Sons

VII

ON 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,

“What do you spend good silver to go south for?”

Wang the Second told her then and she listened and stirred, but her eyes were fastened sharply meantime upon a maid who cleaned a fowl there and she watched lest the maid take the liver or the unlaid eggs secretly and so she heard only the last of what her husband said, and it was this,

“It will be a venture and I do not know what he means by raising the lad up, but there are other sons to put into the business, and we have only this one old enough. Besides, my brother sends one.”

When his wife heard these last words, she brought her mind to the thing and she said at once,

“Well, and if their sons are to be raised to a high position we must send ours, or else I shall be forever hearing my sister-in-law talk of her son who is a military hero. It is true this son of ours ought to be doing something he is so big and so full of his clownish tricks. And as you say, we have the others for the shop.”

So Wang the Second the very next day took these two lads each with his garments, but the son of Wang the Eldest had his in a good pigskin box and he was fastidious. Although his eyes were still red with weeping, and he delayed to see that his man servant carried it properly with the top uppermost so that his books should not be all askew within. But the son of Wang the Second owned no book, and he had his few clothes tied into a large blue cotton kerchief and he carried this himself, and he ran as he went and shouted aloud over everything he saw. It was a clear bright day in spring and the streets of the town were full of the first produce of the fields and everyone was busy buying and selling. To this lad it was a good year and a bright day and he was setting forth on a journey which he had never done before, and his mother had cooked him a dish he loved to eat that morning, and so he was very merry. But the other lad walked along decorously and slowly and in silence and he hung his head down and he scarcely looked at his cousin, and from time to time he wet his pale lips as though they were very dry.

Thus Wang the Second walked with the two lads and he mused on his own affairs, for he was never one to pay heed to children, and so they came to the north of the town where the place was to mount the fire wagon, and Wang the Second paid money and they mounted. Then the son of Wang the Eldest was put to much shame because his uncle had bought the cheapest places that could be bought, thinking it good enough for two lads, and so this youth found he must go into a carriage where very common people sat, who reeked of garlic, and their cotton clothes were unwashed and smelled of poverty, and here was he in his good blue silk gown and he must sit among them. But he did not dare to complain for he was afraid of his uncle’s secret scorn, so he could only take his place and put his box between him and the common farmer fellow that sat next, and he looked piteously at his servant who must leave him now, but still he did not dare to say anything.

But Wang the Second and his son looked little better than any because Wang the Second had put on himself a cotton robe that morning when he rose, for it seemed to him he had better not look too fine before his third brother, lest he seem richer than he would seem. As for his son, he did not own a silk robe yet and his stout cotton clothes were stitched by his mother and cut full and loose and long for him to grow to fit. And Wang the Second looked at his nephew and said in his wry way,

“It is ill to travel all day in such fine clothes as you wear. You had better take off that silk robe of yours and fold it and put it into your box, and sit in your under garments and so spare your best.”

The boy muttered then, “But I have better than this, and it is what I wear every day at home.” Nevertheless, he did not dare to disobey and so he rose and did what his uncle said.

Thus they went all that day by land, and Wang the Second stared at the fields and the towns through which they passed, appraising all he saw, and his son cried out at every new thing, and he longed to taste the fresh cakes of every vendor when they stopped, only his father would not have it. But the other lad sat pale and timorous, and he was sick because the carriage went so fast, and he leaned his head upon his pigskin box and said nothing all day, and he shook his head even at food.

Then they went by sea also two days in a small and crowded ship, and thus at last they came to the town where they must find the one they sought, and when they came out of the ship and were upon land again, Wang the Second hired rikshas, and put the two lads into one and he took one himself. The puller of the lads complained bitterly of his double burden, but Wang the Second explained to him they were but young lads and not men yet, and one of them pale and thin and less than usual because of his seasickness, and at last by haggling and paying a little more, but not so much as another vehicle cost, the puller was somewhat willing. And the rikshas came to the name of the house and street which Wang the Second gave them, and when they stopped, he drew the letter out of his bosom and he compared the letters written over the gate with those in the letter and they were the same.

He came out of his riksha then and he bade the two lads come out of theirs, and after he had haggled awhile with the pullers, because the place was not so far as they had said, and he paid them a little less than the price agreed upon at first, he took the box at one end and the two lads took it at the other end, and they started to walk through the great gate, on either side of which stood two stone lions.

But there was a soldier standing there beside one of the lions and he cried out,

“What, do you think you can come through this gate as you please?” And he took the gun off his shoulder and pounded its butt upon the stones and he was so fierce and rude in his looks that the three stood dazed, and the son of Wang the Eldest began to tremble, and even the pocked lad looked grave for a moment, because he had never stood so near a gun before.

Then Wang the Second hastened to draw his brother’s letter out of his bosom and he gave it to the soldier to see and he said,

“We are the three mentioned here and this is our proof.”

But the soldier could not read and so he shouted for another soldier and he came and after he had stared awhile at them and heard their whole tale he took the letter. Yet he could not read either, and after he had looked at it he took it inside somewhere. After a long time he came back and he pointed inside with his thumb and he said,

“It is true enough — they are relatives of the captain and they are to go in.”

So they picked up the box again and they went in and past the stone lions, although the man with the gun looked after them as though he were unwilling and very doubtful still. Nevertheless they followed the other soldier and he led them through ten courts or so, every court filled with soldiers who idled there, some eating and some drinking, and some sitting naked in the sun to pick the vermin out of their clothes, and some lying asleep and snoring, and thus they went on to an inner house and there in its central room sat Wang the Tiger. He sat there at the table waiting for them and he wore good dark clothes of some rough foreign stuff and they were fastened with buttons of brass upon which were stamped a sign.

When he saw these relatives of his come in he rose quickly and shouted to the soldiers who served him to bring wine and meats and he bowed to his brother, and Wang the Second bowed also, and bade the two lads bow, and they all seated themselves according to rank, Wang the Second in the highest seat and then Wang the Tiger, and the two lads in side seats below them. Then a serving man brought the wine and poured it out, and when this was done Wang the Tiger looked at the lads and he said in his sudden, harsh way,

“That ruddy one looks stout enough but I am not sure what wisdom he has behind that pocked face. He looks a clown. I hope he is not a clown, Elder Brother, because I do not like too much laughter. He is yours? — I see a smack of his mother in him. As for the other one — is that the best my eldest brother can do?”

When he said this the pale lad hung his head deeper than ever and it could be seen that a light chill sweat stood out on his upper lip and he took his hand and wiped it furtively away, looking doggedly down all the time he did this. But Wang the Tiger continued to stare at them steadily with his hard black stare, until even the pocked lad who was always so ready did not know where to look, so that he turned his eyes this way and that and moved his feet and gnawed his fingernail. Then Wang the Second said in apology,

“It is true they are but two poor things, my brother, and we are grieved that we had none more meet for your kindness. But my elder brother’s eldest son is chiefest heir, and the one after this one is a hunchback, and this pocked one is my eldest and my next but a child, and so these two are the best we have for the time.”

Then Wang the Tiger, having seen what they were, told a soldier to lead the lads into a side room and let them eat their meat there, and they were not to come again unless he called for them. The soldier led them away then, but the son of Wang the Eldest cast piteous looks back at his uncle and Wang the Tiger seeing him waver like this called,

“Why do you linger?”

Then the lad stopped and said in his feeble way, “But am I not to have my box?”

Wang the Tiger looked then and saw the fine pigskin box beside the door and he said with some measure of contempt,

“Take it, but it will be no use to you for you shall strip off those robes and get into the good stout clothes that soldiers wear. Men cannot fight in silk robes!” The lad turned clay-colored at this and went without a word and the two brothers were left alone.

For a long time Wang the Tiger sat in silence, for he was never one to make talk for courtesy’s sake, and at last Wang the Second asked him,

“What is it of which you think so deeply? Is it something about our sons?”

Then Wang the Tiger said slowly, “No, except I thought how that most men so old as I am have sons of their own growing up and it must be a very comforting sight to a man.”

“Why, so might you have them if you had wed soon enough,” said Wang the Second, smiling a little. “But we did not know where you were for so long and my father did not know either and he could not wed you as he would have. But my brother and I will do it willingly, and the money for it is there when you need it for such a thing.”

But Wang the Tiger put the thought from him resolutely and he said,

“No, it will seem strange to you, but I do not stomach a woman. It is a strange thing but I have never seen a woman—” and he broke off there for the serving man came in with meats, and the brothers said no more.

When they had eaten and the dishes were taken away again and tea was brought Wang the Second made ready to ask what thing it was that Wang the Tiger wished to do with all his silver and with these lads, but he did not know how to begin to ask it, and before he had decided on a skillful way, Wang the Tiger said suddenly,

“We are brothers. You and I understand each other. I depend on you!”

And Wang the Second drank some tea and then he said cautiously and mildly,

“Depend upon me you may, since we are brothers, but I should like to know what your plan is so that I can know what I am to do for you.”

Then Wang the Tiger leaned forward and he said in a great whisper and his words rushed out fast and his breath was like a hot wind blowing into Wang the Second’s ear,

“I have loyal men about me, a good hundred and more, and they are all weary of this old general! I am weary, too, and I long for my own country and I never want to see one of these little yellow southern men again. Yes, I have loyal men! At my sign they will march out with me in the dead of a certain night. We will make for the north where the mountains are, and we will march to the far north before we entrench ourselves to make a war of revolution if this old general comes after us. But he may not stir — he is so old and so sunken in his eating and drinking and his women, except that among my hundred are his best and strongest men, men not of the south but out of fiercer, braver tribes!”

Now Wang the Second had always been a small and peaceful man, a merchant, and while he knew there was always a war somewhere he had had nothing to do with wars except once when in a revolution soldiers had been quartered in his father’s house, and he knew nothing of how war is begun or waged except that if it is waged too near the prices of grain are high and if it is distant then prices fall again. He had never been so near a war as this, even in his own family was this war! His narrow mouth gaped and his small eyes widened and he whispered back, “But what can I do to help in this, who am so peaceful a man as I am?”

“This!” said Wang the Tiger and his whisper was the grating of iron upon iron. “I must have much silver, all my own, and I must borrow of you and at the least interest you will give me until I can establish myself!”

“But what security?” said Wang the Second, breathless.

“This!” said Wang the Tiger again. “You are to lend me what I need and what the land will bring until I can gather a mighty army and I will establish myself somewhere north of our own region and I will make myself lord of that whole territory! Then when I am lord I will enlarge myself and my lands, and I shall grow greater and more great with every war I wage until—” He paused and seemed to look off into some distant age, into some distant country, as though he saw it plain before him, and Wang the Second waited and then could not wait.

“Until what?” he said.

Wang the Tiger rose suddenly to his feet. “Until there is none greater than I in this whole nation!” he said, and now his whisper was like a shout.

“What will you be then?” asked Wang the Second astounded.

“I shall be what I will!” cried Wang the Tiger, and his black brows flew up over his eyes suddenly and sharply and he smote the table with the flat of his hand so that Wang the Second leaped at the crack, and the two men stared at each other.

Now all this was the strangest thing of which Wang the Second had ever heard. He was not a man who could dream great dreams and his greatest dream was to sit down at night with his books of accounts and look over what he had sold that year and plan in what safe sure ways he could enlarge himself the next year in his markets. Now, therefore, he sat and stared at this brother of his and he saw him tall and black and strange and his eyes shining like a tiger’s eyes, and those straight black brows like banners above his eyes. Thus staring Wang the Second was lifted out of himself so that he was afraid of his brother and he did not dare to say anything to thwart him for there was a look in the man’s eyes that was half crazed and it was so mighty a look that even Wang the Second could feel in his pinched heart the power of this man, his brother. Still he was cautious, though, and still he could not forget his habit of caution, and so he coughed dryly and said in his little dry voice.

“But what is there in all this for me and for us all and what security if I lend my silver to you?”

And Wang the Tiger answered with majesty, and he brought his eyes back to rest upon his brother,

“Do you think I will forget my own when I have raised myself up and are not you my brothers and your sons my brothers’ sons? Did you ever hear of a mighty lord of war who did not raise up all his house as he rose? Is it nothing to you to be the brother of—a king?”

And he gazed down into his brother’s eyes, and Wang the Second suddenly half believed this brother of his, although unwillingly too, for all this was the strangest tale he had ever heard, and he said in his sensible way,

“At least I will give you what is your own and I will lend you what I can spare, if it be that indeed you can rise like this, for doubtless there are many who do not rise so high as they think they can. At least you shall have your own.”

Then some fire went suddenly out of Wang the Tiger’s eyes and he sat down and he pressed his lips together straight and hard and he said,

“You are cautious, I see!”

His voice was so hard and cold that Wang the Second was a little afraid and he said to excuse himself,

“But I have a family and many little children and the mother of my sons is not old yet and she is exceedingly fertile, and I have all these to plan and care for. You are unwed yet and you do not know what it is to have so many depending on you for everything, and food and clothing costing more every year!”

Wang the Tiger shrugged himself and he turned away, and he said as if carelessly,

“I do not, indeed, but hear me! Every month I will send my trusty man to you and you will know him by his harelip. You are to give him as much money as he is able to carry. Sell my lands as quickly and as well as you are able, for I shall need a thousand pieces of silver a month.”

“A thousand!” cried Wang the Second, and his voice was cracked and his eyes idiotic in his surprise. “But how can you spend it?”

“There are a hundred men to be fed and clothes and arms to be bought. I must buy guns before I can increase my army if I cannot capture them quickly enough,” said Wang the Tiger speaking very fast. Then suddenly he was angry. “You are not to ask me this and that!” he roared, smiting the table again. “I know what I must do and I must have silver until I can establish myself and be lord over a territory! Then I can tax the people, as I will. But now I must have silver. Stand by me and you shall have a certain reward. Fail me — and I can forget you are my blood!”

When he said these last words he thrust his face very near to his brother’s and Wang the Second, looking into those fierce eyes hooded beneath the heavy black brows, drew back hastily and coughed and said, “Well, and of course I will do it. I am your brother. But when will you begin?”

“When can you sell my parcel of land?” asked Wang the Tiger.

“The wheat harvest will come before many months,” said Wang the Second slowly, musing as he spoke and hesitating, for he was dazed with all he had heard.

“Then men will have money,” returned Wang the Tiger, “and you can sell something before rice is put in, doubtless.”

Now this was true enough and Wang the Second did not dare to oppose this strange brother of his at all for he was afraid of him, and he knew he must manage the thing somehow. So he rose and said,

“If there is such haste as this I must return at once and see what I can do, for harvests are quickly spent and then men think themselves poor again and hard-worked with what land they have to plant and more land will seem too much for them.”

So he would not stay at all for he wanted to be away out of this place where there were such fierce men and guns and weapons of war everywhere. He stayed only to go into the next room where the lads had been sent and they were sitting on a bench before a small un-painted table upon which food was placed. It was the broken meats of what Wang the Tiger had put before his brother, but it was good enough for these lads, and Wang the Second’s son stuffed it into his mouth very willingly, his bowl to his lips. But the other lad was dainty and accustomed to better than what was left over after others had eaten, and he sat and picked a little rice up with his chopsticks and did not touch the meats. Then Wang the Second felt some strange unwillingness to leave these lads and especially his own, and he had a doubt for a moment as to whether it was not a hazard he should not have taken for his son. But the thing was begun now and he could not undo what was begun, so he merely said,

“I return, and my only command on you both is that you are to obey your uncle in every single point, for you are his now, and he is a fierce and impatient man and he will not bear anything from you. But if you are obedient and will do all he says, you may rise to what you do not know. There is some destiny written for your uncle.”

Then he turned quickly and went away, for he could not help it that his heart was a little heavy to leave his son, more than he could have thought it would be, and to ease it he muttered to himself,

“Well, such a chance does not come to every lad, and if it is chance it is a fair one. He will not be a common soldier after all, but an official of some sort if the thing succeeds.”

And he determined he would do well and do all he could to make it succeed; at least for his son’s sake he would do all he could.

But the pale lad who was Wang the Eldest’s son began to weep when he saw his uncle go and he wept aloud, and Wang the Second hurried away. Yet the sound of that weeping pursued him, and he made haste to reach the gate where the lions were, so that he could hear it no more.