Pearl Buck - Sons

“What — what—”

Then the learned wife rose, for she was quick and graceful in speech and she spoke prettily always, very smoothly and throwing in a learned phrase or a line from some old poem or classic, and she made a show of her shining white teeth as she spoke, and she said, smiling,

“These are the babes we have borne for you while you were away, and they are strong and sound from head to foot,” and she held up her own for Wang the Tiger to see.

But the other wife would not have it held back that she had borne a son, for the learned wife’s was a daughter, and she rose too and made haste to say, although she spoke seldom because of her blackened teeth and the gaps where she had none, and now she held her lips close and she said,

“Mine is the son, my lord, and the other is a girl.”

But Wang the Tiger said nothing at all. Indeed he could not speak for he had not known all it would be to have something of his own making belong to him like this. He stood and stared for a while speechless at these two minute creatures who seemed not to see him at all. No, they looked placidly at him as though he had always been there like a tree or a bit of the wall. They winked and blinked at the sunlight and the boy sneezed overloudly for his size so that Wang the Tiger was yet more astonished at such a gust coming out of so small a fragment. But the girl child only opened her mouth as a kitten does, and yawned very widely, and her father stared at her while she did. He had never held a child in his arms, and he did not touch these two. Nor did he know what to say to these two women at such a time, seeing that his speech had always been of warlike things. He could only smile somewhat fixedly, therefore, even while the men who were with him exclaimed in joy and admiration at the son their general had, and when he heard these exclamations he muttered out of his deep pleasure,

“Well, and I suppose women will breed!” and he went hastily into his apartments, being too full of joy for his own comfort.

There he washed and ate and he changed his stiff garments of war for a silk robe of a deep dark blue, and when it was all finished it was evening. Then he sat down by the brazier of coals, for the night came on quiet and chill with frost and there Wang the Tiger sat alone and reflected on all that had come about.

It seemed to him that destiny favored him at every point, and so favored there was nothing to which he could not attain. Now that he had a son his ambition took on meaning and what he did, he did for a purpose. As he thought his heart swelled in him, and he forgot every sorrow and loneliness he ever had, and he shouted suddenly into the stillness of the room,

“I will make a true warrior out of that son of mine!” and he rose and slapped his hand against his thigh in his pleasure.

He strode about the room then for a while, smiling without knowing he did, and he thought what a comfortable thing it was to have a son of his own, and he thought how now he need depend no more on his brothers’ sons, for there was his own son to continue his life after him and to increase his domains of war. Then another thought came to him and it was that he also had a daughter. He spent a little time then wondering what he would do with her, and he stood by the latticed window and fingered the hairs of his beard, and thought of his daughter with reticence because she was a girl and at last he said to himself in some doubt,

“I suppose I can wed her to some good warrior when the time comes, and it is all that I can do for her.”

From this day on Wang the Tiger saw a new purpose in those two women of his, for from them he saw springing yet more sons, true and loyal sons who would never betray him as might another who had not his own blood in him. No longer did he use those two women to free his own heart and flesh. His heart was freed at the first sight of his son, and of his flesh he hoped for his sons, trusty soldiers to stand beside him and support him when he grew old and weak. So he went regularly to his two wives, and not more to one than the other, for all their secret gentle striving for his favor, and he was very well content with them each in her own way, for he sought from them equally but the one thing, and he did not hope for more from the one than from the other. It troubled him no more that he did not love a woman, now that he had his son.

Thus the winter passed in content. The New Year festival came and passed also, and Wang the Tiger made more merriment than usual because the year had been so good, and he rewarded all his men with wine and meats and with a bounty of silver. To each man he gave also such small things as they craved, tobacco, a towel, a pair of socks, and other small things. To his wives also he made a bounty and at the festival the whole house was very merry. There was but one untoward thing and it came after the feast day, so that no joy was curtailed. This was that the old magistrate died one night in his sleep. Whether he took too much opium, being heavy with his sleep, or whether the bitter cold overcame him in his drugged heaviness, could not be known. But the matter was reported to Wang the Tiger and he ordered a good coffin and all to be done for the gentle old man, and the very next day after it was all finished and the coffin ready to be sent to his old home, for the magistrate had not been native to the province, one came again to tell that his old wife had taken what was left of her husband’s opium and so followed him of her own will. Nor could any grieve, for she was old and sickly and she never came out of her own courts, and Wang the Tiger had never seen her in his life. He ordered another coffin, therefore, and when all was ready he sent them with three serving men to be taken to their own city in the next province. Then Wang the Tiger sent report in proper form to those above who should know of it, and he sent his trusty harelipped man with the letter and with him some soldiers, and Wang the Tiger said secretly to the trusty man,

“There are things not to be said except by mouth to ear, and so I have not written this. But if the chance comes to you let it be known that I must have a say in who shall be the civil magistrate here.”

The trusty man nodded his head at this and Wang the Tiger was content. In such confused times as these he did not fear the hasty coming of any governor, and he could rule very well himself. So he forgot the matter and he took for his own wives the innermost rooms where the old magistrate had lived and soon he had forgot that any had ever lived here except himself and his own.

The year drew on then to spring again, and Wang the Tiger made up his mind, since he had been so fortunate this year in everything and he had good reports from his new lands and the silver flowed in regularly from all his many revenues so that his soldiers were paid and content and loud in his praise, that he would return for the spring festival to his father’s house and pass the feast day with his brothers. It was a fitting thing for a great house to do, the more especially as it is a season when the sons should repair their father’s grave. Wang the Tiger, moreover, had a little reckoning yet to do with his second brother, and he was ready now to be free of such borrowing, and he wished to be free. Therefore Wang the Tiger sent some soldiers to tell his elder brothers, with all decent courtesies, that he and his wives and his children and their servants would come by the feast day. To this the two brothers, Wang the Landlord and Wang the Merchant, returned very courteous words of welcome.

When all was ready, then, Wang the Tiger mounted his high red horse and at the head of his guard rode forth. But this time they must needs ride slowly for there were the mule carts where the two women rode and other mule carts for the maid servants. And Wang the Tiger did ride slowly and he was proud to do it for such a cause. Riding thus at the head of his cavalcade, his women and his children, he took his place in the generations. Never did his lands look so fair to him nor so prosperous as they did in this time of bursting spring, of budding willow and unfolding peach blossoms. And seeing the faint tinge of green and peach in every valley and upon every hillside, and seeing the deep brown of moist earth turned to the spring sunshine, he remembered suddenly his father and how every spring he loved to pluck a sprig of willow and a sprig of blooming peach and carry them in his hand or put them above the door of the earthen house, and thinking of his father and of his own son, Wang the Tiger felt his place in the long line of life, and he was never any more separate as he had once been, nor alone. For the first time he forgave his father wholly for certain deep angers he had against him as a youth. Nor did he know he forgave. He only knew that some bitterness left in him since his angry boyhood slipped out of him and was blown away as though on a healthy wind, and he was peaceful with himself, at last.