Il-han was amazed. “Who put that in his mind?”
The young tutor lowered his eyes again. A red flush crept up from his neck and spread over his cheeks. “Sir, I am miserable. I fear it was I who did so, but unwittingly. He had heard of his brother’s approaching birth and he asked me where this brother would come from. I did not know how to reply, and I said perhaps he would be found under a rock, like the Golden Frog.”
Il-han laughed. “A clever explanation, but I can think of a better! You might, for instance, have replied that his brother came from the same place that he himself did. And when the child inquired where that was, you could have said, ‘If you do not know, how can I know?’”
The young man forgot himself and raised his eyes to Il-han’s face. “Sir, you do not understand your own son. He is never to be put off. He pries my mind open with his questions. I fear sometimes that in a few years he will be beyond me. He smells out the smallest evasion, not to mention deceit, and worries me for the truth, even though I know it is beyond him. And when in desperation I give him simple truth he struggles with it as though he were fighting an enemy he must overcome. When he comprehends finally and to his own satisfaction, he is exhausted and angry. That was what happened this morning. He insisted upon knowing where his brother came from, and how could I explain to him the process of birth? He is too young. I was driven to use wile and persuasion and so I fetched the book. But he knew it was only a device and this was the true reason for his anger.”
Il-han rose from his cushion and went to the door and opened it suddenly. No one was there and he closed it again and returned to his cushion. He leaned forward on the low desk and spoke softly. “I have called you here for another purpose, also. Your father, as you know, was my tutor. He taught me much, but most of all he taught me how to think. He grounded me in the history of my people. I wish you to do the same for my son.”
The young tutor looked troubled. “Sir, my father was a member of the society of Silhak.”
He lowered his voice and looked toward the closed door.
“Why be afraid?” Il-han inquired. “There is good in the teaching of the Silhak that learning which does not help the people is not true learning. It is not new, mind you. It is made up of many elements—”
“Western, among them, sir,” the tutor put in. He forgot himself and that he was in the presence of the heir of the most powerful family in Korea.
“Partly western,” Il-han agreed. “But that is good. Were it not treason to the Queen, I would say that we have been too long under the influence of the ancient Chinese. Not that we should allow ourselves to be wholly under the influence of the West, mind you! It is our fate, lying as we do between many powers, to be influenced to an extent by all and many. It is our task to accept and reject, to weld and mingle and out of our many factions to create ourselves, the One, an independent nation. But what is that One? Ah, that is the question! I cannot answer it. Yet now for the sake of my sons an answer must be found.”
He leaned against the backrest of his cushion, frowning, pondering. Suddenly he spoke with new energy.
“But you are not to repeat your father’s weakness with me. He told me of evil in other great families, but not in my own family of Kim. Yet in some ways we are the most guilty of all the great families. We early built ourselves into the royal house so that we could acquire benefits. Fifteen hundred years ago, and more, we married three daughters into the eighth monarchy, Honjong. Through three reigns, one after the other, our daughters were married into the truebone royal house. We fed upon the nation, both land and people. The best posts in government went to my ancestors and for that matter to my grandfather, and even my father until he refused to oppose the Regent and retired to live under his grass roof. How else could we live in such houses as these? Palaces! And how else could I be the heir to vast lands in this small country? At one time we even aspired to rule the Throne. You know very well that one of my ancestors so aspired and was crushed — as he deserved to be!”
He spoke with a passion restrained but profound and the young tutor was shocked at this self-humiliation. “These are affairs long past, sir,” he murmured. “They are forgotten.”
Il-han insisted upon his ruthless survey. “They are not forgotten. Millions of people have suffered and do suffer because of the name Kim. We are well named!”
He traced upon the palm of his left hand with the forefinger of his right hand the Chinese letter for Gold, which was indeed the meaning of the name Kim.
“That is what we have lived for — gold in the shape of lands and houses and high position! We have gained the power and even over the royal house. Ah, you must teach my son what your father did not teach me! Teach him the truth!”
He broke off abruptly, his handsome face furious and dark.
Before the tutor could answer, the door slid open. The midwife entered, carrying in her arms the newborn child, laid upon a red satin cushion. She was followed by Il-han’s two sisters-in-law and they by their maids.
His elder sister-in-law came forward. “Brother, behold your second son.”
Il-han rose. Again his family duty claimed him and with a nod he dismissed the tutor. He walked toward the procession and stretched out his arms. The midwife laid the cushion across them with the sleeping child, and he looked down into the small perfect face of his new son.
“Little Golden Frog,” he murmured.
The women looked at one another astonished and then they laughed and clapped their hands. It was a lucky greeting, for the Golden Frog had become a prince.
“What did he say when he saw our child?” Sunia asked.
She had already recovered some of her natural clear color, and her large dark eyes were lively. Childbirth was easy for her and with a second son she was triumphant. Three or four sons from now she could wish for a daughter. A woman needed daughters in the house.
“He smiled and called him little Golden Frog,” her elder sister said. She was a tall slender woman in early middle age married to a scholar who lived in a northern city. Since Sunia’s mother was dead, and Il-han’s also, she came to fulfill the maternal duties for Sunia, and with her came her younger sister, who would not marry but wished to become a Buddhist nun, to which Il-han, in absence of father or brother, could not agree. No woman today, he declared, should bury herself in a nunnery. The day of the Buddhists was over. Without his permission, Sunia’s sister could only wait.
Sunia received her child tenderly and hugged him to her bosom. “He thinks of clever things to say about everything. He is too clever for me. I hope this child will be like him.”
She gazed into the sleeping face and touched the firm small chin with a teasing finger. “Look at him sleep! He is hiding himself from me. I have not seen his eyes.”
“Put him to your breast,” the midwife told her. “He will not suckle yet, but he should feel the nipple ready at his lips.”
The young mother uncovered her round full breast.
“Put him first to the left where the heart is,” the midwife said.
Sunia shook her head willfully. “I put the first son to the left. This one I will put to the right.”
The child stirred when the nipple touched his lips but he did not open his eyes. She teased him then with the nipple, lifting her breast with her hand, brushing his lips lightly and laughing at him. The women gathered about her to enjoy the sight of the healthy young woman and her beautiful male child.
“Look at him, look at him,” the younger sister exclaimed. “He is opening his eyes. Look — he is pouting his lips.”