Sons

  “You are free—you may go where you will!”

  But she answered, “Where shall I go, seeing I have no home anywhere?”

  And saying this, she lifted up her head and looked at Wang the Tiger with a sudden seeming simplicity.

  At that look the sealed fountain in Wang the Tiger was unstopped and such a passion rushed out into his blood that he began to tremble within his soldiers’ clothes. Now it was his eyes that dropped before hers. Now she was stronger than he. The room was filled with the air of this passion that had been stopped so long and men stirred uneasily and stared at each other. Suddenly Wang the Tiger remembered they were there and he roared at them,

  “Get you gone, every one of you, and stand outside the door!”

  They went away then, crestfallen, for they saw well enough what had befallen their general, even that which may befall any man, high or low. They went out then, and waited upon the threshold.

  When there were none but these two left in the hall, Wang the Tiger leaned forward out of his carven seat and he said in a hard, hoarse voice,

  “Woman, you are free. Choose where you will go and I will send one to take you there.”

  And she answered simply, with all the boldness gone out of her, except that she could look at him in the eyes while she said it,

  “I have chosen already. I am your bondswoman.”

  XVII

  IF WANG THE TIGER had been a coarse and common man and without feeling for what was lawful and decent he might have taken this woman, since she had no father or brother or any man to stand for her, and he might have done as he liked with her. But that hour in his youth which had been like a blow upon his heart made him fastidious still and it made his pleasure more keen to think he could wait, with all his passion, until he could have her as a wife. Moreover, he wanted her as wife, for mingled with all his personal passion for her, which fell more deeply on him hour by hour, was the craving also to have a son by her, his son, his first-born son, and only a true wife can bear a man his true son. Yes, half of the exultation of his secret longing for her was this, to think what a son they would form between them, he with his power and great tall body and all he had to bestow, and she with her fox-like beauty and her spirit of fearlessness. To Wang the Tiger when he dreamed of it, it seemed his son lived already.

  In great haste, then, he called his harelipped trusty man and he bade him thus,

  “Go to my brothers and tell them I want my share of the silver that was left to me when I should want to wed. I need it now for my marriage, for I have set my will upon this woman. Tell them to give me a thousand pieces of silver, for I have presents to give her and my men must have a very great feast on such a day and I must buy myself a new robe fit for the day. But if he gives you eight hundred, come back with it, and do not delay for the rest. And bid my brothers come and see the marriage, too, they and all they care to bring with them.”

  The trusty man listened to this in greatest consternation, and his lower jaw hung hideously and he stammered forth in an agony,

  “Oh, my general—oh, my captain—to that fox! But take her for a day—a time—not wed?”

  “Be silent, fool!” Wang the Tiger roared at him then, starting up from his seat at the man. “Did I ask your counsel? I will order you beaten like a common criminal!”

  The man hung his head then silent, but tears rose into his eyes and he went on his errand very heavily, for he felt the woman would bring his master nothing but evil and he muttered many times as he went along the road,

  “Yes, and I have seen these fox women! Yes, and my general will never believe any evil I tell him! These fox women do always fasten themselves on the best men—it is always so!”

  Thus he went along the road, his feet stirring the dust that lay thick through the dry winter days, and men passing him stared at him curious because of his muttering and because of his tears that rolled down his cheeks sometimes without his knowing it, and when they saw he paid no heed to anything except what was in his own heart, they set him down as mad, and gave him the wider half of the road.

  But when this trusty man came with his message to Wang the Merchant, that one was for once startled out of his secret calm and he looked up from his table where he sat casting up accounts, for the trusty man, finding him not at his house, had come straight to his grain shop, and there he was at his desk in a corner behind the counters. He looked up and said in agitation, his pen arrested in his hand,

  “But how can I suddenly withdraw so much money from the places where I have it loaned out? My brother ought to tell me when he is betrothed and so give me warning of a year or two. Such haste is scarcely decent in a wedding!”

  Now Wang the Tiger knew his brother and how loath he was to part with money and so he had also told his trusty man before he went,

  “If my brother delays you are to press him to the point and tell him plainly I will have the money if I have to come and fetch it myself. I will carry this thing through in three days after you return, and you are not to be away more than five. There is need for haste, for I do not know how long it will be before I have an army march down on me from above, for I cannot hope to remain unnoticed when the provincial ruler hears what I did in these courts. He will send men against me, even, and there can be no feasting and wedding on a battlefield!”

  Now it was true enough that what Wang the Tiger had done by violence he must expect to be heard in the courts above him and it was true that he might be punished. But there was a deeper truth than this, and it was that Wang the Tiger was so hungry for this woman he could not wait for her longer than he must, and he knew he was useless as a warrior until he could have her safely for himself, and so set his mind free for something else. Therefore he had urged his trusty man and he grew fierce in his urging and he added,

  “Well I know that merchant brother of mine will howl that he has his money where he cannot get it. You are not to heed him. Tell him I have my sword still, and the very swift and fine sword that I took from the Leopard when I killed him!”

  But the trusty man kept this threat as a last resort and he did not use it up at the first, and not until Wang the Merchant seemed about to delay on another score, and it was that it was a shame to the family to wed into it a woman who had no family and no home, and had been a trollop, perhaps, as such women are. But the trusty man did not tell him it was a woman out of a robbers’ lair. No, although he was sorely tempted to tell it and tempted to hold back the woman by any means, yet he knew Wang the Tiger well enough to know he would have what he set himself to have, and so he used his threat.

  Then Wang the Merchant had to scour about and get what silver he could, and he was in great distress of mind that he was compelled to call in money suddenly like this and lose its interest, and he went very gloomily to his elder brother and said,

  “The sum of money due our younger brother for his marriage he calls for now, and he is going to wed some trollop or other whom we have never heard of! He is more like you than me, after all.”

  Wang the Landlord scratched his head at this and cast about for an answer, and then decided on peace, and he said,

  “It is a strange thing, for I thought he would call upon us when he felt the need and when he was established, and ask us to betroth him properly, since our father is dead who should have done it for him. Yes, I had a maid or two in mind even.” And in his heart he thought that surely he would have chosen a maid better than anyone else, seeing he knew women so well, and all the best maids, at least by hearsay, who were in the town.

  But Wang the Merchant had been driven very irritable with the exigency and he sneered and said,

  “Be sure you have a maid or two in mind! But that is nothing to me. The thing is what can you give of this thousand he wants, for I have no such great amount of cash to take out of my girdle suddenly like this!”

  Wang the Elder stared heavily at his brother, then, and he sat staring with his hand on his fat knees, and he said huskily,

  ?
??You know all I have. I never have any ready silver. Sell a piece of my land again.”

  Then Wang the Merchant groaned a little, for it was not a good time to sell before the New Year, and he had counted on the harvests of wheat to which the land was all planted. But after he had gone back to his shop and had fingered his abacus awhile and cast up his loss and profit, he found it would pay him to sell more land rather than to draw his money out of the places of high interest where he had it, and so he sold a fair field, and when he let it be known, many came to buy of him. He sold the land for a thousand pieces and a little odd sum over, but he gave the trusty man only nine hundred pieces, and held back the rest, lest Wang the Tiger demand more.

  But the trusty man was a simple fellow, and he remembered that his master told him he was not to delay for a hundred pieces or so, and he went away with what he had. And Wang the Merchant hastened to put out at interest what had not been asked for, and he was a little comforted that he had saved this much, at any rate.

  There was but one untoward thing in this transaction he made, and it was that when he sold the land he sold a piece or two not far from the earthen house, and Pear Blossom happened to be out on the threshing floor in front of the house. When she saw the knot of men gathered about the field, she shaded her eyes with her hand and looked through the sunshine and she knew what was being done. She hastened then to Wang the Merchant’s side and motioned him back a little from the others, and she opened her eyes with reproach and said to him,

  “Again do you sell the land?”

  But Wang the Merchant would not be troubled with her when he had so much else to trouble him, and he said bluntly,

  “My younger brother is to be wed, and there is no other provision for the sum that is rightfully his for such a purpose except to sell a piece.”

  Then Pear Blossom shrank back in the strangest way and she said no more. No, she went slowly back to the house, and from that day on her life narrowed itself yet more, and what time she did not spend in caring for the two children, as she called them always, she spent assiduously in listening to the nuns who came to visit her, and she besought them now to come every day. Yes, even in the morning, when it is ill luck to see a nun, and many will spit upon a nun if she cross their path before noon, because it is so ill an omen, Pear Blossom welcomed them always.

  Eagerly she foreswore eating any more meat her life long, and it was not hard for her, either, because she had always shrunk so from taking any life at all. Yes, she was such an one that even on a hot summer’s night she would close the lattices so that the moths would not fly in and burn themselves in the candle flames, and this she counted as the saving of life. Her greatest prayer was that the fool might die before her so that she need never use the packet of white poison that Wang Lung had left to her to use if she must.

  She learned of these nuns and far into the night she told off her prayers and she had always wrapped about her wrist the little rosary of beads of fragrant wood. This was all her life.

  Now after the trusty man had gone, Wang the Merchant and Wang the Landlord consulted together as to whether they ought or not to go to their brother’s wedding. They each longed to share such success as he had had, but the trusty man had made much of the need for haste lest a battle be made by those above, and so the brothers were afraid, also, because they did not know how strong Wang the Tiger was and whether, if he lost, he would be heavily punished and they perhaps entangled in the punishment because they were his brothers. Wang the Landlord longed especially to go and see what sort of a woman his younger brother had, for the trusty man told enough to whet his interest. But when his lady heard of the affair she said gravely,

  “It is a very strange and unusual thing to have such a brawl as we have heard. No, if he is punished by those above him in the state, then we may, be all punished, for I have often heard it told that if a man commits a crime of rebellion against the state, his family may be killed even to the very ninth-removed cousin.”

  It was true that in the past such punishments were made, when kings and emperors strove to sweep the country clean of crimes, and Wang the Landlord had seen such things told in plays and he had heard of them in story tellers’ booths, where he loved to pass time away, so that now, although he was too high for such low pastimes and dared not join a common crowd in such a place, he still listened eagerly if a passing story teller came into the tea house to tell his tale. Now, remembering, he turned yellow with fright and he went to Wang the Merchant and said,

  “We had better have some sort of a signed paper saying our brother was an unfilial son so that we have cast him out of our house, so that if he fails in a battle or is punished we will not be entangled with him, we and our sons.” And he thought to himself at that moment that he was glad his son had not wanted to go, after all, and he took pleasure in pitying his brother and saying, “I do feel for you with your own son in such a danger!”

  Now although Wang the Merchant merely smiled, yet when he had thought awhile it seemed to him a good, cautious thing to do. So he wrote a paper saying how and in what ways Wang the Third, nicknamed the Tiger, had been unfilial and no longer belonged to the house, and he had his elder brother sign it first and then he signed it and he took it to the magistrate’s court and paid a sum of money to have it secretly stamped. Then he took the deed and put it safely away where none might find it unless he needed it.

  Thus the two brothers felt safe, and they looked at each other when they met in the tea house one morning, and Wang the Landlord said, “Why should we not go and feast merrily now, seeing we are safe?” But before they could consider it, for they were not men who at their age could take a journey easily, there came a rumor over that whole region, told from mouth to mouth, and it was that the ruler of the province had heard with great wrath that some small country upstart, half robber, half runaway soldier from an old southern general, had seized the seat of government in one of the counties, and an army was to be sent against him to capture him. This ruler was responsible to those yet higher than he, and if he did not manage this affair he would be blamed.

  When this rumor came filtering through from wayside inn and tea house, and be sure there were those who ran with pleasure to tell it to the two brothers, then Wang the Landlord and Wang the Merchant gave up their plan speedily, and each stayed close in his house for a time, and each was glad he had not boasted too soon that he had a brother in a high place, and it was a comfort to them to think of the paper, signed and stamped at court. If anyone spoke of their third brother before them Wang the Landlord said loudly, “He has been wild and runaway all his days!” And Wang the Merchant drew his meager lips together and said, “Let him do what he likes, for it does not concern us and he is scarcely our brother.”

  Wang the Tiger was in the midst of his wedding feast when this rumor reached him also, and in the midst of three days of mighty feasting throughout the courts. He had ordered the killing of cows and pigs and fowls, and he ordered everything to be paid for as it was taken to be killed. Although he was so strong in this region now that he could have taken what he liked without price and none would have dared to withstand him, yet because he was a just man he paid for all.

  This justice moved the common people toward him very much so that they praised him to each other and man said to man,

  “There could be far worse than this lord of war who rules over us. He is strong enough to keep robbers away and he does not rob us himself, beyond the taxes, and I do not see that we could ask for more than this under heaven.”

  But still at this time they did not come out too openly for him yet, because they had heard the rumor also, and they waited to see if he could be victorious or not, for if he lost they would be blamed if they had showed loyalty to him. But if he gained then they could take courage to come out for him.

  Still they had let Wang the Tiger take what he needed for the feast, although it taxed the people much to feed so many at a time, and he would have the best for once, and he had bette
r than the best even for himself and his bride and his trusty men and the women who cared for the bride. These women were some half score of those about the courts, the wife of the gaoler and of such harmless persons who do not care who is over them and they came creeping back to their places the next day after the overthrow, ready to swear loyalty to anyone who fed them. And Wang the Tiger would have these women properly about his bride, for he was very careful toward her and did not go near her for the days before he married her; no, although he could not sleep at times in the night for thinking of her and wondering who she was and burning for her. But stronger than this was the feeling he had for her to make her the mother of his son, and it seemed to him it was his duty to his son to be careful in all he did.

  Different indeed was she from Pear Blossom, and because of that early image of a woman set into his memory he had always thought, if he thought, that he would like mild, pale women best. But now he did not care, and he said to himself wildly that he did not care who she was nor what, so that he had her and had her sealed to him forever through their son.

  During those days no one came near him for anything, for his trusty men saw that he was wholly given over to his desire. But they consulted together secretly, for they had heard the rumor and they put their strength to hastening the wedding, so that it could be over and their leader slaked and ready to be himself and lead them on when the need came.

  More quickly, then, than Wang the Tiger even could hope, the feasts were prepared and the wife of the gaol keeper stood for the woman and the courts were thrown open to all such as cared to come and see and feast. But few men of the city came and fewer women, because they were afraid. Only the homeless ones and such as live nowhere and have nothing to lose came in as any may come in to a marriage and ate heartily and stared their fill at the strange bride. But when they went in to fetch the old magistrate and bring him to a seat of honor on such a day, as Wang the Tiger had commanded should be done, he sent out word that he grieved he could not come for he had a flux and could not rise from his bed.