Letter from Peking: A Novel by Buck Pearl S

Author:Buck, Pearl S. [Buck, Pearl S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480421479
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

The address in Singapore is to a silk shop. Someone there, I suppose, is her secret friend, someone in touch with this strange new China, by which I am rejected. I wish I had the courage to write boldly to Gerald. But what would I write? Shall I give my permission for another woman to take my place? And can she take my place? Surely no American woman has ever been in like predicament.

This rocky farm of mine, in this distant state of Vermont, is as far from Gerald now as though he did not exist. Perhaps it is I who no longer exist. Why indeed should I exist who am no longer needed—or loved? Or am I loved? I cannot answer this letter today. I am voiceless, I cannot think. I do not know what to say, until I am in communion with him again.

I come to my room. I take his letter from my locked box and though I have sworn that I will not look at it again, I do so, I set it down here. I copy every word, and so make his words my own. I shall never forget them now. This is the letter from Peking, Gerald’s last letter.

MY DEAR WIFE:

First before I say what must be said, let me tell you that I love only you. Whatever I do now, remember that it is you I love. If you never receive a letter from me again, know that in my heart I write you every day. I say this because of what I must next tell you. It is imperative for me to take into my home a Chinese woman. It is not only that I need someone to look after the house, to wash my clothes, mend and so on. You know very well how helpless I am in all these matters where you have been so useful to me. But it is necessary now for me to prove myself. It is not enough, it seems, for me to swear loyalty to those in present power. I must forswear all my past, I must curse my non-Chinese blood and declare against the foreign part of myself. I have been ordered to choose another woman. I tell you because you and I have always been honest, one with the other. If I were to be less than honest with you now, it would mean that I had indeed forgotten our life together. I shall never forget and so I tell you.

I cannot write again. It would be too dangerous for me and too dangerous even for our son. You think him safe in your country, but he is not safe anywhere unless I repudiate him and you. If you hear I have done so publicly, do not believe I have done so in reality. I wish to stay alive, if possible, until these days are past. If I meet death in spite of all my efforts to avoid it, remember that my only thought is of you, my Eve.

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