Pearl Buck - Sons

When he said this the pale lad hung his head deeper than ever and it could be seen that a light chill sweat stood out on his upper lip and he took his hand and wiped it furtively away, looking doggedly down all the time he did this. But Wang the Tiger continued to stare at them steadily with his hard black stare, until even the pocked lad who was always so ready did not know where to look, so that he turned his eyes this way and that and moved his feet and gnawed his fingernail. Then Wang the Second said in apology,

“It is true they are but two poor things, my brother, and we are grieved that we had none more meet for your kindness. But my elder brother’s eldest son is chiefest heir, and the one after this one is a hunchback, and this pocked one is my eldest and my next but a child, and so these two are the best we have for the time.”

Then Wang the Tiger, having seen what they were, told a soldier to lead the lads into a side room and let them eat their meat there, and they were not to come again unless he called for them. The soldier led them away then, but the son of Wang the Eldest cast piteous looks back at his uncle and Wang the Tiger seeing him waver like this called,

“Why do you linger?”

Then the lad stopped and said in his feeble way, “But am I not to have my box?”

Wang the Tiger looked then and saw the fine pigskin box beside the door and he said with some measure of contempt,

“Take it, but it will be no use to you for you shall strip off those robes and get into the good stout clothes that soldiers wear. Men cannot fight in silk robes!” The lad turned clay-colored at this and went without a word and the two brothers were left alone.

For a long time Wang the Tiger sat in silence, for he was never one to make talk for courtesy’s sake, and at last Wang the Second asked him,

“What is it of which you think so deeply? Is it something about our sons?”

Then Wang the Tiger said slowly, “No, except I thought how that most men so old as I am have sons of their own growing up and it must be a very comforting sight to a man.”

“Why, so might you have them if you had wed soon enough,” said Wang the Second, smiling a little. “But we did not know where you were for so long and my father did not know either and he could not wed you as he would have. But my brother and I will do it willingly, and the money for it is there when you need it for such a thing.”

But Wang the Tiger put the thought from him resolutely and he said,

“No, it will seem strange to you, but I do not stomach a woman. It is a strange thing but I have never seen a woman—” and he broke off there for the serving man came in with meats, and the brothers said no more.

When they had eaten and the dishes were taken away again and tea was brought Wang the Second made ready to ask what thing it was that Wang the Tiger wished to do with all his silver and with these lads, but he did not know how to begin to ask it, and before he had decided on a skillful way, Wang the Tiger said suddenly,

“We are brothers. You and I understand each other. I depend on you!”

And Wang the Second drank some tea and then he said cautiously and mildly,

“Depend upon me you may, since we are brothers, but I should like to know what your plan is so that I can know what I am to do for you.”

Then Wang the Tiger leaned forward and he said in a great whisper and his words rushed out fast and his breath was like a hot wind blowing into Wang the Second’s ear,

“I have loyal men about me, a good hundred and more, and they are all weary of this old general! I am weary, too, and I long for my own country and I never want to see one of these little yellow southern men again. Yes, I have loyal men! At my sign they will march out with me in the dead of a certain night. We will make for the north where the mountains are, and we will march to the far north before we entrench ourselves to make a war of revolution if this old general comes after us. But he may not stir — he is so old and so sunken in his eating and drinking and his women, except that among my hundred are his best and strongest men, men not of the south but out of fiercer, braver tribes!”

Now Wang the Second had always been a small and peaceful man, a merchant, and while he knew there was always a war somewhere he had had nothing to do with wars except once when in a revolution soldiers had been quartered in his father’s house, and he knew nothing of how war is begun or waged except that if it is waged too near the prices of grain are high and if it is distant then prices fall again. He had never been so near a war as this, even in his own family was this war! His narrow mouth gaped and his small eyes widened and he whispered back, “But what can I do to help in this, who am so peaceful a man as I am?”

“This!” said Wang the Tiger and his whisper was the grating of iron upon iron. “I must have much silver, all my own, and I must borrow of you and at the least interest you will give me until I can establish myself!”

“But what security?” said Wang the Second, breathless.

“This!” said Wang the Tiger again. “You are to lend me what I need and what the land will bring until I can gather a mighty army and I will establish myself somewhere north of our own region and I will make myself lord of that whole territory! Then when I am lord I will enlarge myself and my lands, and I shall grow greater and more great with every war I wage until—” He paused and seemed to look off into some distant age, into some distant country, as though he saw it plain before him, and Wang the Second waited and then could not wait.

“Until what?” he said.

Wang the Tiger rose suddenly to his feet. “Until there is none greater than I in this whole nation!” he said, and now his whisper was like a shout.

“What will you be then?” asked Wang the Second astounded.

“I shall be what I will!” cried Wang the Tiger, and his black brows flew up over his eyes suddenly and sharply and he smote the table with the flat of his hand so that Wang the Second leaped at the crack, and the two men stared at each other.

Now all this was the strangest thing of which Wang the Second had ever heard. He was not a man who could dream great dreams and his greatest dream was to sit down at night with his books of accounts and look over what he had sold that year and plan in what safe sure ways he could enlarge himself the next year in his markets. Now, therefore, he sat and stared at this brother of his and he saw him tall and black and strange and his eyes shining like a tiger’s eyes, and those straight black brows like banners above his eyes. Thus staring Wang the Second was lifted out of himself so that he was afraid of his brother and he did not dare to say anything to thwart him for there was a look in the man’s eyes that was half crazed and it was so mighty a look that even Wang the Second could feel in his pinched heart the power of this man, his brother. Still he was cautious, though, and still he could not forget his habit of caution, and so he coughed dryly and said in his little dry voice.

“But what is there in all this for me and for us all and what security if I lend my silver to you?”

And Wang the Tiger answered with majesty, and he brought his eyes back to rest upon his brother,

“Do you think I will forget my own when I have raised myself up and are not you my brothers and your sons my brothers’ sons? Did you ever hear of a mighty lord of war who did not raise up all his house as he rose? Is it nothing to you to be the brother of— a king ?”

And he gazed down into his brother’s eyes, and Wang the Second suddenly half believed this brother of his, although unwillingly too, for all this was the strangest tale he had ever heard, and he said in his sensible way,