Peony

III

WHEN MADAME EZRA HAD Gone, the Rabbi and his children stood in the small flowerless court. Leah turned to her father, her face imploring. But he was blind and could not see her. She turned to her brother.

“Aaron,” she said tremulously.

But he was staring at the broken stone flags beneath his feet. “What luck you have!” he muttered. “To be getting out of this!”

The Rabbi listened intently, but his hearing was not sharp enough to catch the words. “What did you say, my son?” he inquired anxiously.

“I said, we shall miss Leah,” Aaron replied, raising his voice.

“Ah, how shall we live without her?” the Rabbi said. He lifted his blind eyes to the sunshine that poured down warmly into the court. “Except we do the will of the Lord,” he went on. He put out his hand for Leah, and she took it in both her own. “Even as Esther, the queen, went out to serve her people, so shall you, my daughter, enter the house of Ezra.”

“But they belong to our people, Father, while Esther went to the heathen,” Leah said.

“It is only here near the synagogue where I feel sure of sacred ground,” the Rabbi replied. He sighed and lifted his face to the sun. “Oh, that I could see!” he cried.

“Let me stay with you!” Leah cried, and she took his arm and laid it across her shoulders.

“No, no,” the Rabbi said quickly. “I do not complain. God leads us. He has His will to perform in the house of Ezra, and He has chosen you, my daughter, to be His instrument. Come, take me to my room and let me pray until I search out His meaning.”

The Rabbi drew her along as he walked. It was he that led on the familiar ground, not she. She leaned her head against his shoulder. Behind them Aaron stood looking after them, then he darted out of the gate. The Rabbi felt for the high doorstep and then lifted his foot over it.

“My children,” he began. Leah turned her head and saw that her brother had gone.

“Aaron is not here, Father,” she said gently.

Usually she would not have told him that Aaron was gone. It was she that kept peace between them, urging the old father to remember that the son was still young. But now she needed to speak the truth.

“Gone!” the old man cried. “But he was here a moment ago.”

“You see why I should not leave you,” Leah said. “When I am not here he will always be away and you will be left alone with a serving woman.”

“I must deal with him before Jehovah,” the Rabbi said, and his face was moved with distress.

“Father, let me stay with you — to care for you both,” Leah pleaded.

But the Rabbi shook off her hands. He stood in the middle of the floor and struck his staff against the stones under his feet. “It is I who have hidden the truth from you, my child,” he wailed. “It is I who have been weak. I know what my son is. No, you must go. I will do my duty.”

“Father, Aaron is young — what can you do?”

“I can curse my son, even as Isaac cursed Esau!” the Rabbi said with strange energy. “I can cast him out of the house of the Lord forever!”

Leah clasped her hands on his shoulder. “Oh, how can I go?” she mourned.

The father controlled himself. He hesitated, turned, fumbled for his chair, and sat down. He was trembling and there was a fine sweat on his high pale forehead. “Now,” he said, “now — hear me — I am not your earthly father while I speak these words. I am your rabbi. I command you!”

Leah stood hesitating, waiting, biting her red lips, her hands clenched at her sides. Her eyes were wide and burning, but she did not speak. There was a moment of silence and then the Rabbi rose, leaned on his staff, and spoke in a deep and unearthly voice: “Thus saith the Lord to His servant Leah: Go forth, remembering who thou art, O Leah! Reclaim the House of Ezra for Me! Cause them to remember, father and son, that they are Mine, descendants of those whom I led, by the hand of My servant Moses, out of the land of Egypt, into the promised land. There My people sinned. They took to themselves women from among the heathen and they worshiped false gods, and I cast them out again until they had repented. But I have not forgotten them. They shall come to Me, and I will save them, and I will return them again to their own land. And how shall I do this except by the hands of those who have not forgotten Me?”

The Rabbi’s face was glorified as he spoke these words. His staff fell to the ground and he stretched out his arms. Leah listened, her head high, and when he was silent she bowed her head.

“I will obey you,” she whispered. “I will do my best, Father.”

He faltered. The strength went out of him and he sank upon the seat from which he had risen. “The will of the Lord be done,” he said heavily. “Go, my child, and prepare yourself.”

She went without another word, and that whole day she busied herself in silence. The little house next to the synagogue was always as clean and neat as she knew how to make it. But she cleaned it again, and prepared the noon meal for the three of them. Aaron did not come home, and she saved his portion and put it aside into a cool place. At the table she and the Rabbi ate almost in silence. He sighed when he heard that his son was not there, and then told her to bid Aaron come to him at once when he returned. After her father had eaten he slept, and while he slept, Leah put her few clothes together into a small leather trunk. Then she bathed herself and washed her thick curling hair. This was scarcely done when she heard a knock at the door, and she opened it. There stood Rachel, the serving woman, and a man with a wooden box holding her possessions.

“Madame Ezra bade me come here,” she said simply.

“You are expected, Rachel,” Leah replied. She led the woman into her own room. “Here is where you shall live,” she went on. “It is near to my father. Have you eaten?”

“Yes,” Rachel said. “I came early enough for you to tell me everything before I cook the night meal, for Madame Ezra said you were to go to bed early tonight and be ready in the morning soon after sunrise. You will sleep in your own bed this last night, and I shall sleep in the kitchen.”

There was something very comforting about this strong, stout, dark-faced woman, and Leah sat down with her on the bed and told her all she could, what her father ate and did not eat, how he liked his things left upon the table untouched, and how often hot water must be brought to him for washing, and the care of his hair and beard. Then she told Rachel of the cleaning of the synagogue and of the dusting of the tablets and the ark, and of the velvet curtains, which were old and must be tenderly handled. Then last of all she told her of Aaron.

“He is not a good son,” she said sadly. “I had better tell you, so that you will not lean on him.”

“Leave him to me!” Rachel said firmly.

“You will be better for him than I have been,” Leah said.

“I am older,” Rachel replied. Then she leaned forward, her plump hands on her knees. “You poor lamb,” she said, “led to the slaughter.” She shook her head.

Leah gazed at her, not comprehending. “But it is a pleasant house,” she replied. “I used to go there very often when David and I were children.” Her clear skin flushed in spite of herself and she laughed. “There is nothing else for me to do, when my father and Madame Ezra combine to command me.”

“She speaks for man and he for God,” Rachel said humorously. Then she was grave again. “But never marry a man you cannot love,” she said. “It’s too hard in a house like that of Ezra, where they do not allow concubines. Marriage is not such a burden in a Chinese house — if you do not like your husband, you can get a concubine for him without losing your place in the family. But to have to be a wife to a man you loathe — how disgusting!”

“No one could loathe David,” Leah said gently. The flush was brighter.

Rachel looked at her and smiled. “Ah, in that case—” she said. “I had better see what you have in the house for supper.”

In this last night in the small square room near her father’s, Leah could not sleep. On the opposite side of the court was Aaron’s room. He had not come to the evening meal, and it was after midnight before she saw a candle flicker against the latticed window. The pale beams glimmered upon the white curtains of her bed, and she rose and looked out of her window and saw him moving like a shadow about his room. Ordinarily she would have gone to him to ask if he were hungry or to know where he had been. But tonight she felt herself already separate from him. Her life in this house had stopped and tomorrow it would begin in another. She went back to her bed and lay quietly, her hands clasped under her head.

She tried for a while to think of what her father had said, how she was to be God’s instrument, but she doubted that this could be, however much she longed for it to be true. She had been too busy since her mother died to read the Torah as much as she should. It was long ago that she had been left, so long that she could not remember her mother’s face unless she put everything else out of her mind. Then against the gray curtain of the past she thought she could see a pale thin face, the eyes too large and too black, and the thin mouth sad. But she could remember very well this one thing her mother had told her, when she called her in the last night she lived.

“Take care of your father, Leah — and Aaron.”

“Yes, Mother,” she had sobbed.

“Oh, child,” her mother had gasped suddenly, “think of yourself — for no one else will.”

Those were her mother’s last words, and Leah did not know what they meant then or now. How could she care for others if she thought of herself? She sighed and put away this question that she had never answered, and she began to think instead of David.

Her mind roamed, remembering him as far back as she could, when perhaps once in a month Wang Ma had come for her and had taken her to Madame Ezra, to be looked at, to be questioned, and then to be given sweets and fruit and released to play in the courts with David, the beautiful little boy, always so richly dressed, so gay, so charming. Her memory of him was one of laughter so continuing that wherever he was, the very air was bright with his presence. Her own home had been always sad, her father absorbed in scriptures and prayers, and Aaron whining and half ill, dependent upon her and cruel to her at the same time. And they were poor, always poor, and she had had to patch and mend and save and learn as best she could how to cook and clean. There had been a servant woman in her childhood, but she had gone away when Leah was not more than twelve, and since then she had been alone except for an old Chinese man who did the marketing and made a small kitchen garden in the back court and took out garbage and the waste from the household. He was a deaf-mute and lived out his days in silence.

The house of Ezra was therefore the one happy place of her childhood, and she could not but be glad that it was God’s will, and her father’s, that now she return to it. But I shall come home often, she thought, and I shall make everything here much better than it has ever been. And if I really do marry David—

Here her thoughts grew shy and humble. If she did, if such heaven were granted to her, she would thank God all her life and be so good that He would never regret it. She would move David’s heart to rebuild the synagogue and to fulfill all her father’s dreams. The remnant of their people, who were so scattered, would be brought together again in the new synagogue, and David would be the leader of them, and Aaron would be looked after and helped, and perhaps he would grow better than she feared, and all would be well — with everybody, she thought fervently.

Somewhere on the edge of her dreams there stood the shadow of a young Chinese girl, the little girl who had played near David, a pretty child with big almond-shaped eyes and a small red mouth. This child gradually became a slender young girl, still more pretty, who served David and her with tea and plied them with cakes, and was always near. Peony — Peony! But Peony, Leah reminded herself, was only a bondmaid.

And so near dawn Leah fell asleep, her cheek on her folded hands, and Rachel, stealing in, had not the heart to wake her. The good woman went into the kitchen and started the fire in the charcoal stove and heated water and set rice to boil for breakfast, and cracked three eggs into a bowl.

She did not waken Leah, indeed, until she heard the clatter of someone at the gate, and when she opened it there stood Wang Ma, and behind her chair bearers carried an empty sedan.

“Come in, Elder Sister,” Rachel said. “No one is awake yet here.”

Wang Ma came in, looking almost like the mistress of a house herself. She wore a dark blue coat and trousers of homespun silk, and there were gold earrings in her ears and gold rings on her middle fingers. Her oiled black hair was brushed into a round knot on her neck and held by a fine black silk net, and she had plucked and darkened her eyebrows, and rubbed her cheeks so clean that they were still very red.

“Not awake!” she echoed. She knew Rachel and they were good friends in the solid fashion of women who are respected in whatever households they serve. Both of them obeyed Madame Ezra above all others, Rachel because Madame Ezra had given her money at times when her husband was ill or idle, and Wang Ma because she knew that Madame Ezra ruled the House of Ezra.

“The Rabbi is old,” Rachel said, “and the young man did not come in until after midnight, and Leah, doubtless, the poor young thing—”

Wang Ma’s black eyebrows went up. “Why poor young thing?” she demanded. “She is lucky to come into our house.”

“Of course — of course,” Rachel said peaceably. “Come in and drink some tea, Elder Sister. I will wake her.”

“I will wake her,” Wang Ma said firmly. “Do you attend to the two men. We had better make haste, lest today the caravan comes. The gateman told me when I passed that a runner reached our house the second hour after midnight, to say the caravan had reached the Village of Three Bells. But say nothing to the young lady. Our mistress does not wish her distracted.”

“Has the caravan come indeed?” Rachel exclaimed. “How lucky are you, Elder Sister, to be in that household!”

“So I am, in some ways,” Wang Ma replied. “In other ways — well, let us do our duty!” She shrugged her shoulders. Rachel nodded and led her to Leah’s room.

So it happened that when Leah opened her eyes, they fell first upon Wang Ma’s handsome rosy face. She was half bemused with her dreams, and she faltered.

“Why — why, but I am still at home—”

“Up with you, Young Lady,” Wang Ma said briskly. “I am sent to fetch you.”

Leah sat up and brushed back her long hair. “Oh — oh,” she whispered in distress. “Today of all days to oversleep!”

“Never mind,” Wang Ma said. “Put something on and come along. Our mistress has new garments ready for you. You need bring nothing.”

“Ah, but my box is packed — I am ready!” Leah exclaimed.

So saying, she got quickly out of bed. Then she looked shyly at Wang Ma. Never in her life had she taken off her clothes before anyone, and she could not now. But Wang Ma would have no shyness.

“Come, come,” she said, “no silliness, Young Lady! If you are to stay in our house, I shall have the washing and tending of you, at least until our Peony learns, and you have nothing that old women like me cannot see.”

So with her back turned to Wang Ma, Leah undressed and washed herself at a basin and ewer, Wang Ma all the time telling her to make haste.

“You need not be too careful,” Wang Ma urged her. “I shall wash you again and perfume you before we put you into new garments.”

Then Rachel brought a bowl of hot rice soup, and so between them Leah was ready. But there were the farewells to be said. No one could help her with those. She went tiptoe into Aaron’s room, and he lay still asleep. She stood looking down at him, the tears gathering under her eyelids. Her brother lay before her in his weakness and in his too slender youth, and his pale ugly face touched her heart. Who would love this brother of hers? There was nothing in him to love. Her own rich love, always ready to well up at the sight of someone needy and weak, came up now, and she bent and kissed his cheek. His breath was foul and his hair smelled unwashed.

“Oh, Aaron,” she murmured, “what shall I do for you?”

He opened his small dark eyes, recognized her, and pouted at her. “Don’t wake me,” he muttered.

“But I am going away, dear,” she said.

He lay, half uncomprehending, staring at her.

“Take care of Father, Aaron,” she begged him. “Be good, won’t you, dear Aaron?”

“You’ll be back,” he said thickly.

“Every few days, if I am allowed,” she promised. “And Rachel is here.”

“Well, then,” he retorted, and turned and burrowed into his bed again.

So Leah left him, closing the door softly, and then she went into her father’s room. The Rabbi had got up and dressed himself, and was at his prayers.

“Father,” she said, and he turned. “They have come for me, Father.”

“So early?” he answered. “But let it be so, child. Are you ready?”

She had come near him and he touched her, head, face, shoulders, her hair and dress, his delicate fingers telling him how she was. “Yes, you are ready. And have you eaten?”

“Yes, Father, and Rachel is ready for you to come and eat.”

She wavered and then laid her head against his bosom. “Oh, Father!” she whispered.

He smoothed her hair. “But you will not be far away, child — you will be back every day or so, and think how much better everything will be for us all.”

So he comforted her, and she lifted her head and shook the tears out of her eyes and smiled at him.

“Don’t come to the gate with me, Father. Let me leave you here, and Rachel will come and fetch you.”

So she left him. She did not look back, and with a last word to Rachel she went out of the gate. Yet when the curtains of the sedan were closed about her, she felt that she was going on a far journey, from which there might be no return.

At the house of Ezra Peony waited in the outer court. So Madame Ezra had commanded her through Wang Ma.

“Am I to be a lady’s maid to this foreigner?” Peony had asked when the command came that early morning. She widened her eyes at Wang Ma.

Wang Ma had come near enough to flick Peony’s cheek with her thumb and forefinger. Her sharp nails left a tiny spot.

“If you have any wisdom inside that head of yours, you will not ask what you will do and what you will not do,” Wang Ma advised her. “Had I asked such questions I would not have been in this house today. Obey — obey — and do what you like. The two go together — if you are clever. And now mind that you hurry! The caravan is near. Our master left before dawn to meet it.”

“The caravan?” Peony cried.

“Yes, yes,” Wang Ma said impatiently, and went away. “But Leah is not to know — our mistress commands it.”

Peony had been braiding her hair when Wang Ma came and went, and she finished the long braid. The excitement of the caravan filled her mind for a moment. Then suddenly she forgot it. What had Wang Ma said? “Obey — obey — and do what you like. The two go together — if you are clever.” Strange words, full of meaning! She pondered them, and the meaning began to sink like precious metal into the deep waters of her soul. She smiled to herself suddenly until the two dimples danced on her cheeks.

Instead of coiling her braid over her ear, she let it hang down her back. But into the red cord that bound her hair at her neck she thrust a white gardenia from the court. An old bush grew there, and at this season it bore many blossoms each morning. Peony had chosen to put on a pale blue silk coat and trousers, and now she looked delicate and modest as she stood waiting, and hers was the first face that Leah saw when the curtain of the sedan was lifted. Indeed, Peony herself lifted it, and she smiled into Leah’s eyes.

“Welcome, Lady,” Peony said. “Will you come down from this chair?” She held out her arm for Leah to lean upon, but Leah stepped down without this support. She was a head taller than Peony, and she did not speak, although she answered Peony’s smile.

“Have you eaten, Lady?” Peony asked, following a little behind her.

“I did eat,” Leah said frankly, “but I am hungry again.”

“It is the morning,” Peony said. “The air is dry and good today. I will bring you food, Lady, as soon as I have settled you in your rooms. I made them ready for you yesterday, and I shall bring you some fresh gardenias. They should not be plucked early, lest they turn brown at the edges.”

So the two young women went together, each very conscious of the new relationship between them and each trying to fulfill it. Wang Ma had gone ahead to tell Madame Ezra that Leah had come, and so Peony was left to lead Leah to her rooms.

“Am I to have this whole court?” Leah asked in surprise when Peony paused. The rooms were much more beautiful than any she had ever used. As a child she remembered having seen here David’s grandmother, an old lady, lighting candles at sundown.

“There are only two rooms,” Peony said. “One is for your sleep and the other for you to sit in when you are alone.”

She guided Leah into the rooms and a man followed, bringing her box. When he was gone Peony showed her the garments that Madame Ezra herself had worn in her youth, the robes of the Jewish people. Straight and full and long they hung, scarlet trimmed with gold, and deep blue trimmed with silver and yellow edged with emerald green.

“You are to wear the scarlet one today,” Peony said. “But first you must eat and then be bathed and perfumed, and here are jewels for your ears and your bosom. And my mistress says you are not to hide yourself away here alone, but you are to come out and walk about the courts and mingle with the family and enjoy all the house.”

“How kind she is!” Leah said. Then she was shy. “I doubt I can feel so free in a day,” she told Peony.

“Why not?” Peony said half carelessly. “There is no one here to hurt you.” She opened a lacquered red box on the dressing table as she spoke, and Leah saw a little heap of gold and silver trinkets set with precious stones.

Leah looked up from where she sat beside the table and met Peony’s smiling, secret eyes.

“It is marriage, is it not?” Peony asked in a light clear voice. “I think our mistress has made up her mind that you are to marry our young lord.”

Leah’s face quivered. “A marriage cannot be made,” she replied quickly.

“How else, then?” Peony inquired hardily. “Is not every marriage made?”

“Not among our people,” Leah said proudly.

She looked away, and reminded herself again that this pretty Chinese girl was only a bondmaid. It was not at all suitable that she should discuss with Peony the sacred subject of her marriage. Indeed, it was too sacred yet even for her own thought, something as distant and high as God’s will. “I will have something to eat now, if you please,” Leah said in a cool firm voice. “Then afterward I can dress myself — I am used to doing so. Please tell Wang Ma I will not have her help — or yours.”

Peony, hearing this voice, perfectly understood what was going on in Leah’s mind. She bent her head and smiled. “Very well, Lady,” she said in her sweet and docile way, and turning she left the room.

A few minutes later a serving woman brought in food, and Leah ate it alone. When she was finished the serving woman took it away, and alone Leah brushed her hair and washed again and put on the scarlet dress. But she put no perfume on herself, and she took none of the jewels from the box. When she was ready she sat down in the outer room and waited.

Peony had gone to her own room and wept steadily for a few minutes because Leah was so beautiful. She looked at herself in the mirror on her dressing table, and it seemed to her that all her own charms were mean and small. She was a little thing, light as a bird, and although her face was round, her frame had no strength. Leah was like a princess and she like a child. Yet she could not hate Leah. There was something lofty and good about the Jewish girl, and Peony knew that she herself was neither lofty nor very good. How could she be good, even if she wished to be, when she must win all she had by wile and trickery?

I have nothing and nobody except myself, the small Chinese girl thought sadly.

She shut down the mirror into the dressing table and laid her head down and cried still more heartily until she had no more tears. Then her brain, refreshed and washed clean by her tears, began to work swiftly.

You can never be a wife in this house, this hard little brain now told her. Do not tease yourself any more with dreams and imaginings. You cannot even be a concubine — their god forbids. But no one knows David as well as you do. You are his possession. Never let him forget it. Be his comfort, his inner need, his solace, his secret laughter.

She listened to these unspoken words, and she lifted her head, a smile twisting her lips. She opened the mirror and she coiled her hair about one ear and she examined every look of her face and her eyes. After a moment of intense gazing at herself, she changed her pale blue garments for the warm peach-pink ones and put a fresh gardenia in her hair. Then plucking a handful of the flowers for Leah, she presented herself again to the guest. It took all her strength not to be dismayed by the radiance of Leah’s looks, as she now stood arrayed in the scarlet robe. It fitted her well enough, and the golden girdle clasped it to her slender and round waist.

“How beautiful you look, Lady!” Peony said, smiling at Leah as though with delight while she handed her the flowers. “These are for you. And I will go and tell our mistress that you are ready.”

She ran away on her little feet as though all she did for Leah was pure joy, and going to Madame Ezra’s court she stood at the door and coughed her delicate little cough, trying not to weep.

“Come in,” Madame Ezra’s voice said.

Madame Ezra had finished her breakfast, and now she was making ready to survey the house and especially the kitchens to see that all the servants did their duty, and that nothing was left undone for the Sabbath, next day, which was the day of rest.

This morning Wang Ma had wakened her with the news that the caravan was so near that it might even reach here before the day was done.

“The day before the Sabbath!” Madame Ezra had exclaimed. After a moment she had added, “Do not tell Leah — let her not be distracted from what I have to say to her.”

“Yes, Lady,” Wang Ma had murmured.

Now Madame Ezra was about to step over the threshold on her task to see that the servants, excited by the news of the caravan, were not careless about the preparations for the Sabbath, when Peony approached, having swallowed her tears and made her face smooth and empty. Madame Ezra sat down again. “Come, come, child,” she said impatiently.

Peony stepped into the sitting room that Madame Ezra kept for her own. It was a room unlike any other in the house. The walls were hung with striped stuffs from foreign countries and with scripts woven into satin. The furniture was foreign, too, heavy and carved, and the chairs cushioned. The space and emptiness that a Chinese lady would have needed for the peace of her soul and the order of her mind were not here. In the midst of her many possessions Madame Ezra lived content, and Peony could not but grant, though she heartily disliked the room, that there was beauty in it. Had it been smaller, it would have been hideous indeed. But the room was very large, for Madame Ezra when she came here as a bride had taken out two partitions and had thrown three rooms into one long one.

“Mistress, the young lady is ready,” Peony announced.

“Where is my son?” Madame Ezra inquired.

“He was still sleeping when last I looked into his room,” Peony replied.

She had not seen David last night. This was her own fault, for she had not gone in the evening, as her wont was, to take him tea and to see that his bed was ready for the night. Partly this was because of Madame Ezra’s new command, but partly it was to test David. Alas, he had not sent for her, and when she went to bed she wept a while. In the morning she woke to reproach herself, and she had gone early to his rooms to take him tea, and if he were awake to ask him where he had been and why he had not finished the poem he had begun. But he was asleep and he had not waked, even when she parted the curtains of his bed and looked. He lay there, deep in sleep, his right arm flung above his head, and she had gazed at him a long moment, her heart most tender, and then she had gone away again.

“Bid Wang Ma wake him,” Madame Ezra now commanded. “And where is my son’s father?”

“I have not seen him, Mistress,” Peony replied, “but I heard Wang Ma say that he expects the caravan today, and therefore he went out early to the city gates to wait for it.”

“The caravan would come this day!” Madame Ezra exclaimed. “Now David will think of nothing else.”

Peony looked sad, to please Madame Ezra. “Shall Wang Ma bid him come here to you before the caravan comes?” she asked.

“Let her do so,” Madame Ezra said. “I will put off going to the kitchens, and meanwhile tell Leah to come to me.”

She opened an inlaid box and took out some embroidery, and Peony left her. Outside the door she met Wang Ma, and she said, as though Madame Ezra had commanded it, “You are to take the young lady to our mistress, and I am to go and wake our young lord. Make haste, Elder Sister!”

She ran on, but not to David’s room. She went to his schoolroom, now empty, and at the table in haste she took up the writing brush, put off its cover, and then made a little ink. She had kept the unfinished poem in her breast, and now she drew it out. Thinking fast and drawing her brows together, she quickly wrote three lines more upon the empty sheet.

“Forgive me, David,” she whispered, and replacing pen and ink, she ran back to her own room. Opening a secret drawer in her desk, she took out a purse with money in it, the gifts that guests gave her and the coins that Ezra tossed her sometimes when he was pleased with her. Putting this too into her bosom, she slipped through passageways to the Gate of Peaceful Escape at the very back of the compound, that little secret gate which all great houses have, so that in time of the anger of the people, when they storm the front gates of the rich, the family itself can escape by it.

Through this gate Peony now went, keeping to quiet alleyways, away from the streets, until she came to another small gate like the one she had left. This opened into the compound of the Kung family, and here she knocked. A gardener drew back the bar and she said, “I have a message for the family.”

He nodded and pointed a muddy finger over his shoulder, and she went in.

The house of Kung was an idle, pleasure-loving place, and no one rose from bed before noon. Chu Ma, the nurse, was only just stirring about her room, yawning and scratching her head with a silver hairpin, when Peony opened the door a little.

“Ah, you, Elder Sister!” Peony whispered.

Chu Ma opened the door wide. “You?” she said. “Why are you here?”

“I must make haste,” Peony said. “No one knows I have left the house, except the young master himself, who bade me bring this quickly to your young mistress — and let me know if there is an answer.”

This was a house that she knew a little, for once Ezra had sent her here with some treasure for Kung Chen that he dared not entrust to a servant only, and she had met Chu Ma, the eldest woman servant, and at New Year’s time Chu Ma had gone to pay her good wishes and Peony had come here to return her own, in the careless easy fashion between two houses whose elders had some business together. Madame Ezra, it is true, had no friendships here, but Ezra and Kung Chen were very thick in trade.

“What does it say?” Chu Ma asked, staring at the paper.

Standing there in the untidy room, Peony read aloud the little poem she had written. “Dew at sunrise,” Chu Ma echoed, sighing. “It is very pretty!”

She was a huge fat woman who, when she was young and slender, had come as wet nurse when the little third girl was first born, and she had lived on as her maid and caretaker. She had a large soft heart, ready to laugh or weep, and her whole life was bound up in the pretty child she tended.

“I will give the poem to her,” she now said. “Your young lord is so handsome that I do what I know is wrong. But I cannot help it. I saw the young man myself — after my little one came running to me to tell me she had seen him. I ran to the gate and saw him — a foreigner and that is a pity, but after all, foreigners are humans like ourselves, and he is so handsome, a prince, I told my child — so strong, so straight! And as for his being a foreigner, she can persuade him to be Chinese. Does he love her very much?”

Peony nodded. “He asked me to give you this,” she said. She drew out of her pocket the purse of money and gave it to Chu Ma.

“Oh, my mother,” Chu Ma said, remonstrating and pretending to push the purse away. “This is not wanted. It would shame me to take it. What I do, I do for—” But she took the purse when Peony put it into her hand again, and she began to dress herself with energy. “I will give the paper to her myself and tell you how she looks. Come back again,” she told Peony.

With that Peony went slipping through the alleyways again, and now she went straight to David’s room. There he lay in his canopied bed, still soundly and peacefully asleep. She touched his one cheek and then the other with her two palms to coax him awake. She knew better than to wake him suddenly, for in sleep the soul wanders over the earth, and if the body is waked too quickly, the soul is confused and cannot find its way again to its home.

“Wake, my little lord, wake, my dear lord,” Peony murmured, as though she were singing, and soon David opened his eyes. Then he sat up and stretched his strong arms and yawned mightily. Peony stood laughing quietly at him, and watching the light of his soul shine again in his eyes.

He gazed at her with dreams in his eyes, and she wondered what they were, and dared not ask.

“Come, Young Master,” she said gently, “your mother sends for you.”

“For what?” he asked. He was getting out of bed now, and she stooped and put his silk slippers on his one foot and then his other. He seemed not to notice that she had called him “Young Master,” and not by his name, and he had forgotten that Peony should not be here.

“Leah is already here,” she said simply, without reminding him.

He leaped down from the high bed.

“No!” he exclaimed.

“I tell you so,” she replied. She moved to the other side of the room and poured water into a large brass basin from a brass ewer carved in delicate designs. She fetched a towel and some perfumed foreign soap.

“Still I will not obey my mother!” he exclaimed.

Peony turned and considered him, her pretty hands outspread on her narrow hips. Then she yielded to temptation within her own heart. “You cannot say you will not obey,” she told him sweetly. “You can say, perhaps, that your father bade you hasten to meet him and wait for the caravan — and that you will hurry home.”

“The caravan!” he exclaimed. “Peony, do you speak truth? Did my father tell you?”

“The gateman told Wang Ma our master was called soon after midnight, and she told me,” she replied. “Now wash yourself before you dress. I will have your breakfast sent here. And I will take the message to your mother.”

She went away, her head demurely bowed, and entered Madame Ezra’s room once more.

“Alas, Lady, we are too late,” she said sadly. “When Wang Ma went to our young master’s room, he was up and gone. I have sent a man to search for him but he is not to be found at the teahouse. At the city gate the watchman said he went out an hour ago, saying that he was going to The Three Bells to meet the caravan.”

“How tiresome it is, on the very day before the Sabbath!” Madame Ezra exclaimed. “And Leah?”

“She is coming,” Peony replied. She waited an instant and then said, “Has my lady any commands for me?”

“No,” Madame Ezra replied, “go about your usual work. I wait for Leah.”

“I will go and put fresh flowers into the great hall for the Sabbath tomorrow,” Peony said in her small pretty voice, “and I will keep watch of the gate, so that when our young master enters, I can give him your bidding.”

So saying she tripped away, her satin-shod feet silent upon the stones of the court.

When Wang Ma went to fetch Leah, she found the young girl eating her breakfast alone.

“Do not hasten,” she said, sitting down on a stool near the door to rest herself.

Leah put down the porcelain spoon she held and looked alarmed. “Am I wanted, Good Mother?” she asked.

“Only when you are finished,” Wang Ma said peaceably. “Then, if it pleases you, you are to come to our mistress. Eat, Young Lady.”

Leah took up the spoon again, but she could not eat as heartily as before.

Wang Ma looked at her. Though Wang Ma did not care for the shape of the foreign nose, and though this girl was bigger than a woman should be, thin enough but too tall, yet if one granted these faults, she was very beautiful.

“You look as our old mistress did when she came here a bride,” Wang Ma said.

Well she remembered that day, and how she had wept the night before it, thinking that now she would never serve her young master any more. Ezra had been handsome, too, in his half-foreign way, but not so handsome as his son was now, and the young Chinese girl who had been Wang Ma was comforted because the new bride was half a head taller than the young groom of those days. He will never love such a big woman, she had thought secretly. It was that extra half head of height that had made her willing to stay in the house and to marry Old Wang, the gatekeeper. But Madame Ezra, even when she was only seventeen, had seen to it that the young Ezra came to his own rooms at night and did not idle about the courts. Not until she was forty and his son twelve years old did she agree to let him have his own court. By that time Wang Ma was fat and no one thought of her as anything but a bondwoman. She and Old Wang had had four children whom she had put into the village as soon as they could work on the land, while she continued to live in the house of Ezra. Long ago Wang Ma came to know that Madame Ezra was mistress in the house, and that Madame Ezra knew that she knew. Not a word had ever been spoken between the two women during the long secret struggle of the years. Now the struggle was over. Madame Ezra had won.

Thus while Wang Ma gazed at Leah, her mind ran back. “But you are more gentle than our mistress was,” she said musingly. “You have softer lips, and your hair is more free.”

“Oh, my hair!” Leah said sadly. She had tied her red satin band about it. “I can never bind it tightly enough.”

Wang Ma looked at her. “The band should be gold,” she said. “I remember there is a gold one with that dress.”

She rummaged in the box Madame Ezra had bade her put in the room and found a rich gold band.

“When you have finished eating …” she began.

“I can eat no more,” Leah said quickly.

“Then let me put this on your hair,” Wang said.

With skilled fingers she put the gold band about Leah’s head.

“These go with the dress also,” she declared further, and she opened the jewel box and took out a gold necklace and gold earrings.

Leah submitted herself.

“Now come with me to our mistress,” Wang Ma commanded. She grasped Leah’s hand, and surprised at its strength, she lifted it and looked at it. “Why, this is a boy’s hand!” she exclaimed.

“I have had to work,” Leah said, ashamed.

Wang Ma turned the hand she held. “The palm is soft,” she went on. “The fingers are cushioned, and the skin is still fine. I shall rub oil into your hands at night. After a few weeks here they will be pretty.”

She pulled Leah gently along, and so they went to Madame Ezra, who while she waited was embroidering in close firm stitches the Hebrew prayer piece.

“Come in, my daughter,” she said to Leah. “Come and sit with me.

So Leah came in and sat down, and Madame Ezra looked at her with keen eyes. “Why, you look very pretty,” she said.

“Wang Ma decked me out,” Leah said. “I had put on the dress but not these.” She touched the gold she wore.

“I thought her too plain,” Wang Ma said. “She is so big that she can wear plenty of gold.”

“She is not as tall as David,” Madame Ezra said quickly.

“David is very tall,” Leah said shyly.

“He will be here soon to welcome you,” Madame Ezra replied. She fell to her embroidery again, and Wang Ma went into another room.

Alone with Madame Ezra, Leah sat with idle hands and felt strangely ill at ease. She loved this friend of her mother’s and was nearer to her in some ways than to any other human being. She knew Madame Ezra’s longing to make her a daughter. But she did not know what Madame Ezra expected of her, and so she could only wait.

As though she discerned these thoughts, Madame Ezra looked up. The room was very quiet. In the next room Wang Ma moved about at her work. But no other sound came from the great house.

“You know why you are here, Leah,” Madame Ezra observed.

“Not quite, dear Aunt,” Leah replied.

“You remember the promise I told you that your mother and I gave each other over your cradle, before she died?”

Leah looked down without answering. In her lap her strong young hands clasped themselves tightly.

“I want you and David to marry,” Madame Ezra said. Tears rose into her eyes. She lifted the edge of her wide sleeve and wiped her eyes on the silken lining, and watched Leah’s slowly flushing face. The young girl looked back at her with honest miserable eyes. “Why should I not tell you exactly what I want?” Madame Ezra asked passionately. “It is the one hope I have. But not I alone, Leah!”

She moved her chair nearer to Leah’s. “Child, you know — and no one so well as you — what is happening to our people here in this Chinese city — how few of us are faithful any more! Leah, we are being lost!”

“The Chinese are very kind to us,” Leah said.

Madame Ezra made a pettish gesture with her right hand. “It is what Ezra is always saying!” she exclaimed. “Kindness — I grow tired of it! Because the Chinese have not murdered us, does that mean they are not destroying us? Leah, I tell you, when I was your age the synagogue was full on every seventh day. You know what a small remnant is there nowadays.”

“Still, that is not the fault of the Chinese,” Leah said doubtfully.

“It is, it is,” Madame Ezra insisted. “They pretend they like us — they are always ready to laugh, to invite us to their feasts, to do business with us. They keep telling us there is no difference between our people and theirs. Now, Leah, you know there is unchangeable difference between them and us. We are the children of the true God, and they are heathen. They worship images of clay. Have you ever looked into a Chinese temple?”

“Yes,” Leah faltered. “When I was a child sometimes Aaron and I would go — just to see—”

“Well, then, you know,” Madame Ezra retorted.

“Can we blame them”—Leah was gently stubborn—“just for being kind?”

“They are not kind for kindness’s sake,” Madame Ezra retorted. “No, no, I tell you, it’s their trick to be kind. They win us by guile. They get their women to entice our men. And they pretend to be tolerant — why, they even say they are quite willing to worship our Jehovah as well as their own idols!” Madame Ezra’s full face was red and handsome as she spoke thus earnestly to the young girl.

Leah continued to listen, her hands still clasped in her lap. “What do you want me to do, Aunt?” she asked at last.

“I want you to — to — persuade David,” Madame Ezra said. “You and he together, Leah! Think how you could influence him!”

“But David knows me,” Leah said in her straightforward way. “He would think it very odd if I were different — from what I have always been.”

“You are grown now, you and he,” Madame Ezra urged.

“We have always been like brother and sister,” Leah said simply.

Madame Ezra pushed the embroidery from her lap and rose. She began to walk up and down the room. “That is exactly what I want you both to forget!” she exclaimed. “It was well enough when you were children, Leah—”

She paused and Leah rose.

“Yes, Aunt?”

“You know what I mean,” Madame Ezra said harshly.

“I know, but I don’t know how to do it,” Leah said. Tears came into her large beautiful eyes. “You want me to — to—”

“Entice him — entice him,” Madame Ezra said in the same harsh voice.

“I can’t,” Leah said steadily. “He would only laugh at me. And I would laugh at myself. It wouldn’t be — me.”

She put out her hand and took Madame Ezra’s hand and held it between her own. “I have to be myself, dear Aunt, don’t I? I know David, too.” She felt her heart warm at the thought of David and she grew brave before this lady whom she loved and yet feared. “Perhaps I know him even better than you do. Forgive me, Aunt! You see, we are so nearly the same age. And I feel something in him — something great and — and good. If I can speak straightly to that part in him — which is also in me—”

They were gazing into each other’s eyes while she thus spoke. Madame Ezra listened, her heart beating. Yes, Leah could do this!

Then suddenly, at this instant before Madame Ezra could reply, they heard a great noise from the outside courts. Voices shouted, gongs clanged, Wang Ma hurried from the bedroom.

“Mistress, it must be the caravan!” she exclaimed, and hastened away to find out. At the gate to the court she ran full into her husband, Old Wang.

“The caravan — the caravan!” he yelled. “Old Mistress — Master says — please come — it’s the caravan!”

Madame Ezra pulled her hand from between Leah’s hands. “We shall have to go,” she said. “Better today than tomorrow, the Sabbath.”

But Leah sat still. “Aunt, let me wait here — let me think — of what you have said is my duty.”

“Very well, child,” Madame Ezra replied. “Think of it — but come when you will.”

“Yes.” Leah’s voice was a sigh. The next moment she was alone, and she folded her arms on the table at her side and laid down her head upon them. Then, after a few seconds, she rose and went to the corner of the room, and standing with her face toward the wall, she began to pray in a soft sobbing voice.

The coming of the caravan each year was an event for the whole city. The news of it ran from mouth to mouth, and when the long line of camels came padding down the dusty path at the side of the stone-paved streets, the doors of every house and shop were open and crowded with people. Upon a proud white camel at the head of the caravan sat Kao Lien, the trusted business partner of the House of Ezra. Behind him came guards armed with swords and old foreign muskets, and behind them plodded the loaded camels. All were weary with the long journey westward through Turkestan and back again through mountain passes, but for the final homecoming the men had decked themselves in their best, and even the camels held their narrow heads high and moved with majesty.

Last of all came Ezra in his mule cart. For days he had posted men along the last miles of the caravan route, watching and ready to set off to bring him word of the caravan. In the small morning hours of this day he had received the breathless runner, and had heard that the caravan was traveling by forced marches and would reach the city in a few hours. With forethought the runner had called the gateman, who had called for the mule cart, and into it Ezra had hastened, counting upon food at an inn. He had met the caravan at a village some ten miles outside the city, and then he had greeted Kao Lien with a great embrace, and the two had eaten a hasty breakfast, and had come on again toward the city, Ezra’s mule cart following the caravan. He had ordered the blue satin curtains lifted, and now he rode smiling through the watching streets, waving his hands to all greetings.

Then at the gilded door of the teahouse that stood on the main street he saw his friend Kung Chen, smoking a long brass-tipped bamboo pipe, and he ordered the muleteer to stop the vehicle and let him down so that he could do this Chinese merchant the courtesy of passing him on foot. He paused to bow and to give greeting, and the caravan halted while he did this.

“I congratulate you upon the safe return of your partner and the caravan,” Kung Chen said.

“The camels are laden with goods of the richest sort,” Ezra replied. “When you have time, I beg you to come and see what we have, in order that you may choose what you want for your own shops. I give you first choice. Only what is left shall go to other merchants, until our contract is signed.”

“Thank you, thank you,” the urbane Chinese replied. He was a large, fat man, his brocaded satin robe a little short in front because of his full paunch. A sleeveless black velvet jacket softened the curves.

Ezra grew warm with fine friendliness. “Come tomorrow, good friend,” he urged. “Take a modest meal with me, and afterward we can look over the goods at our pleasure. No!” He broke off. “What am I saying? Tomorrow is our Sabbath. Another day, good friend.”

“Excellent, excellent,” Kung Chen replied in his mellow voice. He bowed, he pushed Ezra gently again toward his chair, and the caravan went on.

Just before it reached the gates of his house Ezra saw his son, David, drop lightly over the brick wall of the compound and run beside the first camel, waving his right arm in greeting to Kao Lien. Then he darted ahead and through the gates.

The chair bearers laughed. “The young master will rouse the whole house,” they said.

Ezra laughed proudly in reply. Now they were at the gate, and though he had paid wages to the muleteers, when they stopped the cart he reached into his wide girdle where his money purse was and drew out extra money for them.

“Wine money — wine money,” he said in his loud cheerful voice.

They smiled, the sun glistening on their brown faces. “Our thanks,” they replied, and drove the empty cart away.

One by one the camels knelt before the gates, blowing and sighing and puffing out their loose lips, and quickly their loads were taken off and carried in. Then the camel tenders led the beasts to their stables, and the gates were locked. So great was the curiosity of the people on the streets that many passers-by would have pressed into the courtyards to see the foreign goods, but the gateman would not allow them. “Stand back!” he roared. “Are you robbers and thieves?”

Inside his own walls Ezra led Kao Lien toward the great hall. On his other side David clung fondly to Kao Lien’s arm.

“I want to hear everything, Elder Uncle,” he said. There was no blood relationship between Ezra and Kao Lien, but they had grown up as boys together, for Kao Lien’s grandfather had been Jewish, although his father had taken a Chinese wife, who was Kao Lien’s mother, and Kao Lien had been useful to Ezra in his business with Chinese merchants. Kao Lien was a man who was Jewish with the Jews and Chinese with the Chinese.

Now his long narrow face looked weary as he walked over the sunlit stones of the courts. A kind smile played over his lips, half hidden by his somewhat scanty beard, and his dark eyes were gentle. His voice was low and his words came slowly and he shaped them with grace.

“I have much to tell,” he said.

Ahead of them Madame Ezra stood at the door of the great hall, and Kao Lien saw her and bowed his head in greeting.

“We welcome you home,” she called.

“God is good!” Kao Lien replied.

He entered as she stepped back and he made an obeisance before her to which she replied by bending her head, signifying that he was not quite her equal. A hint of amusement stole into Kao Lien’s eyes, but he was used to her ways and it would have been out of his nature to mind her pride.

“Where shall we spread the goods, Lady?” he asked. He always asked her direction if she were present, but he knew, and Ezra knew that he knew, that for him the man was the true head of the house.

“I will sit here in my own chair,” Madame Ezra replied, “and you may open the loads one by one before me.”

She sat down and Ezra sat opposite. Wang Ma came forward and poured tea and a manservant offered sweet tidbits on a porcelain tray divided into parts. By now all the servants were crowding quietly into the room. They stood along the walls to watch what went on. David was pulling at the ropes of the first load, hastening to get it open.

“Gently, Young Master,” Kao Lien said. “There is something precious in that load.”

He stepped over bundles and stuffs and he worked at the knot that David had been tearing. It seemed to fall open beneath his long and nimble fingers. Within the coarse cloth wrapping was a metal box. He opened the lid and lifted out of the inner packing a large gold object.

“A clock!” David cried. “But whoever saw such a clock?”

“It is no ordinary one,” Kao Lien said proudly.

Ezra looked with doubt at the golden figures of nude children, whose hands upheld the clock. “It is very handsome,” he said. “Those golden children are fat and well made. But who will want it?”

Kao Lien smiled with some triumph. “Do you remember that Kung Chen asked me to bring a gift for the Imperial Palace? He wishes to present it when the new shops are opened in the northern capital. This I bought for the gift.”

Ezra was much struck. “The very thing!” he exclaimed. “No common man could use it. The Imperial Palace — ah, yes!” He stroked his beard and was pleased as he contemplated the great clock. “This should make the contract between Kung Chen and me easy, eh, brother?”

“I wish I could open the back of this clock,” David now said. “I would like to know how it makes its energy.”

“No, no,” Ezra said hastily. “You could never get it together again. Put it away, Kao Lien, Brother — it is too valuable. Do not tell me what it cost!”

There was laughter at this, and the servants, who had been staring at the golden children with admiration, watched it put away with reverence in their eyes, thinking that when next it was open, it would be before the Peacock Throne. Only David was reluctant to see it put into the box again.

“I wish I could go westward with Kao Lien next time, Father,” he said. “There must be many wonders in the other countries that we do not have here.”

“Young Master, do not leave us,” Wang Ma exclaimed. “An only son must not leave his parents until there is a grandson.”

Madame Ezra looked somewhat majestic at this intrusion by Wang Ma. “Some day we will all go,” she said. “This is not our country, my son. We have another.”

At this Ezra in his turn was displeased. He waved his hand at Kao Lien and he said, “Come, come, show us what other things you have.”

Kao Lien hastened to obey, well knowing that upon this matter of the promised land of their fathers Ezra and his wife could not agree, and he ordered the loads opened until their contents were spread about and the whole hall glittered with toys and stuffs, with music boxes and jumping figures and dolls and curiosities of every sort, with satins and velvets and fine cottons, with carpets and cushions and even furs from the north. All were bewitched by what they saw, and Ezra computed his profits secretly. When everything was shown, each of its kind, he chose a gift for every servant and member of the family. For Peony he put aside a little gold comb, and to Wang Ma he gave a bolt of good linen, and to Madame Ezra, his wife, he gave a bolt of beautiful crimson velvet, every thread of which, warp and woof, was of silk.

As for David, he moved in a dream from one thing to another of the riches spread before him, speechless with pleasure. The more he saw, the more he longed to know the countries from which these marvels came and the people who were so clever as to make them. It seemed to him that these must be the best people in the world. To conceive this beauty, such colors and shapes, to make the beauty into solid forms and shimmering stuffs and rich materials, into machines and energies, surely this must be the work of brave and noble people, great nations, mighty civilizations. He longed more than ever to travel westward and see for himself those men who could dream so high and make such reality. Perhaps he himself belonged more to those people than he did here. Had not his own ancestors come from west of India?

Ezra looked uneasily at his son. David was at the age when all his natural curiosities were coming awake, and his heart was impatient with unfulfilled desires. Were his mother to give him her constant longing to leave this country, which she insisted upon calling a place of exile, how could Ezra alone circumvent the two of them? David loved pleasure and Ezra encouraged him in friendships with the young men of the city, but what if these pleasures grew familiar and stale? As he watched his son, it seemed to Ezra that David was not today as he had been in other years. He did not exclaim over each toy and object and marvel, pleased with the thing itself. A deeper perception was in his son’s eyes and apparent in his face and manner. David was thinking, his heart was slipping out of him.

“My son!” Ezra cried.

“Yes, Father?” David answered, scarcely hearing.

“Choose something for yourself, my son!” Ezra cried in a loud voice, to bring David back again into his home.

“How can I choose?” David murmured. “I want everything.”

Ezra made himself laugh heartily. “Now, now,” he cried in the same loud voice. “My business will be ruined!”

Everyone was looking to see what David would choose, but he would not be hastened.

“Choose that fine blue stuff,” Madame Ezra said. “It will make you a good coat.”

“I do not want that,” David said, and he continued to walk about, to look here and there, to touch this and that.

“Choose that little gold lamp, Young Master,” Wang Ma suggested. “I will fill it with oil and set it on your table.”

“I have a lamp,” David replied, and he continued to search for what his heart might most desire.

“Come, come!” Ezra cried.

“Let him take his time,” Kao Lien begged.

So they all waited, the servants at first half laughing, to discover what this most beloved in the house should choose for himself.

Suddenly David saw something he had not seen before. It was a long narrow sword in a silver wrought scabbard. He pulled it out from under bolts of silks, and looked at it. “This—” he began.

“Jehovah forbid!” Kao Lien cried out.

“Is it wrong for me to choose this?” David asked, surprised.

“It is I that am wrong,” Kao Lien declared. He went forward and tried to draw the sword from David’s grasp. The young man was unwilling, but Kao Lien persisted until he held the sword. “I should not have brought it into the house,” he said. Then he turned to Ezra. “Yet it is my proof. I told myself that if you saw this sword, Elder Brother, you would believe—”

But David had put out his hand and Kao Lien felt the sword drawn away from him again. David held it now in both hands, and he loved it as he looked at it. Never had he seen so strong, so delicate, so perfect a weapon.

“It is a beautiful thing,” he murmured.

“Put it down,” his mother said suddenly.

But David did not heed her.

Kao Lien had been looking at all this with horror growing upon his subtle and sensitive face. “Young Master,” he said. His voice, always pitched low, was so laden with meaning that everyone in the room turned to hear him.

“What now, Brother?” Ezra inquired. He was astonished at David’s choice. What need had his son of a weapon?

“That sword, Young Master,” Kao Lien said, “it is not for you. I brought it back as a token of what I saw. When I have told its evil, I shall destroy the sword.”

“Evil?” David repeated, his eyes still on the sword. His parents were silent. Had he looked at them, he would have seen their faces suddenly intent and aware and set in fear. But he was looking only at the beautiful sword.

Kao Lien looked at them and well he understood what they were thinking. “Before I crossed the western border, I was warned by rumors,” he said. “They are killing our people again.”

Madame Ezra gave a great shriek and she covered her face with her hands. Ezra did not speak. At the sound of his mother’s cry David looked up.

“Killing?” he repeated, not understanding.

Kao Lien nodded solemnly. “May you never know what that means, Young Master! I went onward, thinking that the westerners would believe I was a Chinese. Yet had I known what I was to see — I would have gone a thousand miles out of my way!”

He paused. Not a voice asked him what he had seen. Ezra’s face was white above his dark beard and he leaned his head on his hands and hid his eyes. Madame Ezra did not take her hands from her face. David waited, his eyes on Kao Lien, and he felt his spine prickle with unknown terror. The servants stared, their mouths hanging open.

“Yet it is well for you to know what I saw,” Kao Lien said, and now he looked at David. “You do not know that in the West our people are not free to live where they choose in a city. They must live only where they are allowed to live, and it is always in the poorer parts. But even there they were driven out. I saw their homes in ruins, the doors hanging on their hinges, windows shattered, their shops robbed and ruined. That was not all. I saw our people fleeing along the roadsides, men and women and children. That was not all.” Kao Lien paused and went on. “I saw hundreds dead — old men, women, children, young men who had fought rather than try to escape — our people! They had been killed by swords and knives and guns and poison and fire. I picked up that sword from a side street. It was covered with blood.”

David dropped the sword and it clanged upon the floor. He looked down at it, and felt dazed and choked. In those countries of whose beauty he had been dreaming — even this sword was beautiful — Kao Lien had seen this!

“But why?” he asked.

“Who knows?” Kao Lien asked, sighing. How could he make this young David understand, who had all his life lived in safety and peace? What ancient curse was upon their people elsewhere that did not hold under these Eastern skies?

“What had they done?” David’s voice rang through the great hall. He looked at his father and his mother and back to Kao Lien.

“Nothing!” Madame Ezra cried, and she lifted her face from her hands

“Even though we sinned,” Kao Lien exclaimed, “are we among all mankind never to be forgiven?”

But Ezra was silent.

Now the servants, feeling distress in the air and being moved to pity by what they had heard, came forward to pour tea and to put away the goods. Only then did Ezra come to himself. He took his hand away from his face and he drank a bowl of tea. When Wang Ma had filled it again, he held it in both hands as though to warm himself.

“As long as we live here, we are safe,” he said at last. “Kao Lien, take the sword, melt it into its pure metal. We will forget that we saw it.”

Before Kao Lien could move to obey, David stooped and grasped the sword again by its hilt. “I still choose the sword!” he declared.

Ezra groaned but Madame Ezra spoke. “Let him keep it,” she said to Ezra. “Let him remember that by it our people have died.”

Ezra put down the bowl and rubbed his hands over his head, and sighed again. “Naomi, it is the thing he should not remember!” he exclaimed. “Why should our son fear when none pursue him?”

“Father, I will remember — forever!” David cried. He stood straight, the sword in his hand, his head high, his eyes passionate.

At this moment there was a footstep at the door and Leah was there. David saw her in her scarlet and gold, her dark hair bound back, her great black eyes burning, her red lips parted.

“Leah!” he cried.

“I heard what Kao Lien told you.” Her voice was clear and soft. “I heard about our people. I was standing behind the curtain.”

“Come in, child,” Madame Ezra said. “I was about to send for you.”

“I knew I should come,” she replied in the same soft voice. “I felt it — here.”

She clasped her hands together on her breast and she looked at David. He gazed back at her, startled out of himself, and as though he had never seen her before. At this moment she came before him, a woman.

Madame Ezra watched them, and she leaned forward in her seat, and everyone else watched her. She smiled, yearning toward those two. Ezra watched from under his brows, his lips pursed and silent, and Kao Lien watched, smiling half sadly, and Wang Ma watched and her lips were bitter.

But Leah saw only David. He stood so tall and he grasped the silver sword in his right hand. He was more beautiful in her eyes than the morning star and more to be desired than life itself. He was manhood to her womanhood, theirs was one blood, and she forgot everything except that he was there and that his face was tender, his eyes warm upon her. She came to him as to the sun, hesitating and yet compelled.

Madame Ezra turned to the Chinese. “Go — all of you,” she commanded in a low voice. “Leave us to ourselves.”

The servants slipped away. Even Wang Ma left her post and hurried out by a side door. Small Dog, asleep in the sun on the stone doorstep, awoke, lifted her head, whined, and getting up, she too went away.

Leah smiled at David. “Another David, the sword of Goliath in your hand,” she said. Suddenly tears filled her eyes. She stepped forward, and stooping, she kissed the silver scabbard of the sword he held. He saw her bowed before him, the soft dark hair curled upon her creamy nape. Around them his father, his mother, Kao Lien stood, watching them.

Peony watched them, too, unseen. Wang Ma had hastened to her door, and finding it locked, she had beaten upon it. “Peony, you fool and child of a fool!” she shouted. “Open the door! Are you sleeping?”

Peony opened the door, frightened at Wang Ma’s strange voice.

“Quick!” Wang Ma said between her teeth. “Go to the great hall — break in as though you knew nothing — drive them apart with a laugh.”

Without one word Peony had flown thither on silent feet. Still silent, she had pulled the curtain aside and had looked in. There stood David, holding a sword, while the elders watched, and upon this sword Leah pressed her lips. What rite was this? Was it their foreign way of declaring betrothal? No, no, she could not speak — she could not laugh! She dared not break the moment. What did it mean? She dropped the curtain and fled back to her room, her soft eyes dark with terror.