Pearl Buck - Gods Men

His head sank upon his breast and his chin rested upon his folded hands. He waited for the tide of faith to swell into his heart.

It came at last, warming the blood in his veins, strengthening his heart like wine, convincing him that he was doing what was right. “Fear not, for I am with thee always—” He could hear the words he knew so well.

“Amen, God,” he replied with reverence. He rose and plodded along the empty street toward the four small rooms where those whom he loved awaited him. Yes, he struggled constantly not to love them too well. They were not, he told himself, all that he had. For he had the immeasurable love of God.

In less than half an hour he opened the door of his home and saw the sight which always gladdened him. The table was set for the evening meal. Mary sat beside the lighted oil lamp mending some garment, and Clem was studying one of his books. The two little girls were playing with a clay doll which a kindly Chinese woman had given them.

They looked up when he came in, and he heard their greetings. For some foolish reason he could not keep the tears from his eyes. Mary rose and came toward him and he was glad the light was dim. Even so he closed his eyes when he kissed her lest a tear fall upon her face. Then he stooped to the little girls and avoided the eyes of his son.

Only when he had conquered his sudden wish to weep did he speak to Clem. “What’s the book, son?”

“A history book, Papa. I got it today at Mr. Fong’s shop.”

“What history?”

“A history of America.”

He scarcely heard Clem’s voice. He was savoring his relief, the assurance God was giving him. They were all here, all safe. He would not tell them about the danger. There was no need. It was gone. “I will put my trust in the Lord.” With these silent words he bade his heart be still.

The lamps in the mission house were all lit, and Dr. Lane was upstairs dressing for dinner. He did not encourage his wife’s ideas to the extent of wearing evening clothes every night as the English did, but he put on a fresh shirt and changed his coat. When he had left college, twenty years ago, he had been what he now called a dreamer. That is, he had believed in asceticism for the man of God. The stringency of war years had shaped him, although in his father’s house no one had actually joined the army. But they had sheltered slaves from the South, had spent a good deal of money helping them to settle and find work, and his father had been a leader in the Episcopal church in Cambridge. When he had announced his call to the mission field, however, his father had been plainly angry.

“Of course we must send missionaries to heathen lands,” he had declared to the young Henry, “but I don’t feel that we must send our best young men. My father didn’t want me to go to war, and I didn’t go.”

“God didn’t call you to go to war,” Henry had replied.

The struggle with his father, wherein he had not yielded, had helped him when a few months later he fell in love with Helen Vandervent at Old Harbor. She was then the handsomest girl he had ever seen, a creature built on a noble scale even in her youth. He was tall but she was well above his shoulder, and proud and worldly, as he soon knew. He had gone on his knees to God, asking for strength to tame her, not for strength to give her up. Even so she had not yielded to him for nearly two years. She loved him, and she told him that she did, but his belief in her love was chilled by her unwillingness to share the life he felt must be his. This she had denied.

“I don’t ask you to give up being a minister,” she had said. “Surely there are souls to be saved here at home.” Twenty years ago she had said it and he could still remember how she had looked, a tall handsome girl in a bright blue frock and coat. Even her hat was plumed with blue, but a frill of white satin lined the brim. She was queenly in youth, imperious in confidence, and his heart had staggered under the impact of her will.

“Ah, but I must serve God where He bids me go,” he had told her, summoning the reserves of his own will.

She had shrugged her shoulders and maintained her love and willfulness for nearly six months more, while by day and by night he prayed God for strength in himself and deepening in her love, that she might be softened. Strength he got, but he saw no softening in her and so he tore himself away from her one dreadful summer’s evening by the sea at Old Harbor. He had gone thither for one last trial of her love. It was an evil chance. She was surrounded by other young men, who were not beset by God and therefore were free to please her. He got her away at last and on the edge of the cliff above the beach he faced her.

“Helen, I am going to China — alone if you will not come with me.”

He was not sure that she believed it. She had shaken her head willfully and he had left her and come ahead to China not knowing whether she would follow him. Only when she was convinced that in Peking she could live a civilized life had she written at last that she would marry him. He had yielded enough to give her Peking. The first two years he had spent alone in an interior town, where life was primitive. In her heart she had never yielded, that he knew, although she believed that she was a Christian. In her way she was, he also believed. She kept his home comfortably, managed the servants with justice and carried out her ambitions for the children.

He worried secretly about his son. There was something hard and proud in the boy. William laughed too seldom; he fell into a dark fury at any small family joke made at his expense, even in affection.

Sometimes, musing upon this dear only son, he remembered a foolish thing his wife had done. She had taken the boy, when he was only nine years old, to an audience with the Empress Dowager. Once a year the Old Buddha gave a party to the American ladies. Somehow upon that occasion Helen had told the chief lady-in-waiting that she would like to bring her son to pay his respects to the Empress. The lady had laughed, had said something to the Empress, who was in one of her unaccountable moods, alternating between childishness and tyranny. Then the lady had said, “Our ancient Ancestor says she would like to see a foreign little boy. Please bring him on the next feast day, which is the Crack of Spring.”

Upon a cold day William had gone with his mother to the Imperial Palace and had waited hours in an icy anteroom. At the hour of noon a tall eunuch had summoned them at last into The Presence. William had walked behind his mother and at the command of the eunuch had bowed very low before the spectacular old woman sitting on a glittering dragon throne. It was understood even then that no Americans were required to prostrate themselves.

The Empress was in a good mood. The brilliant and still wintry sun streamed across the tiled floors and fell upon her gold encrusted robes and upon her long jeweled hands lying over her knees. William saw first the embroidered edge of her yellow satin robe, and then lifting his eyes higher, he saw the fabulous hands and then the ends of her long jade necklace and so his eyes rose at last to the enameled face, to the large shining eyes, to the elaborate jeweled headdress. Eunuchs and ladies, seeing this boldness of this child, waited for the royal fury. It did not fall. In the eyes of the young handsome American boy the Empress saw such worship, such admiring awe, that she laughed. Then everybody laughed except William, who stood gazing at her without response. Suddenly the mood changed. The Empress frowned, waved her encased fingertips, and turned away her head.

The Chief Eunuch stepped forward instantly and hurried them away.

“Why did the Empress get angry with me?” William asked his father when at home he was once again warmed and fed.