PEARL S. BUCK
March, 1963
Part I
I
THE YEAR WAS 4214 after Tangun of Korea, and 1881 after Jesus of Judea. It was spring in the capital city of Seoul, a good season for a child to be born, and a fair day. Il-han, surnamed Kim, of the clan of Andong, sat in his library waiting for the birth of his second child to be announced. It was a pleasant room, larger than most rooms, and since the house faced south, the sun climbing over the walls of the compound shone dimly through the rice-papered lattices of the sliding walls. He sat on satin-covered floor cushions beside a low desk, but the floor itself was warmed by smoke ducts from the kitchen stove, after the ancient ondul fashion. He tried diligently to keep his mind on his book, open before him on the low desk. Three hours had passed since his wife had retired to her bedroom, accompanied by her sister, the midwife and women servants. Three times one or the other of them had come to tell him that all went well, that his wife sent him greetings and begged him to take nourishment, for the birth was still far off.
“Far off?” he had demanded. “How far off?”
Each time the answer had been a shake of the head, a vague smile, a retreat, behavior typical of women, he thought somewhat scornfully, at least of Korean women, silken sweet on the surface, but rock stubborn underneath. All except his beautiful and beloved wife, his Sunia! He would have been ashamed to show to anyone, even to her, how much he loved her, and this although he had never seen her before their wedding. For once matchmakers had not lied and fortunetellers had been correct in the forecasting of signs and dates. Sunia had fulfilled every duty as a bride. She had not smiled once throughout the long day of the wedding, in spite of the ruthless teasing of relatives and friends. A bride who could not control her laughter on her wedding day, it was said, would give birth only to girls. Sunia had given birth to a son, now three years old, and if the fortuneteller was right again, today she would have another. Il-han’s home, his family, made a center of peace in these troubled times of his country. But when had times not been troubled for Korea? In four thousand years there had been scarcely a century of peace for the small valuable peninsula hanging like a golden fruit before the longing eyes of the surrounding nations, proud China demanding tribute, vast Russia hungry for the seacoast she did not have, and Japan, ambitious for empire.
He sighed, forgetting home and family, and rose to walk impatiently to and fro across the room. It was impossible to keep his mind fixed on books, although he was a scholar, not the scholar his father was, poring over ancient volumes, but a scholar for all of that. His book today was a modern one, a history of western nations. His father would not have been pleased had he known that he, Kim Il-han, the only son of the Kim family of Andong, was engaged in such learning, his father who lived in the classics of Confucius and in dreams of the golden age of the dynasty of Silla! But he, Il-han, like all young men of his generation, was impatient with old philosophies and religions. Confucianism, borrowed from China, had isolated this nation already isolated by sea and mountain, and Buddhism had led the hermit mind of his people into fantasies of heaven and hell, gods and demons, into anything, indeed, except the bitter present.
He paced the tiled floor of his library, a tall slender figure in the white robes of his people, and he listened for the cry of his newborn child while he mused. Then, burning with restlessness at the delay and suddenly feeling himself hot, he slid back the latticed wall. The clear sunshine of the spring morning poured its rays across his low table desk. The desk had been his grandfather’s, a solid piece of teak imported from Burma, made after his grandfather’s own design, and decorated with fine Korean brass.
“This desk shall be yours,” his father had told him upon the grandfather’s death. “May the thoughts and writings of a great statesman inspire you, my son!”
His grandfather had indeed been a great man, a premier of the still existing Yi dynasty, and from the Yi rulers he had absorbed the doctrine of isolationism and the emotions of pride and independence.
“Situated as we are, surrounded by three powerful nations, Russia, China and Japan,” his grandfather had memorialized the Throne half a century ago, “we can only save ourselves from their greed by withdrawal from the world. We must become a hermit nation.”
His father had often quoted these words and Il-han had listened to them with secret scorn. The absurdity of his elders! He had kept his own secrets even from his father, his share in the first revolt against the Regent, Taiwunkun. He, Il-han, had been only a boy but a useful boy, carrying messages between the rebel leaders and the young Queen. The Regent had married his son, King Kojong, to her when he was far too young for marriage, and because he was young the Regent had chosen a daughter of the noble clan of Min, older than the King, a choice he had cause to rue, for who could believe the beautiful graceful girl was strong and of such brilliant mind, and determined that she could plot to set the Regent aside? He, Il-han, had seen her at first only by candlelight, at midnight, in stolen conference with the rebel leaders, he waiting at the door for a packet thrust into his hand which he must take to the young King when he went to play chess with him the next day. Even then he had known that the Queen was the one who must rule, and that the King, his gentle and amiable playmate, could only be the buffer between the arrogant Regent and the Queen.
But Il-han had told his father nothing. What could his father do, the handsome aging poet, dreaming his life away in his country house and his garden? For his father, unwilling to wound his grandfather, who had served the Regent, by taking the part of the young Queen who loved China, had early withdrawn from the royal conflict. Queen Min, it was said, though how truly none knew, was herself partly Chinese and her most powerful friend was Tzu-hsi, the Empress Dowager now ruling in Peking. From that capital the Queen still insisted upon buying the heavy silks and satin brocades she enjoyed wearing, and though some censured her for extravagance, he, Il-han, had not the heart to blame her for anything she did. Now in the joy of awaiting the birth of his second child, he thought of the Queen’s only son, heir to the throne, who had been born of feeble mind. In the center of her being, proud and beautiful and brilliant as she was, there was emptiness, and he knew it.
His absent mind, always pondering affairs of state, was presently controlled by his attention focused at this moment to hear the cry of his child fighting to be born. He paused, listening for footsteps. Hearing none, he returned to his desk, took up a camel’s-hair pen and continued to write a memorial he had begun some days before. Were this document to be presented to the King, he would have been compelled to use the formal Chinese characters. It was written not for the Court, however, but for the secret perusal of the Queen, and he used the symbols of the phonetic Korean alphabet.