Pearl Buck - East Wind - West Wind

One cannot blame them, I suppose. Yet they have been here twelve years, my husband tells me. One would think that something must be learned in that time. Of course you, My Sister, have lived here always, and you are now one of us.

But the most interesting part of the visit came when my husband asked the foreign woman to let me see her children and their clothes. We were expecting a child of our own, he explained, so that he wished me to see western ways. She rose at once and asked me to go upstairs. I was afraid to go alone with her. I looked at my husband in appeal, but he only nodded to me to proceed.

I forgot about fear, however, as soon as I was upstairs. She took me into a sun-flooded room that was warmed with a black oven. It was curious that although they evidently wanted to heat the room, they left a window ajar so that cold air came in constantly. But these details I did not notice at once. I saw first, with the utmost sense of fascination, three little foreigners playing upon the floor. I had never seen such queer little creatures!

They were healthy in appearance and fat, but they all had white hair. This confirmed what I had heard, that foreigners reverse our nature and are born with snow-white hair which darkens as they grow older. They had very white skin. I supposed it was washed in some sort of medicine water until the mother showed me a room where they were all washed entirely every day. This then explained their skin. The tints of nature were faded out with so much washing.

The mother showed me also their clothes. All their underclothes were white, and, indeed, the youngest child was dressed in white from head to foot. I asked the mother if the child were in mourning for some relative, since white is the color of grief, but she replied that it was not this, but only that the child might be kept clean. I thought a dark color would have been better, since white is so easily soiled. But I observed everything and said nothing.

Then I saw their beds. They were also covered in white and were most depressing. I could not understand why so much white was used. It is the sad hue of mourning and death. Surely a child should be clad and covered only with the colors of joy, scarlet and yellow and royal blue! We clothe our babies in scarlet from head to foot for joy that they are born to us. But nothing about these foreigners is according to nature.

One of the surprising things I discovered was that the foreign woman nursed her own child at the breast. I had not thought of nursing mine. It is not customary among women of any wealth or position, since slaves are abundant for this task.

After we had come home I told my husband everything. At last I said,

“She even nurses her own child. Are they, then, so very poor?”

“It is good to nurse the child,” said my husband. “You shall nurse yours, too.”

“What, I?” I answered in great surprise.

“Certainly,” he replied gravely.

“But then I shall not have another child for two years,” I objected.

“That is as it should be,” rejoined my husband, “although the reason you give is nonsense.”

Perhaps he is right in this also. At any rate I perceive that since several children of every family must inevitably die and some must be girls, that I shall not have my house as full of sons as I had hoped. Do you marvel, My Sister, that I never ceased to find my husband strange?

The next day I went to see Mrs. Liu to tell her of my visit. Ah, if the goddess grants me a son like her children — straight and ruddy and shining-eyed! They were beautiful and golden-skinned, exquisite in their red and flowered clothes.

“You have kept to our old customs,” I said, observing the children with a sigh of pleasure.

“Yes — no — look!” she replied, and she pulled the eldest child toward her. “See, my white is all inside — linings which can be taken out and washed. Learn the good that you can of the foreign people and reject the unsuitable.”

I went from her house to the cloth shop. I bought red and pink flowered silk of the softest quality, and black velvet for a tiny sleeveless jacket, and satin for a cap. It was hard to choose, since I would have nothing but the best for my son. I commanded the owner of the shop to pull down more and yet more of the silk he had folded away in dark paper covers and placed in the shelves that reached to the ceiling. He was an old man hard of breathing, and he grumbled when I cried,

“Show me yet more — a piece of silk with peach flowers embroidered upon it!”

I heard him mutter something of the vanity of women and hearing him I said,

“It is not for myself but for my son.”

Then he smiled crookedly and brought me the loveliest piece of all, the piece he had withheld until now.

“Take it,” he said. “I was keeping it for the magistrate’s wife, but if it is for your son, take it. She is but a woman after all.”

It was the piece I sought. Among the vivid piles of silks scattered over the counter it shone with a deep rosy luster. I bought it without questioning the price, although I know the cunning old man added to it, seeing my eagerness. I carried it in my arms to my home. I said,

“To-night I shall cut from this the little coat and trousers. I shall do it all alone. I am jealous of another’s touch upon my child.”

Oh, I was so happy I could have sewed the night through for my son! I have made him a pair of shoes with tiger faces. I have bought him a silver chain for his pleasure.

IT IS YOU? I have great news! To-day my son leaped at my heart! It is as though he had spoken.

I have prepared his little clothes. The garments are complete even to the tiny gold Buddhas stitched about his satin cap. When all were finished and perfect I bought a sandalwood chest and placed the clothes in it that they might be filled with sweet perfume for my son’s flesh. Now I have no more to do, although the rice is still jade-green in the fields, and I have three more moons to wait. I sit and dream of how he will look.

O little dusky Goddess! Speed the winged days, I pray thee, until my golden one is in my arms!

At least for one day he shall be my own. I will not think beyond that. For my husband’s parents have sent us a letter telling us that the child must return to his ancestral home. He is the only grandson, and his life is too precious to be away from the sight of his grandparents, night and day. Already they hang on the thought of him fondly. My husband’s father, who has never spoken a word to me, sent for me the other day and talked with me, and I could see that to his aged mind it was as though his grandson were already born.

Oh, I long to keep him to ourselves! I am reconciled to the little foreign house and the strange ways if we can keep our son here, just the three of us. But I know the proper traditions of our people. It is not to be supposed that I may have my first-born for my own. He belongs to all the family.

My husband is most unhappy about it. He frowns and mutters that the child will be ruined by foolish slave-girls and overmuch feeding and harmful luxury. He paces the floor, and once he even grieved that the child was to be born. I was frightened then lest the gods grow angry at his ingratitude, and I begged him to be silent.

“We must endure what is the right custom,” I told him, my heart aching the while with longing to keep my child.

But now he has become quiet again and very grave. He speaks no more concerning his parents. I wonder what he has determined upon in his mind, that he does not speak! But as for me, I think no further now than that day when the little precious one shall be here for me to feast my eyes upon.

I know now what my husband has done. Do you think it wrong, My Sister? Oh, I do not know myself — I can only trust that it is right because he does it. He has told his parents that, even as he claimed his wife for himself alone, so now he requires that his son shall belong to his own parents only — to us!