As the old landlady set out the evening meal, she wiped her hands on her skirt and gave a strange laugh. “What brings you here, Mr. Lee?”
Hyeong-sik’s eyes went round. “Why?”
“Oh, there’s nothing to be so surprised about…”
“Why, did something happen?” He stopped and looked at the old woman.
The old woman chuckled to herself at his feigned surprise. “A little while ago, around three o’clock, a pretty young lady came looking for you. She had her hair done up like a schoolgirl, but no matter how you look at it, she seemed like a gisaeng. Do you keep company with that sort, teacher?”
“What young lady? A gisaeng?” Hyeong-sik tilted his head. He untied his shoelaces and stepped up onto the wooden floor. “There’s not a single woman in Seoul who would come looking for me. She must have mistaken me for someone else.”
“Oh, come now, don’t pretend you don’t know. She clearly said she was looking for Mr. Lee Hyeong-sik from Pyongyang.”
Hyeong-sik sat staring blankly at the ceiling. “I really can’t figure it out. Did she leave any message?”
“She said she’d come back this evening. She seemed very disappointed when she left.”
“So she said she knew me?”
“Oh, who would come looking for a stranger? Go inside, have your dinner, and wait. It’ll make the food taste even sweeter.”
Her words didn’t even register with Hyeong-sik. Indeed, there was no reason for any woman to come looking for him. Perhaps someday Kim Seon-hyeong or Yoon Sun-ae might come to find him, but at this moment, what woman would seek him out? Least of all a woman who looked like a gisaeng. Hyeong-sik sat before his dinner tray, thinking hard but finding no answer. Since she said she’d come later, he decided he’d find out then, and ate his evening meal.
After dinner, just as he was about to read the newspaper, someone called from outside the gate. The old woman said, “Look here,” winked, and went out. He heard her say, “Mr. Lee is back,” and then a young woman followed her in. Just as the landlady had described, she wore a ramie skirt and jacket, and her hair was pinned up in the style of a schoolgirl.
Hyeong-sik was silent, the woman was silent, and the old woman stood there dumbfounded, not knowing what was going on. The woman glanced at Hyeong-sik, then asked the old woman, “Is Mr. Lee here?”
“That gentleman is Mr. Lee,” the old woman said, looking very suspicious.
“Yes, I am Lee Hyeong-sik. Who are you?”
The woman seemed to startle. She flinched, stepped back, and lowered her head deeply. The sun had already set, and gas lamps in the houses were blinking on like eyes. Sensing there was a reason for this, Hyeong-sik quickly got up, lit the lamp, and spread a blanket on the floor. “Please, come up. I heard you came earlier—I wasn’t home, and I apologize for the discourtesy.”
The woman lifted her head. Tears welled in her eyes. “Would a woman like me coming to see you not damage your reputation, sir?”
“Not at all. Please come up first. Tell me what brings you…”
The woman quietly assented and came up. The little girl who had come with her also sat down. Hyeong-sik sat as well. The old woman, in the room across the way, watched the scene without lighting a lamp, smoking her pipe.
Hyeong-sik gazed for a long moment at the woman’s face, which looked pale in the lamplight. Then, as if struck by a thought, he tilted his head and closed his eyes.
“Don’t you recognize me?”
“Well… your face does seem familiar somehow.”
“Do you remember Park Eung-jin?”
“What? Park Eung-jin?” Hyeong-sik’s eyes went wide, and he was struck speechless.
The woman collapsed onto the desk and wept. Thick tears fell from Hyeong-sik’s eyes as well. In a sorrowful voice, he said, “Ah, it’s you, Miss Yeongchae. It’s you, Yeongchae. Thank you. Thank you for coming to find an ungrateful wretch like me. Ah…”
For a long time, neither of them spoke. Only the woman’s sobbing could be heard. The little girl who had followed her clung to her mistress’s hand and cried.
🙝 🙟
It was already over ten years ago. In a village about ten li south of Anju in South Pyeongan Province, there lived a man named Park Jinsa. He had spent over forty years as a scholar, and there was no one in the neighboring towns who did not know his name. His clan originally consisted of several dozen households—yangban and wealthy landowners who had held influence in all of Anju for generations. But during the Sinmi Rebellion, the entire clan was suspected of treason and brutally slaughtered. Somehow only Park Jinsa’s family survived. Then, about fifteen or sixteen years ago, he traveled to Qing China and brought back several dozen new books published in Shanghai. From them, he grasped the situation in the West and the state of affairs in Japan, and realized that Joseon could not continue as it was. He decided to begin a new civilization movement.
First, he gathered young people in his study, made them read the books he had bought in Shanghai, and whenever he had time, he lectured on new ideas. But at that time, words like “railroad” and “steamship” did not enter people’s ears. They called Park Jinsa a madman, and one by one the older students who had gathered in his study drifted away. So Park Jinsa began taking in pitiful children who wanted to study but had no teacher, one after another, and started teaching them. Three or four years later, the number of students who had received his education had grown to twenty or thirty. During that time, he had completely covered the living expenses, paper, brushes, and ink for all of them.
Around then, a new movement arose in Pyeongan Province, schools sprang up everywhere, and many people shed tears. Park Jinsa immediately cut his hair and put on black clothes, and made his two sons do the same. Cutting one’s hair and wearing black clothes was a tremendous act of boldness in those days. It meant smashing the stubborn customs that had persisted for over four thousand years and fully accepting the new. He built a school next to his house, traveled to Seoul to hire teachers, and procured all the supplies the school needed. On one hand, he persuaded the villagers; on the other, he coaxed children and young men to come to the school and learn. After a year, twenty or thirty students had gathered, and he hired two more teachers. The students ranged from seven or eight years old to thirty. In addition to bearing the entire cost of running the school, he continued to raise about ten young men. Lee Hyeong-sik was one of them.
At that time, Hyeong-sik had lost his parents and was wandering without any support. Hearing that Park Jinsa was teaching students, he went to him. Hyeong-sik was clever, upright, and gifted, and his father had been a close friend of Park Jinsa in their youth, so he received special affection. Park Jinsa’s two sons were four or five years older than Hyeong-sik, but Hyeong-sik surpassed them in learning, and what’s more, they learned math and Japanese from him. So the other students joked, envied, and teased that Hyeong-sik would eventually become Park Jinsa’s son-in-law. In their eyes, Park Jinsa was the greatest teacher in the entire country.
At that time, Park Jinsa’s daughter Yeongchae was ten years old. Now she would be exactly nineteen. Park Jinsa, paying no mind to what others thought, sent Yeongchae to school, and after she came home, he taught her the Lesser Learning and the Biographies of Exemplary Women. When she was twelve, that summer, he also taught her poetry. Park Jinsa was dignified, benevolent, strict, and yet cheerful. The young people saw him as both an imposing teacher and a dear friend. He had given his property, his house, his body, and his heart for the world, and was even willing to give his life. But the villagers, far from appreciating his efforts, mocked him as a madman.
After six or seven years of this, his wealth, which had never been great to begin with, was completely exhausted. He barely had enough for his daily meals, and there was no way to sustain the school. So Park Jinsa personally visited wealthy men in the town and sent people to plead with them to take over the school he had been running. He was willing to hand over the school—the product of all his property and all his strength for the sake of the world—to anyone. But no one came forward to say, “I’ll take it.” Instead they mocked him, saying, “He’s doing this because he has nothing to eat.” Park Jinsa, not yet sixty, had almost turned completely white-haired.
Without food, the students who had gathered in his study scattered in all directions. Only Hong Mo, the eldest, and Lee Hyeong-sik, the youngest, remained. Hyeong-sik was sixteen then.
That autumn, a robbery occurred at a wealthy house about ten li away. A burglar stabbed the master in the side with a knife and extorted over five hundred won in cash. The burglar turned out to be Hong Mo, who had been staying in Park Jinsa’s study. Unable to bear the sight of his benefactor Park Jinsa’s hardship, he had first intended to threaten the man and take some money. But the master was utterly insolent and threatened to report him to the Military Police, so Hong Mo killed him. He came back and laid out the five hundred won. Park Jinsa was thunderstruck. “You, how could you do such a thing? Heaven provides food and clothing to those who work diligently… Ah, why did you do this?” He told Hong Mo to take the money back and immediately apologize. But on the way, Hong Mo was arrested, and under suspicion of robbery, murder, instigation, and being an accomplice, Park Jinsa and his two sons were arrested that very morning. The only ones left in the house were the two daughters-in-law, Yeongchae, and Hyeong-sik. Yeongchae’s mother had passed away less than two months after giving birth to her.
After that, a few of the students who had been in Park Jinsa’s study were also arrested. Hyeong-sik was called in as a witness but released after two days.
A few months later, Hong Mo and Park Jinsa were sentenced to life imprisonment, Park Jinsa’s two sons received fifteen-year sentences, and the others received seven or five years. They were sent to Pyongyang Prison.
With that, the two daughters-in-law had no choice but to return to their own families. Yeongchae went to her mother’s family. Hyeong-sik again lost all support and drifted like duckweed through a desolate world. Afterwards, he sent a couple of letters to Pyongyang Prison, but the letters were neither delivered nor answered. Last summer, when he went to Anju, strangers were playing janggi and laughing in Park Jinsa’s house. Now, after seven years, they had met again.
🙝 🙟
These thoughts flashed through Hyeong-sik’s mind like lightning. He wiped away his tears and looked at Yeongchae, who was still weeping, collapsed before him. At that time—ten years ago—she had been a little girl who laughed brightly, hung on his shoulders, tugged his hand, and called him “Oppa.” Now she was already such an adult. What storms had she weathered in those seven or eight years?
Hyeong-sik was a man, and yet he had spent the last seven or eight years in hardship and tears. How much more painful and bitter must it have been for a frail young woman? He wanted to know what she had been through. He shook the weeping Yeongchae by the shoulder. “Don’t cry. Come, let me hear your story. Yes, sit up.”
Even Hyeong-sik, who told her not to cry, could not help crying himself. So Yeongchae’s weeping was only natural.
“Come on, sit up.”
“Yes. The tears just come on their own.”
“…”
“Seeing you, sir, feels like seeing my late father and my brothers all at once.” She broke down crying again. “Late father!” So Park Jinsa and his two sons had died after all. Had they lost their house, lost their property, and finally lost their bodies? The blessed daughter of the blessed family that had rescued poor Hyeong-sik—had she become pitiful in less than four or five years? How could one trust the affairs of the world? Even a young person’s life cannot be trusted, let alone money and position, which are but foam. If Park Jinsa had died, it must have been in prison. Had he seen his sons while they were all in the same prison? Who had spooned a sip of water into his mouth in his final moments? Who had closed his eyes? Had his body, dying alone, been tied up in a straw mat and become food for crows? Who had mourned him? When he was carried off to the desolate burial ground, who had shed tears? The world that had wept for him no longer remembered him. Instead, it persecuted and mocked his flesh and blood. If Heaven had a will, its heartlessness was infuriating. If Heaven had no will, then life itself could not be trusted.
“Passed away? Mr. Park passed away?”
“Yes. Two years after he went to prison, Father passed away. Fifteen days after Father’s death, both of my older brothers died together.”
“How… how could that happen?”
“I don’t know the exact details. The prison said they died of illness. But one jailer said Father died of starvation first, then my eldest brother starved too. On the day my eldest brother died, my younger brother hanged himself.” At the end of her words, sobbing overwhelmed her. Hyeong-sik, too, began to wail without realizing it.
The old landlady had thought at first that Yeongchae was just some vulgar woman trying to trick Hyeong-sik. But as she listened, she realized the woman seemed to be of good birth and had a pitiable fate. She wept alone in her room, then went out to the street, bought shaved ice and a pear, and came back in. She shook Yeongchae. “Hey, sit up and have some shaved ice. It’ll soothe your stomach. What’s the use of crying now? You have to accept it as fate and endure. When I was young, I became a widow. I lost a grown child… and still I live on like this. Losing your parents is nothing compared to losing your husband. Now you’re still young, with a vast future ahead. Why worry? Now stop crying and have some shaved ice. Eat some pear too.” She bustled into the kitchen, brought back a rusty kitchen knife, and began peeling the pear. “Look here, teacher, instead of comforting her, you’re crying even more yourself…”
“What can I do when my heart is bursting? This is the daughter of my benefactor, who raised me for four or five years. And that benefactor died in prison on false charges. His sons followed their father to death. This young lady is the only blood of my benefactor left in the world. I didn’t know whether she was alive or dead for seven or eight years, and now we meet like this—how could I not be sad?”
“But crying won’t help,” the old woman said, holding out the sliced pear with one arm and helping Yeongchae sit up. “Hardship in youth is the foundation of joy. Don’t be so heartbroken. Have this pear.”
Yeongchae, moved by the kind words, wiped her tears and accepted the pear. Hyeong-sik looked at her face again. Now he could see the resemblance to her younger self. Her large eyes in particular reminded him of Park Jinsa. Yeongchae also looked at Hyeong-sik. His face seemed a little longer than before, and he had grown whiskers under his nose, but his overall appearance was the same. In the hearts of the two looking at each other, memories of ten years ago flashed like a moving picture: the happy times, the day Park Jinsa was arrested and the whole house wailed, the family scattering one by one, the complete ruin of the Park family after so many generations, the day of their parting when Hyeong-sik had said, “I don’t know when I’ll see you again. I’ll never hear you call me Oppa again,” and Yeongchae had cried, “Don’t go. Take me with you,” and clung to his chest. It all came back as vividly as yesterday. Hyeong-sik began to ask about Yeongchae’s story.
🙝 🙟
The old woman and Hyeong-sik urged her so earnestly that Yeongchae wiped away her tears, sat up, drank the shaved ice, and ate the pear. Her eyes and cheeks, red from crying, made her look even more pitiful and lovely. Hyeong-sik immediately thought of Seon-hyeong. They were no different in beauty of face or in the love of their parents, yet why were their fates so different? One had parents, a home, property, went to school in comfort, and planned to go to the United States next year. The other had no parents, no siblings, no home, no place to lean on, and spent her days and nights in tears. If Seon-hyeong could see Yeongchae’s situation, she would surely think Yeongchae was from a different world. That is, she would think she herself could never become like Yeongchae, and that Yeongchae could never become like her. Or she would think that she herself was especially blessed by Heaven, and that Yeongchae was especially cursed and punished by Heaven. For that reason, the rich oppress and despise the poor, considering them unfit to stand face to face with themselves. When they see a starving beggar shivering in the street, those who live on their so-called property spit on him and kick him like a dog or a pig. But where is a beggar who did not have rich ancestors? Where is a rich man who did not have beggar ancestors? Those who are wealthy and noble now look as if they have been rich since the creation of the world and will be rich until the end of it. But their ancestors once fought with a rich man’s dog over cold rice at his gate. And before long, their descendants will also have such days. Who, seeing Park Jinsa seven or eight years ago, could have guessed that his daughter would end up like this seven or eight years later?
All are the same people. If one is rich, how much richer can he be? If one is noble, how much nobler can he be? It is like standing on a small stone and looking down at others saying, “You bastards, I am higher than you.” How high is he, really? And the stone he stands on now is the same stone someone else stood on yesterday, and another will stand on tomorrow. Giving a spoonful of cold rice to a beggar—is it not a prayer that your descendants may one day receive the same from his? And the opposite—treating a beggar coldly and mocking him—is it not a prayer that your descendants may one day be treated the same by his? Who knows? Who knows if Yeongchae might become wealthy and noble, and Seon-hyeong poor and lowly, in a few years? Lost in such thoughts, Hyeong-sik opened his mouth to speak.