Sons

VIII

NOW BEGAN HIS STRANGE enterprise which, if Wang Lung’s soul had not been in some far country, could have made his body rise out of that land of his where he slept, because in his lifetime he had hated above anything else war and soldiers, and here was his good land being sold for such a cause. But he slept there and he slept on and there was no one to stay these sons of his in what they did; no, there was no one except Pear Blossom and she did not for a long time know what they did. These two elder sons feared her for her faithfulness to their father and so they hid their plans from her.

For when Wang the Second had come back to his house he told Wang the Eldest to come to the tea house where they could talk in peace and there over their bowls of tea they talked. But this time Wang the Second chose a secret hidden corner where two walls come together without any window or door in either wall, and they sat so they could see who came near and they bent their heads over the table and talked in whispers and hints and broken words. Thus Wang the Second told his brother what Wang the Tiger planned, and whereas now he was come back to his own house again and into the common ways of his usual life the plan of the soldier had seemed more and more a dream and an impossible dream, the eldest brother seized on it as he listened as a thing wonderful but easy to do, too. The truth was that this huge and child-like man grew excited as the plan unfolded before him, for he saw himself raised above his highest fancy — brother to a king! He was a man of little learning and less wisdom and besides one who loved to see plays and he had seen many old plays which tell of the deeds of ancient and fabled heroes, who were at first but common men and then by the skill of their arms and by their wit and guile, they rose high enough to found dynasties. Now he saw himself the brother of such an one, and more than that, the elder brother of such an one, and his eyes listened and he whispered hoarsely,

“I always said our brother was like no other lad! It was I who besought our father to take him out of the fields and hire a tutor for him and teach him what he ought to know as a landlord’s son. Doubtless my brother will not forget what his eldest brother did for him, and how if it had not been for me he would have been but a hind on my father’s land!”

And he looked down pleased with himself, and he smoothed over his great belly the rich purple satin robe he wore, and he thought of his second son and how the family would all rise, and he himself would be perhaps a nobleman; doubtless he would be made a nobleman when his brother was a king. There were stories of such things in the books he had read and he had seen these things in the playhouse. Then Wang the Second, who had been more and more dubious as he came back to himself, and indeed the fierce enterprise seemed very far from this quiet town, when he saw the mind of his elder brother flying into the future he grew jealous and his very caution made him greedy and he thought to himself,

“I must be careful lest haply there is a little in what my younger brother dreams, and lest perhaps he does even succeed in a tenth part of what he dreams. I must be ready to share his success with him and I must not draw back too far,” and he said aloud, “Well, but I have to furnish him the silver and without me he could do nothing. He must have what he needs until he can establish himself, and how I am to get so much I do not know. After all, I am but a little rich man, and scarcely counted rich by those who are lords of wealth. The first few months I can get it by selling his land, and then we can sell some land, you and I. But what shall we do if he is not established by that time?”

“I will help him — I will help him—” said the elder brother hastily and he could not at this moment bear to think that anyone should do more for this younger brother than he did.

The two men rose then in the haste of their common greed and Wang the Second said,

“Let us go out to the lands once more and this time we will sell!”

Now this time, also, when the two brothers went out to the land they remembered Pear Blossom and they did not go near that earthen house. No, they bestrode two donkeys that stood among many at the city gate to be hired by their masters and thus they went out along the narrow paths between the fields, and the donkey keepers, who were young lads, ran after them and beat the donkeys upon the thighs and shrieked at them to urge them on, and they went to the north and away from that house and that bit of land. The beast that Wang the Second rode went willingly enough, but the other swayed upon its delicate feet beneath the mighty weight of Wang the Eldest, for this man grew fatter every month, and it was plain that in another ten years or so he would be a marvel in the town and the countryside, seeing that now, when he was but turned his forty-fifth year, he was so round and full about his middle and his cheeks hanging and thick as haunches. So they must wait a little for the burdened beast, but still they went well enough, and in that one day they visited all the tenants which were on the lands that had been marked before for sale. And Wang the Second inquired of every man if he would buy the land he worked and if he would then when, and how soon he could pay for it.

Now it so happened that it had been decided, since Wang the Tiger wished for silver, that they would give him the largest single piece of land and it was the farthest from the town and tilled now under one farmer, a prosperous good man, who had begun humbly enough as a laborer upon Wang Lung’s own land and he had married a slave out of the town house, a strong, honest, noisy woman, who worked hard while she bore her children and she drove her husband to work harder too than he would have, left alone. They had prospered, and each year they rented more of Wang Lung’s land until they had a number of acres under them and they had to hire men to help with the labor of it. But still they themselves worked, for they were a saving, thrifty pair.

To this man the two brothers came this day and Wang the Eldest asked him saying,

“We have more land than we wish and we need silver to venture in other affairs, and if you want to buy these pieces you till, well enough and we will sell them to you.”

Then the farmer’s round, ox-like eyes opened and he let his mouth go agape under the shelf of his teeth and he said, his voice hissing and spitting against his teeth when he spoke, for so his way was and he could not help it,

“I did not dream your house was ready to sell its land already, seeing how fastened to the land the old man your father was!”

Then Wang the Eldest drew down his thick mouth and he looked very grave and he said,

“For all his love of it he has left us a very heavy burden to bear. We have his two concubines to care for, and neither of them is our mother, and the elder one loves her good wines and her fine foods and she must have her gaming every day, and she is not clever enough to win at it every day either. Money from the lands comes in slowly and it is dependent upon the whims of Heaven. And such a house as we have must spend money generously, for it would be unseemly of us and unworthy of us as our father’s sons if we let our family look poor and mean and poorer than when he was alive. So we must take some of the land for our livelihood.”

But Wang the Second had fidgeted and coughed and frowned while his brother made this ponderous speech and it seemed to him his brother was little better than a fool, for if it is seen that one is eager to sell his goods, the price goes down. He made haste to say now in his turn,

“But there are many who inquire after our land to buy it because it is well known in these parts that the lands our father bought are good and the best in this countryside. If you do not want the land you hire, then let us know quickly, for there are others who wait for it.”

Now this shelf-toothed farmer loved the land he tilled, and he knew it every foot and how each bit lay, how that field sloped, and how this one must be ditched if he was to secure the harvest. Much good manure had he put into the land, too, not only the excrements of his own beasts and of his household, but he had labored and gone into the town and carried out for this long distance buckets of the town’s waste. He had risen often and early in the morning to do this. Now he thought of all those stinking loads he had carried and of all his labor gone into these fields, and it seemed to him an ill thing indeed if now it were all to pass to another man. So he said hesitating,

“Well, I had not thought of owning the land myself yet. I thought in my son’s time perhaps it might be ready to sell. But if it is to be sold now I will think what I can do and I will tell you tomorrow when I have thought of it. But what is your price?”

The two brothers looked at each other then and Wang the Second said quickly before the elder brother could speak, for he feared that one would say too little,

“The price is just and fair; fifty pieces of silver for a field of the size of the sixth of an acre.”

Now this was a high price and too much for land so far from town as this and it was more than could be paid for it, and they all knew this, but still it was a start to the bargain. Then the farmer said,

“Such a price I cannot pay, poor as I am, but I will tell you tomorrow when I have thought.”

Then Wang the Eldest grew too anxious for the money and he said,

“A little more or less will not spoil the bargain!”

But Wang the Second cast him an angry look and he plucked his brother by the sleeve lest he say more foolishness yet and he led him to go away again. But the farmer called after them,

“I will come tomorrow when I have thought!”

This he said, although what he meant was that he must talk with his wife, but it would seem very small in a man if he said he held what his wife thought to be of any account, and so he put it thus to save his own pride.

When the next day came after he had talked with his wife in the night he went to the town where the two brothers lived, and there he bickered and bargained with them and he bargained as once Wang Lung had in that very house for the land that house owned, a house now scattered and dispersed of which only these bricks and stones were left. But a price was agreed upon at last, a third less than Wang the Second had said, and this was fair enough and the farmer was willing because it was a price his wife had mentioned he might take if so be he could get the land for no less. When the land was thus sold, the farmer said,

“How will you have the purchase money, in silver or in grain?”

And Wang the Second said quickly, “Half in silver and the rest in grain.”

This he said thinking if he took the grain he could sell it a time or two and turn a little extra silver on it and it would not be robbing his brother either, since it was no one’s affair save his own if the grain were turned a time or two and the profit was due him for all this labor. But the farmer said,

“I cannot muster so much silver. I will give you a third in silver and a third in grain now and the last third I promise from next year’s harvest.”

Then Wang the Elder rolled his eyes in his lordly way and he stamped his foot and shifted his chair where he sat with them in the great hall and he said,

“But how can you tell what the skies will be next year and what rains will come and how will we know what we are to have?”

But the farmer stood there very humble before these rich townsmen, who were his landlords, and he sucked his teeth before he spoke and then he said patiently,

“We on the land are at the mercy of heaven always, and if you cannot share the risk you must take the land again as security.”

So it was settled at last, and on the third day the farmer brought the silver, not all at once but in three times, each time with a roll of it wrapped in a blue cloth and hidden in his bosom. Each time he took the silver out slowly and his face drew together as though he were in some pain and he put the silver down on the table hardly, as though he did it with sorrow, and so he did, for into this silver had gone so many years of his life, so many pounds of his flesh, so much of the strength of his sinew. He had collected from every place where he had hid his little stores of gain and he had borrowed all he could, and he could not even have had this except by bitter, frugal living.

But the two brothers saw only the silver and when they had set their seal upon the receipt of it and the farmer had sighed and gone away, Wang the Eldest cried with contempt,

“Well, and the farming folk always cry out and make such an ado because they live so hard and have so little. But any of us would be willing to gain silver like this man has been able to do, and it has not been hard for him, I dare say! If they can heap it up like this from the land, I swear I shall press harder upon my tenants after this!”

And he pushed back his long silken sleeves and smoothed his soft pale hands and he took up the silver and let it slip through his fat fingers that were dimpled at the knuckles as a woman’s are. But Wang the Second took up the money and Wang the Eldest watched him unwillingly as he did it, and Wang the Second counted it swiftly and skillfully into tens once more, although it had been well counted already. Into tens he counted it all and wrapped it up neatly as clerks do in some sheets of paper he had. Wang the Eldest stared at it unwilling to see it go and at last he said longingly,

“Need we send it all to him?”

“We need send it,” said Wang the Second coldly, seeing his brother’s greed. “We must send it now or his venture fails. And I must take the grain and sell it and be ready for the day when his trusty man comes.”

But he did not tell his brother he would turn the grain over a time or two, and Wang the Eldest did not know these tricks a merchant has, and so he could only sit and sigh to see the silver go away. When his brother was gone he sat on awhile, feeling melancholy, and poor as though he had been robbed.

Now Pear Blossom might never have heard of all this that went on, for Wang the Second was cunning beyond all and he never hinted of anything he did, no, not even when at the proper time he took to her the allowance of silver that was hers. Twenty-five pieces he took to her every month as Wang the Tiger had said he must, and the first time he did it she said in her soft voice,

“But where does this five come from, for I know only twenty was given to me, and I do not need even so much, only for this poor child of my lord’s. But this five I have not heard of.”

To this Wang the Second replied,

“Take it, for my younger brother said you were to have it and it comes from his share.”

But when Pear Blossom heard this she counted out five pieces with all speed, her small hands trembling, and she pushed the money to one side as though she feared it might burn her, and she said,

“I will not have it — no, I will have nothing except my due!”

At first Wang the Second had thought he would press her, but then he remembered what a risk he ran when he loaned money for this venture of his brother’s, and he remembered all the trouble he had for which he received no pay, and he remembered all the possibility there was that the venture might fail. When he thought of all this he scraped up the silver she had set aside and he put it carefully into the bosom of his robe and he said in his small, quiet voice,

“Well, it may be better so, since the other and the elder has as much, and it is true you should have a little less. I will tell my brother.”

But seeing what her temper was he forebore to say the very house she lived in belonged to that third son, for it suited them all to have her live there with the fool. He went away, then, and he never said more to Pear Blossom than this, and except for such casual meetings for some purpose or other, Pear Blossom did not see the family in the great town house. Sometimes, it is true, she saw Wang the Eldest pass at the turn of the season, in the spring when he came out to measure the seed for his tenants as a landlord must, although he did but stand by very high and important while some agent he had hired measured it. Or he came out sometimes before the harvest to appraise what the fields had, so that he could know whether or not his tenants lied to him when they cried out as they always did of this and that and what a bad year it had been for them and how much or how little it had rained.

So he came and went a few times a year, and each time he was sweating and hot and ill-tempered with his labor, and he grunted his greeting to Pear Blossom if he saw her, and although she bowed decorously if she saw him, she did not speak if she could help it, because he grew such a great blowsy man and he had a way of leering his eyes secretly at women.

Nevertheless, seeing him come and go, she supposed that the land was as it had always been, and that Wang the Second saw to his lands and the third brother’s, and no one thought to tell her anything. She was not indeed one with whom it was easy to gossip, because she was still and distant in her manner to all except children, so that, although she was gentle, yet there was that about her that made people fear her, too. She had no friends at all except that of late she had acquainted herself with some nuns who lived in a nunnery not far away, a quiet house built of grey bricks, and set behind a green willow hedge. These nuns she received gladly when they came to teach her their patient doctrines, and she listened to them and brooded upon them after the nuns were gone, for she longed to learn enough to pray for Wang Lung’s soul.

So might she never have known about the selling of the land except that in that very year when the farmer had bought the first parcel of land the little hunchbacked son of Wang the Eldest followed his father at a distance, so that the man did not know it, when he came out to the harvest fields.

Now this lad was the strangest little lad and he was not like any of the children in the courts of the great house. His mother had disliked him from the hour he was born for some reason that none knew, perhaps because he was less ruddy and good to see than her other children or perhaps because she was weary then of child-bearing and weary of him before he was born. But because of her dislike she had given him at once to a slave to suckle and this slave did not love him either because they had taken her child away from her for his sake, and she said he had an eye too wise for his age, that looked evil in his baby face. She said he was full of malice, too, and that he bit her willfully when he suckled, and once she screeched as she held him to her breast and she dropped him upon the tiles of the court where she sat under a shade tree with him, and when they came to see what was amiss she said he had bit her until she bled, and she held her breast out for them to see, and it was true it did bleed.

From that time on this lad grew hunched, and it was as though all his strength of growing went into this great knot he carried on his shoulders, and everyone named him Hunchback and by that name did even his parents call him. Seeing what a poor thing he was and that there were other sons there was no trouble taken over him and he did not have to learn his letters or do anything at all, and he learned early to stay out of men’s sight, and especially out of the sight of other children, who mocked him cruelly for the burden he bore. He prowled about the streets or he walked far out in the countryside alone, limping as he walked, and carrying that great load of his upon his back.

On this harvest day he had followed his father unseen and he kept out of his father’s sight, for well he knew his father’s ill temper on such days as he must go to his land, and he followed him out as far as the earthen house. But Wang the Eldest passed on to his fields, and the hunchback stayed to see who it was that sat at the door of the house.

Now it was only Wang Lung’s poor fool, and she sat there in the sun as she always did, but she was a woman grown in body now and more than that for she was nearly forty years old and there were white streaks in her hair. But she was still the same poor child and she sat there grimacing and folding her bit of cloth, and the hunchback wondered at her, for he had never seen her before, and in his malicious way he began to mock her and make grimaces, too, and he snapped his fingers so loudly under her nose that the poor thing shrieked in fear.

Then Pear Blossom came running out to see what went wrong and when the lad saw her he ran limping and hobbling into the pointed shadows of the bamboo grove, and from there he peered out like a little savage beast. But Pear Blossom saw who it was and she smiled her gentle sad smile and she drew out of her bosom a small sweet cake, for she carried such cakes with her to coax the fool sometimes when she grew stubborn suddenly from some strange caprice and was unwilling to obey. This cake she held out to the hunchback, and he stared at her first and at last he crept out and seized the cake and stuffed it all into his mouth at once. Then enticing the child she got him to come and sit beside her upon a bench at the door and when she saw how this poor lad sat himself down all askew and how small and weary his face looked under the great burden on his back, and his eyes so deep and sorrowful she did not know whether he was man or child except he was so small, she reached out her arm and she laid it about his crooked body, and she said in her pitying soft way,

“Tell me, little brother, if you are the son of my lord’s son or not, for I have heard he had one like you.”

Then the child shook her arm off suddenly and nodded and made as if he would go away again. But she coaxed him and gave him another cake and she smiled at him and said,

“I do believe you have a look about your mouth like my dead lord’s, and he lies now under that date tree there. I miss him so sorely that I wish you would come here often because you have some look of his.”

This was the very first time that anyone had ever said such a thing to the hunchback before, to wish him there, for he was used, even though he was a rich man’s son, to have his brothers push him aside and to have the very servants careless of him and serve him last because they knew his mother did not care for him. Now he stared at her piteously and his lips began to quiver and suddenly he wept, although he did not know why he did, and he cried out in his weeping,

“I wish you would not make me weep so — I do not know why I weep so—”

Then Pear Blossom soothed him with her arm about that knotty back of his and although he could not have said so, the lad felt it was the sweetest touch he had ever had upon him and he was soothed without knowing why or how he was. But Pear Blossom did not pity him too long. No, she looked at him as though his back were straight and strong as other lads’ are, and after this day the hunchback came often to the earthen house, for no one cared where he went or what he did. Day after day he came, until his very soul was knit to Pear Blossom. She was skillful with him, too, and she made as though she leaned on him and needed his help to care for the fool, and since no one had ever looked to the lad for help of any sort before, he grew quiet and gentle and much of his evil spirit went out of him as the months went on.

If it had not been for this lad, then, Pear Blossom might never have known how the land was being sold away. Nor did the lad know he told her, for he talked to her of everything as it came into his mind and he prattled of this and that and he said, one day,

“I have a brother who will be a great soldier. Some day my uncle is to be a great general, and my brother is with him learning how to be a soldier. My uncle is to be a very king some day, and then my brother will be his chief captain, for I heard my mother telling it so.”

Pear Blossom was sitting on the bench by the door when the lad said this, and she looked away over the fields and she said in her quiet voice,

“Is your uncle so great, then?” She paused awhile and then she said again, “But I wish he were not a soldier because it is so cruel a thing to be!”

But the lad cried, boasting a little, “Yes, he is to be the greatest general and I think a soldier, if he is a brave, good hero, is the most magical, thing a man can be. And we are all to be great with him. Every month my father and my second uncle send my soldier uncle silver against the time he will be great and a hideous great harelipped man comes for the silver. But some day we are to have it all back again, for I heard my father tell my mother so.”

Now when Pear Blossom heard this a small strange doubt came into her mind and she pondered a little and then she said gently as though it were a matter of no account and as though she asked from idle curiosity,

“And where does so much silver come from, I wonder? Does your second uncle loan it from his shop?”

And the lad answered innocently and proud of his knowledge,

“No, they sell the land that was my grandfather’s, and I see the farmers come in every day or so and they take a roll out of their bosoms and unwrap it and there the silver is, shining like stars when it falls upon the table in my father’s room. I have seen it more times than a few and they do not mind if I am standing by because I am of such little worth.”

Then Pear Blossom rose so quickly that the little lad looked at her wondering, for she moved usually very softly, and she checked herself then and said to him in the gentlest way,

“I have only just thought of something I must do. Will you look after my poor fool for me while I am gone? There is no one whom I trust as I do you.”

This the lad was proud to do for her now and he forgot what he had said and he sat there proudly holding a bit of the fool’s coat in his hand while Pear Blossom made ready to go. So he sat and Pear Blossom saw him thus when she had drawn a dark coat about her and had set forth in all haste across the fields. There was that in these two poor creatures, that even now stayed her a moment to look back at them, and it drew her heart out and curved her lips into a smile of sad tenderness. But she hastened on, for if she looked at these two with love, and she loved no one else now, there was such an anger in her heart as must out, and if it were a quiet anger, seeing her anger was always so and she could have no other kind, still it was a firm anger, too, and she could not rest until she went and found the brothers and found out what they truly did with the good lands they had from their father, even the land he had bid them keep for the generations to come in his family.

She hastened through the fields upon the narrow foot paths and she was alone and there was no one to be seen in these byways except here and there in the distance the figure of a man in his blue cotton work garments bending over his land. Seeing these her eyes filled with tears as they often did now and too easily in these days, for she remembered how Wang Lung used to go about on these very paths and how he loved the earth so that he would stop sometimes and pick up a handful of it and turn it over in his fingers, and how he would never lease it longer than a year because he would keep it his own — and here were these sons of his selling it away from him!

For although Wang Lung was dead, he lived on for Pear Blossom and, to her, his soul was always hovering about these fields and she felt he surely knew it if they were sold. Yes, whenever a small chill breeze smote her suddenly on the face by day or by night, or a little whirling wind wheeled along the roadway, such winds as others fear because these winds are so strange it is said they must be souls flying past, Pear Blossom lifted her face and smiled when such a wind smote her, and this because she believed it might be the soul of the old man who had been like a father to her and dearer than the father who sold her to him.

So with this feeling of his presence, she hastened through the land and it lay fair and fruitful before her, for there had been no famine these five years, and there would be none this year either, and the fields lay tended and fruitful and waving with the tall wheat which was still too green for harvest. She passed by such a field now and a little wind rose out of the grain and rippled it so that it bent silvery and smooth as though a hand had brushed over it and she smiled and wondered what wind it was and lingered an instant in her purpose until the wind sank into the grain again and left it still.

When she came to the town and to the gate where the vendors spread their stores of fruits she bent her head and kept her eyes steadfastly upon the ground and she did not once look up to meet the eyes of anyone. No one paid heed to her, either, for she was so small and slight and not young as she had once been, and clad as she was in her dark robe and her face without powder or red paint, she was not one for men to see above any other woman. Thus she went. If any had looked at her tranquil pale face he would not have dreamed that a good deep anger burned in her and that she was going bent on bitter reproof, and brave for the hour.

When she reached the great gate of the town house she passed through it without calling out she was come. The old gateman sat there on the threshold nodding, his jaw ajar and showing the only three teeth he had scattered here and there in his mouth, and he gave a start as she passed, but he knew her and he nodded again. She went as she had planned straight to the house of Wang the Eldest, for although she disliked him heartily, she had more hope of moving him than the greedy heart of Wang the Second. She knew, too, that Wang the Eldest was seldom purposely unkind and she knew that if he were foolish, yet he had a kind, loose heart sometimes, too, and he could be kind if it did not trouble him too much at the moment. But she feared the cold narrow eyes of the second son.

She entered the first courts and a slave was there idling, a pretty girl who had slipped out to catch the eye of a young serving man who waited in the court for something, and Pear Blossom said to the slave in her courteous way,

“Child, tell your mistress I am come for something if she will see me.”

Now the lady of Wang the Eldest had been somewhat friendly to Pear Blossom after Wang Lung died, and far more friendly than she had ever been to Lotus, because Lotus was so coarse and so free with what she said, and Pear Blossom never spoke in such ways. Of latter times when they had met at some common family day of ceremony the lady used even to say to Pear Blossom,

“You and I, after all, are nearer to each other than to these others, for the eyes of our hearts are finer and more delicate.”

And of late she had said, “Come and talk with me sometimes about the things the nuns and priests say of the gods. You and I are the only devout ones in this house.”

This she said when she had heard that Pear Blossom listened to the nuns from that nunnery not far from the earthen house. So Pear Blossom asked for her now, and the pretty slave came out soon, her eyes creeping here and there to see if the young serving man were still there or not, and she said,

“My lady says you are to come and sit down in the great hall and she will come as soon as she finishes the round of prayers she is making on her rosary that she has vowed to make every morning.”

So Pear Blossom went in and sat down in a side seat in the great hall.

Now it happened that on this day Wang the Eldest had risen very late for he had been to a feast the night before in a certain fine inn in the town. It had been a noble feast with the best of wines and behind every guest’s chair a pretty singing girl was hired to pour out his wine for him and to sing and prattle and do anything else the guest to whom she was appointed might like her to do. Wang the Eldest had eaten mightily and had drunk more than he usually did, and his singing girl had been the prettiest little lisping maid, not more than seventeen years old, but still so wise in her coquetry that she might have been a woman used to men for ten years and more. But Wang the Eldest had drunk so well that even this morning he did not remember all that had happened the night before, and he came into the hall smiling and yawning and stretching himself, not seeing that anyone was there before him. Indeed the truth was his eyes were slow to see anything this morning, because he was smiling and thinking inwardly of the little maid and how she had slipped her small cool fingers into his coat against his neck to tease him when he played with her. And, thinking of this he said to himself that he would ask his friend who had been host where this maid lived and to what public house she belonged and he would seek her out and see what she was.

Thus yawning loudly he stretched his arms above his head and then he slapped his thighs to waken himself and he came sauntering into the great hall clad only in his silken undergarments and his feet were bare and thrust into silken slippers. Then his eye fell suddenly on Pear Blossom. Yes, she stood there straight and quiet as a shadow in her grey robe, but trembling because she loathed this man so much. He was so astonished to see her there that he let his arms drop suddenly and he broke off his yawn unfinished and stared to see her. Then seeing it was really she he coughed in embarrassment and said courteously enough,

“I was not told anyone was here. Does my lady know you are here?”

“Yes, I sent one to tell her,” said Pear Blossom, and as she spoke she bowed. Then she hesitated and she thought to herself, “It is better if I do speak now and speak out what I have to say to him alone.” And she began to speak quickly and more quickly than her wont was, the words hurrying and pressing upon each other, “But I have come to see the Eldest Lord. I am so distressed — I cannot believe it. My own lord said, ‘The land is not to be sold.’ And you are selling it — I know you are selling it!”

And Pear Blossom felt a rare slow red come up into her cheeks and she was suddenly so angry she could scarcely keep from weeping. She bit her lips and lifted her eyes and looked at Wang the Eldest, although she loathed him so she could scarcely bear to do it, and even while she did it for Wang Lung’s sake, she could not but see how fat and yellow and loathly this man’s neck was where he had left his coat unbuttoned, and how the flesh hung pouched under his eyes, and how his lips puffed out full and thick and pale. Then when he saw her eyes steadfastly upon him he was confused for he feared very much the anger of women and he turned away and made as though he must button up his coat for decency’s sake. He said hastily over his shoulder,

“But you have heard an idle tale — but you have had a dream!”

Then Pear Blossom said more violently than anyone had ever heard her say anything,

“No, I do not dream — I had it from the lips of one who spoke the truth!” She would not tell where she had heard it lest the man beat his poor hunched son, so she held back the name of the lad but she went on, “I do marvel at my lord’s sons that you disobey him like this. Although I am weak and worthless I must speak and I will tell you this, my lord will avenge himself! He is not so far away as you think, and his soul hovers over his land still, and when he sees it gone he will have ways to avenge himself upon sons who do not obey their father!”

Now she said this in such a strange way and her eyes grew so large and earnest and her soft voice so chill and low that a vague fear fell upon Wang the Eldest, and indeed he was a man easily afraid in spite of his great body. No one could have persuaded him to go alone among grave lands at night and he believed secretly the many tales told about spirits; although he laughed falsely and loudly, still secretly he did believe. So when Pear Blossom spoke thus he said hastily,

“There has been only a little sold — only a little of what belonged to my younger brother, and he needs the silver and a soldier cannot want land. I promise you no more shall be sold.”

At this Pear Blossom opened her mouth to speak but before her voice could come the lady of Wang the Eldest entered and she was plaintive this morning and vexed with her lord because she had heard him come in drunken and talking of some maid or other he had seen. She saw him now and cast him a scornful look so that he made haste to smile and nod negligently as though naught were amiss, yet watching secretly too, and he was secretly glad Pear Blossom was here, for his lady was too proud to speak her full mind if he were not alone. He grew voluble and made a great fuss to feel the teapot on the table to see if it were hot and he said,

“Ah, here is the mother of my sons, and is this tea hot enough for you? I have not eaten yet and was but now on my way to the tea house for a sup of tea there, and I will go my way and not disturb you — well I know ladies have that to say to each other which is not for us men to hear—” and laughing falsely and hollowly and uneasy beneath his wife’s haughty silence and the stiff looks she threw at him, he bowed and made such haste away that his flesh shook on him.

The lady said nothing at all while he was there but she seated herself and held her back straight and away from the chair, for she would never lean at all, and she waited for him to be gone. Indeed she did look a very perfect lady, for she wore a smooth satin coat of a blue grey hue, and her hair was combed and coiled and smooth with oil although it was scarcely mid-day yet and at an hour when most ladies do not do more than turn upon their beds and reach out a hand for their first drink of tea.

When she had seen her lord gone, she heaved a sigh and she said solemnly,

“There is no one who knows what my life is with that man! I gave him my youth and my beauty, and I never complained however often I had to bear, even after I had three sons, even after he went and took to himself a common daughter of the people, a maid such as I might have hired for a servant. No, I have borne with him in all he did, although I am wholly unused to such low ways as he has.”

She sighed and Pear Blossom saw that for all her pretences she was truly sad, and she said to divert her,

“Well we all know how good a wife you are and I have heard the nuns say you do learn the good rites more quickly than any lay sister they have ever taught.”

“Do they say so?” cried the lady greatly pleased, and she began to talk of what prayers she said and how many times a day and how some time she would take the vow against all meat eating, and how it behooved all of us who are mortal to think gravely of the future, since there are but heaven and hell for final resting places for all souls until the bitter round of life begins again, and the good have their reward and the evil theirs also.

So she prattled on and Pear Blossom did but half listen and with the other half of her heart she wondered heavily if she could believe what the man said when he promised to sell no more land, and it was hard for her to believe he could be true. And suddenly she was very weary and she took the moment when the lady was silent for an instant to sup tea, and she rose and said gently.

“Lady, I do not know what your lord tells you of his affairs, but if you can bring to his mind sometimes what his father’s last command was, that the land was not to be sold, I pray you will do it. My own lord labored all his life to bring together these lands that his sons of a hundred generations might rest upon a sure foundation, and it is surely not well that already in this generation they should be sold. I beg your help, lady!”

Now this lady had indeed not heard how much of the land was sold, but she would pretend there was nothing she did not know and so she said with great certainty,

“You need not fear that I will let my lord do anything that is unseemly. If land is sold it is only the distant bit that belongs to the third brother, because he has schemes to be a general, and to raise us all up, and he needs silver more than land.”

Now when Pear Blossom heard this same thing said over again she was somewhat reassured and she thought it must be true, if it were thus said again, and so she took her leave a little comforted. She bowed and said her farewells in her soft still way, giving every deference to the lady so that she left her complacent and pleased with herself. And Pear Blossom returned to the earthen house.

But Wang the Eldest saw his brother in the tea house to which he went and Wang the Second was there eating his noon meal, and he dropped himself down heavily beside the table where his brother sat alone and he said pettishly,

“It does seem as though men can never be free from the nagging of women, and as if I had not enough of it in my own house that last woman of our father’s must come and tell me she hears a rumor of the land being sold and she clamors to get me to promise it is not to be sold!”

Then Wang the Second looked at his brother, and his smooth thin face curved into its slight smile and he said,

“What do you care what such an one says? Let her say! She is the least in my father’s house and she has no authority of any kind. Pay no heed to her and if she mentions land to you, talk to her of anything except the land. Mention this and that to her but let her see you pay her no heed because she has no power to do anything. She should be glad she is fed every month and allowed to live on in that house.”

The serving man came at this moment with the account, and Wang the Second looked at it sharply and cast it up in his mind and found it correct. He took the few coins out then that were needed, and he paid the money out slowly as though he did protest that the charge should not have been wrong somehow. Then he bowed a little to his brother and went away, and Wang the Eldest stayed on alone.

In spite of what his brother said he felt some melancholy sitting with him and he wondered with a touch of fear what Pear Blossom had meant when she said the old man was not far away even though he was dead. And as he thought he grew very uneasy so that at last he called to the serving man and he ordered a rare and dainty dish of crabs to divert himself and make him able to forget what did not please him.