Pearl Buck - Peony

Madame Ezra turned to the Chinese. “Go — all of you,” she commanded in a low voice. “Leave us to ourselves.”

The servants slipped away. Even Wang Ma left her post and hurried out by a side door. Small Dog, asleep in the sun on the stone doorstep, awoke, lifted her head, whined, and getting up, she too went away.

Leah smiled at David. “Another David, the sword of Goliath in your hand,” she said. Suddenly tears filled her eyes. She stepped forward, and stooping, she kissed the silver scabbard of the sword he held. He saw her bowed before him, the soft dark hair curled upon her creamy nape. Around them his father, his mother, Kao Lien stood, watching them.

Peony watched them, too, unseen. Wang Ma had hastened to her door, and finding it locked, she had beaten upon it. “Peony, you fool and child of a fool!” she shouted. “Open the door! Are you sleeping?”

Peony opened the door, frightened at Wang Ma’s strange voice.

“Quick!” Wang Ma said between her teeth. “Go to the great hall — break in as though you knew nothing — drive them apart with a laugh.”

Without one word Peony had flown thither on silent feet. Still silent, she had pulled the curtain aside and had looked in. There stood David, holding a sword, while the elders watched, and upon this sword Leah pressed her lips. What rite was this? Was it their foreign way of declaring betrothal? No, no, she could not speak — she could not laugh! She dared not break the moment. What did it mean? She dropped the curtain and fled back to her room, her soft eyes dark with terror.

IN HER ROOM ALONE PEONY did not weep. She sat down and wiped her eyes on her undersleeves of white silk from habit although her eyes were dry, and she felt that she was in a strange house whose secret life excluded her. But she made little sighs and moans that she did not try to stifle, and in the midst of this Wang Ma came in.

The relationship between these two was a complex one. They were Chinese, and therefore united among all who were not Chinese. They were women and therefore they had a bond together among men. But one was old and no longer beautiful and one was young and very pretty. Each knew the other’s life, and yet neither thought it necessary to tell what she knew. Thus Peony knew that Wang Ma had in her youth been the young bondmaid in the house, even as she herself now was, and yet how far she had been only bondmaid and how far something more, Wang Ma in prudence had never told and doubtless would never tell. Moreover, Peony did not wish to grant that she and Wang Ma were alike. Wang Ma could not read or write, and although she was shrewd and kindly enough, she was a common soul. This Peony was not. Peony had read many books, and Ezra had allowed her to talk with him sometimes, and she had listened long hours to the old Confucian Chinese teacher while he was teaching David. Above all, she had until now wholly shared David’s mind and thought as Wang Ma could never have shared his father’s. Peony had guided David into his love of music and poetry making, and they had read together in secret such books as The Dream of the Red Chamber, and when she had wept over the sad young heroine, scattering the flower petals, David had put his arm about her that she might weep against his shoulder.

Until now he had told her everything, this she knew, and she had met his every mood with delicate eagerness and welcome. Only one thing she did not know — she had not asked him why he had not finished the poem he had begun to write. Had he even missed it when she had taken it? She had been afraid to ask him lest he force from her the truth that she had stolen it and had finished it and taken it to the third young lady in the house of Kung. She feared his angry question, “And why did you that?”

Why indeed? She could never tell him. She had always been too wise to tell him all she thought and felt, knowing by some intuition of her own womanhood that no man wants to know everything of any woman. His heart was centered in himself, and so must hers be centered in him. Thus she had never told David the one continuing question that she put to herself without being able to answer it. Here was that question: Was life sad or happy? She did not mean her life or any one life, but life itself — was it sad or happy? If she but had the answer to that first question, Peony thought, then she would have her guide. If life could and should be happy, if to be alive itself was good, then why should she not try for everything that could be hers? But if, when all was won, life itself was sad, then she must content herself with what she had. Now this old question thrust itself before her, and she found no answer in her heart.

“I knew I would find you grieving,” Wang Ma was saying calmly. She sat down, and planting a plump hand on each knee, she stared at Peony. “You and I,” she went on, “we must help each other.”

Peony lifted her sad eyes to Wang Ma’s round and good face. “Elder Sister,” she said in a plaintive voice.

“Speak what is in your mind,” Wang Ma replied.

“It seems to me that if I could answer one question to myself, I could arrange my life,” Peony said.

“Put the question to me,” Wang Ma replied.

This was not easy for Peony to do. Never had she talked with Wang Ma except about such things as food and tea and whether the rooms were clean and what should be done in house and court, and she feared lest Wang Ma laugh at her. But now her heart was ready to break because she did not know what would happen to her if David were to wed Leah.

“Wang Ma, please do not laugh at me,” she said faintly.

“I will not laugh,” Wang Ma replied.

Peony clasped her small hands in her lap. “Life,” she said distinctly—“is life happy or sad?”

“At bottom?” Wang Ma inquired. Her face was entirely serious and it seemed she understood what Peony meant.

“At bottom,” Peony replied.

Wang Ma looked grave, but she did not look surprised or bewildered. “Life is sad,” she said with clear decision.

“We cannot expect happiness?” Peony asked wistfully.

“Certainly not,” Wang Ma said firmly.

“You say that so cheerfully!” Peony wailed. Now she began to cry softly.

“You cannot be happy until you understand that life is sad,” Wang Ma declared. “See me, Little Sister! What dreams I made and how I hoped before I knew that life is sad! After I understood this truth I made no more dreams. I hoped no more. Now I am often happy, because some good things come to me. Expecting nothing, I am glad for anything.” Wang Ma spat cleverly out of the door into the court. “Ah, yes,” she said comfortably, “life is sad. Make up your mind to that.”

“Thank you,” Peony said gently. And she dried her eyes.

They sat, the two of them, in reflective silence for some time. Then Wang Ma began to talk very kindly. “You, Peony, must consider yourself. If it is your wish to spend your years in this house, then inquire into what woman is to be our young master’s wife. A man’s wife is his ruler, whether he likes her or not. She has the power of her place in his bed. Choose his wife, therefore.”

“I?” Peony asked.

Wang Ma nodded.

“Did you choose our mistress?” Peony asked.

Wang Ma rolled her head round and round on her short neck. “My choice was to go — or to stay,” she said at last.

“You stayed,” Peony said gently.

Wang Ma got up. “It is time for me to take our mistress her mid-morning sweetmeats,” she said abruptly.

With that she went away, and Peony continued in long thought. Duties waited. At this moment through the door that she had left open Small Dog came into the room on her padded feet. She moved in habitual silence unless she saw a stranger, and now she came to Peony and looked up at her, pleading but silent.