Pearl Buck - Sons

But still there was nothing open said, although the lady darted looks of displeasure at her sister-in-law and that one caught them all and took delight in pretending she did not. But no one else seemed to see, and Wang the Landlord roused himself and he ordered the servants to bring the tables for the night’s feasts into the courts, and they did. Then everyone set himself to the real food, and the serving men brought in one dainty dish after another, for Wang the Landlord gave this feast to them, and he had outdone himself in ordering it. There were many dishes that Wang the Merchant and Wang the Tiger had never even heard of, such as ducks’ tongues stewed with spices and ducks’ feet with the dainty black skin peeled from them, and there were many such fine dishes that tickled the tongue very well.

Of all those who ate and drank heartily that night none ate and drank more heartily than Lotus, and the more she ate the more she was moved with merriment. She sat in her great carved chair and there was a slave beside her to put some of every dish into her bowl, but sometimes she would dip for herself, and a slave guided her hand then and she dipped her porcelain spoon into the dish and put it eagerly to her trembling old mouth and supped it loudly. Meats and all she ate, for she had her teeth all strong and sound still.

Then as she grew more merry she paused sometimes in her eating to tell a lewd coarse tale or two that made the young men laugh as much as they dared but they dared not laugh too much before their elders. But she listened for their choking and bursting laughter, and was encouraged to other tales. Wang the Landlord himself could scarcely keep his face decent except that his lady sat there stiff and silent and he could look at her and be grave. But the ruddy wife of Wang the Merchant guffawed loudly and the more loudly when she saw that her sister-in-law would not laugh at all. Even Wang the Landlord’s second wife bit her lips, and while she would not laugh because her lady did not, still she was fain to hold her sleeve across her face and smile behind it.

But Lotus grew so free at last when she listened and heard men laugh that for shame’s sake she must be silenced, and so the two older brothers plied her with wines to make her drowsy and the more since they feared she would say some very lewd thing about Wang the Tiger and anger him, and they feared his anger. Because of this tongue of Lotus’s they had not urged Pear Blossom to come to the family feast, and when she answered the messenger they sent that she could ill leave her charges, they let her be, deeming it were best to rouse no memories in Lotus.

Thus the night passed happily and midnight came and the moon swung high, and soft clouds came up and seemed to swing the moon here and there. The babes were asleep in their mothers’ bosoms, for the youngest in every family sought long ago his mother’s breasts, except the youngest of Wang the Landlord’s lady, who was by now a proud and slender girl of thirteen, grave because she was betrothed not long ago. But Wang the Landlord’s second wife was a warm mother, and she had two in her arms, one a child of a year and more, and the other newly born but a little over a month, for Wang the Landlord still liked her. As for Wang the Tiger’s wives, each held her own, and his little son slept with his head thrown back over his mother’s arm and the moonlight fell full on his face, and Wang the Tiger looked often at that small sleeping face.

But after midnight the merriment waned, and the sons of Wang the Landlord slipped away one by one, for they had other pleasures waiting, and it wearied them to sit long with elderly folk. They went easily and carelessly, and the second son of Wang the Merchant looked longingly after them, but he dared not go because he feared his father. The servants also grew weary and longed for their rest, and they withdrew and leaned in this doorway and that, yawning mightily, and muttering to each other,

“Their children waked at dawn and we had to tend them and now the old ones feast to midnight, and we must tend them still! Will they never let us sleep?”

But at last they did separate, but not before Wang the Landlord was drunken, and his lady called for his serving men to come and let him lean upon them and so go to his bed. Even Wang the Tiger was nearer drunken than he had even been, but he could walk into his own court. Only Wang the Merchant was as smooth and neat as ever, and his wrinkled yellow face was scarcely changed at all, and not red even, for he was one of those who grow more pale and quiet as he drinks more deeply.

But of them all not one had eaten and drunk as Lotus had, and indeed, old as she was now and nearly seventy-eight years old, she had eaten and drunk too well. In the middle hours between midnight and dawn she moaned and was very restless, for the wine she had drunk seemed to come up in her and heat her to a mighty fever and all the meats and oily dishes she had eaten lay heavy in her as stone. She turned her head this way and that upon her pillow and was ill at ease and called out for one thing and another, but nothing eased her. Then suddenly she gave a strange hoarse scream and Cuckoo ran to her, and when she heard Cuckoo call out, Lotus muttered something and stared out of her filmed eyes and tossed her arms and legs and was suddenly still. Then her fat old face grew dark and purple and her body rigid and stiff, and she began to draw her breath in quick, stammering gusts, loud enough to be heard in the next court. Wang the Tiger would have heard her if he had not been somewhat drunken and so sleeping more heavily than his wont.

But his learned wife slept lightly always and she heard the cry and rose and came in. She had some slight knowledge of old medicines from her father, who was a physician, and now she drew aside the curtain and the light of earliest dawn fell upon Lotus’s frightful face. Then the learned woman cried out, aghast,

“It is the old lady’s end come on her if we cannot purge her of her wines and meats!”

She called for hot water and for ginger and for all the medicines she knew and she tried them all. But it was no use, for Lotus was deaf to all calls and entreaties now, and her teeth were so locked that even when they forced her blackened lips apart, her teeth were locked inside. It was the strangest thing that in an old body like this her teeth should still be sound and white and good, and they lost her her life now, for if there had been a hole somewhere or a gap where a tooth was gone, they would have poured the medicine in somehow, and Cuckoo could even have taken a mouthful and spurted it in with her own lips. But the sound whole teeth were fast and locked.

So Lotus lay breathing and snorting through half the next day, and suddenly, without ever knowing this was her end, she died. The purple of her face faded away and she turned as pale and as yellow as old wax. Thus did the feasting time end in this death.

Then the two elder brothers saw to the making of her coffin, but they had to let her lie a day or so, for the coffin had to be built twice as big as common, and there was none to be found made ready that was broad enough.

And while they waited Cuckoo truly mourned this creature she had tended all these years. Yes, she truly mourned her, even though she went about and collected all she could of the things that were Lotus’s still, opening this box and that and taking all of any value, and she sent her stores out secretly through a hidden back gate, so that at last when Lotus was put into her coffin those who served her marvelled that she had scarcely a coat fit to be buried in and they wondered what she had done with the good sum of silver she had as Wang Lung’s widow, seeing she had not gamed it away of late years. Yet for all her thieving Cuckoo mourned for Lotus, and she wiped a few scanty tears away, which if they were few were the only tears she had ever shed for anyone, and when the coffin was filled with lime, for Lotus had begun to stink very soon, and when the lid was sealed down and it was carried out the gate to the temple where it was to lie until a day of burial was chosen, Cuckoo walked after the coffin and hurried her old feet to keep in sight of it until it was put into the empty room of the temple among many other coffins already there. Then she turned away and went to some place of her own she had somewhere, and came no more to the house of Wang, and she mourned Lotus truly and as truly as she was able.