Good Earth, The - Pearl S. Buck [95]
"That big lad of yours is pining and desires to go away."
Then Wang Lung, remembering his anger against his son, said sharply,
"Well, and what is it to you? I will not have him in these rooms at his age."
But Lotus made haste to reply, "No---no---it is Cuckoo who says it" And Cuckoo made haste to say, "Anyone can see the thing and a lovely lad he is and too big for idleness and longing."
Wang Lung was led aside by this and he thought only of his anger against his son and he said,
"No, and he shall not go. I will not spend my money foolishly." And he would not speak of it any more and Lotus saw he was peevish from some anger, and she sent Cuckoo away and suffered him there alone.
Then for many days there was nothing said and the lad seemed suddenly content again, but he would not go to school any more and this Wang Lung allowed him, for the boy was nearly eighteen and large like his mother in frame of bones, and he read in his own room when his father came into the house and Wang Lung was content and he thought to himself,
"It was a whim of his youth and he does not know what he wants and there are only three years---it may be a little extra silver will make it two, or even one, if the silver is enough. One of these days when the harvests are well over and the winter wheat planted and beans hoed, I will see to it."
Then Wang Lung forgot his son, for the harvests, except what the locusts had consumed, were fair enough and by now he had gained once more what he had spent on the woman Lotus. His gold and his silver were precious to him once more, and at times he marvelled secretly at himself that he had ever spent so freely upon a woman.
Still, there were times when she stirred him sweetly, if not so strongly as at first, and he was proud to own her, although he saw well enough that what his uncle's wife had said was true, that she was none too young for all her smallness of stature, and she never conceived to bear a child for him. But for this he cared nothing, since he had sons and daughters, and he was willing enough to keep her for the pleasure she gave him.
As for Lotus, she grew lovelier as her fullness of years came on, for if before she had had a fault, it was her birdlike thinness that made too sharp the lines of her little pointed face and hollowed too much her temples. But now under the food which Cuckoo cooked for her, and under the idleness of her life with one man only, she became soft and rounded in body, and her face grew full and smooth at the temples, and with her wide eyes and small mouth she looked more than ever like a plump little cat. 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 fom her.
With his life placid again and the lad content, Wang Lung might have been satisfied except that one night when he sat late and alone, reckoning on his fingers what he could sell of his corn and what he could sell of his rice, O-lan came softly into the room. This one, with the passing of the years had grown lean and gaunt and the rock-like bones of her face stood forth forth and her eyes were sunken. If one asked her how she did she said no more than this,
"There is a fire in my vitals."
Her belly was as great as though with child these three years, only there was no birth. But she rose at dawn and she did her work and Wang Lung saw her only as he saw the table or his chair or a tree in the court, never even so keenly as he might see one of the oxen drooping its head or a pig that would not eat. And she did her work alone and spoke no more than she could escape speaking with the wife of Wang Lung's uncle, and she never spoke at all to Cuckoo. Never once had 0-lan gone into the inner courts, and rarely, if Lotus came out to walk a little in a place other than her own court, O-lan went into her