Pearl Buck - Sons

But as Wang the Tiger waited for the winter to be gone he chafed very much in spite of his success, for this life in the magistrate’s courtyards did not suit him. No, and there were none who could be his friends, for he would not bring himself to intimacy with any, knowing that as long as people feared him he could hold his place the more easily among them; besides, he was one who did not by nature love to take part in feasting and friendship, and he lived alone except for his pocked nephew whom he kept near him always lest he need something, and his trusty harelipped man who was his chief guard.

The truth was that now the magistrate was so old and given to his opium pipe, everything ran slackly about him and his courts were filled with cliques and jealousies and crowded with underlings and underlings’ relatives who sought an easy way to live. This man turned against that, and there were deep angers and revenges and quarrels continually. But if these were brought to the old magistrate’s ears he turned himself to his opium or he thought of something else, for well he knew he could not settle everything, and he lived alone with his old wife in an inner court and he only came out when he must. But he tried to do his state duty still, and every audience day at dawn he rose and put on his official robes and he went into his audience hall and ascended the dais there and sat down in the chair from whence he heard his cases.

He did his poor best, too, for he was a good and kind man at heart, and he supposed he meted out justice to such as came before him there. But he did not know that every suppliant who came before him had paid his way through from the very gateman at the gates, so that any man who had not silver enough for high and low could not hope even to reach that audience hall, and the very councillors who stood in the presence of the magistrate had each received his share. Nor did the old magistrate know he leaned so heavily on these councillors of his. No, for he was old and easily confused and often he did not catch the point of a case and he was ashamed to say he did not, or he dozed somewhat toward the end of the hour, and did not hear what was said, and he was afraid to ask again, lest men think him not able. So he turned naturally to his councillors who never failed to flatter him and when they said, “Ah, this man is evil and that man has the right of it,” the old magistrate would agree hastily and say—“It is what I thought — it is what I thought,” and when they cried out, “Such an one ought to be well beaten because he is so lawless,” the old magistrate would quaver forth, “Yes — yes, let him be beaten!”

Now in these idle days Wang the Tiger often went to the audience hall to see and to hear and to pass the time away, and when he went he sat to one side and his trusty men and his pocked nephew stood about him as a guard. Thus he heard and saw all this injustice. At first he said to himself that he would pay no heed to any of these things, for he was a lord of war and these civil affairs were no business of his, and he would spend his care on his soldiers, seeing that they did not share in the loose, idle life of the courts, and many a time when he saw that which made him angry in the audience hall he went out and was furious with his soldiers and forced them to marches and to practices of war, whatever the winds were that day, and so he relieved his heart of the pressure of its anger.

But he was a man just at heart and when he saw the injustice go on time after time he could not bear it at last, and he grew surcharged with anger against some of the councillors who had the ear of the magistrate, and especially against the chief councillor. Yet he knew it was no use to say anything to the weak old man. But still, when he had sat sometimes and listened to cases and when he had seen injustice done a hundred times, he grew so pent in himself that he would rise and stride away and he muttered to himself many times,

“If spring does not come quickly I shall kill someone against my will!”

As for the councillors, they did not love him, either, because he secured so much revenue and they mocked him for a coarsely bred fellow and one beneath them in polish and learning.

Now Wang the Tiger’s anger burst forth one day in a sudden way that he himself had not expected, and it began with a small matter enough, even as a mighty storm will begin sometimes with only a little wind and a handful of ragged cloud.

It happened on a certain day before the new year, when men are out everywhere to collect debts and those who owe hide as best they may so that they cannot be found until the first day of the new year when debts cannot be collected from anyone, that the old magistrate had his last audience day of the old year and he sat upon his dais. On that day Wang the Tiger had been very restless because he was so idle. He would not game because he did not want his soldiers to see him at it and feel the more free themselves to do it, and he could not read overmuch because novels and tales weaken a man, they are so full of dreams and the stuffs of love, and he was not scholar enough for the old philosophies. Therefore being sleepless also, he rose and went with his guard and sat awhile in the audience room to see who would come that day. But in his heart he was pent and impatient for the spring, and especially because the last ten days had been so cold and so filled with a downpour of constant rain that his men cried out against being taken out of their quarters.

There he sat, and it seemed to him that his was the dreariest life, and there was not one soul to care if he lived or died, and so he sat, listless and glowering in his usual place. Presently he saw a certain rich man come in whom he knew, having seen him here before. This man was a usurer of the town, a smooth-faced, fat man, with very small, smooth, yellow hands that he flourished with a sort of evil grace as he spoke, and he continually pushed back his long silken sleeves from his hands before he waved them. Many times Wang the Tiger had watched his hands and seen how small they were and how soft and full and how pointed the finger tips were with their long nails, and he had watched the man’s hands when he did not hear what he said, even.

But today the usurer came in with a poor farmer and the farmer was very frightened and ill at ease, and he threw himself before the magistrate with his face to the ground, and remained there speechless, begging for mercy. Then the usurer told his case and it was that he had loaned a sum of money to this farmer, and had accepted his land as security. This was two years ago, and now the money with its interest had mounted above the worth of the land.

“Yet in spite of this,” the usurer cried, and he pushed back his silken sleeves and moved his smooth hands and made his voice rich and reproachful, and he was very unctuous, “in spite of this, O honored magistrate, he will not move from his land!” And the man rolled his little eyes around in indignation at this wicked farmer.

But the farmer said nothing at all. He continued to kneel there with his face bent and leaning upon his two hands forked together. At last the old magistrate asked him,

“Why did you borrow and why do you not pay?”

Then the farmer looked up a little and he fixed his eyes on the magistrate’s footstool, and he continued to kneel, and he said anxiously,

“Sir, I am a very common man and poor, and I do not know how to speak to such as you, honored Sir. I am very common and I have never spoken to one higher than the head in our village, and I do not know how to speak here, and yet I have no one to speak for me, seeing that I am so poor.”

Then the old magistrate said kindly enough,

“You need not fear — only speak on.”

Then the farmer after opening his lips a time or two soundlessly began to speak, but still he did not lift his eyes at all, and it could be seen that his spare body was shivering in his patched and ragged clothes from which the old wadding stuck forth out of the holes like old sheep’s wool. His feet were bare and thrust only into shoes woven out of reeds and these had now fallen from his feet, so that his hard and horny toes rested stiffly upon the damp stone floor. But he did not seem to feel this, and he began in a weak voice and he said,