Pearl Buck - Sons

As for the two brothers, they gave a mighty feast to the chief of police and so the matter was ended, for the young man was free again, and his love somewhat the cooler for the gaol.

But that maid was more willful than ever and she clamored anew to her father. This time he was somewhat more willing, now that he understood how powerful this family of Wang was, and how strong a lord of war one of the three brothers was, and how much money Wang the Merchant had, and he sent a go-between to Wang the Landlord and he said,

“Let us wed these two and seal our new friendship.”

So the matter was carried through and the betrothal was made and the wedding on the first lucky day to be found thereafter and Wang the Landlord and his lady were filled with relief and happiness. As for the bridegroom, although he was somewhat dazed at this sudden turn, yet he felt some of his old ardor return and he was very well content and the maid was full of triumph.

But to Wang the Tiger the whole affair was of no great moment except for this; he knew himself now for a man of power in that province and he knew that the general held him to be one whose favor he wished to hold to himself, and his heart swelled with pride. When this whole matter was finished, the spring had turned well into summer and Wang the Tiger said to himself that since he had been so busy and the year was now so late, he would put off his planned war until yet another year. He did this the more easily, because he was now sure of his position, and yet more easily, because in the beginning of that summer his spies began to return to him and they said that some sort of war was rumored well to the south, but they did not yet know what war it was, nor who its head. When Wang the Tiger heard this he understood fully the value of his army to the provincial general and why he sought to hold his favor. And he waited then for another spring, to see what it would bring forth.

And as always he did, Wang the Tiger spent his life with his son. The lad came and went gravely about his duties and it was Wang the Tiger’s pleasure to watch the lad in his silent way. Often he gazed at his son, and he loved to dwell upon his serious face, half child, half youth. Many a time when he thus studied his son’s face as it bent over some book or task, Wang the Tiger was caught by a strange familiar look in the boy’s high square cheek, or in the firmness of his mouth.

It was not a beautiful mouth, but very firm and fixed for so young a lad.

And it came to Wang the Tiger one night that his son had his look from his grandmother, Wang the Tiger’s own mother. Yes, Wang the Tiger knew it was his mother’s look, although he could only remember her clearly when she lay dying, and the boy’s ruddy face was very different, too, from her pale, dying face. But deeper in Wang the Tiger than any clear memory was some feeling that told him his son moved in his mother’s slow and silent way, and that her gravity was upon his son’s lips and in his eyes. And when Wang the Tiger felt this vague familiar thing in his son, it seemed to warm his heart the more, and he loved his son more deeply yet and for some reason he did not understand he was knit to him yet more closely.

NOW THE SON OF Wang the Tiger was such a sort of lad as this; he was faithful in every duty and he did all that he was told to do. He studied to perform the feints of war and the postures that his teachers set before him, and he rode his horse well enough, if not easily as Wang the Tiger did. But the lad did all as though he had no pleasure in any of it and as though he forced himself to everything as a task. When Wang the Tiger asked the tutor how his son did, the tutor answered hesitating,

“I cannot say he does not do well, for he does all well to a point, and he does very exactly what he is told, but beyond that he never goes. It is as though he kept his heart back.”

This answer troubled Wang the Tiger very much for it had seemed to him before this that his son had no good hearty anger in him, and he was never angry and he had neither hatred nor desire in him for anything, but only he went gravely and with patience to all he had to do. Now Wang the Tiger knew that a warrior cannot be so; no, a warrior must have spirit and anger and willfulness in him and a ready passion and he grieved and wondered how to change his son in this.

One day he sat by and watched the lad in the court as he fired at a target under his tutor’s direction, and although the lad stood quietly and lifted his arm quickly and did not hesitate to pull firmly upon the trigger when the call came, yet it seemed to Wang the Tiger that he saw his son brace himself and a look come over his smooth boy’s face as though he hardened himself within, so that he might do what he must, because he hated it so much. Then Wang the Tiger called to his lad and he said,

“Son, put your heart into it, if you would please me!”

The lad looked quickly at his father then, the pistol still smoking in his hand, and a strange look stole into his eyes and he opened his lips as though to speak. But there sat Wang the Tiger, and he could not look gentle if he would, those brows of his heavy and black, and his mouth sullen in his stiff black beard even when he did not mean it so, and the lad looked away again and sighed a little and he said in his patient way,

“Yes, my father.”

Then Wang the Tiger looked with vague pain at his son, and for all his stiff hard looks his heart was soft, but he did not know how to speak out of his heart. And after a while he sighed and he watched in silence until the lesson was over. Then the lad looked doubtfully at his father and he said,

“May I go now, my father?”

And it came to Wang the Tiger that this lad of his went often away somewhere alone and many times he slipped away and Wang the Tiger did not know where, except that he knew the guard he had appointed to follow his son wherever he went followed him doubtless. But Wang the Tiger on this day looked at his son with a question in his mind, whether the lad went where he should not, and he saw him that he was a child no longer, and smitten with a sudden jealousy, Wang the Tiger made his voice as gentle as he could and he asked,

“But where do you go, my son?”

The boy hesitated and hung his head and at last he said half afraid,

“To no one place, my father. But I like to go outside the walls of the city and walk about the fields awhile.”

Now if the boy had said he went to some bawdy place Wang the Tiger could not have been so taken aback and he said astounded,

“Now what can be there for a soldier to see?”

And the boy kept his eyes down and he fingered his little leather belt and he said in a low voice, in his usual patient way,

“Nothing — but it is quiet and pleasant to see now when the fruit trees are abloom, and I like to talk with a farmer sometimes and hear how he plants his land.”

Then Wang the Tiger was completely astonished and he did not know what to do with this son of his, and he muttered to himself, that here was a strange son for a lord of war to have, who had hated from his youth up the ways of farmers upon the land, and suddenly he shouted out more angrily than he meant to do, because he was somehow disappointed and yet he did not know why he was,

“Do what you will then, and what is it to me?” And he sat on awhile heavily, for his son had slipped, swift as a freed bird, away from his father.

Wang the Tiger sat on and he meditated painfully, and yet he did not know why his heart was so sore, either. At last he grew impatient and he hardened himself somewhat and he told himself that with such a son he ought to be content, since the lad was not profligate and he did what he was told, and so Wang the Tiger put the matter away from him once more.