“Art glad to go?”
The boy swept again to the ground, and, bending up, spread out his pink palms in a gesture of pleased acceptance. “Most glad, O ancient long-beard.”
The grandfather laughed. “Nay, thou liest. Thou art loth to go. And I am loth to have thee go. But it is best, and so I send thee.” He held out his yellow, claw-like hand, and little Wu came and caught it to his forehead, then stood leaning against the other’s knee, and began playing with the long string of scented beads that hung about the man’s neck.
“Well,” the mandarin said again, “say all that is in thy heart. Leave off the words of ceremony. Speak simply. Say what thou wilt.”
“When do I go?” It was characteristically Chinese that such was the question, and not “Must I go?” or even “Why must I go?” The grandfather had said that he was to go: that point was settled. From that will there was no appeal. The boy scarcely knew that there were children who did not obey their parents implicitly and always. That there were countries—in the far off foreign-devils’ land—where filial disobedience was almost the rule, he had never heard and could not have believed. Of course, in the classics, which even now he read easily, there were runaway marriages and undutiful offspring now and then. But the end of all such offenders was beyond horror horrible, and even so little Wu had always regarded them as literary makeweight, artistic shades to throw up the high lights whiter, shadows grotesque and devilish as some of his grandsire’s most precious carvings were, and scarcely as flesh and blood possibilities.
In all their ten years together there had been between these two nothing but love and kindness. No child in China (where children are adored) had ever been more indulged; no child in China (where children are guarded) more strictly disciplined. The older Wu had loved and ruled; the younger Wu had loved and obeyed always. They live life so in China.
“When do I go?” was all the boy said.
“Soon after your marriage moon: the third next moon, as I plan it.”
The child’s face glowed and creamed with relief. He was only ten, and—at least in that part of the Empire—older bridegrooms were the rule. If the dreaded exile were not to begin until after his marriage, years hence, all its intricate ceremonial, all its long-drawn-out preliminaries, and happily to be delayed again and again by the astrologers, why, then here was respite indeed.
“Nay,” the mandarin said, shaking his old head a little sadly, “think not so. Thy marriage will be when the cherry trees in Honan next bloom.”