he spread the baby hand, and the child’s palm was warm upon his own.

  Kueilan was gathering her wits together. She, too, was weighing and measuring good against evil. She would miss Peony sorely—but Peony could come here as often as she liked after her novitiate was over. True, she must always return to the temple at night, but then it might be pleasant not to have Peony here always. She did not need her as she had before the old people died. It did not matter now whether everything was done according to the rules and traditions. Yes, perhaps it would be better not to have Peony here. Sometimes it was almost as if Peony had been the mistress. A secret jealousy that had slept in her because Peony was useful to her now sprang alive. Peony was much too beautiful. Peony could read books and David liked to talk with her.

  “It is a good thing for Peony to be a nun,” Kueilan suddenly declared. “She would not marry, and what can a woman do then except be a nun? Many times I told Peony that we should choose a husband for her, but no, she would not hear me. A woman gets no younger. She would have had to be a nun one of these days—that is, if she would not enter the Imperial Palace. If she had gone there, then of course—”

  “She could not,” David said abruptly, not looking up.

  Kueilan felt her jealousy. “She could have gone if she had loved us as much as she always pretended,” she cried. “What could have been better for the family than to have her in the Imperial Court? She might have spoken for you there, and when our sons grew older, she could have had them to visit, and I could have visited her, too, and all sorts of favors could have come from it.”

  David did not reply. The baby’s fingers curled into his palm and he closed his hand over the little fist. Suddenly he stood up, and stooping he put the child into the mother’s lap. “It will be strange here without Peony,” he said quietly. “But she has decided wisely. I must go back to the shop for an hour.”

  He touched his wife’s round cheek with his hand and went away. A stillness was in his heart. Some part of his life was ended. He had made a choice without declaring even to himself what that choice was, but he knew the struggle was over. He was master of his heart as well as of his house.

  When Wang Ma had gone to find Peony, the nun at the gate had refused to let her come in until she asked permission of the Mother Abbess. The cloisters were whispering with the excitement of the nuns and novices over the coming of the beautiful young woman from the house of Ezra
. All knew that the old master there had died only a short time before, for who in the city had not heard of his splendid funeral? The Mother Abbess heard the whisperings but she had not yet questioned Peony. There must be time for sorrow to spend itself. She had commanded that Peony be given a large quiet room facing a small bamboo grove. Hot water was taken to her by the novices that she might bathe, and fresh soft robes of smooth gray grass cloth were laid upon a chair. When the novices reported that Peony had bathed and had dressed herself in the gray robes, the Mother Abbess commanded that Peony’s other garments be taken away and locked in a chest, and then that vegetarian foods be put before her and a pot of the most delicate tea. All this was done.

  When the Mother Abbess heard that an old woman was at the gate she herself went to Peony. There Peony sat by the window, her hands folded. In the gray robes she looked so beautiful that the Mother Abbess felt her heart ache. Long ago when her own young husband had died, less than a month after their marriage, she had come to this place. She had first waited to make sure that her womb held no fruit, and then she had sworn herself away to Heaven. She understood the look of a woman who knows that she must live alone.

  “There is at the gate an old servant, surnamed Wang, who wishes to see you, my child,” she said gently. “Shall I bid her come in?”

  Peony rose and turned her great sorrowful eyes upon the kind face of the Abbess. She was about to shake her head, and then she could not. What she had done had been so quickly done. Doubtless David had sent Wang Ma to find her.

  “It is better that she come in,” Peony said.

  So Wang Ma came in, and when she saw Peony in the gray robes she was speechless and the tears began to run down her wrinkled cheeks. She held out her arms and Peony could not hold back. She ran to Wang Ma and the two women wept aloud together and the Abbess bowed her head, waiting.

  It was Wang Ma who wiped her eyes first. She sat down. “My legs are trembling,” she muttered.

  Peony stood, the tears on her cheeks.

  “What did he do to you?” Wang Ma asked.

  Peony shook her head and wiped her eyes on her sleeves. “Nothing,” she answered in a small voice.

  “So he did nothing,” Wang Ma repeated. She continued to gaze at Peony.

  Peony looked at the floor. “That eunuch sent to find me again,” she said in the same small voice.

  “And you being neither wife nor concubine—” Wang Ma went on.

  “I have no one to protect me,” Peony agreed.

  Wang Ma sighed loudly. “Is it too late for you to come back?” she asked.

  “What is there for me except sorrow?” Peony replied.

  “If you had only done as I did,” Wang Ma complained. “I took the man they gave me and I lived on with the family, and I served my master until he went to the Yellow Springs. Now even my old man is a comfort to me.”

  How could Peony tell her that David was different from his father, and she different from Wang Ma? She smiled with her lips while her eyes were filled with tears. “Do you remember you told me once that life is sad?”

  This she said in so gentle and distant a voice that Wang Ma did not reply. She groaned two or three times, her hands planted on her knees while she stared at Peony, and then she stared at the Mother Abbess.

  “Will you shave her head?” she asked the Abbess.

  “I will be obedient to law,” Peony said, before the Abbess could answer.

  Wang Ma sighed and got up. “If your heart is set on Heaven, there is no use for me to stay,” she said sharply. “Have you no message for our master?”

  Now the Mother Abbess, watching Peony, saw the story plain. A rich and lovely rose color spread over Peony’s neck and face. Her red lips quivered and the tears hung heavy on her lashes. “I may never see him again,” she murmured.

  At this the Mother Abbess took pity on Peony. Long ago she had wept the nights through, thinking that she could never be free from the love and longing in her heart. Yet somehow the heart had healed, and agony was lost in the past. What she remembered now, when she remembered at all, was the sweetness of the days when her husband had been living, and the pain of her loss had faded.

  “It is not necessary to say that now,” she told Peony. “We will see how the heart heals.”

  Wang Ma nodded shrewdly at this and went away.

  After she had gone, the Mother Abbess sat down while Peony continued to stand. These words of the Mother Abbess had been spoken very quietly but they rang in Peony’s heart like bells. She looked up. “Do you mean, Mother, that I shall cease to love him?”

  The Mother Abbess smiled. “Love changes,” she replied. “When the flame dies, the glow remains, but it no longer centers upon one human creature and it warms the whole soul. Then the soul looks at all human creatures with love diffused.”

  Peony listened to this and was silent. She stood there, her robes flowing away from her, and the Mother Abbess felt her pity rise and surround this younger woman.

  “Shall I tell you why I came here?” Peony asked after a while.

  “Only if it comforts you to do so,” the Abbess replied.

  “There is no law that I must tell why I escaped?” Peony asked.

  “None,” the Abbess answered. “We are all here for some sorrow or other. What was our life became monstrous, and we found refuge. The only thing that I must have known was whether you had a husband’s power over you, so that I might have bargained for your freedom from him.”

  “I have said truly that I have no husband,” Peony replied.

  “Then live here in peace,” the Abbess said. “Heaven is above and earth is beneath us all.”

  So saying she rose and went away. Peony stood for a long time more, feeling neither weariness nor pain. A deep stillness stole into her being.

  For three years Peony lived behind the gate of the cloisters. So long did it take for the flame in her heart to change to that glow of which the Mother Abbess had spoken. In all that time she did not see David. No man was allowed to step within the gate and she did not step outside. The very day after Wang Ma had left her she took up the life of the cloisters. When she had studied the sacred books, had learned the ritual of prayers, had taken her share of labor in caring for the gods, in tending the garden, and in serving in the kitchen, when the older nuns cut off her long black hair and shaved her head, she ended her life as a novice. She took the vows and she became a nun. The secret life of her heart was over. The Mother Abbess gave her a new name, Ching An, or Clear Peace.

  But during these three years Kueilan had come often to see Peony. In the first year she had come only twice. Peony had sat almost silent while Kueilan, her usual self, had chattered, lively and curious about all she saw and telling Peony the gossip in her own house. Thus Peony heard that Wang Ma and Old Wang had returned to their village and lived now with their sons. Thus she knew, too, that Aaron after Ezra’s death had gone back to his old idle ways until David in anger had bade Kao Lien’s sons take him away when they traveled with the caravan, now that Kao Lien was too old. This they had done, and they had left him in some country west of the mountains, where there were Jewish people living who could teach him to mend his heart, and he was never heard of any more.

  But after the first year Kueilan came often. She had borne another child, a fourth son, and when he was a month old she brought him for Peony to see. Kueilan was proud that she had so many sons, but when the nuns went away and left her alone with Peony, she poured out her dislike of this new child.

  “Look at him!” she exclaimed as the nurse stood and swayed with him in her arms. “Is he my child, Peony?”

  Never could Kueilan remember to call her anything except this old name.

  “You bore him,” Peony said, smiling. Heaven had made her Kueilan’s equal now, and she needed no more to call her Mistress.

  Kueilan pouted. “He looks like his foreign grandmother.”

  Peony could not but laugh. Indeed the tiny boy did look strangely like Madame Ezra. His
big strong features did not fit his small face. She motioned to the nurse to let her hold the child. When he was on her lap she looked at his feet and hands. They were big, too. “He will be a big man,” she declared. “Look at his ears, how long the lobes are—that means boldness and wisdom. This son is a lucky one.”

  So she consoled Kueilan, and Kueilan, feeling warm toward Peony, coaxed her thus: “Come and visit us again—why not? The maids do not listen to me as well as they did to you, Peony. My eldest son is lazy at his books and his father beat him for it yesterday and I cried and then he was angry with me. If you come, they will all listen to you, Peony, as they always did.”

  But Peony, still smiling, shook her head and gave the baby back to his nurse.

  “You are the same Peony, even if your head is shaven,” Kueilan coaxed.

  Peony was startled. Did these words uncover her heart? Was it because she was shaven and a nun that she did not want David to see her? She grew grave, and by her silence Kueilan thought she had won her way. When she went home that day she told David that she had persuaded Peony to come and visit them for a day, and then he turned grave, too, and silent.

  In her cell again, Peony cruelly examined her heart. It is true, she thought. I dread his eyes upon me.

  There was no mirror in any nun’s room, but she filled her basin with clear water and she bent over it in the faint sunlight at the end of that day and she saw herself dimly. For the first time she saw her hair gone, and she thought herself ugly. Nothing else could she see, not her dark quiet eyes or her red lips or the smooth outlines of her young face. Her whole beauty, it seemed to her now, had been in her hair, in the braid she used to knot over one ear, in the flowers she had loved to wear in it. For one long moment she looked at herself. Then she lifted the basin and poured the water out of the open window upon a bed of lilies that grew beside the wall.