And Wang Lung marvelled to think that once he had feared her for a great fat blowsy country woman, idle and loud, she who lay there now shrivelled and yellow and silent, and as shrivelled and yellow as the Old Mistress had been in the fallen House of Hwang.
31
Now all his life long Wang Lung had heard of war here and there but he had never seen the thing come near except the once that he wintered in the southern city when he was young, It had never come nearer to him than that, although he had often heard men say from the time he was a child, “There is a war to the west this year,” or they said, “War is to the east or the northeast.”
And to him war was a thing like earth and sky and water and why it was no one knew but only that it was. Now and again he heard men say, “We will go to the wars.” This they said when they were about to starve and would rather be soldiers than beggars; and sometimes men said it when they were restless at home as the son of his uncle had said it, but however this was, the war was always away and in a distant place. Then suddenly like a reasonless wind out of heaven the thing came near.
Wang Lung heard of it first from his second son who came home from the market one day for his noon rice and he said to his father,
“The price of grain has risen suddenly, for the war is to the south of us now and nearer every day, and we must hold our stores of grain until later for the price will go higher and higher as the armies come nearer to us and we can sell for a good price.”
Wang Lung listened to this as he ate and he said,
“Well, and it is a curious thing and I shall be glad to see a war for what it is, for I have heard of it all my life and never seen it.”
To himself then he remembered that once he had been afraid because he would have been seized against his will, but now he was too old for use and besides he was rich and the rich need not fear anything. So he paid no great heed to the matter beyond this and he was not moved by more than a little curiosity and he said to his second son,
“Do as you think well with the grain. It is in your hands.”
And in the days to come he played with his grandchildren when he was in the mood, and he slept and ate and smoked and sometimes he went to see his poor fool who sat in a far corner of his court.
Then sweeping out of the northwest like a swarm of locusts there came one day in early summer a horde of men. Wang Lung’s small grandson stood at the gate with a man servant to see what passed one fine sunny morning in early spring and when he saw the long ranks of grey-coated men, he ran back to his grandfather and he cried out,
“See what comes, Old One!”
Then Wang Lung went back to the gate with him to humor him, and there the men were filling the street, filling the town, and Wang Lung felt as though air and sunlight had been suddenly cut off because of the numbers of grey men tramping heavily and in unison through the town. Then Wang Lung looked at them closely and he saw that every man held an implement of some sort with a knife sticking out of the end, and the face of every man was wild and fierce and coarse; even though some were only lads, they were so. And Wang Lung drew the child to him hastily when he saw their faces and he murmured,
“Let us go and lock the gate. They are not good men to see, my little heart.”
But suddenly, before he could turn, one saw him from among the men and shouted out at him,
“Ho there, my old father’s nephew!”
Wang Lung looked up at this call, and he saw the son of his uncle, and he was clad like the others and dusty and grey, but his face was wilder and more fierce than any. And he laughed harshly and called out to his fellows,
“Here we may stop, my comrades, for this is a rich man and my relative!”
Before Wang Lung could move in his horror, the horde was pouring past him into his own gates and he was powerless in their midst. Into his courts they poured like evil filthy water, filling every corner and crack, and they laid themselves down on the floors and they dipped with their hands in the pools and drank, and they clattered their knives down upon carven tables and they spat where they would and shouted at each other.
Then Wang Lung, in despair over what had happened, ran back with the child to find his eldest son. He went into his son’s courts and there his son sat reading a book and he rose when his father entered, and when he heard what Wang Lung gasped forth, he began to groan and he went out.
But when he saw his cousin he did not know whether to curse him or to be courteous to him. But he looked and he groaned forth to his father who was behind him,
“Every man with a knife!”
So he was courteous then and he said,
“Well, and my cousin, welcome to your home again.”
And the cousin grinned widely and said,
“I have brought a few guests.”
“They are welcome, being yours,” said Wang Lung’s eldest son, “and we will prepare a meal so that they may eat before they go on their way.”
Then the cousin said, still grinning,
“Do, but make no haste afterwards, for we will rest a handful of days or a moon or a year or two, for we are to be quartered on the town until the war calls.”
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!”