Sons (9 page)

They sat for a while in silence and drank their tea, and each thought with doubt that it was a wild thing to send sons out not knowing where and yet each thought jealously of the words, “I will raise your sons high,” and each thought to himself that since he had a son or two old enough he might after all spare a son on the chance. Then Wang the Second said cautiously,

“You have sons who are more than seventeen.”

And Wang the Eldest answered, “Yes, I have two over seventeen, and I could send the second son, and I have not thought what I would do with any of them, they grow up so easily in a house like mine. The eldest must not go out, since he is next to me in the family, but I could send the second one.”

Then Wang the Second said, “My eldest is a girl, and the one after her is a son, and that one could go, I suppose, since your eldest son is at home to carry on the name.”

Each man sat and mused over his children then and thought what he had and what worth their lives could be to him. Wang the Eldest had six children by his lady, but of these two were dead in childhood, and he had one by his concubine, but his concubine was ripe to give birth again in a month or two, and of these children he had every one was sound except the third son whom a slave had dropped when he was but a few months old, so that his back grew twisted in a knot on his shoulders, and his head was too large for him and it set into this knot like a turtle’s head into its shell. Wang the Eldest had called a doctor or two to see it and he had even promised a robe to a certain goddess in the temple if she would cure the child, although in usual times he did not believe in such things. But it was all useless, for the child would carry his burden until he died, and the only pleasure his father had out of it was that he made the goddess go without her robe, since she would not do anything for him.

As for Wang the Second, he had five children in all, and three were sons, the eldest and youngest being girls. But his wife was in her prime yet and the line of his children was not ended either, doubtless, for she was so robust a woman she would bear on into her middle age.

So it was true that out of all these children a son or two could be spared out of so many, and thus each man thought when he had meditated awhile. At last Wang the Second looked up and he said,

“How shall I answer our brother?”

The elder brother hesitated then, for he was not a man to decide anything quickly for himself, having leaned for many years upon the decisions of his lady and said what she told him to say, and this Wang the Second knew and he said cunningly,

“Shall I say we will send a son apiece and I will send as much silver as I am able?”

And Wang the Eldest was glad to have it said thus and he answered, “Yes, do so, my brother, and let us decide it. I will send a son gladly, after all, because my house seems so full sometimes with brats squalling and the big ones bickering that I do swear I have not a moment’s peace. I will send my second one and you your eldest, and then if anything untoward comes, there is my eldest son left to carry our name on.”

So it was decided and the two drank tea for a while. Then when they were rested they began to talk of the lands, and of what they would sell. Now to both of these men as they sat and whispered together came a strong memory and it was of a certain day when they had first spoken of selling the land, and their father Wang Lung was in his age and they did not know he had strength enough to come creeping out after them to hear what they said as they stood in a certain field near the earthen house. But he did come and when he heard them say “sell the land” he had cried out in mighty anger,

“Now, evil, idle sons—sell the land?”

And he had been so angry he would have fallen if they had not held him up on either side, and he kept muttering over and over, “No—no—we will never sell the land—” and to soothe him, for he was too aged to be so angry, they had promised him they would never sell it. Yet even as they promised they smiled at each other over his nodding old head, foreseeing this very day when they would come together for this very purpose.

Eager as they were, therefore, upon this day, to heap up money now, the memory was still strong in them of the old man in the land so that they could not speak as easily of selling the land as they had thought they could, and each was held back in his own heart by some caution that perhaps the old man was right after all, and each resolved to himself that he would not at once sell all; no, hard times must come and if business grew bad they would still have enough land to feed themselves. For in such times as these none could be sure what day a war might come near or a robber chief seize the countryside for a time or some curse or other fall upon the people, and it was better to have something that they could not lose. Yet they were both greedy after high interest from the silver that land will bring when it is sold, and so they were torn between their desires. Therefore when Wang the Second said,

“What lands of yours will you sell?” Wang the Eldest replied with a caution that sat strangely upon him,

“After all, I have not a business as you have, and there is nothing I can do except to be a landlord, and so I must not sell more than enough to bring me in ready cash to use, and I must not sell all.”

Then Wang the Second said, “Let us go out to our lands and see all we have and where it is and how it lies, the distant and scattered pieces also. For our old father was so greedy for land that in his middle years he would buy it anywhere when it was cheap in a famine year, and we have lands all over the countryside, and some fields but a few paces in size. If you are to be landlord, it will be easier for you to have yours near together and so easy to control.”

This seemed good and reasonable to them both, and so they rose, after Wang the Eldest had paid out his money for the food they had eaten and the wines, and something over and above for the serving man. They went out then, Wang the Eldest first, and as they went men rose here and there in the room to bow and let it be known to all that they were acquainted with these two great men of the town. As for the two brothers, the eldest nodded freely and easily to all and smiled, for he loved this homage; but the younger one went with his eyes downcast and he nodded a little and very swiftly and he looked at no one, as though he feared if he were too friendly one might stop him and draw him aside and ask to borrow money of him.

So the two brothers went out to their land, and the younger one set his steps slow to match the pace of his elder brother, who was fat and heavy and unused to walking. At the city gate he was weary already and so they hailed two men who stood there with donkeys saddled and for hire, and the brothers bestrode these beasts and went out the gate.

That whole day did these two brothers spend upon their land, stopping at a wayside inn to eat at noon, and they went far and wide to every scattered field and they eyed the land sharply and saw what the tenants did. And the tenants were humble before them and anxious, since these were their new landlords, and Wang the Second marked every piece it was best to sell. All the lands that were their third brother’s they so marked for sale, except the little that was about the earthen house. But with common accord the two brothers did not go near that house, no, nor near to that high hillock under a great date tree, where their father lay.

At the end of the day they drew near again to the city upon their weary beasts, and at the gate they dismounted and paid the men the price they had agreed upon. The men were weary too, having run behind the beasts all day, and they begged for a little more than the price, having run so far and so long that their shoes were worn somewhat the worse. Wang the Eldest would have give it but Wang the Second would not and he said,

“No, I have given you your just due, and it is not my business what happens to your shoes.”

And he walked away as he said it and would pay no heed to the muttered curses of the men. So the two brothers came to their own house and as they parted they looked at each other as men do who have a common purpose, and Wang the Second said,

“If you are willing, let us send our sons this day seven days, and I will take them there myself.”

Wang the Eldest nodded then and walked wearily into his own gate for he had never done such a day’s work as this in his whole life, and he thought to himself that a landlord’s life was very hard.

O
N THE APPOINTED DAY,
therefore, Wang the Second said to his elder brother, “If it be that your second son is ready, then mine is too, and I will take them tomorrow at dawn and go to that southern city where our brother is, and present them to him and he may do as he likes with them.”

Then Wang the Eldest that same day when he was idle called his second son to him and he looked at the boy well to see what he was and how he would be for the purpose for which he was destined. The lad came when he was called and stood before his father waiting. He was a lad small in stature and very fragile and delicate in his looks, not beautiful either, and very timid and easily afraid, and his hands were always trembling and moist in the palms. He stood before his father now, twisting his trembling hands together without knowing he did, and his head hung down but every now and again he looked up quickly and cornerwise at his father and then hung his head down again.

Wang the Eldest stared at him awhile, seeing him for the first time alone and out of his place among the other children, and he said suddenly, half musing,

“It would have been better if you had been the eldest and the eldest in your place, for he is better framed than you are to be a general, and you look so weak I do not know whether you can stick on a horse or not.”

At this the lad fell suddenly to his knees and he forked his quivering fingers together and he implored his father,

“Oh, my father, I do hate the very thought of being a soldier and I thought I would be a scholar for I love my books so! Oh, my father, let me stay home with you and my mother, and I will not even ask to go away to a school—no, I will read and study as best I can alone, and I will never trouble you for anything if you will not send me away to be a soldier!”

Now although Wang the Eldest would have sworn he had said nothing at all about this matter, still the thing had leaked out somehow, and the truth of it was that Wang the Eldest could keep nothing to himself. He was such a man that without his knowing it every time some thought came to him or he laid some secret plan his very puffs and sighs and his half sentences and his portentous looks betrayed him. He would have sworn he had told no one, but he had told his eldest son and he had told his concubine in the night and he had told his wife last, coming to her, indeed, perforce, to have her approval. He put the matter so well to her, too, that the lady thought her son would step into being a general at once and she was willing, although she felt, after all, it was no more than he was fit for as her son. But the eldest son who was a clever lad and knew more than anyone dreamed he did, because he had such a finicking languid air and he seemed to see nothing, had tormented his younger brother and had sneered at him and said,

“You are to be made into a common soldier to follow that wild uncle of ours!”

Now this younger lad of Wang the Eldest’s was indeed such a one that he could never even see a fowl killed without running somewhere to vomit, and he could scarcely bear to eat flesh at all he had such a puny stomach, and when he heard his brother say this he was beside himself with fear and he did not know what to do. He could not believe it and he was sleepless the whole night and he could do nothing, either, except to wait until he was called, and so he had thrown himself before his father to beg for mercy.

But when Wang the Eldest saw his son kneeling and begging like this he was angry, for he was a man who could be mulish and full of temper when he knew he had power, and he cried out, stamping his foot upon the tiled floor,

“You shall go, for this is such a chance as we cannot refuse, and your cousin is going too, and you ought to be glad to go! When I was young I would have rejoiced at such a chance and it did not come. No, I was sent south to nothing at all and even there I stayed but a little time because my mother died and my father bade me come home. And I never dreamed of disobeying him; I would not have dreamed of it! No, I had no such chance to grow great through an uncle’s high position!”

And then Wang the Eldest sighed suddenly, because there came to him this thought, that if he had been given such a chance as this his son had, how great he could have grown by now and how noble he would have looked in a soldier’s gilded coat and bestride a great high horse of war, for so he imagined generals did look, and he saw himself a great huge man as a general ought to be. Then he sighed again and he looked at this little wretched son of his and he said,

“I would have liked a better son than you to send, it is true, but I have not one old enough except you, and the eldest cannot leave home, for he is my chiefest heir and next to me in the family, and your younger brother is hunchback and the next but a child. You must go, then, and all your weeping is no help to you, either, for you must go.” And he rose and went out of the room quickly so that he need not be troubled any more by this son of his.

But the son of Wang the Second was no such lad as this. He was a merry boisterous boy who had had smallpox when he was three years old from too strong a pox his mother had pushed into his nose with her thumb to make him safe against the disease, and he had kept his pocks all his years until now he was called by everyone, “Pocks” instead of his name, even by his own parents. When Wang the Second had called to him and said, “Get your clothes into a bundle because tomorrow you go south with me, for I shall give you to your soldier uncle,” he capered and ran about in glee because he was one who was always ready to see what was new and he loved to make a boast of what he had seen.

But his mother looked up from a pot she stirred upon some coals in a little earthen stove there by the kitchen door, and since she had not heard of the thing before she cried out in her loud way,