Pearl Buck - Gods Men

“Thank you,” William said without gratitude.

Clem never noticed irony and he accepted the words as they stood. “That’s all right. Now here’s my idea. How about getting it across that we ought to give away our surpluses to the people who don’t have food? I mean these men in the breadlines, and selling apples on the street, and the families hungry at home. It won’t cost a thing.”

“What surpluses?” William asked in a cold voice.

“Our surpluses,” Clem repeated stoutly. “Even now we have surpluses, while the people are starving because they can’t buy food. It’s money that’s short, not food.”

William set down his cup. “What you propose would upset our whole system of government were it carried to logical conclusion. If people have no money they can’t buy. Your idea is to disregard money and give them food free. Who is to pay the men who produce the food?”

“But producers are not getting anything, anyway!” Clem cried. “The food is rotting and they are short, too.”

“It is better to let the food rot than it is to undermine our whole economic system,” William said firmly.

Clem gave him a wild look. “All right, William, pay the producers, then! Let them be paid out of tax money.”

“You mean the government ought to feed the people?” William was shocked to the soul. “That’s the welfare state!”

“Oh God!” Clem shouted. “Listen to the man! It’s the people I’m thinking of — the starving people, William! What’s a nation if it’s not the people? What’s business if there’s nobody to buy? What’s government if the citizens die?”

“This is quite ridiculous,” William said to Emory. He rose, towering over Clem, who rose to meet him. “We will never agree,” William said formally. “I must conduct my publications as I see fit. Believe me, I am sorry to see anyone hungry, but I feel that those who are hungry have some reason to be. Ours is a land of opportunity. My own life proves it. No one helped me to success. What I have done others can do. This is my faith as an American.”

For a moment Emory, watching the two embattled men, thought that Clem would spring at William. He gathered himself together, his fists clenched, his eyes lightning blue, electric with wrath. He glared at William for a long second and suddenly the wrath went out of him.

“You don’t know what you do.” The words came out of Clem like the sigh of death. He turned and went away as though he had been made deaf and struck blind.

When he was gone William sat down again. “Pour me another cup of tea, please, Emory.” He tried to make his voice usual.

“Of course, William. But is it hot enough?” She felt the pot.

“It is all right, I am sure.”

He waited until he had tasted the tea. “You see, Emory, how impossible the fellow is.”

“I don’t understand your American system yet, I’m afraid, William. Are there actually people starving?”

“Some people, of course, need food,” William said in a reasonable voice. “Charities, however, are alert. There is free food; the very thing he talks about is being done. I have given a great deal of money myself this winter to charity, in your name and mine together.”

He paused, but she did not thank him and he went on. “Who are these charity cases but the ones they have always been? They are the unskilled, the uneducated, the lazy, the drifters, the hangers-on, all the marginal people that are to be found in any modern industrial nation. In the ancient agricultural civilization of old China they were taken care of by the immense family system. Industry, of course, changes all that.”

“Shouldn’t there be some other means found to take the place of the family?”

“There are means,” William said with an edge of impatience. “Believe me when I say that nobody needs to starve here in America if he works. Even if he doesn’t want to work he need not starve. There are charities everywhere.”

“I see,” Emory said, her voice so soft that it was almost a whisper.

They did not speak for a few minutes, and when William put out his hand to her she took it and held it in both her own. It was the best hour of the day, this quiet one between tea and dinner. If they had guests they were friends and if they had no guests it was like this, William always tender toward her. She knew he loved her most truly. Indeed she knew he loved no one else. In some way she could not herself understand she had unsealed his heart which without her had been like a tomb. She was awed by this love for she had never known her power before. Cecil had loved her but she had perhaps loved him more than he did her. She had belonged to him but somehow William belonged to her. She was afraid, sometimes, for could not such possession place too great a demand upon her? She was not quite free any more because his love encompassed her about.

“I am ashamed that my sister’s husband should have forced his way into this room and destroyed your peace,” William said.

“Oh no,” she said. “It was very interesting. As a matter of fact—” but she left her sentence there and he did not ask for its end. Instead he got up and bent down to kiss her. She rather enjoyed his kiss and she leaned back her head to receive it.

“I want to keep you happy,” William said in a voice stifled by love. “I don’t want you troubled.”

“Thank you, dear,” she said. “I am not troubled.”

He went away and she heard him mount the stairs to his rooms. He would bathe and change and come down again soon looking rested and handsome, the gentleman that he was of wealth and increasing leisure. He did not need to work as once he did, he had told her only yesterday. They might go to Italy this winter, stopping at Hulme Castle, of course.

She sat for a moment thinking of this and of Clem. Then with a sudden decisive movement she touched the bell. There was really nothing she could do about Clem. She had chosen William and her world was William’s world.

The door opened. “Take away the tea things, please, Henry,” she said in her silvery English voice. “I am going upstairs and if any one telephones I am not to be disturbed.”

“Yes, madame,” Henry said.

From William’s house Clem went downtown. He wanted comfort and reassurance. Henrietta could always give him comfort and encouragement but no one, not even she, could understand that now at this moment he needed the reassurance of fact. He must learn by actual test whether what he was doing was more than he feared it was, a drop in the vast bucket of human hunger. He avoided the hotel and taking a bus he swung downtown to Mott Street where his largest restaurant stood. It was a dingy-looking place now but there was no need to have it otherwise. People had already learned that they could get free food there, too many people. He saw many men and some women with children standing in a ragged shivering line waiting in the wintry twilight and he pulled up his collar and stood at the end. In a few seconds there were twenty more behind him.

They moved step by step with intolerable slowness. He must speak to Kwok about this. People must be served more quickly on such bitter nights. Speed was essential. They must hire more waiters, hire as many people as necessary.

He got in at last and took his place at a table already crowded. A waiter swabbed it off and did not recognize his guest.

“Whatcha want to eat?” he asked, still swabbing.

Clem murmured the basic meal. He waited again, glancing here and there, seeing everything. The room was far too crowded but it was warm and reasonably clean. It was big but not nearly big enough. He must see if he could rent the upper floor. In spite of the crowd the place was silent, or almost silent. People were crouched over the tables, eating. Only a few were talking, or laughing and briefly gay.