Pearl Buck - Sons

But the lad made no reply at all. He had hardened himself and bore his father’s love silently and stiffly and Wang the Tiger sighed and let him go, for he did not know what to say to his son or how to make his son understand his love. So Wang the Tiger’s heart was very sore and it seemed to him that of all men he was the most alone in this whole world, and he suffered a day or two. Then he, too, hardened himself again and let this pass also, since he did not know what to do, and he planned that he would do something for his son to make him forget. Yes, he would buy him a foreign watch or a new gun or some such thing and so win the boy back to him. Thus Wang the Tiger hardened himself and thus he comforted himself, also.

Nevertheless, the coming of these six men out of the army did show Wang the Tiger in what dire straits the times had brought him, for he saw that he must find food if he was to hold his army true. He had said falsely that he had already found food for them from foreign parts, but now he knew he must go out somewhere and find such food. Then once more he thought of his brother, Wang the Merchant, and he told himself that in such an hour brothers must stand together and he would go and see how the times were in his father’s house, and what help he could secure.

He sent out the word, therefore, among his men that he went to find food and silver for them and he promised them a plenty, and when they were all cheerful and expectant, and freshened somewhat in their hope and loyalty to him, he chose a good guard and put them over his house and he commanded his own guard to prepare for the journey, and on a day he had set he called for boats to be brought and with his son and his soldiers and their horses all in these boats, they prepared to ferry across the waters to those parts of the road where the dykes still held, and there they would mount their horses again and ride to the town where Wang the Tiger’s brothers lived.

Upon those narrow dykes their horses took their pace slowly, for the water spread in a sea on either side, and the dykes were crowded with huddled people. And not people only, but rats and serpents and wild things struggled to share that space with the people, and these wild things forgot their fears and tried with all their feeble strength to contend for space. But the only life these people showed was in such brief angers as rose in them when the serpents and beasts grew too many and they struck at them spitefully. But sometimes for long spaces they did not even so contend and the serpents curled and crawled wherever they would, and the people sat in their stupor.

Through these Wang the Tiger marched, and he had need of his armed guard and of his guns, for these people would have fallen upon him otherwise. As it was, here and there and often a man rose, or a woman, and twined about his horse’s legs in silence and despair, yet with a faint last hope. And Wang the Tiger was gentle enough in heart with them, and he drew his horse and would not trample them down. No, he waited until one of his guardsmen came and took the wretched creature away and threw him on the ground again, and Wang the Tiger passed on without looking back. Sometimes the man lay where he had been thrown, but sometimes he gave a wild howl and leaped into the water and so ended himself and his woe.

All the way the lad rode beside his father, and not one word did he say, nor did Wang the Tiger speak to him, since there was the coldness between them of the six dead men, and Wang the Tiger feared to ask his son anything. But the lad’s face was bowed down except sometimes when he seemed to steal a look sidewise at the starving people, and such a look of horror came into his face that Wang the Tiger could not bear it and he said at last,

“These be but very common folk and they are used to this once in a few years or so, and there are tens of thousands of such as these and the ones that die are not missed in a handful of years. They spring up like new rice again.”

Then the boy said suddenly, and his voice was changing now like a fledgling bird’s, and it came out in a squeak because he was so charged with his feeling, and with his fear lest he weep before his father,

“Yet I suppose it is as hard for them to die as though they were governors and men like us.” And as he spoke he tried to fix his mouth hard and firm, but indeed these were sorrowful sights and his lips quivered, do what he would.

Now Wang the Tiger would have liked to say some comforting word, but he was astonished at what his son had said, and it had not come to him that these common folk suffered as he might suffer, since men are born as they are born and one may not take the place of any other. And he did not wholly like what his son said, because it was too soft a thing for a lord of war who may not stop to put his own heart into any man who happens to suffer hardship. So Wang the Tiger could not think of any comforting word, for it was true that nothing could be fed these days except the carrion crows that circled and whirled again slowly in great wheels above the waters, and he said no more than this,

“We are all alike under the cruel will of Heaven.”

After this Wang the Tiger let his son be; seeing what thoughts the lad had, Wang the Tiger asked him no more of anything.

NOW WANG THE TIGER wished very often upon that journey that he could have left his son behind. But the truth was he did not dare to do it, lest there be some among his men who were secretly sullen because of the six dead men. Yet almost as much as he feared death for his son he feared too to take him to his brothers’ courts. He feared the softness of the young men there, and he feared the coarse love of money that tradesmen have. He commanded his son’s tutor, therefore, whom he had brought also, and he commanded his trusty harelipped man, that they were not to leave their young master at all, and besides these he told off ten seasoned and old soldiers who were to stay beside his son day and night, and he told his son he must study his books as ever he did at home. But he did not dare to say to him, “My son, you are not to go where there are women,” for he did not know whether or not the boy had thought of such things yet. All these years when Wang the Tiger had his son by him in his own courts, there had been no women there, neither servant nor slave nor courtesan, and the lad knew no women at all except his mother and sisters, and of latter years Wang the Tiger had not let him go alone even on the rare visits of duty he made to his mother, but had told off a guard to go with him. In such ways had Wang the Tiger fortified his son, and he was more jealous for this son of his than other men are for the women they love.

Yet in spite of his secret fears, it was a sweet moment for Wang the Tiger when he came riding to his brother’s gates with his son riding beside him. It had pleased some fancy of Wang the Tiger’s to have his tailors and sewing men cut his son’s garments exactly like his own, and the lad wore just such a coat of foreign cloth, and such gilt buttons and such shoulder pieces of gilt, and a cap like Wang the Tiger’s with a sign upon it. Wang the Tiger had even, upon the lad’s fourteenth birthday, sent a man into Mongolia and found two horses exactly alike, except one a little smaller than the other, and both of them strong and dark and reddish in color, and their eyes white and rolling, and so even their horses were alike. It was sweetest music to Wang the Tiger’s ears to hear the people upon the street cry out, as they stopped to stare at the soldiers pass,

“See the old lord of war and the little lord of war, as like as the two front teeth in a man’s mouth!”

So they came riding up to the gates of Wang the Landlord, and the lad swung himself down from his horse as his father did, and clapped his hand to his sword’s hilt as his father did, and marched gravely beside his father, without ever knowing that he did all like his father. As for Wang the Tiger, when he had been received into his brothers’ house, and when his two brothers and their sons came in to give greeting, one after the other as they heard he was come, Wang the Tiger looked about on them all, and he drank in the looks of admiration they gave to his son as a thirsty man drinks down his wine. In the days thereafter while Wang the Tiger was in that house, he watched his brothers’ sons eagerly and scarcely knowing he did, hungry to be sure his own son was far better, and hungry to be comforted for his only son.