Sons

  From that time on this lad grew hunched, and it was as though all his strength of growing went into this great knot he carried on his shoulders, and everyone named him Hunchback and by that name did even his parents call him. Seeing what a poor thing he was and that there were other sons there was no trouble taken over him and he did not have to learn his letters or do anything at all, and he learned early to stay out of men’s sight, and especially out of the sight of other children, who mocked him cruelly for the burden he bore. He prowled about the streets or he walked far out in the countryside alone, limping as he walked, and carrying that great load of his upon his back.

  On this harvest day he had followed his father unseen and he kept out of his father’s sight, for well he knew his father’s ill temper on such days as he must go to his land, and he followed him out as far as the earthen house. But Wang the Eldest passed on to his fields, and the hunchback stayed to see who it was that sat at the door of the house.

  Now it was only Wang Lung’s poor fool, and she sat there in the sun as she always did, but she was a woman grown in body now and more than that for she was nearly forty years old and there were white streaks in her hair. But she was still the same poor child and she sat there grimacing and folding her bit of cloth, and the hunchback wondered at her, for he had never seen her before, and in his malicious way he began to mock her and make grimaces, too, and he snapped his fingers so loudly under her nose that the poor thing shrieked in fear.

  Then Pear Blossom came running out to see what went wrong and when the lad saw her he ran limping and hobbling into the pointed shadows of the bamboo grove, and from there he peered out like a little savage beast. But Pear Blossom saw who it was and she smiled her gentle sad smile and she drew out of her bosom a small sweet cake, for she carried such cakes with her to coax the fool sometimes when she grew stubborn suddenly from some strange caprice and was unwilling to obey. This cake she held out to the hunchback, and he stared at her first and at last he crept out and seized the cake and stuffed it all into his mouth at once. Then enticing the child she got him to come and sit beside her upon a bench at the door and when she saw how this poor lad sat himself down all askew and how small and weary his face looked under the great burden on his back, and his eyes so deep and sorrowful she did not know whether he was man or child except he was so small, she reached out her arm and she laid it about his crooked body, and she said in her pitying soft way,

  “Tell me, little brother, if you are the son of my lord’s son or not, for I have heard he had one like you.”

  Then the child shook her arm off suddenly and nodded and made as if he would go away again. But she coaxed him and gave him another cake and she smiled at him and said,

  “I do believe you have a look about your mouth like my dead lord’s, and he lies now under that date tree there. I miss him so sorely that I wish you would come here often because you have some look of his.”

  This was the very first time that anyone had ever said such a thing to the hunchback before, to wish him there, for he was used, even though he was a rich man’s son, to have his brothers push him aside and to have the very servants careless of him and serve him last because they knew his mother did not care for him. Now he stared at her piteously and his lips began to quiver and suddenly he wept, although he did not know why he did, and he cried out in his weeping,

  “I wish you would not make me weep so—I do not know why I weep so—”

  Then Pear Blossom soothed him with her arm about that knotty back of his and although he could not have said so, the lad felt it was the sweetest touch he had ever had upon him and he was soothed without knowing why or how he was. But Pear Blossom did not pity him too long. No, she looked at him as though his back were straight and strong as other lads’ are, and after this day the hunchback came often to the earthen house, for no one cared where he went or what he did. Day after day he came, until his very soul was knit to Pear Blossom. She was skillful with him, too, and she made as though she leaned on him and needed his help to care for the fool, and since no one had ever looked to the lad for help of any sort before, he grew quiet and gentle and much of his evil spirit went out of him as the months went on.

  If it had not been for this lad, then, Pear Blossom might never have known how the land was being sold away. Nor did the lad know he told her, for he talked to her of everything as it came into his mind and he prattled of this and that and he said, one day,

  “I have a brother who will be a great soldier. Some day my uncle is to be a great general, and my brother is with him learning how to be a soldier. My uncle is to be a very king some day, and then my brother will be his chief captain, for I heard my mother telling it so.”

  Pear Blossom was sitting on the bench by the door when the lad said this, and she looked away over the fields and she said in her quiet voice,

  “Is your uncle so great, then?” She paused awhile and then she said again, “But I wish he were not a soldier because it is so cruel a thing to be!”

  But the lad cried, boasting a little, “Yes, he is to be the greatest general and I think a soldier, if he is a brave, good hero, is the most magical, thing a man can be. And we are all to be great with him. Every month my father and my second uncle send my soldier uncle silver against the time he will be great and a hideous great harelipped man comes for the silver. But some day we are to have it all back again, for I heard my father tell my mother so.”

  Now when Pear Blossom heard this a small strange doubt came into her mind and she pondered a little and then she said gently as though it were a matter of no account and as though she asked from idle curiosity,

  “And where does so much silver come from, I wonder? Does your second uncle loan it from his shop?”

  And the lad answered innocently and proud of his knowledge,

  “No, they sell the land that was my grandfather’s, and I see the farmers come in every day or so and they take a roll out of their bosoms and unwrap it and there the silver is, shining like stars when it falls upon the table in my father’s room. I have seen it more times than a few and they do not mind if I am standing by because I am of such little worth.”

  Then Pear Blossom rose so quickly that the little lad looked at her wondering, for she moved usually very softly, and she checked herself then and said to him in the gentlest way,

  “I have only just thought of something I must do. Will you look after my poor fool for me while I am gone? There is no one whom I trust as I do you.”

  This the lad was proud to do for her now and he forgot what he had said and he sat there proudly holding a bit of the fool’s coat in his hand while Pear Blossom made ready to go. So he sat and Pear Blossom saw him thus when she had drawn a dark coat about her and had set forth in all haste across the fields. There was that in these two poor creatures, that even now stayed her a moment to look back at them, and it drew her heart out and curved her lips into a smile of sad tenderness. But she hastened on, for if she looked at these two with love, and she loved no one else now, there was such an anger in her heart as must out, and if it were a quiet anger, seeing her anger was always so and she could have no other kind, still it was a firm anger, too, and she could not rest until she went and found the brothers and found out what they truly did with the good lands they had from their father, even the land he had bid them keep for the generations to come in his family.

  She hastened through the fields upon the narrow foot paths and she was alone and there was no one to be seen in these byways except here and there in the distance the figure of a man in his blue cotton work garments bending over his land. Seeing these her eyes filled with tears as they often did now and too easily in these days, for she remembered how Wang Lung used to go about on these very paths and how he loved the earth so that he would stop sometimes and pick up a handful of it and turn it over in his fingers, and how he would never lease it longer than a year because he would keep it his own—and here were these sons of his selling it away from him!

&nbs
p; For although Wang Lung was dead, he lived on for Pear Blossom and, to her, his soul was always hovering about these fields and she felt he surely knew it if they were sold. Yes, whenever a small chill breeze smote her suddenly on the face by day or by night, or a little whirling wind wheeled along the roadway, such winds as others fear because these winds are so strange it is said they must be souls flying past, Pear Blossom lifted her face and smiled when such a wind smote her, and this because she believed it might be the soul of the old man who had been like a father to her and dearer than the father who sold her to him.

  So with this feeling of his presence, she hastened through the land and it lay fair and fruitful before her, for there had been no famine these five years, and there would be none this year either, and the fields lay tended and fruitful and waving with the tall wheat which was still too green for harvest. She passed by such a field now and a little wind rose out of the grain and rippled it so that it bent silvery and smooth as though a hand had brushed over it and she smiled and wondered what wind it was and lingered an instant in her purpose until the wind sank into the grain again and left it still.

  When she came to the town and to the gate where the vendors spread their stores of fruits she bent her head and kept her eyes steadfastly upon the ground and she did not once look up to meet the eyes of anyone. No one paid heed to her, either, for she was so small and slight and not young as she had once been, and clad as she was in her dark robe and her face without powder or red paint, she was not one for men to see above any other woman. Thus she went. If any had looked at her tranquil pale face he would not have dreamed that a good deep anger burned in her and that she was going bent on bitter reproof, and brave for the hour.

  When she reached the great gate of the town house she passed through it without calling out she was come. The old gateman sat there on the threshold nodding, his jaw ajar and showing the only three teeth he had scattered here and there in his mouth, and he gave a start as she passed, but he knew her and he nodded again. She went as she had planned straight to the house of Wang the Eldest, for although she disliked him heartily, she had more hope of moving him than the greedy heart of Wang the Second. She knew, too, that Wang the Eldest was seldom purposely unkind and she knew that if he were foolish, yet he had a kind, loose heart sometimes, too, and he could be kind if it did not trouble him too much at the moment. But she feared the cold narrow eyes of the second son.

  She entered the first courts and a slave was there idling, a pretty girl who had slipped out to catch the eye of a young serving man who waited in the court for something, and Pear Blossom said to the slave in her courteous way,

  “Child, tell your mistress I am come for something if she will see me.”

  Now the lady of Wang the Eldest had been somewhat friendly to Pear Blossom after Wang Lung died, and far more friendly than she had ever been to Lotus, because Lotus was so coarse and so free with what she said, and Pear Blossom never spoke in such ways. Of latter times when they had met at some common family day of ceremony the lady used even to say to Pear Blossom,

  “You and I, after all, are nearer to each other than to these others, for the eyes of our hearts are finer and more delicate.”

  And of late she had said, “Come and talk with me sometimes about the things the nuns and priests say of the gods. You and I are the only devout ones in this house.”

  This she said when she had heard that Pear Blossom listened to the nuns from that nunnery not far from the earthen house. So Pear Blossom asked for her now, and the pretty slave came out soon, her eyes creeping here and there to see if the young serving man were still there or not, and she said,

  “My lady says you are to come and sit down in the great hall and she will come as soon as she finishes the round of prayers she is making on her rosary that she has vowed to make every morning.”

  So Pear Blossom went in and sat down in a side seat in the great hall.

  Now it happened that on this day Wang the Eldest had risen very late for he had been to a feast the night before in a certain fine inn in the town. It had been a noble feast with the best of wines and behind every guest’s chair a pretty singing girl was hired to pour out his wine for him and to sing and prattle and do anything else the guest to whom she was appointed might like her to do. Wang the Eldest had eaten mightily and had drunk more than he usually did, and his singing girl had been the prettiest little lisping maid, not more than seventeen years old, but still so wise in her coquetry that she might have been a woman used to men for ten years and more. But Wang the Eldest had drunk so well that even this morning he did not remember all that had happened the night before, and he came into the hall smiling and yawning and stretching himself, not seeing that anyone was there before him. Indeed the truth was his eyes were slow to see anything this morning, because he was smiling and thinking inwardly of the little maid and how she had slipped her small cool fingers into his coat against his neck to tease him when he played with her. And, thinking of this he said to himself that he would ask his friend who had been host where this maid lived and to what public house she belonged and he would seek her out and see what she was.

  Thus yawning loudly he stretched his arms above his head and then he slapped his thighs to waken himself and he came sauntering into the great hall clad only in his silken undergarments and his feet were bare and thrust into silken slippers. Then his eye fell suddenly on Pear Blossom. Yes, she stood there straight and quiet as a shadow in her grey robe, but trembling because she loathed this man so much. He was so astonished to see her there that he let his arms drop suddenly and he broke off his yawn unfinished and stared to see her. Then seeing it was really she he coughed in embarrassment and said courteously enough,

  “I was not told anyone was here. Does my lady know you are here?”

  “Yes, I sent one to tell her,” said Pear Blossom, and as she spoke she bowed. Then she hesitated and she thought to herself, “It is better if I do speak now and speak out what I have to say to him alone.” And she began to speak quickly and more quickly than her wont was, the words hurrying and pressing upon each other, “But I have come to see the Eldest Lord. I am so distressed—I cannot believe it. My own lord said, ‘The land is not to be sold.’ And you are selling it—I know you are selling it!”

  And Pear Blossom felt a rare slow red come up into her cheeks and she was suddenly so angry she could scarcely keep from weeping. She bit her lips and lifted her eyes and looked at Wang the Eldest, although she loathed him so she could scarcely bear to do it, and even while she did it for Wang Lung’s sake, she could not but see how fat and yellow and loathly this man’s neck was where he had left his coat unbuttoned, and how the flesh hung pouched under his eyes, and how his lips puffed out full and thick and pale. Then when he saw her eyes steadfastly upon him he was confused for he feared very much the anger of women and he turned away and made as though he must button up his coat for decency’s sake. He said hastily over his shoulder,

  “But you have heard an idle tale—but you have had a dream!”

  Then Pear Blossom said more violently than anyone had ever heard her say anything,

  “No, I do not dream—I had it from the lips of one who spoke the truth!” She would not tell where she had heard it lest the man beat his poor hunched son, so she held back the name of the lad but she went on, “I do marvel at my lord’s sons that you disobey him like this. Although I am weak and worthless I must speak and I will tell you this, my lord will avenge himself! He is not so far away as you think, and his soul hovers over his land still, and when he sees it gone he will have ways to avenge himself upon sons who do not obey their father!”

  Now she said this in such a strange way and her eyes grew so large and earnest and her soft voice so chill and low that a vague fear fell upon Wang the Eldest, and indeed he was a man easily afraid in spite of his great body. No one could have persuaded him to go alone among grave lands at night and he believed secretly the many tales told about spirits; although he laughed f
alsely and loudly, still secretly he did believe. So when Pear Blossom spoke thus he said hastily,

  “There has been only a little sold—only a little of what belonged to my younger brother, and he needs the silver and a soldier cannot want land. I promise you no more shall be sold.”

  At this Pear Blossom opened her mouth to speak but before her voice could come the lady of Wang the Eldest entered and she was plaintive this morning and vexed with her lord because she had heard him come in drunken and talking of some maid or other he had seen. She saw him now and cast him a scornful look so that he made haste to smile and nod negligently as though naught were amiss, yet watching secretly too, and he was secretly glad Pear Blossom was here, for his lady was too proud to speak her full mind if he were not alone. He grew voluble and made a great fuss to feel the teapot on the table to see if it were hot and he said,

  “Ah, here is the mother of my sons, and is this tea hot enough for you? I have not eaten yet and was but now on my way to the tea house for a sup of tea there, and I will go my way and not disturb you—well I know ladies have that to say to each other which is not for us men to hear—” and laughing falsely and hollowly and uneasy beneath his wife’s haughty silence and the stiff looks she threw at him, he bowed and made such haste away that his flesh shook on him.

  The lady said nothing at all while he was there but she seated herself and held her back straight and away from the chair, for she would never lean at all, and she waited for him to be gone. Indeed she did look a very perfect lady, for she wore a smooth satin coat of a blue grey hue, and her hair was combed and coiled and smooth with oil although it was scarcely mid-day yet and at an hour when most ladies do not do more than turn upon their beds and reach out a hand for their first drink of tea.