Pearl Buck - East Wind - West Wind

“What a child you are!” he cried, teasing me. “It is not a thing you can handle or touch or take in your hands to examine like a toy.”

Then seeing that I perceived nothing of what he meant, he went to the bookcase and brought forth some books with pictures upon the pages, and he began to explain to me many things.

Thereafter, every evening he taught me concerning this science. No wonder my brother became entranced of it so that he would not heed even his mother’s desires, but would go across the Peaceful Sea in search of it. I was enchanted of it myself and began to feel myself growing marvelously wise. So much so that at last I felt I must tell someone, and having no one else, I told our old cook-woman.

“Do you know,” I asked her, “that the world is round and that our great country is, after all, not in the middle, but only a patch of earth and water on the skin, together with the other countries?”

She was washing the rice in the small pond in the kitchen yard, but she stopped shaking the basket and looked at me suspiciously.

“Who says this?” she demanded, in no hurry to be convinced.

“Our master,” I said firmly. “Now will you believe me?”

“Oh,” she replied doubtfully, “he knows a great deal. Still, you can tell the world is not round just by looking at it. See, if you climb to the top of the pagoda on the Hill of the North Star, you can see for a thousand miles of mountain and field and lake and river, and it is all as flat as sheets of dried bean curd, except for the mountains, and no one could call them round! As for our country, it must be in the middle. Else why did the wise ancients, who knew everything, call it the Middle Kingdom?”

But I was eager to proceed.

“More than that,” I continued, “the earth is so large that it takes the whole length of a moon to reach the other side, and when it is dark here the sun is over there giving light.”

“Now I know you are wrong, my mistress,” she cried triumphantly. “If it takes a moon of days to get to those other countries, how can the sun do it in an hour when he spends a whole day in traveling the short space here between Purple Mountain and the Western Hills?”

And she fell to shaking the basket of rice in the water again.

But really I could not blame her for her ignorance; for of all the curious things my husband told me the most curious is this, that the western peoples have the same three great lights of heaven that we have — the sun, the moon, and the stars. I had always thought that P’an-ku, the creator god, had made them for the Chinese. But my husband is wise. He knows all things, and he speaks only what is true.

HOW MAY I PUT into words the beginning of my husband’s favor towards me, My Sister? How did I know it myself when his heart stirred?

Ah, how does the cold earth know when the sun at spring-tide draws out her heart into blossoming? How does the sea feel the moon compelling her to him?

I do not know how the days passed. Only I knew that I ceased to be lonely. Where he was became my home, and I thought no more of my mother’s house.

During the lingering hours of the day in his absence I pondered over all my husband’s words. I remembered his eyes, his face, the curve of his lips, the casual touch of his hand against mine as he turned the page of the book on the table before us. When night came and he was there before me, I glanced at him secretly, and I fed my heart upon his looks as he taught me.

Day and night I thought of him until, like the river in spring-time flowing richly into the canals empty with the drought of winter, like the river flowing into the land and filling everything with life and fruition, so did the thought of my lord become to me, filling my every loneliness and need.

Who can understand this power in a man and a maid? It begins with a chance meeting of the eyes, a shy and lingering glance, and then suddenly it flames into a fixed and burning gaze. There is a touch of fingers at first quickly withdrawn, and then heart rushes to heart.

But how may I tell even you, My Sister? It was the time of my great joy. These words I speak now are scarlet words. On the last day of the eleventh moon I knew that when the rice harvest came, in the fullness of the year, my child would be born.

When I told my husband that I had fulfilled my duty towards him in conception, he was very happy. He gave formal notice to his parents first and then to his brothers, and we received their congratulations. My own parents of course were not immediately concerned in the matter, but I determined to tell my mother when I visited her at New Year.

Now began a most difficult time for me. Hitherto I had been person of little importance in my husband’s family. I had been merely the wife of one of the younger sons. I had had almost no share in the family life since we moved away from the great home. Twice I had gone at stated seasons to pay my respects and serve tea to my husband’s mother, but she had treated me negligently, although not unkindly. Now suddenly I became as a priestess of destiny. Within me I bore the hope of the family, an heir. My husband was one of six sons, none of whom had male offspring. Should my child be a son, therefore, he would rank next to my husband’s eldest brother in the family and the clan, and he would be the heir of the family estates. Oh, it is the sorrow of a mother that her son is hers but the first few brief days! Too soon he must take his place in the great family life. My son can be mine such a short, short while! O Kwan-yin, protect my little child!

The ecstasy of the hour when my husband and I first spoke of the child was soon gone in the anxiety that pressed upon us. I have said it was a difficult time for me. It was because of the much advice I received from everyone. Most important were the words I received from my revered mother-in-law.

When she heard of my joy, she sent for me to come to her. Hitherto when I had visited her I had been received formally in the guest-hall, for she had been a little haughty towards us since we moved away. This time, however, she had evidently commanded the servant to lead me to the family room behind the third court.

There I found my mother-in-law seated by the table, drinking tea and waiting for me. She is a majestic old lady, very fat, with tiny feet long since inadequate for her great weight. Now if she walks so much as a single step, she leans heavily on two stout slave-girls who stand ever ready behind her chair. Her hands are small and covered with gold rings and so plump that the fingers stick out stiffly from the mound of dimpled flesh. She holds always a long pipe of polished silver, which her slaves keep filled for her and light from a twist of paper, smoldering and ready to be blown into a flame in an instant for her use.

I went to her immediately and bowed before her. She smiled so that her narrow lips disappeared into the fullness of her heavy cheeks, and then she took my hand and patted it.

“Good daughter — good daughter,” she said in her husky voice. Long since her neck has disappeared in rolls of flesh, and her voice is always asthmatic.

I knew I had pleased her. I poured out tea into a bowl and presented it to her with both hands, and she received it. Then I sat down upon a small side seat. But she would not allow such humbleness in me now, although before she had not cared where I sat. Smiling and coughing, she beckoned me to sit in the seat next her on the opposite side of the table, and at her command I did so.

She sent then for her other daughters-in-law, and they all came in to congratulate me. Three of them had never conceived, although married several years, and to these I was an envy and a reproach. Indeed, the eldest one, a tall, yellow-faced woman always ailing and ill, began to wail loudly now and to rock back and forth and bemoan her fate.