A House Divided (46 page)

But Meng did not. He listened and he lifted his black brows and he argued thus, “I suppose the truth is my uncles have oppressed the people. Well, let them suffer, then. I will not share their suffering who have not shared their sin.” And he said further, “You are foolish, to my thought. Why should you go and risk your life for an old man who may be dead already? What has your father ever done for you? I care nothing for any of them.” Then he looked at Yuan awhile, who sat silent and wistful and helpless in this new trouble, and Meng, who was not wholly hard in heart, leaned and put his hand on Yuan’s as it lay on the table and he made his voice low and said, “Come with me, Yuan! Once before you came, but not with your heart—join now and truly in our new good cause—This time it is the real revolution!”

But Yuan, though he let his hand lie, shook his head. And at this Meng took his hand off abruptly and he rose and said, “Then this is farewell. When you come back, I shall be gone. It may be we meet no more …” Sitting in the train, Yuan remembered how Meng looked, how tall and brave and impetuous he looked in his soldier’s uniform, and how quickly when he said these words, he was gone.

The train swayed on its way through the afternoon. Yuan sighed and looked about him. There were the travellers who seem always the same on any train, fat merchants wrapped in silk and fur, the soldiers, the students, mothers with their crying children. But across the aisle from his seat were two young men, brothers, who were, it could be seen, newly come home from foreign parts. Their clothes were new and cut in the newest foreign way, loose short trousers and long bright-colored stockings and leather shoes of a yellow color, and on their upper bodies they wore thick garments of knitted yarn, and on their breasts were sewed foreign letters, and their leather bags were shining and new. They laughed easily and spoke freely in the foreign tongue and one had a foreign lute he strummed, and sometimes they sang a foreign song together and all the people listened astonished at the noise. What they said Yuan understood very well, but he made no sign of understanding for he was too weary and downhearted for any talk. Once when the train stopped he heard one say to the other, “The sooner we get the factories started the better it will be, for then we can get these wretched creatures at work.” And once he heard the other rail against the serving man for the blackness of the rag he hung across his shoulder with which he wiped the tea bowls, and they both threw fiery looks at the merchant who sat next to Yuan when he coughed and spat upon the floor.

These things Yuan saw and understood, for so had he spoken and felt once, too. But now he watched the fat man cough and cough and spit at last upon the floor and he let it be. Now he could see it and feel no shame nor outrage, but only let it be. Yes, though he could not so do himself, he could let others do as they would these days. He could see the serving man’s black rag and not cry out against it, and he could bear at least in silence the filth of vendors at the stations. He was numbed and yet he did not know why he was, except it seemed without hope to change so many people. Yet he knew he could not be like Sheng and live for his pleasures only, nor like Meng and forget his old duty to his father. Better for him, if he could, doubtless, be wholly new and careless as they were each in his own way and see nothing they did not like to see, and feel no tie which was irksome. But he was as he was, and his father was his father still. He could not so lay aside his duty to that old which was his own past, too, and still somehow part of him. And so he went patiently to the long journey’s end.

The train stopped at last at the town near the earthen house, and Yuan descended and he walked through the town quickly, and though he stayed to see nothing, he could not fail to see it was a town which robbers had possessed not long since. The people were silent and frightened, and here and there were burned houses, and only now did the owners who were left dare to come and survey ruefully the ruins. But Yuan went straight through the chief street, not stopping at all to see the great house, and he passed out of the other gate and turned across the fields towards the hamlet he remembered and so he came again to the earthen house.

Once again he stooped to enter the middle room upon whose walls he saw his young verses still as he brushed them. But he could not stay to see how they seemed to him now; he called, and two came to his call, and one was the old tenant, now withered and toothless and very near his end and alone, for his old wife was dead already, and the other was the aged trusty man. These two cried out to see Yuan, and the old trusty man seized Yuan’s hand without a word, not even bowing to him as to his young lord, he was in such haste, and he led him into the inner room where Yuan had slept before, and there on the bed the Tiger lay.

He lay long and stiff and still, but not dead, for his eyes were fixed, and he kept muttering something to himself continually. When he saw Yuan he showed no surprise at all. Instead, like a piteous child, he held up his two old hands and said simply, “See my two hands!” And Yuan looked at the two old mangled hands and cried out, agonized, “Oh, my poor father!” Then the old man seemed for the first time to feel the pain and the cloudy tears gathered in his eyes and he whimpered a little and said, “They hurt me—” And Yuan soothed him and touched the old man’s swollen thumbs delicately and said over and over, “I know they do—I am sure they do—”

And he began to weep silently, and so did the old man, and so the two wept together, father and son.

Yet what could Yuan do beyond weeping? He saw the Tiger was very near his death. A dreadful yellow pallor was on his flesh, and even while he wept his breath came so short that Yuan was frightened and besought him to be tranquil, and forced himself not to weep. But the Tiger had another trouble to tell and he cried again to Yuan, “They took my good sword—” Then his lips trembled afresh, and he would have put his hand to them in the old habit he had, but the hand pained him if he moved it, and so he let it lie, and looked up at Yuan as he was.

Never in all his life had Yuan felt so tender as he now did to his father. He forgot all the years passed and he seemed to see his father always as he was now with this simple childish heart, and he soothed him over and over, saying, “I will fetch it back somehow, my father—I will send a sum of silver and buy it back.”

This Yuan knew he could not do, but he doubted if tomorrow the old man could live to think of his sword and so he promised anything to soothe him.

Yet what could be done after soothing? The old man slept at last, comforted a little, and Yuan sat beside him and the trusty man brought him a little food, stealing quietly in and out, and speechless lest he wake his master’s light sick sleeping. Silently Yuan sat there, and so he sat while his old father slept, and at last he laid his head down upon the table by him and slept a little too.

But as night drew near, Yuan awoke and he ached in every bone so that he must rise, and he did, and he went noiselessly away into the other room and there the old trusty man was, who, weeping, told him again the tale he already knew. Then the old man added this, “We must somehow leave this earthen house, because the farmers hereabouts are full of hatred, and they know how helpless my old master is and they would have fallen on us, I am sure, little general, if you had not come. Seeing you come, young and strong, they will hold off awhile perhaps—”

Then the old tenant put in his word, and he said doubtfully, looking at Yuan, “But I wish you had a garment not foreign, young lord, for the country folk hate these young new men so much these days because in spite of all their promises of better times rains are come and there will be certain floods, and if they see your foreign clothes such as the others wear—” He paused and went away and came back with his own best robe of blue cotton cloth, not patched more than once or twice, and he said coaxingly, “Wear this to save us, sir, and I have some shoes, too, and then if you are seen—”

So Yuan put on the robe, willing if it made more safety, for he knew the wounded Tiger could not be taken anywhere now, but must die where he had fallen, though he did not say so, knowing the old trusty man could never bear to hear the word death.

Two days Yuan stayed beside his father waiting, and still the old Tiger did not die, and while he waited Yuan wondered if the lady would come or not. Perhaps she would not, since she had the child to care for whom she loved so well.

But she did come. At the end of the afternoon of the second day Yuan sat beside his father, who lay now as though he slept continually unless he were forced to eat or move. The pallor had grown darker, and from his poisoned dying flesh a faint stench passed off into the air of the room. Outside, the early spring drew on, but Yuan had not once gone out to see sky or earth. He was mindful of what the old men said, that he was hated, and he would not stir that hatred now, for the Tiger’s sake, that at least he might die in peace in this old house.

So he sat beside the bed and thought of many things, and most of all how strange his life was and how confused and how there was not one known hope to which to hold. These elders, in their times, they were clear and simple—money, war, pleasure—these were good and worth giving all one’s life for. And some few gave all for gods, as his old aunt did, or as that old foreign pair across the sea did. Everywhere the old were the same, simple as children, understanding nothing. But the young, his own kind, how confused they were—how little satisfied by the old gods and gains! For a moment he remembered the woman Mary and wondered what her life was,—perhaps like his; perhaps marked for no clear great goal. … Out of all he knew there was only Mei-ling who put her hand surely to a certain thing she knew she wanted to do. If he could have married Mei-ling …

Then across this useless thinking he heard a voice and it was the lady’s. She was come! He rose quickly and went out, greatly cheered to hear her. More than he knew he had hoped for her coming. And there she was—and by her, with her, there was Mei-ling!

Now Yuan had never once thought or hoped for this and he was so astonished, he could only look at Mei-ling and stammer forth, “I thought—Who is with the child?”

And Mei-ling answered in her tranquil, sure way, “I told Ai-lan for once she must come and see to him, and the fates helped, because she has had a great quarrel with her husband over some woman she says he looked at too often, and so it suited her to come home for a few days. Where is your father?”

“Let us go to him at once,” said the lady. “Yuan, I brought Mei-ling, thinking she would know by her skill how he did.” Then Yuan made no delay, but he took them in and there they three stood beside the Tiger’s bedside.

Now whether it was the noise of talking or whether it was the sound of women’s voices to which he was not used, or what it was, the old Tiger came for a passing moment out of his stupor, and seeing his heavy eyes open on her the lady said gently, “My lord, do you remember me?” And the old Tiger answered, “Aye, I do—” and drowsed again, so they could not be sure whether he spoke the truth or not. But soon he opened his eyes once more and now he stared at Mei-ling, and he said, dreamily, “My daughter—”

At this Yuan would have spoken who she was, but Mei-ling stopped him, saying pityingly, “Let him call me daughter. He is very near the last breath now. Do not disturb him—”

So Yuan stayed silent after his father’s glance wavered again to him because even though he knew the Tiger did not know clearly what he said, it was sweet to hear him call Mei-ling by that name,

There they three stood, united somehow, waiting, but the old Tiger sank deeper into his sleep.

That night Yuan took counsel with the lady and with Mei-ling and together they planned what must be done. Mei-ling said gravely, “He will not live through this night, if I see rightly. It is a wonder he has lived these three days—he has a stout old heart, but it is not stout enough for all he has had to bear, to know himself defeated. Besides, the poison from his wounded hands has gone into his blood and made it fevered. I marked it when I washed and dressed his hands.”

For while the Tiger slept his half-dead sleep Mei-ling in the skilfulest fashion had cleansed and eased the old man’s torn flesh, and Yuan stood by humbly watching her, and all the while he watched he could not but ask himself if this gentle tender creature was that same angry woman who had cried she hated him. About the rude old house she moved as naturally as though she lived always in it, and from its poverty she found somehow the things she needed for her ministration, such things as Yuan would not have dreamed could be so used,—straw she tied into a mat and slipped under the dying man so he could lie more easily upon the boards, and a brick she took up from the edge of the small dried pool and heated in the hot ashes of the earthen oven and put to his chilling feet, and she made a millet gruel delicately and fed it to him and though he never spoke he did not moan so much as he had. Then Yuan, while he blamed himself because he had not done these things himself, knew humbly that he could not do them. Her strong narrow hands could stir about so gently that they seemed not to move the great old fleshless frame, and yet they eased it.

Now when she spoke he listened, trusting all she said, and they planned, and the lady listened when the old trusty man said they must go away as soon as the death was over, because ill-will gathered blacker every day about them. And the old tenant put his voice to a whisper and he said, “It is true, for today I went about and heard and everywhere there was muttering because they said the young lord was come back to claim the land. It is better for you to go away again, and wait until these evil times are over. I and this old harelip will stay here and we will pretend we are with them, and secretly we will be for you, young lord. For it is evil to break the law of the land. The gods will not forgive us if we use such lawless means—the gods in the earth, they know the rightful owners—”

So all was planned, and the old tenant went into the town and found a plain coffin and had it carried back by night while folk slept. When the old trusty man saw this coffin, which was such as any common man had at his death, he wept a little because his master must lie there and he laid hold of Yuan and begged him saying, “Promise me you will come back one day and dig up his bones and bury him as he should be buried in a great double coffin—the bravest man I ever knew and always kind!”