Pearl Buck - Pavilion of Women

“Neither can I be compelled to love her any more,” she thought with some rebellion.

This rebellion reminded her of André again, and of a passage between them. He had been reading some words from his holy book.

“Love thy neighbor as thyself,” he read slowly.

“Love!” she had exclaimed. “The word is too strong.”

She had always been exceedingly critical of his holy book, jealous, perhaps, because he read it so much and depended upon it for wisdom. But he had agreed with her. She saw the sudden lifting of his mighty head.

“You are right,” he had said. “Love is not the word. No one can love his neighbor. Say, rather, ‘Know thy neighbor as thyself.’ That is, comprehend his hardships and understand his position, deal with his faults as gently as with your own. Do not judge him where you do not judge yourself. Madame, this is the meaning of the word love. ” He had gone on reading in his immense deep soft voice, whose sound was forever in her hearing.

The day of this funeral was too fair for young death. The water in ponds was clear and the sunlight was warm and many birds sang. Through the glass window of her sedan Madame Wu saw it all and was made more sad. She thought of Rulan, whose sedan was behind hers, and she looked through the back pane of glass to see if she looked out, too. But the curtain was drawn over Rulan’s window, and her mind went back to her dead son. And how had it been for him to meet death in the sky, among the clouds? Did he know whom he met? She felt herself in Tsemo, rejoicing in the swiftness and the freedom above the earth. Then the machine failed. He had trusted too much in machines.

She had said anxiously before he left her, “Can you be safe with only that foreign machine to hold you up?”

He had laughed at her ignorance. “Mother, they are magic!”

So he had cried at her, but the magic had failed. He had been given perhaps a few seconds in which to compress all that was his life. She saw his terror and his rage and then his end. Against the sky’s infinity his body hurtled to the earth. She bowed her head and covered her eyes with her hand.

The funeral went on its usual way. There had been many funerals in the family, and she must endure one more, even of her own son. On a day last summer Old Lady’s coffin had been taken out of the temple where it waited and had been brought here, too, to the family lands. A marble stone had been set up, smaller than Old Gentleman’s but like it. A space lay on Old Gentleman’s left for Mr. Wu, and beside that space another for herself, and beyond that space for Liangmo and Meng. Still beyond that was now dug the pit for Tsemo’s empty coffin, and it was lowered to the bottom, the white cock killed and its blood spilled out, and the paper utensils burned. A paper airplane had been made, and it too was burned to ashes. When all was done the grave was covered and under the top of it, shaped from a great clod of turf, white paper streamers were fastened. The funeral was over, and the family returned and left the hired mourners wailing behind them.

Alone in her room in the night, Madame Wu pondered her sorrow. She had not wished to be with anyone when they came home. Mr. Wu would, she knew, immediately seek diversion. Rulan must suffer until she was healed. But Madame Wu lay in her bed and thought of her second son and of his empty place in the house of Wu and of all the sons that would have come from his body and now would never be born. These she mourned for. She sorrowed deeply for all the empty places in the generations. When a young man dies many die with him. She cursed the dangerous machines of foreigners and all wars and ways which take the lives of young men. She blamed herself that she had not kept all her sons in this house to live out their lives.

Against the dark curtain of her mind she saw André’s great shape. They had been once arguing the matter of Fengmo’s learning. “Teach my third son,” she had told André, “but teach him nothing that will divide his heart from us.”

“Madame,” André had exclaimed, “if you imprison your son, he will most surely escape you, and the more you hold him the further from you he will go.”

“You were wrong,” she now told the remembered face, so clear against the blackness of her hidden brain. “I did not imprison him, and he has gone the furthest of them all.”

The morning woke her early as it always did, and the day was as clear as the one before. She got up restless. Yesterday the countryside had been so beautiful in the midst of her sorrow that she longed to reach beyond the walls. But what excuse had she to leave the house of mourning? She moved about her rooms, not wanting to leave and not wanting to stay. The house was silent, and all slept late after the weariness of yesterday. Ying came in late, pale and without her chatter, and her eyelids were red. She did her duty, and Madame Wu sent her away again and went into her library and took down her books.

The air came in through the open windows with such sweetness that she felt it upon her skin like fragrant oil.

It was midmorning when she was roused by footsteps, and she looked up and saw Yenmo, her fourth son, in the court.

He greeted her sturdily, in a half-rude fashion, but she did not correct him, knowing that he had learned his ways from peasants.

“Come in, my son,” she said kindly.

She took him by the hand and felt in her soft palm his young rough hand. He was as tall as she was now, to her amazement.

“You grow very fast,” she said in mock complaint.

He was not like any of her other sons. His words were not ready nor his smile. But she saw his eyes were calm, and that he was not shy. It was simply that he felt no necessity to please anyone. She dropped his hand, and he stood before her, dressed in a blue cotton robe, and on his feet were heavy cloth-soled shoes.

“Mother,” he said, “I want to go back to the farm. I will not live here.”

He looked so strong and fresh, his eyes were so round and black, his cropped hair so stiff, his teeth so white, that she wanted to laugh at him.

“How far have you read in books?” she asked.

“I am in fifth year of the New Readers, and I have read the Book of Changes,” he said.

It was well enough for his years. “But ought you now not to go beyond the village school?” she inquired.

“I hate books,” he said immediately.

“Hate books!” she repeated. “Ah, you are going to be like your father.”

He turned red and stared down at his feet. “No, Mother, I am not,” he declared. “I shall be like nobody. And if I am not to go back to the land, then I will run away.”

He looked up at her and down again, and in spite of sadness she laughed. “Have I ever told a son of mine he could not do what he wished?” she asked.

“These walls are so high,” the boy complained.

“They are very high,” she agreed.

“I want to go now,” Yenmo said.

“I will go with you,” she said.

He looked doubtful at this. “Where will you sleep?” he asked.

“Oh, I shall return tonight,” she declared. “But it will be well for me to go and see the land, and see for myself where you stay and talk with your teacher, and then my heart will rest about you.”

So he went to get his clothes ready, and she ordered her sedan and refused to take even Ying with her.

“In the country no one can harm me,” she said when Ying opened her eyes wide.

They set out together, she in her sedan and Yenmo on a gray pony which was his pet, and so they went through the streets, and everybody knew who they were and where they went, and fell back in respect before them as gentry.

As soon as they had passed beyond the city walls, Madame Wu felt the wide calm spirit of the countryside descend upon her, and slowly her restlessness left her. She put aside all else this day, and she watched the strong firm body of her fourth son astride his pony and cantering before her. The boy rode well, though without grace. He sat as hard in his saddle as though he were part of the beast, rising and falling with the pony’s steps. But he was fearless, and twirled his horsehair whip in his hand and sang as he went. Plainly he was happy, and she made up her mind that he should have what made him happy. She was thankful that for this son, as for Liangmo, happiness lay within the family’s boundaries.