Pearl Buck - Peony

And yet Peking duck could still be the finer food. Night after night David sat in one inn or another with men so carefree and so full of humor that he would have said they never worked at anything but pleasure had he not seen them shrewd tradesmen by day. They sat about a great round table, eating small dishes first, until the host of the inn brought in the ducks for their approval, killed and plucked but not yet roasted. When they had chosen a pair of ducks, appraising size and fat and texture of the skin, these were spitted and turned over coals, until the skin was crisped and browned and glistening with fat. Soon the first dish was served, and it was the curls of rich dark skin, and with it came thin pancakes of wheat flour and red jelly made of haws and sweetened. These cakes were wrapped about the roasted duck skin and into each was put a spoonful of jelly and so they were eaten, hot and sweet and bread and meat together, with warmed wine in small bowls. Then in succession came the other dishes, the meat of the roasted duck flavored and mixed with tender cabbage and then with mushrooms and then with bamboo shoots and then with chestnuts, each dish different from all others and each as good as the next, until the final dainty of the duck, now devoured. This was the head split open so that the brains could be picked out with chopsticks and tasted for the fine delicate flavor.

Who could tire of such fare? And yet there were the vegetarian inns where devout Buddhists could feast, those who gave up eating meat for the sake of their souls. At those inns vegetables were shaped and flavored until the feasters could have sworn them meat, except they had no flesh of any animal in them. The eyes of the devout were satisfied and their palates tasted the semblance of the meats they had denied themselves, while their souls were saved.

“How clever are these people!” David exclaimed each day when he discovered such new things. Indeed, the pleasures he had enjoyed in his youth seemed small in comparison to the variety that he now found in Peking. The finest theaters were here, the best shows of juggling and magic, and the most famous singers and musicians and scholars.

While he waited for audience with the two empresses, David released his soul and he enjoyed every pleasure that the city had. Nor was he selfish and solitary. Each morning he spent on business for his father and Kung Chen, and he visited every rich merchant in the city and he made many new contracts for the delivery of goods and he took orders for fabulous articles from Europe and from India. For the merchants here knew of machines and cloths and lamps and toys made abroad and they craved these things for themselves and for sale. Especially did they want clocks. The great gilt clock that years ago Kao Lien had brought as a gift for the Emperor was now matched by many others in the palace. In one room, so David heard, there were more than a hundred clocks. What had been a royal gift for one now became a thing coveted by common men, and David wrote to his father:

“Clocks can be sold here by the many thousand, I think, especially those not too high in price, yet ornate with gilt and figures. But all foreign goods are valued. These people have the best of everything, the finest silks and satins and embroideries, the richest jewelry and furniture, and yet their love of novelty is such that they will buy any trickery of foreign stuff.”

When the morning’s business was over David spent his afternoon with his family, unless the day was raining or, worse than rainy, clouded with dust, which the high winds blew over the city from distant deserts. Holding his sons’ hands, David walked in temple forests and sat in theaters and visited every bazaar and fakirs’ show place, and with him often was his wife, shy at being seen abroad and yet made bold by curiosity. Whether Kueilan went or not, and sometimes she complained that her feet hurt her and she could not walk, Peony went always with the children, and now she too knew the happiest times of her whole life. With David and his sons she laughed and watched and was amazed at many sights. She was never tired, and she was always amiable, and as the weeks passed easily, more and more it was she who went and not her mistress.

For Kueilan had made friends with some of the ladies of the merchants, and she grew fond of gambling with them. From one house to another these ladies went, one day here and one day there, traveling in their curtained sedans, and they spent the whole afternoon and evening at mah-jongg, until it became their passion. In this the serving maids encouraged them, since before each lady said good night to the others she must for courtesy’s sake put silver in a bowl upon the table, and this the maids divided between them. Peony took no share, for she considered herself above such money, but careful always to wound no feelings, she excused herself to the others saying, “Since I must stay with the little lords and their father and I cannot help you who serve our mistress, it would not be just for me to share the serving money.”

There was no talk of quick return to their old home. For one thing, the presentation of the gifts David had brought to the empresses was delayed until they were ready to receive him, and the delay stretched into months because they were busy with the repairs needed for the palace. While the court had been in exile there had been much ruin, and this must all be mended. But far beyond this were the vast plans the Western Empress had for a new palace and for added courts and pools and bridges and rockeries and gardens. The Imperial Treasury was impoverished by wars with the white men and by the rebellion of the southern Christians. The Western Empress demanded therefore new taxes and tributes, especially for the building of the Summer Palace and for the beautifying of the lake there. She dreamed of a marble boat set in the lake that would be large enough for all her ladies to dine in and then to see a play whose actors might number into hundreds. Her ministers groaned to think of such expense, and rumors went out over the city of her ambitions and her willfulness. The ministers besought her to remember that the wars with the white men had been lost for lack of a good army, and that swords were not enough these days when outer nations had gunpowder. But the Western Empress answered arrogantly thus: “When the Imperial Court is glorious, the nation shares its glory,” and the rumor of this went over the city, too.

Yet the people laughed when they heard of the pride and strength of the young empress and they took it as a good sign. Weakness and languor in the ruler were feared, and there was neither in the Western Empress. Even rumors of her quarrels with the Eastern Empress were made the stuff for jokes and songs, and hardihood and willfulness entered into the spirit of the people because it was in the young empress.

Early in the summer David received at last the summons to the court and he made ready to appear. The hour was soon after dawn, when the audience with the ministers was over, and the empresses were ready to receive proposals of new revenue and gifts.

Peony rose early indeed and she helped David to dress himself and saw to it that he had food and that all was in readiness. She went with him to the gate and behind her stood the servants, awed to know their master was to be received at court. They all gazed at David, very fine in new garments of blue silk and black velvet, his tasseled hat upon his head and jade rings on his thumbs, as he stepped into his great sedan chair.

Peony watched until the chair disappeared and then she went back to bed. She could not sleep — that was beyond her — and in an hour or two she must rise and see that the children were fed, cared for, and happy, and later than that the feast was prepared for her mistress that night, for the ladies were to play mah-jongg here. When David would return she did not know, but the house must be ready for that, too, and her mistress up and dressed and waiting to hear the story he would have to tell. For Peony was always careful to prepare her mistress to be all that she should be as a wife. She did not allow Kueilan to appear before her husband with her hair uncombed or her dress wrinkled. Kueilan grumbled often, saying, “I am an old married woman now, Peony, and shall I have no peace? First it is my feet I unbound to please you and now it is my hair to be a trouble to me and then it is my eyebrows to be plucked and my fingernails painted and you have me perfumed like a flower girl. When am I to have some peace?”