Pearl Buck: Sons

Thus it was decided for Lotus. Then the old merchant looked about and he said,

“Where is the second concubine? I see her name is written here.”

Now this was Pear Blossom and not one of them had looked to see whether she was here or not and they looked now about the great hall and they sent slaves into the women’s courts, but she was not anywhere in that house. Then Wang the Eldest remembered he had forgot to summon her at all, and he sent for her in great haste and they waited an hour or so until she could come and they drank tea and waited and walked about, and at last she came with a maid servant to the door of the hall. But when she looked in and saw all the men she would not go in, and when she saw that soldier she went into the court again, and at last the old merchant went out to her there. He looked at her kindly and not full in the face so as to dismay her, and he saw how young she still was, a young woman still and very pale and pretty, and he said,

“Lady, you are so young that none can blame you if your life is not over yet, and there is plenty of silver to give you a good sum and you may go to your home again and marry a good man or do as you will.”

But she, being all unprepared for such words, thought she was being sent out somewhere and she did not understand and she cried out, her voice fluttering and weak with her fright,

“Oh, sir, I have no home and I have no one at all except my dead lord’s fool and he left her to me and we have nowhere to go! Oh, sir, I thought we could live on in the earthen house and we eat very little and we need only cotton clothes for I shall never wear silk again, now that my lord is dead, not so long as I live, and we will not trouble anyone in the great house!”

The old merchant went back into the hall then and he asked the eldest brother, wondering,

“Who is this fool of whom she speaks?”

And Wang the Eldest answered, hesitating, “It is but a poor thing, a sister of ours, who was never right from her childhood, and my father and mother did not let her starve or suffer as some do to these creatures to hasten their end and so she has lived on to this day. My father commanded this woman of his to care for her, and if she will not wed again let some silver be given her and let her do as she wishes, for she is very mild and it is true she will trouble no one.”

At this Lotus called out suddenly, “Yes, but she need not have much, because she has ever been but a slave in this house and used to the coarsest fare and cotton clothes until my old lord made himself silly in his old age about her white face, and doubtless she wheedled him to it, too — and as for that fool the sooner she is dead the better!”

This Lotus called out and when Wang the Third heard it he stared at her so terribly that she faltered and turned her head away from his black eyes, and then he shouted out,

“Let this one be given the same as the old one and I will give it!”

But Lotus demurred, and although she did not dare to say it loudly, she muttered,

“It is not meet that elder and younger be treated as one and equal — and she my own slave!”

So she muttered and it seemed she might fall to her old noise again, and the old merchant seeing this said with all haste,

“True — true — so I decree twenty-five pieces to the elder lady and twenty to the younger—” And he went out and said to Pear Blossom, “Go back to your house and be at peace again, lady, because you are to do as you will and you shall have twenty silver pieces a month for your own.”

Then Pear Blossom thanked him prettily and with all her heart and her little pale mouth quivered and she was trembling because she had not known what would happen to her and it was a relief to know she might live on as she had and be safe.

With these claims ended, then, and the decision made, the rest was not hard and the old merchant went on and he was about to divide lands and houses and silver equally into four parts to give two parts to Wang the Eldest as head of the house, and one part to Wang the Second and one part to Wang the Third when suddenly this third son spoke out,

“Give me no houses and lands! I had enough of the land when I was a lad and my father would have me be a farmer. I am not wed, and what do I want with a house! Give me my share in silver, my brothers, or else if I must have house and land, then do you, my brothers, buy them from me and give me silver!”

Now the two older brothers were struck dazed when they heard this, for whoever heard of a man who wanted his whole inheritance in silver, which can escape a man so easily and leave no trace behind, and will not have house and land, which can remain to him for a possession? The elder brother said gravely,

“But, my brother, no good man in this whole world goes unwed all his life and sooner or later we will find you a woman, since our father is gone, whose duty it was to do it, and you will want house and land then.”

Then the second brother said very plainly, “Whatever you do with your share of the land we will not buy it from you, for there has been trouble in many a family because one has taken his inheritance in silver and spent it all and then has come howling back, crying out that he is defrauded of lands and inheritance, and the silver is gone then and no proof that it ever was beyond a bit of paper that could be written by anyone or else men’s bare words, and these are no proof. No, and if the man himself does not do this, his sons will and their sons’ sons and it means strife into the generations. I say the land must be divided. If you wish it I will see to your lands for you and send you the silver they bring to you every year, but you shall not have your inheritance in silver.”

Now the wisdom of this struck everyone, so that although the soldier said again, muttering it, “I will have no house nor land!” no one paid heed to him this time except that the old merchant said curiously,

“What would you do with so much silver?”

To this the soldier answered in his harsh voice, “I have a cause!”

But not one of them knew what he meant and after a time the old merchant decreed that the silver and the lands should be divided and if he truly did not wish a share in this fine town house he might have the old earthen house in the country, which was worth little indeed, seeing it was made out of the earth of the fields at the slight cost of a little labor. He decreed beyond this that the two elder brothers should have a sum ready, too, for Wang the Third’s marriage, as it was the duty of elder brothers to the younger, if the father was dead.

Wang the Third sat in silence and heard all this and when it was decided at last and all divided fairly and according to law the sons of Wang Lung gave a feast to those who had sat to hear the division, but they still did not make merry or wear silk, because the time of their mourning was not yet over.

Thus were the fields upon which Wang Lung had spent his whole life divided and the land belonged now to his sons and no more to him, except that small part where he lay, and this was all he owned. Yet out of this small secret place the clay of his blood and bones melted and flowed out to join with all the depths of the land; his sons did as they pleased with the surface of the earth but he lay deep within it and he had his portion still and no one could take it from him.

NOW WANG THE THIRD could scarcely wait for the inheritance to be divided, and as soon as it was finished he made ready with his four men and they prepared to go out again to those parts from which he had come. When Wang the Eldest saw this haste he was astonished and he said,

“What — and will you not wait even until the three years of mourning are over for our father before you set out on your business again?”