But the young wife would not have it settled so easily, and she forced her husband to go again and again to his father, and for peace’s sake Wang the Landlord grew weak at last and he promised he would plan some way, although well he knew the only way he had was to sell the most of what land he still owned. As for the young wife, when she had even the half promise, she prattled of her going and made her every plan and talked so constantly of what many ways there were to find pleasure in the coast city, and how fine the women dressed themselves and how she must buy a new gown and a coat of fur, and how all the clothes she had were less than rags and fit only for such a country place as this, that with all her talking she stirred her husband up to some eagerness to be gone, too, and to see all the wonders of which she spoke.
Now Wang the Landlord’s younger son was a man, too, and he had followed in his brother’s footsteps, and he was eager in only one thing and it was that he should be given no less in anything than his elder brother had. He had a secret and mighty admiration for his pretty sister-in-law, and in his heart he determined that when his elder brother left home, he would storm to follow after and see that city where there were many ladies pretty and new as his sister-in-law was.
But he was wise enough to say nothing of his plan until his brother was gone, and he only idled about the house and the town, waiting, and despising all he had and saw, now that he knew how wonderful a place the coast city was and how filled with new things and fine new people, learned in every foreign thing. And he even looked at Wang the Tiger’s son as though secretly belittling him, and Wang the Tiger caught the look and hated the young man for it.
But in the house of Wang the Merchant the young men were outwardly more humble and when they came home at night from their shops they sat edgewise on their seats and stared at this uncle and at this cousin of theirs, and Wang the Tiger took secret pleasure in the looks these young tradesmen cast at his son, and he marked how they stared at the lad and at the little gilded sword he wore that he took off sometimes and held across his knee for the younger children to look at and to touch with their fingers.
At such times Wang the Tiger rejoiced mightily in his son and he forgot the lad had been cold to him. He rejoiced to see his son rise sharply and neatly as his tutor had taught him to do and make his salute to his father or to his uncle as he came in, and then sit down again in a very mannerly way when his elders had taken their places. And Wang the Tiger smoothed his beard and loved his son exceedingly and he grew more merry than he had ever been in his life when he saw how much taller for his years his son was than these clerks his brother had for sons, and how much harder his son’s flesh was and how straight and true his body and not languid and curved and pale as his cousins were.
During all these days that Wang the Tiger was in the houses of his brothers he watched over his son carefully. When the lad sat beside him at feasts Wang the Tiger himself saw to his son’s wine, and when the serving men had poured three times, he would not let them pour again for his son. And when the lads who were his cousins cried out to him to come and play here or there somewhere, Wang the Tiger sent his son’s tutor and the harelipped trusty man and the ten old soldiers with him everywhere. Every night Wang the Tiger made some excuse and he would not be at rest until he had gone himself to his son’s room and seen the lad in his own bed and alone except for the guard who watched at the door.
Now in this house of his father where his two brothers still lived so easily and well, it was as though no famine were in the land and as though no waters stood upon harvest fields, and as though none starved anywhere. Yet well enough did Wang the Landlord know and well enough did Wang the Merchant know what went on outside their peaceful home, and when Wang the Tiger had told them his straits and why he was come and when he ended saying, “It is to your interest to save me out of my danger, because my power keeps you safe, too,” they knew very well he spoke the truth.
For there were starving people outside of this city also, and many of them hated the two brothers very bitterly. They hated Wang the Landlord because he still owned land and those who worked on it must share with him, who did not labor at all, the bitter fruit they wrung from the earth, and to them it seemed, when they had bent over their fields in cold and heat and in rain and sun, that the earth and its fruit belonged to them. It was a very sore thing that at harvest time they must give a good half of it to one who had sat in a town house and waited for it, and that in famine time he must still have his share.
It was true that in these years when Wang the Eldest had been landlord and while he sold the land, too, he was still no easy landlord. No, for a man so weak and soft as he was, he could curse and quarrel, and his hatred of the land vented itself against these people who tilled it for him and he hated them not only for the land’s sake, but because he was so hard pressed often for money enough for his house’s needs and his own needs and he was doubly bitter because it seemed to him his tenants willfully held back what was his due and given him from his father. It came to such a pass that when his tenants saw him coming they would turn their faces to the sky and mutter,
“It must be we will have rain since the devils are out!”
And often they reviled him and said,
“You are no good son of your father, for he was a merciful man even in his age when he was rich, and he remembered that once he had toiled as we do, and he never pressed us for our rent, nor demanded grain of us in famine years. But you have never suffered and mercy has never been born in your heart!”
Such hatred had there been, and it was manifest in this hard year because in the night when the great gates were locked there were those who came and beat upon that gate and they lay on the steps and moaned out,
“We are starving and you still have rice to eat and rice to make into wines!” And others cried out upon the streets as they passed the gates, and they cried even in daytime, “Oh, that we might kill these rich men and take what they have robbed from us!”
At first the two brothers paid no heed, but at last they had hired a few soldiers of the town to stand about the gate and keep all off who had no proper business there. And indeed there were many rich men in that town and countryside who were robbed and despoiled as the year grew old, for robbers began to spring up, numerous and desperate, as they do in any evil time. Yet the two sons of Wang Lung were safe enough, because the chief of police and head of the soldiers of the town had married his daughter into that house, and because Wang the Tiger was near there and the lord of war. And so before that House of Wang the people did not as yet dare to do more than moan and curse.
Nor had they come to rob the earthen house which belonged to this family they hated. No, it stood up on its hillock out of the slowly receding waters, and Pear Blossom lived there safely enough through the bitter winter with her two. This was because Pear Blossom was well known by now for her pity, and they knew that she begged for stores out of the House of Wang and many came to her doors in their little boats and tubs and she fed them. Once Wang the Merchant had gone to her and said,
“In such dangerous times as these you must come into the town and live in the great house.”
But Pear Blossom had replied in her tranquil, usual way,
“No, I cannot, and I am not afraid, and there are those who depend on me.”
But as the winter grew deep and cold she did grow afraid at times because there were men made desperate by hunger and the bitter wind upon the icy waters where they lived in boats still or clung to tree tops as they could, and they were angry because Pear Blossom still fed the fool and the hunchback and they muttered before her very face, with her gifts in their hands,