Sons (46 page)

Then going into his house when she had thus smiled, he was content and at last he felt no more alone but a man among his own, both women and children.

N
OW WANG THE TIGER
had it always in his mind that he must enlarge his place and his position for his son’s sake, and so he told himself often and he planned how he would do it, where he would creep in and make the victory at the end of some common war, how he would push southward of his river and seize the next county or two in a famine year when the people were pressed by drought or flood. But it happened that for a few years there was no great common war, and one weak and unready man after another came and went upon the central seat of government and if there was no sure peace still there was no great outburst of war, either, nor such a time as a lord of war could take to come out too boldly.

For a second thing, it seemed to Wang the Tiger that he could not as he once had done put his whole heart into his ambitions for enlarging himself, for there was this son of his to plan for and to tend, and after that were all his soldiers and the matters of the domain, for none had ever come to take the old magistrate’s place. Once or twice a name had been sent to Wang the Tiger but he had always rejected it quickly because it suited him better to be alone, and now as his son grew out of babyhood into his childhood Wang the Tiger thought sometimes that if he could put the state off for a few more years it would be a very good thing for himself to be the magistrate there when he was too old to be a warrior and when his son could take his place at the head of the army. But he kept this plan secret in himself for it was too soon yet to tell it forth. And indeed, the boy was now only six years old. But Wang the Tiger was in such haste for him to grow into a man that while sometimes the years went fast, yet at other times he thought they would never pass at all, and looking at his son he did not see him for the little lad he was, but for the young man, the young warrior, he would have him be, and without knowing it he forced the child in many ways.

When his son was but six years old Wang the Tiger took him away from his mother and out of the courts of the women, and brought him into his own courts to live with him. This he did so that the boy would not be made soft by women’s caresses and the women’s talk and ways, but partly he did it because he was in such haste for the boy’s constant companionship. At first the boy was shy and lost with his father and he wandered about with a look of fright in his eyes and when Wang the Tiger made a mighty effort and put out his hand to draw the child near the boy stood stiff and withdrawn and barely suffered his father, and Wang the Tiger felt the child’s fear and he yearned over the child, but he was speechless because he did not know what to say, and he could only let the lad go again. At first it had been Wang the Tiger’s purpose to cut the child’s life off clean from the mother and from the life of any woman, for he had only soldiers to serve him, but soon it could be seen that so clean a cut was beyond the endurance of so small and childish a heart. The boy did not complain at all. He was a grave and silent lad, patient to endure what he must, but he was never joyful. He sat by his father when his father called to him so to do, and he was dutiful to stand at once when his father came into the room where he was, and he read his books with his old tutor who came every day to teach him, but he never spoke more than he must.

One night Wang the Tiger watched him thus at his night meal, and the lad felt his father watching him and he bent his head over his bowl very low and made as though he ate, but he could not swallow. Then Wang the Tiger grew angry for indeed he had done everything he could think of for this child of his and that very day he had taken the lad with him to review his armies, and he set the lad across his saddle in front of him as he rode, and his heart swelled as the men cried out to the little general, as they called him. The lad had smiled faintly, and had turned his head away until Wang the Tiger forced him saying,

“Hold your head high—they are your men—your soldiers, my son! You shall lead them out one day to war!”

Thus forced the boy held up his head somewhat, but his cheeks were a burning dark red, and when Wang the Tiger leaned over he saw the boy did not look at the men at all, but looked far off into the fields beyond the grounds where the armies marched and when Wang the Tiger asked him what he saw he lifted his finger and pointed at a little sunburned naked lad in the next field who lay across a water buffalo’s back, staring at the brave show of soldiers, and the boy said,

“I would like to be that boy and lie on the buffalo’s back.”

Wang the Tiger was not pleased at such a common, low wish as this and he said sternly,

“Well, and I think my son might wish higher than to be a cowherd!”

And he bade the boy harshly that he was to look at the army and see how they marched and wheeled and how they held their guns aloft to charge, and the boy obediently did what his father said, and did not again look at the little herd.

But Wang the Tiger had been troubled the whole day for what his son had wished and now he looked at the child and he saw him bend his head lower and lower and he saw the boy could not swallow because he was weeping. Then Wang the Tiger was stricken with fear that his son was in some pain, and he rose and went to the child and took his hand and he cried out,

“Are you in a fever or something?”

But the small hand was cool and moist and the boy shook his head, and he would answer nothing for a long time even though Wang the Tiger forced him and he called for his harelipped trusty man at last to help him with his son. When the man was come Wang the Tiger was so torn with his anxiety and his fear and some anger, too, because the child was so stubborn, that he shouted to the man,

“Take this young fool out and see what you can find wrong with him!”

By now the boy sobbed desperately and he had put his head down on his arms to sob and hide his face, and Wang the Tiger sat there angry and near to weeping himself and his face worked and he pulled at his beard. Then the trusty man lifted the child in his arms and took him away somewhere and Wang the Tiger waited in agony for awhile, staring at the boy’s untasted bowl. When the man came back again but without the child, Wang the Tiger roared at him,

“Speak out and tell me all!”

Then half hesitating the man answered,

“There is no illness in him at all, and he only cannot eat because he is so lonely. He has never lived alone before and without a child and he longs for his mother and for his sisters.”

“But at his age he cannot play and idle his time away and with women,” said Wang the Tiger, half beside himself, and he tore at his beard and twisted himself in his seat.

“No,” said the man calmly, for he knew his master’s temper and did not fear him, “but he might return sometimes to see his mother, or his sister might come a few times to play, since they are both but children still, and by such means the parting might be eased for the lad, else he will be ill.”

Then Wang the Tiger sat silent awhile and he sat and suffered such mortal jealousy as he had never suffered before since that woman whom he had killed came back to torture him because she had loved the dead robber better than him. But now it was jealousy because his son did not love him wholly and longed for others than his father, and Wang the Tiger suffered because while he found his joy and pride in his son, his son was not content with even so great a love, nor did he value it, and for all he was surrounded with his father’s love, he yearned for a woman. And Wang the Tiger said to himself violently that he hated all women and he rose out of his seat passionately and he shouted at the trusty man saying,

“Let him go then, if he is such a weakling! What do I care what he does if he is to be a son, after all, such as my brothers have?”

But the trusty man answered gently,

“My general, you forget he is only a little child.”

And Wang the Tiger sat down again and groaned awhile and said, “Well, did I not tell you let him go?”

Thereafter once in five days or so the boy went into his mother’s court, and every time he went Wang the Tiger sat and gnawed his beard until the boy came back and then he questioned him this way and that as to what he had seen and heard, and he said,

“What were they doing there?”

And the boy made answer always, half startled by the passion in his father’s eyes, “Nothing, my father.”

But Wang the Tiger would persist and he cried, “Were they gaming or sewing or what? Women do not sit at nothing unless they gossip, and that is something, too!”

Then the boy put his mind to it and he knit his brows and made painstaking, slow answer,

“My mother cut out a little coat for my youngest sister out of some red flowered cloth, and my eldest sister, whose mother is not mine, sat and read a book to show how well she could do it. I like her better than my other sisters, because she understands when I speak to her and does not laugh at nothing as they do. She has very big eyes and her hair comes below her waist when it is braided now. But she never reads very long. She is restless and she likes to talk.”

This pleased Wang the Tiger and he said with pleasure, “So all women are and they are given to talking about nothing!”

It was the strangest jealousy in Wang the Tiger’s heart, for it drew him still further away from those others of his own household and he went more and more seldom to either of his wives. And indeed it looked as time went on as if this lad was to be his only son, for Wang the Tiger’s learned wife had never any more children than the one daughter, and the ignorant wife had two daughters, some years apart, and it came to be, that whether Wang the Tiger was not hot in his blood and had no great taste for women, or whether the love of his son made him content, he went at last no more to the courts of his wives. Partly it was some strange shame in him that after his son came to sleep in his room with him he was ashamed for the lad’s sake to rise and go out at night to a woman. No, as time went on Wang the Tiger did not, as many lords of war do when they grow rich and strong, fill their courts with feasting and with women. His treasure he poured into guns and more guns and soldiers, except the certain sum he laid by and increased steadily against the time when some disaster might befall him, and he lived sternly and simply and alone except for his son.

Sometimes, and it was the only woman who ever came into their courts, Wang the Tiger let his eldest daughter come in to play with his son, her brother. The first time or two her mother brought her there and she sat for a moment or so. But Wang the Tiger was very ill at ease to have her there, the more because he felt this woman reproached him for something or even that she yearned for something from him, and suffered under some loss he did not understand, and so he rose and went away with a few courteous words to explain his going. At last it seemed she ceased to expect anything from him and he saw her no more, and a slave brought the girl in to play at the rare times when she came.

But in a year or two even the girl came no more, and the mother sent word that she took her daughter to some school for learning, and Wang the Tiger was glad, because the girl came into the austere courts where he lived and she disturbed him because she wore so bright a coat and because she thrust a red pomegranate flower into her hair or a white jasmine that was very fragrant and she loved best of all to put a spray of cassia flowers into her braid, and Wang the Tiger could not bear cassia flowers, because the scent was so sweet and hot and he hated such scent. She was too merry, too, and willful and domineering and all the things he hated in a woman, and he hated most of all the light and laughter in his son’s eyes and the smiles upon his lips when his sister came. She alone could stir him into gayety and to running and play about the court.

Then Wang the Tiger felt his heart close in possession about his son and his heart closed against his daughter, and the faint impulse he had felt toward her when she had been a babe was gone now that she grew into a slender girl, and into the promise of a woman, and he was glad when her mother prepared to send her away and he gave silver freely and readily and he did not begrudge it at all, for now he had his son to himself.

He made haste before his son could be lonely again to fill his life full with many things and he said to his son,

“Son, we are men, you and I, and now cease to go into your mother’s courts except at those times when it is fitting to pay respect to her, for it is a very subtle easy way to waste a life with women, even with mother or sister, for they are still but women and still ignorant and foolish. I would have you learn every sort of soldier’s skill, now, both old and new. My trusty men can teach you all you need to know of old, the Pig Butcher how to use fist and foot, and the harelipped one how to wield sword and staff. And for the new ways I have heard of and never seen, I have sent to the coast and hired a new tutor for you, who learned his ways of war in foreign countries, and he knows every sort of foreign weapon and way of war. He is to teach you first and what time besides he has left he is to teach our army.”

The boy answered nothing but he stood as his wont was when his father spoke to him and he received his father’s words in perfect silence. And Wang the Tiger looking at the boy’s face tenderly saw no sign of anything he felt there, and he waited awhile and when the lad did not speak but only to say,

“May I leave the room if it is your will?” Wang the Tiger nodded his head and sighed without knowing why he did, or even that he sighed.

Thus Wang the Tiger taught and admonished his son and he saw to it that every hour of the boy’s life, beyond eating and sleeping, was filled with some learning or other. He made the boy rise early and practice his feints of war with the trusty men and when he had finished and had eaten his early meal he spent the morning with his books and when he had eaten again the new young tutor took him for the afternoon and taught him every kind of thing.

Now this new tutor was a young man such as Wang the Tiger had never seen before. He wore western clothes of war and spectacles upon his nose, and he had a very straight, swift body. He could run and leap and fence, and he knew how to set fire to all kinds of foreign weapons of war. Some he held in his hand and threw and they burst into flames, and some he fired like a gun with hand on a trigger, and there were many other kinds. And Wang the Tiger sat by as his son learned all these ways of war, and although the Tiger would not have said it, he learned of many things he himself had never even seen or heard of, and it came to him that it was a small thing to have been so proud of those two old foreign guns, and the only great guns he had. Yes, he saw he knew very little even of war, since there was more to know than he had dreamed, and now he would often sit far into the night talking to his son’s new tutor, and he learned of all sorts of clever ways of killing, the death from the air that drops down upon men, and the death that is in the bowels of the sea and comes up to kill, and the death that can fly more miles than men can see and drop and burst upon an enemy. Wang the Tiger listened to this in greatest wonder and he said,