Pearl Buck - Sons

“At least I will give you what is your own and I will lend you what I can spare, if it be that indeed you can rise like this, for doubtless there are many who do not rise so high as they think they can. At least you shall have your own.”

Then some fire went suddenly out of Wang the Tiger’s eyes and he sat down and he pressed his lips together straight and hard and he said,

“You are cautious, I see!”

His voice was so hard and cold that Wang the Second was a little afraid and he said to excuse himself,

“But I have a family and many little children and the mother of my sons is not old yet and she is exceedingly fertile, and I have all these to plan and care for. You are unwed yet and you do not know what it is to have so many depending on you for everything, and food and clothing costing more every year!”

Wang the Tiger shrugged himself and he turned away, and he said as if carelessly,

“I do not, indeed, but hear me! Every month I will send my trusty man to you and you will know him by his harelip. You are to give him as much money as he is able to carry. Sell my lands as quickly and as well as you are able, for I shall need a thousand pieces of silver a month.”

“A thousand!” cried Wang the Second, and his voice was cracked and his eyes idiotic in his surprise. “But how can you spend it?”

“There are a hundred men to be fed and clothes and arms to be bought. I must buy guns before I can increase my army if I cannot capture them quickly enough,” said Wang the Tiger speaking very fast. Then suddenly he was angry. “You are not to ask me this and that!” he roared, smiting the table again. “I know what I must do and I must have silver until I can establish myself and be lord over a territory! Then I can tax the people, as I will. But now I must have silver. Stand by me and you shall have a certain reward. Fail me — and I can forget you are my blood!”

When he said these last words he thrust his face very near to his brother’s and Wang the Second, looking into those fierce eyes hooded beneath the heavy black brows, drew back hastily and coughed and said, “Well, and of course I will do it. I am your brother. But when will you begin?”

“When can you sell my parcel of land?” asked Wang the Tiger.

“The wheat harvest will come before many months,” said Wang the Second slowly, musing as he spoke and hesitating, for he was dazed with all he had heard.

“Then men will have money,” returned Wang the Tiger, “and you can sell something before rice is put in, doubtless.”

Now this was true enough and Wang the Second did not dare to oppose this strange brother of his at all for he was afraid of him, and he knew he must manage the thing somehow. So he rose and said,

“If there is such haste as this I must return at once and see what I can do, for harvests are quickly spent and then men think themselves poor again and hard-worked with what land they have to plant and more land will seem too much for them.”

So he would not stay at all for he wanted to be away out of this place where there were such fierce men and guns and weapons of war everywhere. He stayed only to go into the next room where the lads had been sent and they were sitting on a bench before a small un-painted table upon which food was placed. It was the broken meats of what Wang the Tiger had put before his brother, but it was good enough for these lads, and Wang the Second’s son stuffed it into his mouth very willingly, his bowl to his lips. But the other lad was dainty and accustomed to better than what was left over after others had eaten, and he sat and picked a little rice up with his chopsticks and did not touch the meats. Then Wang the Second felt some strange unwillingness to leave these lads and especially his own, and he had a doubt for a moment as to whether it was not a hazard he should not have taken for his son. But the thing was begun now and he could not undo what was begun, so he merely said,

“I return, and my only command on you both is that you are to obey your uncle in every single point, for you are his now, and he is a fierce and impatient man and he will not bear anything from you. But if you are obedient and will do all he says, you may rise to what you do not know. There is some destiny written for your uncle.”

Then he turned quickly and went away, for he could not help it that his heart was a little heavy to leave his son, more than he could have thought it would be, and to ease it he muttered to himself,

“Well, such a chance does not come to every lad, and if it is chance it is a fair one. He will not be a common soldier after all, but an official of some sort if the thing succeeds.”

And he determined he would do well and do all he could to make it succeed; at least for his son’s sake he would do all he could.

But the pale lad who was Wang the Eldest’s son began to weep when he saw his uncle go and he wept aloud, and Wang the Second hurried away. Yet the sound of that weeping pursued him, and he made haste to reach the gate where the lions were, so that he could hear it no more.

NOW BEGAN HIS STRANGE enterprise which, if Wang Lung’s soul had not been in some far country, could have made his body rise out of that land of his where he slept, because in his lifetime he had hated above anything else war and soldiers, and here was his good land being sold for such a cause. But he slept there and he slept on and there was no one to stay these sons of his in what they did; no, there was no one except Pear Blossom and she did not for a long time know what they did. These two elder sons feared her for her faithfulness to their father and so they hid their plans from her.

For when Wang the Second had come back to his house he told Wang the Eldest to come to the tea house where they could talk in peace and there over their bowls of tea they talked. But this time Wang the Second chose a secret hidden corner where two walls come together without any window or door in either wall, and they sat so they could see who came near and they bent their heads over the table and talked in whispers and hints and broken words. Thus Wang the Second told his brother what Wang the Tiger planned, and whereas now he was come back to his own house again and into the common ways of his usual life the plan of the soldier had seemed more and more a dream and an impossible dream, the eldest brother seized on it as he listened as a thing wonderful but easy to do, too. The truth was that this huge and child-like man grew excited as the plan unfolded before him, for he saw himself raised above his highest fancy — brother to a king! He was a man of little learning and less wisdom and besides one who loved to see plays and he had seen many old plays which tell of the deeds of ancient and fabled heroes, who were at first but common men and then by the skill of their arms and by their wit and guile, they rose high enough to found dynasties. Now he saw himself the brother of such an one, and more than that, the elder brother of such an one, and his eyes listened and he whispered hoarsely,

“I always said our brother was like no other lad! It was I who besought our father to take him out of the fields and hire a tutor for him and teach him what he ought to know as a landlord’s son. Doubtless my brother will not forget what his eldest brother did for him, and how if it had not been for me he would have been but a hind on my father’s land!”

And he looked down pleased with himself, and he smoothed over his great belly the rich purple satin robe he wore, and he thought of his second son and how the family would all rise, and he himself would be perhaps a nobleman; doubtless he would be made a nobleman when his brother was a king. There were stories of such things in the books he had read and he had seen these things in the playhouse. Then Wang the Second, who had been more and more dubious as he came back to himself, and indeed the fierce enterprise seemed very far from this quiet town, when he saw the mind of his elder brother flying into the future he grew jealous and his very caution made him greedy and he thought to himself,