Lao Er took this very gravely and he set himself to find out if he could if there were anything good he could tell his father, but where could he find good?
Even in these times of evil men, Heaven could be evil, too. There had been the rains one year to spoil the land, and now the year just past was heaped with misery, for there was famine in the North once more and starving people drifted southward, from misery to misery. In other years they had so drifted, and Ling Tan and others had helped them, but what help was there now, with half the villages destroyed by fire?
In the city that puppet sat on his seat, and sent out his little orders, and from abroad those nations which favored the enemy called him ruler. In the free land, it was true, they heard of a mighty army gathering, and yet they never saw this army and it remained only hearsay to these who lived here in bondage. For the enemy saw to it that no news came to them and the people still lived locked in silence from the outer world. Within this silence the grim enemy ruled, and still for nothing a man could be killed. Many were being killed even now, for some small fault or for none at all except an enemy’s whim, and none could draw his breath with freedom. Slowly everywhere the hearts of men were being crushed, and many died from within and gave themselves up as one who drowns must first be willing to drown and cease his struggle to live before he can die. Many who had not been willing to smoke opium, now did turn to it.
Then searching everywhere in himself Lao Er thought of his old cousin whom in many months he had forgotten. He knew him to be alive, for now and again mouth to ear in spite of the enemy there would creep through the countryside some small piece of news, twisted and changed in the telling so that none knew by the time it reached the villages, what it had been in the beginning. And Lao Er thought, “I will go to that old bone, and see if he has any good to tell,” and then he thought, “and I will ask my father to go with me, and if there should be something good he will hear it, too, and he will know I am not saying empty words for comfort.”
So when Ling Tan’s birthday came, and there was no feast beyond a fish caught secretly and hidden until the meal, when they had eaten it behind the locked gate, Lao Er said to his Father, “Why should we not take a few hours for pleasure tonight and go into the city to that tea house and see our old cousin and hear again what he says?”
At first Ling Tan thought he would not go because he was weary and he despaired of hearing good, but he saw his son was urgent. So he changed the words he had been about to speak and he said:
“Though I have no zest for it, if it is what you want and since this is my birthday, I will go with you.”
Thus it came about that once more Ling Tan and his son hid themselves among the others in the tea house. All went as it had before, and they went into the inner room. There after a while the old cousin came, thinner and more dried and drowsier than ever, and now if Ling Tan would have told him who he was that old opium eater could not have known him through the dimness of his dreams. But still he was clear enough for this one thing that he did every day because his opium depended on it, though anyone could see he would not live much longer to need it.
When the old man came in he sat down on his stool, and he spoke into his beard and in so low a voice that all must strain to hear him, and he said:
“I told you yesterday about that meeting between the two great white men, and it took place upon the sea. The one white man came from the country of Mei and the other from Ying, and they met together for a space. Today the one from Ying has spoken.”
The old man fumbled in his bosom and brought out a small piece of brown-stained paper, and then his horn spectacles. With much trouble he put his spectacles on his nose and they fell off because his hands trembled so and he put them on again and again they fell off, and all waited in great patience until a third time he tried and this time they stayed. Then he lifted up the paper and read these words aloud:
“The ordeals of the conquered peoples will be hard. We must give them hope. We must give them the conviction that their sufferings and their resistances will not be in vain. The tunnel may be dark and long, but at the end there is light.”
In this dark old room filthy with years and now with ruin, Ling Tan stood and heard these brave words. His heart was hungry as fallow land is hungry, and the words fell into his heart like seeds.
“Who is the man who said this?” he cried out. “I was not here yesterday — tell me today!”
The old cousin did not need to speak. Others were ready to tell what they knew, and one man and another, speaking together, eager to speak, full of hope and doubt because of long delay, they told Ling Tan that now at last there were those two peoples for whom this one man spoke, the Mei people and the Ying people. Ling Tan listened to this one and to that one, and he drank in every word, and those seeds in his heart took root.
“If those peoples are against this enemy,” he said, “are they not with us?”
“Are they not?” others echoed joyfully.
Then out of his long weariness Ling Tan felt the slow tears come up into his eyes. All through the bitter years he had not wept. He had seen ruin in his home and in his village, and he had seen death everywhere, but he had not wept, and he wondered that now at this first good news that any had given him in more than four years, he had to weep.
“Let us go,” he said to his son.
So his son followed him and they went out from the city and Ling Tan said nothing.
Soon they were beyond the desolate city, and the cobbled road grew narrow and wound its old way along the valley’s bed. The hills were dark against the sky. This night there was no moon.
Now Lao Er had all this while been unbelieving, and it was in his heart to say to his father, “It is better for us not to count help sure from anywhere. Are there men who give their help for nothing?” But he had waited for his father to speak.
But when there was only silence he kept silent, too, and at last he thought to himself that he would let his father have his hope.
“I am young,” Lao Er thought. “I do not need a hope. I can live.” And so with his heart cool and bitter within his breast, Lao
Er let his father walk ahead of him and he saw him lift his head to look at the stars and put up his hand to feel the wind. “Is there not promise of rain?” Ling Tan asked suddenly out of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. “Only a promise,” Lao Er said.