But he knew he could not shout it. Meng could have said it for his cause’s sake, and Sheng could have laughed and seemed to accept the bondage, and then he would forget it, and live as he liked in spite of it. But Yuan was differently shaped. He could not refuse this bondage which in ignorant love his father had set upon him. Nor could he blame his father still, nor when he pondered yet more upon it, think of any other way his father could have done.
He stared down on a square of sunlight falling through the open door, and in the silence he heard a twittering quarrel among the little wild birds in the bamboos in the court. At last he said somberly, “I am really your investment, then, my uncle. You have used me as a means to make your sons and your old age safe.”
The old man heard this and considered it and poured out a little tea into a bowl and sipped it slowly and then he wiped his dried old hand about his mouth and said again, “It is what every generation does and must do. So will you when your own sons come.”
“No, I will not,” said Yuan quickly. Never had he seen in his mind a son of his until this moment. But now these words of the old man seemed to call the future into life. Yes, one day he would have sons. There would be a woman for him and they would have sons. But those sons — they should be free — free of any shaping from him who was their father! They should not be made for soldiers, nor shaped for any destiny, nor bound to any family cause.
And suddenly he hated all his kind, his uncles and his cousins, — yes, and even his own father, for at this moment the Tiger came in, weary from his rounds among his men and eager to sit down before his bowl and look at Yuan awhile and hear him talk of anything. But Yuan could not bear it. … He rose quickly and without a word he went away to be alone.
Now in his own old room upon his bed Yuan lay weeping and shivering and weeping as he used to do when he was a lad, but not long, because the old Tiger stayed behind him only long enough to discover from the other two what had gone amiss, and he came after Yuan and pushed the door open and came as fast as his two old feet would carry him to Yuan’s bed. But Yuan would not turn to his father. He lay with his face buried in his arms and the old Tiger sat beside him and smoothed his shoulder with his hand and patted it and poured forth eager promises and broken pleadings, and he said, “See, my son, you are not to do anything but what you like. I am no old man yet. I have been too idle. I will gather up my men once more and sally forth again to a battle and make the region mine again and have the taxes that robber lord has taken from me. I downed him once and I can again, and you shall have everything. You shall stay here with me and have everything. Yes, and wed whom you like. I was wrong before. I am not so old-fashioned now, Yuan — I know how young men do now …”
Now the old Tiger had truly said the thing most needed to strengthen Yuan out of his weeping and his pity for himself. He turned over and he cried violently, “I will not let you battle any more, father, and I—”
And Yuan was about to cry out, “I will not wed.” He had so long said it to his father that the words ran off his tongue of their own accord. But in the midst of all his misery he stopped. A sudden question came to him. Did he indeed not wish to wed? But not an hour ago he had cried out that his sons should be free. Of course one day he would wed. He delayed his words upon his tongue and then more slowly he told his father, “Yes, some day I will wed the one I want to wed.”
But the old Tiger was so pleased to see Yuan turn his face about and cease his weeping that he answered merrily, “You shall — you shall — only tell me who she is, my son, and let me send the go-between and do it, and I will tell your mother — after all, what cursed country maid is worthy of my son?’
Then Yuan, staring at his father while he spoke, began to see a thing in his own mind he had not known was there. “I do not need a go-between,” he said slowly, but his mind was not on these words. He began to see a face shape in his mind — a woman’s young face. “I can speak for myself. We speak for ourselves, these days, we young men—”
Now it was the Tiger’s turn to stare, and he said severely, “Son, what woman is there decent who can be so spoken to? You have not forgotten my old warnings against such women, son? Have you chosen a good woman, son?”
But Yuan smiled. He forgot debts and wars and all the troubles of these days. Suddenly his divided mind joined upon one clear way he had not seen at all. There was one to whom he could tell everything, and know what he must do! These old ones never could understand him nor his needs, they could not see that he belonged no more among them. No, they could not see any more than aliens could. But he knew a woman of his own times, not rooted in the old as he was and forever divided because he had no power to pull the roots up and plant them in the new and necessary times wherein his life must be — he saw her face clearer than any face in his whole life, its clearness making every face grow dim, dimming even his father’s face that was before his very eyes. She only could set him free from himself — only Mei-ling could set him free and tell him what he ought to do. She, who ordered everything she touched, could tell him what to do! His heart began to lift within him out of its own lightness. He must go back to her. He sat up quickly and put his feet to the floor. Then he remembered his father had put a question to him and he answered out of his dazing new joy, “A good woman? Yes, I have chosen a good woman, my father!”
And he felt such an impatience as he had not known before in all his life. Here were no doubts and no withdrawals. He would go at once to her.
And yet for all his sudden new impatience Yuan found he must stay his month out with his father. For when Yuan thought how he might find excuse to go away, the Tiger grew so hurt and downcast that Yuan could not but be moved and draw back the hints he had put forth of some business calling him to that coastal city. And he knew it was not fitting that he should not stay to see his mother, who during these days had been in that country where her old home once was. For this woman, ever since she had gone to the earthen house for Yuan, had returned to her childhood love of country life, and now that her two daughters were wed she went often to the village where once she had been a maid, and she found a home there with her eldest brother who suffered her willingly enough because she paid out silver and made a little lavish show as wife of a lord of war, and her brother’s wife liked the show because it set her up above the other village women. Though the trusty man sent a messenger to tell the mother Yuan was come, yet she had delayed a day or two.
And Yuan was the more willing and even anxious to see his mother and make plain to her that he would choose his own wife, and that he had chosen her already, and it only remained that he tell her so. Therefore he could and did live on the month, and this more easily because his uncle and the son went back soon to the old great house and Yuan was alone with his father.
But this joyful knowledge of Mei-ling made it easier for Yuan even to be courteous to his uncle, and he thought secretly with deep relief, “She will help me to find a way to settle off this debt. I will say nothing angry now — not until I have told her.” And so thinking he could say to his uncle steadily at parting, “Be sure I shall not forget the debt. But lend us no more moneys, uncle, for now my first care when this month is past, will be to find a good place for myself. As for your sons, I will do what I can for them.”
And the Tiger hearing it said stoutly, “Be sure, brother, that all will come back to you, for what I cannot do by war my son will do by government, for doubtless he will find a good official place, with all his knowledge.”
“Yes, doubtless, if he tries,” returned the merchant. But as he went he said to his son, “Put in Yuan’s hand the paper you have written.” And the son pulled a folded paper from his sleeve and handed it to Yuan and said in his little wordy way, “It is only the full counting out, my cousin, of those sums. We thought, my father and I, that you would want to know it all clearly.”