The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea

by Pearl S. Buck

  His father spoke like a prophet, and like a prophet he looked, the old prophets of another age, of whom Yul-han read in his Christian books. He was silent and reverent before his father. Yet his father and himself were not the only ones. All over the country, in city and village, people gathered to hear someone who could read to them of Wilson, and all looked to that man as their hope and their savior. There was not one voice under heaven except his voice which spoke such words. Others spoke of their own countries but this man spoke of all nations, and they believed in him. Everywhere the people crowded into Christian churches with hope and eagerness, believing that the God to whom Wilson prayed would make him victorious and with his victory would come their freedom again. Indeed, because of Wilson’s faith they joined the churches and many thousands became Christian for his sake.

  Wilson declared that on the sixteenth day of the fifth month he would speak to his own people, and by now, such was his strength, when he spoke to his own, in reality he spoke to all peoples. Even before this day could arrive, however, the arrogant enemy in Europe sank three great American ships.

  Yul-han hastened to his father’s house when the news of the ships was told. Il-han was in triumph. His eyes, still black and lively, were bright with excitement.

  “Now,” he told Yul-han, his left hand slapping the newspaper he held in his right, “now Wilson must lead his people to war.”

  “Father!” Yul-han exclaimed. “I cannot believe you are a man of peace! Or have you been drinking?”

  “I have not been drinking,” Il-han retorted. “Hear this!”

  He laid hold of Yul-han’s arm and held him while he read aloud the words that Wilson had spoken, breaking in with his own exclamations of approval.

  “He speaks to the German people, this man—he begs them to turn against their own tyrants. It is as if he spoke to us—to our people. He says—he says—” Here Il-han stopped to find the place with his forefinger. “He says, ‘We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not their impulse that their government entered this war. This war was provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools—’” Here Il-han paused to inquire of his son, “Is that not our people? Are we not being used as pawns and tools? He is speaking to us, I tell you—no, wait, there is more—he says—here, he tells the German people, ‘We seek no indemnities, no material compensation, we desire no conquests—no dominion. We have no selfish ends to serve.’ Is there another man like this one under heaven? No, I swear there is not—And then he goes on, he says, ‘There must be a League of Nations, to which all nations should belong, and before which all nations may present their injustices.’ There is where you must go, my son! I will go with you. When the war is won we will go to the League of Nations. We will present our cause.”

  Yul-han was alarmed. He had tried several times to stop the flood of his father’s talk and could not. Tears were streaming down Il-han’s cheeks, he was trembling, his lips quivered, he was half laughing, half weeping.

  “Father, remember the war is far from won. The Germans are in the place of power. It is the last hope that the Americans are now in it too. We do not know—”

  “I do know!” Il-han shouted. “I know that this man will win the war for us! When I read his words, I feel my own heart ready to burst. I grow strong again, I am young, I can go to battle myself!”

  “I grant that his words are strong and skilled, Father, but words do not win a war.”

  Il-han was like a child, disappointed. “You are cold,” he said passionately. “You are very cold. If Woodrow Wilson is not enough for you, then where is your God, this new Christian God? Is he not Wilson’s God also?”

  His father had cut him to the heart “Yes,” he said. “He is the same God.”

  He turned then and left his father’s house. This was how it was on that day, and when he came to his own house Ippun met him at the gate. Her round frostbitten face was bright.

  “Master,” she said, “you have a girl in your house, your daughter.”

  Yes, Induk had become pregnant again, though neither of them had rejoiced. The times were too hard for children, and it was enough to have Liang, their son. He grew big for his age, a large child, benign, composed and yet radiant. He walked at eight months and talked before he was a year old. Yul-han too often forgot how young he was and spoke to him and considered him as a person. The child loved his father and was happy in his presence, yet when he was away he amused himself easily with whatever he found.

  Above all, however, the child loved his grandfather, and Il-han found such comfort in this as he had not expected to find again in his lifetime.

  “Liang, my grandson,” he told Yul-han, “repays us for every loss I have suffered.” And again he said, his voice solemn, “Liang, my grandson, must never be punished. Whatever he does is with good purpose and with understanding too deep for us.”

  It was only natural, then, that Yul-han and Induk felt it enough to have one such child. Often, indeed, they doubted whether they knew how to be good parents, wise enough, learned enough, for Liang as he grew to manhood. Again and again Yul-han had been unwilling to think of another child to be born, even while he saw Induk’s body swelling as months passed.

  Nor did this unwillingness change now as he looked down into the small wrinkled face of his newborn daughter. In silence he knelt beside the bed upon which Induk lay. She looked at him with her delicate air of sadness and pleading, her narrow high-cheeked face as pale as ivory and her eyes long and dark. She had a tender mouth and a high smooth forehead, the combination just this side of beauty.

  “Why have we dared to have this child and a girl, too?” Her voice was sorrowful and low.

  He knew what she meant. In times like this, in the midst of hunger and gloom and lost freedom, how could they protect a daughter? He had felt his own heritage was unhappy enough, a country beset with quarrels and divisions and threatened war, but at least the country had still belonged to his people. Now they were no better than serfs, and the only ones who were not serfs were traitors who had sold themselves to the invaders. Only the Christians had solidarity in their hope that some day God, in whom they placed their single trust, would deliver them out of the hand of the enemy.

  “We must make her childhood as happy as we can,” he said at last. “Let us at least give her something to remember.”

  Induk did not reply and taking her long narrow hand, work-worn as it was, and warming it between his own hands, he noticed for the first time how different their hands were, his strong and square, but well shaped as were the hands of his people. Then he laid her hand gently on the coverlet and took the tiny clenched fist of his daughter into his palm. “Perhaps when she is a woman the world will be better and our country free,” he said. “Let us hope, for without hope we die.”

  Spring passed into summer. Across the eastern seas all knew that young Americans were being called from their homes to become soldiers. The Japanese morning paper reprinted the notice:

  ATTENTION

  Register Tuesday, June 5th

  On Tuesday June 5th every male between the ages of 21 years and 31 years, whether a citizen of the United States or not, must register at the nearest voting place in his ward. Registration does not mean liability to military service unless you are a citizen of the United States or have taken out first citizen papers.

  The American President himself issued a proclamation which was also reprinted in the Japanese papers:

  CALL TO ARMS

  Now therefore I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, do proclaim and give notice to all—and I do charge that every male person of the designated ages is written on these lists of honor—

  The great sonorous words rolled across the world and announced to the serfs and the slaves and to all who were not free, and to Yul-han himself, that those male persons whose names were to be written on the lists of honor would
deliver not only his own people from the danger of invaders, but those who had been and were invaded.

  In the church the missionary raised his hairy arms to heaven and asked God’s blessing on America and on the American President and from the thousands of the suppliant congregation of Koreans there came forth like thunder after lightning a great Amen.

  … They were meeting in the church at night. In the night, when the lamps of the city were put out and the rulers slept, the Christians stole to the church and sitting in the darkness, listened to Yul-han who read aloud beside a single candle, hidden by a wooden shelter. What he read was news of the war halfway across the world. Japan had seized territories in China; yes, ships were sinking to the bottom of the sea; yes, young men were dying by the thousands, and then by the millions. Britain alone had five million young men dead; yes, but Woodrow Wilson was speaking again to the peoples of the world and the Christians crowding the churches in Korea listened:

  “‘The military-masters of Germany who proved also to be the masters of Austria-Hungary, their tool and pawn, have regarded the smaller states as their natural tools and instruments of domination.’”

  A long low moan came from the people. “We are also tools and instruments of domination!”

  Yul-han read on. “‘Filling the thrones of the Balkan States with German princes, developing sedition and rebellion, their purpose is to make all the Slavic peoples, all the free and ambitious nations of the Baltic peninsula, subject to their will!’”

  The people chanted in the same long moan, “We—we are the subjects of others’ will!”

  Yul-han lifted his head, his voice rang out, dangerous with hope. “Hear further the words of Woodrow Wilson! ‘We shall hope to secure for the peoples of the Baltic peninsula and for the people of the Turkish Empire the right and the opportunity to make their own lives safe from the dictation of foreign courts!’”

  “Make us safe, too, Woodrow Wilson! Make us safe from the dictation of foreign courts,” the people chanted.

  All over the world such words were sent by the magic wireless. All that Wilson said was sent, and set in the news of each day’s fighting were the messages of Wilson, put on the air as they were spoken and within twenty-four hours heard everywhere, from the mountains of South America to the mountains of Korea. Three hundred newspapers in the vastness of China received the news and told it to hundreds more in the surrounding countries until the voice of Woodrow Wilson was known everywhere and all that he said was believed.

  In the midst of winter, as the war wore on, when snow lay two feet deep in the streets burying the frozen dead under its white cover, Yul-han came home one day from his school. It was evening and his mother was waiting for him.

  “Come to your father,” she said, “he is weeping like a child and I cannot stop him, nor will he tell me why he weeps.”

  Yul-han went at once across the courtyard and into his father’s library. There he found his elder walking up and down the room, sobbing aloud, and clutching against his bosom a crumpled newspaper. Yul-han caught him by the arms and held him.

  “Father, what is it that makes you weep?”

  Il-han freed himself, he flung out the newspaper. “See this!” he cried. “Fourteen Points—Wilson’s Fourteen Points—”

  He held the folded newspaper, his hands trembling, and then threw it down. “I cannot read it. You read it—no—let me read this one—this third one.” And Il-han read in a loud voice. “‘National aspirations must be respected; people may now be dominated and governed only at their own consent. Self-determination is not a mere phrase; it is an imperative principle of action.’ … My son—” Il-han folded the newspaper small and thrust it in his bosom. He pointed his long forefinger for emphasis. “My son, it is of our people that he speaks! He knows—he knows!”

  The tears of the old come as easily as the tears of children, and Yul-han saw that his father wept for relief upon hope long deferred. Underneath his seeming confidence in Woodrow Wilson he had hidden a deep fear that again an American President was not to be trusted. Now he could believe. Self-determination—was it not the same as independence?

  “Sit down, Father,” Yul-han said. “Let your heart rest.”

  … Il-han was not the only one to be overjoyed. Everywhere the people rejoiced in private, and Christians gave thanks in the churches. On the following Sunday such thanksgiving was made in Yul-han’s church. He went alone that morning, for Induk had stayed at home to tend her younger child who was fretful and often ill. The day was fair, the mountains clear against the deep blue sky, and Yul-han felt a new cheerfulness as he came out of the church. As usual, beggars waited at the steps leading from church to street, for they had learned that Christian hearts were softer on a Sunday than on other days.

  Now as Yul-han came to the street, a beggar stepped forward and caught his coat. Without looking at him, Yul-han reached into his pocket and found a coin and dropped it in the beggar’s hand. He went on then and after a few minutes he heard footsteps and turning his head, he saw the beggar again. He waited until the beggar came near to ask why he followed. When the beggar came near, however, he saw the eyes and was silent, wondering. Where had he seen those eyes?

  “You do not know me,” the beggar said.

  “No,” Yul-han said, and suddenly it occurred to him that this voice he heard was not the beggar-whine he had heard at the church.

  “Walk on,” the beggar said. “I will follow, my hand outstretched, as though I were begging.”

  Yul-han obeyed, much amazed, and the beggar went on talking, his voice low but strong.

  “How many years has it been? I cannot blame you for not knowing me. Yet I am your brother.”

  Yul-han turned involuntarily and was about to cry out Yul-chun’s name, when he heard the beggar-whine again—

  “A penny, a good deed, master—mercy, good master, to send you on your way to heaven.

  “Put money in my hand,” Yul-chun muttered. Again Yul-han obeyed.

  “Good master, you have given me a bad coin.”

  Yul-han leaned to look at the coin lying in the beggar’s hand and he heard these words: “Leave the gate open tonight—and do not sleep.”

  They parted, the beggar effusive in thanks and Yul-han as steady as though his head were not swimming. Yul-chun! Of course it was Yul-chun. He hastened home and told Induk, swallowing his words in his haste and then his eyes fell on his son. The child was listening as though he understood, an impossibility, and yet Yul-han fell silent.

  … Somewhere between midnight and dawn, when the night was darkest, Yul-han heard the gate swing slowly open, not more wide than enough to admit the thin body of a man. He stood in the darkness and he put out his hand and felt his brother’s shoulder and he slid his hand to find his brother’s hand. Then stealing in such silence that their feet made no sound, they crossed the garden to the house, and Yul-han led the way to a small inner room, a storeroom with no windows, and where bags of grain stood against the walls. Induk brought floor cushions and a lantern and the two brothers sat and talked in whispers.

  “I escaped prison two days ago,” Yul-chun said.

  “Prison!” Yul-han exclaimed.

  The light from the candle flickered on Yul-chun’s high cheekbones and shadowed the deep-set sockets of his eyes.

  “Did you not guess I was in prison?” he asked. “Ever since the trials.”

  “The Living Reed!” Yul-han said in sudden comprehension. “You were the Living Reed.”

  “And am,” Yul-chun said. He went on to tell his brother hastily what had befallen him since they had last been together.

  “But how I escaped—you will not believe it, but a Japanese came to my cell that night I thought myself doomed, and I spoke recklessly of my dream of independence for our people. He listened, said nothing, and went away—and I saw the door of my cell ajar.”

  “What was his name?” Yul-han asked.

  When Yul-chun spoke it, Yul-han remembered that it was the name of
the young chief of the Bureau of Education who had given him permission to become the head of the Christian school, and who himself had once attended a Christian school in Tokyo. Was there not a miracle here, a Christian miracle?

  Yul-chun was urging questions again. “How are our parents? Tell me what has happened in our family—but quickly, brother! By dawn I must be far away.”

  As quickly as he could Yul-han told him of their parents and of his own marriage and the birth of his children.

  A flickering tenderness appeared on Yul-chun’s harsh face. “I would like to see your son,” he said. “Since I am not to have a life like other men, it may be that only your son will carry on the war for our independence.”

  At this Induk, still silent, rose and went to the room where Liang lay asleep. She lifted the boy from his bed, and carried him to Yul-chun. The child was barely awake but being amiable and benign by nature, he roused himself and smiled at his uncle at first without much concern. Suddenly, however, an inexplicable change took place. The smile left his face, he leaned forward in his mother’s arms and gazed most earnestly into his uncle’s eyes. He gave a cry of joy, he reached out his arms and leaned out so far that Yul-chun caught him to keep him from falling. The child clung to him, he put his arms about Yul-chun’s neck, he laid his cheek against his cheek, then he lifted his head to gaze at Yul-chun again and laughed aloud, and this he did again and again while Yul-han and Induk stood transfixed in amazement.

  “How is this?” Induk cried. “The child knows you! Why, he was never like this, even with us!”