Pearl Buck - Peony

The chair bearers laughed. “The young master will rouse the whole house,” they said.

Ezra laughed proudly in reply. Now they were at the gate, and though he had paid wages to the muleteers, when they stopped the cart he reached into his wide girdle where his money purse was and drew out extra money for them.

“Wine money — wine money,” he said in his loud cheerful voice.

They smiled, the sun glistening on their brown faces. “Our thanks,” they replied, and drove the empty cart away.

One by one the camels knelt before the gates, blowing and sighing and puffing out their loose lips, and quickly their loads were taken off and carried in. Then the camel tenders led the beasts to their stables, and the gates were locked. So great was the curiosity of the people on the streets that many passers-by would have pressed into the courtyards to see the foreign goods, but the gateman would not allow them. “Stand back!” he roared. “Are you robbers and thieves?”

Inside his own walls Ezra led Kao Lien toward the great hall. On his other side David clung fondly to Kao Lien’s arm.

“I want to hear everything, Elder Uncle,” he said. There was no blood relationship between Ezra and Kao Lien, but they had grown up as boys together, for Kao Lien’s grandfather had been Jewish, although his father had taken a Chinese wife, who was Kao Lien’s mother, and Kao Lien had been useful to Ezra in his business with Chinese merchants. Kao Lien was a man who was Jewish with the Jews and Chinese with the Chinese.

Now his long narrow face looked weary as he walked over the sunlit stones of the courts. A kind smile played over his lips, half hidden by his somewhat scanty beard, and his dark eyes were gentle. His voice was low and his words came slowly and he shaped them with grace.

“I have much to tell,” he said.

Ahead of them Madame Ezra stood at the door of the great hall, and Kao Lien saw her and bowed his head in greeting.

“We welcome you home,” she called.

“God is good!” Kao Lien replied.

He entered as she stepped back and he made an obeisance before her to which she replied by bending her head, signifying that he was not quite her equal. A hint of amusement stole into Kao Lien’s eyes, but he was used to her ways and it would have been out of his nature to mind her pride.

“Where shall we spread the goods, Lady?” he asked. He always asked her direction if she were present, but he knew, and Ezra knew that he knew, that for him the man was the true head of the house.

“I will sit here in my own chair,” Madame Ezra replied, “and you may open the loads one by one before me.”

She sat down and Ezra sat opposite. Wang Ma came forward and poured tea and a manservant offered sweet tidbits on a porcelain tray divided into parts. By now all the servants were crowding quietly into the room. They stood along the walls to watch what went on. David was pulling at the ropes of the first load, hastening to get it open.

“Gently, Young Master,” Kao Lien said. “There is something precious in that load.”

He stepped over bundles and stuffs and he worked at the knot that David had been tearing. It seemed to fall open beneath his long and nimble fingers. Within the coarse cloth wrapping was a metal box. He opened the lid and lifted out of the inner packing a large gold object.

“A clock!” David cried. “But whoever saw such a clock?”

“It is no ordinary one,” Kao Lien said proudly.

Ezra looked with doubt at the golden figures of nude children, whose hands upheld the clock. “It is very handsome,” he said. “Those golden children are fat and well made. But who will want it?”

Kao Lien smiled with some triumph. “Do you remember that Kung Chen asked me to bring a gift for the Imperial Palace? He wishes to present it when the new shops are opened in the northern capital. This I bought for the gift.”

Ezra was much struck. “The very thing!” he exclaimed. “No common man could use it. The Imperial Palace — ah, yes!” He stroked his beard and was pleased as he contemplated the great clock. “This should make the contract between Kung Chen and me easy, eh, brother?”

“I wish I could open the back of this clock,” David now said. “I would like to know how it makes its energy.”

“No, no,” Ezra said hastily. “You could never get it together again. Put it away, Kao Lien, Brother — it is too valuable. Do not tell me what it cost!”

There was laughter at this, and the servants, who had been staring at the golden children with admiration, watched it put away with reverence in their eyes, thinking that when next it was open, it would be before the Peacock Throne. Only David was reluctant to see it put into the box again.

“I wish I could go westward with Kao Lien next time, Father,” he said. “There must be many wonders in the other countries that we do not have here.”

“Young Master, do not leave us,” Wang Ma exclaimed. “An only son must not leave his parents until there is a grandson.”

Madame Ezra looked somewhat majestic at this intrusion by Wang Ma. “Some day we will all go,” she said. “This is not our country, my son. We have another.”

At this Ezra in his turn was displeased. He waved his hand at Kao Lien and he said, “Come, come, show us what other things you have.”

Kao Lien hastened to obey, well knowing that upon this matter of the promised land of their fathers Ezra and his wife could not agree, and he ordered the loads opened until their contents were spread about and the whole hall glittered with toys and stuffs, with music boxes and jumping figures and dolls and curiosities of every sort, with satins and velvets and fine cottons, with carpets and cushions and even furs from the north. All were bewitched by what they saw, and Ezra computed his profits secretly. When everything was shown, each of its kind, he chose a gift for every servant and member of the family. For Peony he put aside a little gold comb, and to Wang Ma he gave a bolt of good linen, and to Madame Ezra, his wife, he gave a bolt of beautiful crimson velvet, every thread of which, warp and woof, was of silk.

As for David, he moved in a dream from one thing to another of the riches spread before him, speechless with pleasure. The more he saw, the more he longed to know the countries from which these marvels came and the people who were so clever as to make them. It seemed to him that these must be the best people in the world. To conceive this beauty, such colors and shapes, to make the beauty into solid forms and shimmering stuffs and rich materials, into machines and energies, surely this must be the work of brave and noble people, great nations, mighty civilizations. He longed more than ever to travel westward and see for himself those men who could dream so high and make such reality. Perhaps he himself belonged more to those people than he did here. Had not his own ancestors come from west of India?

Ezra looked uneasily at his son. David was at the age when all his natural curiosities were coming awake, and his heart was impatient with unfulfilled desires. Were his mother to give him her constant longing to leave this country, which she insisted upon calling a place of exile, how could Ezra alone circumvent the two of them? David loved pleasure and Ezra encouraged him in friendships with the young men of the city, but what if these pleasures grew familiar and stale? As he watched his son, it seemed to Ezra that David was not today as he had been in other years. He did not exclaim over each toy and object and marvel, pleased with the thing itself. A deeper perception was in his son’s eyes and apparent in his face and manner. David was thinking, his heart was slipping out of him.

“My son!” Ezra cried.

“Yes, Father?” David answered, scarcely hearing.