Sons (54 page)

He had more silver now than ever he had, for as his grain flowed out to this rich house and to that market, the silver flowed back to him for it, and in this year Wang the Merchant was burdened with his silver and he was put to it to know what he could do with it and keep it safe. Being merchant, he wanted no more land, and yet there was no other security men could offer in such a time if they borrowed money of him except the land they had under the water. He took risks, therefore, at very high interest, and he put heavy mortgages upon the harvests of the future, and such mortgages that when the lands had drained themselves once more, it seemed that all the harvest of that whole region would pour into the granaries of Wang the Merchant. But not one knew fully how rich he was, for he kept even his own sons pressed for the silver they wanted to spend, and he made poor face before every one of his sons, and held them to their clerkships in his shops and markets, so there was not one among his sons, except his eldest whom he had given to Wang the Tiger, who did not look for the day when his father was gone and he could leave the shop or the markets and spend something for the play and the good garments which Wang the Merchant would not let them have now.

Nor were his sons the only ones who hated their servitude, for there were certain of the farmers in that countryside, and one of them that shelf-toothed man who had bought largely of Wang Lung’s land when he was dead, and now that the land was most of it under water, he pinched and starved and saw his children near to starvation before he would borrow from Wang the Merchant, and he waited for his land to come up out of the water and while he waited he took his brood and went south to some southern city, choosing such a life rather than to let Wang the Merchant get a hold upon his land.

But Wang the Merchant was righteous enough in his own eyes, for he told himself and all who came to borrow of him that men must not expect to borrow money or buy grain in times of scarcity at the prices not higher than usual, else what profit can there be to a man who is a merchant? He did no more, therefore, than what was just in his own eyes.

Yet he was wise man enough, and he knew that men do not think of justice in such times and he knew he was very heartily hated, and he knew that Wang the Tiger was of some service to him even in the very fact that he was lord of war. He exerted himself, therefore, and he promised certain very large stores of grain to Wang the Tiger and he lent him a great sum at not very great interest, and not above twenty per cent or so on a silver piece. When they sealed the bargain one day in the tea house, Wang the Landlord, who sat by, sighed heavily and he said,

“My little brother, I wish I were rich as this merchant brother of ours, but the truth is I grow poorer every year. I have no good business such as he has, and nothing but a little money loaned and a little land left out of all my father’s fields. It is a good thing for us all that we have one rich man among us!”

At this Wang the Merchant could not forbear a very sour smile and he said plainly, for he had no grace of tongue nor any wit of courtesy,

“If I have a little it is because I have worked and I have held my sons to the shops and they do not wear silk, and I have only one woman.”

But Wang the Landlord would not have any such plain talk as this, although his temper had dwindled very much too, in these later years, for he knew his brother reproached him because he had sold off a large portion of such land as he had left so that his two sons could go out to the coast as they wished, and he sat and swelled awhile in himself and at last he said loudly, rousing himself,

“Well, and a father must feed his sons, I believe, and I hold my sons a little too precious to make them spend their good young strength at a counter somewhere. If I honor my father’s grandsons, shall I let them starve? It is my duty to feed my children, I believe, but perhaps I do not know my duty when I keep my sons as a lord’s sons should be kept!” He could not say more, for a hoarse, constant cough troubled him these years and it came rumbling out of his bosom now, and racked him. Being speechless awhile, he could only sit swelling and angry, and his eyes were sunken in his fat cheeks, and the red mounted slowly up his thick neck. But Wang the Merchant let a little smile creep upon his own thin and withered cheeks, for he saw his brother understood himself reproved, and no more need be said.

Now when the bargain was signed and sealed, then Wang the Merchant would have it written down, and at this Wang the Tiger shouted out,

“What—are we not brothers?”

And Wang the Merchant said, as though in apology, “It is for my own memory—I have such a feeble memory now-a-days!”

But he held the brush to Wang the Tiger so that he must perforce take it and put his name down. Then Wang the Second said, still smiling,

“Is your seal about you, too?”

Then Wang the Tiger must take out the seal he carried in his girdle that had his name carven on the stone, and he must stamp that too upon the paper before Wang the Merchant would take it and fold it and thrust it carefully into his own girdle bag. And watching him, Wang the Tiger grew angry, even while he had what he wanted, and he swore to himself that he must enlarge his territories somehow and he wished he had not let these years slip by as he had so that once again he was dependent upon this brother.

But for the time Wang the Tiger’s men were saved, and he called for his son to be made ready and for his guardsmen to gather themselves and they would go home. It was now well upon spring and the lands were drying rapidly and everywhere men were eager for new seed to put into their lands, and everywhere men forgot the winter and all the dead and they looked forward hopeful again to the spring.

So also did Wang the Tiger feel himself eager for new things and he told his brothers farewell. Then the two brothers gave him a feast of departure, and after the feast Wang the Tiger went into that place where the tablets of his ancestors were kept, and he lit incense there. He had his son by him as he lit it, and while the dense sweet smoke curled upwards, Wang the Tiger made his obeisances to his father and to his father’s fathers, and he bade his son bow also. Watching the gallant figure of his son thus bowing, Wang the Tiger felt a strong sweet pride rise in him, and it seemed to him that the spirits of those dead gathered close to see so fine a one as this descended from their line, and he felt he had done what he should in his family.

When all was finished and the incense burned to the ashes in the urn, Wang the Tiger mounted his horse, and his son mounted his own horse, and with their guardsmen, they rode back by dry land to their own regions.

I
N THE SPRING OF
the year when Wang the Tiger’s son was fifteen full years of age the tutor whom Wang the Tiger had hired for his son came to him one day as he walked in his court alone, and he said, “My general, I have taught the young general, your son, all that I can alone, and he needs to go into a school of war where he will have comrades with whom to march and to fight and to practice war.”

It seemed to Wang the Tiger, although he knew this day must come, as though a dozen years had passed as the turn of a hand. He sent for his son to come to him there in the court and he felt suddenly weary and old and he sat down upon a stone seat that was under a juniper tree and waited for his son. When the lad came through the round gate between the courts, walking with his steady somewhat slow step, Wang the Tiger looked at him newly. It was true that the lad was tall and nearly as high as a man, and his face had already taken on rougher curves and he kept his lips folded firmly and well together. It was a man’s face rather than a child’s. And as Wang the Tiger looked at this only son, he remembered with a sort of wonder that once he had been impatient for his son to be grown and a man, and once his babyhood had seemed endless. Now it seemed rather that he had leaped straight out of his babyhood into this new manhood. Then Wang the Tiger sighed and he thought to himself,

“I wish that school were not in the south. I wish he had not to go among those little southerners to learn!” And aloud he said to the tutor who stood pulling at a few short hairs he grew on his upper lip, “And you are sure he had better go to that school?”

The tutor moved his head to signify assent, and Wang the Tiger stared on at his son painfully and at last he asked the lad, “And yourself, my son, you wish to go?”

Now it was very rarely that Wang the Tiger ever asked his son what he liked, because he knew so well what he wanted for his son, but he had a small weak hope that if the boy refused to go he could use it as an excuse. But the boy looked up quickly, for he had been looking at a patch of white lilies that grew there under a juniper tree, and he said,

“If it were so that I could go to another school, I would like that very well.”

But this answer did not please Wang the Tiger at all and he drew down his brows and pulled at his beard and said pettishly,

“Now what school is there to which you could go except a school of war, and what use would stuff out of books be to you, who are to be a lord of war?”

The boy answered diffidently and in a low voice, “There be schools I have heard in these days where they learn how to till land and such things as have to do with the land.”

But Wang the Tiger was astounded at such foolishness, and he had never heard of such a school and he roared suddenly,

“Now here is foolishness, if it be true there are such schools! Well, and so every farmer must needs learn how to plow and sow and reap these days! Well, and I remember very well my father used to say a man needed not to learn to farm, for he had but to look at what his neighbor did!” Then he said very harshly and coldly, “But what has this to do with you or me? We are lords of war, and you shall go to a school of war or to no school at all, but stay here and take my army after me.”

His son sighed then and shrank away a little as ever he did when Wang the Tiger roared, and he said quietly and with some strange patience,

“I will go then to the school of war.”

Yet there was something in this patience which still made Wang the Tiger angry and he stared at his son and pulled at his own whiskers and he wished his son would speak out and yet he knew he would be angry if he heard what his son had in his heart, and he shouted,

“Prepare yourself, for tomorrow you shall go!”

The lad saluted him then as he had been taught to do and turned upon his heel and went away without a word more.

But in the night when he was alone in his room Wang the Tiger fell to thinking of his son going so far from him and a sort of terror came on him for what might befall his son in those parts where men were so tricky and deceitful, and he called out to his guard that his trusty harelipped man was to come in to him. When he was come Wang the Tiger turned to look at the hideous faithful face and he said, half pleading and not as master to man,

“That son of mine, my only son, is to go to a school of war tomorrow and even though his tutor goes, how do I know what that one’s heart is who has spent so many years in foreign parts? His eyes are hid behind his spectacles and his lips behind his hairs, and he seems strange to me when I think my son must trust wholly to him. Now you shall go with my son, for I know you, and there is no one else whom I know as I do you, who have been with me when I was poor and alone and you were then what you are now that I am rich and strong. My son is my best possession and you are to watch over him for me.”

Now here was a strange thing, for when Wang the Tiger said this the harelipped man spoke up stoutly and he was so earnest his words came whistling through his teeth,

“My general, in this one thing I will not obey you, for I will stay by you. If the young general must go, I will pick fifty good true men, not young, and I will teach them their duty to him, but I will stay where you are. You do not know how you need a true man near you, for in an army so great as yours there are always discontents and festerings and this man angry and that man talking of some better general, and there are very ugly rumors now of some new strange war gathering out of the south.”

To this Wang the Tiger answered stubbornly,

“You hold yourself too dear. Have I not the Pig Butcher yet?”

Then the harelipped man grew very scornful and he twisted his face, frightfully in his agitation and he said,

“That—that fool! Yes, he is well enough at picking flies out of the air, and if I tell him whom to strike and when to strike he can deal a blow with his great fist, but he has not wit enough to see anything until he is told where to look!”

He would not be moved at all, and Wang the Tiger commanded him and bore with his rebelliousness as he would never have borne with such refusal in any other, and at last the harelipped man said over and over,

“Well, and I can fall on my sword, then—well, I have my sword and my throat here together.”

In the end there was nothing to do but to give in to this man and when he saw Wang the Tiger would do so, he grew very cheerful although a moment before he had been doleful and talking of dying. He ran out that very night and chose his fifty men and he rounded them out of their sleep and he cursed them soundly as they stood dazed and yawning and shivering in the chill spring air in the court and he shouted at them through his split lip,

“If so much as a tooth aches in the young general’s mouth it will be your fault, O you who ought to die, and your whole business is to go with him wherever he goes and stand about and guard him! At night you are to lie about his bed, and in the day you are not to trust anyone or listen to anyone, no, not even to him. If he grows willful and says he will not have you and that you encumber him you are to answer, ‘We are under the old general, your father, and he pays us and we must hear him only.’ Yes, you are to guard him against his own self.” And he cursed the fifty men very richly and completely to frighten them well, and make them know how grave their duty was and at last he said, “But if you do well, you shall receive a good reward, for there is no more generous heart than our old general’s heart, and I will speak for you myself.”