Pavilion of Women: A Novel of Life in the Women's Quarters by Pearl S. Buck Page A

Examinations and passed them with honor and become thereby an official in the land. But your brain is not in a man’s skull. It is in a woman’s skull. A woman’s blood infuses it, a woman’s heart beats through it, and it is circumscribed by what must be a woman’s life. In a woman it is not well for the brain to grow beyond the body.”
    Had she not been so dainty a creature her next question might have seemed indelicate. But she knew Old Gentleman loved her and comprehended what she was. Therefore she asked again, “Is this to say, Our Father, that a woman’s body is more important than her brain?”
    Old Gentleman had sighed at this. He had sat down in the big redwood chair by the long library table. Thinking of him, she now sat down there, too, while her memory mused over that day so long gone. He had stroked his small white beard, and something like sorrow had come into his eyes. “As life has proved,” he said, “it is true that a woman’s body is more important than her mind. She alone can create new human creatures. Were it not for her, the race of man would cease to exist. Into her body, as into a chalice, Heaven has put this gift. Her body therefore is inexpressibly precious to man. He is not fulfilled if she does not create. His is the seed, but she alone can bring it to flower and fruit in another being like himself.”
    She had listened carefully. She could see herself now as she had looked that day when she was sixteen, standing before the wise old man. She had put another question.
    “Then why have I a brain, being only a woman?”
    Old Gentleman had shaken his head slowly while he looked at her. A rare twinkle came into his eyes. “I do not know,” he had answered. “You are so beautiful that certainly you do not need a brain also.”
    They had both laughed, her laughter young and rippling and his dry and old. Then he was grave again.
    “But what you have asked me,” he went on, “is a thing about which I have thought much and especially since you came into my house. We chose you for our son because you were beautiful and good and because your grandfather was the former viceroy of this province. Now I find that you are also intelligent. To a pot of gold have been added jewels. Yet I know that in my house you do not need so much intelligence—yes, a little is good so that you can keep accounts and watch servants and control your inferiors. But you have reasoning and wonder. What will you do with them? I cannot tell. In a lesser woman I should be alarmed, because you might be a trouble inside these four walls which must be your world. But you will not make trouble because you also have wisdom, a most unusual wisdom for one so young. You can control yourself.”
    She had stood before him motionless. He had remembered this. “Sit down, child,” he had said. “You will be weary. Besides, you need no more stand in my presence.”
    But she had scarcely heard him, so absorbed was she in what they were saying to each other. She continued standing before him, her hands clasped loosely in front of her. Her next question was formed and ready.
    “Will my lord love me less because I am what you say?”
    Old Gentleman had looked very grave at this. His hand wandered back to his white beard. She could see that old hand now, narrow and thin, the skin stretched like gold leaf over the fine bones.
    “Ah, that is what I, too, have asked myself!” he had replied. He had sighed deeply. “This matter of intelligence—it is so great a gift, so heavy a burden. Intelligence, more than poverty and riches, divides human beings and makes them friends or enemies. The stupid person fears and hates the intelligent person. Whatever the goodness of the intelligent man, he must also know that it will not win him love from one whose mind is less than his.”
    “Why?” she had asked. A strange fright had fallen upon her. She was at that time a little arrogant in herself. She knew the quality of her own mind and