The Goddess Abides: A Novel

by Pearl S. Buck

  “It looks exactly as it did,” she said.

  “And will always be,” Henry said. “He wants it like that. ‘Henry,’ he says, ‘keep it like it always was. I don’t know if I can come back, but keep it as if I could!’ So I keep it, books dusted, everything.”

  “Perhaps he knows,” she murmured.

  Now that she was here, she was tired, she realized. She took off her hat and saw her face in a mirror, white and tired.

  “You’ll have dinner early as possible,” Henry said. “I’ll tell my wife. It’ll be good to have something to do.”

  “Thank you, Henry,” she said. When he was gone, she unpacked her two bags and put things away into drawers.

  But I needn’t stay, she thought, I can just go away at any moment, any day, if I can’t bear it. Only where would I go?

  She sat down before the small mahogany desk near the western window. The sun was setting, it seemed at this moment to rest upon the rocky peak of the highest mountain, and she watched it sink until the last edge of gold was gone. Then she lit all the lamps in the room and put a match to the logs in the fireplace, and having done so, felt herself somehow at home, though still alone.

  …The first early snow was falling, although the last bright leaves were still clinging to the maple trees when she put aside the curtains of her bedroom one morning and saw the large soft flakes drifting past the window. Henry had turned up the furnace.

  She drew back the curtain and fastened it, and a white light filled the room. She lit the fire, the logs piled ready in the chimney piece, and slowly, luxuriously, she showered and dressed and went downstairs to breakfast. There in the breakfast room Henry had lit a fire and had moved a small table beside it.

  “It’s sharp this morning,” he said.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  “Dr. Steadley always liked snow.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s queer how he still seems to be in this house,” Henry said.

  “Do you feel it, too?” she asked.

  “Times I come in, I almost hear his voice,” Henry said.

  “If you believe he is here, then to that degree he is here,” she replied.

  She was aware of a strange confidence as she spoke. If any presence could be believed, surely Edwin was that one. But she was a skeptic. What had been was no more. He had left this shell, this habitation, behind him and was gone. She was singularly alone, more alone, she reflected, than if she had never lived here with him. Nor did she wish him back. She had come here to learn how to live alone, and she pressed her loneliness into her heart and flesh. She was alone, alone, so wrapped in her solitary being that she did not even notice that Henry had left the room.

  …The solitary days passed, one after the other in a gray procession. Since no one knew where she was, there were no telephone calls. She spent her waking hours in the huge library, studying books she had never read before, books of Asian history and philosophy. Edwin had traveled much in that part of the world, and now she began to understand how much Asia had shaped his character. The natural freedom, the ease with which he had accommodated the physical with the philosophical, was Asian. The body was only the manifestation of the spirit, translating into terms of flesh and blood, pulse and heartbeat, the yearnings of the spirit. The need for physical love was only a materialization of the spirit's craving for communication. There was no essential difference between flesh and spirit, simply a difference in mode of expression.

  Jared had not progressed so far, however. Nor indeed had she. Flesh was of the flesh. When she thought of Jared in the flesh, she thought of his body. His spirit was apart. She could and did think of his spirit, but it was something in itself. Spiritually he was a creator. Just now, of course, he was only a beginner. He was creating tools, mechanisms to satisfy his creative compulsion. He had to make something with his hands, something he could see and use, a noble instinct, but on a first level, His creativity was motivated by compassion, a worthy instinct, but not strong enough in itself to reach the fulfillment of his capacity as a creator. In days gone by, the creator always found his fulfillment in art, but now the greatest artists were scientists. Science was so exciting, so new, so all but insuperable that it challenged every creative mind. She had no doubt that if he were not impeded, Jared would grow into a great scientist.

  If he were not impeded! But no one could impede him except her, herself. Somehow she had come into his life at a moment when he needed to worship and he had worshiped her. What does a woman do with a man’s worship? She can destroy it by her own selfish need—or she can use it for his development and growth.

  I must never let him know, she thought.

  But know what?

  She must never let him know that she was merely woman. She must never descend to daily need, if she wanted to keep him. No, even that was selfish. There could be no question of “keeping.” She must rise to heights of her own. She must be quite willing to release him while she loved him—even because she loved him, for love, if it be true, seeks only the fulfillment of the beloved and this on the highest level.

  Slowly, day after day, she moved her way dimly to a new definition of love, eliminating every trace of selfishness in order that she might find the purest satisfaction. Slowly she rejected even loneliness and became no more alone but absorbed in her search for the substance of love in its essence. And all during this search she did not write to Jared or telephone him. She needed to be alone in order to outlive loneliness. When she was no longer lonely, she would find him again, or he would find her.

  In such mood the days passed in the silent house. Days passed in which she spoke to no one except lo acknowledge Henry’s greeting, or answer his wife’s occasional question.

  “Is everything all right, Mrs. Chardman?”

  “Yes, thank you, Margaret.”

  “Is there anything you would fancy to eat?”

  “No, thank you. Whatever you prepare—it’s quite all right.”

  Days passed into weeks. The snow fell heavily now and settled into permanence. Winter loomed. She wondered if she should return to her own house, and did not. Edwin was gone, and she lived entirely in the presence of Jared. He was no longer the young man from whom she had withdrawn herself. Slowly she came to see him as the man he would be someday, Jared the fulfilled, Jared the creator, master of himself, imaginative, dedicated, uncompromising in his creativity. He had become one of the few great men of his time, his acts of creation of art were no longer mere inventions. How would she know his greatness? When artist and scientist combined in him, he would be that great man.

  …“Now I have found you,” Jared said.

  He announced himself by arrival. She was at the piano that morning when the doorbell rang. She stopped to listen, she waited for Henry or Margaret to open the door but neither appeared. Then she opened the door herself and Jared stood there in the rain. Three days of rain had washed away the last snowfall.

  “Have you been looking for me?” she asked. “Everywhere. No one could tell me where you were.”

  “Because I told no one.”

  “You wanted to hide from me!”

  “Come in out of the rain.”

  She threw the door wide, he shook himself, and came in, and took off his raincoat and hat. At the same moment Henry appeared, astonished at a guest, and taking both hat and coat, looked at her with inquiring eyes.

  “Yes, Henry,” she said. “Mr. Barnow will be here—for the night, Jared?”

  “If you’ll have me, but tomorrow I am taking you home.”

  She did not reply to this, but led the way to the living room. The wind from the open door had blown the sheets of her music about, and he stooped and picked them up and set them on the rack of the piano. Then he sat down and looked her straight in the eyes.

  “I’m doing what you told me to do,” he said. “I am marrying June Blaine.”

  She heard and did not hear. Instead there was the rush of a sudden downpour of wind-driven rain.
It beat against the French windows, it thundered upon the stones of the terrace. She lifted her head and listened to the sound of the storm.

  “We’ll not get away tomorrow,” she murmured.

  He stared at her. “Are you all right, Edith?”

  When she did not reply he went to her and took her face between his palms. “I asked you, are you all right, Edith?”

  She looked into his eyes. “Yes,” she said distinctly.

  He released her then but he stood looking down at her. “You’ve been too long alone, that’s what’s wrong.”

  She pushed him away gently. “Oh, no, I’m quite happy being alone. I’ve learned how.”

  “I’m still in love with you,” he said with bitterness.

  “Don’t say it!” she cried.

  “But I will say it,” he insisted. “It’s hopeless, I know—but true, for all that!”

  “It’s not fair to June,” she said.

  “She knows,” he said doggedly. “I couldn’t marry her otherwise. Between you and me, I’ve told her, everything must be the same—forever.”

  He turned away from her and walked to the window and stared out into the storm. “I hope I’m not trying to substitute her for you!”

  This was no longer to be borne. She determined not to bear it. By force she would break the mood, too tense, too charged with emotion.

  “Impossible,” she declared. “We are two entirely different women!”

  In her heart she added, “She has her place—but I have mine!”

  But she did not speak the words aloud.

  …The change in mood continued. Henry entered at this moment to announce luncheon and over the business of food and drink, Jared’s appetite excellent, she made a show of mild interest in his plans.

  “Shall you marry soon, Jared?”

  “After she graduates from college in June.”

  “Still so young! Lucky you!”

  “I’ve known her for a couple of years, remember!”

  “She’s a sensible little thing.”

  “I wouldn’t marry her otherwise. I’ve made it clear to her that I have my work to do and that comes first—always will. It’s the penalty for marrying a dedicated scientist.”

  “Shall you stay at this rehabilitation work?”

  “No. Not really. I see now that it’s a side job, an avocation. I’ll always work at it occasionally. But it’s not my real job.”

  He frowned and she waited. He began again. “I don’t know what my work is. Mending broken bodies—yes, of course, but that’s not it. Something in mathematics. I love the order, the elegance of mathematics. But even that is merely a tool, a means. I want to discover—”

  “What?” She pressed him when he paused.

  He lifted eyes half apologetic. “You’ll laugh—but it’s the only word that fits. I want to discover—the universe.”

  “Thank God!” she cried softly under her breath.

  He frowned again. “Why do you thank God?”

  “Because you belong in your laboratory, Jared.”

  She spoke with such decision that he put down knife and fork.

  “How did you know?” he demanded.

  “I know you,” she said. “I know you are basically an artist and an artist is always seeking revelation. You’re not just a technician. You’re a creator.”

  Their eyes met, now unwavering, his in awe, hers in confidence.

  “You know!” he whispered.

  “Of course,” she said quietly, “And so I love you.”

  …It was summer again. She was in a little church, waiting among a few strangers for the wedding march to begin. It was Jared’s wedding day. She had gone home in March, the snows of the winter melting except on the mountains. He had not stayed long, a day and a night, but she was not lonely when he left. She knew her place now in his life and her duty to love him as only she could do. She understood that the more she fulfilled her own life, the more wisdom she could learn, the more she could achieve in herself, the more complete she became—yes, even the more perfect, the better her love could serve him. She must be forever the abiding goddess. And this could only be fulfilled if she found her own way to that fulfillment, apart from Jared. But what was the way? Now that she had years ahead, how spend them toward fulfillment? She was her father’s daughter in mind and spirit, though her mother had created her flesh. She must, once this wedding was over, go apart and live with herself alone.

  There had been no time until now, not really any time: Arnold’s death; Edwin, his love and death; Jared and his love and hers, only in its beginning now that its path lay clearly before her. There had been no time. Now there was time, infinite time, until the very end of her life. She need not hurry herself. Now she knew that she, too, must search, quietly and firmly, for her own completion, for were she not complete, she could not take her place in Jared’s completion.

  The organist was beginning to play the introductory music to marriage, tender music, the mood reverent and subdued. About her the people waited, their faces half smiling as they remembered, each his own remembering. The church was old-fashioned, very simple, almost a country church. Here June had been christened and by the very minister, then young, who was to perform the ceremony. He came in now, wearing his robes. In front of him walked two small boys, choristers, who carried lighted torches. When they reached the altar the small boys lit the candles on either side, and then took their places. The tender music drew to a close. A door to the side of the chancel opened and Jared came in with his best man, someone she did not know, a fellow scientist, he had told her, a brilliant boy of a man, he had said, working in space science. “He lives and breathes on a new level of existence,” Jared had said. “He makes the rest of us look earthbound and old hat.”

  She remembered these words, but her eyes were on Jared. He looked abstracted, far away, almost unconcerned. How well she knew that look, how often her mother had complained of her father.

  “Raymond! Do you hear a word I’m saying?”

  Sometimes, half laughing, her mother said to those about her, “I don’t believe he even heard our marriage ceremony!”

  Ah, June must learn to understand this divine abstraction, this cosmic absence! Once, she herself had inquired of a young wife whose young husband had traveled into space.

  “Did he come back the same?”

  “Not the same,” the young wife had said sadly. “Never quite the same.”

  Ah, but June must be proud, not sad! And then, as though at the thought of June, the wedding march broke joyfully across the air. The audience rose and turned to watch the pretty procession, a little girl in a short pink frock walked down the aisle, scattering rose petals, behind her a tiny boy carrying a white satin ring cushion, and then, one after the other, three bridesmaids—young, all so young, all pretty in pink frocks. And at last June in bride’s white, the gleam of satin, the froth of lace, she walking beside her father, her white-gloved hand in his elbow, a tall graying man, still handsome, a famous man in the world, a great man in his way. But none would be greater than Jared. This was her lifework.

  Then almost immediately it was over, the ceremony stripped to its essentials.

  “I don’t want any nonsense,” Jared had said firmly.

  There was no nonsense. The brief vows were said, be came down the aisle, head held high, and June clung to his arm, smiling bravely. A dart of compassion struck her heart. This young wife! It would not be easy to be Jared’s wife. She must think, too, of June, for June unhappy would be a burden Jared must not bear. And yet, she told herself, she must never interfere.

  She laughed inside herself. Only a goddess could fulfill all that she was demanding of herself. This, then, was her first task, to make of herself a goddess, the first task and the most difficult. She must set herself apart if she was to fulfill the monumental task, which in itself must be perfection.

  Someone, a young man, an usher, came to escort her down the aisle, and she walked to the door and out of the ch
urch to her waiting car. An hour’s solitary drive, and she was not lonely, an hour’s solitary drive and she was at the house again, and only when she entered the door did she remember there was a reception somewhere, at June’s home somewhere, a wedding cake to be cut, all of which she had forgotten, as abstracted in her own way as Jared in his, but she had her own dreams. Not to be fulfilled in this house, nor in any other in which she had ever lived! The knowledge came with the suddenness of conviction. She must build herself a house of her own, in the place which she had chosen so blindly, a place by the sea. The plans were where she had put them in a drawer in her desk. She had put them there months ago, not knowing whether she would ever finish them. Now she knew.

  She took off her hat and tossed it to a chair. She went to the library, to her desk, and opened the drawer. The plans were there, as she had left them. She sat down and studied them. She could see the house as though it were already standing solitary on the cliff, overlooking the sea. The idea in itself was reality. As Edwin had said, the very idea of immortality made reality. Now the idea of the house, of herself, of Jared, were realities.

  She heard a cough at the door. She looked up and saw Weston waiting.

  “If you please, madame,” he said, “is there anyone here for dinner?”

  “Only I—myself,” she said.

  A Biography of Pearl S. Buck

  Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) was a bestselling and Nobel Prize-winning author of fiction and nonfiction, celebrated by critics and readers alike for her groundbreaking depictions of rural life in China. Her renowned novel The Good Earth (1931) received the Pulitzer Prize and the William Dean Howells Medal. For her body of work, Buck was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Literature—the first American woman to have won this honor.

  Born in 1892 in Hillsboro, West Virginia, Buck spent much of the first forty years of her life in China. The daughter of Presbyterian missionaries based in Zhenjiang, she grew up speaking both English and the local Chinese dialect, and was sometimes referred to by her Chinese name, Sai Zhenzhju. Though she moved to the United States to attend Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, she returned to China afterwards to care for her ill mother. In 1917 she married her first husband, John Lossing Buck. The couple moved to a small town in Anhui Province, later relocating to Nanking, where they lived for thirteen years.