Pearl Buck - Patriot

“You never made it plain to me what it was all about,” she said.

“You wouldn’t believe me,” he retorted.

She laughed. “Perhaps I didn’t. It’s hard to believe such big things coming out of a boy one knew when he was small. But that En-lan — he makes you believe it.” She mused a moment, her face changing with her thoughts. He could not read it and he felt vaguely jealous.

“I’m glad you believe, anyhow, Peony,” he said. “Now we can talk together. It won’t be so hard to wait.”

She rose. “Meanwhile I must go on as I always have,” she said. “Your grandmother will be waking.”

She collected the bowls.

“How he ate!” she said. “I like to see a young man so hearty.”

“Come back,” he begged her. “I want to talk some more.”

For when they talked it was all real and inevitable and nothing could hold back what was to come. But she shook her head. “No — not tonight,” she said firmly.

Nothing could stop the marching of that triumphant figure of Chiang Kai-shek. He had left Hankow and was proceeding down the river with his great army. Kiukiang, Anking, Wuhu — the cities on its bank fell like fruits into his hands. Shanghai grew hot with expectation and fear. The people on the streets were arrogant and noisy. Ricksha pullers idled and would not hire their vehicles and vendors did not care whether they sold anything or not. They threw dice on the sidewalks and played all day.

“Why should we work when Chiang Kai-shek is coming?” they said.

It was as gay as a festival. Even in I-wan’s home the servants grew impudent and careless. They were away for hours and when Madame Wu scolded them they said, “We have joined the union and we can do as we please.”

She complained to I-wan’s father and he said, “It is the same thing everywhere. But it can’t go on — we won’t have it.”

“How can you help it, Father?” I-wan asked. He was a little ashamed, as a matter of fact, because he too was inwardly astonished and even indignant when the dinner was not ready, although he knew that servants also must have their rights in the revolution, and indeed months ago he had listened to the plans for this very union of which they now spoke.

“This sort of thing cannot be tolerated,” his father replied shortly. “How can a nation prosper if its ignorant people are allowed to do as they like?”

He wanted to argue with his father. But he felt Peony touch his shoulder, warning him.

It was like the coming of a storm. There was the disturbance among the people like the first rufflings of the wind over the country and sea, and then there was the intense waiting stillness. Again I-wan felt shut off from everyone. The schools of the city suddenly declared a holiday at the mayor’s demand in order that students could be dispersed and could not hold meetings. The strike continued at the mills. En-lan had told I-wan to go there no more until he had the command, because they were all being watched. There was nothing for him to do except to wait in this quiet house and garden. But he could feel the end of waiting near. Now he was glad that Peony knew. They could talk sometimes, here and there, when no one was by. When a city fell and the news was cried in the streets and printed across newspapers, he looked at her triumphantly.

But he could never be quite sure how Peony felt. One day he asked her outright. She had come into the garden, where everything was breaking into bud. He had gone to look at a hawthorn flowering.

“Are you a real revolutionist, Peony?” he asked her quietly, fingering a budding branch.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I shall wait and see how it is.” She put out her hand and touched a red blossom.

“No, but what do you believe?” he urged her. “You must believe in right or wrong.”

“I am not a priest like you,” she said. “You believe in Chiang Kai-shek as though he were a god. I know he is a man.”

“No, I don’t,” he denied. “I don’t believe in any gods. But I believe in the revolution.”

“The revolution is still only what people do,” she replied. “If they do well, then I am one of them.”

He knew she was wrong. It was wrong to measure one’s belief by what people did. A thing was right or wrong in itself. But he could not forget what she had said. That night before he slept he locked his door and from a secret place in his desk he drew out a picture he had once cut from a magazine. It was a picture of the young Chiang Kai-shek. He sat looking at it. It did look a little like En-lan. It was a face at once bold and kind, harsh and dreaming. “I don’t worship him,” he thought, “but I believe in him.”

They all believed, thousands of young men and women intellectuals, thousands of men and women who were ignorant and poor. It had been a long time since they had anything in which they could believe and hope. Since the last corrupt dynasty had died in Peking, the people had had nothing. And the young, especially, had had nothing since Sun Yat-sen had died. Before he could become known to them he was only a memory. Therefore all their hopes fastened upon this young leader of the revolutionary army.

And now there was only one last great city to capture before he entered Shanghai. It was the ancient city of Nanking where once the Ming Emperors had ruled in such power and such glory and where they were buried. Everybody waited for Nanking to fall. The gates were locked in the great walls and the government soldiers were holding the city. But it would fall. For within the walls it too was honeycombed with people who wanted the revolution.

I-wan lived these last days in a sort of ecstasy, full of an excitement which was both pain and joy. There was the knowledge that everything he did was for the last time. He knew exactly what was to happen. As soon as the news came of Chiang’s victory he was to leave this house, never to return to it. He was to join En-lan and all the others at the revolutionary headquarters, to report for duty. He told Peony one night, whispering to her in his room. She listened steadily. She was different these days. He liked her better than he ever had. She did not touch him or tease him or arouse in him that warm sweet discomfort of which he was afraid. She was quiet and busy and he was not disturbed by her presence.

“You must come with me, Peony,” he told her at last.

“Tell me the name of the place,” she said. “Perhaps—”

So he wrote down the place and she looked at it. Then he burned the bit of paper.

“I do not promise,” she said. “I promise nothing.”

But she had seen the writing. And he knew she never forgot anything.

Of the moment of his own leaving he thought continually. He wanted to be sure to get away at the instant, so that he need not be here when the people were loosed. He knew now he did not want to see them here. Sometimes in the night he woke and then he lay awake and trembling, tempted to warn his father. But whenever he prepared to warn him he was held back because he knew his father would demand to know everything and then En-lan and the others would be lost. So he had to keep silence, though it was the hardest thing to keep.

And then one night, after three days of this intense waiting, the news flew into the city. Nanking had fallen. He went early to bed so that he need not hear his father’s talk, but it was impossible to sleep. This was his last night in this house. Tomorrow he would be he did not know where. And tossing on his bed, he made up his mind at last — or half made it up — before he went — no, he would leave it to Peony — he would tell her if she went she was to warn his parents and let them escape. Nothing could happen before noon. Twelve o’clock was the hour set for proclaiming the revolution. Between dawn, when he would leave this house, and noon, they could escape. He struggled a moment in himself. Was it betraying the revolution to warn them? But if Peony warned them and not he? Long after midnight he fell into a shallow half-dreaming sleep. In a few hours….