Peony: A Novel of China (15 page)

So she went on until she saw a round moon gate, and there she guessed was the central court. She tiptoed to the gate and looked in and saw a most beautiful garden. It was floored with green tiles and in the center was a long pool, and in this pool lotus leaves were pushing up their pointed buds. Around the walls stood peach trees and plums and the scarlet flowers of the pomegranate were in full bloom. Among them bamboos waved their fernlike fronds and little birds flew here and there, and looking up Peony saw far above her, over the high walls, a fine net spread to hold the birds.

She forgot everything, and stepping inside the gate, she walked softly to the pool and gazed into it. The water was clear between the lotus plants and gold and silver fish played among them. In the midst of her pleasure she heard a man’s voice.

“Little Sister, where have you come from?”

Peony was startled and she looked up, and there stood the master of the house, Kung Chen himself. Now she must explain why she was here. She smiled deeply enough to make the two dimples in her cheeks appear and she said, “I was sent from the home of Ezra to fetch a pattern for embroidery, and then, wicked one that I am, I could not resist the temptation to come and see this court, of which I have often heard. Indeed, everyone has heard of it. Please, sir, forgive me.”

Kung Chen stroked his chin and smiled. His face was round and kind and his small eyes were pleasant. He had thick placid lips and a broad flat nose. On this spring day he wore a gray brocaded silk robe, and since he was at ease in his home, he had no jacket or hat. On his feet were white silk socks and black velvet shoes. On his two thumbs he wore heavy jade rings and in his left hand he carried a silver water pipe. His eyebrows were scattered and scanty and his face was shaven, and this smoothness gave his full face a bland and open look.

“There is nothing to forgive,” he said kindly. “Enjoy the garden and the pool as long as you like. I come here at this hour every day when I have eaten, so that I may look at my fish.”

He pointed the mouthpiece of his pipe toward the water, and she looked into the clear depths where the fish swam serene and gay.

“How happy they are!” she said plaintively. “Here in your house even they are safe and well fed.”

“Have you fish at your master’s mansion?” he asked.

It seemed an idle question, but Peony recognized it for what it was, the beginning of other questions.

“Oh, yes,” she answered at once, “we have pools and fish and we feed them. We have also Small Dog.”

Kung Chen filled his pipe and took two puffs. “Birds are the best,” he murmured. “They are beautiful to look at, they sing pleasantly, and when one takes them into the bamboo grove, they attract other birds. Every evening at sunset I bring my singing thrush to the bamboos, and after I have fed it fresh meat it sings and other birds gather on the net. I sit so still they think I am a stone.”

“How pleasant!” Peony said.

“It is at such moments that the best of life is lived,” he replied simply.

She waited. Between them was all the distance of their differing sex and age and station. But there was no embarrassment. She felt his ageless simplicity, his complete hard wisdom, and suddenly she trusted him. She said, still gazing into the pool, “I did not tell you the truth, Honored One.”

His small eyes sparkled with laughter but he did not laugh aloud. “I know you did not,” he replied.

She stole a glance at him and laughed with him.

“Tell me now,” he suggested. “After all, you and I—are we not Chinese?”

She could not approach truth directly. “Sir, have you hatred against the foreigners?”

He opened his eyes. “Why should I hate anyone?” he asked in surprise. He paused and then proceeded amiably. “To hate another human being is to take a worm into one’s own vitals. It consumes life.”

“I will ask another question,” Peony said.

“Why not?” Kung Chen asked, still very amiably.

“Would you give your daughter to a foreign house?” she asked.

“Ha!” Kung Chen said. He took two more puffs of his pipe. “Why not?” he asked again. He knocked the ash from his pipe. “Now let me proceed for you,” he said. “Your house has a young master, and I have plenty of daughters. I take it my Little Three is nearest his age. I have good business with your elder master. He brings me goods from abroad that others cannot buy. My shops alone carry the goods. I shall soon have an exclusive contract—for which I shall pay much money, it is true. Were we related even in the outside fashion through my daughter, it would be good business. But—I am not a man to sacrifice my daughter for business. Therefore let us speak of rectitude and philosophy. When foreigners come into a nation, the best way is to make them no longer foreign. That is to say, let us marry our young together and let there be children. War is costly, love is cheap.”

Now Peony cast aside all modesty. She admired Kung Chen very much and she felt proud to think he was her countryman. What he had said was wise and good. So she went on: “My young master saw the Third Young Lady a few days ago and he has not been able to eat or sleep since.”

“Good,” Kung Chen replied easily.

“He has written her a poem,” Peony went on.

“Naturally,” Kung Chen said.

“She has also written him a poem,” Peony said.

At this Kung Chen looked astonished. “My Little Three cannot write poems,” he declared. “When I bade the tutor teach her to write poems with the others, he complained that her mind was only a butterfly.”

Peony blushed. “I helped her,” she confessed.

Kung Chen laughed. “Ah-ha!” he exclaimed. “Do you have the poem with you?”

Upon this Peony produced the poem, and he spread it out on his soft fat palm and read it aloud, in a half singing voice. “Very good—for the purpose,” he announced. “But I see you have not written the proper radical for the word ‘rule.’ ” He pointed out the word with the stem of his pipe.

“Forgive me,” Peony said gently.

“Leave it,” Kung Chen bade her. “If it is too perfect he will suspect her. Now you had better deliver it to him. Love must be taken on the tide, before it ebbs.”

So Peony took the poem and made her little bow and went away.

She felt so much more happy than she had when she came that she examined herself to find why this was so, and she found it was because Kung Chen had somehow made her feel one with him and with all who were Chinese. She was not solitary or alone. In the great sea of her people she was only one, but she belonged to the sea, and her life was not separate from the lives of all around her.

Oh, that David would join himself to us! she thought. Her mind grew clear. She would take him away from the dark, sorrowful people to whom he had been born and bring him into the pleasant sunshine in which her people lived. He would forget death and learn to love life.

Thus lighthearted, she went home again and to her duties. Ezra and David returned from the synagogue, and soon Madame Ezra and Leah came too, and the Sabbath day proceeded in the rites that Peony knew so well, and in which she did not share. But her part was to serve, and even as the night before she had set the great candlesticks before Madame Ezra that she might light them and usher in the sacred day, so now when they gathered for the Sabbath meal Peony brought the wine to Ezra and stood while he blessed it and spoke the Sabbath prayer. She directed the washing of the hands and then the serving of the food. When a servant newly hired was about to bring Ezra his pipe she shook her head and frowned, knowing that no fire must be lit on this day. In his own room alone Ezra might take the comfort of his pipe, but not here.

So went the day, and Peony would not let herself see how often David spoke to Leah and that even when he did not speak he looked at her long and thoughtfully. When evening came it was Leah whom David led into the court to find the first three stars of night, and he bade Leah declare the Sabbath was over.

Peony ran to light the candles and the lanterns, and never was she so glad as now to hear their greetings for another day, a good day, she told herself, a pleasant common day belonging to humans and not to a foreign god. She had spoken no word with David this Sabbath long, but she was not downcast. She could wait.

A
FTER PEONY HAD LEFT
him, Kung Chen stayed on alone in his garden. By habit he worked long and steadily in the big room in his main shop, going early and coming home late. His fortune grew under his hands and he was a rich man. He enjoyed his riches, but he was not corrupted. When he felt his mind grow too single in pursuit of money he stopped, and for a whole day he did not go near his shops. Instead he sat here in his private garden, idle, his mind wandering where it would.

Upon such a day he had found Peony in his garden, and after she had gone, he sat down upon a green porcelain seat to watch the fish. Whenever he sat thus no one disturbed him. Time and again someone looked in the gate, hesitated, and stole away. In the midst of his crowded household Kung Chen’s life was full of many cares and responsibilities, and here was a center of peace. But he was reconciled to all that was, and he considered himself to be, and indeed he was, a happy man. For him happiness was reasonable and attainable. On earth he desired wealth, the respect of his associates, satisfaction in women, and sons enough so that he need not be anxious if one or two died. He had all these.

Of Heaven he asked nothing. While he was content to believe in no gods, he knew he would be surprised at nothing that after his death he might find to be true. Thus he saw no necessity for the immortality of his being, but if he found immortality to be the lot of the human soul, he would meet the future as he met the present, with smiling certainty that he himself, as a good man, need fear neither god nor devil, did these exist. Ezra had inquired once as to his faith in God, and Kung Chen had replied calmly, “If there is a God and He is what you say, He will be too sensible to ask me to believe in what I have not seen.”

To do good, to love justice, to grant that all men had an equal right to a pleasant life, these things Kung Chen believed in, and believing, he did all he could to perform his belief.

Now alone in his garden, greatly enjoying the beauty of the morning, the clearness of the pool, and the colors of the flashing fish, he made his mind empty and rested himself. Yet today the emptiness was invaded by the necessity to decide the life of his third daughter. If it were true that she had begun to think of the young man who was the only son of the house of Ezra, there could not be long delay. He must decide first of all whether he himself were willing for such a union. It was no small decision for a man to give his daughter to a family not of his own kind, whose name was not among the Hundred Names of Antiquity. But knowing the history of his people, Kung Chen remembered that others before him had done this thing, believing that only thus could all blood be made one, and he knew this was right. Nevertheless, he was a loving father even to his daughters and he did not wish to make the burden of life too heavy upon his Little Three.

While he mused something pretty happened in the pool before his eyes. A day or two before this he had observed that the female of a species of Siamese fish was heavy with eggs. He had directed, therefore, that a male be bought from the toy fish market, and yesterday it had been done. Now he saw the new fish swim proudly in the pool. He was a handsome creature, and as he swam he was surrounded with a cloud of floating iridescent fins. He swam near the surface, and the sunlight caught in his fins as in a tiny net. At this moment the small female saw him also, and she darted toward him with joy.

Now Kung Chen knew what was about to happen. He watched, smiling half tenderly at the small love scene that unfolded before his eyes. The male fish, when he saw the female, blew out a nest of bubbles that rose to the surface of the pool. The female came near to him, and he met her and curled his body around hers. In this embrace he turned her gently over and wrapped her in his golden fins. There was an instant of ecstasy, then they parted, and the little female scattered her eggs. The male caught each egg in his mouth as it sank, and soaring upward he thrust them one by one into the nest of bubbles. Again and again the fish met, mated, and parted, until the little female could endure no more of such ardor. But the male grew angry when she evaded him, and he pursued her to force her. When Kung Chen saw her distress he laughed silently, and he slipped his smooth hand into the water and lifted her into the palm of his hand and he put her into a porcelain jar of water that stood near to hold fish when they began to fight in the pool. When the male fish searched and could not find her, Kung Chen laughed again. “Do not be angry, little man—she has had enough of you!”

He sat down again, and the parted lovers went their separate ways. But the tiny play had set his mind to work. He remembered Peony’s pretty face and he thought of her in the household of his foreign friend Ezra, and he thought to himself that it must be a strange place for so young and beautiful a girl. Then he remembered Ezra’s son and smiled. Then he thought of his own Little Three and was grave again. He would not have considered such a marriage had she been his only daughter, or had she been Lili, his Little Four. Lili was his favorite, for she was the child of the woman he had loved. The wound this woman had made in him was healed after a fashion, but the scar would always remain. Kung Chen was not a lustful man. He had not gone after many women. He had accepted the wife his parents had given him for his youth, and he had lived with her well enough, but without great happiness, except in the children she had given him, four sons and three daughters. Then a few years ago he had suddenly loved a girl he had seen in a pleasure house, and he had brought her into his own home, with his wife’s consent, and then it had seemed to him that his personal life was full.

A year ago he had discovered the girl with his own head servant, and when anger was spent and he came to full measure of sorrow, he comprehended that sorrow, too, is part of love. At first he had thought of punishment for the two who had betrayed him, but then he understood that punishment cannot win back a woman’s love or a man’s loyalty, and that it could therefore be only self-indulgence for himself. This he would not allow, and so he had called the two before him, and with a smiling face and kindly words he had told them to go away and set up their own family, and he gave them money and dismissed them, keeping only his daughter. When the pretty woman looked back longingly, thinking of what she must do without, now that she had chosen the servant instead of the master, Kung Chen’s face was inexorable in its calm, and she knew that what she had lost she had lost indeed, and so she went away.