Peony: A Novel of China

by Pearl S. Buck

On one such night he said to Peony, “My father has always said that your people are kind to ours, but the depth of this kindness I only now see for myself. These people in the river hamlets and along the shores, they do not know me, and yet they greet me and they make me welcome in the inns. I wonder at this gentleness.”

  “Are not all men brothers under Heaven?” So Peony replied in the words of the sages.

  David shook his head. “These good words are everywhere,” he replied, “but not always such good deeds.”

  He went inside then to his own rest, and Peony stood alone in the moonlight.

  It was indeed fair country. The land along the river shores was green with new rice and about every little village the peach trees were in full blossom, pink by day and pearly by night. Distant hills rose against the sky and the water flowed golden under the moon. A good land, and the people were good. There were robbers, it is true, and there were pirates on the river, but these robbed all alike, whatever their color and their shape. With the guards this family was safe, and the governor had given the boatman a flag that announced that they were taking gifts to the Imperial Court and none would dare to rob them.

  When all was quiet Peony went into the now empty saloon and she unrolled the quilts that by day she hid under the couches, and she made herself ready for sleep. She slept well, the fresh winds blowing upon her.

  Out of one province they came into another and so at last near to the port where the river met the Grand Canal. They did not wish to reach the sea, neither did they wish to change to the small canal-boats. At a given place, therefore, they left the boat that had become a home to them, and they met the mule carts that were to take them north.

  Often did Peony wish for the junk again, for now they must travel all day over the rough cobbled roads, stopping to eat quick meals, except at night when they slept at inns. Peony was impatient indeed, for to find a clean, good inn was nearly impossible. Each evening the master innkeeper wherever they were would come out fawning and praising when he saw how long a retinue they had, and he bawled and shouted to his men to prepare food and tea and he promised that he had clean rooms and the best of everything. But when Peony inspected the rooms, they were often filthy. When she saw there were fleas and bedbugs she refused to have the bed rolls opened until water had been boiled and poured over the bed boards. All was done under her supervision, for her mistress was helpless and David was eager to see every new sight, and when they reached a town or city he left his family and went out to look at it.

  But Peking was reached at last, and every child was silenced while they looked in wonder as the great walls loomed gray and high out of the surrounding plains. All had heard of the wonders of this capital, but even David was not prepared for the vastness of what they saw. They went through the city gate, and the walls were so thick that it was twilight there between sunlight at the two ends. Kung Chen had written to his shops to prepare a house for Ezra’s son and his family, and there they went along streets so wide and all paved with stone that even Peony had no word to say and could only look her wonder.

  So they came to a gate set in a wall, and they went in and found Kung Chen’s men there waiting to welcome them. David stayed with them in the guest hall, and Peony led the family into their courts, and the servants worked well, and soon all was settled.

  The little boys were pleased with what was new, and Kueilan walked about the gardens and exclaimed over the rockery and the dwarfed plum trees. Thus the holiday was begun. But Peony watched above all for David. Would it be holiday for him, too? She was comforted when having sent his guests away he came in to visit his family and her and she saw his face gay and his eyes bright with excitement.

  “Let us stay here a long time, eh, mother of my sons?” he said to his wife, and she smiled back at him, excited by his joy. He grew tender to her suddenly. “You little one!” he exclaimed. “You look as you did the first time I saw you!”

  Hearing these words Peony slipped away, lest her presence check the renewal of their love. The old deep sadness of life lay in the bottom of her heart and she knew it was there, but she would not allow herself to sink into it. Out of the dark and sullen bottom of a lake the lotus flowers bloomed upon its surface, and she would pluck the flowers.

  Peking was at its best that spring. The people, released from the fears and trials of war, rejoiced in the return of the Imperial Court to the city. The two empresses, the eastern and elder and the western and younger, were regents for the young emperor, who was still a child. Both empresses were beautiful, but the Western Empress was rich with love of life and power, and it could easily be seen that under her reign the nation would prosper and every sort of art and commerce would grow strong.

  It was the air that David loved best. Old sadness fell from him and the very look in his eyes changed. The tinge of melancholy that had become natural to him left him, and the vitality that only rebellion had lit so far now became his daily energy.

  “I love this city,” he told Peony one day. “Look at the people—the men tall—the women handsome. Peony, you are like a child here.”

  Peony was not sure that she was pleased with this comparison. It was true that most of the women were taller than she, their cheekbones high and their frames big. She pouted a little at David and he laughed. “Let us talk of something else, then! The wide streets—I like the space.”

  To this Peony could agree. There was space everywhere, the streets wide enough for ten carts to run abreast between shops on either side stocked with fine goods. The people were more than handsome—they were kind and their spirits were noble. There was no smallness anywhere. The largeness of the north was in this city, where the people ate wheat bread with their meat instead of rice. Many peoples met here, and David took pleasure in feasting in the fine inns with the friends whom Kung Chen had provided. To eat roast mutton in a Mohammedan inn, to spend half the night over roast duck in another, to declare both the finest food, was easy enough. The mutton, tender and wisely flavored, was torn in pieces and roasted upon spits over charcoal and brought to the table hot to be eaten with steamed rolls of bread.

  And yet Peking duck could still be the finer food. Night after night David sat in one inn or another with men so carefree and so full of humor that he would have said they never worked at anything but pleasure had he not seen them shrewd tradesmen by day. They sat about a great round table, eating small dishes first, until the host of the inn brought in the ducks for their approval, killed and plucked but not yet roasted. When they had chosen a pair of ducks, appraising size and fat and texture of the skin, these were spitted and turned over coals, until the skin was crisped and browned and glistening with fat. Soon the first dish was served, and it was the curls of rich dark skin, and with it came thin pancakes of wheat flour and red jelly made of haws and sweetened. These cakes were wrapped about the roasted duck skin and into each was put a spoonful of jelly and so they were eaten, hot and sweet and bread and meat together, with warmed wine in small bowls. Then in succession came the other dishes, the meat of the roasted duck flavored and mixed with tender cabbage and then with mushrooms and then with bamboo shoots and then with chestnuts, each dish different from all others and each as good as the next, until the final dainty of the duck, now devoured. This was the head split open so that the brains could be picked out with chopsticks and tasted for the fine delicate flavor.

  Who could tire of such fare? And yet there were the vegetarian inns where devout Buddhists could feast, those who gave up eating meat for the sake of their souls. At those inns vegetables were shaped and flavored until the feasters could have sworn them meat, except they had no flesh of any animal in them. The eyes of the devout were satisfied and their palates tasted the semblance of the meats they had denied themselves, while their souls were saved.

  “How clever are these people!” David exclaimed each day when he discovered such new things. Indeed, the pleasures he had enjoyed in his youth seemed small in comparison to the variety that he now found in
Peking. The finest theaters were here, the best shows of juggling and magic, and the most famous singers and musicians and scholars.

  While he waited for audience with the two empresses, David released his soul and he enjoyed every pleasure that the city had. Nor was he selfish and solitary. Each morning he spent on business for his father and Kung Chen, and he visited every rich merchant in the city and he made many new contracts for the delivery of goods and he took orders for fabulous articles from Europe and from India. For the merchants here knew of machines and cloths and lamps and toys made abroad and they craved these things for themselves and for sale. Especially did they want clocks. The great gilt clock that years ago Kao Lien had brought as a gift for the Emperor was now matched by many others in the palace. In one room, so David heard, there were more than a hundred clocks. What had been a royal gift for one now became a thing coveted by common men, and David wrote to his father:

  “Clocks can be sold here by the many thousand, I think, especially those not too high in price, yet ornate with gilt and figures. But all foreign goods are valued. These people have the best of everything, the finest silks and satins and embroideries, the richest jewelry and furniture, and yet their love of novelty is such that they will buy any trickery of foreign stuff.”

  When the morning’s business was over David spent his afternoon with his family, unless the day was raining or, worse than rainy, clouded with dust, which the high winds blew over the city from distant deserts. Holding his sons’ hands, David walked in temple forests and sat in theaters and visited every bazaar and fakirs’ show place, and with him often was his wife, shy at being seen abroad and yet made bold by curiosity. Whether Kueilan went or not, and sometimes she complained that her feet hurt her and she could not walk, Peony went always with the children, and now she too knew the happiest times of her whole life. With David and his sons she laughed and watched and was amazed at many sights. She was never tired, and she was always amiable, and as the weeks passed easily, more and more it was she who went and not her mistress.

  For Kueilan had made friends with some of the ladies of the merchants, and she grew fond of gambling with them. From one house to another these ladies went, one day here and one day there, traveling in their curtained sedans, and they spent the whole afternoon and evening at mah-jongg, until it became their passion. In this the serving maids encouraged them, since before each lady said good night to the others she must for courtesy’s sake put silver in a bowl upon the table, and this the maids divided between them. Peony took no share, for she considered herself above such money, but careful always to wound no feelings, she excused herself to the others saying, “Since I must stay with the little lords and their father and I cannot help you who serve our mistress, it would not be just for me to share the serving money.”

  There was no talk of quick return to their old home. For one thing, the presentation of the gifts David had brought to the empresses was delayed until they were ready to receive him, and the delay stretched into months because they were busy with the repairs needed for the palace. While the court had been in exile there had been much ruin, and this must all be mended. But far beyond this were the vast plans the Western Empress had for a new palace and for added courts and pools and bridges and rockeries and gardens. The Imperial Treasury was impoverished by wars with the white men and by the rebellion of the southern Christians. The Western Empress demanded therefore new taxes and tributes, especially for the building of the Summer Palace and for the beautifying of the lake there. She dreamed of a marble boat set in the lake that would be large enough for all her ladies to dine in and then to see a play whose actors might number into hundreds. Her ministers groaned to think of such expense, and rumors went out over the city of her ambitions and her willfulness. The ministers besought her to remember that the wars with the white men had been lost for lack of a good army, and that swords were not enough these days when outer nations had gunpowder. But the Western Empress answered arrogantly thus: “When the Imperial Court is glorious, the nation shares its glory,” and the rumor of this went over the city, too.

  Yet the people laughed when they heard of the pride and strength of the young empress and they took it as a good sign. Weakness and languor in the ruler were feared, and there was neither in the Western Empress. Even rumors of her quarrels with the Eastern Empress were made the stuff for jokes and songs, and hardihood and willfulness entered into the spirit of the people because it was in the young empress.

  Early in the summer David received at last the summons to the court and he made ready to appear. The hour was soon after dawn, when the audience with the ministers was over, and the empresses were ready to receive proposals of new revenue and gifts.

  Peony rose early indeed and she helped David to dress himself and saw to it that he had food and that all was in readiness. She went with him to the gate and behind her stood the servants, awed to know their master was to be received at court. They all gazed at David, very fine in new garments of blue silk and black velvet, his tasseled hat upon his head and jade rings on his thumbs, as he stepped into his great sedan chair.

  Peony watched until the chair disappeared and then she went back to bed. She could not sleep—that was beyond her—and in an hour or two she must rise and see that the children were fed, cared for, and happy, and later than that the feast was prepared for her mistress that night, for the ladies were to play mah-jongg here. When David would return she did not know, but the house must be ready for that, too, and her mistress up and dressed and waiting to hear the story he would have to tell. For Peony was always careful to prepare her mistress to be all that she should be as a wife. She did not allow Kueilan to appear before her husband with her hair uncombed or her dress wrinkled. Kueilan grumbled often, saying, “I am an old married woman now, Peony, and shall I have no peace? First it is my feet I unbound to please you and now it is my hair to be a trouble to me and then it is my eyebrows to be plucked and my fingernails painted and you have me perfumed like a flower girl. When am I to have some peace?”

  To this Peony only smiled and said, “It gives your lord pleasure, does it not, my lady?”

  One day when Peony had so answered Kueilan threw her a shrewd look and she said, “It is only to please him, then? You do not care for me.”

  Peony felt her heart stop. Then she said smoothly, “I take it that what gives him pleasure gives you the most pleasure, too, but if I am wrong, Lady, please instruct me.”

  This put Kueilan in a difficulty, for how could she say she did not wish to give her husband pleasure? She was silent, but after that Peony took care never to mention David to her again. She learned more wisdom, and her soul grew deep as life itself.

  When David came back at midmorning, looking weary but triumphant, the whole house was waiting to receive him, his wife dressed and pretty, the children clean and eager, and the servants respectful and yet curious.

  Peony met him at the gate. “Is it too much to ask that you tell us what has happened? We wait to know, and with one telling it will be told to all.”

  “First let me eat and drink, for I am faint,” David replied. “We were not allowed to sit down and I had to bow myself on my knees until they are sore.”

  She followed him into the house and to his own rooms and took the heavy hat from his head, and the stiff brocaded robe he next laid aside, and the high velvet boots. Then she fetched his easy robe of summer silk and his low satin shoes and he ate and drank food that she ordered brought to him and he slept an hour and then he was ready.

  In the great hall of the house Peony assembled all, and David sat down in the highest seat and looked about at his family and servants. The day was fine and the summer sunshine fell into the court and shone through the wide-open doors and he thought to himself that what he had was well enough to make a man proud. His wife sat across the table from him, and she wore a soft green satin robe, and jade was in her ears and in the knot of her hair and gold and jade were upon her hands and wrists. She was as p
retty as the girl he had first seen in Kung Chen’s hall. Near her stood his two handsome sons, dressed like little men in long silk robes, their hair braided in queues and corded with red silk. The third son was now beginning to walk, and his nurse held him by a broad silk girdle and followed him as he staggered everywhere. Peony sat near the door, and he knew her quiet beautiful face. The servants stood together clean and waiting. He took up his tea bowl, sipped and set it down, and then began:

  “You must understand that it is no easy matter to appear before the empresses. I waited for more than two hours in an anteroom with others who had been granted audience today, and we were given no seats or tea. A eunuch led us there and bade us wait, and it was the Chief Steward himself who was to call us. But when he came he had first to teach us what to expect and how to behave. The Eastern Empress, he told us, was ill today and only the Western Empress would receive us. We were not to look at the Imperial Screen behind which we sat—”

  At this point David’s elder son cried out, “Dieh-dieh, did you not see her?”

  David shook his head. “No one is allowed to see her, my first son. She is empress but she is also a woman—a beautiful one, and a widow. Her behavior is correct.

  “Well, we all went in, and I was given the third place—”

  “Why the third place, Dieh-dieh?” his son asked again.

  At this David looked impatient and Peony rose softly and led the little boy to her side and held him in her arm. Then David went on: “That I am third is because I have no official rank and there were two before me who had. I was the first of those without rank, and this is because Kung Chen has special favor in our province and has been mentioned at the court by our provincial governor.”

  So David went on, and he told how he came in and how he bowed his head to the floor and how he must stay in that position until his name was called, and how then he stood with bowed head and presented his gifts, which had been taken from him at the door when he entered. He explained that the gifts were from Europe, not as good as anything already here, but still he hoped that Her Majesty would find a moment’s idle pleasure in their curiosity. Then he spoke of the House of Ezra and its contracts with the House of Kung, and he thanked the Empress because although his ancestors came from foreign lands, yet they had lived here in peace.