Hyeong-sik bowed his head and retreated along the path he had come. From the house behind him, the same voice that had earlier said "Half old already..." now sang out, "I'm going, going, I'm going," followed by the same burst of laughter he'd heard before. What should he do? Hyeong-sik thought. "Cheongnyangni! She said she'd go out in the afternoon and be back by six—but she hasn't come back yet!" The words seemed to carry some deeper meaning, and a chill ran through him. "Yeongchae is alone with some man in Cheongnyangni! And it's past eight at night!" Hyeong-sik clenched his fists. He ran at full speed down to the stream in Dabanggol. "Right! I'll go to Cheongnyangni," he resolved. In his ears, he seemed to hear Yeongchae's weeping voice: "Hyeong-sik, save me! I'm in danger!" He sprinted toward Jonggak, intending to catch the Dongdaemun-bound tram crossing Gwangchunggyo. But the tram gave a jjigudeong clatter, rounded the corner at Jonggak, dropped off a couple of passengers, and sped away. Hyeong-sik chased it for a dozen paces, but the tram ignored him and raced off toward Cheongnyeonhoegwan. The night market was even more crowded than before. From a dark spot near the Jonggak corner came an old bachelor's voice, crying, "Oh, it hurts so much, it hurts so much."
🙝 🙟
Hyeong-sik caught the next tram. The signalman swung a green lantern, and the tram lurched forward with another jjiguk clatter, curving around the bend. In his agitation, Hyeong-sik mistakenly boarded a tram bound for Seodaemun via Gurigae. He jumped off and grabbed the next Dongdaemun-bound tram coming right behind. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and neck with a handkerchief. The conductor took his fare, ttallang, and studied Hyeong-sik's face intently. His face had indeed turned beet red. Hyeong-sik glanced around the tram, then lowered his head and closed his eyes. He felt as though the tram were deliberately slowing down. The night market was busy with people coming and going; the driver kept ringing the bell ttallang-ttallang with his foot and crawling along. Fire blazed in Hyeong-sik's chest. He thought of the Westerners in motion pictures racing along in automobiles like a whirlwind, and wished he had a car now. He imagined himself in a car, driving from Jongno past Cheolmulgyo, through Baeogae, past Dongdaemun, through the willows near the Sangwon where the king's sericulture took place, through Cheongnyangni, and into the pine forest of Hongneung. He pictured himself sweating, running from house to house, searching for Yeongchae at the mercy of some man—and when the nuns smiled and said, "We don't know," he grew even more frantic. Just then, someone tapped him on the shoulder.
"Hey—where you going?" said a voice.
Hyeong-sik looked up, startled. It was the newspaper reporter Shin Woo-seon. Woo-seon sat down next to him, fanning himself with his carpenter's hat.
"So how's it going? Does Elder Kim's daughter love you?" he asked loudly, unconcerned whether the passengers nearby heard. For a moment Hyeong-sik recalled his encounter with Seon-hyeong and Sunae at Elder Kim's house, but quickly realized that Woo-seon could help him with his current errand. Hyeong-sik leaned close to Woo-seon's ear.
"It's a disaster," he said.
Woo-seon laughed heartily. "Tsk, you're always having disasters. What now?"
Hyeong-sik tugged Woo-seon's arm, signaling him to keep his voice down, and continued: the daughter of his benefactor was now in Seoul as a gisaeng; she had remained chaste for his sake; now several powerful men were trying to take her; she was being threatened by someone in Cheongnyangni at that very moment; he was on his way to rescue her. He concluded, "Listen, you've got to help me." As he spoke, Hyeong-sik could see Yeongchae suffering some terrible assault at the hands of a man. Woo-seon listened intently to Hyeong-sik's whispered words, nodding "Uh-huh, I see, uh-huh."
"So what's her name?"
"Her real name is Park Youngchae, but she goes by Gyewolhyang." Even as he said it, Hyeong-sik wondered if Gyewolhyang really was Park Youngchae. Woo-seon was startled when he heard the name Gyewolhyang—and that Gyewolhyang, the daughter of Hyeong-sik's benefactor, had remained chaste for him. His eyes went round.
"Is that true?" he asked, looking at Hyeong-sik.
Hyeong-sik, unable to contain his anxiety, breathed heavily. "It's true! True!" He told Woo-seon how Yeongchae had come looking for him the night before, how she had poured out her troubles, and that he had just been to Wolhyang's house in Dabanggol. Then he repeated, "So please, help me."
"Tōdaimon shūten! Dongdaemun terminal!" called the conductor. The two men broke off and got off the tram. The Cheongnyangni tram had not yet arrived.
Woo-seon had a reason to be surprised by Hyeong-sik's words. It was this: Woo-seon too had been one of the many who had lost his head the first time he saw Gyewolhyang. He was no ordinary fellow—one in a hundred. He had a fine appearance, a glib tongue, was barely twenty-five or twenty-six, but well-versed in literature and poetry, from a prominent Seoul family with connections among the wealthy and noble, and to top it off, a reporter for the formidable Daeshinmun. He had every skill and qualification to win a woman's heart. He had kept company with many gisaeng, frequented theater dressing rooms, and flirted with actresses and performers. One might take Shin Woo-seon for a skirt-chasing rake, but he had a poet's generosity, a gentleman's bearing, sincerity, and a sense of honor. His friends chided him for his dissipation, yet still loved his talent and cheerful spirit. "Shin Woo-seon is the kind of romantic hero who leaps out of a Chinese novel"—that was Hyeong-sik's assessment of him, and indeed he had the air of a chivalrous young man from the Tang dynasty in the Suzhou and Hangzhou region.
Shin Woo-seon had set his heart on Gyewolhyang about a month earlier. Confident in his own powers, Woo-seon assumed Wolhyang would inevitably fall into his hands. He surmised that Wolhyang refused the entreaties of rich young men because she sought a heroic genius to whom she could entrust her life—and he believed he was certainly a candidate. So while others tried to seduce Wolhyang with money and lust, he would win her with his looks, talent, and spirit. Of course, Woo-seon lacked the means to compete with money. So every night he wrote poems and sent them to Wolhyang, sometimes by mail, sometimes in person. In time, he thought, Wolhyang would recognize his character and genius, exclaim "I've finally found my match," and open her arms to him. That was his plan, so hearing this from Hyeong-sik naturally came as a shock.
🙝 🙟
Shin Woo-seon studied Hyeong-sik's distressed face as they waited for the tram. From the power plant came the kung-kung-kung-kung of the engine. Yellow-uniformed conductors and drivers moved back and forth under the electric lights. Woo-seon thought: "So that's why she asked me about my Pyongyang friends." Once, when Woo-seon had visited Wolhyang and they were chatting, she had smiled as if joking and asked, "Do you have any friends from Pyongyang, sir?" Woo-seon assumed she was asking because she herself was from Pyongyang, and said, "Two or three." Wolhyang asked, "What do they all do?" At the time, Wolhyang had two purposes: first, to find out where Lee Hyeong-sik lived, and second, to learn how people from Pyeongan Province were faring in Seoul. She knew many Pyeongan students lived in Seoul, but now that she was a gisaeng, she had no way of knowing what those students and the Pyeongan gentlemen were like. A few Pyeongan gentlemen had visited her. They all wore flashy Western suits, spoke Japanese, talked about attending university in Tokyo, and put on great airs. But Wolhyang remembered how Wolhwa had said at Bubyeokru four years ago, "Those are just Heo Jabi wearing clothes," and thought, "They too are Heo Jabi in clothes." Then she grieved for her homeland: "Are these the top gentlemen from Pyeongan Province who have come to Seoul?" So when Woo-seon mentioned he had two or three friends from Pyeongan, she wondered if among them there might be someone worthy of being Wolhwa's ideal man, and whether that someone was Lee Hyeong-sik, the one she had been waiting for. In Wolhyang's eyes, Woo-seon was a rare man in Joseon—like a man from an old poem. She loved his generous spirit even more, and thought, "I wish I could show him to Sister Wolhwa." So she assumed Woo-seon's friends must be fine people and asked what they did. Woo-seon answered, "Some teach, some write, some are in business." Wolhyang pressed further, with great interest: "Who is the best among them? Who is the most famous?" Woo-seon studied her face. "Ah, she's looking for a husband among her countrymen," he thought, and feeling a twinge of jealousy, he said, "Among them is a fellow named Lee Hyeong-sik, who is promising, but—" He emphasized the "but" to diminish Hyeong-sik's worth. Wolhyang's heart suddenly pounded. But she hid her excitement and coquettishly asked, "Promising, but what?" Woo-seon felt a bit ashamed for bad-mouthing his friend, and said, "Uh, Hyeong-sik is a good person... very promising," but still fearing Hyeong-sik might steal Wolhyang from him, he added, "He's still immature... hasn't grown out of it yet," making him sound far inferior to himself. This was not entirely a lie. Woo-seon never considered Hyeong-sik superior to himself in character, learning, or literary skill (and not even equal). "Hyeong-sik is deficient in Classical Chinese," he thought, ignoring the fact that Hyeong-sik was far better than he in Japanese and English. He always acted as Hyeong-sik's senior, and Hyeong-sik, not one to compete for equality, treated Woo-seon as a senior. When Woo-seon had recently asked Hyeong-sik to dispense with formalities, Hyeong-sik had been extremely deferential, as if receiving permission from an elder. Yet Woo-seon never hated or despised Hyeong-sik. He truly believed in Hyeong-sik's potential. So telling Wolhyang "promising, but still immature" was not slander but his sincere assessment of Hyeong-sik.
"Ah, so that's what I meant when I introduced Hyeong-sik to Wolhyang back then?" Woo-seon thought, looking again at Hyeong-sik waiting for the tram. Hyeong-sik paced anxiously, staring east.
"Why isn't the tram coming?"
"It's late—maybe it only runs every thirty minutes," Woo-seon said, sympathizing with Hyeong-sik's distress. Hyeong-sik gripped Woo-seon's hand pleadingly.
"Please, do your best tonight." In his desperation, Hyeong-sik had no one else to trust but Woo-seon. If only Woo-seon would help him, Yeongchae could be saved. Woo-seon said, "Don't worry," and turned away with a snicker. There was a reason for that smile.
Woo-seon had heard from Wolhyang's house that Kim Hyeonsu, son of Kim Namjak, principal of Gyeongseong School, and a man named Bae Myeong-sik Yangin had taken Wolhyang to Cheongnyangni, and he guessed that by tonight, Wolhyang would fall into Kim Hyeonsu's hands. So Woo-seon had hurried to Jongno Police Station, whispered to a detective, and enlisted his support, intending to thwart Kim Hyeonsu's scheme. Even if he couldn't snatch Wolhyang entirely from Kim Hyeonsu's grip, he could at least expose the incident in the newspaper and vent his anger, or perhaps even extort some money from Kim Hyeonsu. He had boarded the tram at Cheolmulgyo on his way back from the Jongno Police Station. That was the situation. But now he heard that Wolhyang had given her heart to Hyeong-sik. Though he couldn't help a pang of jealousy, he decided it was right to help Hyeong-sik's cause.
🙝 🙟
The two men reached Cheongnyangsa. The detective from Jongno Police Station followed them. Woo-seon knew exactly which house Kim Hyeonsu had gone to. It was a small hermitage north of the well, the cleanest and quietest of the several hermitages there. Woo-seon gestured to Hyeong-sik to wait outside the gate and slipped quietly inside. "Is Yeongchae in there?" Hyeong-sik thought, trembling, straining his ears. He heard what sounded like a woman's distressed cries, though not clearly. He pressed his hand to his chest and stepped closer, listening. Yes, it was a woman in pain. Hyeong-sik lost his wits and burst in. The room was lit, the door shut; shadows of shaven-headed people flickered inside. Hyeong-sik's breathing grew quick. Woo-seon peered through a window, then crept out like a cat, put a hand on Hyeong-sik's shoulder, and whispered in Japanese, "Mō dame da — it's already too late." Hyeong-sik's eyes flashed with fury. He gave a cry and leaped onto the wooden veranda, kicking the paper door with his shod foot. The door splintered and fell into the room. Without even looking at the man who rose through the shattered door, Hyeong-sik kicked him over. Someone grabbed Hyeong-sik's arm. Foaming at the mouth, Hyeong-sik shouted, "You bastard, Bae Myeong-sik!" He was choked with rage. With his free arm, he struck Bae Hak-gam's face with all his might, then kicked the man he had knocked down two or three more times. That man scrambled out through the opposite door. Hyeong-sik yelled, "You bastard, Kim Hyeonsu!" He lifted the broken door. The woman was covering her face with both hands, sobbing. Her hands and feet were bound. Her skirt and trousers were torn. Her hair had come loose and lay across her back. Red blood flowed from her lower lip. In one corner of the room, beer bottles and an ice bowl were overturned, some broken. Hyeong-sik quickly covered her body with the skirt, lifted her bound form, and held her. She just wept, still covering her face with her tied hands. Woo-seon entered the room too, untying her bonds, and said to Hyeong-sik with a smile, "Those two are captured." Hyeong-sik resented Woo-seon for laughing at a time like this. But Woo-seon did not consider this as grave an event as Hyeong-sik did. He was a man who laughed at everything under heaven. Hyeong-sik freed the woman's hands from her face. But she kept her hands over her face and wept. Hyeong-sik's fury subsided a little, and he gained some composure. He stood up straight and saw that her jacket's cords were completely undone, her garment had slipped, revealing a span of white waist. A fresh wave of sorrow struck him. "Is this really Park Youngchae?" he wondered. "I hope it's not." He looked at her clothes and hair. She wore neither a fine ramie skirt nor a Western-style updo. He could tell only that the skirt was made of some silk, but couldn't identify it. Her hair had a red Japanese ribbon, and on her finger was a yellow jade ring. He wanted to see her face, but he didn't dare, afraid it might be Park Youngchae.
Woo-seon knew it was Wolhyang. But having heard that Wolhyang was the daughter of Hyeong-sik's benefactor and had remained chaste for him, he felt awkward calling her "Hey, Wolhyang" or even approaching her. So he stood a step behind Hyeong-sik, watching him. The woman only cried with her hands on her face. Hyeong-sik didn't know what to call her either. He stood dumbfounded for a long while, then said to her, "Listen! Those beastly men are captured, so you can rest easy." Even Hyeong-sik didn't know what "rest easy" meant in this context. What difference did it make that the beasts were captured or not? As Woo-seon had said, it was mō dame da. Woo-seon couldn't hold back any longer.
"Excuse me, Miss Park Youngchae," he said. He knew the woman was Wolhyang, and that Wolhyang was Park Youngchae. So after a month of calling her "Hey, Wolhyang," he changed to "Excuse me, Miss Park Youngchae." For most people, suddenly switching from the familiar to the formal like that would be difficult, but not for Woo-seon. He continued, "Miss Park Youngchae! Lee Hyeong-sik is here." At those words, the woman gave a start, suddenly took her hands from her face, and looked at Hyeong-sik with dazed eyes. Hyeong-sik looked at her face. It was Wolhyang! She was Park Youngchae! Yeongchae looked at Hyeong-sik. It was him! Lee Hyeong-sik! For a long moment, the two stared at each other like wooden statues. Woo-seon looked back and forth between the two of them. The three stood like that for a while. Then tears welled in Woo-seon's eyes. Next, tears welled in the eyes of Hyeong-sik and Yeongchae. Yeongchae bit her bleeding lip again, harder. Her jade-white front teeth were stained red. Hyeong-sik wrapped his arms around his chest and turned his head away. Woo-seon turned his head away too. Hyeong-sik sobbed aloud. Yeongchae collapsed forward and wept. Woo-seon bit his lip and wiped his tears with his sleeve. A temple bell tolled two or three times—dung... dung.
🙝 🙟
The detective dragged Kim Hyeonsu and Bae Myeong-sik Yangin into the yard in handcuffs. Hyeong-sik wanted to rush out and tear the flesh off their bones and eat it. The two men hung their heads as if ashamed, but they were not remorseful. In their view, a gisaeng who disobeyed orders could be raped without consequence. They knew that a married woman guilty of adultery was a crime, but a gisaeng was fair game for anyone. They believed that while an ordinary woman had chastity, a gisaeng had none. And indeed, their thinking was consistent with reality. The law said a gisaeng entertained guests with song and dance, but in fact, there was hardly a gisaeng who didn't "receive guests" every night. So Kim Hyeonsu and Bae Myeong-sik Yangin regarded gisaeng as a special kind of creature beyond all morals and human ethics. They did not consider what they had done that evening to be against morality or conscience at all. They only feared the troublesome law that called "sexual intercourse against a woman's will" rape. So if they could just get out of this situation, they would consider themselves innocent starting tomorrow morning. Only Bae Myeong-sik, bearing the title of educator, worried that being caught in such a scandal might endanger his position as academic supervisor of Gyeongseong School.
Hyeong-sik, filled with fury, looked at the two men with their heads bowed. Even if Kim Hyeonsu was the type to do such things, seeing Bae Myeong-sik, a so-called educator, commit such a grave crime made Hyeong-sik even angrier. He stood beside Bae and said in a mocking voice, "Hey, Brother Bae. What kind of act is this? An educator committing rape—what's that about?" Bae Myeong-sik had nothing to say. But he thought it strange: "Why is Lee Hyeong-sik interfering in this?" He considered Hyeong-sik a meddler and felt offended. He had committed rape, so being handcuffed by the detective was fitting, but why should he be scolded by an unrelated party like Lee Hyeong-sik? He reasoned thus: Hyeong-sik probably pretended to be proper on the surface, but secretly visited gisaeng houses and had become close with Wolhyang, and when he learned that Bae intended to take Wolhyang, he grew jealous and brought the detective. Otherwise, why would Hyeong-sik bring a detective and be so angry about something that didn't concern him? Bae Myeong-sik was a man who could not grieve or suffer over anything that did not directly affect his own interests. He could grieve if his own child cut a finger, but even if someone else's son died, he would say "How very sad," more earnestly than anyone, yet feel no sadness in his heart. If Yeongchae had been his sister or daughter, he would surely have been even angrier than Hyeong-sik and drawn a sword—but since she was neither sister nor daughter, he didn't care whether she was raped or died.
Hyeong-sik faced Kim Hyeonsu and said, "You're an aristocrat! Being an aristocrat doesn't mean being a villain. You studied in Tokyo for four or five years. Do you remember what you said at some gathering? That you would devote your life to education." Hyeong-sik stamped his foot. Hyeonsu felt deeply insulted by this country commoner. No matter what, I am a baron and a man of hundreds of thousands of won, while you are a poor scholar. You insult me now, but the day will come when you kneel at my feet. Even if I am handcuffed by a detective now, I could be released tomorrow morning—but if you ever enter prison, you'll rot there for life. However upright you may be, you must have some fault. Then I'll repay today's insult. He recalled the pleasure of holding Yeongchae earlier and felt resentful that Hyeong-sik had interfered. But this was not the place to argue, out here in the lonely pine woods of Cheongnyangni where a baron's authority and gold held no sway.
Woo-seon had expected Hyeong-sik to give the two a severe scolding, but seeing him talk as if instructing students on good behavior in a classroom, he thought Hyeong-sik was still a sheltered young man. If I had been Hyeong-sik, I would have taken the opportunity to curse them out thoroughly. But Hyeong-sik didn't know any harsher rebuke. Finally he stamped his foot again and said, "You! Be human beings!" Hyeong-sik believed that with this, the two men would feel ashamed in their consciences, repent, and promise never to do such things again. He thought they hung their heads because they were ashamed and remorseful. But in truth, though they were ashamed, they were not repentant.
Woo-seon, unable to hold back, said, "Listen, you take Miss Yeongchae and go inside. I'll handle this."