Pearl Buck - Sons

He set himself therefore as the spring widened, and everywhere spread into early summer, to round his men afresh and train them again day after day. He sent out his spies again and he sent out men to see how his newly taken lands were, and he sent his trusty men everywhere to bring him revenues and he sent guards fully armed to bring the treasure to him safely, for in these days it was far more than one man could carry in a sack upon his shoulders as once he had.

But in the evenings when the day was over and he sat in his court alone in the warm spring night, at such times when there are many men whose hearts grow wayward and yearn for some love or other beside what they have tried, Wang the Tiger yearned after his son. Then he had the child brought to him continually, although he did not know how to play with any child, not even his son. He commanded the nurse to seat herself where he could see the child, and he sat and stared at every movement the boy made and at every transient look that nickered across his face. When the boy learned to walk Wang the Tiger could scarcely contain himself for pleasure and when he was alone at night and no one to see him in the courts he took the girdle that the nurse passed around the child’s waist and he held it and walked round and round while the boy staggered and panted in the loop of the girdle.

If any had asked Wang the Tiger what he thought while he stared at his son, he would have been in the greatest confusion, for he did not know himself. Only he felt swelling up in him great dreams of power and glory and sometimes out of his fullness he pondered on how in these times a man could rise to any power and place if he had might enough and could make men afraid of him, for there was no emperor and no dynasty in these times, and anyone might struggle and shape events if he would. And feeling this in himself Wang the Tiger would mutter into his beard,

“And such a man am I!”

Now there came a strange thing out of this love Wang the Tiger had for his son and it was that when Wang the Tiger’s learned wife heard how he had his son brought to him every day, she dressed her daughter in bright new garments one day and she brought her in all fresh and pink and she had put little silver bracelets upon the child’s wrists and tied her black hair with pink bits of yarn, and she forced the child upon her father’s attention thus. When Wang the Tiger was embarrassed and turned his eyes aside not knowing what he ought to say, the mother said in her pleasant voice,

“This little daughter of our craves your notice, too, and she is no whit less strong and fair than your son.”

Wang the Tiger was somewhat taken aback with this woman’s courage for he did not know her at all, except in the darkness of the nights in her turn, and so he could mutter out of courtesy,

“She is fair enough for a girl.”

But the child’s mother was not satisfied with this, for he scarcely looked at her daughter, and she pressed on and said,

“No, my husband, at least look at her, for she is no usual child. She walked three months before the boy did and talks now as though she were four instead of two and under. I have come to ask for a favor to me that you will give her learning also and share your goods with her as you do with your son,”

To this Wang the Tiger said in astonishment,

“How can I make a soldier out of a girl?”

Then in her steadfast, pleasant way the mother said,

“If not a soldier, then some skill in a school, for there are many such in these times, my husband.”

Suddenly Wang the Tiger heard that she called him by that name that no woman ever had, and she did not call him “my lord” as other women would, and he was embarrassed and out of his confusion he looked at the child because he could think of nothing to say. Then he saw that truly this girl was a very enticing little one, very round and fat and she had a tiny red mouth that she moved in smiles, and her eyes were large and black and her hands were fat and the nails very perfect and complete. He saw them because her mother had stained the nails red as women will do sometimes for children very loved. The child’s feet were cased in little pink silk shoes and the mother held them both in her one hand while the other she passed about the child’s middle as she leaped up and down upon her mother’s hand. When the mother saw him looking at the girl babe she said gently,

“I shall not bind her feet, and let us send her to a school and make such a woman out of her as there are here and there in these days.”

“But who will wed such a maid?” cried Wang the Tiger astonished.

To this the mother replied tranquilly, “Such a maid can wed whom she likes, I believe.”

Wang the Tiger took some thought at this and he looked at the woman. He had never looked at her before, deeming it enough if she served his purpose, and now as he looked he saw for the first time that she had a wise good face and a manner which made her seem composed and able to do what she liked, and when he looked at her she did not fear him and she looked back at him without giggling or drawing her mouth down as the other wife might have done. And he thought to himself in some wonder,

“This woman is more clever than I thought and I have not seen her very well before,” and aloud he said courteously and he rose as he spoke, “When the time comes I will not say nay to you if it seems a wise thing.”

Now it was a curious thing that she who had been so composed always and had lived content so far as Wang the Tiger knew or cared, now when she saw this new courtesy in the man seemed moved in some strange way. The color came dull and red into her cheeks and she looked at him earnestly and in silence and with yearning creeping into her eyes. But Wang the Tiger, seeing her change thus, felt the old repulsion against women well into his heart and his tongue was locked and he turned away and muttered that he had forgot something he had to do that hour, and he went away quickly, shaken in himself, and he did not like her when she looked at him in such a way.

But the fruit of the hour was that sometimes if the mother sent a slave with the girl at the time when he called for his son to be brought so that the two came together, Wang the Tiger did not send the girl away. At first he feared the mother might return and make a custom of talking with him, but when he saw she did not, he let the girl be there for a while and he stared at her, for her sex made him shy of her even though she was but a child staggering hither and thither. Still she was a winning thing and he watched her often and laughed silently at her tempers and her broken words. His son was large and grave and not given to laughter, but this girl was small and quick and full of merriment and her eyes were forever seeking her father’s, and if she were not watched she abused her brother and snatched what he had away from him, being so quick. Without knowing it Wang the Tiger came to notice her in a certain fashion, and he knew her for his child among others if he saw a slave holding her at the gate in a crowd to see what went by upon the street, and sometimes he even stopped to touch her hand and see her flash her eyes at him to smile.

Then going into his house when she had thus smiled, he was content and at last he felt no more alone but a man among his own, both women and children.

NOW WANG THE TIGER had it always in his mind that he must enlarge his place and his position for his son’s sake, and so he told himself often and he planned how he would do it, where he would creep in and make the victory at the end of some common war, how he would push southward of his river and seize the next county or two in a famine year when the people were pressed by drought or flood. But it happened that for a few years there was no great common war, and one weak and unready man after another came and went upon the central seat of government and if there was no sure peace still there was no great outburst of war, either, nor such a time as a lord of war could take to come out too boldly.