Pearl Buck - Gods Men

“Ruth, I wish you would stop crying. I want you to know that I feel very sorry and I want to help you. I am going to give Jeremy unlimited leave of absence. He doesn’t need to feel that he has to come back at all. But I want you to be independent. He wouldn’t take a pension from me, of course, but I am going to set up a trust for you and the girls. Then whatever happens to him you’ll be safe.”

“Oh, William, darling—” her voice, still half sobbing, was breathless. “I wouldn’t think of—”

“Be sure he stays there long enough to get in good shape and let me know when he comes home. We’ll get together. Good-by. I’m frightfully busy—”

He thought for a moment and decided to send Barney Chester to China. He was a smart young Harvard man, only a few years out of college. Barney would listen to him.

He rose, refusing to acknowledge weariness, and went down the elevator to his waiting car. It was nearly ten o’clock and snow was falling. Sitting in the darkness of his car, staring steadfastly ahead, he saw the snow fly at him in little daggers of silver against the windshield. Around him were the darkness and the cold, the people still plodding along the wet streets, their heads held down against the wind. But he sat in warmth and safety, secure in himself and his possessions. All that he was he had made himself and all that he possessed he had earned. He had come from China, obscure and unknown, a shy and gawky youth, and what he was he had achieved without help. Yet America had given him opportunity. In England his birth alone would have condemned him. Even a title could not have hidden it. He smiled against the darting silver daggers which could not reach him. Here people had forgotten where he was born and who his father was. Where could that happen but in America? …

In the morning he woke inexplicably depressed again. There was no reason for it, except, he decided, that his conscience was stirring because he had not told Monsignor Lockhart about China. He had not even called him on the telephone, afraid that he would be tempted by the priest’s quiet voice to yield time he could not spare. It was not as if he needed counsel. He had already determined what he must do. Now, however, there was no reason why he should not allow himself the luxury of some hours of spiritual communion.

This musing took place long before his usual hour for rising, but he felt wakeful and he took the receiver from the telephone at his bedside and called for Monsignor Lockhart.

The priest’s voice came as usual, “I am here, William.”

“I have wanted to see you ever since I returned, Monsignor, but you understand.”

“Always.”

“I count on that. But this morning?”

“Whenever you wish. I am already in my study.”

He had planned to go back to sleep. It was still dark. Yet it might be interesting and even stimulating to get up and make his own way by foot to that huge gold-lit room. Their minds would be clear and quick.

In twenty minutes he was walking over fresh snow on the streets. He had never been out at this hour and the city seemed strange to him. The people he was accustomed to see were still in their beds. But the streets were not entirely empty, especially the side street he took from one avenue to the next. Two or three people were there, slouching along, one a woman who passed him and then stopped when an old man whose face he could just see in the approaching dawn held out a filthy hand without speaking. William went on. He made it a habit never to see an outstretched hand. His generous check went annually to the Community Chest.

“A cup o’cawfee fer Gawd’s sake,” the old man muttered.

William went on and the dirty hand brushed his arm and fell.

“Damned capitalist!” the woman shouted at his back. “Wants us to starve!”

A policeman suddenly rounded the corner.

“Did I hear somethin’, sir?” he inquired.

William considered for a moment whether he should nod in the direction of the woman and then decided that he would ignore her.

“Nothing, except that old man asking for a drink.”

“They will do it,” the policeman said apologetically.

William gave the slightest inclination of his head and went on. Five minutes later he was inside the priest’s warm and handsome home.

“You look hopeful,” Monsignor Lockhart said.

“I do not feel hopeful at all,” William retorted.

He finished a good English breakfast, while he talked, kidneys and bacon and buttered toast with marmalade. The coffee was American and delicious. A man came in and took the silver tray away, and closed the door softly.

“Yet I feel hopefulness in you,” Monsignor repeated.

“I am hopeful to the extent of thinking that it is possible to hold China. It is my belief that we should allow England to take the lead in Europe but we must take the lead in Asia, now and after the war. Since only China is a free country, it is there we must concentrate our power.”

“Very sound,” Monsignor said. “I take it you do not mean permanent power.”

“Certainly not permanent in the sense of eternal,” William agreed. “I hope a complete American victory will have been won somewhere this side of eternity.”

Monsignor’s face was benign, although he wore this morning a lean weary beauty which showed hours of thought and perhaps prayer. William allowed himself a moment’s wonder at this man who attracted him so much.

“You are tired,” he said abruptly.

The priest looked startled and then his face closed. “If I am tired I am unworthy of my faith. It is true that the Church has great and new problems. In Europe our priests are facing oppression which we have never known, never in our agelong history. The gravest reports come to me from Austria. We have reached the age of anti-Christ. There is a demon in the people.”

“Then it is no private ill that I see in your face?” William said.

Monsignor Lockhart’s fine brows drew down. “What private ill is it possible for me to have?” he retorted. “The affliction of the Church is my affliction. I have no other.”

William gazed at him, forgetful for the moment of their friendship. Monsignor seemed suddenly remote and cold. He was reminded of the temples of his childhood, where the gods sat aloof. No, it was not a god of whom he thought. It was the palace and the Old Buddha again, looking down upon him, a foreign child.

Monsignor dropped his lids. “We understand each other. Let us proceed from day to day, watchful of each hour’s history.”

He rose for the first time without waiting for William to signify that he was ready to go, and he put out his hand in the gesture of blessing. A deeper gravity came over his stern face. “Many are called but few are chosen,” he said simply, and making the sign of the cross upon his own breast he left the room.

Throughout the day William carried with him the vague alarm of the priest’s words, holding it upon the fringes of his mind.

He buzzed sharply for the new Miss Smith and did not look up when she came in.

“Dictation,” he said.

He dictated steadily for an hour, letters, finally a long directive for Barney Chester. Then he dismissed Miss Smith and buzzed for his news editor.

“That you, Barney? Come to my office. I’m sending you to China immediately as my personal representative.”

He spent the next two hours outlining to a silent and rather terrified young man exactly what he expected him to do in China.

“In short,” he concluded at the end of the two hours, “I shall expect from you the most detailed reports of what American diplomacy is doing, in order that I may be kept informed here at home. At the same time I expect you to maintain confidential relationship with the Old Tiger and with — her.”