Authors: Pearl S. Buck
These words of Ai-lan’s did what Yuan could not do for himself. Listening to her voice, now made so earnest for all its soft willfulness, and thinking of the many like her in this city, he came to think under the magic of her brilliant, willful beauty, “It is true I do not belong to my father’s time. It is true he has not this right nowadays over me. It is true—it is true—”
And under this new strength he went straight to his room and he wrote quickly while he felt courageous, “I will not come home for such a thing, my father. I have my right to live these days. These are the new times.” And then Yuan sat and thought awhile, and doubted perhaps that the words were too bold, and he thought it might help them if he added a few milder ones and so he added, “Besides, it is the end of the term of school, and it is a very ill time for me to come, and if I come I miss the examinations, and my work of many moons is lost. Release me, therefore, my father, though the truth is I do not want to wed.” So though he put at the first and last of the letter the proper courteous words, and he added these few mild words, still Yuan wrote his meaning plain. And he would not trust the letter to a serving man. He put the stamp on and himself went down the sunlit city street and thrust the letter in the box for it.
Once it was gone he felt stronger and at ease. He would not recall what he had written, and going homeward again he was glad, and among all these modern men and women walking to and fro upon the streets he felt yet stronger and more sure. It was true that in these times what his father had required of him was an absurdity. These people on these streets, if he told them, would only laugh at such old dead ways, and cry him for a fool to feel any fear. Mingling thus among them Yuan felt suddenly very safe. This was his world—this new world—this world of men and women free and free to live in each his own way. He felt a darkness lifted from him, and suddenly he thought he would not go home yet to sit and study. He would be amused awhile at something. There beside him on the street was the great glitter of a pleasure house, and in letters of many languages a sign said, “Showing Today the Greatest Film of the Year, ‘The Way of Love.’ ” And Yuan turned and joined the many who went into that wide-flung door.
But the Tiger was not so easily denied as this. In less than seven days he had written his answer back, and this time he wrote three letters, one to Yuan, one to the lady, and the third one to his elder brother. But they all said the same thing in different ways, although he had not written the letters himself, so the language was more smooth. Yet the very smoothness seemed to make the words more cold and angry. What they said was this, that his son Yuan would be wed on the thirtieth of that same moon, for the geomancer had said this was the lucky day to wed him. Because the young man his son could not return to his home on that day, since the examinations of the school were set for then, the parents had decided that he must be wed by proxy, and so a cousin would stand up for him who was Wang the Merchant’s eldest son and who could answer in his place. But Yuan would be truly wed upon that day, as truly as though he came himself.
These words Yuan read in his letter. So did the Tiger have his will, and Yuan knew his father never could have been so cruel except that he was forced to it by anger, and Yuan felt that anger and was afraid of it again.
And now indeed the thing was too strong for Yuan. For by the old law the Tiger did no more than he had right to do, and no more than many fathers have done always. Yuan knew this very well, and that day when he had this letter, and the servant had given it to him as he came within the door, so that he stood there in the little hall alone and read it, he felt all his courage ebb away from him. What was he, one lone youth, to do against the gathered power of all these old centuries? He turned slowly and went into the parlor. Ai-lan’s little dog was there and came and rubbed against him, snuffling, and when Yuan paid no heed to it, barked a short high bark or two. Still Yuan did not heed it, though commonly he could laugh at this little fierce lion of a dog. He sat down and leaned his head in his hands and let the dog bark on.
But the barking called the lady, and she came in to see what was wrong and if a stranger had come in, and when she saw Yuan, very well she knew what was wrong. She said soothingly, for she had her letter earlier, “You are not to give up, son. This is more than a matter for you now. I will ask your uncle here and your aunt and your elder cousin, and we will talk it over in a council to see what shall be done. Your father is not the only one in this family, nor even the eldest one. If your uncle will be strong, it may be we can divert your father’s will by some persuasion.”
But Yuan could only cry out when he thought of that old fat pleasure-loving lord who was his uncle, “And when was my uncle ever strong! No, the only strong men in this country, I swear, are those who have armies and guns—they force all the others to their will, and who knows it better than I? I have seen my father force his will by threat of death a hundred times—a hundred hundred times. Everybody fears him because he has swords and guns—and now I see he is right—it is such force as this which rules at last—”
And Yuan began to sob, because he felt so helpless. All his running away and all his willfulness were of no use now.
But after a while he yielded to the lady’s urging and her comforting, and that very night she made a sort of feast and bid all the family there, and they all came, and when the feast was eaten, the lady told the matter forth, and they all waited to hear what was to be said.
Now Sheng and Meng and Ai-lan were there too, although they were given lower seats, since they were young, for at this time the lady had taken care to seat everyone as old custom taught, since this was a family gathering for counsel. But the young ones were silent and waited as they should. Even Ai-lan was silent, though her eyes sparkled to show she inwardly derided all this gravity, and would make a joke of it afterwards, and Sheng sat as though he thought inwardly of other pleasanter things. But Meng sat silentest of all and stillest. His face was fixed and very red and angry, and he thought of nothing but this thing and he suffered because he could not speak …
It was Wang the Eldest’s duty to speak first, but it could be seen he wished it were not, and Yuan, looking at him, gave up any little scanty hope he might have had that this man would say anything to help him. For Wang the Eldest was afraid of two. He was afraid of the Tiger, his younger brother. He remembered how he used to be a fierce young man, and he remembered that his own second son was in a very soft good life in a great inland city holding it almost as a governor in the Tiger’s name, and this son was nearly always ready to send his father silver now and then when Wang the Eldest had such need, and when had he not this need in this foreign city where there was every sort of way to spend it? So Wang the Eldest had no desire to make the Tiger angry. Beyond this one he feared his own wife, the mother of his sons, and she had told him plainly what he must say. Before they left their home she called him to her room and said, “You shall not take sides with the son. In the first place we older ones must stand together, and in the second place it may be we shall need your brother’s help some future time if this talk of more revolution comes to anything. We still have lands in the north to take thought of, and we cannot forget what we owe ourselves. Moreover the law is on the father’s side, and the young man should obey.”
These words she said so positively that now the old man sweat to meet her eyes she kept fixed on him, and he wiped his shaved head before he spoke, and drank a little tea, and coughed and spat once or twice and did all he could to put off what must come, but still they all waited, and so haltingly and gasping as he spoke, for he was always hoarse these days because his fat pressed inwards on him, he said, “My brother has sent me a letter and he says Yuan is to be wed. And I am told Yuan does not wish to wed. And I am told—I am told—”
Here he wandered off and met his lady’s eye and looked away and sweat newly and wiped his head again, and Yuan at the moment hated him with all his heart. To such a one as this, he thought passionately, was his life committed! Then suddenly he felt his eye commanded and he looked and Meng’s eyes were fastened upon him with great scornful question, and they said, “Have I not told you there is no hope for us in the old?”
But now the old man was forced on by his lady’s fixed cold gaze and he said very fast, “But I think—I think—it is better for sons to obey—the Sacred Edicts say—and after all—” Here the old man smiled suddenly, as though here he did think of something of his own to say, “After all, Yuan, my son, one woman is truly much like another, and after it is over you will not mind much and it will only be a day or two and I will write a letter to the master of your school and beg him to excuse you from your examinations, and if you please your father it will be better, for he is such a fierce angry man, and after all, the time may come when we need—”
Here his eye wandered to his lady again, and she bade him in such silent fierceness to be still that he ended suddenly and in great weakness, “It is what I think,” and he turned to his eldest son and said in much relief, “Speak, son, for it is your turn.”
Then the eldest son spoke, and he spoke with more reason, but on both sides, because he wished no offense to anyone. Yet he said kindly, “I understand Yuan’s wish to be free. I was so in my youth, and I remember that in my time I made a great pother about my marriage and would have whom I would.” He smiled a little coolly, and he spoke with more daring than he might have used if his sharp and pretty wife had been there, but she was not, for she was near the moment of a birth, and very angry these days that she must have another child after four already born, and she swore day and night that she would learn the foreign ways of not conceiving any more. So since she was not there he looked at his father and laughed a little and he said, “The truth is I often wonder why I made such a noise about it then, for in the end it is true what my father says, that women are the same, and marriage is the same, and the end is the same and sure to come. It is as well to marry cool at first, because it ends cold always, and love does not last so well as reason.”
And this was all. None other spoke. The learned lady did not speak, for where was the use before these two men? She kept her words for Yuan alone. And none of the young spoke, for to them speech was useless, too. These young ones as soon as could be slipped out one by one into another room, and there they talked to Yuan, each in his own way. Sheng thought the whole thing to be laughed at, and so he told Yuan. He laughed and smoothed his hair down with his pretty pale hands and he said, laughing, “If it were I, I would not even answer that summons, Yuan. I do feel for you, and I am glad I know my parents would not treat me so, for however they may rail against the new ways, they are used now to living in this city, and they would not truly force us to anything, and all their power spends itself in talking. Pay no heed—live your own life. Say nothing angry, but do as you please. You need not go home again.”
And Ai-lan had cried out vehemently, “Sheng is right, Yuan! You shall not think of it again. You will live here with us always, and we all belong to the new world and you can forget everything else. There is enough here to keep us all happy and amused our whole lives long. I swear I do not ever want to go anywhere else!”
But Meng kept silence until all the talk was over. Then he said with a slow dreadful gravity, “You all speak like children. By the law Yuan will be married on the day his father sets. By the law of this nation he will not be free again.
He is not free
—it does not matter what he says he is or thinks he is or how he amuses himself—he is not free. … Yuan, now will you join the revolution? Do you see now why we must fight?”
And Yuan looked at Meng and met his two burning savage eyes and caught the desperation of his soul. He waked for a moment and then from his own despair he answered quietly, “I will!”
So did the Tiger drive his son to be his enemy.
Now Yuan said to himself he could throw all his heart into this cause to save his country. Before this time, when it was cried to him, “We must save our country,” though his heart was always stirred because it seemed something which ought to be done, yet he was checked because he never could wholly see how the country must be saved, or if saved, then from what, or even what this word country meant. Even in his early childhood days in his father’s house when his tutor had so taught him he felt this impulse to save, and yet this bewilderment, so that while he would do something he did not know what to do. In the school of war he had heard of much evil done his country by foreign enemies, and yet his father was an enemy too and he could see nothing clearly still.
At this school it had been so also. He listened often to Meng’s talk of the same thing, how the country must be saved, for Meng had no other thing to talk of, if he did not talk of his cause, and he scarcely heeded his books at all these last days he was so busy in his secret meetings, and he and his comrades were always shaping protests against some authority in school or city and they made parades and marched along the streets carrying banners to cry against their foreign enemies and against evil treaties and against the laws of the city and of the school and against anything which was not in accordance with their own wish. They forced many to parade with them, even though these went sometimes against their will, for Meng could force his fellows by looks as black as any war lord’s, and he could roar and shout at a reluctant schoolmate, “You are no patriot! You are the running dog of foreigners—you dance and play while our country is destroyed by enemies!”
So Meng had even cried to Yuan one day when he pleaded he was busy and had no time for such parades. Sheng could laugh and jeer a little in his pleasant way if Meng came near him with his furious talk, for Meng was his younger brother first before he was the leader of young revolutionists, but Yuan was only cousin and he must evade the angry youth as best he could. And to this time the best hiding place had been his plot of land, for Meng and his comrades had no time for steady stupid plodding toil on land, and there Yuan was safe enough from them.