33

Wang Lung could not cease from his thought of what his youngest son had said of Pear Blossom and he watched the maid incessantly as she came and went and without his knowing it the thought of her filled his mind and he doted on her. But he said nothing to anyone.

One night in the early summer of that year, at the time when the night air is thick and soft with the mists of warmth and fragrance, he sat at rest in his own court alone under a flowering cassia tree and the sweet heavy scent of the cassia flowers filled his nostrils and he sat there and his blood ran full and hot like the blood of a young man. Through the day he had felt his blood so and he had been half of a mind to walk out on his land and feel the good earth under his feet and take off his shoes and his stockings and feel it on his skin.

This he would have done but he was ashamed lest men see him, who was no longer held a farmer within the gates of the town, but a landowner and a rich man. So he wandered restlessly about the courts and he stayed away altogether from the court where Lotus sat in the shade and smoked her water pipe, because well she knew when a man was restless and she had sharp eyes to see what was amiss. He went alone, then, and he had no mind to see either of his two quarreling daughters-in-law, nor even his grandchildren, in whom was his frequent delight.

So the day had passed very long and lonely and his blood was full and coursing under his skin. He could not forget his youngest son, how he had looked standing tall and straight and his black brows drawn together in the gravity of his youth, and he could not forget the maid. And to himself he said,

“I suppose they are of an age—the boy must be well on eighteen and she not over eighteen.”

Then he remembered that he himself would before many years be seventy and he was ashamed of his coursing blood, and he thought,

“It would be a good thing to give the maid to the lad,” and this he said to himself again and again, and everytime he said it the thing stabbed like a thrust on flesh already sore, and he could not but stab and yet he could not but feel the pain.

And so the day passed very long and lonely for him.

When night came he was still alone and he sat in his court alone and there was not one in all his house to whom he could go as friend. And the night air was thick and soft and hot with the smell of the flowers of the cassia tree.

And as he sat there in the darkness under the tree one passed beside where he was sitting near the gate of his court where the tree stood, and he looked quickly and it was Pear Blossom.

“Pear Blossom!” he called, and his voice came in a whisper.

She stopped suddenly, her head bent in listening.

Then he called again and his voice would scarcely come from his throat,

“Come here to me!”

Then hearing him she crept fearfully through the gate and stood before him and he could scarcely see her standing there in the blackness, but he could feel her there and he put out his hand and laid hold of her little coat and he said, half choking,

“Child—!”

There he stopped with the word. He said to himself that he was an old man and it was a disgraceful thing for a man with grandsons and grand-daughters nearer to this child’s age than he was, and he fingered her little coat.

Then she, waiting, caught from him the heat of his blood and she bent over and slipped, like a flower crumpling upon its stalk, to the ground, and she clasped his feet and lay there. And he said slowly,

“Child—I am an old man—a very old man—”

And she said, and her voice came out of the darkness like the very breath of the cassia tree,

“I like old men—I like old men—they are so kind—”

He said again, tenderly, stooping to her a little,

“A little maid like you should have a tall straight youth—a little maid like you!” And in his heart he added, “Like my son—” but aloud he could not say it, because he might put the thought into her mind, and he could not bear it.

But she said,

“Young men are not kind—they are only fierce.”

And hearing her small childish voice quavering up from about his feet his heart welled up in a great wave of love for this maid, and he took her and raised her gently, and then led her into his own courts.

When it was done, this love of his age astonished him more than any of his lusts before, for with all his love for Pear Blossom he did not seize upon her as he had seized upon the others whom he had known.

No, he held her gently and he was satisfied to feel her light youth against his heavy old flesh, and he was satisfied merely with the sight of her in the day and with the touch of her fluttering coat against his hand and with the quiet resting of her body near him in the night. And he wondered at the love of old age, which is so fond and so easily satisfied.

As for her, she was a passionless maid and she clung to him as to a father, and to him she was indeed more than half child and scarcely woman.

Now the thing that Wang Lung had done did not quickly come out, for he said nothing at all, and why should he, being master in his own house?

But the eye of Cuckoo marked it first and she saw the maid slipping at dawn out of his court and she laid hold on the girl and laughed, and her old hawk’s eyes glittered.

“Well!” she said. “And so it is the Old Lord over again!”

And Wang Lung in his room, hearing her, girded his robe about him quickly and he came out and smiled sheepishly and half proudly and he said muttering,

“Well, and I said she had better take a young lad and she would have the old one!”

“It will be a pretty thing to tell the mistress,” Cuckoo said, then, and her eyes sparkled with malice.

“I do not know myself how the thing happened,” answered Wang Lung slowly. “I had not meant to add another woman to my courts, and the thing came about of itself.” Then when Cuckoo said, “Well, and the mistress must be told,” Wang Lung, fearing the anger of Lotus more than anything, begged Cuckoo and he said again, “Do you tell her, if you will, and if you can manage it without anger to my face I will give you a handful of money for it.”

So Cuckoo, still laughing and shaking her head, promised, and Wang Lung went back to his court and he would not come forth for a while until Cuckoo came back and said,

“Well, and the thing is told, and she was angry enough until I reminded her she wanted and has wanted this long time the foreign clock you promised her, and she will have a ruby ring for her hand and a pair so that there will be one on each hand, and she will have other things as she thinks of them and a slave to take Pear Blossom’s place, and Pear Blossom is not to come to her any more, and you are not to come soon either, because the sight of you sickens her.”

And Wang Lung promised eagerly and he said,

“Get her what she wills and I do not begrudge anything.”

And he was pleased that he need not see Lotus soon and until anger was cooled with the fulfillment of her wishes.

There were left yet his three sons, and he was strangely ashamed before them of what he had done. And he said to himself again and again,

“Am I not master in my own house and may I not take my own slave I bought with my silver?”

But he was ashamed, and yet half proud too, as one feels himself who is still lusty and a man when others hold him to be only grandfather. And he waited for his sons to come into his court.

They came one by one, separately, and the second one came first. Now this one when he came talked of the land and of the harvest and of the summer drought which would this year divide the harvest by three. But Wang Lung considered nothing in these days of rain or drought, for if the harvest of the year brought him in little there was silver left from the year before and he kept his courts stuffed with silver and there was money owing to him at the grain markets and he had much money let out at high interest that his second son collected for him, and he looked no more to see how the skies were over his land.