Pearl Buck - East Wind - West Wind

I missed only one thing, one fair, teasing face.

“Where is the Fourth Lady?” I asked.

My mother called a slave to fill her pipe and then answered casually,

“La-may? Ah, I sent her to visit in the country for a change of air.”

From her tone I knew better than to question further. But afterwards in the evening when I was preparing for sleep in my childhood room, old Wang Da Ma came in to brush out my hair and braid it as she always used to do. Then in her gossip of many things she told me that my father was thinking of taking a new concubine, a Peking girl who had been educated in Japan, and the Fourth Lady, when she heard of it, had swallowed her best jade earrings. She told no one for two days, though she suffered greatly, and then my mother discovered it.

The girl was at the point of death, and the old doctor who was called in could do nothing, although he pierced her wrists and ankles with needles. A neighbor suggested the foreign hospital, but my mother did not consider such a thing a possibility. We knew nothing of foreigners. Besides, how could a foreigner know what was wrong with a Chinese? Foreign doctors may understand the diseases of their own people, who are quite simple and barbarous in comparison with the highly complex and cultivated Chinese. My brother, however, happened to be at home just then for the Eighth Moon Festival, and he himself asked the foreign woman doctor to come.

She brought a very curious instrument with a long tube attached. This she thrust down the Fourth Lady’s throat, and instantly the rings came up. Everyone was much astonished except the foreigner, who packed her instrument and walked calmly away.

The other concubines were very angry with the Fourth Lady that she should have swallowed her good jade earrings. The fat one asked,

“And could you not have eaten a box of match heads, then, which may be bought for ten small cash?”

The Fourth Lady had nothing to say to this; they say that no one saw her eat or heard her speak while she was recovering. She lay on her bed with her curtains drawn. She has lost a great deal of face by being unsuccessful in her attempt. Indeed, it was for this my mother pitied her and sent her away to escape the taunts of the women.

Such matters, however, were mere small household gossip and had no place in the conversations I held with my mother. It was only because I loved the home so well that I felt I must know the details of everything, and so I listened to the chatter of Wang Da Ma. She has been with us so long that she knows all our affairs. Indeed, she came with my mother from her distant home in Shansi when my father was married, and she it is who received into her arms my mother’s children at birth. When my mother dies she will go to my brother’s wife and care for my mother’s grandsons.

Only one matter heard thus was of more than passing importance. My brother has determined to go abroad, to America, for further study! My mother said nothing of it to me, but Wang Da Ma told me in whispers, when she brought the hot water the first morning after my return, that my father had laughed at his son’s new ideas but in the end had given his consent to his going because it has become fashionable to send one’s sons abroad for study, and his friends are doing it. My mother was greatly distressed when she heard of it — more distressed than she has been over anything in her life, Wang Da Ma said, except when my father took his first concubine. When she saw that my brother was really going she refused food for three days and spoke to no one. At last seeing that he would go at any cost across the Peaceful Sea, she begged him to be married first to his betrothed, that she might bear a son. My mother said,

“Since you will not perceive that your flesh and blood are not yours alone, since you are willful and careless and run into the dangers of that barbarous country without consideration for your duty, at least transmit to another the sacred line of your ancestors, so that if you die — O my son! — at least I may behold my grandson!”

But my brother replied obstinately,

“I have no desire for marriage. I wish only to study more science and learn all concerning it. Nothing will happen to me, my mother. When I return — but not now — not now!”

Then my mother sent messages to our father, urging that he compel his son to marry. But my father was careless in the matter, being absorbed in the arrangements for the new concubine, and my brother had his own way.

I sympathized with my mother. This generation is the last of my father’s line, since my grandfather had no other sons than my father. My mother’s other sons died young, also, and it is therefore imperative that my brother as quickly as possible have a son, in order that my mother’s duty may be performed to the ancestors. For this he has been betrothed since childhood to the daughter of Li. Although I have not seen her, it is true I have heard that she is not beautiful. But what is that in comparison to our mother’s desires?

For several days I was troubled for my mother because of my brother’s disobedience. But she never spoke of it to me. She buried this sadness, like all others, in the unseen places of her spirit. It has always been her way, when she perceived suffering to be inevitable, to close her lips upon it forever. Therefore I, surrounded by the familiar faces and walls, and accustomed to my mother’s silences, gradually thought no more of my brother.

Of course the first thought I saw in all eyes was the one I feared and expected — what were my prospects of a son? Everyone asked the question, but I parried them all, merely accepting, with a grave inclination of my head, the good wishes given. No one should know that my husband did not care for me — no one. And yet I could not deceive my mother!

One night, after I had been at home for seven days, I sat idly in the doorway that opened into the large courtyard. It was twilight, and the slaves and the servants were bustling about the evening meals, and the odors of baked fish and brown duck were fragrant upon the air. It was just at the late edge of twilight, and in the courtyard the chrysanthemum plants were heavy with promise. The love of home and of old surroundings was warm within me. I laid my hand, I remember, upon the very carving of the door panel, loving it, feeling safe there where my childhood had passed so gently that, before I was aware, it was gone. It was all well beloved; the still dusk falling over the curved roofs, the candles beginning to gleam in the rooms, the spicy smell of food, and the voices of the children and the soft sound of their cloth shoes upon the tiles. Ah, I am the daughter of an old Chinese home, with old customs, old furniture, old well-tried relationships, safe, sure! I know how to live there!

Then I thought of my husband, sitting alone now at the table in the foreign house, wearing his western clothes and looking an alien in every way. How could I fit into his life? He had no need of me. My throat was stiff with tears I could not shed. I was so lonely, so much more lonely than I had ever been as a girl. Then, as I have told you, My Sister, I looked forward to the future. Now, the future had come to pass. There was only bitterness in it. The tears would force themselves out. I turned my head away toward the twilight lest the candle light fall upon my cheeks to betray me. Then the gong rang, and I was called in to the meal. I wiped my eyes secretly and slipped into my place.

My mother withdrew early to her room, and the concubines went to their quarters. As I sat alone, drinking my tea, suddenly Wang Da Ma appeared.

“Your honorable mother commands your presence,” she said.

I wondered and said,

“But my mother has already told me she would retire. She said nothing to me of any further speech.”