The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

by Pearl S. Buck

  “All very well for the Queen,” she would cry. “All very well for her to send you wandering alone through the mountains and the valleys in these troubled times! She has other men to heed her bidding. Of men she has a plenty, but I have only you. To me you are everything and without you I am lost and with me our children. What if you never come back? What if—”

  He broke off this imagining. He would tell Sunia first. He could persuade the Queen more easily than he could persuade his wife. He must choose the time, a moment when Sunia was gay and tender and pleased about some family matter. He pondered a while and then remembered she had wanted a new icehouse. The old icehouse in the rear of the compound was falling into ruins, and last summer the stores of winter ice had melted too early so that when the heat of the late eighth moon month fell upon them, there was no ice. This he would do for her housekeeping, he decided. For herself, he would buy jade from China, a ruddy piece such as she had longed for and did not have for it was hard to come by and the jade dealers brought it only now and again. She had white jade hairpins and she had green jade bracelets and earrings, but red jade she had not, and she wanted a lump of it to use as a large button to clasp a gold jacket that she loved. He smiled at himself that he could stoop to such wiles, but he loved Sunia for her few smallnesses, since she was of noble nature. It even pleased him to find a weakness here and there in her.

  That night, therefore, when he was about to tell her of the new icehouse, she forestalled him luckily by saying that the elder child had lost himself that day and the servants had searched and called his name everywhere for half the morning. They heard a faint voice at last and it came from the old icehouse. The child had crept into the half-open door and pulled it shut after him and the jar of its closing had tumbled broken stone into a heap against the door and locked him in.

  “Oh, my heart beat fast enough to kill me,” Sunia gasped as she told the story. “We might never have found him and then some day in the winter when we cut the fresh ice blocks to put into the house, there he would have been—dead! Il-han, you must build a new icehouse. What if we had lost the child?”

  “Quiet yourself,” he said, soothing her. “In the first place, where was the child’s tutor?”

  “I forgot to tell you that he went home for three days. He is to be betrothed.”

  “Then where was the servant whose business it is to follow the child wherever he goes?”

  She broke in. “But you know this is kimchee time, and we need every hand to help! I had sent to the country yesterday for the last cabbages and turnips and—”

  “Enough,” he said. “I accept all excuses—”

  “Not excuses.”

  “—as valid,” he went on firmly, “and I will build a new icehouse immediately. But I must tell you, Sunia, that I must leave home for a space and while I am gone—”

  “Oh, why?” she wailed.

  “Let me finish,” he said. “While I am away from home, how can my heart rest if I know there is not always someone watching our elder son? True, the old icehouse shall be torn away at once, but this child, being what he is, will only plunge himself into new peril.”

  “Then why do you go?” she demanded.

  “I would not go,” he said, “unless I knew it to be my duty.” And as was his habit when he did not wish to speak further at a given moment, he rose and left her.

  From Sunia he went to the room where his elder son slept. The child lay on the floor bed, his arms upflung, his face beautiful in peace. This stormy boy, this being of his creation, who could so twist and tear at his father’s heart, lay there now in such calm innocence that Il-han could have wept. Yet this same child could turn into a devil of anger and mischief and destruction and there were times when Il-han wondered if he were possessed. Once, because a kitten would not come to him, the child had strangled it. Once he had bitten his baby brother’s tiny hand so that blood came. Once he had taken a stone and broken a turtle’s new shell. When he thought of these times Il-han shivered. Yet there were other times. Into the bitten hand the elder brother had pressed a favorite toy of his own. Once he had wept for a brood of birdlings when the wind blew down their nest and they were too young to take food from his hand. And there were the times, how many times, when the child had curled himself into his father’s arms, hungry for love. Did he dare leave this child? Yes, for what he did was for the child, too. The country must be safe for his sons more than for himself.

  That night he was so silent and so grave that Sunia did not dare to speak to him. She was afraid because of what he had told her and before they slept she crept close to him and he was won by her gentleness and dread and he took her to his heart.

  When he announced himself next day at the gate of the Secret Garden, where the Queen’s palace stood, he waited in the anteroom until the guard came back after a while to tell him that the Queen took her leisure today in the bower of the garden. There he was led when she declared herself ready to receive him and he found her in the small room under the triangular roofs of the bower. She stood by a carved table heaped with flowers and autumn leaves and to suit the season she wore a full skirt and short jacket of russet and wine-red satin.

  She was in a good mood, he could see, for she did not demand ceremony and was not herself ceremonious.

  “Enter,” she said. “You see me in disarray. I am amusing myself. I hope you have not come with troubles. You are always so grave that I cannot tell what goes on inside that skull of yours. It is full of secrets, I daresay.”

  She spoke with willfulness and smiles, and it occurred to him again that beyond being royal she was also a beautiful woman. He wondered at himself that he could continue to have such thoughts about his Queen and he put them hastily away.

  “Majesty,” he said, “I have come not to disturb your pleasure but with a request.”

  “Speak on,” she commanded. She took a pin from the knot of her hair and caught into it a golden chrysanthemum and then put the pin into her dark hair again and the flower glowed there like a jewel against the pale cream of her nape. He looked away.

  “I ask that I be excused from attendance upon your Majesty for the space of months—a few months. I cannot declare the number of months, for my purpose is to travel everywhere over our country to observe the people, high and low, and measure their strength, their skills, their temper. Then when I return to give report to you, I shall know well what to say. Only thus can I know how strong our people are for defending our land.”

  He made his request in a low, even voice, measuring his tones with reverence for her royal presence although she deigned to appear before him as a woman. He was horror-struck to see the change in her. She took swift steps to him and seized his right arm in both hands and clung to him.

  “No,” she whispered. “No—no—”

  He tried to step back, but she would not let him. He felt the blood drain from his head and he was suddenly giddy. What was the meaning of such behavior? His consternation showed in his face, and her eyelids fell under his shocked gaze. She released him and stepped back and clothed herself again in dignity.

  “I have reason to believe—” she began in a low voice and looked about her. No, no one was near. At his entrance she had commanded her women to retire to the end of the garden, within sight but not within sound, but they were to turn their backs to her. He stood like stone, waiting, his eyes fixed now on the mossy path where she stood.

  She began to arrange her flowers again. “I hear rumors that the Regent is plotting to return to the throne,” she said over her shoulder.

  Shame and relief, these were what he felt. How dared he dream that his truebone Queen could behave only as a woman? Was it her fault that she was graceful and beautiful? And relief, because he knew now that not even a Queen could tempt him away from Sunia, since his first impulse had been to step back, to leave the dangerous presence. His heart was insulated by love for his wife, and he was glad that it was so. He spoke with restored calm.

  “Majesty,
I have heard of no such plot.”

  “There is much you have not heard of,” she retorted.

  Her back was toward him now, but he saw her white hand tremble among the flowers. He went on.

  “Nor has my father heard the rumor, for if he had, I am certain he would have spoken to me.”

  “Your father is a friend of the Regent,” she said.

  “My father is a man of honor, Majesty, and a patriot.”

  “Even the King does not believe me,” she said in a low voice, “so why should I think you would?”

  “Where do you hear these rumors, Majesty?” he asked.

  “A young woman, who waits on me in the night, is married to a guardsman at the palace of the Regent, and he hears the rumors and tells her.”

  “Servants’ talk,” Il-han declared.

  “Nevertheless, I wish you would not go.”

  He did not reply at once. She looked at him over her shoulder and seeing his face rebellious, she spoke once more.

  “No, I lay no such command upon you. Go, enjoy yourself.”

  “Majesty—”

  She would hear nothing more.

  “Go, go,” she said impatiently, and he left her there among the flowers, his heart troubled but resolute.

  There are many ways for a man to see his country. Had it been his father, Il-han knew that the preparations would have been vast. Boxes of garments and rolls of bedding, food and drink, a small stove for cold, fans for heat and huge umbrellas of oiled paper for rain, servants and a train of horses and for himself a cart padded with deeply quilted cotton, all these would have been necessary. And when he arrived at a town, the chief family would assemble to welcome him and arrange for his entertainment and comfort and he would meet the scholars and the poets and artists and they would drink tea and sip wine and write their endless verses and his father would have come back knowing no more than when he went, for he carried his world with him and for him there was no other. Il-han was of another sort. His tutor with whom he had grown up from childhood to manhood had taught him to hunger after knowledge and to know he must make himself like other men if he wished to learn from them.

  To Sunia’s amazement, then, he insisted upon assuming the garments of a man neither rich nor poor and taking with him no more than one man, his faithful servant, could carry on his horse. The two of them set forth on horseback on a fine cool day in early autumn, five days after his audience with the Queen. In spite of knowing how large was the task he had set himself, Il-han was lighthearted. To go upon a holiday he could not, for it would have seemed like a boy at play, and he would not have left his family duties for play. Now, however, he went with purpose, and if he were also diverted such diversion could be enjoyed in good conscience.

  The last farewells were said. He stayed alone with Sunia for a few minutes, the wall screens closed between them and all others. He took her in his arms and held her warm soft cheek against his.

  “How can you leave me?” she sighed.

  “How can you let me go?” he retorted.

  She gave him a playful push. “Is everything my fault?”

  They clung together again, as though they could never part.

  “I wonder at us both,” she said at last.

  Then since they must part she drew away from him and they went into the other room where the children waited, the older with his tutor and the younger with his nurse. Again Il-han wondered why the love of country was deeper in him than any other. His elder son began to cry when he saw his father ready to leave, and he caught the child to him and reminded the tutor of his duty.

  “I hold you responsible,” he said sternly. “The child is never to be out of your sight.”

  “I am responsible,” the young man replied.

  With the elder son clinging to his waist, Il-han next took the younger one from the arms of the nurse. This child was tranquil by nature and placid, with content and good health. His face was round, his cheeks were pink, and his dark eyes bright. He smiled at his father and looked about at the assembled servants and at his mother.

  “He never cries, this one!” his nurse said. “Whatever is, he finds it good.”

  “I am glad to have one like him,” Il-han replied and gave the child to her again.

  To her, too, he gave warning. “I hold you responsible,” he said.

  “I am responsible,” the nurse replied.

  Farewells were finished, and since Il-han had visited his father the day before, there was no need to disturb him again, and he left his house and went through the gate to the street beyond, the neighbors bidding him as he went to guard his health, to drink no cold water and to beware of bandits in the mountains. He left them all behind at last and giving rein to horse, he departed from the city by the northwest gate. To the north he would go first, then eastward and south, striking through the center of the great peninsula which was his country. Once more he would move slowly up the western coast northward again until he reached the island of Kanghwa, which lies at the mouth of the river Han.

  This island was dear to Il-han, though he had never seen it, for here began the history of his people. On a mountaintop upon Kanghwa the people believed that their first king, Tangun, had come down from Heaven three thousand years before the era called Christian. For four thousand years after this sacred birth, the people lived in peace under many kings until, seven hundred and more years ago, the fierce men of Mongolia poured their hordes across the Yalu River and swarmed over the land. Then the King and his people retreated to Kanghwa, since they could not hold back the invaders. The King commanded that a wall be built on the landward side of the island, and the people said that Tangun, now returned to Heaven, sent down his three sons to help them build the wall, which thereafter was known as the Wall of the Three Sons.

  Such was legend, and Il-han had heard it in his childhood, for his grandfather spoke often of Kanghwa, not only for the sake of history but because here the Kim clan had its beginning.

  “Kanghwa is the stronghold of our independence and the birthplace of our clan,” his grandfather had told him. “There in every battle a Kim fought to defend our country. When the Mongols had returned to their own country, their hands dripping treasure they stole from us, we had some hundreds of years of peace until certain lawless tribes from beyond China attacked again. Once more Kanghwa was our bastion. Alas, now the Wall was broken down by the enemy but we would not yield. We built the Wall again, a Kim in command under the King, and again we repelled the enemy. When they were gone, we came out to acclaim our land. Yes, my grandson, in Kanghwa is the secret of our undefeated spirit.”

  Indeed it had been so, for even in Il-han’s memory Frenchmen had made effort to reach the capital city, Seoul, and might have succeeded except when they tried to come up the river Han, the only entrance to the city, the Wall of the Three Sons held them back and they too were repelled and the capital was saved.

  Mountains and valleys, sea and farmlands and island, he would travel everywhere and see his country and his people as they were.

  … With what words shall a man tell of love for his country? Before he was conceived in his mother’s womb, Il-han was conceived in the earth of his native land. His ancestors had created him through their life. The air they breathed, the waters they drank, the fruits they ate, belonged to the earth and from their dust he was born. When he bade farewell to his Queen and to his wife and children, Il-han laid aside for the time being all other loves except this one pervading love, the love of his country, and he opened his heart and his mind, day by day, to the people he now met, the scenes he saw, the life he lived. With no other companion than his servant, he traveled by day and slept by night wherever he happened to be when darkness fell.

  Northward he went in the beginning and in a score of days he was in the Kumgang-san or Diamond Mountains, the name given to them not because jewels were there, but because the Buddhist monasteries built in high places were such that they shed enlightenment more illustrious than any sun. He ha
d never traveled into these mountains and had only heard of their tortuous shapes, carved by high winds and torrential rains. They were barren cliffs, and in the dark and narrow valleys between, white torrents of water leaped in waterfalls to join the great rivers that emptied into the surrounding seas.

  He had read the record of the mountains, made some two hundred and fifty years before he was born, by a great geographer, Yi Chung-hwan. These mountains, he read, formed three strong ranges: the Taeback Range, which ran across the country from north to south like the spine of some vast animal; in the northeastern corner three smaller ranges were parallel; and in the southwest was a third range, running north. Rain and melting snows washed the soil down from the mountains and each winter it piled, rich and fertile, into the valleys. How fertile, Il-han saw every day as he rode northward on his horse, for the fields were already golden with the rice harvest, and persimmons, yellow and red, were ripening on the trees. Against the gray cliffs of the mountains tall narrow trees of poplar rose like candles of yellow flame, few in number in the scanty soil, but each tree standing single and emphatic.

  In the midst of this stern beauty the people walked like prophets and like poets, tall men in their white robes and high black hats, and women as tall in bright full skirts and short jackets, carrying baskets on their heads or jars of oil. Children were everywhere, the gay children of countryfolk. By night he saw them close, for he stopped each evening after sunset at the first village to which he came and asked for shelter at some grass-roofed house. Without fail he was made welcome to what the family had—a pot of soup, wheat with dried bean curd, a bowl of rice, a crust of wheaten bread, a dish of mixed herring and shrimps pickled together, kimchee for relish, and a cup of hot tea at the end of the meal. He made talk with the men while the women sat in the shadows and the children pressed about to stare and listen.

  The talk was simple enough. “Have you enough to eat?” he asked first and the answer was usually, yes, enough, but sometimes not enough before the harvest.