Sons

  “You are all I have left of the only one who was ever kind to me or saw me for more than slave.” But the fool only ate her cake, for she neither spoke nor understood any who spoke to her.

  So Pear Blossom waited the days out until the funeral, and those days were very silent in the courts except for the hours when the priests chanted, for not even Wang Lung’s sons came near him unless they must for some duty. They were all somewhat uneasy and afraid in that whole house because of the earthy spirits a dead man has, and since Wang Lung had been so strong and lusty a man, it could not be expected that these seven spirits of his would leave him easily. Nor did they, for the house seemed full of new and strange sounds, and servant maids cried out that they felt chill winds seize them at night in their beds and toss their hair askew, or they heard mischievous rattling at their lattices, or a pot would be knocked out of a cook’s hand, or a bowl drop from a slave’s hand as she stood to serve.

  When the sons and their wives heard such servants’ talk they pretended to smile at it for foolishness of ignorance, but they were uneasy, too, and when Lotus heard these tales she called out,

  “He was ever a willful old man!”

  But Cuckoo said, “Let a dead man have his way, mistress, and speak well of him until he is under ground!”

  Only Pear Blossom was not afraid, and she lived alone with Wang Lung now as she had when he was living. Only when she saw the yellow-robed priests did she rise and go to her room and there she sat and listened to their mournful chanting and to the slow beating of their drums.

  Little by little were the seven earthy spirits of the dead man released, and every seven days the head priest went to the sons of Wang Lung and said,

  “There is another spirit gone out of him.” And the sons rewarded him with silver every time he came and said this.

  Thus the days passed, seven times seven, and the day drew near for the funeral.

  Now the whole town knew what day the geomancer had appointed for the funeral of so great a man as Wang Lung and on that day in the full spring of the year and close upon summer, mothers hastened their children at the morning meal so they would not dally and be too late to see all that was to be seen, and men in their fields left off farming for the day, and in the shops the clerks and the apprentices in trades plotted to see how they could stand and see the procession pass for this funeral. For everyone in that whole countryside knew Wang Lung and how he had been poor once and a man on the land like any other and how he grew rich and founded a house and left his sons rich. Every poor man longed to see the funeral because it was a thing to ponder on that a man as poor as himself had died rich, and it was a cause for secret hope in every poor man. Every rich man would see the sight because they knew the sons of Wang Lung were left rich, and so must every rich man pay his respects to this great old dead man.

  But in Wang Lung’s own house that day there were confusion and noise, for it was no easy thing to have so vast a funeral set forth in order, and Wang the Eldest was distracted with all he had to do, and since he was the head of the house, he must have oversight of all, of hundreds of people and mourning fitted to each as was his station, and the hiring of the sedan chairs for the ladies and children. He was distracted and yet he was proud of his importance and that all came running to him and bawling to ask what to do in this and that, and being agitated so that the sweat ran down his face like in mid-summer, his rolling eye fell upon his second brother who stood calmly there, and this coolness angered Wang the Eldest in the midst of his heat, and he cried out,

  “You leave all to me and you cannot even see that your own wife and children are dressed and sober-faced.”

  At this Wang the Second answered with a secret sneer, and very smoothly,

  “Why should anyone do anything when you can be pleased only with what you do yourself? Well we know, my wife and I, that nothing else will please you and your lady, and we do desire to please you first!”

  So even at his funeral Wang Lung’s sons bickered together, but this was partly because they were both secretly distraught because their other brother had not come home yet and each blamed the other for the delay, the elder son that his second brother had not given the messenger money enough if he had to travel far to find the one he sought, and the second because his elder brother had delayed in sending the messenger for a day or two.

  There was only one peaceful in all that great house on this day and it was Pear Blossom. She sat in her mourning robes of a white hempen cloth that were lesser in degree of mourning only to those that Lotus wore and she sat quietly and waited beside Wang Lung. She had robed herself early and she had dressed the fool in mourning, too, although that poor creature had no notion of what this was all about and laughed continuously and was disturbed by the strange garments she wore so that she tried to pull them off. But Pear Blossom gave her a cake to eat and saw to it that she had her strip of red cloth to play with and so she soothed her.

  As for Lotus, she was never in such a pother as she was this day, for she could not sit in the usual sedan, being so mountainous as she was now, and she tried this chair and that as it was brought to her and she was shrieking that none would do and she did not know why they made chairs so small and narrow now-a-days, and she wept and was beside herself for fear she would not be able to join in the procession of so great a dead man as her husband. When she saw the fool all dressed in mourning she fixed her anger there and she cried out in complaint to Wang the Eldest,

  “What—is that thing to go, too?” And she complained that the fool ought to be left behind on such a public day.

  But Pear Blossom said softly and positively,

  “No, my lord said I was never to leave this poor child of his and this was the command he laid on me. I can quiet her for she listens to me and is used to me and we will trouble no one.”

  Then Wang the Eldest let the matter pass because he was so torn with many things to be done, and with the knowledge that hundreds of people waited for the day to begin; and seeing his anxiety, the chair bearers seized the chance of necessity and they demanded more money than they ought to have and the men who carried the coffin complained that it was so heavy and so far to the family burial place, and tenants and idlers from the town flooded into the courts and stood about everywhere useless and gaping to see what could be seen. To all this was added another thing and it was that Wang the Eldest’s lady was continually upbraiding him and complaining that things were not managed well, so that in the midst of all this Wang the Eldest ran about and sweated as he had not in many a day, and although he shouted until he was hoarse no one heeded him greatly.

  Whether they would ever have finished the funeral that day or not none knows, except the most opportune thing happened, and this was that suddenly Wang the Third came in from the south. At this very last moment he came in and they all stared to see what he had become, for he had been away from home ten years and they had not seen him since that day when Wang Lung took Pear Blossom to himself. No, he had left in the strangest passion on that day and he had never come home again. He left a wild, tall, angry lad, his black brows drawn down over his eyes, and he left hating his father. Now he came back a man, the tallest of the three brothers and so changed that if it had not been for his two black brows frowning as ever and his mouth still surly, they would not have known him.

  He came striding into the gate in his soldier’s garb, but it was not the garb of a common soldier either. The coat and the trousers were of a fine dark cloth and there were gilded buttons on his coat and he had a sword girdled to his leather belt. Behind him marched four soldiers with guns over their shoulders, all good enough men except for one who had a harelip; yet he, too, was stout and strong as any in body.

  When these came marching through the great gate a silence fell over the confusion and the noise and every face turned to see this Wang the Third, and everyone was silent because he looked so fierce and so used to command. He went with firm long steps through the crowd of tenants and priests and id
lers who pressed everywhere to see all that could be seen, and he said in a loud voice,

  “Where are my brothers?”

  Now one had already run to tell the two brothers that their other brother was here and so they came out not knowing how to receive him, whether respectfully, or as a younger brother who was a runaway. But when they saw this third brother clad as he was and the four fierce soldiers behind him motionless at his command, they were quickly courteous, and as courteous as they would have been to a stranger. They bowed and sighed heavily at the sadness of the day. Then Wang the Third bowed also deeply and properly to his elder brothers, and he looked to the right and to the left and he said,

  “Where is my father?”

  Then the two brothers led him into the inner court where Wang Lung lay in his coffin under the scarlet coverings embroidered in gold, and Wang the Third commanded his soldiers to stay in the court and he went alone into the room. When Pear Blossom heard the clatter of leathern shoes upon the stones she took one hasty look to see who came and she saw and turned herself away quickly with her face to the wall and she stood thus turned away.

  But if Wang the Third saw her at all or marked who she was he made no sign of it. He bowed before the coffin and he called for the hempen robes that had been prepared for him, although when he drew them on they were too short for him, for his brothers had not thought him so tall a fellow as he was. Nevertheless, he drew the robes on and he lit two fresh candles he had bought and he called for fresh meats to be brought as a sacrifice before his father’s coffin.

  When all these things were ready he bowed himself to the ground before his father three times, and he cried out very properly, “Ah, my father!” But Pear Blossom kept her face steadfastly to the wall and she did not turn herself once to see what went on.

  When Wang the Third had finished his duty he rose and said in his swift short way, “Let us proceed if affairs are ready!”

  Then it was the strangest thing that where there had been so much confusion and noise and men bawling here and there at each other, now there were silence and willingness to obey, and it seemed that the very presence of Wang the Third and of his four soldiers was power, for when the chair bearers began again their complaint that they were making to Wang the Eldest in such surly tones, their voices grew pleading and mild and their words reasonable. Even so Wang the Third drew his brows together and stared at the men so that their voices grew faint and died away and when he said, “Do your work and be sure you shall be justly treated in this house!” they fell silent and went to the chairs as though there were some magic in soldiers and guns.

  Each man went to his place and at last the great coffin was carried out into the courts and hempen ropes were put about it and under it and poles like young trees slipped through the ropes and the bearers put their shoulders under the poles. There also was the sedan for Wang Lung’s spirit and in it they had placed certain possessions of his, the pipe he smoked for many years and a garment he had worn and the picture they had hired an artist to paint of him after he was ill, since he had never such a likeness made before. True, the picture did not look like Wang Lung and it was only a picture of some old sage or other, but still the artist did his best and he brushed in great whiskers and eyebrows and many wrinkles such as old men do have sometimes.

  So the procession started, and now the women began their weeping and wailing and loudest of all was Lotus. She pulled her hair awry and she had a new white kerchief and put it to her eyes, to one and to the other, and she cried out great sobs,

  “Ah, he who was my support is gone—is gone—”

  And all along the streets people stood thick and pressed together to see Wang Lung pass this last time, and when they saw Lotus they murmured and approved the sight and they said,

  “She is a very proper woman and she mourns a good man gone.” And some marvelled to see so large and fat a lady weeping so stoutly and with such a clamor and they said, “How rich he was to have her able to eat herself to such a size as this!” And they envied Wang Lung his possessions.

  As for the wives of the sons of Wang Lung, they wept each according to her nature. The lady of Wang the Eldest wept decently and as much as she should, touching her eyes from time to time with her kerchief and it was not right that she weep as much as Lotus. The concubine her husband had, who was a pretty plump girl newly wed a year or so before, looked at this lady and wept when she wept. But the country wife of Wang the Second forgot to weep for it was the first time she had ever been carried through the streets of the town like this on men’s shoulders and she could not weep for staring about her at all the hundreds of faces of men and woman and children standing pressed against the walls and crowded into doorways, and if she remembered and put her hand to her eyes she peeped through and saw and forgot again.

  Now it has been said from ancient times that all women who weep may be divided into three sorts. There are those who lift up their voices and their tears flow and this may be called crying; there are those who utter loud lamentations but whose tears do not flow and this may be called howling; there are those whose tears flow but who utter no sound and this may be called weeping. Of all those women who followed Wang Lung in his coffin, his wives and his sons’ wives and his maid servants and his slaves and his hired mourners, there was only one who wept and it was Pear Blossom. She sat in her sedan and she pulled the curtain down so no one could see her, and there she wept silently and without a sound. Even when the mighty funeral was over and Wang Lung was in his land and covered with it, when the houses and servants and beasts of paper and reed had been burned to ashes, when the incense was lit and smouldering and his sons had made their obeisances and the mourners had howled their due time out and been paid, when all was finished and the earth heaped high over the new grave, then when no one wept because it was over and there was no use in any more weeping, even then Pear Blossom wept on in her silent way.

  Nor would she go back to the town house. She went to the earthen house and when Wang the Eldest urged her to return with them to the town house and live with the family, at least until the inheritance was divided, she shook her head and she said,

  “No, I lived here with him longest and I have been most happy here and he left me this poor child to care for. She will be irksome to the First Lady if we go back there, and that one does not love me either, and so we two will stay on here in my lord’s old house. You are not to trouble about us. When I need anything I will ask you for it, but I can need only a very little and we shall be safe here with the old tenant and his wife and I can take care of your sister thus, and so fulfill my lord’s command he laid on me.”

  “Well, if you so wish it, then,” said Wang the Eldest as though he were unwilling.

  Yet he was pleased, too, for his lady had spoken against the fool that she was such a thing as ought not to be about the courts, especially where there were women bearing children, and now that Wang Lung was gone it was true that Lotus might be more cruel than she dared to be when he was alive, and so trouble come forth. So he let Pear Blossom have her way, and she took the fool by the hand and led her to that earthen house where she had nourished Wang Lung in his age. She lived there and cared for the fool and she went only so far away as Wang Lung’s grave.

  Yes, thereafter she was the only one who went often to Wang Lung, for if Lotus came it was only at such few seasons as a widow must in decency go to her husband’s place of burial and she took care to go at such hours as people were about to see how dutiful she was. But Pear Blossom went secretly and often and whenever her heart grew too full and lonely, and she took care to go when no one was near, at times when people were secure in their houses and asleep in the night, or if they were busy and away in their fields. At such lonely times she took the fool and went to Wang Lung’s grave.

  But she did not weep aloud there. No, she leaned her head down on his grave and if she did weep a little sometimes she made no sound except to whisper a time or two,

  “Ah, my lord and m
y father, and the only father I ever had!”

  III

  NOW ALTHOUGH THIS MIGHTY old man of the land was dead and in his grave he could not be forgotten yet, for he was due three years of mourning which sons must give their father. The eldest son of Wang Lung, who was now head of the family, took the greatest care that everything should be done decently and as it should be, and when he was not sure of how this was, he went to ask his wife. For Wang the Eldest had been a country lad in his childhood and he had grown up in the midst of fields and villages before his father grew rich enough by a lucky chance and his own cleverness to buy this great town house for them all. Now when he went to his wife secretly for her counsel she answered coldly, as though she despised him somewhat for what he did not know, and yet she answered him carefully, too, for she cared enough not to be ashamed in this house.

  “If the tablet where his soul lives for the time is set up in the great hall, then prepare the sacrificial food in bowls before it and let our mourning all be made thus—”

  And she told him how everything should be and Wang the Eldest listened and then went out from her and gave the commands as his own. Thus the garments of second mourning were arranged for them all and cloth bought and tailors hired. For a hundred days the three sons were to wear white shoes and afterwards they might wear pale grey ones or of some such lifeless hue. But they were not to wear any silk garments, neither the sons of Wang Lung nor his wives, until the full three years were over and the final tablet for the resting place of Wang Lung’s soul was made and inscribed and set in its true place among the tablets of his father and his grandfather.

  Thus Wang the Eldest commanded and the mourning garments for each man and woman and grandson were prepared as he said. He made his voice very loud and lordly now whenever he spoke, since he was head of this house, and he took as his right the highest seat in any room where he sat with his brothers. His two brothers listened, the second one with his small narrow mouth awry as though he smiled inwardly, for he felt himself secretly always wiser than this elder brother of his, because it was to the second son that Wang Lung in his lifetime had entrusted the stewardship of the lands, and he alone knew how many tenants there were and how much money could be expected each season from the fields, and such knowledge gave him power over his brothers, at least in his own mind. But Wang the Third listened to the commands of his elder brother as one does who has learned to hear commands when it is needful to hear them, but still as one whose heart is not in what he does and as though he were eager to be away.