For Cuckoo was what she ever was. In her age, and she was very old now also, she seemed to grow more thin and dry and withered and yet she had a strength in her old frame that was almost what it had been in youth. Her eyes were sharp and her tongue harsh and her face, although wrinkled all over, was still red. She was greedy, too, as ever she had been, and if she guarded her mistress against the thievery of other serving women, she herself thieved most hardily from Lotus. Now that Lotus’s eyes were filmed, Cuckoo took what she liked from Lotus and she swelled her own private store, and Lotus, being so old, forgot what jewels she had and what fur garments and what garments of satin and silk, and so she did not know what Cuckoo took. If by chance she remembered and cried out for something of a sudden, Cuckoo diverted her if she could, and if Lotus was perverse and would not forget, Cuckoo went and fetched the thing from her own boxes and gave it to Lotus. But when, after fingering it a time or two Lotus forgot again, Cuckoo took it and kept it once more.
Nor did a slave or serving woman dare complain, for Cuckoo was the real mistress there, and even the brothers deferred to her, for they knew they could find no one to take her place and they dared not anger her. When therefore Cuckoo said Lotus had given her this or that, the maids were silent, for they knew well that if they complained, Cuckoo was so bitter and evil she could have put poison into a bowl of food and thought nothing of it, and sometimes she would boast of all the skill she had in poisoning to keep them afraid, As for Lotus, she leaned on Cuckoo for everything, as she grew blind, and now because of the mighty weight of her flesh she walked no more except from her bed to the great chair of carved black wood where she sat a little while after noon and then back to her bed again. Even so she must be supported by four slaves and more, for those pretty little feet of hers which had once been Wang Lung’s pride and pleasure were nothing but stumps beneath the great and monstrous body which in other days had been slender as a bamboo and passionately beloved by Wang Lung.
When one day Lotus heard the commotion in the courts next hers and when she asked and heard that Wang the Tiger was coming with his women and children to pass the feast day and worship at his father’s grave with his brothers, she grew petulant and she said,
“I cannot have brats here! I have always hated brats!”
This was true for she was a childless woman and had always some strange hatred against little children, and especially when she passed her time of such fruitage. Then Wang the Landlord who had come in with his brother, soothed her and he said,
“No, no, we will open the other gate so that he need not come near you at all.”
Then Lotus cried again in her old, querulous way,
“I forget what son he was of that old man of mine! Was he the one who used to stare at that pale slave I once had and he ran away when that silly old man of mine took her for himself?”
Then both brothers looked at each other aghast and they were astonished at this tale and had never heard it, and Wang the Merchant said hastily, for Lotus was now very free and obscene in her old age and talked of her early life so that neither brother allowed his children to come near her for she did not know decency from indecency and all her old life would come bubbling to the surface of her lips sometimes, and he said,
“We know nothing of this. Our brother is now a famous lord of war and he will ill brook such talk as this against his honor.”
But Lotus when she heard this laughed and she spat upon the tile floor and she cried out,
“Oh, and you men are so full of your honor but we women know what poor stuff your honor is made of!” And she listened for Cuckoo to laugh also, and she cried out, “Eh, Cuckoo?” and Cuckoo, who was never far away, gave her thin shrill cackle of laughter, for she was pleased to see these two middle-aged men, each grave and important in his own way, put to such confusion. As for the two brothers, they hurried away to direct the serving men in all that must be done.
When all was ready Wang the Tiger came with his house, and he took up his abode in these days in the court where his father had lived. It was empty for him, now, and swept at last of every presence except his own and his son’s and he could forget that anyone had ever lived there except himself and his son.
Then the festival came to this whole house, the festival of spring, and everyone laid aside his private grudge for the once; even the wives of the two elder brothers, when they came together in the family, were formal and courteous with each other. Everything was done in its proper order and in the way it should be done, and there were certain duties at this time which the sons of Wang Lung had toward their father.
It happened that two days before the festival day was Wang Lung’s birthday. Wherever he was, on this day he was ninety years old, and since his sons were together they determined to perform their whole filial duty and Wang the Tiger was very ready because since he had his own son his anger against his father had gone of its own accord and he was left ready and eager to take his place in the line of father and son and father and son.
On this birthday of Wang Lung’s, therefore, his sons invited many guests and a great feast was prepared, such a feast as they would have made if their father had been with them, and there was rejoicing and congratulation and there was every dish such as is proper at a birthday feast. And they had Wang Lung’s tablet there and made obeisance to it and they did him honor on his birthday.
On the same day Wang the Landlord hired priests and he spared no money and each son gave his share, and the priests chanted all their chants for Wang Lung’s spirit to give it rest and joy in the happy courts where it now was, and they decked the hall with their sacred emblems and signs, and for half a day the courts were filled with the rise and the fall of their chanting voices and the dull thick sound of the wooden sticks upon their drums of wood.
All this did Wang Lung’s sons do in his memory. Beyond this they and their wives and their sons went out to the place where the graves of their fathers were, and Wang Lung’s sons saw to it that every grave was made straight and smooth and heaped high with fresh earth. Each grave was shaped to a point and upon the point a clod of earth was put, and white paper cut cunningly into long strips was fastened beneath the clod and streamed in the sweet spring wind of that day. And Wang Lung’s sons bowed to the earth before his grave and they set incense to burn, and they brought their sons to bow, and proudest of them all was Wang the Tiger, for he took his own fair son and he bowed the child’s little head, too, and he was knit to his fathers and to his brothers through this child, his son.
And as they went home again they saw that over the whole countryside, wherever there were fathers’ graves and grandfathers’ graves, there were sons who did what they had done for Wang Lung this day, for it was a day of remembrance. Then Wang the Landlord was more moved than he usually was, and he said,