“I am glad, my father,” said Yuan, moved not so much by the living men, although he was glad to know they lived, as by the childish longing he discerned in his father to please him. “I hate to see men killed, my father,” he said.
“Aye, I know it; you were always squeamish,” answered Wang the Tiger listlessly, and fell to silent staring at the coals again.
Once more Yuan thought how to urge his father to his bed, for he could not bear the look of illness on his face and in the dry and drooping mouth. He rose and went to where the old trusty hare-lipped man sat on his haunches by the door, nodding as he sat, and whispered to him, “Cannot you persuade my father to his bed?”
The man started up and staggered to his feet, awake at this, and answered hoarsely, “And have I never tried, my little general? I cannot persuade him even to go to his bed at night. If he lies down he rises up again within an hour or so and comes back to this chair to sit and I can only sit here, too, and I am so filled with sleep now I am as good as dead. But there he sits, always awake!”
Then Yuan went to his father and coaxed him and he said, “Father, I am weary, too. Let us go and be upon a bed and sleep, for I am so weary. I will be near you, and you can call me and know that I am there.”
At this the Tiger moved a little as though he would rise; then he sank back and shook his head and would not rise and he said, “No, I am not finished what I have to say. There is something else — I cannot think of it all at once — two things I counted on my right hand that I must say. Go sit somewhere and wait until my thought comes out.”
The Tiger spoke with his old vehemence now, and Yuan felt the habit of his childhood on him to go and sit. And yet there was this new fearlessness in him too, so that now his heart cried out against its duty, “What is he but a very tiresome old willful man, and here must I sit and wait for his humors!” And his willfulness shone out of his eyes and almost he was about to speak when the trusty man saw him and hastened forward to coax him and said, “Let him have his way, little general, since he is so ill, and hear what he says as we all must do.” So Yuan against his will, yet fearing it might indeed make his father worse if he were opposed at such an hour, who never had known opposition, went and sat down sidewise on a chair and sat now less patiently until the Tiger said suddenly, “It has come back to me. The first thing is that I must hide you somewhere, for I remember what you told me when you came home yesterday. I must hide you from my enemies.”
At this Yuan could not forbear crying out, “But, father, it was not yesterday—”
Then the Tiger darted one of his old angry looks at his son and he clapped his dry palms once together and he cried, “I know what I say! How was it not yesterday when you came home? You did come home yesterday!”
And again the old trusty man stood between the Tiger and his son and called out pleadingly, “Let be — let be — it was a yesterday!” And Yuan turned sullen, and hung his head because he must be silent. For now it was a strange thing, but the first pity he had for his father was gone like a little quick mild wind passing over his heart, and these angry old looks his father gave him roused some deeper feeling in him than the pity. His resentments rose in him, he told himself he would not be afraid again, but he must be willful lest he be afraid.
And in his own old willfulness the father waited yet longer before he would speak on, he thought because he did not like his son to break into what he said, and so he waited longer than he would have otherwise. But the truth was the Tiger had something to say he did not like to say, and he waited. In that time of waiting Yuan’s anger against his father leaped up more strongly than it ever had. He thought of all the times he had been cowed to silence by this man, and he thought of all the hours he had spent at weapons which he hated, and he thought of his days of freedom cut off once more, and suddenly he could not bear the Tiger. No, his very flesh shrank back from this old man and he loathed his father suddenly because he was not washed or shaven, and because he had let his wine and food dribble down upon his robe. There was not anything about his father that he loved, at least for this moment.
The Tiger not dreaming of all this hot loathing in his son’s heart went on at last with what he had to say and it was this, “But you are my only precious son. What hope have I except in your body? Your mother for once has said a wise thing. She came and said to me, ‘And if he is not wed, from whence will come our grandsons?’ I told her then, ‘Go and search out a good hearty maid somewhere, and it does not matter what she is except she be lusty and quick to bear, for women are all alike and one is not better than another. And bring her back and wed him, and then he can go out to hide in some foreign country until this war is over. And we shall have his seed.’ ”
This the Tiger said very carefully, each word what he had thought before, and he gathered up his weary wits to do this duty for his son before he let him go. This was no more than any good father ought to do, and what every son must in reason expect, for any son should accept the wife so chosen for his parents’ sake, and wed her and give her child, and then he is free to find his love elsewhere as he will. But Yuan was not a son like this. He was filled with the poison of new times and full of secret willful freedoms that he did not know himself, and full, too, of his father’s hatred against women, and what with this hatred, and what with his willfulness he felt all his anger burst out of him now. Yes, his anger at this hour was like a checked flood in him, and all his life was gathered to its crisis now.
At first he could not believe his father truly said these words, for all his life he had been so used to hear the Tiger speak only of women as fools, or if not fools, then traitors and never to be trusted. But there the words were, spoken, and the Tiger sat and stared into the coals as before. Now Yuan knew suddenly why his mother and her serving woman had been so eager secretly to get him home, and pleased when he made ready to return, for such women think of nothing but of matches and of weddings.
Well, and he would not yield to them! He leaped up, forgetting that he ever had feared or loved his father, and he shouted, “I have waited for this — yes, when my comrades told me how they were forced to marriage — and many of them left their homes for this very cause — I used to doubt my own good fortune — but you are like all the others, all these old people who would keep us tied forever — tied through our bodies — forcing us to the women you choose — forcing us to children — well, I will not be tied — I will not have my body used like this to tie my life to yours — I hate you — I have always hated you — I know I hate you—”
Out of Yuan rushed such a stream of hatred now that he began to sob wildly, and the trusty man, in terror at such anger, ran and held him around the waist and would have spoken and could not, because his split lip was all awry. Yuan stared down and saw this man, and he was beside himself. He lifted up his hand and beat it down clenched upon that old hideous face, so that the man lay felled to the floor.
Now the Tiger rose tottering, not to his son — no, he had stared in a daze at Yuan, as though he could not comprehend what these words were, his eyes dazed and staring. When he saw his old servant fall, he went to lift him up.
But Yuan turned and fled. Not waiting once to see what was done, he ran through the courts and found his horse tied to a tree and ran through the great outer gate and past the staring soldiers there and leaped upon his horse and rode out of that place and to himself he cried it was forever.