And the second son’s wife did not wait but she answered back loudly,
“Now my sister-in-law is jealous because a man called her only a piece of cold fish!”
And so the two fell to angry looks and hatred, although the elder, being proud of her correctness, would deal only in silent scorn, careful to ignore the other’s very presence. But when her children would go out of their own court she called out,
“I would have you stay away from ill-bred children!”
This she called out in the presence of her sister-in-law who stood within sight in the next court, and that one would call out to her own children,
“Do not play with snakes or you will be bitten!”
So the two women hated each other increasingly, and the thing was the more bitter because the two brothers did not love each other well, the elder always being fearful lest his birth and his family seem lowly in the eyes of his wife who was town bred and better born than he, and the younger fearful lest his brother’s desire for expenditure and place lead them into wasting their heritage before it was divided. Moreover, it was a shame to the elder brother that the second brother knew all the money their father had and what was spent and the money passed through his hands, so that although Wang Lung received and dispensed all the moneys from his lands, still the second brother knew what it was and the elder did not, but must go and ask his father for this and that like a child. So when the two wives hated each other, their hatred spread to the men also and the courts of the two were full of anger and Wang Lung groaned because there was no peace in his house.
Wang Lung had also his own secret trouble with Lotus since the day when he had protected her slave from the son of his uncle. Ever since that day the young maid had been in disfavor with Lotus, and although the girl waited on her silently and slavishly, and stood by her side all day filling her pipe and fetching this and that, and rising in the night at her complaint that she was sleepless and rubbing her legs and her body to soothe her, still Lotus was not satisfied.
And she was jealous of the maid and she sent her from the room when Wang Lung came in and she accused Wang Lung that he looked at the maid. Now Wang Lung had not thought of the girl except as a poor small child who was frightened and he cared as he might care for his poor fool and no more. But when Lotus accused him he took thought to look and he saw it was true that the girl was very pretty and pale as a pear blossom, and seeing this, something stirred in his old blood that had been quiet these ten years and more.
So while he laughed at Lotus saying, “What—are you thinking I am still a—lust, when I do not come into your room thrice a year?” yet he looked sidelong at the girl and he was stirred.
Now Lotus, for all she was ignorant in all ways except the one, in the way of men with women she was learned and she knew that men when they are old will wake once again to a brief youth, and so she was angry with the maid and she talked of selling her to the tea house. But still Lotus loved her comfort and Cuckoo grew old and lazy and the maid was quick and used about the person of Lotus and saw what her mistress needed before she knew it herself, and so Lotus was loath to part with her and yet she would part with her, and in this unaccustomed conflict Lotus was the more angry because of her discomfort and she was more hard than usual to live with. Wang Lung stayed away from her court for many days at a time because her temper was too ill to enjoy. He said to himself that he would wait, thinking it would pass, but meanwhile he thought of the pretty pale young maid more than he^imself would believe he did.
Then as though there was not enough trouble with the women of his house all awry, there was Wang Lung’s youngest son. Now his youngest son had been so quiet a lad, so bent on his belated books, that none thought of him except as a reedy slender youth with books always under his arm and an old tutor following him about like a dog.
But the lad had lived among the soldiers when they were there and he had listened to their tales of war and plunder and battle, and he listened rapt to it all, saying nothing. Then he begged novels of his old tutor, stories of the wars of the three kingdoms and of the bandits who lived in ancient times about the Swei Lake, and his head was full of dreams.
So now he went to his father and he said,
“I know what I will do. I will be a soldier and I will go forth to wars.”
When Wang Lung heard this, he thought in great dismay that it was the worst thing that could yet happen to him and he cried out with a great voice,
“Now what madness is this, and am I never to have any peace with my sons!” And he argued with the lad and he tried to be gentle and kindly when he saw the lad’s black brows gather into a line and he said, “My son, it is said from ancient times that men do not take good iron to make a nail nor a good man to make a soldier, and you are my little son, my best little youngest son, and how shall I sleep at night and you wandering over the earth here and there in a war?”
But the boy was determined and he looked at his father and drew down his black brows and he said only,
“I will go.”
Then Wang Lung coaxed him and said,
“Now you may go to any school you like and I will send you to the great schools of the south or even to a foreign school to learn curious things, and you shall go anywhere you like for study if you will not be a soldier. It is a disgrace to a man like me, a man of silver and of land, to have a son who is a soldier.” And when the lad was still silent, he coaxed again, and he said, “Tell your old father why you want to be a soldier?”
And the lad said suddenly, and his eyes were alight under his brows,
“There is to be a war such as we have not heard of—there is to be a revolution and fighting and war such as never was, and our land is to be free!”
Wang Lung listened to this in the greatest astonishment he had yet had from his three sons.
“Now what all this stuff is, I do not know,” he said wondering. “Our land is free already—all our good land is free. I rent it to whom I will and it brings me silver and good grains and you eat and are clothed and are fed with it, and I do not know what freedom you desire more than you have.”
But the boy only muttered bitterly,
“You do not understand—you are too old—you understand nothing.”
And Wang Lung pondered and he looked at this son of his and he saw the suffering young face, and he thought to himself,
“Now I have given this son everything, even his life. He has everything from me. I have let him leave the land, even, so that I have not a son after me to see to the land, and I have let him read and write although there is no need for it in my family with two already.” And he thought and he said to himself further, still staring at the lad. “Everything this son has from me.”
Then he looked closely at his son and he saw that he was tall as a man already, though still reedy with youth, and he said, doubtfully, muttering and half-aloud, for he saw no sign of lust in the boy,
“Well, it may be he needs one thing more.” And he said aloud then and slowly, “Well, and we will wed you soon, my son.”
But the boy flashed a look of fire at his father from under his heavy gathered brows and he said scornfully,
“Then I will run away indeed, for to me a woman is not answer to everything as it is to my elder brother!”
Wang Lung saw at once that he was wrong and so he said hastily to excuse himself,
“No—no—we will not wed you—but I mean, if there is a slave you desire—”
And the boy answered with lofty looks and with dignity, folding his arms on his breast,
“I am not the ordinary young man. I have my dreams. I wish for glory. There are women everywhere.” And then as though he remembered something he had forgotten, he suddenly broke from his dignity and his arms dropped and he said in his usual voice, “Besides, there never were an uglier set of slaves than we have. If I cared—but I do not—well, there is not a beauty in the courts except perhaps the little pale maid who waits on the one in the inner courts.”