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better to be first with an ugly woman than the hundredth with a beauty. Do you imagine a pretty woman will think your farmer’s
And then he was ashamed of his own curiosity and of his interest in her. She was, after all, only a woman.
Moving together in a perfect rhythm, without a word, hour after hour, he fell into a union with her which took the pain from his labor. He had no articulate thought of anything; there was only this perfect sympathy of movement, of turning this earth of theirs over and over to the sun, this earth which formed their home and fed their bodies and made their gods. The
Some time, in some age, bodies of men and women had been buried there, houses had stood there, had fallen, and gone back into the earth. So would also their house, some time, return into the earth, their bodies also. Each had his turn at this earth. They worked on, moving together—together—producing the fruit of this earth—speechless in their movement together.
But Wang Lung sat upon a bench by the table in the darkness and put his head upon his folded arms. Out of this body of his, out of his own loins, life!
He thought of this at first with joy and then with a pang of fear. It did not do in this life to be too fortunate. The air and the earth were filled with malignant spirits who could not endure the happiness of mortals, especially of such as are poor.
Words were to her things to be caught one by one and released with difficulty.
He shouted at her, irritable with fatigue, “So you have chosen this time to breed again, have you!”
my worthless oldest slave creature.
“It is over once more. It is only a slave this time—not worth mentioning.”
Mother, on birth of a daughter.
am older than you and I have no son, and it does not matter whether I live or die.”
Then there was always distrust of that which one did not know and understand. It is not well for a man to know more than is necessary for his daily living.
perpetual stinking fertilizing of human wastes to force
the land to a hurried bearing of this vegetable and that besides their rice.
“Meat is meat,” she said quietly.
“We must get back to the land.”
And later when they were fully men and married and the dismay of increasing numbers filled their hearts, the scattered anger of their youth became settled into a fierce despair and into a revolt too deep for mere words because all their lives they labored more severely than beasts, and for nothing except a handful of refuse to fill their bellies.
“And would you sell the child, therefore?” “If it were only I, she would be killed before she was sold … the slave of slaves was I! But a dead girl brings nothing. I would sell this girl for you—to take you back to the land.”
And O-lan said, “It is a year older than he says.”
his eldest girl child neither spoke nor did those things which were right for her age but only smiled her baby smile
names for the sons; for the elder, Nung En, and for the second Nung Wen, and the first word of each name signified one whose wealth is from the earth.
“There is a country bumpkin!”
“Ah, it is only the farmer!”
“Oh, and how ignorant you are, you great fellow? Shall we sit here the night through while you stare?”
“What is this sickness that turns you full of evil temper and your skin as yellow as clay?”
to Wang Lung there was nothing so wonderful for beauty in the world as her pointed little feet and her curling helpless hands.
For one thing, he saw that there was trouble at once between O-lan and Cuckoo.
AS HE HAD BEEN healed of his sickness of heart when he came from the southern city and comforted by the bitterness he had endured there, so now again Wang Lung was healed of his sickness of love by the good dark earth of his fields and he felt the moist soil on his feet and he smelled the earthy fragrance rising up out of the furrows he turned for the wheat.
And it was a pride to Wang Lung in the village that men mentioned with envy the woman in his inner court; it was as though men spoke of a rare jewel or an expensive toy that was useless except that it was sign and symbol of a man who had passed beyond the necessity of caring only to be fed and clothed and could spend his money on joy if he wished.
Then the good land did again its healing work and the sun shone on him and healed him and the warm winds of summer wrapped him about with peace.
And she slept and ate and took on her body this soft smooth flesh. If she was no longer the lotus bud, neither was she more than the full-blown flower, and if she was not young, neither did she look old, and youth and age were equally far from her.
you are too kind and weak for pain and you might say to leave me as I am, and then my husband would not love me even as you do not love her.”
“I have not beat her and I have given her silver when she asked for it.”
geomancer
And out of his heaviness there stood out strangely but one clear thought and it was a pain to him, and it was this, that he wished he had not taken the two pearls from O-lan that day when she was washing his clothes at the pool, and he would never bear to see Lotus put them in her ears again.
You have grown fond and too fond of your wife and it is not seemly, for a man ought not to care for his wife that his parents gave him above all else in the world. It is not meet for a man to love his wife with a foolish and overweening love, as though she were a harlot.”
when anyone asked him how many children he had, “Well, and I have three sons.”
“I desire a maid from a village, of good landed family and without poor relatives, and one who will bring a good dowry with her, neither plain nor fair to look upon, and a good cook, so that even though there are servants in the kitchen she may watch them. And she must be such a one that if she buys rice it will be enough and not a handful over and if she buys cloth the garment will be well cut so that the scraps of cloth left over should lie in the palm of her hand. Such an one I want.”
Then less than ever did Wang Lung go to see his lands, because now Ching was gone it stabbed him to go alone and he was weary of labor and his bones ached when he walked over the rough fields alone.
muttering that one day they would come back even as the poor do come back when the rich are too rich.
Now Wang Lung had never thought to ask his youngest son what he wished to do with his life,
He was a lad not like either of his brothers, a lad as silent as his mother, and because he was silent none paid any attention to him.
‘There is a man who makes his son into a hind while he lives like a prince.’ So people will say.”
And Wang Lung marvelled to think that once he had feared her for a great fat blowsy country woman, idle and loud, she who lay there now shrivelled and yellow and silent, and as shrivelled and yellow as the Old Mistress had been in the fallen House of Hwang.
“Well, and it is a curious thing and I shall be glad to see a war for what it is, for I have heard of it all my life and never seen it.”
besides he was rich and the rich need not fear anything.
but being a girl it was only slave bearing slave, and she was no more than before.
