Pearl Buck - East Wind - West Wind

Sometimes she thanked him faintly, but beyond that they have had no speech together since it has been made known that his wife is with child.

My brother has sent a letter to our father, and to-morrow he comes.

My mother has not spoken now for many days. She lies in a heavy sleep which is yet not like any sleep we have ever seen. Chang the doctor has shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands and said,

“If Heaven ordains death, who am I to stay that supreme destiny?”

He has taken his silver and thrust his hands into his sleeves and departed. When he had gone I flew to my husband and besought him to come to my mother. Now that she sees nothing that passes before her, she would not know whether he were there or not. At first he would not, but when he saw how I feared for her he came unwillingly and stood beside her bed, and for the first time he saw my mother.

I never saw him so moved. He looked at her for a long time, and then he shuddered from head to foot and came quickly away. I wondered if he were ill but when I questioned him he only said,

“It is too late — it is too late.”

And then he turned to me suddenly, crying,

“She looks so much like you that I thought of your face lying there dead!”

And we wept.

I go daily to the temple now where I have been scarcely at all since my son was born. Having him I have had nothing more to desire of the gods. They have become angry at my happiness, therefore, and have punished me through her, my beloved mother. I go to the god of long life. I have placed sacrifices before him of flesh and of wine. I have promised a hundred rounds of silver to the temple if my mother recovers.

But I have no response from the god. He sits immovably behind his curtain. I do not even know whether or not he receives my sacrifices.

Underneath all our lives, behind the veil, these gods are plotting!

O My Sister, My Sister! The gods have spoken at last and have showed us their wickedness! Look! I am robed in sackcloth! See my son — he is wrapped from head to foot in the coarse white cloth of mourning! It is for her — for my mother! O my mother, my mother! Nay — do not stay my weeping — I must weep now — for she is dead!

I sat alone with her at midnight. She lay as she has lain these ten days, a thing of bronze — immovable. She had not spoken or eaten. Her spirit had already heard the call of the higher voices, and only her strong heart was left to beat itself out into feebleness and silence.

When the hour before dawn appeared, I saw with sudden fear that there was a change in her. I struck my hands together and sent the waiting slave for my brother. He sat in the outer room prepared for my summons. When he came in he looked at her and whispered half-afraid,

“The last change has come. Let someone go for our father.”

He motioned to Wang Da Ma who stood by the bed wiping her eyes, and she withdrew to do his bidding. We stood hand in hand waiting, weeping and in awe.

Suddenly our mother seemed to rouse herself. She turned her head and gazed at us. She lifted her arms up slowly as though they bore a heavy burden, and she sighed deeply twice. Then her arms fell, and her spirit passed over, silent in passing as in life, revealing nothing.

When our father came in, half-asleep still, with his garments thrown hastily about his body, we told him. He stood before her staring and afraid. In his heart he has always feared her. Now he began to weep easy tears, like a child, and to cry loudly,

“A good wife — a good wife!”

My brother led him gently away then, soothing him and bidding Wang Da Ma to bring wine to comfort him.

Then I, left alone with my mother, looked again on the silent, stiffening face. I was the only one who had ever seen her truly, and my heart melted itself into hot and burning tears. I drew the curtains slowly at last and shut her away, back again into the loneliness in which she had lived.

My mother — my mother!

We have perfumed her body with the oil of acanthus flowers. We have wrapped her in length upon length of yellow silken gauze. We have placed her in one of the two great coffins made each of the trunks of immense camphor trees and prepared for her and for my father many years ago when my grandparents died. Upon her closed eyes lie the sacred jade stones.

Now the great coffin has been sealed. We have called the geomancer and consulted him to find the day ordained for her funeral. He has searched the book of the stars and has discovered that it is the sixth day of the sixth moon of the new year.

We have called priests, therefore, and they have come decked in the scarlet and yellow robes of their office. With the sad music of pipes and in solemn procession we have conducted her to the temple to await the day of burial.

There she lies under the eyes of the gods, in the stillness and the dust of the centuries. There is not a sound to break her long sleep; there is forever only the muffled chant of the priests at dawn and at twilight, and through the night the single note of the temple bell struck at long intervals.

I can think of no one but of her.

CAN IT BE FOUR moons have passed between us, My Sister? I wear in my hair the white cord of mourning for her, my Ancient One. Although I go about my life, I am not the same. The gods have cut me off from my source, from the flesh which formed my flesh, and the bone of which my bones are made. Forever I bleed at the point of separation.

Yet I ponder the matter. Since Heaven would not grant my mother her great desire, was it in kindness after all that the gods, seeing it, removed her whom they loved from a world of change she could never have understood? It is an age too difficult for her. How could she have endured what has come to pass? I will tell you everything, My Sister.

Scarcely had the funeral procession passed from the great gate before the concubines began to quarrel among themselves as to who should now be first. Each desired to be the First Lady in my mother’s place, and each desired to wear the coveted red garments, which as Small Wives they had never been allowed. Each desired the privilege of being carried through the great gate at death, for you know, My Sister, a concubine in her coffin may pass only through a side gate. Each of the foolish ones bedecked themselves afresh to win again my father’s glances.

Each, I say? I forget that one, La-may.

All these months, lingering now into years, she has been on the family estates in the country, and we forgot in the stress of the hour of my mother’s death to write her; and it was ten days before the word was carried to her by the hand of my father’s steward. Yes, she has lived there quite alone, save for the servants and her son, ever since there was talk of my father’s adding a concubine after her. It is true that he never did it, since his interest in the woman waned before the matter was finally arranged, and he decided that she was not worth the amount of money demanded for her by her family. But La-may could not forget that he had desired another. She never came back to him, and since he hates the country, she has known that he would not come to her there.

But when she heard of my mother she came at once and went to the temple where my mother’s body lay, and casting herself upon the coffin she wept silently for three days without food. When Wang Da Ma told me of it I went to her and raised her up in my arms and brought her to my own house.

She is changed indeed. All her laughter and restlessness is gone, and she dresses no longer in gay silks. She has ceased to paint her lips, and they are carven and pale in her pale face. She is still and gray and silent. Only the old scornfulness remains, and when she heard of the concubines’ disputes among themselves her lips curled. She alone cares nothing to be first.