The Promise: A Novel of China and Burma (Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck) Read Free Page B

rank, had given him a new name and this name was Sheng, and Sheng he was called from that day on.
    He had been sitting until a moment ago, talking across a small porcelain garden table to the woman he loved who would not marry him. It could be said rather that she persuaded him to talk, drawing out of him by her shrewd questions all that he had been doing since they last met, more than two months ago. Then she fell silent, and her handsome head drooped as though she were thinking of what he had said. What she thought about he did not know, indeed. He loved her very well but he did not pretend that he knew her thoughts. She was not a usual woman when it came to the stuff of her brain. He could talk to her as though she were a soldier and she to him. But when she was silent she seemed always beyond him. Now she lifted her head suddenly, as though she felt his eyes, and smiled a small smile.
    “You look beautiful in that uniform,” she said. Her smile twisted. “But why do I tell you? You know it.”
    He did not answer this, for he never answered her when her red mouth twisted.
    “How many characters can you write now?” she asked again.
    “Enough for me,” he said.
    “Then why did you not write me a letter?” she asked.
    “Why should I write when I knew I was coming here in a month or two at most?”
    “If you see no reason for writing to me, then there is no reason,” she said.
    She took up her tea bowl in her hand and held it and he looked at that long narrow hand of hers, its nails painted scarlet. He knew the scent in her palm. But he did not move toward her. Instead he put his hand into the breast of his new soldier’s uniform and took out a handful of colored silk. She sat sipping her tea, her lips still smiling, and her great black eyes smiling.
    “Here is the flag,” he said.
    “You still have that flag?” she said.
    “You gave it to me,” he retorted. “It was your command to me to come to you.”
    It was true that when Mayli left Jade that day now six months behind them she had given this small bright flag to Jade and she had said, “Tell him I go to the free lands—tell him I go to Kunming.” To Kunming he had come after the victory. But when he had come she was not willing to marry him. She was still not willing, though he had been here for days and each day he had come to see her.
    “Why do you keep that flag in your bosom?” she asked him.
    “That you may remember you bade me come here,” he said.
    He leaned over the porcelain table and looked down upon her upturned face. Behind his head, over the wall of the courtyard, she could see the high tops of the mountains which surrounded the city, bare mountains, purple against the clear winter sky. The day was not cold. It was seldom cold here, and in another climate it could have been spring. The light of the sun fell upon her face and his, and each saw the other’s beauty, how fine their skin was, the golden fine skin of their people, and how black were their eyes and how white.
    “I ask you again if you will marry me,” he said. “Yesterday I asked and today I ask.”
    Her eyelids fell. “You are very bold these days,” she said. “When you first came you would not have thought of asking me yourself. Do you remember how you found some one who knew a friend of mine and then through the two of them you proposed marriage to me?”
    “I have little time now,” he said. “A soldier must go by the straightest road to what he wants. I ask you this—will you marry me before I march to my next battle?”
    She lifted her lids again and he saw what he feared in her more than anything—her laughter. “Is it the last time you ask me?” She put the question to him as playfully as a kitten tosses a ball.
    “No,” he said. “I shall ask you until you yield.”
    “At least wait until you come back before you ask again,” she said.
    Each of them thought the same thought—what if he never came back? But neither would speak it aloud.
    “Do