The Good Earth: Chapters 24-34

With his life placid again and the lad content, Wang Lung might have been satisfied except that one night when he sat late and alone, reckoning on his fingers what he could sell of his corn and what he could sell of his rice, O-lan came softly into the room.

She shook her head at this, and, the difficult speech halting on her lips, she said further, “Well, and my lord, come home unexpectedly.”

He set his teeth then, and he went out and chose a slim, supple bamboo from the grove and he stripped off the branches, except for a cluster of small branches at the top, thin and hard as cord, and he ripped off the leaves.

But he looked at her with some strange remorse, and he saw that she had grown thin and her skin was sere and yellow.

Now when O-lan heard the words, “five hundred pieces of silver” she came suddenly out of her languor and she said weakly, “No, and my life is not worth so much. A good piece of land can be bought for so much.”

Now these were many words for her at any time, even in health, and she said them more sturdily than she had said anything for many moons, and Wang Lung was cheered at the strength in her voice and with what vigor she desired this, and he would not cross her, although he would have liked more time for a great wedding for his eldest son.

To everything the maid was acquiescent, but reluctant and shy as was proper and correct for her.

And he laughed so heartily that the guests all laughed to see his mirth and Wang Lung thought to himself that if only O-lan had been up from her bed it would have been a merry day.

And Cuckoo had brought cooks from the town to prepare the feast, for there were to be many delicacies such as cannot be prepared in a farmer’s kitchen and the town cooks came bearing great baskets of food ready cooked and only to be heated, and they made much of themselves and flourished their grimy aprons and bustled here and there in their zeal.

And with the silence over the house and with the ebbing of merriment strength passed from O-lan and she grew weary and faint and she called to her the two who had been wed that day and she said, “Now I am content and this thing in me may do as it will. My son, look to your father and your grandfather, and my daughter, look to your husband and your husband’s father and his grandfather and the poor fool in the court, there is she. And you have no duty to any other.”

He found a good day three months hence and it was the first good day the geomancer could find, so Wang Lung paid the man and went to the temple in the town and he bargained with the abbot there and rented a space for a coffin for three months, and there was O-lan’s coffin brought to rest until the day of burial, for it seemed to Wang Lung he could not bear to have it under his eyes in the house.

Then Wang Lung was scrupulous to do all that should be done for the one dead, so he caused mourning to be made for himself and for his children, and their shoes were made of coarse white cloth, which is the color of mourning, and about their ankles they bound bands of white cloth, and the women in the house bound their hair with white cord.

She cried out at the sight and ran crying to her father and Wang Lung came in and found the old man so; his light, stiff old body was dry and cold and thin as a gnarled pine tree and he had died hours before, perhaps as soon as he had laid himself upon the bed.

He only said “Heaven wills it,” and he accepted flood and drought with meekness.

These even tried to beleaguer the town so that the townspeople locked the gates of the wall continually except for one small gate called the western water gate, and this was watched by soldiers and locked at night also.

Wang Lung told him plainly then what he had told no one, “I hate these three worse than my life and if I could think of a way I would do it. But your uncle is lord of a horde of wild robbers, and if I feed him and coddle him we are safe, and no one can show anger toward them.”

Wang Lung told him plainly then what he had told no one, “I hate these three worse than my life and if I could think of a way I would do it. But your uncle is lord of a horde of wild robbers, and if I feed him and coddle him we are safe, and no one can show anger toward them.”

It is not meet for a man to love his wife with a foolish and overweening love, as though she were a harlot.

So when his son said, “We could live in the great house,” the thought leaped into his mind as though he saw it actually before his eyes, “I could sit on that seat where that old one sat and from whence she bade me stand like a serf, and now I could sit there and so call another into my presence.”

And moved by some strange impulse he went forward and he sat down where she had sat and he put his hand on the table and from the eminence it gave him he looked down on the bleary face of the old hag who blinked at him and waited in silence for what he would do.

This Wang Lung said in some reproach to the wife of his eldest son, for she would not suffer the poor fool near her, but was finicking and squeamish and she said, “Such an one should not be alive at all, and it is enough to mar the child in me to look at her.”

And the uncle and his wife and son moved into the inner courts where Lotus had been and they took it for their own, but this did not grieve Wang Lung unduly, for he saw clearly there were not many days of life left for his uncle and when the idle old man was dead Wang Lung’s duty to that generation was over and if the younger man did not do as he was told none would blame Wang Lung if he cast him out.

Then Wang Lung looked at his son standing there in his handsome raiment and he shut his eyes and drew hard on his pipe and he growled forth, “Well, and what now and what again?”

“Yes, and for this he weeps in the night, and this is why he is so pale and so reedy a lad,” answered the eldest son.

And of his own friends the eldest son asked but a few of the least considered to the feast, because he was ashamed of his brother’s parsimony and because the bride was but a village maid.

This he said because the woman was fat and ruddy and thick in the bone, but still not uncomely.

And whereas the wife of the eldest son shrank away when he looked at her and hid her face behind her sleeve, this one laughed out, good humored and robust as she was, and she answered pertly, “Well, and some men like a taste of hot radish, or a bite of red meat.”

And as she said this she looked at the cousin out of her eyes coquettishly, although such glances, now that her eyes were no longer large and apricot-shaped in her great cheeks, were less coy than they once were, and seeing the look she gave him, the cousin laughed in uproar...

And as she said this she looked at the cousin out of her eyes coquettishly, although such glances, now that her eyes were no longer large and apricot-shaped in her great cheeks, were less coy than they once were, and seeing the look she gave him, the cousin laughed in uproar...

She raised herself then in her bed and stared at him again and she said wondering, “My son—it is my son—” and she looked at him for a long time and at last as though she did not know what else to do she proffered him her opium pipe, as if she could think of no greater good than this, and she said to the slave that tended her, “Prepare some for him.”

And Lotus was displeased with her and she answered pettishly, “Now he is only a man and a man is no more than a man with a maid and they are all alike, and what is this ado?”

But Wang Lung was indulgent and he said to Lotus, “Let us see first what else can be done, and let me buy for you another slave if you will, or what you will, but let me see what can be done.”

And he cast his eyes over the slaves who stood about and they turned away their faces and giggled and made as if they were ashamed, all except one stout wench, who was already twenty or so, and she said with her face red and laughing, “Well, and I have heard enough of this thing and I have a mind to try it, if he will have me, and he is not so hideous a man as some.”

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.

Then as though there was not enough trouble with the women of his house all awry, there was Wang Lung’s youngest son.

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.

He suddenly felt himself older than he was—a man old and too thick of girth and with whitening hair, and he saw his son a man slim and young, and it was not for this moment father and son, but two men, one old and one young, and Wang Lung said angrily, “Now keep off the slaves—I will not have the rotten ways of young lords in my house. We are good stout country folk and people with decent ways, and none of this in my house!”

Wang Lung could not cease from his thought of what his youngest son had said of Pear Blossom and he watched the maid incessantly as she came and went and without his knowing it the thought of her filled his mind and he doted on her.

And Wang Lung could have wept for what she said because not one had ever requited him like this, and his heart clung to her...

But when he would have thought of it his interest in the matter waned and before he knew it he was thinking of his tea and that the young spring wind smote cold upon his shoulders.