The Good Earth (32 page)

Now Wang Lung saw that although his uncle himself grew old and lazy and careless and would not have troubled to complain if he had been let alone, yet the young man, his son, and his wife goaded him, and one day when Wang Lung stood at the gate he heard these two urging the old man,

“Well, and he has money and food, and let us demand silver of him.” And the woman said, “We will never have such a hold as this again, for well he knows that if you were not his uncle and the brother of his father he would be robbed and sacked and his house left empty and a ruin, since you stand next to the head of the Redbeards.”

Wang Lung standing there secretly and hearing this grew so angry that his skin was like to burst on him, but he was silent with great effort and he tried to plan what he could do with these three, but he could think of nothing to do. When, therefore, his uncle came to him next day saying, “Well, and my good nephew, give me a handful of silver to buy me a pipe and a bit of smoke and my woman is ragged and needs a new coat,” he could say nothing but he handed the old man the five pieces of silver from his girdle, although he gnashed his teeth secretly, and it seemed to him that never in the old days when silver was rare with him had it gone from him so unwillingly.

Then before two days were passed his uncle was at him again and again for silver and Wang Lung shouted at last,

“Well, and shall we all starve soon?”

And his uncle laughed and said carelessly,

“You are under a good heaven. There are men less rich than you who hang from the burnt rafters of their houses.”

When Wang Lung heard this, cold sweat broke out on him and he gave the silver without a word. And so, although they went without meat in the house, these three must eat meat, and although Wang Lung himself scarcely tasted tobacco, his uncle puffed unceasingly at his pipe.

Now Wang Lung’s eldest son had been engrossed in his marriage and he scarcely saw what happened except that he guarded his wife jealously from the gaze of his cousin so that now these two were no longer friends but enemies. Wang Lung’s son scarcely let his wife stir from their room except in the evenings when the other man was gone with his father and during the day he made her stay shut in the room. But when he saw these three doing as they would with his father he grew angry, for he was of a quick temper, and he said,

“Well, and if you care more for these three tigers than you do for your son and his wife, the mother of your grandsons, it is a strange thing and we had better set up our house elsewhere.”

Wang Lung told him plainly then what he had told no one,

“I hate these three worse than my life and if I could think of a way I would do it. But your uncle is lord of a horde of wild robbers, and if I feed him and coddle him we are safe, and no one can show anger toward them.”

Now when the eldest son heard this he stared until his eyes hung out of his head, but when he had thought of it for a while he was more angry than ever and he said,

“How is this for a way? Let us push them all into the water one night. Ching can push the woman for she is fat and soft and helpless, and I will push the young one my cousin, whom I hate enough for he is always peeping at my wife, and you can push the man.”

But Wang Lung could not kill; although he would rather have killed his uncle than his ox, he could not kill even when he hated and he said,

“No, and even if I could do this thing, to push my father’s brother into the water I would not, for if the other robbers heard of it what should we do, and if he lives we are safe, and if he is gone we are become as other people who have a little and so are in danger in such times as these.”

Then the two of them fell silent, each thinking heavily what to do, and the young man saw that his father was right and death was too easy for the trouble and that there must be another way. And Wang Lung spoke aloud at last, musing, “If there were a way that we could keep them here but make them harmless and undesiring what a thing it would be, but there is no such magic as this!”

Then the young man smote his two hands together and cried out,

“Well, and you have told me what to do! Let us buy them opium to enjoy, and more opium, and let them have their will of it as rich people do. I will seem to be friends with my cousin again and I will entice him away to the tea house in the town where one can smoke and we can buy it for my uncle and his wife.”

But Wang Lung, since he had not thought of the thing first himself, was doubtful.

“It will cost a great deal,” he said slowly, “for opium is as dear as jade.”

“Well, and it is dearer than jade to have them at us like this,” the young man argued, “and to endure besides their haughtiness and the young man peeping at my wife.”

But Wang Lung would not at once consent, for it was not so easy a thing to do, and it would cost a good bag of silver to do it.

It is doubtful whether the thing would ever have been done and they would have gone as they were until the waters chose to recede had not a thing happened.

This thing was that the son of Wang Lung’s uncle cast his eyes upon the second daughter of Wang Lung, who was his cousin and by blood the same as his sister. Now the second daughter of Wang Lung was an exceedingly pretty girl, and she looked like the second son who was a merchant, but with her smallness and lightness, and she had not his yellow skin. Her skin was fair and pale as almond flowers and she had a little low nose and thin red lips and her feet were small.

Her cousin laid hold of her one night when she passed alone through the court from the kitchen. He laid hold of her roughly and he pressed his hand into her bosom and she screamed out, and Wang Lung ran out and beat the man about the head, but he was like a dog with a piece of stolen meat that he would not drop, so that Wang Lung had to tear his daughter away. Then the man laughed thickly and he said,

“It is only play and is she not my sister? Can a man do any evil with his sister?” But his eyes glittered with lust as he spoke and Wang Lung muttered and pulled the girl away and sent her into her own room.

And Wang Lung told his son that night what had come about, and the young man was grave and he said,

“We must send the maid into the town to the home of her betrothed; even if the merchant Liu says it is a year too evil for wedding we must send her, lest we cannot keep her virgin with this hot tiger in the house.”

So Wang Lung did. He went the next day into the town and to the house of the merchant and he said,

“My daughter is thirteen years old and no longer a child and she is fit for marriage.”

But Liu was hesitant and he said,

“I have not enough profit this year to begin a family in my house.”

Now Wang Lung was ashamed to say, “There is the son of my uncle in the house and he is a tiger,” so he said only,

“I would not have the care of this maid upon me, because her mother is dead and she is pretty and is of an age to conceive, and my house is large and full of this and that, and I cannot watch her every hour. Since she is to be your family, let her virginity be guarded here, and let her be wed soon or late as you like.”

Then the merchant, being a lenient and kindly man, replied,

“Well, and if this is how it is, let the maid come and I will speak to my son’s mother, and she can come and be safe here in the courts with her mother-in-law, and after the next harvest or so, she can be wed.”

Thus the matter was settled and Wang Lung was well content, and he went away.

But on his way back to the gate in the wall, where Ching held a boat waiting for him, Wang Lung passed a shop where tobacco and opium are sold, and he went in to buy himself a little shredded tobacco to put in his water pipe in the evenings, and as the clerk had it on the scales, he said half unwillingly to the man,

“And how much is your opium if you have it?”

And the clerk said,

“It is not lawful in these days to sell it over the counter, and we do not sell it so, but if you wish to buy it and have the silver, it is weighed out in the room behind this, an ounce for a silver piece.”

Then Wang Lung would not think further what he did, but he said quickly,

“I will take six ounces of it.”

T
HEN AFTER THE SECOND
daughter was sent away and Wang Lung was free of his anxiety about her, he said to his uncle one day,

“Since you are my father’s brother, here is a little better tobacco for you.”

And he opened the jar of opium and the stuff was sticky and sweet smelling and Wang Lung’s uncle took it and smelled of it, and he laughed and was pleased and he said,

“Well now, I have smoked it a little but not often before this, for it is too dear, but I like it well enough.”

And Wang Lung answered him, pretending to be careless,

“It is only a little I bought once for my father when he grew old and could not sleep at night and I found it today unused and I thought, ‘There is my father’s brother, and why should he not have it before me, who am younger and do not need it yet?’ Take it then, and smoke it when you wish or when you have a little pain.”

Then Wang Lung’s uncle took it greedily, for it was sweet to smell and a thing that only rich men used, and he took it and bought a pipe and he smoked the opium, lying all day upon his bed to do it. Then Wang Lung saw to it that there were pipes bought and left here and there and he pretended to smoke himself, but he only took a pipe to his room and left it there cold. And his two sons in the house and Lotus he would not allow to touch the opium, saying as his excuse that it was too dear, but he urged it upon his uncle and upon his uncle’s wife and son, and the courts were filled with the sweetish smell of the smoke, and the silver for this Wang Lung did not begrudge because it bought him peace.

Now as the winter wore away and the waters began to recede so that Wang Lung could walk abroad over his land it happened one day that his eldest son followed him and said to him proudly,

“Well, and there will soon be another mouth in the house and it will be the mouth of your grandson.”

Then Wang Lung, when he heard this, turned himself about and he laughed and he rubbed his hands together and said,

“Here is a good day, indeed!”

And he laughed again, and went to find Ching and tell him to go to the town to buy fish and good food and he sent it in to his son’s wife and said,

“Eat, make strong the body of my grandson.”

Then all during the spring Wang Lung had the knowledge of this birth to come for his comfort. And when he was busy about other things he thought of it, and when he was troubled he thought of it and it was a comfort to him.

And as the spring grew into summer, the people who had gone away from the floods came back again, one by one and group by group, spent and weary with the winter and glad to be back, although where their houses had been there was nothing now but the yellow mud of the water-soaked land. But out of this mud houses could be fashioned again, and mats bought to roof them, and many came to Wang Lung to borrow money, and he loaned it at high interest, seeing how greatly it was in demand, and the security he always said must be land. And with the money they borrowed they planted seed upon the earth that was fat with the richness of the dried water, and when they needed oxen and seed and plows and when they could borrow no more money, some sold land and part of their fields that they might plant what was left. And of these Wang Lung bought land and much land, and he bought it cheaply, since money men must have.

But there were some who would not sell their land, and when they had nothing wherewith to buy seed and plow and oxen, they sold their daughters, and there were those who came to Wang Lung to sell, because it was known he was rich and powerful and a man of good heart.

And he, thinking constantly of the child to come and of others to come from his sons when they were all wed, bought five slaves, two about twelve years of age with big feet and strong bodies, and two younger to wait upon them all and fetch and carry, and one to wait on the person of Lotus, for Cuckoo grew old and since the second girl was gone there had been none other to work in the house. And the five he bought in one day, for he was a man rich enough to do quickly what he decided upon.

Then one day many days later a man came bearing a small delicate maid of seven years or so, wanting to sell her, and Wang Lung said he would not have her at first, for she was so small and weak. But Lotus saw her and fancied her and she said pettishly,

“Now this one I will have because she is so pretty and the other one is coarse and smells like goat’s meat and I do not like her.”

And Wang Lung looked at the child and saw her pretty frightened eyes and her piteous thinness and he said partly to humor Lotus and partly that he might see the child fed and fattened,

“Well, and let it be so if you wish it.”

So he bought the child for twenty pieces of silver and she lived in the inner courts and slept on the foot of the bed where Lotus slept.

Now it seemed to Wang Lung that he could have peace in his house. When the waters receded and summer came and the land was to be planted to good seed, he walked hither and thither and looked at every piece and he discussed with Ching the quality of each piece of soil and what change there should be of crops for the fertility of the land. And whenever he went he took with him his youngest son, who was to be on the land after him, that the lad might learn. And Wang Lung never looked to see how the lad listened and whether he listened or not, for the lad walked with his head downcast and he had a sullen look on his face, and no one knew what he thought.

But Wang Lung did not see what the lad did, only that he walked there in silence behind his father. And when everything was planned Wang Lung went back to his house well content and he said to his own heart,

“I am no longer young and it is not necessary for me to work any more with my hands since I have men on my land and my sons and peace in my house.”

Yet when he went into his house there was no peace. Although he had given his son a wife and although he had bought slaves enough to serve them all, and although his uncle and his uncle’s wife were given enough of opium for their pleasure all day, still there was no peace. And again it was because of his uncle’s son and his own eldest son.