Peony

V

AFTER 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.

Now, although Kung Chen had ceased to think of love, the little romance of the fish brought it back to him for a moment, a forgotten dream, and he sighed. Love passed swiftly and no man could put off its end, and marriage had nothing to do with love. If his daughter fancied the young foreigner, and if the family welcomed her, as assuredly any family would welcome a daughter of his, then it remained for him a matter of business. If he denied his daughter to Ezra’s son, it would be painful to do business with Ezra thereafter. The contract pending between them could never be signed. Ezra would take it to another merchant, and of good merchants there was a plenty in the city, though none so rich as he. It would be very irksome to see one of them benefit from Ezra’s foreign goods. Yes, marriage could be a good connection for him to make with the House of Ezra. It would make their partnership something more than business. All business should have its human connections. The more human every relationship could be, the more sound it was, the more lasting. Kung Chen did not altogether trust Ezra as an honest man any more than he trusted himself. Where large sums of money were concerned, no man could be sure of any man. But if Ezra and he poured their separate bloods into one, then they were one, and dishonesty became absurd.

“Call it only shrewdness,” he murmured to the fish.

Well, his Little Three would be happier in the foreign house if Peony were there, a young Chinese girl, to be her playmate. He must talk with Little Three, if the marriage was to be arranged. But first he should talk with her mother.

Upon this Kung Chen rose reluctantly and sauntered toward his wife’s court, and he clapped his hands at her door. A maidservant came running, and seeing him invited him to enter.

“Is my son’s mother at leisure?” he inquired.

“My mistress is sitting in the sunshine, doing nothing,” the maid told him.

So Kung Chen went in and found his fat, middle-aged wife sitting in a large wicker chair, a tortoise-shell cat before her tossing a mouse it had caught. She looked up when he came, her face covered with smiles.

“Look at this clever cat!” she exclaimed. “It has caught two mice today.”

“I thought you were a Buddhist,” he said teasingly.

“I kill no mice,” his lady retorted.

“You are not a cat,” he said.

“No,” she agreed.

“Nor the cat a Buddhist,” he went on.

To this pleasantry she made no reply, only continuing to watch the cat. But Kung Chen did not mind. Long ago he had comprehended that hers was a pleasant little mind, not deeper than a cup, and he must not pour it too full. He had measured it exactly and they never quarreled. Now he sat down so that he could not see the cat, who was daintily crushing the mouse’s bones.

“I have come to ask your advice about our Little Three,” he began.

His wife made a gesture of impatience with her plump gold-ringed hands. “That naughty girl!” she exclaimed. “She will not learn her embroidery and I am sure Chu Ma does it for her.”

“Little Three takes after me — I never liked to embroider,” Kung Chen said. His face was grave but his eyes twinkled.

His wife looked up at him in simple surprise. “You were never taught to embroider!” she exclaimed.

“No,” he agreed. “Had I been, I should have hated it. She is my daughter — forgive me!”

Madame Kung smiled, perceiving that he was joking again, and fell silent, enjoying the cat. Her plump hands lay on the lap of her pearl-gray satin robe like half-open flowers of yellow lotus. She had been so pretty when she was young that it had taken Kung Chen some years to discover that she was stupid.

“Well?” she asked after a long silence.

“I am about to have another proposal for our Little Three,” Kung Chen said.

“Who wants her now?” Madame Kung asked. There had been many proposals for each of their daughters. Any rich family with a son thought first of a daughter of Kung.

“The foreigner Ezra is considering her for his son, David,” Kung Chen said.

Madame Kung looked indignant. “Shall we consider him?” she asked.

Kung Chen replied in a mild voice, “I think so. They are very rich and Ezra and I have planned a new contract. There is only the one son, and Little Three will not have to contend with other sons’ wives.”

“But a foreigner!” she objected.

“Have you ever seen them?” Kung Chen asked.

Madame Kung shook her head. “I have heard about them,” she said. “They have high noses and big eyes. I do not want a grandson with a big nose and big eyes.”

“Little Three’s nose is almost too small,” Kung Chen said tolerantly. “Moreover, you know our Chinese blood always smooths away extremes. By the next generation the children will look Chinese.”

“I hear the foreigners are very fierce,” Madame Kung objected.

“Fierce?” Kung Chen repeated.

“They have religious fever,” Madame Kung said. “They will not eat this and that, and they pray every day and they have no god that can be seen but they fear him very much and they say our gods are false. All this is uncomfortable. Our Little Three might even have to worship a strange god.”

“Little Three has never done anything she did not want to do,” Kung Chen said, smilingly.

“With many young men wanting her, why should we choose a foreign husband for her?” Madame Kung asked.

The cat had now consumed the mouse, except the head, and she took this and put it neatly behind the door. Madame Kung was so diverted that she laughed and forgot what they were talking about.

“Aside from business,” Kung Chen said with patience, “I do not believe in separating people into different kinds. All human beings have noses, eyes, arms, legs, hearts, stomachs, and so far as I have been able to learn, we all reproduce in the same fashion.”

Madame Kung was interested when he mentioned reproduction. “I have heard that foreigners open their stomachs and take their children out of a hole they have there,” she said.

“It is not true,” Kung Chen replied.

“How do you know?” she asked.

“My friend Ezra and I attend the same bath house and he is made as I am, except that he has much hair on his body.”

Madame Kung showed still more lively interest. “I have heard that this hairiness is because foreigners are nearer the monkeys than we are.” Then she looked concerned. “Suppose our Little Three does not like a hairy man?”

“Our Little Three will never see any man except the man she marries,” Kung Chen said. “Therefore she will not know she does not like his hairiness.”

They had now come to the crux of the matter and Kung Chen put the question to her. “Then if I receive the proposal?”

“If?” Madame Kung interrupted.

“When I receive the proposal,” he corrected himself, “I shall accept it?”

It was partly affirmation, and she nodded indifferently. It was easier to yield to him than not.

“We have so many girls,” she murmured and yawned, and he saw she was ready to think of other things and so he went away. From the gate of the court he looked back. She had composed herself for sleep and her eyes were closed.

For a moment he was half angry. It was in his mind to go to his daughter and speak to her, since her mother cared so little what she did. Then he decided against it. It was too soon. Better it would be to wait until he had the proposal in his hand. Better even then to consider a while longer — his Little Three was very young. Nevertheless, he felt himself so disturbed that he knew his day of rest was ended. He turned his footsteps and moved in his slow stately fashion toward the great gate that opened to the street. His satin-curtained mule cart waited always ready for his coming. The gate-man shouted and the muleteer sprang to his feet. Kung Chen stepped into his cart.

“Take me to my countinghouse,” he commanded. The muleteer cracked his whip and Kung Chen was on his way.

At the synagogue on that Sabbath day Madame Ezra planned while she worshiped. Her busy mind ran hither and thither about her plan. Purposely she had not told Ezra that she would invite the Rabbi to be her guest for a while. For how long? Who knew? Perhaps a week, even a month — at least until David spoke his willingness to take Leah for his wife. Had she told Ezra, he would have exclaimed that David must not be forced. Yet it was not force she planned — it was the will of God.

The will of God — the sweet peace of these words filled her spirit. But the synagogue was a place of peace. Ruin was not too evident — not yet. The curtains were old, but they were still whole, thanks to the women who mended them tenderly. Most of the Jews were poor, and their homes were clustered about the synagogue. Madame Ezra felt guilty sometimes that she did not share the poverty of the small community, all that was left of the once large one.

Where had the Jews gone? It was a matter to puzzle them all. Without persecution or any sort of unkindness from the Chinese, they had disappeared, each generation fewer in number than the one before. Madame Ezra was angry when she thought of this. It was, of course, easier to sink into becoming a Chinese, easier to take on easygoing godless ways, than it was to remain a Jew. All the more reason, therefore, for her to live strictly, in spite of her wealth — perhaps, indeed, because of her wealth. A poor Jew might be constrained to choose between God and money. She had no such compulsion. With such thoughts she renewed her determination. As soon as the worship was over, she would stay behind and go to the Rabbi. When her plan was secure, she would tell Ezra. It was not difficult to stay behind, for in the synagogue a high carved wooden partition separated men from women, and it was her habit to worship separately from Ezra. Leah was at her side, and David was with his father. She would send Leah home with Wang Ma while she herself went to the Rabbi.

Peace descended upon her as she saw her way clear, and she lifted her eyes to look at the Rabbi as he stood beside the Chair of Moses upon which the sacred Torah was placed. He wore long black robes and about his black-capped head was wrapped a fine white cloth that streamed down his back. He was reading aloud, while Aaron, dressed in the same fashion, except that his cap was blue, turned the pages. The Rabbi seemed to read, but actually he recited from memory, page after page. If he faltered, which was seldom, Aaron prompted him in a loud voice.

When the service was over, Madame Ezra discovered that the Rabbi did not come easily to the house of Ezra. When she explained, when she begged him to come at once, he shook his great bearded head. “Let your son come here to me to learn from the Torah,” he said firmly.

Madame Ezra wailed aloud at this. “Father, why should I hide anything from you? What if he does not come? Just now, yes, he is very eager. He is moved by what Kao Lien said of the murder of our people. But he is young. There will be days when he does not want to come. He will make an excuse of a game or of sleep or of playing with birds or the dog or writing a poem — anything! But if you are in the house, he cannot escape you.”

The Rabbi considered this. “I am a servant of the Lord,” he declared at last. “It is of Him that I must inquire.”

Now Madame Ezra, being a woman of impetuous nature, felt that she must say more. The will of God was clear to her and it must be made equally clear to this stubborn good old man.

“You know, Father, I say without any vanity that ours is the leading Jewish family,” she now told him. She saw a certain smile flicker about the blind Rabbi’s mouth and she hastened on. “Yes, yes, I know that Ezra is a man divided in heart, and I can tell you with truth that many a night I have wept because of his pleasure-loving ways. But I have tried the more, Father, to do duty for us both, and you know that is true.”

“I know,” the Rabbi said gently.

“Yet I cannot live forever,” Madame Ezra went on, “and I must see my only son set in the way of his fathers. If he marries Leah—”

The Rabbi looked surprised. “Is he not to marry her?” he asked.

“Of course he is,” Madame Ezra said with some impatience. “But we cannot say he is married to her until the act is done. You do not understand young men and women these days, Father. I assure you that David, left to himself, would be the best of sons, but Chinese girls are always looking at him. I shall not be sure until—”

“Does David look at them?” the Rabbi interposed.

Madame Ezra evaded this. “He will not look at anybody after he is married to Leah.”

“Why does he not marry Leah at once?” the Rabbi asked innocently.

Madame Ezra sighed. “Father, to speak plainly, David must first want to marry her.”

At this the Rabbi looked very grave indeed. “Does he not want to marry her?” he asked.

“A young man often does not know what he wants until it is pointed out to him,” Madame Ezra retorted.

The Rabbi considered this for some time, sitting with his head bowed and his hands clasped on his staff. Then he lifted his head as though he could see. “What have I to do with this?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Madame Ezra said quickly. “It is entirely my duty — and Leah will help me. But what you must do, Father, is to guide David into the way of Jehovah. Instruct him, Father, teach him the Torah, incline his heart to the Lord — and we will do the rest.”

The Rabbi considered this. Then he said, “Still, I will go before Jehovah and inquire of Him. Leave me, my daughter.”

Madame Ezra rose with vigor from her chair. “I will obey you, Father.” Her rich voice was angry. “May it be soon that you come to us!”

She returned to her home and the Rabbi returned to the synagogue through a covered passage from his house. He knew every step of his way, and his feet fitted into the slightly worn hollows in the stones of the floor. It had been many years since he had seen the synagogue with his eyes, but he had other senses. Thus now he could smell mildew on the hangings, and he touched doors, table, altar, and he felt dust like sand between his too sensitive finger tips. By the soles of his feet he knew the floors had not been swept, even for the Sabbath. But it seemed to him that someone was here and he listened. Yes, he heard a slow deep breathing.

“Who is asleep in the house of the Lord?” he asked loudly.

The breathing ended in a snort. A half-strangled voice answered out of sleep, “Eh? It’s only me, Teacher — Old Eli! I fell asleep. Is the worship over?”

It was Rachel’s husband, whose duty it was to keep the synagogue clean.

“You should not sleep here,” the Rabbi said. “The worship is long over.”

“It is so quiet here,” Old Eli said in apology. “Except on holy days there is no one here but you, Teacher, and this is not your hour.”

“Come here,” the Rabbi commanded him suddenly. He waited until he heard the man’s shambling footsteps come near. Then he said, “Tell me — what of the silver vessels?”

Old Eli coughed the tinny cough of the aged. “Those vessels,” he muttered. “Well—”

“Tell me!” the Rabbi said sharply.

“They’re pewter now,” Eli said.

“I felt the difference,” the Rabbi muttered. “I knew it when I held them this morning.” He lifted his head and upon his face there was inexpressible pain.

“Why do you trouble yourself, Teacher?” Eli asked in pity. “Young priests are always—” he broke off.

The Rabbi began to tremble. “Tell me what my son has done,” he commanded.

Old Eli coughed and delayed and wiped his head and face with his sleeve but he could not disobey. He laughed painfully to show nothing was sorrowful and then he said comfortingly, “The pewter vessels are silver-washed and they look just as the old ones did. You know the Chinese pewter workers are clever and when the young teacher told them—”

“My son has sold the silver vessels from the synagogue!” the Rabbi muttered.

“But do not let him know I told you,” Old Eli said in a small voice.

“And only I knew the difference!” the old Rabbi muttered. “Those who came to worship—”

“Not many come now, Teacher,” Old Eli said to comfort him.

The Rabbi wavered and Eli tottered forward and put his hands under the Rabbi’s elbows. “Come with me, Teacher,” he said. “Come and rest. You are too old to grieve. Old people should be happy, like children. Now is your time to sleep and sit in the sun and eat good food and let all serve you.”

“You talk like a Chinese,” the Rabbi said.

He spoke bitterly but Old Eli laughed. “Eh, yes — but of my seven parts six parts are Chinese! Outside the synagogue they call me Old Li. I answer to the name.”

As he spoke he guided the Rabbi tenderly out of the synagogue and into his house again, and there he sat him down and busied himself with everything to make him comfortable. He went to the kitchen and bade Rachel bring a bowl of broth, and the Rabbi let him do what he would. He sat like one stunned by a stone fallen upon his head. Only once he spoke while he supped his broth, and it was to say in the voice of a broken heart, “You are kinder to me than my own son is.”

“Now, now,” Old Eli said, “young priests — it’s hard for them.”

After Eli had gone, the Rabbi took these words and turned them over in his mind. “Yes,” he murmured after a long time, “yes, it is hard for my son. O Jehovah! If another is to take his place, Thy will be done. I will go to the house of Ezra.”

Thus it was the Rabbi found the will of God. The next day after this Sabbath, taking with him Aaron, he went to the house of Ezra. But he bade Rachel stay in his house and keep it ready for their return. To Aaron, his son, the Rabbi said nothing, either in reproof or in sorrow.

For three days Peony kept in her table drawer the poem that Kueilan had bade her give David, awaiting a proper time to give it to him. Such a time did not come. For after the Sabbath he withdrew himself, spending much time with his father in the counting-house. He was little at home, indeed, and when he came late in the evening, he avoided all women and sat alone in his rooms, reading. Peony waited for this mood to pass, knowing it useless to force his heart out of its hermitage. Then before she could find the moment she sought, the Rabbi came with his son, Aaron, and they were put into the court next to Ezra’s.

Now David was cut off from her indeed. She served him in her usual ways, but more quietly than she had before, and her eyes were pensive. He did not seem to see her. He spent his mornings with the Rabbi and the old man commanded Aaron to sit with them too. Aaron, somewhat afraid in this great house where everything was under the eyes of Madame Ezra, did not rebel. Peony took care to be the one sometimes to bring hot tea to the room that she might see how it went with David, and she saw him poring over the books unrolled and open upon the table before him, and Aaron fidgeting and always ready to look up and out the door. This Aaron had learned to be silent whatever he did, so that his blind father could not know how his eyes roved and how he yawned. Then after a few days Leah came, too, to read the books. This was because David had told his mother how troublesome was Aaron and Madame Ezra grew alarmed lest Aaron anger David, and so she bade Leah be present, and if Aaron were disobedient, Madame Ezra declared, she herself would come. This Leah was to tell Aaron to frighten him, and she did.

When Peony saw that every day Leah was to be there at David’s side she knew that she could not wait for an opportune time. One night when she took the last pot of hot tea to David’s sitting room as she used to do until this change had come into the house, she paused and coughed. He was in his bedroom, and some new delicacy now forbade her to go in as freely as she had.

He came to the door at once to inquire what she wanted. He had taken off his outer robe and he stood in his white silk inner coat and trousers, his eyes clear, his cheeks red, and seeing him, Peony’s ready heart melted with love.

“I bring you tea,” she said softly.

“Why do you tell me?” he asked in surprise. “Why do you not bring it in as you always did?”

Then she came in, and after she had set down the tea she put her hand into her pocket and drew out the folded paper and held it toward him. “I have waited to give you this,” she said, “but no good time seems to come because you are so busy now.”

He took it and sat down and she stood while he read the poem, and he looked up and saw her standing. “Sit down,” he commanded her. So she sat down and he read the poem over again. Then he lifted his eyes to hers. “It is very pretty,” he said. “Did she write it?”

“With her own brush I saw her write it,” Peony replied. Then she confessed to him, “I took her your poem — the unfinished one.”

“You saw her?” he repeated, not seeming to care what Peony had done.

She nodded.

He leaned upon the table. “How did she look?” he asked.

Peony shook her head. “It is better not to speak of her.”

“And why?” he asked. His eyes were inscrutable, and he continued to hold the poem.

Peony looked sorrowful. “She is gentle, young, pretty — so soft — she must not be crushed.”

David flushed somewhat. “I do not know what you mean,” he argued.

Peony looked steadily grave. “Ah, yes, you know,” she retorted. “Having seen you, she is ready to love you, poor little beauty, and when she knows—” She paused.

“Knows what?” David prompted her.

She shook her head and was silent and he grew angry. He threw the poem on the table. “Now, Peony, I command you to tell me what you mean. If there is one thing I hate above another it is a woman who hints in and out and around something that she has in her mind and will not speak it out.”

At this Peony grew angry too, and she put her eyes full upon him and spoke passionately. “You must not see her — that is what I mean! She is beginning to think about you, and she must not!”

“This is not for you to say,” he retorted. “Why do you want to part me from her?”

Secretly David was amazed at his own guile. Had he not allowed Leah to think he loved her? The memory of that moment in the peach garden when Leah had stood in his arms came back to him, as it had many times in these few days. It was welcome and unwelcome. Sometimes his blood ran swifter at the thought of her. When he saw her face, earnest and lovely, bent above the Torah, or lifted to look with devotion at her father, he was moved. And yet David was coming to understand that his marriage was no ordinary one. When he chose, it would be for more than himself. However he might wish he were like other men, he knew he was not.

“I am not thinking of you,” Peony said, “I am thinking of Kueilan.”

He felt suddenly angry with Peony. “You used to think of me!” he cried.

“Why should I any more?” Peony asked.

Her voice rang with a harshness he had never heard before and her face was smooth and cold. He was shocked. “Peony!” he said. “What has happened to you?”

She bent her head. “Nothing has happened to me,” she said. “It is you—”

“But I am just the same,” he insisted.

She shook her head. “Not now.”

He put out his hand across the table and caught hers. She tried to pull hers away.

“Let me go!” she cried.

“No!” he cried back. “Not until you have told me how she looked!” This he said to cover his confusion.

There was a long pause. He held her hand, locking his fingers into hers, and she could scarcely keep hers from trembling. She wanted to pull her hand from his and she wanted him to hold it. She was about to weep and her heart beat hard against her breast. Then she began in a small voice, not looking at him:

“She — she wore a — a fern-green—”

“Her face,” he commanded.

“But you know she is very pretty,” she said.

“Tell me how pretty,” he commanded.

So she began again. “Well — well — her mouth is small, the lower lip a little more full than the upper, red as pomegranate — such small white teeth — a small tongue — when she wrote the poem I could see her tongue like a kitten’s, touching her lip.” She paused.

“What else?” he demanded.

“Her eyes — very black — and shaped like apricots — eyebrows like willow leaves, you know — and her face more long than round, perhaps — tiny pale ears — she had a rose in her hair.”

“Go on,” David commanded.

“I leaned over her while she wrote — her breath was as sweet as a flower — and her little hand — it is even smaller than mine.”

He opened her hand upon his. “You have a small hand,” he said.

She looked at him. “Do not make her love you,” she said pleadingly.

Now he dropped her hand and she let it lie there, lonely on the table. “How do you know she thinks of me?” he asked.

Peony withdrew her hand, and folded both hands into her wide sleeves. “I know,” she said in a low voice, and drooped her head.

“Tell me!”

“That I cannot. I only feel it.”

Now silence fell between them and David rose and went to his shelves of books and stood looking at them. He was not thinking of them, she knew.

“I wish to see her again for myself,” he said, not turning.

She hid her smile behind her sleeves. “No,” she said.

He strode to the table and struck it with the palm of his hand. “Yes!” he cried.

“You are very wicked,” she declared.

“How do I know what I must do unless I see her again?” he asked.

She considered. “If I arrange it, will you promise me that you will not write her any more or ask to see her any more or do anything to break her heart any more?”

His eyelids wavered and he smiled. “I promise you this: After I have seen her I will make up my mind whether I want to write her or see her any more.”

Their eyes met, full and long. Then she rose in her graceful fashion.

“Let it be a promise between us,” she said firmly. She put her hand to the teapot, and feeling it still hot, she bade him sleep and went away, well pleased with herself.

In the midst of all that went on in his house Ezra remained in unwonted silence. He had been too shaken by Kao Lien’s story to become indifferent to it, even though his bustling cheerful days dulled the edge of memory. In a strange way his wife was his conscience, and however he rebelled, he always feared lest she might be right in some fashion that he could not discern. Where business was concerned, all was clear to him. Where God was concerned, he was in waters deeper than his soul. Naomi made him remember his Jewish father, whom he loved and feared, a sad man, gentle in all things, but incurably sorrowful, for what reason Ezra never knew. When he was a child his father’s sadness had made Ezra feel guilty, and yet somehow it was not his own guilt, but his Chinese mother’s, which he shared. Yet he heard no word of blame, and certainly his mother felt neither sin nor sadness, nor, when he was with her, did Ezra.

After his mother died, however, the old sense of guilt rested on him alone, and partly because of this he had been willing to marry the young Naomi at his father’s wish. He went very gravely for a while after his marriage, anxious to please his handsome bride; then, feeling that whatever he did he could not please her enough, he began to live as he had before, and he grew cheerful again. Cheerful he was, that is, unless the dark pool of old unexplained guilt in his soul was stirred, and Kao Lien had stirred it when he told of the massacred Jews.

Part of what went on now in his household Ezra saw, the rest his Chinese servants told him. He kept silent, comprehending everything because he was divided in himself. Thus he knew through Wang Ma’s shrewd eyes that the Rabbi was dreaming a great dream and it was that if his own son, Aaron, should fail as the leader of the Jews, David might take his place. This indeed was true. The old man could not see David, but after he had taught him for many days, he said one day, “Come here, my son, let me know your face.”

So David came near.

“My son, kneel as before the Lord,” the Rabbi commanded him.

So David knelt, and the Rabbi touched his young face with the tips of his ten fingers, each finger so knowing, so conveying, that David felt as if a light played upon him. Then the Rabbi felt his strong shoulders and his broad chest and his slender waist and narrow thighs and, bidding the young man stand, he felt the straight-ness of his knees and his firm ankles and well-knit feet. He took one of David’s hands and then the other, and felt its shape and grasp. Then he stood up and felt the top of David’s head.

“You stand higher than I do, my son,” he said wondering.

While this was going on Aaron sat sullenly looking on.

“Ah, that you were my true son!” the Rabbi murmured to David. “Then would I praise the Lord.”

At this David felt pity for the pale ugly boy who glowered at them and he said, “It is not how a man looks, I think — or so my Confucian tutor has taught me.”

“Is that man still your tutor?” the Rabbi asked jealously.

David hesitated, then he replied, “My mother sent him away when you came.”

So Madame Ezra had done without asking anyone, but David hesitated because he did not wish to tell the Rabbi that he still met his tutor. But Ezra knew, for Wang Ma told him this, too, one night, chuckling as she did so.

“The young lord, your son, meets his old teacher in the late afternoon at his own house on the Street of the Faithful Widow,” she told Ezra. It was her habit to take Ezra every night before he slept a bowl of thin rice gruel, which he drank slowly, so that she could gossip to him. In this fashion he learned much that no one thought he knew. He looked a little grave when Wang Ma told him this and she made haste to say, “Should your son not learn of our teachers, also?”

Ezra considered while he drank the hot fragrant rice, the bowl held between both hands. “I cannot decide,” he said at last. “I think he should not, in honor to his mother, lest the Confucian undo all that the Rabbi does.”

“How is it that you are so harsh?” Wang Ma exclaimed pettishly. Long ago their youthful intimacy had made her free with Ezra as she was with no other.

“Our God is a jealous God,” Ezra replied.

“Gods are what men make them,” Wang Ma retorted. “It is the Jews who have made their own God.”

“Not me,” Ezra said, suddenly smiling.

His smile was so fresh and frank in his black beard that Wang Ma, remembering the young man he had once been, smiled back at him. Then she leaned toward him and began to whisper.

“Do not let your fine son be unhappy,” she said. “Yes, yes, you are a Jew, I know — you have to be — but tell me — No, you need not tell me — I know. When you remember your father was a Jew you are unhappy and sad, and when you remember your mother was Chinese you are happy and life is good.”

Ezra could not quite allow this all at once. “Perhaps I am unhappy sometimes because I know I am not a good Jew,” he said.

Wang Ma laughed at this. “You are happy when you remember that you are a good man and a rich man and a clever man,” she declared, “and what else matters?” She came closer. “Why, here in this city, everybody respects you for what you are. Who cares what your father was?”

She could always move him when she gave him her affectionate and robust praise. The approval that his wife never gave him this good Chinese woman gave with her whole heart and had given him since they were young together. He loved to be happy and she made him happy because she gave him courage in himself.

“Now then,” she argued, “ought you not to be doing business again with Kung Chen? Ever since the caravan came you have been doleful. You are at home too much. Men ought not to linger about a house. Leave that to women and to priests. Kung Chen will be wondering what has become of you. He is impatient to put the new goods on his counters.”

“You are right,” Ezra declared. “In the morning I will go early to his countinghouse.”

He got up and began to undress for bed and she took the bowl away. At the door he called her and she paused.

“Eh?” she asked.

“Let David visit his old tutor,” Ezra commanded.

“Why not?” Wang Ma returned amiably, and so they parted.

So David continued to do in secret what he had begun to do one day when the Rabbi had demanded that he learn by heart the curses that Jehovah put into the mouths of the prophets against the heathen: “Thou shalt surely kill him, thine hand shall be the first upon him to put him to death and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones that he die, because he sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God.”

Such words David learned, and he hated them even while he knew them to be the words of Jehovah. He dared not speak his hatred, and he found comfort by going to the little house of his tutor and sitting with the mild old man in his quiet court. There he listened to other words that the gentle Chinese read all day:

“To repay evil with kindness is the proof of a good man; a superior man blames himself, a common man blames others.

“We do not yet serve man as we should; how then can we know how to serve God?

“There is one word that can be the guide for our life — it is the word reciprocity. Do not unto others what you would not enjoy having them do to you.”

While the Rabbi sharpened David’s soul, these words comforted his heart, and at night he was able to sleep.

In the morning after he had talked with Wang Ma, Ezra woke filled with new energy and zest for his life. He loved to bargain in amiable and lively talk over a feast, and now he made up his mind that he would invite Kung Chen to a fine dinner at the teahouse on the Stone Bridge, which was the best in the city. Kao Lien must come too, and the three of them would talk together of new and better business. The times were good. There had been no famine in nearly a decade and they had a good governor and taxes were low, so that people had money with which to buy goods. Now was the time for trade.

He went out that morning without seeing any one of his family. Wang Ma and Old Wang served him together and there was no need for talk. Wang Ma, pleased with what she had done the night before, was all smiles and calm, and Old Wang was full of usual zeal to please his master, and the gateman was awake and clean and at his place, and Ezra’s mule cart waited outside. It was a bright gay morning in summer, and upon the street the people looked lively and well fed and ready to be amused. Riding among them, Ezra told himself it was folly indeed to cling to the dream of that narrow barren land of his ancestors. A good thing they did leave it, Ezra told himself. He was learned enough to know that Palestine was a small dry place, and had now been possessed for hundreds of years by nomads and heathen. Should we go back, he mused, would they let us come in? What madness not to stay here where we are welcome!

He asked himself if ever there could be hatred against him here, and he could not imagine it. No people had ever been killed in China because of their kind. True, these Chinese could be cruel enough against a man they hated, but because of what he himself did, not because of his kind. Once when Ezra was a boy he had seen a man from Portugal torn in pieces by angry people on the street, because he laid his hands on a young girl who had come with her father to the city to sell cabbages from their farm. Ezra had run out to see the sight, but all that was left of the man was his head, wrenched from his neck. The rest of him was mangled meat. The head was plain enough, a big thing with matted curly black hair and big black eyes still open and coarse lips once red, now white, set in a thick dark beard. But the man’s death had been his own fault, and all felt that only justice had been done. Had he been courteous as a stranger in their city, all would have welcomed him and none would have harmed him beyond staring at him with curiosity and perhaps with a little laughter at his coat of hair.

Ezra had already sent word of his coming to Kung Chen, and so the Chinese merchant was ready for him. He sat in the great room in his countinghouse, which was his place of business. The room was furnished with the most expensive goods, the floor of polished pottery tiles, the desk and tables and chairs of fine blackwood, carved delicately and without excess and inlaid with marble from Yunnan. The seats of the chairs were made comfortable with red satin cushions and at the windows there were shades made of slit bamboo woven with scarlet silk cord. Indeed, everything was shaped for comfort, but Ezra knew from the past that there was everything here, too, for business, cleverly concealed but near.

Kung Chen rose when Ezra entered, and bowed in the most friendly fashion. “How long has it been since we met?” he said kindly. “I sent my servant to inquire of your gateman if you were ill, but beyond that I did not wish to disturb you.”

“I must ask your forgiveness,” Ezra replied.

Each took his seat, and a door opened and a servant brought tea and a tray of sweetmeats of the best kinds and then he went away again.

“I hope there has not been a misfortune in your household,” Kung Chen said after they had sipped tea and eaten cakes.

“No,” Ezra said and hesitated. How could he explain to this urbane and good man what had been going on in his house? Then suddenly he decided that he would try to explain and see what this friend would say. Could it be that the Jews were wrong to all eyes except their own? Perhaps this good man would help him to understand why they were hated in so many lands, and if Jews were wrong, then why were they not hated here, too?

So Ezra began in the simple brusque fashion that was the only way he knew to talk. “Now, my friend,” he said, “I would ask you something but I do not know if I can make even you see what it is.”

“Try me,” Kung Chen said.

He looked so wise, so understanding, as he sat there in his handsome gown of dark blue satin, his smooth face smiling and his eyes content, that Ezra’s heart went out to him as to a brother.

“My father came of a strange people, Elder Brother,” he said. “I do not understand them altogether myself. Yet in one part of me I do understand them. You must know our history, perhaps—”

“Tell me,” Kung Chen said gently.

“A small people, a few among many,” Ezra said. “We were enslaved in Egypt—”

“How came you to be slaves?” Kung Chen inquired.

“How do I know?” Ezra returned. “The tradition is that we made Jehovah angry — somehow.”

“Jehovah?”

“The God of the Jews.”

A veil of gentle laughter passed over Kung Chen’s face, but he spoke courteously and with respect. “This is the tribal god of your people?” he suggested.

Ezra hesitated. “My father considered him the God of the Universe — the One True God.”

“We have never heard of him here,” Kung Chen said, “but go on, Elder Brother.”

“My father’s people were delivered from slavery by the hand of one of our leaders. He promised us — that is, God promised — that if we obeyed Him perfectly we might return to the land of our fathers.”

“And did your father return?” Kung Chen asked with interest.

“No, but some did,” Ezra said hesitating.

“Then how is it that you are scattered again?” Kung Chen inquired.

“Our people disobeyed God — mixed with the heathen and so on.” Ezra found it difficult to explain all this before the clear, tolerant Chinese eyes. He gave up abruptly. It was impossible. It did not sound reasonable.

“But what has all this to do with you now, my friend?” Kung Chen asked when Ezra was silent.

“I could say it has nothing to do with me,” Ezra replied, “except that Kao Lien brought evil news that now our people are being killed — thousands of them — across the mountains.”

“What evil did your people in those lands?” Kung Chen inquired.

“None,” Ezra said with energy. Of this he was sure.

“Then why do they suffer?” Kung Chen asked.

“That is what I should like to ask you,” Ezra said. “Judge of us who are here.”

Kung Chen shook his head. “I have no answer,” he replied. “I have never heard of such a thing. I should like to inquire of Kao Lien myself.”

This was Ezra’s opportunity. “I was about to invite you to feast with me this night,” he said. “I will bring Kao Lien also.”

“Thank you for your kindness,” Kung Chen replied.

“At the Stone Bridge?” Ezra suggested.

“The best place,” Kung Chen replied.

“When the moon rises?” Ezra said again.

“The best time,” Kung Chen replied. “But do me this further kindness, that I be host.”

After some polite argument Ezra agreed, and since business should not be discussed before a feast, after a little more talk he rose and bowed and the two friends parted, promising to meet again in the evening.

Each spent the day in his own fashion, but Kung Chen sent for some of the men in his countinghouse whom he trusted and he put certain questions to them concerning the small colony of Jews remaining in the city from ancient times. Two of the men were older than he and one was a partner of his father’s time, long past his seventieth year and at his desk only because he was loath to leave it. His love of work shamed his children very much but they could do nothing with him, and so every noon his eldest son, disapproving and silent, brought him here, and before sunset the son came and fetched him again, to show that however stubborn the father was, the children were filial.

He was an old man, Yang by surname and Anwei by name, and Kung Chen talked with him and from him he found out about the Jews.

Yang Anwei said, “These people from the country of the Jews have from time to time taken refuge in our country and especially here in our city because it is near the great river. I remember that my great-grandfather said that once or twice hundreds of them came together into this city and our elders met in the Confucian temple to decide whether they were to be allowed to stay in such numbers. So many of them, our elders thought, might change our ways. But some of these Jews spoke our language, having been here before as traders, and they told the elders that their people asked for nothing except to live here quietly and according to their laws and traditions. They have a god of their own, but they do not ask others to believe in him, and only to be allowed themselves to continue their own traditions and laws.”

“Why did they leave their country?” Kung Chen asked with lively interest.

To this Yang Anwei replied, “As I can remember, and I have not thought of these things for many years, it was because a warlike savage nation attacked them. Some of the Jews resisted, but others were for compromise.” The ancient man paused here and shook his head. “I can remember no more,” he said.

“One more question,” Kung Chen urged. “Was it the compromisers or the resisters who came to our city?”

But Yang Anwei could not answer. Yet after a little while he said with his wrinkled smile, “I daresay it was the compromisers, for see how they have settled into our people! You have only to look at their ruined temple. Who goes there now to worship on their sacred day except a handful of them?”

“The Jews are being killed again in the countries west of the mountains,” Kung Chen said.

Yang Anwei’s old jaw dropped. “Why now?” he asked.

“That is what I ask and no one can tell me,” Kung Chen replied. Then he went on in a different voice, “None of this matters to me, except that I am considering allowing my Little Three to join the family of Ezra. If there is something strange in the Jewish blood, then I must ponder for a few moons before deciding.”

Old Yang Anwei heard this. “There is something strange in them,” he declared. “It is not in all of them but it is in some of them. Ezra himself is a man like us, and indeed he carries our blood in him. But there are others who are different.”

“What is the difference?” Kung Chen asked.

The old man hesitated and then he said shrewdly, “If they worship their god they are strange; if they do not worship him they are like other men. In my long life in this city I have seen that the worship of a special god makes a special people.”

Kung Chen listened to this with the utmost silence and respect. There was deep wisdom in this old man, wrinkled and dried with age until his body was like a preserved fruit. But his mind was clear, and indeed he had become all mind.

“Then what we should do,” Kung Chen now declared, “is to steal them away from their god, so that they will become like us.”

Yang Anwei laughed noiseless old laughter. “Or else destroy their god,” he retorted.

“How can we do that?” Kung Chen asked. “This god cannot be seen, he is not of stone or clay, as the gods of our common people are. He is a subtle god who lives only in their minds.”

“Then destroy the god in their minds,” Yang Anwei said.

The two Chinese looked at one another.

“It is not hard to destroy that god,” Yang Anwei went on. “Let us be kind to this Ezra, let us grant him his wishes, heap him with favor, help him to grow rich, remove all his fears, teach him to enjoy our city with all its pleasures, urge him to know that however they ill-treat Jews elsewhere, here there will never be anything but kindness for him and his people.”

“What wisdom!” Kung Chen exclaimed in admiration. “I pray you, Elder Brother, never leave our house.”

“I thank you,” Yang Anwei replied modestly, and getting up he took his leave and returned to his desk, where by the light of a small latticed window he spent his days copying entries of goods into a large ledger. His characters, which he brushed slowly one by one, were exquisite in their perfection. The work demanded about one tenth of his mind, and with nine tenths he thought about everything of which he had ever heard in his long life.

Kung Chen, left alone, sitting as motionless as a stone lion, for a long time considered what the old man had told him. He still wished to know why it was that Jews were killed, for he did not want to put his Little Three into the danger of becoming a widow. But even more than that, he wanted to know whether there were something hateful in these people, something that he did not see. He thought about Ezra, and he could not find anything in that hearty, good-natured, clever merchant that could be hated. Somewhat coarse, perhaps, not very learned, laughter too loud, but otherwise Ezra was a man as common as other men and as easily understood.

But was Ezra like his people? What of his wife and son? What of the strange old priest, blind, and yet able, the city gossips said, to see with the eyes of his inner ghost? This old man and his evil son now lived inside the house of Ezra, and what would they do to Ezra’s son? Some Jews indeed were strange, Yang Anwei had said.

And then Kung Chen fell into one of his musing, perceiving fits of thought. How was a man called strange? A strange animal among other animals was feared and hated for his strangeness. He was a thing apart, one marked in some fashion different from others. Was this also true of the Jews?

He made up his mind that before he decided to let his daughter marry the son of Ezra he would know what a strange Jew was, the old Rabbi and his children, and he would talk with David himself. Until then he would keep his Little Three safely in his own house. He would not marry her to make his business better.

That evening Kung Chen, Ezra, and Kao Lien met in the Stone Bridge Teahouse. The moon rose over the canal, and though the waters were foul, the moonlight turned them pure and beautiful as they flowed beneath the ancient and mighty bridge of white marble. The teahouse was so full of guests that talk was impossible, and Kung Chen called the proprietor and asked for a separate room that overlooked the canal. The man said every room was full, but when Kung Chen put a sum of money into his hand, he went away and took guests out of the best room, saying that those who had ordered it before and had delayed coming were now here.

So the three men found themselves alone in a small but cool and pleasant room just at the edge of the canal. The table was put before the wide-open window and they could look along the canal and see it winding its way among the overhanging houses.

“Will you have singing girls to amuse you?” the proprietor asked. He was a fat busy man, sweating and panting, bawling here and there and everywhere at once.

“No, for we must talk of important affairs,” Kung Chen said. Then seeing the proprietor’s downcast look, he remembered that these small pleasant rooms were used for the girls and so he said, “But you may choose three who sing well and let them sit in a little boat under the window and do their singing, and we will pay for their food and wine to the same amount that we would if they were here with us.”

The proprietor thanked him and went away, and the waiter brought in the dishes that Kung Chen had ordered earlier in the day, first the cold small dishes and then the hot small dishes, and so in order to the sweet rice in the middle and then the meats and vegetables and hot rice at the end.

Ezra loved this food. In his own house beneath his wife’s eyes he was scrupulous as to food, but when he was alone and free he ate whatever was praised by his host, and tonight his willing belly was warm and waiting.

Kung Chen was too wise to begin the evening with serious talk. He talked of the food, praised or judged the flavor of the dishes, discussed the wine, and when the sound of girls’ voices, very sweet and clear, rose from beneath the window, he lifted his hand smiling, and the three men listened.

Kung Chen watched the faces of his guests without seeming to do so. Ezra’s round face was plump and melting, his eyes were filled with swimming pleasure, and his full lips smiled. But Kao Lien’s long narrow face did not change. He sat straight, his tall lean figure unbending, and he ate sparingly of the food that Kung Chen put upon his plate. He did not join in the talk, and in proud acknowledgment that he was not quite the equal of the other two he had taken the lowest seat opposite the window. But upon his face the moonlight shone most clear, for Kung Chen had commanded the waiter to put the candles in a corner so that they would not spoil the moon.

So through the evening; and as the courses came and went, skillfully Kung Chen led the talk. Each time the songs floated up from the canal, he fell silent and listening, and after every song Ezra was more open and more ready for warm friendship. But Kao Lien stayed always the same.

At last, when the feast was nearly over and fresh hot wine had been brought, a small pewter jug for each, Kung Chen told the waiter that the girls should be silent for a while, but that at midnight they might come into the room and sing their last song for the sake of kindness. He gave the waiter money for more wine for the singers, and then the door was closed and the room silent.

Kung Chen turned at once to Kao Lien. “On your travels, Elder Brother, I hear that you met war in some parts of the West.”

Kao Lien answered readily in his soft composed voice, “Not war, only the persecution of my people.”

“Can you tell me why this was so?” Kung Chen asked.

Kao Lien glanced at Ezra, and Ezra, warmed with good food and delicate wines and melted with the songs, exclaimed, “Tell him anything, Brother! This good Chinese brother is our true friend.”

So Kao Lien said, “I cannot tell you why again and again through the centuries the Jews, my people, are killed. There is something strange about us.”

Something strange! These were the very words of Yang Anwei.

“Can you describe this strangeness?” Kung Chen inquired.

Kao Lien shook his head. “I am a trader and I am not a learned man. We are a people bemused with God.”

“Can you describe this god?” Kung Chen asked again.

“I sometimes wonder whether He is,” Ezra broke in. “He cannot be seen, He cannot be heard—”

“Then why do you think he exists?” Kung Chen asked.

“Our old rabbis tell us so,” Ezra said violently.

“Elder Brother,” Kao Lien said in a low voice of remonstration.

By now Ezra was a little drunk. “Let me speak, Brother!” he exclaimed. “This is my best friend, yes, though he is Chinese — ah, because he is Chinese! When I am with him I feel happy and I am not afraid — I tell you, a man’s wife can make him feel always sinful. Sin — sin — what is sin, Elder Brother?” The wine had come up in Ezra’s head and his eyes were beginning to glaze as he turned to Kung Chen with this question.

The Chinese laughed his mild, rolling laughter. “We do not have this word,” he replied.

Kao Lien said, “For us sin is to forget our God and our law.”

“Let me be as other men!” Ezra cried. He began to weep. “I have always wanted to be as others are,” he babbled. “When I was a little boy, they laughed at me — the other boys — because I was strange. I am not strange.”

“Indeed you are not,” Kung Chen said, comforting him. He perceived now that talk of business would be impossible, and he turned to Kao Lien. “Let us comfort our brother. You see how the wine has revealed to us the trouble in his heart. Shall we call in the singing girls?”

“Look at him,” Kao Lien said. They looked and saw that Ezra, always volatile and ready to change, was now beginning to sleep, his head rolling on his shoulder. There was a couch in the room, and Kung Chen rose and Kao Lien also, and together they laid Ezra on the couch. There he fell fast asleep.

“Now,” Kung Chen said, “let us talk together, you and I.”

“Nothing that I say can be binding,” Kao Lien said, somewhat troubled.

“That is understood,” Kung Chen said.

Little by little skillfully he led Kao Lien along to telling, until by midnight he understood exactly what Kao Lien had seen, how cruel was the plight of the Jews, and how in Ezra’s own house there was division between the Rabbi and Leah and Madame Ezra on the one hand and Ezra on the other. Between these two sides David stood undecided, and in his shadow was the weak and useless Aaron.

“Nor are these two sides unusual to our people,” Kao Lien said thoughtfully. “Everywhere I find them, the Jew of the Covenant and the Jew who wishes only to be human and like any other man.”

“What is this covenant?” Kung Chen asked.

“It is the covenant that we made with God in the beginning,” Kao Lien said half sadly. “A covenant that we would be His people if He would be our God.”

“You believe in such superstition?” Kung Chen asked in surprise.

Kao Lien looked apologetic. “I believe and I do not believe,” he acknowledged. “I was taught the law and the prophets, and it is difficult to forget them. I deny them often and sometimes for years together. But I remember them, and I know that it is as a Jew that I shall die.” He sighed. “Let us have in the singing girls,” he said abruptly. “It is nearly midnight.”

So the girls came in, three of them, all pretty and gentle and trained in the art of pleasing. Ezra woke when their music began and he lay there, his head pillowed on his hands, and he listened and looked at them. When their singing was over the girls hesitated, not knowing whether they were wanted further, but Kung Chen shook his head.

“Nothing else,” he said laughing. “We are old staid men and we must go home to our wives.”

He put money into each little palm and the girls laughed and went away and Ezra got up, sighing, and so they went each to his home.

Kung Chen did not sleep well that night or for several nights to come. The end of his sleeplessness was that he decided that he would not give his Little Three to the House of Ezra and he decided to call her to him and find out how much it mattered to her when he told her so.

After he had eaten his breakfast one morning, therefore, he sent a servant to invite her to come to him, and she sent back word that she would come immediately, as soon as she had brushed her hair.

Hearing this, he settled himself for an hour or two, and toward noon she came led by Chu Ma. He knew this little daughter of his was pretty, but each time he did not see her for a while, he forgot how pretty she was. Now he gazed at her with such pleasure that she blushed, seeing in his eyes the admiration of all men, even though he was her father.

“My father!” she called in greeting from the door.

“Come in, my Little Three,” he said, and she sat down on a chair near him and Chu Ma stood behind her.

He asked her his usual fatherly questions, how she did and what she did, and he admired her silk garments and he asked her whether she had read any books, and how her pet birds were that he had given her, and all such small questions. She answered in a pretty voice, shy and smiling, child and woman together, and he told himself that this little creature must be wed only into the safest and kindest of homes.

So he brought himself to what he wanted to say. “My Little Three,” he began, “the time has come to talk of marriage for you. There is your younger sister, Lili, to think of, and I must have you betrothed first. I should have done so before, had I been a good father, but I dislike these early betrothals. Who knows what a boy will be when he grows up? So I have betrothed all of my daughters late, that I might see my sons-in-law as men. Now it is your turn.”

At this Kueilan turned a deep rosy pink and she took her handkerchief from her sleeve and put it to her face and leaned her head against her nurse so that he could not see her. All this was as she should do.

“Master, you put her to shame!” Chu Ma exclaimed. “These things are not to be mentioned before a young lady.”

“I am very forward, I know,” Kung Chen said smiling, “but I prefer to find out from my daughters themselves how they feel.”

So he went on. “Tell me, child, what sort of husband I shall find you. There is a fine young man in the house of Wei, just a year older than you. I hear good things of him.”

“No,” Kueilan said faintly.

“No?” Kung Chen asked in seeming surprise. “Well, then, I hear the youngest son of the Hu family is handsome.”

“No, no!” she said more strongly.

“This young lady is hard to please!” Kung Chen exclaimed to Chu Ma. He went on somewhat gravely, “I hope you have done your duty. I hope you have not allowed her to see any young man.”

Kueilan began suddenly to sob and Chu Ma looked terrified.

“Ha — what is this?” Kung Chen demanded, pretending to be angry.

Chu Ma fell on her knees before him and knocked her head on the floor and began to babble. “How could I help it? The young man saw her here in this house. She was going to the temple with our lady, her mother, and she sent me to fetch her a handkerchief.”

“It was my fan, stupid!” Kueilan wailed.

“Her fan,” Chu Ma babbled. “And while I was gone the son of the foreigner Ezra came into the hall.”

“But I didn’t stay!” Kueilan cried.

“I swear to my ancestors that she did not stay,” Chu Ma said.

“Get up,” Kung Chen said very sternly to Chu Ma. She got up and stood wiping her eyes. “How much has happened?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” Chu Ma said. Then his eyes frightened the truth out of her. “Well, only a poem or two.”

He turned to his daughter. “How dare you think of a young man?” he demanded.

Now Kueilan had a nice lively temper of her own, and it was her way to weep first and then be angry. So she stamped her foot and said, “I dare anything!”

“I will not have you marry a foreigner,” Kung Chen said.

“I will marry him!” Kueilan cried.

“Oh, hush, hush,” Chu Ma wailed. Kung Chen lit his pipe. “You say that because you are angry,” he told his daughter. “But when you have considered what it means, you will not want to marry into that house. They are a strange people, not like ours. They are a sorrowful people, and they worship a cruel god.”

Kueilan pouted. “I am not afraid,” she declared.

Kung Chen did not answer his willful child. He had found out what he wanted to know.

“I command you to obey me in this one thing,” he said after a long silence. During this silence Kueilan’s anger had been cooled by fear and Chu Ma was frightened pale.

“You are to wait until I have seen for myself this young man,” he told his daughter. “When I am ready, I will tell you what my will is.” He turned to Chu Ma. “And you, woman, if you allow her to disobey me, I will send you out of this house and you shall not come back to it as long as you live.”

Chu Ma trembled. “I will stay with her day and night,” she promised. And she took Kueilan’s hand and led her away.