Good Earth, The - Pearl S. Buck [59]
"Will you sell them all?" she asked in a hoarse whisper.
"And why not then?" he answered, astonished. "Why should we have jewels like this in an earthen house?"
"I wish I could keep two for myself," she said with such helpless wistfulness, as of one expecting nothing, that he was moved as he might be by one of his children longing for a toy or for a sweet.
"Well, now!" he cried in amazement.
"If I could have two," she went on humbly, "only two small ones---two small white pearls even..."
"Pearls!" he repeated, agape.
"I would keep them---I would not wear them," she said, "only keep them." And she dropped her eyes and fell to twisting a bit of the bedding where a thread was loosened, and she waited patiently as one who scarcely expects an answer.
Then Wang Lung, without comprehending it, looked for an instant into the heart of this dull and faithful creature, who had labored all her life at some task at which she won no reward and who in the great house had seen others wearing jewels which she never even felt in her hand once.
"I could hold them in my hand sometimes," she added, as if she thought to herself.
And he was moved by something he did not understand and he pulled the jewels from his bosom and unwrapped them and handed them to her in silence, and she searched among the glittering colors, her hard brown hand turning over the stones delicately and lingeringly until she found the two smooth white pearls, and these she took, and tying up the others again, she gave them back to him. Then she took the pearls and she tore a bit of the corner of her coat away and wrapped them and hid them between her breasts and was comforted.
But Wang Lung watched her astonished and only half understanding, so that afterwards during the day and on other days he would stop and stare at her and say to himself,
"Well now, that woman of mine, she has those two pearls between her breasts still, I suppose." But he never saw her take them out or look at them and they never spoke of them at all.
As for the other jewels, he pondered this way and that, and at last he decided he would go to the great house and see if there were more land to buy.
To the great house he now went and there was in these days no gateman standing at the gate, twisting the long hairs of his mole, scornful of those who could not enter past him into the House of Hwang. Instead the great gates were locked and Wang Lung pounded against them with both fists and no one came. Men who passed in the streets looked up and cried out at him,
"Aye, you may pound now and pound again. If the Old Lord is awake he may come and if there is a stray dog of a slave about she may open, if she is inclined to it."
But at last he heard slow footsteps coming across the threshold, slow wandering footsteps that halted and came on by fits, and then he heard the slow drawing of the iron bar that held the gate and the gate creaked and a cracked voice whispered,
"Who is it?"
Then Wang Lung answered, loudly, although he was amazed,
"It is I, Wang Lung!"
Then the voice said peevishly,
"Now who is an accursed Wang Lung?"
And Wang Lung perceived by the quality of the curse that it was the Old Lord himself, because he cursed as one accustomed to servants and slaves. Wang Lung answered, therefore, more humbly than before.
"Sir and lord, I am come on a little business, not to disturb your lordship, but to talk a little business with the agent who serves your honor."
Then the Old Lord answered without opening any wider the crack through which he pursed his lips,
"Now curse him, that dog left me many months ago and he is not here."
Wang Lung did not know what to do after this reply. It was impossible to talk of buying land directly to the Old Lord, without a middleman, and yet the jewels hung in his bosom hot as fire, and he wanted to be rid of them and more than that he wanted the land. With the seed he had he could plant as much land again as he had, and he wanted the good land of the House of Hwang.
"I came about a little money," he said hesitatingly.