Yet they could not be held back. When the American General appeared on the gangway, the five hundred pressed forward, waving their flags and banners, to greet the American General as he came down the gangway from his ship. At this same moment the Japanese police lifted their guns and opened fire. Five Koreans fell dead, and nine fell wounded, and gifts and banners were wet with their blood.
What Il-han and Yul-chun and the two young men now saw was not to be believed, but they saw it and were compelled to believe what their eyes told. For that American General, descending from his ship, did not reprove or stay those police or even blame them for what they had done. Instead he commended them for “controlling the mob,” as he put it, whereupon the Koreans who had come to welcome him were scattered by the police and the waiting Japanese officials became the hosts. With their eyes Il-han and Yul-chun and the two young men saw this and with their ears they heard the American General declare to the Japanese officials that they were to keep their posts until he could form a military government to take over the country. He neither spoke to the Koreans nor seemed to see them. While they heard and saw this, the four of them, Il-han and Yul-chun, Sasha and Liang, were standing crowded together in a doorway of a house. The door was barred, but they had taken shelter there under the roof when the police dispersed the welcoming Koreans. They looked at one another, the flags and flowers hanging limp in their hands.
“What shall we do now, Grandfather?” Liang asked.
“We go home again,” Il-han replied. He threw the flowers into a ditch. “Fold our flag,” he told Yul-chun, “we will take it home with us and put it away for another day.”
This they were about to do when Yul-chun turned, irresolute until he saw the American accept the sword of the Governor-General. He heard him speak affably to the Japanese, ignoring the fleeing Koreans. He saw the flags and the banners trampled in the dust as the Koreans ran, the flowers crushed. And suddenly he went mad. He ran back, waving the Korean flag and shouting, “Mansei — Mansei!”
He was not allowed to shout more than this. Guns were instantly raised, shots sounded in the air and he fell into the dust, dead.
It was Liang who ran back to him, and what might have happened to him, too, cannot be told, for he was saved by his superior at the hospital. Among the Koreans but somewhat apart from them were a few Americans, missionaries and teachers and doctors, and it was the doctor who ran to meet Liang.
“Go back,” the American whispered. “Go back — go back before they shoot again! Leave him! I will take him to the hospital — but hurry — hurry — I am in their bad graces — I can’t save you—”
Liang could only obey, for he saw Il-han had fallen and could not be lifted, although Sasha was holding up his head. Together the two young men lifted the aged man and they carried him to the hospital to await the coming of Yul-chun’s dead body, Liang comforting his grandfather as he went.
“My uncle would have chosen a death like this.”
But Il-han refused comfort. “Am I to be comforted? Be silent!”
There was no silence, nevertheless, for behind them came those who were left of the crowd, weeping and groaning because the Living Reed was dead.
“Who will take his place?” Il-han inquired.
It was the day of the funeral and they were home again, but Yul-chun lay now on the hillside beside his grandfather. From everywhere people had come to bow before his old parents and to him.
“No one — no one,” Sunia sobbed. “We have lost our sons.”
They were in the main room, waiting for Ippun to bring them hot tea. Suddenly from the garden they heard angry voices.
“How dare you go to the north?”
“Can that be our Liang?” Sunia whispered.
“Hush,” Il-han said. They sat side by side on their floor cushions, and he put out his hand to take Sunia’s hand while they listened.
In the dark garden the two young men sprang at each other. The two old people heard pants of rage, the grunts and snorts of young men embattled.
“Sasha will kill our Liang,” Sunia muttered. She got to her feet with effort and tottered to the door.
“You two!” she screamed in her high quavering old voice.
They did not hear her and Il-han came to her side.
“What are they fighting about now?” he inquired.
“Who knows?” Sunia said. She peered out from under her hand. They were struggling in the dust, locked together. She began to sob. “Our Liang will be killed!”
But Liang was astride the fallen Sasha. He had him by the shoulders, shaking his head against the hard earth.
“You!” Sasha was shouting between chattering teeth. “You have no pride — you — you — live here — under the — the insult of these Americans — no shame — take your — your hands away — my throat—”
Il-han suddenly pushed Sunia aside. He strode on his shaky legs to the two young men and with all his strength he tried to pull them apart.
“Must I see you against each other, you two in my own house? Are we forever to be against each other?”
At the sound of Il-han’s voice Liang suddenly came to himself. He got up and drew his breath in great sobs. “Grandfather,” he began and could not go on.
But Sasha was on his feet, too. He stooped to take up a knapsack where it had fallen from his shoulder, his old knapsack, and Il-han saw he had put on the clothes in which he had come, the full trousers, the high boots, the belted tunic.
“Traitor!” Sasha now screamed at Liang. “Soft — silly — full of love — stupid love! Dog’s filth! I spit on you — I spit on all of you!”
He spat into the dust at their feet and shouldering his knapsack he ran through the open gate.
Liang stooped then and picked up a small sheet of paper from the earth.
“It was this that sent him mad,” he said to his grandparents. “It was this, after he had seen his father buried. Too much — I know that. And why did I — how could I — it is myself I cannot understand.”
Il-han took the bit of paper from his hand and spelled out the words in the light of the stone lantern. It was a cablegram from Paris: ARE YOU LIVING?
He shook his head. “I can make nothing of that,” he said and he gave it back to Liang.
“Come inside the house,” Sunia called.
But Liang did not heed. He sat down on a stone seat and held his head in his hands. Nor did Il-han heed. He went to the gate and peered into the night beyond, the night into which Sasha had plunged himself.
“What is independence?” Il-han inquired but of no one. He paused and then made his own answer. “Independence? It was a happy thought!”
“Come in!” Sunia called again and she went out and taking his hand, she led Il-han into the house.
“Come, my old man,” she said, soothing him. “Come, my dear old man.”
She helped him to his cushion, and Ippun came in with the teapot and lit a candle.
Outside in the garden Liang came slowly to himself. He felt his soul return into his body. He felt the night wind cool and he heard an early cricket call. Sasha would never come back. They had lost Sasha. He had feared it when he saw Sasha’s face as the coffin was lowered into the grave. He knew it when Sasha, sobbing, had elbowed his way through the reverent crowd. He had followed as quickly as he could, but Sasha had reached home first and had snatched Mariko’s cablegram from the gateman’s hand, the message she had sent from Paris. Sasha was waiting at the gate to spring at him in jealous fury, to accuse him, and suddenly they were trying to kill each other!