Pearl Buck - Sons

Now when Wang the Tiger came into his second brother’s house he could not but marvel to see how different it was from the other’s, and how full of high good humor, in spite of bickering and quarreling among the children, too. And all the noise and good humor swelled and centered about Wang the Second’s country wife. She was a noisy, boisterous creature and whenever she spoke her voice rang through the house she was so ruddy and loud. Yet, although she lost her temper a score of times a day and knocked this child’s head against that one’s or flung her arm out, with its sleeve forever rolled above her elbow, and slapped some child’s cheek with a crack so that the house was full of roaring and bawling from morning until night and every servant was as loud as the mistress, yet she was fond too, in her rough way, and she would seize a child who passed and nuzzle her nose into his fat neck. And while she could be so saving of money, yet when a child came crying for a penny to buy a lump of candy or a bowl of some hot sweet stuff from a passing vendor or a stick of haws dipped in sugar or some such thing children love, she always reached into her deep bosom and fumbled out a penny. Through this noisy lusty house Wang the Second moved quiet and serene and filled with his secret plans, and he was always well pleased with them all and he and his wife lived content with each other.

For the first time Wang the Tiger in these days laid aside for the present his plans of glory and while his men rested and feasted he lived in his brother’s house and there was something here in Wang the Second’s house that he liked. He saw why his pocked nephew came out of this home merry and laughing and how the other one was always timid and fearful and he felt the content between Wang the Second and his wife and he felt the content the children had too, although they were not washed often nor did any servant take heed of them beyond seeing them fed by day and put into some bed or other at night. But every child was merry out of all the crew, and Wang the Tiger watched them everywhere with some strange moving in his heart. There was one boy of five years or so and Wang the Tiger watched him most, for he was the roundest, fairest boy and Wang the Tiger yearned for him somehow. But when he reached his hand out diffidently to the child, or found a penny and held it to him, the boy was suddenly grave and put his finger in his mouth and stared at Wang the Tiger’s grave looks, and ran away, shaking his head. And Wang the Tiger was as pained by this refusal as though the boy were a man, although he tried to smile and make it nothing.

Thus Wang the Tiger waited for these seven days to pass, and his rare idleness made him more thoughtful than he usually was, and seeing these two houses full of children he felt afresh his lack that he had no son to be knit to him. And he thought on and a little about women, for this was the first time he had lived freely in a house where there were wives and maid servants and young slaves running here and there, and there was some strange sweet stir in him sometimes when he saw a slender maid with her back turned to him at some task she had and he could remember once Pear Blossom had looked so about these very courts, where he had been a lad. But when the maid turned and he saw her face his old confusion fell on him, and the truth was there had been in that youth of his such a sealing of his fountains that at the sight of any woman’s face there was some stopping in his heart and he turned himself away.

Still in his idleness and with this faint stir in him too, he was restless and one afternoon he told himself he would go and pay his respects to Lotus, for it was in Lotus’s courts he used most often to see Pear Blossom in those old days, and he had a secret fancy to see the rooms again and the court. He went then to Lotus, having first sent his servant to announce his coming, and Lotus rose from the table where she sat gaming with her friends, the old ladies of other houses. But he would not sit long. No, he cast his eyes about this room, and he remembered it, and then he wished he had not come and he rose and was restless again and would not stay. But Lotus did not understand his brooding looks and she cried out,

“Stay, for I have sugared ginger in a jar and I have sweetened lotus root and such things as young men love! I have not forgotten what young men are like, no, for all I am so old and fat, I do remember how you all are!”

And she laid her hand on his arm and she laughed her thick laugh and leered at him. Then he loathed her suddenly and he stiffened himself and bowed and made his excuses again and he went away quickly. But he heard the cackling laughter of the old women as they gamed and it followed him through the courts.

Yet even as he went his remembrance made him more restless and he said to harden himself that his life was very far from here now and he must be on his way, and as soon as he had visited once his father’s grave as it was his duty to do and especially before he went on with his venture, he would be away once more and out of these courts.

So on the next morning, the sixth day, he said to Wang the Second,

“I will not stay longer than to burn a little incense at my father’s grave, else my men will be growing lax and lazy and there is a long fierce road ahead. What have you to say of the moneys I need?”

And Wang the Second said,

“Nothing except that I will give you every month what we have agreed.”

But Wang the Tiger cried impatiently, “Be sure I will return you one day all you lend me! Now I go to my father’s grave. Do you, then, see that the two lads are ready for me and that they are not drunken or overfed tonight for we set forth at dawn tomorrow!” And he went away, half wishing he need not take his elder brother’s son again, but not knowing how to refuse, lest it breed jealousy. And as he went he took a little incense from a store kept in the house and he went out to his father’s grave.

Now these two, father and son, had been very far apart when they lived, and even Wang the Tiger’s childhood had been bitter because his father had said he must stay on the land, and Wang the Tiger had grown up hating the land. He hated it now and as he drew near to the earthen house which was his he hated it; although it had been his childhood home, he did not love it because it had been a prison to him once and he had thought he would never be free of it. He did not go near it but he circled around and drew near through a small grove of trees to the hillock where were set the graves of the family.

As he drew near with his swift steps he heard a low soft sound as though one wept and when he heard it he wondered who could weep at that grave, for he knew Lotus was gaming and well he knew it could not be she. He softened his striding then, and he drew near, and he peered through the trees. There was the strangest sight he had ever seen. Pear Blossom leaned her head upon his father’s grave and she sat crouched in the grass in the way that women have when they weep and think no one near and they can weep on uncomforted. Not far from her sat his sister, the fool, whom he had not seen these many years and now although her hair was nearly white and her face shrunken and small she sat in a spot of autumn sunlight and played at a bit of red cloth, folding and refolding it and smiling to see the sun on it so red. And holding to her coat faithfully, as a child does who has been bid to do something for one he loves, sat a small twisted, hunched boy. He had his face turned sorrowfully to the weeping woman and his mouth was all puckered and he was near to weeping, too, for her sake.

Wang the Tiger stood there, stricken motionless with his surprise, and he listened to Pear Blossom mourning on in that soft low way she had as though the weeping came from some innermost part of her, and suddenly he could not bear it. No, all his old anger fell once more against his father, and he could not bear it. He dropped the incense there where he stood and he turned and walked quickly away, breathing heavily in great sighs as he went, although he did not know he did.