The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea by Pearl S. Buck Read Free Book Online

foreign doctor to touch him! As he was born, let him remain. I love him. He is my son, if you will not have him for yours.”
    “Be quiet, Sunia,” he commanded. “Do you accuse me of being less a parent than you? It is simply that if the child can be made perfect, he should be perfect.”
    She cried out at him again. “You think only of yourself! You are ashamed of your child! Oh, you must always have everything—so—so perfect!”
    He was amazed. Never had he seen her in such anger as this. She could pout and be petulant but her tempers ended in laughter. There was no laughter in her now. Her cheeks were scarlet and her eyes black fire, blazing at him.
    “Sunia!”
    His voice was sharp but she would not allow him to speak. She held the child clutched to her breast and went on talking and sobbing at the same time.
    “Are you truebone? I think not! Whoever heard of a tangban who because his son has a small, small, small blemish, at the edge of his ear lobe—no, you are soban—soban—soban!”
    He reached for her and seizing her head in the curve of his right elbow he held his hand over her mouth. She struggled against him, the child in her arms, but he held her. Suddenly he felt her sharp teeth bite into his palm.
    “Ah-h!”
    He uttered a cry and pulled back his hand. The palm was bleeding. He stared at it, and then at her and the blood dripped on the satin quilt.
    She was aghast. “What have I done?” she whispered, and putting down the child she took the end of her wide sleeve and wrapped it around his hand and held it.
    “Forgive me,” she pleaded, and fondled his hand in her breast, her eyes wet with tears.
    He smiled, enjoying the power of forgiving her. “It is true,” he said calmly, “quite true that Korean women are stubborn and independent. I should have married a gentle woman of China, or a submissive woman of Japan—”
    “Ah, don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t—don’t reproach me—”
    “Then what am I?” he demanded.
    “You are truebone, tangban of the yangban class,” she said heartbroken.
    “What else?”
    “A scholar who has passed the imperial examinations.”
    “What else—what else?”
    “My lord.”
    “True—and what else?”
    He took his hand from her breast and with it lifted her face to his.
    “My love,” she said at last.
    “Ah ha,” he said softly. “Now I know all that I am—yangban, tangban and your lord and your love. It is enough for any man.”
    He laid his cheek against hers for a long moment, and then released her, but she clung to him.
    “Your hand is still bleeding?”
    He showed her his hand, palm up. The bleeding had stopped but the marks of her teeth were there, four small red dents. She cried out in remorse, and seizing his hand again in both hers, she pressed her lips against the marks.
    At this moment the child, who had slept through all this, began suddenly to cry. She dropped the hand she held and took the child into her arms and put him to her breast and he suckled immediately and strongly.
    She lifted her eyes to Il-han. He had stepped back from the bed and now stood looking at them.
    “See him,” she said proudly. “He is already hungry.”
    “I see him,” Il-han replied. He was silent for an instant, his eyes on the child at the full smooth breast. “If I can foretell,” he said, “I would foretell that this son of ours will never be hungry. He will always find his way to the source of satisfaction.”
    With this he left the room and returned to his library, looking neither to left nor right at the servants who paused in whatever they were doing to stand, heads downcast in respect, as he passed. Once in his library however he felt no mood for books. Unwittingly Sunia had touched upon an uneasy point in his own thinking. These times into which he had brought his sons to life were repeating in strange ways the age in which his own grandfather had lived. Now why should Sunia at this moment hark back to the age when civilian nobles