Sons

IV

NOW WANG THE THIRD could scarcely wait for the inheritance to be divided, and as soon as it was finished he made ready with his four men and they prepared to go out again to those parts from which he had come. When Wang the Eldest saw this haste he was astonished and he said,

“What — and will you not wait even until the three years of mourning are over for our father before you set out on your business again?”

“How can I wait three more years?” returned the soldier passionately, and he turned his fierce and hungry eyes to his brother as he spoke. “So far as I am away from you and this house, men will not know what I do nor is there one to care if he did know!”

At this Wang the Eldest looked curiously at his brother and he said with some passing wonder,

“What thing is it that presses you so?”

Then Wang the Third stayed himself in the act of girdling his sword to his leather belt. He looked at his elder brother and saw him, a great soft man, his face full and hung with fat, and his lips thick and pouting, and all his body clothed in soft pale flesh, and he held his fingers apart, and his hands were soft as a woman’s with his fat, the nails long and white and the palms pink and soft and thick. When Wang the Third saw all this he turned his eyes away again and he said in contempt,

“If I told you you would not understand. It is enough if I say I must return quickly, for there are those who wait for me to lead them. It is enough if I say I have men under my command ready to do my bidding.”

“And are you paid well for it?” asked Wang the Eldest, wondering and not perceiving his brother’s scorn, since he held himself to be a goodly man.

“Sometimes I am and sometimes I am not,” said the soldier.

But Wang the Eldest could not think of anyone’s doing a thing for which he was not paid and so he said on,

“It is a strange business which does not pay its men. If a general commanded me and paid me nothing I would change to another general if I were a soldier like you and a captain with men under me.

But the soldier did not answer. He had a thing in his mind to do before he left and he went and found his second brother and he said to him privately,

“You are not to forget to pay that younger lady of my father’s her full share. Before you send me my silver take the extra five pieces every month out of it.”

The second brother opened his narrow eyes at this and since he was one who did not easily understand the giving away of such sums he said,

“Why do you give her so much?”

The soldier replied in some strange haste, “She has that fool to care for, too.”

And he seemed to have more to say but he would not say it and while his four soldiers tied his possessions together in a bundle he was very restless. He was so restless he walked out to the city gate and he looked out toward where his father’s lands had lain and where the earthen house was that was his own now, for all he did not want it, and he muttered once,

“I might go and see it once, since it is mine.”

But he took his breath deeply again and he shook his head and he went back to the town house. Then he led out his four men and he went quickly and he was glad to be gone, as though there were some power over him here yet from his old father, and he was one who would have no power over him of any kind.

So did the other two sons yearn also to be free of their father. The eldest son longed to have the three years of mourning past and he longed to put the old man’s tablet away into the little loft over the great hall where the other tablets were kept, because so long as it stood where it did every day in the hall it seemed as though Wang Lung were watching these sons of his. Yes, there his spirit was, seated in the tablet, watching his sons, and his eldest son longed to be free to live for his pleasure and to spend his father’s money as he would. But he could not, so long as that tablet was there, put his hand freely into his girdle and take his pleasure where he would, and there were these years of mourning to be passed, when it is not decent for a son to be too merry. Thus upon this idle man, whose mind was ever running upon secret pleasures, the old man still laid his restraining power.

As for the second son, he had his schemes too, and he longed to turn certain of the fields into money because he had a plan to enlarge his grain business and buy over some of the markets of Liu the merchant who grew old and whose son was a scholar and did not love his father’s shops, and with so large a business Wang the Second could ship grain out of that region and even to foreign countries near by. But it is scarcely seemly to do such great things while mourning is yet going on, and so Wang the Second could but possess himself in patience and wait and say little except to ask his brother as though idly,

“When these days of mourning are over what will you do with your land — sell it or what?”

And the elder brother replied with seeming carelessness, “Well, I do not know yet. I have scarcely thought, but I suppose I must keep enough to feed us, seeing I have no business as you have and at my age I can scarcely begin a new thing.”

“But land will be a trouble to you,” said his brother. “If you are a landlord you must see to the tenants and you must go yourself to weigh out grain and there are many very wearisome such things for a landlord to do if he is to make his living at all. As for me, I did these things for my father, but I cannot do them for you, for I have my own affairs now. I shall sell all but the very best land and invest the silver at high interest and we will see who will get rich the more quickly, you or I.”

Now Wang the Eldest heard this with the greatest envy for he knew he needed a great deal of money and more than he had, and he said weakly,

“Well, I shall see, and it may be I will sell more than I thought I would, perhaps, and put the money out at interest with yours, but we shall see.”

But without knowing it when they talked of selling the land they dropped their voices low as though they were afraid the old man in the land might hear them still.

Thus these two waited with impatience, for the three years to be over. And Lotus waited, too, and grumbled as she waited, because it was not fitting for her to wear silk these three years and she must wear her mourning faithfully and she groaned because she was so weary of the cotton things she wore and she could not go out to feasts and be merry with her friends except secretly. For Lotus in her age had begun to make merry with some five or six old ladies in other well-to-do houses and these old ladies went about in their sedans from this house to that to game and to feast and to gossip. None of them had any cares now that they could not bear children any more and if their lords lived they had turned to younger women.

Among these old ladies Lotus complained often of Wang Lung and she said,

“I gave that man the best of my youth and Cuckoo will tell you how great a beauty I was so that you may know it is true, and I gave it all to him. I lived in his old earthen house and never saw the town until he was rich enough to come here and to buy this house. And I did not complain; no, I held myself ready for his pleasure at any moment, and yet all this was not enough for him. As soon as I was old at all he took to himself a slave of my own, a poor pale thing I kept out of pity for she was so weak she was little use to me, and now that he is dead I have only these few paltry bits of silver for my pains!”

Then this old lady or that would commiserate her, and each pretended she did not know that Lotus had been only a singing girl out of a tea house, and one would cry out,

“Ah, so it is with all men, and as soon as our beauty is gone they look about for another, even though they used our beauty heedlessly until it was gone! So it is with us all!”

And they all agreed upon these two things, that all men were wicked and selfish and they themselves were most to be pitied of all women because they had sacrificed themselves so wholly, and when they were agreed upon these things and each had shown how her lord was the worst, they fell with relish to their eating and then with zest to their gaming, and so Lotus spent her life. And since it is a servant’s due to have what her mistress earns at gaming, or else a share in it, Cuckoo was zealous to urge her on to such a life.

But still Lotus longed for the days of her mourning to be over so she could take off her cotton robes and wear silks again and forget that Wang Lung had lived. Yes, except for the certain times when she must for decency’s sake go to his grave and weep and when the family went to burn paper and incense to his shade, she did not think of him except when she must draw on these mourning robes in the morning and take them off at night, and she longed to be rid of this so she need not think of him at all.

There was only Pear Blossom who was in no haste, and she went as she always did and mourned by that grave in the land. When no one was by to see her she went and mourned there.

Now while the two brothers waited they must live on together in this great house, they and their wives and children, and it was not easy living because of the hostility of their wives to each other. The wives of Wang the Eldest and Wang the Second hated each other so heartily that the two men were distracted by them, for the two women could not keep their anger to themselves, but each must pour it forth to her husband, when she had him alone.

The wife of Wang the Eldest said to him in her proper, pompous way, “It is a strange thing I can never have the decent respect which is my due in this house to which you brought me. I thought while the old man lived I must endure it because he was so coarse and ignorant a person that I was shamed before my sons when they saw what they had for a grandfather. Yet I bore it all because it was right for me so to do. But now he is dead and you are the head of the family, and if he did not see what your brother’s wife is and how she treats me, and he did not see it because he was so ignorant and unlearned, you are the head and you see it and still you do nothing to teach that woman her place. I am set at naught by her every day, a coarse, country woman and irreligious, too.”

Then Wang the Eldest groaned in himself and he said with what patience he could muster,

“What does she say to you?”

“It is not only in what she says,” the lady replied in her chill way, and when she talked her lips scarcely moved and her voice did not rise or fall. “It is in all she does and is. When I come into a room where she is she pretends to be at some task from which she cannot rise and give me place, and she is so red and loud I cannot bear her if she speaks at all, no, not even if I see her pass, even.”

“Well, and I can scarcely go to my brother and say, “Your wife is too red and too loud and the mother of my sons will not have her so,’” replied Wang the Eldest, wagging his head and feeling for his tobacco pipe in the girdle under his robe. He felt he had said a very good thing and he dared to smile a little.

Now the lady was not one who was ever quick to answer and the truth was she could not answer many times as quickly as she longed to do, and one reason she hated her sister-in-law was because the country wife had a sharp witty tongue, although it was coarse, too, and before the townswoman could finish a speech she set out to make slowly and with dignity, the country wife had with some roll of her eyes and with some quick word interspersed put to naught the townswoman and made her seem absurd so that when the slaves and servants who stood by heard it they had to turn away quickly to hide their smiles. But sometimes a young maid turned too late and her laughter burst out of her with a great squeak before she could stop herself and then others must needs laugh as though at the noise she made, and the townswoman was so angry she hated the country wife with all her heart. So when Wang the Eldest said what he did, she looked at him sharply to see if he made sport of her too, and there he sat in a reed chair he had for his ease, and there he was smiling his soft smile, and she drew herself up very hard and she sat erect and chill upon the stiff wooden chair she always chose, and she dropped the lids over her eyes and made her mouth very small and tight and she said,

“I know very well you despise me, too, my lord! Ever since you brought home that common creature you have despised me, and I wish I had never left my father’s house. Yes, and I wish now I could give myself to the gods and enter myself a nun somewhere and so I would if it were not for my children. I have given myself to building up this house of yours to make it more than a mere farmer’s house, but you give me no thanks.”

She wiped her eyes with her sleeves carefully as she said this, and she rose and went into her room and soon Wang the Eldest heard her reciting aloud some Buddhist prayer. For this lady, of late years had recourse to nuns and to priests and she had grown very scrupulous in her duty to the gods and she spent much time in prayers and chants and the nuns came often to teach her. She made a parade, too, of being able to eat but a very little meat, although she had not taken the strict vows, and she did all this in a rich man’s house where there is no need for such worship as a poor man must give to the gods for safety’s sake.

So now, as she always did when she was angered, she began to pray aloud in her room and when Wang the Eldest heard it he rubbed his hand ruefully over his head and he sighed, for it was true this lady of his had never forgiven him that he had come to the taking of a second woman into his house, a pretty, simple girl he saw on the street one day at a poor man’s door. She had sat on a little stool beside a tub washing clothes, and she was so young and pretty he looked at her twice and thrice as he passed, and he passed again and again. Her father was glad enough to let her go to so goodly a rich man and Wang the Eldest paid him well. But she was so simple that now he knew all she was Wang the Eldest did sometimes wonder how it was he had longed for her as he had, for she was so simple that she feared his lady very much and had no temper at all of her own, and sometimes when Wang the Eldest called for her to come to his room at night she even hung her head and faltered,

“But will my lady let me tonight?”

And sometimes when he saw how timid she was Wang the Eldest grew angry and vowed he would take a good, robust, ill-tempered wench next who would not fear his lady as they all did. But sometimes he groaned and thought to himself that after all it was better so, because at least he had peace between his two women, seeing that the younger one obeyed her mistress abjectly and would not so much as look at him if the lady were by.

Nevertheless, although this somewhat satisfied the lady, still she never ceased to reproach Wang the Eldest, first that he had taken any other woman at all, and then if he must, that he had taken so poor a thing. As for Wang the Eldest, he bore with his lady and he loved the girl still sometimes for her pretty childish face, and he seemed to love her most whenever his lady spoke most bitterly against her, so that he managed by stealth and by schemes to get the girl who was his own. He would answer when she feared to come to him,

“You may come freely for she is too weary to be troubled by me tonight.”

It was true enough that his lady was a woman of a chill heart and she was glad when her days of child-bearing were over. Then Wang the Eldest gave her the respect that was her due and he deferred to her by day in everything and so did the girl, but by night the girl came to him, and so he had peace with his two wives in his house.

Still the quarrel with the sister-in-law was not so easily settled, and the wife of Wang the Second was at her husband too, and she said,

“I am sick to death of that white-faced thing who is your brother’s wife, and if you do not something to separate our courts from theirs, I shall take my revenge one day and bawl in the streets against her, and that will make her die of shame she is so puling and so fearful lest one does not bow deep enough every time she comes in. I am as good as she is and better, and I am glad I am not like her and that you are not like that great fat fool, even though he be the elder brother over you!”

Now Wang the Second and his wife agreed very well. He was small and yellow and quiet and he liked her because she was ruddy and large and had a lusty heart, and he liked her because she was shrewd and a good wife in the house and she spent money hardly and although her father had been a farmer and she was never used to fine living, now that she could have it she did not crave it as some women would have. She ate coarse food by choice and wore cotton rather than silk, and her only faults were a tongue too ready for gossip and that she liked to chatter with the servants.

It was true she could never be called a lady since she liked to wash and to rub and work with her own hands. Yet since she was so she did not need so many servants and she had only a country maid or two whom she treated as friends, and this was another thing her sister-in-law held against her, that she could not treat a servant properly but must look on them all as her equals, and so bring the family to shame. For servants talk to servants, and the elder wife had heard the maids in her sister-in-law’s house boast about their mistress and how much more generous she was than the other and how she gave them bits of dainties left over and bits of stuffs for shoes, if she were in such a mood.

It was true the lady was hard with her servants, but so she was with all and she was hard with herself, too, and she never came forth as the other one did, who ran anywhere with her garments faded and worn and her hair awry and her shoes soiled and turned under at the heel, although her feet were none too small, either. Neither had the lady ever sat as the country wife did, who suckled her child where she sat or stood, with her bosom all out.

Indeed, the greatest quarrel these two ever had was because of this suckling, and the quarrel drove the two brothers at last to find a way of peace. It happened on a certain day that the lady went to the gate to enter her sedan, for it was the birthday of a god who had a temple in the town, and she went to make an offering. As she passed into the street there was the country wife at the gate with her bosom all bare like a slave’s, and she was suckling her youngest child and talking to a vendor from whom she bought a fish for the noon meal of the day.

It was a hideous coarse sight and the lady could not bear it, and she set herself to reproach her sister-in-law bitterly, and she began,

“Truly it is a very shameful sight to see one who should be lady in a great house do such a thing as I would scarcely allow a slave of mine—”

But her slow and sedate tongue could not match the other’s, and the country wife shouted out,

“Who does not know that children must be suckled and I am not ashamed I have sons to suckle and two breasts to suckle them at!”

And instead of buttoning her coat decently she shifted her child triumphantly and suckled it at her other breast. Then hearing her loud voice a crowd began to gather to see the fray and women ran out of their kitchens and out of their courts, wiping their hands as they ran, and farmers who passed set their baskets down awhile to enjoy the quarrel.

But when the lady saw these brown and common faces she could not bear it and she sent the sedan away for the day and tottered into her own courts, all her pleasure spoiled. Now the country wife had never seen such squeamishness as this, for she had always seen children suckled wherever their mothers happen to be, for who can say when a child will cry for this and that and the breast is the only way it will be quieted? So she stood and abused her sister-in-law in such merry ways that the crowd roared with laughter and was in high good humor at the play.

Then a slave of the lady’s who stood by, curious, went and told her mistress faithfully all that the country wife said and she whispered,

“Lady, she says you are so high that you make my lord go in terror for his life and he does not even dare to love his little concubine unless you say he may and then only so long as you say, and all the crowd laughed!”

The lady turned pale at this and she sat down suddenly on a chair beside the table in the chief room and waited and the slave ran and came back again and said breathlessly,

“Now she is saying you care more for priests and nuns than you do for your children and it is well known what such as they are for secret evil!”

At such vileness as this the lady rose and she could not bear it and she told the slave she was to command the gateman to come to her at once. So the slave ran out again in pleasure and excitement, for it was not every day there was such an ado as this, and she brought the gate-man in. He was a gnarled old laborer who had once been on Wang Lung’s land and because he was so old and trusty and he had no son to feed him when he grew old he had been allowed to see to the gates. He went fearful of this lady as they all did and he stood bowing and hanging his head before her and she said in her majestic way,

“Since my lord is at his tea house now and knows not of all this unseemly commotion and since his brother is not here either to control his house, I must do my duty and I will not have the common people on the streets gaping like this at our house and you are to shut the gates. If my sister-in-law is shut out, let her be shut out, and if she asks you who told you to shut the gates say I did, and you must obey me.

The old man bowed again and went out speechless and did as he was commanded. Now the country wife was still there and she enjoyed it mightily when the crowd laughed at her and she did not see the gates closing slowly behind her until they were closed almost to a crack. Then the old gateman put his lips to the crack and he whispered hoarsely,

“Hist — mistress!”

She turned then and saw what was happening and she made a rush and pushed the gates and ran through, her child still at her breast, and she shrieked at the old man,

“Who told you to lock me out, you old dog?”

And the old man answered humbly, “The lady did, and she said I was to lock you out because she would not have such a din here at her gates. But I called to you so you would know.”

“And they are her gates, are they, and I am to be locked out of my own house, am I?” And shrieking thus the country wife bounced into her sister-in-law’s courts.

But the lady had foreseen this and so she had gone into her own rooms and barred the door and she had fallen to her prayers, and although the country wife knocked and beat mightily upon the door, she had no satisfaction and all she heard was the steady, monotonous drone of prayers.

Nevertheless, be sure the two brothers heard of it that night each from his own wife, and when they met in the street the next morning on their way to the tea house they looked at each other wanly, and the second brother said, his face in a wry smile,

“Our wives will drive us into enmity yet and we cannot afford to be enemies. We had better divide them. You take the courts you are in and the gate that is upon the main street shall be your gate. I will stay in my own courts and open a gate to the side street and that will be my gate, and so can we pursue our lives peacefully. If that third brother of ours ever comes home to live he may have the courts where our father lived and if the first concubine is dead then hers where she is adjoining it.”

Now Wang the Eldest had been told many times in the night by his lady every word of what had passed and he was so pressed by his lady that this time he swore to her he would not be mild and yielding; no, this time he would do what was fitting for the head of the house to do when the mistress of the house is so outraged as this by one who is her inferior and ought to pay her deference. So now when he heard what his younger brother said he remembered how hard pressed he had been in the night, and he said feebly in reproach,

“But your wife did very wrong to speak of my lady as she did before the common crowd and it is not enough to let it pass so easily. You should beat her a time or two. I must insist you beat her a time or two.”

Then Wang the Second let his little sharp eyes twinkle and he coaxed his brother and he said,

“We are men, you and I, my brother, and we know what women are and how ignorant and simple the best of them are. Men cannot concern themselves in the affairs of women and we understand each other, my elder brother, we men. It is true that my wife behaved like a fool and she is a country woman and nothing better. Tell your lady I said so and that I send my apologies for my wife. Apologies cost nothing. Then let us separate our women and children and we will have peace, my brother, and we can meet in the tea house and discuss the affairs we have together and at home we will live separately.”

“But — but—” said Wang the Eldest, stammering, for he could not think so fast and so smoothly as this.

Then Wang the Second was clever and he saw immediately that his brother did not know how he was to satisfy his lady and so he said quickly,

“See, my elder brother, say it thus to your lady: ‘I have cut my younger brother’s house off from us and you shall never be troubled again. Thus have I punished them.’ ”

The elder brother was pleased, then, and he laughed and rubbed his fat pale hands together and he said,

“See to it — see to it!”

And Wang the Second said, “I will call masons this very day.”

So each man satisfied his wife. The younger one told his wife,

“You shall not be troubled by that prudish, proud townswoman any more. I have told my elder brother I will not live under the same roof with her. No, I will be master in my own house and we will divide ourselves, and I will not be under his heel any more, and you not at her beck and call.”

And the elder one went to his lady and said in a loud voice, “I have managed it all and I have punished them very well. You can rest your heart. I said to my brother, I said, ‘You shall be cut off from my house, you and your wife, and your children, and we will take the courts we have by the great gate, and you must cut a little side gate on to the alley toward the east, and your woman is not to trouble my lady any more. If that one of yours wishes to hang about at her door suckling her children like a sow does her pigs in the street, at least it will not disgrace us!’ So have I done, mother of my sons, and rest yourself, for you need not see her any more.”

Thus each man satisfied his wife, so that each woman thought herself triumphant and the other altogether vanquished. Then the two brothers were better friends than they had ever been and each felt himself a very clever fellow and one who understood women. They were in high good humor with themselves and with each other and they longed for the days of mourning to be over soon so that they might set a day to meet at the tea house and plan the selling of such land as they wished to sell.

So the three years passed in this varied waiting and the time came when the mourning for Wang Lung could be ended. A day for this was chosen from the almanac and the name of that day had the proper letter in it for such a day, and Wang the Eldest prepared everything for the rites of the release from mourning. He talked with his lady and again she knew all that was fitting, and she told him and he did it.

The sons and the sons’ wives and all who were near to Wang Lung and had worn mourning these three years dressed themselves in gay silks and the women put on some hue of red. Then over these they put the hempen robes they had worn and they went outside the great gate, as the custom was in those parts, and there a heap of spirit money in gold and silver had been made and priests stood ready and they lit the paper. Then by the light of the flames they who wore mourning for Wang Lung took it off and stood manifest in the gay robes they wore underneath.

When the rites were complete, they went into the house and each congratulated all that the days of sorrow were over, and they bowed to the new tablet that had been made for Wang Lung, for the old one was burned, and they put wine and sacrifices of cooked meats before the tablet. Now this new tablet was the permanent tablet and it was made, as such are, of a very fine hard wood and it was set into a little wooden casket to hold it. When it was made and varnished with very costly varnish of black, the sons of Wang Lung searched for the most learned man in the town to inscribe it for them with the name and the spirit of Wang Lung.

There was none more learned than the son of the old Confucian scholar who had once been their teacher, a man who had gone up in his youth to the imperial examinations. True, he had failed, but still he was more learned than those who had not gone at all, and he had given all his learning to his son and this son was a scholar too. When he was invited to so honorable a task as this, therefore, he came swinging his robes as he walked and setting his feet out as scholars do, and he wore his spectacles low upon the end of his nose. When he was come he seated himself at the table before the tablet, having first bowed as many times as he ought to it, and then, pushing back his long sleeves and pointing his brush of camel’s hair very fine and sharp, he began to write. Brush and ink slab and ink and all were new, for so they must be at such a task, and thus he inscribed. When he came to the last letter of the inscription he paused for a time before he wrote the very end, and he waited and closed his eyes and meditated so that he might catch the whole spirit of Wang Lung in the last touch of the last word.

And after he had meditated awhile it came to him thus: “Wang Lung, whose riches of body and soul were of the earth.” When he thought of this it seemed to him that he had caught the essence of Wang Lung’s being, so that his very soul would be held fast, and he dipped his brush in red and set the last stroke, upon the tablet.

Thus was it finished, and Wang the Eldest took his father’s tablet and carried it carefully in both his hands and they all went together and set the tablet in that small upper room where the other tablets were, the tablets of the two old farmers who had been Wang Lung’s father and grandfather. Here their tablets were in this rich house, and they would never have dreamed when they were alive of having tablets such as only rich people have, and if they thought at all of themselves when they would be dead, it was only to suppose their names would be written upon a bit of paper by some fellow a little learned and pasted to the earthen wall of the house in the fields and so stay until it wore away after a while. But when Wang Lung had moved into this town house he had tablets made for his two ancestors as though they had lived here, too, although whether their spirits were there or not, no one could know.

Here then was Wang Lung’s tablet put also, and when his sons had done all that should be done they shut the door and came away, and they were glad in their secret hearts.

Now it was the proper time to invite guests and to feast and to be merry, and Lotus put on robes of a bright blue flowered silk, too bright for so huge and old a creature, but no one corrected her, knowing what she was, and they all feasted. And as they feasted they laughed together and drank wine and Wang the Eldest shouted again and again, for he loved a great merry gathering,

“Drink to the bottom of your cups — let the bottom be seen!”

And he drank so often that the dark red came up from the wine in him and flushed his cheeks and eyes. Then his lady, who was apart with the women in another court, heard he was about to be drunken and she sent her maid out to him to say, “It is scarcely seemly to be drunken yet and at such a feast as this.” So he recalled himself.

But even Wang the Second was cheerful this day and did not begrudge anything. He took opportunity to speak secretly with some of the guests to see if any wished to buy more land than he had, and he spread it about here and there secretly that he had some good land to part with, and thus the day passed, and each brother was satisfied because he broke the bond under which he had been to the old man who lay in the earth.

There was one who did not feast among them and Pear Blossom sent her excuse saying, “The one I care for is a little less well than usual and I beg to be excused.” So, since no one missed her, Wang the Eldest sent word she was to be excused if she liked from the feasting and she alone did not take off her mourning that day, nor the white shoes she wore nor the white cord that bound her hair where it was coiled. Neither did she take these signs of sadness from the fool either. While the others feasted she did what she loved to do. She took the fool by the hand and led her to Wang Lung’s grave and they sat down. Then while the fool played, content to be near the one who cared for her, Pear Blossom sat and looked over the land, and there it was spread in its small green fields laid edgewise and crosswise and fitted into each other for as many miles as her eyes could reach. Here and there a spot of blue stood or moved where some farmer bent over his spring wheat. So had Wang Lung once bent also over the fruit of his earth when it had been his turn to have it for his own, and Pear Blossom remembered how in his old age he had dwelled on those years before she was born and how he loved to tell her of them and of how he had been used to plough this field and plant that one.

So did this time pass and so did this day pass for the family of Wang Lung. But his third son did not come home even for such a day. No, wherever he was he remained there and he busied himself in some life of his own and apart from them all.