It seemed to Wang Lung then that he must prove at any cost to this woman that he was more than a mere country fellow, and he laughed and said too loudly,
“Is not my money as good to spend as another man’s? And money I do not lack in these days. I have had good fortune.”
Cuckoo stopped at this, her eyes narrow and bright as a snake’s eyes, and her voice smooth as oil flowing from a vessel.
“And who has not heard it? And how shall a man better spend the money he has over and above his living than in a place like this, where rich men take their joy and elegant lords gather to take their joy in feasting and pleasure? There is no such wine as ours—have you tasted it, Wang Lung?”
“I have only drunk tea as yet,” replied Wang Lung and he was half ashamed. “I have not touched wine or dice.”
“Tea!” she exclaimed after him, laughing shrilly. “But we have tiger bone wine and dawn wine and wine of fragrant rice—why need you drink tea?” And as Wang Lung hung his head she said softly and insidiously,
“And I suppose you have not looked at anything else, have you, eh?—No pretty little hands, no sweet-smelling cheeks?”
Wang Lung hung his head yet lower and the red blood rushed into his face and he felt as though everyone near looked at him with mockery and listened to the voice of the woman. But when he took heart to glance about from under his lids, he saw no one paying any heed and the rattling of dice burst out anew and so he said in confusion,
“No—no—I have not—only tea—”
Then the woman laughed again and pointed to the painted silken scrolls and said,
“There they are, their pictures. Choose which one you wish to see and put the silver in my hand and I will place her before you.”
“Those!” said Wang Lung, wondering. “I thought they were pictures of dream women, of goddesses in the mountain of Kwen Lwen, such as the story tellers speak of!”
“So they are dream women,” rejoined Cuckoo, with mocking good humor, “but dreams such as a little silver will turn into flesh.” And she went on her way, nodding and winking at the servants standing about and motioning to Wang Lung as at one of whom she said, “There is a country bumpkin!”
But Wang Lung sat staring at the pictures with a new interest. Up this narrow stairway then, in the rooms above him there were these women in flesh and blood, and men went up to them—other men than he, of course, but men! Well, and if he were not the man he was, a good and working man, a man with a wife and sons, which picture would he, pretending as a child pretends that he might do a certain thing, pretending then, which would he pretend to take? And he looked at every painted face closely and with intensity as though each were real. Before this they had all seemed equally beautiful, before this when there had been no question of choosing. But now there were clearly some more beautiful than others, and out of the score and more he chose three most beautiful, and out of the three he chose again and he chose one most beautiful, a small, slender thing, a body light as a bamboo and a little face as pointed as a kitten’s face, and one hand clasping the stem of a lotus flower in bud, and the hand as delicate as the tendril of a fern uncurled.
He stared at her and as he stared a heat like wine poured through his veins.
“She is like a flower on a quince tree,” he said suddenly aloud, and hearing his own voice he was alarmed and ashamed and he rose hastily and put down his money and went out and into the darkness that had now fallen and so to his home.
But over the fields and the water the moonlight hung, a net of silver mist, and in his body his blood ran secret and hot and fast.
19
Now if the waters had at this time receded from Wang Lung’s land, leaving it wet and smoking under the sun, so that in a few days of summer heat it would need to have been ploughed and harrowed and seed put in, Wang Lung might never have gone again to the great tea shop. Or if a child had fallen ill or the old man had reached suddenly to the end of his days, Wang Lung might have been caught up in the new thing and so forgotten the pointed face upon the scroll and the body of the woman slender as a bamboo.
But the waters lay placid and unmoved except for the slight summer wind that rose at sunset, and the old man dozed and the two boys trudged to school at dawn and were away until evening and in his house Wang Lung was restless and he avoided the eyes of O-lan who looked at him miserably as he went here and there and flung himself down in a chair and rose from it without drinking the tea she poured and without smoking the pipe he had lit. At the end of one long day, more long than any other, in the seventh month, when the twilight lingered murmurous and sweet with the breath of the lake, he stood at the door of his house, and suddenly without a word he turned abruptly and went into his room and put on his new coat, even the coat of black shining cloth, as shining almost as silk, that O-lan made for feast days, and with no word to anyone he went over the narrow paths along the water’s edge and through the fields until he came to the darkness of the city gate and through this he went and through the streets until he came to the new tea shop.
There every light was lit, bright oil lamps which are to be bought in the foreign cities of the coast, and men sat under the lights drinking and talking, their robes open to the evening coolness, and everywhere fans moved to and fro and good laughter flowed out like music into the street. All the gayety which Wang Lung had never had from his labor on the land was held here in the walls of this house, where men met to play and never to work.
Wang Lung hesitated upon the threshold and he stood in the bright light which streamed from the open doors. And he might have stood there and gone away, for he was fearful and timid in his heart still, although his blood was rushing through his body fit to burst his veins, but there came out of the shadows on the edge of the light a woman who had been leaning idly against the doorway and it was Cuckoo. She came forward when she saw a man’s figure, for it was her business to get customers for the women of the house, but when she saw who it was, she shrugged her shoulders and said,
“Ah, it is only the farmer!”
Wang was stung with the sharp carelessness in her voice, and his sudden anger gave him a courage he had not otherwise, so that he said,
“Well, and may I not come into the house and may I not do as other men?”
And she shrugged herself again and laughed and said,
“If you have the silver that other men have, you may do as they do.”
And he wished to show her that he was lordly and rich enough to do as he liked, and he thrust his hand into his girdle and brought it out full of silver and he said to her,
“Is it enough and is it not enough?”
She stared at the handful of silver and said then without further delay,
“Come and say which one you wish.”
And Wang Lung, without knowing what he said, muttered forth,
“Well, and I do not know that I want anything.” And then his desire overcame Mm and he whispered, “That little one—that one with the pointed chin and the little small face, a face like a quince blossom for white and pink, and she holds a lotus bud in her hand.”
The woman nodded easily and beckoning him she threaded her way between the crowded tables, and Wang Lung followed her at a distance. At first it seemed to him that every man looked up and watched him but when he took courage to see he saw that none paid him any heed, except for one or two who called out, “Is it too late enough, then, to go to the women?” and another called, “Here is a lusty fellow who needs must begin early!”
But by this time they were walking up the narrow straight stairway, and this Wang Lung did with difficulty, for it was the first time he had ever climbed steps in a house. Nevertheless, when they reached the top, it was the same as a house on the earth, except that is seemed a mighty way up when he passed a window and looked into the sky. The woman led the way down a close dark hall, then, and she cried as she went,