"Last evening, when I finally saw you, Teacher, after longing for you seven long years, it felt as though I had met a parent I had lost from this world—my joy knew no bounds. When I recall how, seven years ago as you left Anju, you embraced me under the willow tree in front of our house, told me to be well because we would never see each other again, and wept; and how I, a foolish child of twelve, clung to your chest and begged, 'Don't go, where are you going, take me with you,' I could not contain my sorrow and cried aloud.
In the seven years since that parting, when I, a lonely, helpless child with no one to rely on, drifted east and west like duckweed, blown by the wind and carried by the waves, enduring every hardship, how many tears did I shed, how many sighs did I heave?
My one wish was to see my father, who was groaning behind iron bars in Pyongyang Prison. At thirteen, a mere girl, I was tossed and turned like a leaf in the wind, bumped and battered, until I finally faced my father in Pyongyang Prison, dressed in his prison rags. But when I saw his terribly emaciated face, my young heart felt as if needles were pricking it again and again.
So in my foolishness, I dared to follow the example of virtuous women of old and conceived a plan to save my father with my own body. It was in the autumn of my thirteenth year that I sold myself into the gisaeng life through someone's introduction. But the two hundred won I earned by selling myself was taken and fled with by the man who sold me. I could not use the money gained from the sale of my parents' own flesh and blood to rescue my father; I could not even offer a single meal of fine food to my aging father groaning in the iron prison—that is a resentment that pierces my very marrow. Moreover, because I was sold as a gisaeng, my father and my two brothers passed from this world within four or five days. Alas, what calamity is this? What grave sin did I commit in my past life, that in my youth I caused my father and two brothers to be imprisoned, and then again through me caused them to spit blood of resentment and leave this world? Oh, when I think of this, my heart is about to burst and my marrow aches. If I had even a little virtue, I should have followed my father then and there. But alas, this stubborn life of mine still did not break, and I endured.
After losing my father and two brothers, whom in this world could I trust? Teacher, you know—where could I turn? Ah, only heaven. Only the earth. And in this world, only you, Teacher.
From then on, I lived for you, Teacher. While drifting like duckweed in all directions, I hoped that perhaps I might meet you, the one I longed for, and that hope has sustained this dew-like life until today. I kept the teachings of the sages and my departed father; while my father lived, he had promised me to you, Teacher, so I deliberately preserved my chastity for you. What I carried with me to guard that chastity, I enclose here.
But I am already defiled. Ah, Teacher, I am already defiled. My weak, lonely body's chastity, which I had struggled so hard to keep, vanished like a bubble last night.
Now I am a most wicked, heinous sinner, whom heaven and earth cannot permit, whom the gods cannot permit. As a daughter, I harmed my parents; as a sister, I harmed my brothers; as a wife, I broke my chastity—I am a great sinner.
Teacher! I am going. After spending a short nineteen years of life in sorrowful tears and filthy sin, I am going. But I cannot bear to leave this defiled, sinful body in the world even for a day—I fear heaven, I am ashamed before beasts and grasses and trees. So I intend to throw this filthy body into the blue waves of the Daedong River, full of grievance and resentment, letting the cleansing waves wash this defiled body and the heartless fish tear at this sinful flesh.
Teacher! To have seen your kind face again in this world—that alone is enough to assuage my resentment that reaches heaven. In the days to come, if you see a bitter rain falling on your clothes over the Daedong River, please think of it as the tears of this ill-fated sinner, Park Youngchae. As I finish this letter and lay down my brush, hot tears blind me. Oh, Teacher, please always be well, and become a pillar of the nation." And with a trembling brush, she wrote: "In the byeongjin year, the twenty-ninth day of the sixth month, at two in the morning, the sinner Park Youngchae, weeping blood, bows a hundred times."
Hyung-sik's hand, trembling more and more, let the letter fall onto his lap. He sobbed, and big teardrops fell onto the letter spread on his knees. The fallen tears made the letters on the letter even more distinct. Useon wiped his own tears with his sleeve. The old woman covered her face with her skirt and prostrated herself on the floor. For a long while, they were silent. Outside in the yard, the steam rose ever thicker.
🙝 🙟
Hyung-sik wiped his tears with his sleeve and looked over Yeongchae's tear-soaked letter on his lap, here and there, wherever his eyes fell. But the letters of the letter did not seem to come into clear focus for Hyung-sik. He rolled up the letter and set it on the floor, then opened the small envelope that had been enclosed with it. The tearful eyes of Useon and the old woman turned to the small envelope in Hyung-sik's hand. Hyung-sik felt something heavy inside the envelope, turned it upside down, and shook its contents onto his lap. A long object wrapped in red silk came out. Hyung-sik cut the thread binding it and unwrapped the silk. From within the silk came a wad of old mulberry paper, as if it had been kept for years. Hyung-sik held the wad and seemed to think for a moment, then opened it. He let out a startled "Ah!" The eyes of Useon and the old woman moved from the wad to Hyung-sik's face. They saw fresh tears welling in Hyung-sik's wide-open eyes. Their eyes moved back to the piece of mulberry paper in his trembling hand. On that piece of mulberry paper were written the first three consonants and syllables of the Korean alphabet — 'g', 'n', 'd' and 'ga', 'na', 'da'. It was the kind of thing children use when first learning eonmun. The handwriting was childish. Hyung-sik, disregarding any sense of decorum, rubbed his forehead against the piece of mulberry paper and wept aloud. Useon and the old woman, not knowing what was happening, only watched Hyung-sik's heaving back. As if in anguish, Hyung-sik rubbed his face against the paper and raised his voice in even more sorrowful crying. Even Useon, with new tears in his eyes, thought, 'Hyung-sik is still a child.'
Hyung-sik thought back over ten years. When he first went to Park Jinsa's house, Yeongchae was eight years old. At that time, Yeongchae had already read the Thousand Character Classic, Elementary Learning for Children, Enlightenment Primer, and Untitled Poems. But she had not yet learned eonmun. Once, Park Jinsa said, "You must learn the Korean script," and wrote out the ganada alphabet on good mulberry paper for her. But young Yeongchae took it outside to play and lost the paper somewhere. Afraid of her father's scolding, with tears brimming in her eyes, she secretly begged Hyung-sik, who was thirteen at the time. It was a time when Hyung-sik and Yeongchae still did not speak to each other, so Yeongchae, looking half away as if in shame and wiping her tears with her fist, said,
"Um, please write the Korean alphabet for me."
Yeongchae's face and manner when she said this were, to Hyung-sik's eyes, incomparably lovely. 'What a pretty girl,' he thought, feeling shy himself, and replied, "Yes, I'll write it for you tomorrow morning." He then went himself to the paper merchant's five ri away, bought mulberry paper—this very paper—and with all his heart and all his strength, after wasting four sheets, he finally wrote this one. He kept it tucked between books and could not sleep, thinking, 'I wish morning would come soon.' The image of Yeongchae, standing sideways and wiping her tears with her fist as she said, 'Um, please write the Korean alphabet for me,' was deeply etched into the heart of thirteen-year-old Hyung-sik. The next morning, Hyung-sik brushed his teeth and washed his face more carefully than usual, put on his overcoat neatly, folded the paper—this very paper—and tucked it into his bosom. He stood at the gate waiting for Yeongchae to come out, his feelings like those of a man in love waiting for his beloved girl in a secluded spot. Presently, Yeongchae, as if wary of being seen, looked around and came out quietly. When she reached Hyung-sik's side, her face flushed with joy and she firmly embraced him around the waist. Hyung-sik gently touched Yeongchae's head, which pressed against his chest. Even now, her hair was wet, having been washed. Then he took the paper—this very paper—from his bosom and gave it to Yeongchae. The paper was warm from the warmth of Hyung-sik's chest. Whether Yeongchae also felt the paper's warmth, she stepped back, quietly looked into Hyung-sik's eyes, then her face reddened and she ran inside. 'So this is that paper!' Hyung-sik raised his head and looked again at the paper and the letters. The letters seemed to tell stories of the past — the days in Anju, his own subsequent years, Yeongchae's story, and the letter, and the life of Yeongchae as he had imagined it, flashed through Hyung-sik's mind like lightning. Biting his lip once more — a habit he had unconsciously learned from Yeongchae — he unfolded the paper to its full length. At the end, in newly written letters, it said, "This is the keepsake of you, Teacher, that I have carried all my life." When Useon and the old woman saw this writing, they roughly understood why Hyung-sik was weeping. Then Useon pulled the paper from Hyung-sik's hand and looked at it again. The old woman looked at the paper with Useon. Hyung-sik unfolded another wad of paper on his knees. Out of it came a single pair of yellow jade rings and a small knife. When the blade glinted, the hearts of the three tightened. The old woman thought to herself, 'That's the knife she drew in front of Kim Yun-su's son two years ago.' Hyung-sik picked up the knife and examined its inside and outside. On the inside was engraved in running script, 'One Pure Heart.' Hyung-sik and Useon roughly guessed the meaning of the knife. Hyung-sik picked up the ring. The old woman said, "Why only one?" Hyung-sik saw that nothing was written on the ring, so he picked up the paper it had been wrapped in. On that paper, in small handwriting, was written:
"This is the ring of Gye Wol-hwa, a gisaeng of Pyongyang. If you wish to know what kind of person Gye Wol-hwa is, ask any person of Pyongyang. Wol-hwa gave me this ring with the meaning that I should not be stained by this rotten world. I have done my utmost to follow what this ring taught me. I will soon return this ring to Wol-hwa, who became a vengeful spirit in the Daedong River, but giving this one ring to you, Teacher, also has a meaning."
And it was signed with the same date and time as the earlier letter: "The sinner Park Youngchae, weeping blood, bows a hundred times."
🙝 🙟
The three lowered their heads in silence. Each was lost in their own thoughts. After a long while, the old woman, catching her breath, said,
"I say, what are we to do about this?" and looked alternately at Hyung-sik and Useon. In all her life, the old woman had never grieved or worried or felt such heartache for another person with such sincerity as now. She thought back to last evening, when she had truly embraced Yeongchae and wept. Just as Yeongchae had thought then, it was the first time the old woman had shed tears for another person with genuine feeling. When the blood flowing from Yeongchae's lips fell warm on the back of the old woman's hand, and when Yeongchae said, "Everyone is tearing at my flesh, so I, too, will tear at my own flesh," and bit her bleeding lips even harder, the old woman's heart was truly troubled. When the old woman pressed her cheek against Yeongchae's and wailed loudly, her heart was truly that of a 'true person.' When at that moment the old woman inwardly clasped her hands and bowed to Yeongchae, her soul shed its shell of filthy sin and clearly saw the pure form of a god or a Buddha. And she saw that within the gisaeng named Wolhyang, whom she had bought for two hundred won and used as a money-making machine, there was something worthy of her bowing and looking up to. And she resolved that from tomorrow, she would set Yeongchae free, and she herself would become a new person, and she and Yeongchae would become a loving mother and daughter, embracing and comforting each other, spending their days happily and cleanly. Then, returning to her room and seeing the 'old man' already snoring, she thought, 'Ugh, you filthy beast,' and lay down alone at the head of the room, still dressed. At that time, her cry of 'Ugh, you filthy beast' did not just mean that the 'old man's' body was dirty. Having seen Yeongchae's soul and her own soul and God and Buddha with her own eyes, when she looked at the 'old man's' stained person, she naturally felt nausea. Just as a person raised in a dirty house, unaware of its dirtiness, realizes how dirty it is only after seeing a clean house, the old woman, who had never seen a clean soul or a true person in her life, saw Yeongchae's soul, white as snow and clear as crystal, when her own clean soul, buried for over fifty years in sin, suddenly woke with a start at the warmth of Yeongchae's blood. And with the eyes that had seen that, she looked at her own soul. Then, seeing the 'old man's' 'person,' she finally realized its filth. But in the morning, when she saw Yeongchae come in, her face powdered, her perfume sprayed, smiling brightly, the eyes of the old woman's soul closed again. She no longer saw Yeongchae's 'inner person' as she had last evening, but only saw Yeongchae's body. The memory of the previous evening seemed like something from decades past. So when Yeongchae said, 'When I think about it, it's ridiculous,' the old woman thought, 'Right, you've thought well. It is indeed so,' and the greed to turn Yeongchae back into a money-making machine arose again. So from the time she sent Yeongchae to Pyongyang until now, when she saw Yeongchae's letter, the old woman had only thought about making Yeongchae 'receive guests' at night and selling her to Kim Hyeonsu for two thousand won. But upon seeing Yeongchae's letter, those thoughts suddenly vanished. And when she saw the knife, the ring, and Hyung-sik's tears, the eyes of the old woman's soul, which had opened last evening, opened again. When she thought about how she had said to Yeongchae that morning, 'You've thought well. It is indeed so,' she felt both ashamed and sorry towards Yeongchae's 'inner person.' It was as if Yeongchae appeared before her, mocking her with a 'Hmph, you thought well!' and mimicking the old woman's own words.
In the old woman's eyes, the Daedong River shimmered. Yeongchae stood on a small rock, weeping, holding up the hem of her skirt with both hands, about to leap into the water. At that moment, the old woman tried to run after her, shouting, "Wolhyang! Wolhyang! I was wrong. I am a woman who should die!" But Yeongchae turned her head, smiled wryly, and said, "Hmph, it's too late. My body is defiled!" and plunged into the water. The old woman, stomping her feet on the rock, seemed to cry, "Wolhyang! Was it I who did wrong? It was I who made your body defiled. Wolhyang! Forgive me!" Then she remembered how yesterday, when Kim Hyeonsu, dejected, had said, "There's nothing to be done. I might as well die," she had replied, "I say, is a man so spineless? Once you do this, that's it!" And she had winked, urging Kim Hyeonsu to rape Wolhyang. 'Yes, that's right. It was I who broke Wolhyang's chastity. It was I who killed Wolhyang!' she thought, her chest burning. Breathing through her mouth, she cried out again,
"Ah, what are we to do about this?" and, in anguish, slapped the floor with both knees. Hyung-sik, thinking that all this tragedy had been caused by that filthy, fat, filthy old woman, felt a deep pain and resentment, and glared at her with intense hatred. But seeing her in such severe distress, he thought, 'The soul that slept within you has awakened,' and remembered the thief who was crucified with Jesus. And he thought that the old woman was, after all, a human being, a person like himself and like Yeongchae, and he began to pity her suffering. But then Hyung-sik remembered how the old woman had said to him earlier, 'I don't even know who you are,' and his sympathy instantly vanished, replaced by a stronger feeling of disgust and hatred. So he glared at the old woman once more. The old woman, seeing Hyung-sik's glare, again cried,
"Ah, what are we to do?" and slapped the floor with her knees.
Useon, who had been sitting silently, said to Hyung-sik,
"Look here, quickly send a telegram to the Pyongyang Police Station and take the night train to Pyongyang yourself!"
🙝 🙟
Useon inwardly thought that Yeongchae's action this time was proper. Chastity is a woman's life, so if chastity is broken, it is proper to die. Therefore, for a woman like Yeongchae, in response to last night's incident at Cheongnyangsa, this was the only path to take. And he thought, 'Yeongchae is indeed a virtuous woman,' and felt a sense of respect, and felt ashamed of his own attempts to seduce her until now. But Useon did not realize the contradiction in his own thinking. When Yeongchae was the gisaeng Wolhyang, since she was a gisaeng, it didn't matter if her chastity was broken; but after Wolhyang became Yeongchae, since she was no longer a gisaeng, it was right to preserve her chastity... This is a clear contradiction, but Useon did not see it. To extend Useon's thinking: it is like saying, 'Since a virtuous woman is virtuous, breaking chastity is a sin; but since a woman who is not a virtuous woman is not virtuous, breaking chastity is not a sin.' This turns cause and effect upside down. It is not that because a woman is virtuous she preserves her chastity; rather, because she preserves her chastity, she is virtuous. In Useon's mind, if a woman is virtuous, she must preserve her chastity, but if she is not virtuous, it is fine not to preserve it. Therefore, when Useon did not know that Yeongchae was a virtuous woman, he tried to break her chastity, but after learning that she was virtuous, he regretted and felt ashamed of his attempt. In any case, Useon judged Yeongchae's action this time as the best possible action.
But Hyung-sik thought differently about this matter. Hyung-sik also admired Yeongchae's firm chastity. He respected the pure and holy spirit that would even go so far as to die. However, unlike Useon, Hyung-sik did not think that 'Yeongchae's action this time is the most correct thing.' A person's life is like the life of the universe. Just as the universe embraces all things, human life also embraces all things. The universe does not consist solely of the sun or the North Pole; it embraces all the stars in the sky and all things on earth. Therefore, even the smallest star in the firmament is a part of the universe's total life, and even the tiniest blade of grass or speck of dust on the earth is a part of the universe's total life. The sun is greater than the earth, so its relationship to the life of the universe may be greater than that of the earth, but that does not mean that only the sun is the life of the universe and the earth has no relationship to it at all. Moreover, in the solar system, the sun is the center, but in relation to the infinite universe, even the sun itself is but a speck of dust. Similarly, a person's life does not exist solely for a single duty or a single moral code; it exists for all the myriad duties of human life and all the myriad duties to the universe. Therefore, loyalty, filial piety, chastity, or honor are not the center of a person's life. A person's life is not contained within loyalty or filial piety; rather, loyalty and filial piety emerge from a person's life. A person's life is never subordinate to just one thing like loyalty or filial piety. In fact, a person's life embraces loyalty, filial piety, chastity, honor, and so on, just as the life of the great universe is not contained within the North Star or Sirius or the sun, but rather the life of the great universe embraces the North Star, Sirius, the sun, and other great stars, small stars, and even all the tiny things on earth.