Sons

XXV

EACH SPRING THAT DREW itself out of the long winter, Wang the Tiger felt in him the stirring of his ambition to greater wars and each spring he thought to look about him and see what he could do to enlarge himself. He sent out his spies to hear what the general wars of the year were likely to be and how he could fit some private war to the greater one, and he waited, he told himself, until the spies returned and until the year was warm enough and until the hour came when he could feel his destiny call him. But the truth was that Wang the Tiger was over his youth and now that he had his son he was held and content, and he had not that old restlessness in him to be out and at war. Each spring he told himself he must for his son’s very sake go forth and achieve what he had set out to do in his lifetime and each spring there seemed to be some immediate good reason why he must put off his campaigns until another year. Nor were there any great and single wars in those years of his son’s youth. There were but many small lords of war over that whole country, each holding his own small domain, and not any great man came out to be above them all. For this reason, also, Wang the Tiger felt it safe to wait another year and when the year came past its spring, yet another year, and he felt sure that some time or other when his destiny struck, he would still go forth to whatever victory he would choose.

There came on a certain spring, when his son was close upon thirteen years of age, a messenger from Wang the Tiger’s two brothers, and he came upon a mission very grave, and it was no less than that Wang the Landlord’s eldest son lay languishing in the city gaol of his town. The two brothers sent the messenger to beseech the aid at the provincial court of their brother, Wang the Tiger, so that the young man might be released. Wang the Tiger heard the tale, and it seemed to him a very good chance to test out his power at the provincial seat and his influence with the general of that province. He put off his war he had thought of, therefore, for yet another year, and he undertook to do what his brothers asked of him, and not without some pride, that they the elders had come to beg of him, the younger, and not without some scorn that a son of theirs could be cast into gaol, such a thing as never could befall his own good son.

Now the matter was thus and this was how Wang the Landlord’s eldest son came to put into a gaol.

This son of Wang the Landlord’s was now in the twenty-and-eighth year of his age and he was not wed nor even betrothed. The reason for this very strange thing was that he had gone in his youth for a year or two to a new sort of a school in the town, and there he had learned many things, and one of the things he learned was that it was a vile slavery to an old custom for a young man to be wed by his parents to a maid they chose for him, and that all young men ought to choose their own maids to wife, maids whom they had seen and had talked with and could love. When, therefore, Wang the Landlord made a survey of all the marriageable maids to fix upon one for his eldest son, this son was very rebellious in the matter and he flung himself about and pouted and said he would choose his own wife.

At first Wang the Landlord and his lady were outraged at this notion, and for once they were agreed upon a thing, and the lady cried out to her son with heat,

“And how can you see a decent maid so close as to talk with her and know if you like her or not? And who so able to choose as your parents who formed you and who know your every turn of mind and nature?”

But the young man was full of argument and temper and he pushed his long silken sleeves back from his white smooth hands, and he tossed the black hair back from his pale forehead and he cried out in his turn,

“Neither you nor my father know anything except old dead customs, and you do not know that in the south all the sons of wealthy and learned people let their sons choose for themselves!” And when he saw his father and mother look at each other, and when he saw his father wipe his brow with his sleeve and his mother purse up her lips, he cried again, “Well, and betroth me, then, and I will leave my home and never see you more!”

This frightened the parents beyond measure and Wang the Landlord said in haste,

“But tell us what maid it is you love and we will see if it can be arranged.”

Now the truth was that the young man had seen no such maid as he could love for wife, for the women he had known were such as could be easily bought, but he would not tell that he had seen no maid he loved, and he only pouted out his red lips and stared sullenly down at his pretty finger nails. But he looked so violent and so willful that this time and every time his parents spoke of the matter they pacified him in the end again and again by saying, “Well, well, let it be for now!” Twice, indeed, had Wang the Landlord need to cry off the bargain with some maid he had begun to negotiate for, because when the young man heard of this he swore he would hang himself on a beam as his brother had done, and this terrified his mother and father so that they gave in to him every time.

Yet as time went on both Wang the Landlord and his lady grew the more eager to see their son wed, for he was their eldest son and chief heir and his sons must be the chief among their grandsons. Well, too, did Wang the Landlord know that the young man went to this tea house and to that and spent his youth here and there, and while he knew that all young men are so who have no need to labor for what they eat and wear, still as Wang the Landlord passed out of his own lustiness into a quieter age, he grew very uneasy at this son of his and both Wang the Landlord and his lady feared that if their son did not wed soon he would come some day with an idle maid out of a tea house for wife, such an one as it is well enough to take for a concubine but is a shame for a wife. But the youth, if they spoke their fears to him, talked ruthlessly of how in these new days young men and women were freed from their parents’ rule, and how men and women were free and equal, and he said many such foolish things, so that these two parents could do nothing but hold their peace, for the young man’s tongue was so glib and swift there was no answering him and they early learned to be silent while he poured out his fiery discontents and flashed his eyes from one to the other of the old pair, and every second flung back his long cut hair and smoothed it back with his soft white hand. But after such speeches when he was gone again, for he was very restless and never there for long, the lady looked at her husband with reproach and she said,

“You have taught him these things with your own lewd ways and he learned from his own father to satisfy himself with these flower girls instead of with an honest woman.”

She drew her sleeve across her eyes as she spoke and wiped one eye and the other, and she felt herself very ill used. As for Wang the Landlord he was in great alarm for he knew that this mild beginning could lead up to a great storm, for the older the lady grew the more righteous and ill-tempered she grew also, and he rose hastily to go away and he said very meekly,

“You know that now as I pass into my age I do not go as once I did, and I try to hear your counsel, and if you have a way out of this turmoil, I promise I will follow what you say.”

Now the truth was that this lady could not herself think of any way to manage this turbulent son, and she must ease herself somehow and Wang the Landlord saw that her temper was rising in her, so he made all haste to go away out of his house. And as he passed through his court he saw that other wife of his there in the sunshine nursing a child, and he said to her hastily,

“Go in and fetch something for your mistress, because she is waxing angry, take her tea or one of her prayer books or something, and praise her and say some priest or other said this or that about her or some such thing!”

The woman rose obediently, holding her child in her arm as she went, and as he went out into the street and thought where he might turn, Wang the Landlord blessed the hour he saw this second woman of his, for if he had been alone with his lady it would have been ill for him. But this second woman grew with the years even milder and more placid than she had been, and in this Wang the Landlord was very fortunate, since two women with a common lord will oftentimes quarrel and lead a noisy life, especially if one of them or both of them love their lord.

But this second woman comforted Wang the Landlord in many small ways and she did things that the servants would not. For the servants knew who had the authority in this house of Wang the Landlord’s, and when he roared for some servant, man or maid, the servant called out, “Oh, aye, aye!” but he lagged or did not come, and if Wang the Landlord grew peevish, the servant made excuse, “The mistress commanded me thus and thus,” and so silenced his master.

But this second wife served him secretly, and she it was who comforted him. When he came back from his few lands out of humor and weary, she saw to it that he had hot tea in his pot or if it were summer that there was a melon cool in the well, and she sat by and fanned him while he ate, and she fetched water to bathe his feet and brought fresh hose and shoes. To her also he poured out all his grievances and his hatreds, and chief of these was the grievance he had against his tenants and he told her all his bitter tales and he would say,

“Yes, and today that old snag-toothed woman who is mother to the tenant on the west land poured water into the basket of grain the steward weighed — he is such a fool, or else knave, and they pay him not to see — but I saw how the scale leaped!”

To such she made answer, soothing him, “I do not believe they cheat you much, you are so clever and the cleverest wisest man I ever knew.”

His bitterness against his rebellious son he poured out to her, too, and she soothed him there also, and now as he went along the street he planned how he would tell her his lady blamed him cruelly and he dwelled upon the sweetness of her answer, how she would say as she had many times,

“To me you are the best man, and I ask no better, and I swear my lady does not know what men all are and how you are better than them all!” Yes, out of the weariness of his son and his lady and all his troubles with the little land he had and dared not sell altogether, Wang the Landlord clung to this second woman of his and he thought in his heart, that of all the women he had followed only this one was comfortable to him and he said to himself, for reason, “She is the only one out of all I feed who knows me for what I am!”

And his heart swelled with especial bitterness against his son this day, because he had put fresh trouble upon his father.

Now as Wang the Landlord on this day walked along the streets so pondering, his son was on his own way to the house of a friend and it came about that in the strangest way he met the maid who could please him. This friend whom the young man sought was son of the chief of police of that town, and Wang the Landlord’s son gamed with him continually in preference to all others, for since such gaming was against a new law that had been made, if there was trouble the son of the chief of police could escape and his friends could escape, since his father was so weighty a man in the town. On this day Wang the Landlord’s son thought to game awhile and take the anger out of his heart and divert himself from the trouble his parents were to him, and therefore he went to his friend’s house.

When the door was opened to him he gave his name to the serving man, and he sat and waited in the guest hall, brooding and impatient with all his troubles. Suddenly an inner door opened and a very pretty and young lady came in alone. Now if she had been a usual maid and had seen a young man sitting there alone, she must have covered her face with her sleeve and turned back with all speed. But she did not. She looked very calmly at Wang the Landlord’s son, and she looked at him fully and slowly, but without coquetry, and she was not shy at all, and meeting this full calm look it was the young man’s eyes which first fell. He saw, as anyone could see, that she was a proper maid enough for all her boldness, and she was such an one as belonged to the new times. Her black hair was cut short about her head and her feet were not bound, and she wore the long straight robe that new maidens wear, and since it was now late spring, the robe was made of a soft silk the color of a gosling’s down.

Now for all his lordly talk, the truth was that this son of Wang the Landlord’s had very little chance to meet with such maidens as he desired to wed. He spent his days when he was not gaming or feasting and playing somewhere in reading tales of love. Nor did he like the old tales, but he read most ardently the newly written tales of love that is free between man and maid, and he dreamed of well-born maidens who were not courtesans and yet were not shy and timid before men, but like men are with men except they be maids still, and such an one he sought. Yet he knew not one, for as yet such freedom was more in books than in truth. But now it seemed to him that here was truly the one he sought and his ready heart flamed to her cool, bold look, for that heart of his was like a fire laid and waiting for the torch to set it rushing into conflagration.

In that one moment he loved this maid so mightily that he was struck dazed, and although he said not one word and she passed on her way, he sat still dazed, and when his friend came in he gasped, his mouth dry, and his heart beating fit to burst against his breastbone,

“Who is the lady who passed?”

His friend said carelessly, “It is my sister who is in a foreign school in a coastal town, and she is home for the spring holiday.”

Then Wang the Landlord’s son could not but ask on, faltering,

“Is she not wed, then?”

The brother laughed and said, “No, she is the wilfullest maid, and she is forever quarreling with my parents on this, for she will not have any man they choose for her!”

Wang the Landlord’s son heard this and it was like a cup of wine held to thirsty lips, he said no more and went on to his game. But as he played, he was distraught, for he felt the flames licking up about his heart and the fire burned in him. He excused himself soon and hastened to his home and to his own room and he shut the door and there alone he felt himself knit to this maid by every tie. And he murmured to himself that it was a shame she must suffer from her parents too, as he did, and he told himself he would not come to her except by such free means as men and women use in these free times. No, he would have no go-between, not parent nor even his friend her brother. Then in fever and haste he took out the books he had read and studied them to see what sort of a letter such heroes wrote to their free loves, and then he wrote her such a letter, too.

Yes, he wrote to that maid, and he put his name to what he wrote, and he began the letter with all the courteous proper words. But he said also that he was a free spirit and so he saw her, also, and she was therefore to him the very light of the sun, the very hue of a peony flower, the very music of the flute, and in an instant’s time she had plucked his heart out of his bosom. Then when he had written this, he sent it by his own private servant, and having sent it he waited at home in such a fever that his parents did not know what was wrong with him. When the servant came back to say the answer would come later, the young man could but wait on, and yet he loathed his waiting and hated all in the house and he slapped his younger brothers and sisters without mercy if they came near him and complained against the servants, and even the good-natured concubine his father had, cried out, “You behave as a dog that will go mad!” And she drew her own children out of his reach.

But after three days a messenger brought an answer, and the young man, who spent his days hanging about the gate, seized it and made off to his room and tore the letter in his haste to open it. He pieced the two torn parts together and made it out. She wielded her brush very boldly and prettily and when she had written words of courtesy and words to justify her boldness, she said, “I am also a free spirit, and I will not be forced by my parents in anything.”

Thus delicately did she put her preference for him, and the young man was beside himself with pleasure.

In such a way, then, had the matter begun, and the two could not be content even with many letters, but they must meet somehow, and so they did meet a time or two at the side gate to the maid’s house. They were both afraid, although they neither wished to show it, and in such hasty meetings and in many letters written back and forth and much bribing of servants and disguising of their names in their letters, this love burned hotter and hotter, and since neither man nor maid had ever done without anything they dearly wanted, so they could not now. At their third meeting the young man said very ardently,

“I cannot wait and I must wed you and so I will tell my father.”

To this the maid answered very willfully, “And I will tell my father I will poison myself if I am not to have you, too.”

So they did tell their fathers, and while Wang the Landlord was glad enough to have his son’s fancy fix itself on a maid of such a good house and set himself at once to arrange the match, the maid’s father turned stubborn and he would not have the young man for his daughter. No, since he was chief of police it was his business to have his spies everywhere, and he knew things that others did not about this young man and he cried out at his daughter,

“What, that do-nothing of a dandy who spends his time in every idle house of pleasure?”

And he commanded his servants that his daughter was to be locked into her own courts until she went back to her school, and when she came flying in furiously to talk with him and implore him he would not pay any heed to her. No, he was a very calm man and while she argued he hummed a tune and read a book, and when she grew too angry and said things a maid should not, he turned on her and said,

“I always knew I should have held you in this house and not sent you to a school. It is this schooling that spoils maids now-a-days, and if I had it to do again, I would have kept you decent and ignorant as your mother is and so wed you early to a good man. Yes, and I will do it yet!” and he roared at her so suddenly that she faltered and was afraid.

Then these two young things wrote very pretty despairing letters to each other and the servants grew rich on bribes, and ran back and forth. But the young man pined in his home and did not go out to game or play, and his parents saw him pine and they did not know what to do. Wang the Landlord sent a secret bribe by devious ways to the chief of police, and though he was a man ready for a bribe, yet this time he was not ready, and so they all despaired. As for the young man, he would not eat and he talked of hanging himself and Wang the Landlord was distracted altogether.

Now one evening as the young man walked near the back of the house where his love lived, he saw the small gate of escape open, and the maid servant who carried her letters, squeezed through, and she beckoned to him to come. He came faltering and fearful, yet driven by his own heart, and when he was come, there inside the little court by the gate, stood his love, and she was very determined and willful and full of plans. Yet now that they were face to face their words did not come easily either, and not nearly so easily as words upon paper, and the truth was the young man was much afraid lest he be discovered there where he ought not by any means to be. But the maid was willful, and being learned, she would have her desire and she said,

“I will not heed these old ones. Let us flee together somewhere and when they see us gone, for very shame they will let us wed. I know my father loves me, for I am his only daughter and my mother dead, and you are your father’s oldest son.”

But before the young man could match his ardor to hers, the chief of police stood suddenly there at the door of the house that gave upon the court, for some servant that bore ill will to the young girl’s maid had told for revenge, and the chief of police shouted to his attendants,

“Bind him and put him in gaol, for he has taken away my daughter’s honor!”

Now it was a very unlucky thing for Wang the Landlord’s eldest son that his love’s father was chief of police and could throw whom he liked into gaol, for another man would not have had such power and must have paid money to have him imprisoned. But with the word the attendants hauled the young man away, and the maid shrieked and hung herself upon the young man’s arm, and cried she would not marry any other and that she would swallow her rings.

But that calm old man, her father, turned to the serving maids and said,

“See to her, and if she is left alone and by any chance does what she says, I will hold you for her death.”

And he went away as though he did not hear her moans and cries, and the serving maids did not dare to leave her, being afraid for themselves, and so the young girl had no choice but to live on.

As for the chief of police, he sent word to Wang the Landlord that his son was in the gaol because he had attempted the honor of his own daughter and having sent this message he sat in his hall and waited. Then was the household of Wang the Landlord in the greatest confusion and Wang the Landlord was completely distracted and did not know what to do. He sent a good bribe immediately of all the silver he had about him, and he struggled into his finest robes and went to the chief of the police himself to apologize. But that man was in no mood to have the thing so easily settled, and he sent word out to the gate that he was ill from so much worry and could see no one, and when the bribe was brought in he sent it back again saying that Wang the Landlord had mistaken his character and he was not such an one as to be tempted thus.

Then Wang the Landlord went groaning back to his house, and he knew the bribe was too small, and since it was just before wheat harvest he was very short of silver, and he knew he must ask his brother’s help. There was his son in gaol, too, and he suffered for that, and he must send food and bedding lest he suffer there. When this was done and Wang the Merchant called, Wang the Landlord sat in his own room and waited, and his lady forgot all usage and in her distress she came in where he sat leaning his head on his hands, and she called on this god and that to witness to all she had to bear in this house.

But for once Wang the Landlord sat not moved more than he was, for all her cries and reproaches, for he was frightened to his heart’s bottom to have his son like this in the power of the chief of police. But Wang the Merchant came in very collected and he made his face smooth as though he did not know what was wrong, although the tale was flying everywhere, and being so good and nasty a tale, every servant knew it already and his wife knew it and had told him all and more than all, and she had said with greatest relish, over and over,

“Well I knew no good would come out of that woman’s sons and their father so lustful as he is, too.”

But now Wang the Merchant sat and listened to the tale as it came from the young man’s father and mother, and they made his crime very light, and Wang the Merchant looked judicial and as though he took for granted the young man’s innocence and thought only of some wily way to free him. Well he knew his elder brother wanted to borrow a vast sum, and he planned deeply as to how this could be avoided. When the tale was told and the lady was weeping freely at the end, he said,

“It is true that silver is very useful when dealing with officials anywhere, but there is one thing better still and it is power of arms. Before we spend all we have, let us beseech our brother, who is now a very high general, that he exert himself and use his influence in the provincial court and have a mandate sent down from above to our magistrate here who will command the chief of police to release your son. Then a little silver may be used here and there to help the cause.”

Now this seemed a wonderful and good plan to them all and Wang the Landlord marvelled that it had not come to him, and on that very day and in that very hour he sent a messenger to Wang the Tiger and thus it was that Wang the Tiger heard of it.

Now Wang the Tiger besides the duty he had to help his brothers, saw it was a very good chance to test his power and influence. So he wrote a proper, humble letter to the general of the province and he prepared gifts and he sent all by his trusty man and a guard to keep the gifts safe from robbers. Now that general when he received the gifts and read the letter, pondered awhile, and it seemed to him that here was a useful way to bind Wang the Tiger to him in case of a war and if he did this favor, Wang the Tiger would feel an obligation and it seemed a cheap way to secure this favor by letting a young man out of gaol and he cared nothing at all for so small a fellow as the chief of police in a single town. So he sent the word that Wang the Tiger asked, and then he told the ruler of that province, and the ruler sent a mandate down to the magistrate of the county, who sent his mandate down to the magistrate of the town where the House of Wang lived.

Now Wang the Merchant was more tricky than ever, and he was more clever, and he followed each step with enough silver so that every man who touched the affair felt himself rewarded but still not so much that a greedy spirit might be roused to look twice at the source of so much money. In his turn, the chief of police received the command also and Wang the Landlord and Wang the Second watched very carefully for this moment when it came, for they knew a man will not suffer being put to public shame, and so when they knew he had received the command, they went to him with goodly bribes and with many apologies and they begged the chief of police as though for their own sakes, feigning that they knew nothing of all that had passed from above. No, they made obeisances and they besought him as a man of mercy, and at last he accepted the money carelessly and largely as a man will who confers a favor. Then he ordered the young man released and he reproved him and sent him home.

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.