As he listened to his son, Dr. Liang sat quietly in the large brown leather chair where he had written so many of his scholarly works. He was a tall man, for his origins were in the north, that birthplace of so many of China’s great men. His sons were tall, too, and he took pleasure in hearing Americans exclaim, “But I thought Chinese were always short!” This cry gave him the opportunity to explain in his deep and gentle voice how unfortunate it was for his people that so many of the Chinese in America were tradesmen from one small region in the province of Kwangtung. They were not at all typical, he went on to say, for their short stature and their dark color were the result of their blood mixture with tribesmen in the hills nearby. The real Chinese, he explained, were tall, as in the north, or fairly tall, as in Central China, and their skin was not dark. He himself had a pallor that was certainly lighter than many Americans owned. He was not fond of exercise and never allowed himself to get sunburned. His sons burned as red brown as any American, for they were good at sports and played tennis brilliantly. He did not encourage his daughters to enlarge their muscles by such activities. Louise, the younger one, disobeyed him frequently, but he liked to think that Mary, the elder, just younger than James, was a true Chinese daughter, obedient and mild and very pretty.
He contemplated his son from behind his spectacles. The lenses were so thick that they magnified his eyes slightly and added force to his gaze.
“It seems unwise to return home at this time,” he said. “The country is in great confusion. The Communists are threatening, and as my son your life can scarcely be safe. I would of course commend you to my friends in the government, but they could not guarantee your safety from rebellious students who might revenge themselves on me by killing you.”
“I do not want to be under the protection of anyone,” James said. “I shall just go.” He sat on the sill of the long double window, and gazing toward the river as he spoke, he could see the bridge glittering in the sunlight. It looked at once delicate and strong, a silver cobweb of steel against a misty blue sky.
“But where?” Dr. Liang asked sharply. “Where can you go in China today and not waste yourself?”
James did not answer. He sat motionless, and Dr. Liang saw more strongly than ever the son’s resemblance to his mother. Mrs. Liang was a good wife and an exemplary mother. She managed the household well, in spite of imperfect English which she would not improve, but she was stubborn.
“Your education has cost me a great deal of money,” Dr. Liang went on. “Fortunately my books on Chinese philosophy have sold well. But suppose they had not?”
James smiled. “I cannot imagine it, Father.”
Dr. Liang examined his son’s square but very handsome young face. Was this remark made with some jocular meaning? He did not understand American humor, which seemed to saturate his children. But the smile on his son’s lips was kindly.
“There is no hospital in China which is up to the standard to which you have been trained,” he observed.
“It has been twenty years since you lived there, Father.”
“You know very well that I was there ten years ago.”
“Only for six months, and you traveled constantly,” his son murmured.
“And in all my travels I saw nothing but the most primitive ways of life,” Dr. Liang retorted. “The civilization which was kept alive by the great old families such as ours is dying out. When I saw our ancestral halls I wept. My old uncle Tao lives there as a beggar — or very nearly.”
“I want to see for myself,” James said.
“How do you propose to make your living?” Dr. Liang asked almost harshly. His large beautifully shaped hands, as smooth as a woman’s, he kept habitually relaxed in order that there might be no tension in him. The cult of the hands, he often said, was a profound one. Now involuntarily he clenched his hands.
“You need not send me anything, Father,” James said.
“Of course I must! I won’t have my son going about like a beggar.”
“Do you mean I may go?”
“I do not,” Dr. Liang exclaimed. “On the contrary, I forbid it.”
James stood up. He turned from the window and faced his father. “Please don’t say that. I don’t want to have to go without your consent.”
The moment which both had dreaded for so many years had suddenly come — the moment of open rebellion. Dr. Liang had waked often in the night and dreaded it. He was proud of his elder son, and he told himself and his wife many times that James alone had justified his decision to live abroad. Had they stayed among the wars and confusions of modern China, the boy’s brilliant mind, his extraordinary talents, could never have been developed.
There were many other proofs of his wisdom. His children were all well educated; they had this comfortable and even luxurious home. They were healthy and full of energy and able to look after themselves. As for himself, Dr. Liang always said, he felt that Heaven had directed his steps, and that he had been useful in explaining to Americans the real China, the great civilization which today was obscured but which would assuredly shine forth again when peace was established in the world. It was no small mission to bring the East and West together. When times were better again he hoped, he told his American friends, to return to his own country to spend his old age, and there he would expound to his countrymen the glories of the American civilization.
“If you disobey me,” Dr. Liang now said, his hands still clenched on his knees, “then I will disown you.”
“I shall still be a Liang,” James said. “You begot me and you cannot deny that.”
Father and son glared at each other without a sign of yielding. “If I cannot deny it, I will forget it,” Dr. Liang said loudly.
Outside the door they heard footsteps retreating softly. Dr. Liang rose and strode across the room and threw open the door. No one was there. The spacious rooms were silent. He closed the door again. It was perhaps only the Irish maid Nellie who came every day to clean and to cook. But he had scarcely seated himself again when the door opened impetuously and Mrs. Liang stood there, this morning encased in a long gown of dull purple satin. In spite of her many years here she looked as Chinese as the day she had left her father’s house thirty years ago to marry a young student whom she had scarcely seen. Her hair was smoothed back into a neat bun, and her full rosy face was kind but strong-tempered.
“Now what is going on here?” she demanded in the loud voice which her husband detested. Long ago he had learned that the best way to reprove her was by making his own voice especially gentle.