Pearl Buck - Peony

David fell back on his pillow exhausted. “Hush!” he gasped. “You can — never understand.”

These words dropped like stones into Peony’s soft heart. She did not reply; she could not, indeed. She lifted the quilt and took it away to be cleansed, and before she could return to David she paused behind a door and wiped her eyes with her sleeves for a moment. Then she turned aside and she entered the room where the carpenter had finished his work. The heavy camphorwood coffin was made, and the lid stood ready against the wall. Within it servants had already placed Leah’s body. They had finished their task. Peony had done nothing, nor had Wang Ma. The undermaids had worked alone. Now only one young maid remained to smooth the robes and put a candle into the folded hands, to light the dead girl’s soul upon its way.

“I covered her neck,” the maid whispered. She had thrown a fold of silk across the wound.

Peony went and looked upon Leah. The blood had drained away, and Leah’s face looked thin and unreal, as though it were made of some clear white substance. Her eyes were sunken and the long dark lashes were thick shadows on her cheeks. Her fine black hair fell back from her pale forehead and her lips were fixed and hard.

Someone stumbled at the threshold and Peony looked up. It was the Rabbi, leaning on his staff. He stretched out his hands, feeling his way on the unfamiliar ground.

“Will someone lead me to my child?” This he asked in his deep sorrowful voice, and Peony went and took his hand and led him in, and stood by him while he seemed to look at Leah’s face.

“I see my child,” he said at last. “I see her with her mother. Her mother went down to fetch her out of Hell. She will take her child before Jehovah, and she will cry to Him until He hears.”

Muttering to himself, the old Rabbi went on. “The mother will weep — she will beat her breast and Jehovah will hear her voice. Leah, my child, the Lord searcheth all hearts and understandeth all the imagination of the thoughts. If thou seek Him He will be found of thee.”

So passionate was this old man in his lonely murmuring to the dead girl that the little maid grew frightened and went away and Peony was left. She was frightened too, but she pitied the father. “Come and rest, Old Teacher,” she said sweetly, and she took the edge of his sleeve and pulled it.

At the sound of her voice the Rabbi turned on her. His blind eyes opened wide and his long white beard quivered. “Who are you, woman?” he cried in a loud voice.

Peony stood unable to move. This tall old man, towering above her, drove terror into her soul.

His great voice shouted suddenly above her head. “God hath deprived this woman of wisdom! Neither hath he imparted to her understanding! She seeketh her prey and her eyes are afar off. Where the slain are, there is she.”

He stretched out his arms as though to seize her, and Peony, seeing those great thin hands, beautiful and terrible in their strength, turned and fled as though she were indeed pursued.

The Rabbi heard her flying footsteps. He listened and a smile of cunning pleasure passed over his face. “Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity,” he muttered. He lifted his eyes and seemed to look about triumphantly. Then he sighed and with difficulty he felt his way about the room. Around and around he went, and then he came unaware to the coffin again and he felt it carefully up and down and he put in his hand and touched Leah, her feet and knees, and her cold hands. When he found the candle he took it away and threw it on the ground. Then very slowly with trembling horror on his face and agony in his finger tips he felt her wounded throat and then her thin blood-drained face. He had been told that Leah had lifted the sword against herself. Ezra had told him but he had not understood. Now the knowledge came into him and it was too much. He fell down upon the stone floor, unconscious, and so he was found, hours later, when the burial women came to fill the coffin with lime and the carpenter to close the lid. They lifted the old man up and placed him on a couch and went to tell Ezra and Madame Ezra.

“Let Aaron be brought,” Madame Ezra commanded.

But no one could find Aaron. Rachel declared that he had not come home the whole night before. There was nothing to do but tend the old man back again, and under Madame Ezra’s direction this was done. He was carried to his bed in the house and laid upon it.

It was Madame Ezra who first perceived what fresh disaster had befallen. The old Rabbi came back. He sighed, a groan burst from his lips, and he struggled as though he fought some unseen spirit. Wang Ma was watching him and she ran to call Madame Ezra. When she entered the room he opened his eyes. Madame Ezra spoke very gently. “Father, I am here.”

But the Rabbi’s sightless eyes only stared.

Wang Ma cried out in terror, “Oh, Mistress, his soul is lost!”

So indeed it was. For days the Rabbi did not speak at all. He lay on his couch, he took food, but he was silent. Even to pray he did not speak. When one day, without cause, he opened his mouth, it was to speak without knowledge. His soul was gone forever. He knew no one and remembered nothing except the days when Leah was a child, and her mother had been in the house with him.

Thus the Rabbi entered into Heaven before he died, and Ezra in the great kindness of his heart said to his servants, “Prepare a place for him. I will take care of him as long as he lives.”

He spoke without thought of his own goodness, but Madame Ezra’s heart was shaken. When the servants were gone she turned to her husband and humbled herself as she had never done before.

“You are so good,” she sobbed. They stood side by side and she put out one hand to feel for his and covered her eyes with the other. “I wish I had been better to you, Ezra.”

“Why, you have been very good, my dear,” he said pleasantly. He took her hand and held it.

“No, I have often been bad-tempered with you,” she sobbed.

“I know how often I have tried you, Naomi,” Ezra replied.

“I shall be better,” Madame Ezra promised.

“Do not be too good, my wife,” Ezra said, trying to make a joke for her comfort. “Else how can I be your match? I like to have a little temper sometimes.”

“You are good — you are good,” she insisted, and knowing her intensity, he let this pass. He drew her hand through his arm and led her out of the room, talking cheerfully as they went.

“Now, my Naomi, we must remember that our son lives, and that we have our duty to mend his life and make him happy. Little children must be born here again, and we must forget the past.”

So he talked, pressing her heart toward the future, and she subdued herself and tried to be dutiful.

“Yes, Ezra,” she murmured, “yes, yes — you are right.”

He was alarmed at such submission and anxious lest she were ill. Then he reasoned with himself that it would not last. She was a hearty woman and time would bring back her temper and her health, and so he let her say what she would. But Madame Ezra’s heart was sore with sorrow and bewildered with the downfall of all her plans and the loss of all her hopes. She grew weak, for the moment at least.

“Ezra,” she quavered when he had led her to her own rooms and had helped her into her chair, “what shall we do with our son?” This was the question that had been tearing at her thoughts ever since she saw Leah lying dead.

Ezra stood above his weeping wife, and for the first time in their life he knew himself master of this woman whom in his fashion he had loved, and he knew that now he truly loved her. He took her plump hand in his and caressed it. “Let us think only of his happiness, my dear,” he coaxed. “Let us have the wedding as quickly as possible.”