The Promise: A Novel of China and Burma (Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck) by Pearl S. Buck Read Free Book Online

Sheng said. “I do not ask him anything.”
    “Then how does he know?” she asked.
    “He has seen them here on our own earth,” Sheng told her. He blew the bits of green from his hands and then he sat, his fingers folded together, and now as he spoke he looked at her, but she knew he was not thinking of her. He was thinking of his own words and their meaning.
    “My General has seen the pride of the white men in Shanghai and in Hongkong and he has seen them on the pieces of land they took from our ancestors and made into their own cities. He says they have always considered us as dogs at their gates, and he says that wherever they have lived among the peoples near us, whom they have ruled, they have so held them as dogs, and that now those people will join even with the enemy they hate, because more than they hate the enemy they hate the pride of the white man who has despised them and their ancestors.”
    This Mayli heard without understanding it. How could she understand it when all her life until now she had lived in a country where all had been kind to her? Her father had held an honored place in the capital city and she was his daughter, and if the citizens of the city despised the dark ones who were their servants, was that to say they despised her?
    “The people of Mei do not despise us,” she said. “They despise only the black-skinned people.”
    “Well, we are not going to Burma to fight beside the people of Mei,” Sheng replied. “It is the people of Ying who rule there and it is the people of Ying whom those people hate.”
    “There is no great difference between these two peoples of Mei and Ying,” she said.
    “If that is true,” Sheng said, “then it is the worst news you could have told me.”
    She fell silent, biting her red lip and thinking what to say next. “Perhaps it does not matter whether we are liked or not,” she said. “Perhaps the only thing we need to know is the strength of the peoples against our enemy. If the people of Ying are against the Japanese, then we must be with them.”
    “If we can win with them,” he said gravely.
    “Who can conquer the peoples of Ying and Mei together?” she cried. She remembered again the great factories, the iron wheels of factories, the terrible precision of the wheels, shaping out iron and steel as though they were wood and paper.
    “The dwarfs have conquered thus far,” Sheng said in a low voice. “Do not forget—the dwarfs took them by surprise. Well, you say, any man may be taken by surprise once. But on the same day and hours later, they were taken by surprise again in the islands to the south. Wing to wing, their flying ships sat on the ground again and once more the dwarfs destroyed them. It is not enough to be strong only! One must also be wise.”
    He rose in sudden impatience and stretched out his great arms. “Look at me!” he commanded her. “Look at this great piece of meat and bone that I am! Is it enough that I am so huge? Is it enough that I can bend a piece of iron in my two hands? If I am a fool, is all this size and strength of any use to me? No, I must have wisdom here!” He tapped the side of his great skull as he spoke.
    She did not answer. Instead she sat looking up at him as he stood against the sky above her, and she was filled with the sense of his power. How many times she had asked herself if this man had power in him! Had he not? She trembled and she felt the blood run up her body to her face. He dropped his arms and stood there, looking down on her, and she rose quickly and slipped sidewise as though to escape him. For not once did she dare risk his power over her. He must not touch her.
    She walked back and forth in the little court once and twice and the small dog dragged itself to its feet and walked after her, still shivering. Then she stopped and sat down on the edge of the pool and she put her arms about her knees. She did not look up at him but he could see the reflection of her face in the still