Pearl Buck - East Wind - West Wind

Still his father said nothing. He continued to smile. He poured forth more wine, and he drank again from the jade cup. At last he said,

“The foreign flower is beautiful. How beautiful are her eyes like purple jewels! How white, like almond meats, is her flesh! She has amused us well, has she not? I congratulate you that she is about to present you with a little toy!”

He poured wine from the jug and drank again, and continued with his usual affable manner.

“Sit down, my son. You fatigue yourself unduly.”

He opened the drawer of the table and brought forth a second wine bowl and motioned my brother to seat himself. He poured the second bowl full of wine. But my brother refused it and continued to stand before him. His father went on speaking, his thick, soft voice rolling easily along,

“Ah, you do not love wine?” He smiled and sipped, and then wiping his lips with his hand, he smiled again. He said at last, seeing that my brother was determined to stand before him until he was answered,

“As for your request, my son, I will consider it. I am very busy. Moreover, your mother’s passing has filled me with such sorrow that I cannot fix my mind now on any matter. To-night I go to Shanghai to find some diversion for my mind, lest I fall ill through excess of sorrow. Convey my compliments to the expectant one. May she bear a son like a lotus! Farewell, my son — Good son! Worthy son!”

He rose, still smiling, and passed into the other room and drew the curtain.

When my brother told me of all this, his hatred was such that he spoke of my father as of a stranger. Ah, we learned in the Sacred Edicts when we were only little children even, that a man must not love his wife more than his parents. It is a sin before the ancestral tablets and the gods. But what weak human heart can stem the flowing of love into it? Love rushes in, whether the heart will have it or not. How is it that the ancients in all their wisdom never knew this? I cannot reproach my brother any more.

Strangely enough, it is now the foreign one who suffers most keenly. The antagonism of my mother did not grieve her like this. She is broken-hearted over the carelessness of my father. At first she was angry and spoke coldly of him. She said when she heard what had passed between her husband and his father,

“Was all his friendliness pretense, then? I thought he really liked me. I felt I had a friend in him. What did he mean — oh, what a beast he is, really!”

I was shocked at such open speech concerning an elder and looked at my brother to see what he would say to reprove her. But he stood silent with bowed head, so that I could not see his face. She looked at him, her eyes wide as though in terror, and suddenly without warning, for her manner of speaking had been most cold and detached, she burst into sobbing and ran to him crying,

“Oh, dearest, let us leave this horrible place!”

I was amazed at her sudden emotion. But my brother received her into his arms and murmured to her. I withdrew myself, therefore, filled with pain for them and with doubt of the future.

NOW HAS OUR FATHER decided, My Sister! It is hard to receive his decision, but it is better to know it than to remain in false hope.

Yesterday he sent a messenger to my brother, a third cousin-brother, an official in the clan of my father’s house. He bore our father’s will to my brother in these words, when he had taken tea and refreshment in the guest hall.

“Hear, son of Yang. Your father replies plainly to your petition thus, and the members of the clan agree with him; even to the lowest they uphold him. Your father says,

“‘It is not possible that the foreign one be received among us. In her veins flows blood unalterably alien. In her heart are alien loyalties. The children of her womb cannot be sons of Han. Where blood is mixed and impure the heart cannot be stable.

“‘Her son, moreover, cannot be received in the ancestral hall. How could a foreigner kneel before the long and sacred line of the Ancient Great? One only may kneel there whose heritage is pure, and in whose flesh is the blood of the Ancients unadulterated.’

“Your father is generous. He sends you a thousand pieces of silver. When the child is born, pay her, and let her return to her own country. Long enough you have played. Now resume your duties. Hear the Command! Marry the one chosen for you. The daughter of Li becomes impatient at this long delay. The family of Li have been patient, preferring to allow the marriage to wait until your madness — known throughout the city, so that it is a scandal and a disgrace to the clan — is past. But now they will wait no longer; they demand their rights. The marriage can no longer be postponed. Youth is passing, and the sons begot and borne in youth are best.”

And he handed to my brother a heavy bag of silver.

But my brother took the silver and threw it upon the ground. He bent forward, and his eyes were like double-edged knives, seeking the other’s heart. His anger had been mounting under his icy face, and now it burst forth as terrible as lightning unforeseen out of a clear sky.

“Return to that one!” he shouted. “Bid him take back his silver! From this day I have no father. I have no clan — I repudiate the name of Yang! Remove my name from the books! I and my wife, we will go forth. In this day we shall be free as the young of other countries are free. We will start a new race — free — free from these ancient and wicked bondages over our souls!”

And he strode out of the room.

The messenger picked up the purse muttering,

“Ah, there are other sons — there are other sons!”

And he returned to my father.

Ah, My Sister, do you see now why I said it was well that my mother died? How could she have endured to see this day? How could she have endured to see the son of a concubine take the place of her only son, the heir?

My brother has nothing now, therefore, of the family estates. With his share they will placate the house of Li for the outrage done them, and already, Wang Da Ma says, they are looking for another husband for that one who was my brother’s betrothed.

With what a sacrifice of love has my brother loved this foreigner!

But he has told her nothing of the sacrifice, her, the expectant one, lest it darken her happiness in the future. He said only,

“Let us leave this place now, my heart. There can never be a home for us within these walls.”

And she was glad and went with him joyfully. Thus did my brother leave forever his ancestral home. There was not even one to bid him farewell, except old Wang Da Ma, who came and wept and bowed her head into the dust before him, crying,

“How can the son of my mistress leave these courts? It is time that I died — it is time that I died!”

They live now in a little two-story house like ours on the Street of the Bridges. My brother within this short time has grown older and more quiet. For the first time in his life he has to think where food and clothes must come from. He goes every day early in me morning to teach in the government school here, he who never rose in the morning until the sun was swinging high in the heavens. His eyes are resolute, and he speaks less often and smiles less easily than he used. I ventured to say to him one day,

“Do you regret anything, my brother?”

He flashed one of his old quick looks at me from under his eyelids, and he replied,

“Never!”

Ah, I think my mother was wrong! He is not the son of his father. He is wholly the son of his mother for steadfastness.

Now what do you think has happened, My Sister? I laughed when I heard of it, and suddenly without understanding it I wept.

Last night my brother heard a mighty knocking on the door of his little house. He went to open it himself, since they keep but one servant in these days, and to his amazement, there stood Wang Da Ma. She came on a wheelbarrow, and with her she brought all her possessions in a large woven bamboo basket and a bundle tied in a blue cloth. When she saw my brother she said with great calmness and self-possession,