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

of the hall. All moved except one man, and he moved to the left. The others were surprised to see even one man at the left and the magistrate praised the man, declaring that he was the symbol of what men should be.
    “Tell us,” the magistrate commanded him, “how it is you have achieved such independence.”
    The man was a small timid fellow and, surprised, he could only stammer a few words, explaining that he did not know what all this was about and he was obeying his wife, who bade him always to avoid crowds.
    His father finished this tale and he looked at Il-han with roguish eyes. “I,” he declared, “have of course always been at your mother’s command. When worse comes to worst, I remind myself that women still cannot do without men, since it is we who hold the secret of creating children for them.”
    He had blushed at such frankness and his father had laughed at him. He smiled now, remembering, and a tall country wife, carrying a jar of bean oil on her head, shouted at him.
    “Look where you walk, lord of creation!”
    He stepped aside hastily to let her pass, and caught a sidewise glance of her dark eyes flashing at him with warning and laughter, and he admired her profile. A handsome people, these his people! He had seen Japanese merchants as well as Chinese. The Japanese men were less tall than his countrymen, and the Chinese men were less fair of skin, their hair blacker and more wiry stiff. A noble people, these his people, and what ill fortune that they were contained within this narrow strip of mountainous land coveted by others! If they could but be left alone in peace, he and his people, to dream their dreams, make their music, write their poems, paint their picture scrolls! Impossible, now that the surrounding hungry nations were licking their chops, impossible now that the civilian tangban had grown decadent and the rebellious soban again were threatening from beneath!
    He paused at the south gate, whose name was the Gate of High Ceremony, and inquired of the guard to say at what hour the sun would set, for then the gate would be locked and no one, except on official business, could come in or go out
    The guard, a tall man with a cast in his right eye, squinted at the western sky and made a guess.
    “Where do you go, master?” he asked.
    “I go to see my father,” Il-han replied.
    The guard recognized him for a Kim, as who did not, and he lowered his spear and spoke with respect. “You will have time to drink two bowls of tea with your honored one.”
    “My thanks,” Il-han said.
    When he had passed through the vast gate he paused, as he always did, to look back. This gate was one of eight gates to the city, any of which the people might use for coming and going except for the north gate, which was kept locked, for it was the way of escape for the King if there were war, and the southwest gate, which was for criminals on their way to execution outside the city wall. The southwest gate was known also as the Water Mouth Gate because the river flowed through there. It was also the gate used for the dead on their way to burial. All dead must pass through the gate, except dead kings, who could pass through other gates. The gate was built of wood and painted with colors of red and blue and green and gold. It sat high on the great stone wall and there were two stories, the first one wider than the second, and in the wooden wall of the second story were holes through which arrows could be shot. The roof was tile and the corners were lifted as are the palace roofs and gates of Peking—the better, Il-han had been told as a child, to catch the devils who slide down roofs in play and then falling to the ground are mischievous and enter houses to annoy good folk and bring trouble to them.
    Once when he was thirteen years old he had climbed the tower and he found, cut deep into the wood, the letters of an ancient name. It was the name of a boy prince, the second son of the ancient dynasty of Yi who, like