Now when Wang Lung and his son heard this they could scarcely conceal their dismay, but still it must be concealed because of the knives flashing everywhere through the courts, so they smiled what poor smiles they could muster and they said,
“We are fortunate—we are fortunate—”
And the eldest son pretended he must go to prepare and he took his father’s hand and the two of them rushed into the inner court and the eldest son barred the door, and then the two, father and son, stared at each other in consternation, and neither knew what to do.
Then the second son came running and he beat upon the door and when they let him in he fell in and scarcely could save himself in his haste and he panted forth,
“There are soldiers everywhere in every house—even in the houses of the poor—and I came running to say you must not protest, for today a clerk in my shop, and I knew him well—he stood beside me every day at the counter—and he heard and went to his house and there were soldiers in the very room where his wife lay ill, and he protested and they ran a knife through him as though he were made of lard—as smoothly as that—and it came through him clean to the other side! “Whatever they wish we must give, but let us only pray that the war move on to other parts before long!”
Then the three of them looked at each other heavily, and thought of their women and of these lusty, hungry men. And the eldest son thought of his goodly, proper wife, and he said,
“We must put the women together in the innermost court and we must watch there day and night and keep the gates barred and the back gate of peace ready to be loosed and opened.”
Thus they did. They took the women and the children and they put them all into the inner court where Lotus had lived alone with Cuckoo and her maids, and there in discomfort and crowding they lived. The eldest son and Wang Lung watched the gate day and night and the second son came when he could, and they watched as carefully by night as by day.
But there was that one, the cousin, and because he was a relative none could lawfully keep him out and he beat on the gate and he would come in and he walked about at will, carrying his knife shining and glittering and open in his hand. The eldest son followed him about, his face full of bitterness, but still not daring to say anything, for there was the knife open and glittering, and the cousin looked at this and that and appraised each woman.
He looked at the wife of the eldest son and he laughed his hoarse laugh and he said,
“Well, and it is a proper dainty bit you have, my cousin, a town lady and her feet as small as lotus buds!” And to the wife of the second son he said, “Well, here is a good stout red radish from the country—a piece of sturdy red meat!”
This he said because the woman was fat and ruddy and thick in the bone, but still not uncomely. And whereas the wife of the eldest son shrank away when he looked at her and hid her face behind her sleeve, this one laughed out, good humored and robust as she was, and she answered pertly,
“Well, and some men like a taste of hot radish, or a bite of red meat”
And the cousin answered back, promptly,
“That do I!” and he made as if to seize her hand.
All this time the eldest son was in agony of shame at this byplay between man and woman who ought not even to speak to each other, and he glanced at his wife because he was ashamed of his cousin and of his sister-in-law before her who had been more gently bred than he, and his cousin saw his timidity before his wife and said with malice,
“Well, and I had rather eat red meat any day than a slice of cold and tasteless fish like this other one!”
At this the wife of the eldest son rose in dignity and withdrew herself into an inner room. Then the cousin laughed coarsely and he said to Lotus, who sat there smoking her water pipe,
“These town women are too finicking, are they not, Old Mistress?” Then he looked at Lotus attentively and he said, “Well, and Old Mistress indeed, and if I did not know my cousin Wang Lung were rich I should know by looking at you, such a mountain of flesh you have become, and well you have eaten and how richly! It is only rich men’s wives who can look like you!”
Now Lotus was mightily pleased that he called her Old Mistress, because it is a title that only the ladies of great families may have, and she laughed, deep and gurgling, out of her fat throat and she blew the ash out of her pipe and handed the pipe to a slave to fill again, and she said, turning to Cuckoo,
“Well, this coarse fellow has a turn for a joke!”
And as she said this she looked at the cousin out of her eyes coquettishly, although such glances, now that her eyes were no longer large and apricot-shaped in her great cheeks, were less coy than they once were, and seeing the look she gave him, the cousin laughed in uproar and cried out,
“Well, and it is an old bitch still!” and he laughed again loudly.
And all this time the eldest son stood there in anger and in silence.
Then when the cousin had seen everything he went to see his mother and Wang Lung went with him to show where she was. There she lay on her bed, asleep so her son could hardly wake her, but wake her he did, clapping the thick end of his gun upon the tiles of the floor at her bed’s head. Then she woke and stared at him out of a dream, and he said impatiently,
“Well, and here is your son and yet you sleep on!”
She raised herself then in her bed and stared at him again and she said wondering,
“My son—it is my son—” and she looked at him for a long time and at last as though she did not know what else to do she proffered him her opium pipe, as if she could think of no greater good than this, and she said to the slave that tended her, “Prepare some for him.”
And he stared back at her and he said,
“No, I will not have it”
Wang Lung stood there beside the bed and he was suddenly afraid lest this man should turn on him and say,
“What have you done to my mother that she is sere and yellow like this and all her good flesh gone?”
So Wang said hastily himself,
“I wish she were content with less, for it runs into a handful of silver a day for her opium, but at her age we do not dare to cross her and she wants it all.” And he sighed as he spoke, and be glanced secretly at his uncle’s son, but the man said nothing, only stared to see what his mother had become, and when she fell back and into her sleep again, he rose and clattered forth, using his gun as a stick in his hand.
None of the horde of idle men in the outer courts did Wang Lung and his family hate and fear as they did this cousin of theirs; this, although the men tore at the trees and the flowering shrubs of plum and almond and broke them as they would, and though they crushed the delicate carvings of chairs with their great leathern boots, and though they sullied with their private filth the pools where the flecked and golden fish swam, so that the fish died and floated on the water and rotted there, with their white bellies upturned.
For the cousin ran in and out as he would and he cast eyes at the slaves and Wang Lung and his sons looked at each other out of their eyes haggard and sunken because they dared not sleep. Then Cuckoo saw it and she said,
“Now there is only one thing to do, he must be given a slave for his pleasure while he is here, or else he will be taking where he should not”
And Wang Lung seized eagerly on what she said because it seemed to him he could not endure his life any more with all the trouble there was in his house, and so he said,
“It is a good thought”
And he bade Cuckoo go and ask the cousin what slave he would have since he had seen them all.
So Cuckoo did, then, and she came back and she said,
“He says he will have the little pale one who sleeps on the bed of the mistress.”
Now this pale slave was called Pear Blossom and the one Wang Lung had bought in a famine year when she was small and piteous and half-starved, and because she was delicate always they had petted her and allowed her only to help Cuckoo and to do the lesser things about Lotus, filling her pipe and pouring her tea, and it was thus the cousin had seen her.