Gye Wol-hwa found the three graves lined up ahead. Over the years, rain had washed them down, so that the already small mounds had nearly flattened into the ground. The wooden markers once driven into the earth had rotted and fallen in front of the graves. Dozens of similar graves surrounded them. On some, the wooden plaques—three or four inches wide—remained as fresh as ever. Gye Wol-hwa pointed to the three aligned graves.
"This is the grave of Wolhwa's father," she said. "And these are the graves of her two brothers."
She remembered coming here with Wolhwa before. She had visited these graves three or four times at Wolhwa's side. Last spring, when Wolhwa was about to leave for Seoul, she had brought Gye Wol-hwa here with a bottle of wine. It was a warm late-spring day. Beside the graves of these pitiful souls, small nameless flowers bloomed, and in the ordinary fields, the newly sprouted sorghum and millet rippled gently in the soft breeze. Wolhwa had poured wine before her father's grave and wept silently for a long time. Then she touched the back of Gye Wol-hwa, who was crying beside her, and asked her to visit the graves twice a year after she left for Seoul. At that time, Gye Wol-hwa had thought, "Your father is my father, your brothers are my brothers." Now, recalling this as she looked at Hyeong-sik, tears streamed down her face.
Hyeong-sik stood quietly, gazing at the three graves without a word. He thought of Park Jinsa—those large eyes, that high nose bridge, his tall stature, and the way he had always sat upright his entire life. He remembered Park Jinsa teaching the young men in his study, using lithographed books he had brought back from Shanghai. He remembered the day Park Jinsa was arrested, how he had wept and said, "It is not that I am sad to be captured, but that the school will be destroyed." And he recalled Yeongchae's words—how upon hearing that she had become a gisaeng, Park Jinsa had starved himself to death in prison. Hyeong-sik thought of the tragic fate of those who pioneer their era. Mr. Park had awakened too early. No—it was not that Mr. Park had awakened too early, but that his own people had awakened too late. The school Mr. Park had tried to build now stood everywhere. The hairstyle he had tried to abolish was now cut by every man. If he had begun his civilization movement today, he would have received society's praise and respect instead of its persecution. Such sacrifices always come when an era shifts, but none were as cruel as Mr. Park's. He wondered now how the two daughters-in-law were faring, and if even Yeongchae had died, then Park Jinsa's house was utterly destroyed. Hyeong-sik's own family had nearly been wiped out, leaving only him. Park Jinsa's family had also nearly been destroyed, leaving only Yeongchae. But now that Yeongchae was dead, her family had vanished from this world without a trace. The Park clan, once numbering dozens of households, had all collapsed during the Sinmi Revolution, and the single remaining branch—Park Jinsa's house—had been sacrificed to the new civilization movement, disappearing completely. The fate of a clan was unknowable; the fate of a family was unknowable.
Yet Hyeong-sik did not grieve deeply before these graves. His heart was too joyful to feel sorrow over anything. He decided it was better to rejoice in the living than to mourn the dead. Rather than grieving over the pitiful, decaying bones of his benefactor beneath the ground, he chose to delight in the flowers growing on the grave—flowers nourished by that very decay. He thought of Yeongchae. He pictured her corpse drifting down the Daedong River. But no sadness came to him. Looking at Gye Wol-hwa standing beside him, he felt only boundless joy.
Thinking this, Hyeong-sik startled himself. When had I changed so much? He was so surprised that his eyes widened and his fists clenched. Yesterday he had wept reading Yeongchae's letter, his chest aching as if it would burst. On the night train coming here, he had secretly wrung his heart and wiped away tears. When he learned at the police station that Yeongchae was surely dead, his body had felt as if plunged into boiling water. And as he left Gye Wol-hwa's house to find Mr. Park's grave, he had intended to throw himself down and wail bitterly. But now—what was this? He tried to force tears before his teacher's grave, but not a shred of sadness came. Can a person change so suddenly? He smiled to himself.
Gye Wol-hwa found his behavior strange but did not ask.
Hyeong-sik decided it was better to hold Gye Wol-hwa's hand and walk while chatting cheerfully than to linger in this desolate place.
"Come, let's go," he said.
Gye Wol-hwa looked puzzled. "Where are you going?"
"Home."
"Not to Bukmangsan?"
"What would we do there? Let's talk as we walk. Since there's no trace of Miss Yeongchae having come here, she probably didn't go anywhere." He took Gye Wol-hwa's hand.
Hyeong-sik had accepted Yeongchae as dead. He returned to Gye Wol-hwa's house, and since the old woman said she would stay in Pyongyang for two or three days, he took the evening train back to Seoul alone. As he left Pyongyang, the old woman came out the gate, held his hand, and wept. "Please, whatever it takes, find Yeongchae," she said. But Hyeong-sik only felt regret at leaving Gye Wol-hwa; he gave little thought to Yeongchae. On the train, he smiled many times, feeling as if he had awakened from a dream.
🙝 🙟
On the train from Pyongyang, Hyeong-sik felt immense joy. Everyone riding with him seemed to draw his affection, to give him indescribable pleasure. Even the sound of the wheels grinding against the tracks sounded like delightful music. When the train crossed the iron bridge or passed through tunnels, the clamor rang in his ears like a majestic military band. His nerves were so agitated that he could barely sleep. He opened the window, let the cool breeze wash over him, and gazed at the faintly visible mountains of Hwanghae Province under the hazy moonlight. The peaks looked like ink wash paintings—no distinct valleys, no trees or rocks, all one color. The moonlight, the night sky, and the clouds blended together like a grand brushstroke on paper, shapely and fluid. Hyeong-sik's mind was exactly like that. In his consciousness, sadness, pain, desire, joy, love, hatred—all his mental faculties—had melted together, fused into one mass, indistinguishable from one another. It was as if he had thrown all these mental operations into a single pot, added clear water, stoked a fire, and stirred until everything dissolved and mingled into a porridge or taffy. So, to put it kindly, his mental state was perfectly harmonized; to put it unkindly, it was utterly chaotic. Like moonlight veiled in thin clouds transforming mountains and fields into a dreamlike haze, that moonlight shone into Hyeong-sik's heart, melting and dyeing it into the same dreamy blur. His eyes sparkled without knowing what they saw; his head swam without knowing what he thought. His body swayed with the train's motion; his ears heard whatever sounds came. He did not try to think of anything in particular; his eyes and ears did not try to see or hear anything in particular. In his ears, not only did he hear the train's movement, but also the sound of the earth turning, the stars colliding in the distant void, and the flowing of infinitely small ether molecules. He heard the grass and trees on the mountains and fields rustling as they grew through the night, the blood circulating through his body, and the cells delighting in that blood as they whispered to one another.
His mind now existed in the state of chaos that preceded the creation of the heavens and earth—and also in the chaos of their decay and dissolution. He saw God, about to create light, stars, heaven and earth, tilting His head, wondering this way or that? And then, after making all decisions, rolling up His sleeves and beginning to make all things in the universe. He saw God create light and darkness, grass and trees, birds and beasts, and smile with joy. He saw God dig up earth, fetch water, knead it well with both feet, shape it into a human form, and finally breathe steam into its nostrils—and the man of clay became alive, blood flowed, and he opened his mouth to sing. And that clay, which at first could not move, now breathed and made sounds, and blood ran through its body—and that clay seemed to be himself. Hyeong-sik smiled faintly. Yes, I was a lifeless clod. I could not breathe, could not move, could not sing. I could not see the myriad things around me, nor hear the sounds they made. Even if the light of all things entered my eyes and their sounds entered my ears, they were nothing more than waves of ether. I did not know how to find any joy, sadness, or meaning in that light and those sounds. Even if I had sometimes laughed or cried, it was like pressing the belly of a rubber doll—it would laugh and cry on command. That laughter and those tears never flowed from my own heart; they were entirely passive.
Everything I have called "right" or "wrong," "sad" or "joyful," was never the judgment of my own intellect or the stirring of my own emotions. It was all inherited, following society's habits. Because people from ancient times said it was right, I said it was right. Because others said it was good, I said it was good. That was all. But what power does ancient rightness have over me? What concern is the goodness of others to me? I have my own intellect and my own will. Unless something is "right" or "good" or "joyful" or "sad" when measured against my intellect and my will, what does it matter to me? Even what I once thought was right, I abandoned without further thought because others said it was wrong from ancient times or that it was not right. That was my mistake. I had killed myself. I had abandoned myself.
Now, at last, he had awakened to his own life. He realized that he existed. Just as the North Star exists, and the North Star is neither the Wolf Star nor the Old Man Star, but only the North Star—distinct in size, brightness, position, composition, history, and mission in the universe from those other stars—so he existed. And he realized that he possessed intellect, will, position, mission, and character unlike any other person. And Hyeong-sik felt a joy beyond measure.
He smiled and looked out the train window.
🙝 🙟
The train was now passing Sillim and Namcheon stations, racing through the area around the old Geumcheon Grand Pass, the most mountainous section of the Gyeongui Line. The crescent moon had already set, and outside the window was pitch black. The absence of moonlight actually made it easier to see the shapes of the mountains. The border between sky and peaks was clearly visible, like a wavy line drawn with a thick brush as it pleased. Through the clattering of the wheels, he could hear a mountain stream tumbling over a pebbly shoal. Occasionally, sparks from the locomotive's smokestack briefly illuminated a few thatched cottages in a small valley, or a stretch of the mountain river—its water too meager after a long drought, flowing reluctantly. As the train rounded a mountain bend, a tiny light flickered in the darkness on the other side. The light flashed on and off as the train sped away, probably hidden by thickly leaved trees. It remained visible from Hyeong-sik's window for quite a long time. He stared at it. Who is sitting under that light, doing what? Perhaps a poor mother had put her children to sleep and stayed up alone to patch her husband's and children's rags. Maybe her failing eyes couldn't find the needle's eye, so she kept trimming the wick and rubbing her eyes. Then, sighing, "Ah, I've grown old!" she might drop a thick tear onto the patched rag. And then a sick child sleeping at the warmest spot on the floor, startled by a nightmare, would cry, and she would hold him and offer her breast, though there was no milk because she hadn't eaten. Or perhaps an old couple stood beside their only, sick son, taking turns touching his body, weeping and consoling each other, praying in their hearts, "God, look down upon us." At this, Hyeong-sik thought of his own parents, who had left this world over a decade ago. His mother was still young, but his father was past fifty. Whenever Hyeong-sik fell even slightly ill, his father would purify himself and stay awake by his bedside until he recovered. If Hyeong-sik happened to open his eyes, his father would look at him, smile as if immensely pleased that his son had woken, and hold his hand. His mother, not yet thirty, would struggle against her fatigue and doze off sitting up. Hyeong-sik felt a pang of sorrow, then looked back at the light. He thought of that single light flickering in the midst of total darkness, of the one person awake under it while the whole world slept soundly. He felt it was like his own state. The train rounded another bend, and the light disappeared from view. Hyeong-sik reluctantly pulled his head back inside.
All the other passengers in the compartment were fast asleep. A young laborer-like boy lying opposite him curled up as if cold. Hyeong-sik quickly closed the window and spread the blanket he had been sitting on over the boy. The boy, probably heading to some gold mine, wore dirt-stained cotton pants and had a towel wrapped around his head. His hair was matted, tangled in places, and old grime crusted around his ears and neck. He used a small, dirt-stained cloth bundle as a pillow; the paper cord tying it trailed under the seat. Hyeong-sik picked up the cord and tucked it under the bundle. From the boy's coarse hemp vest pocket, a Kuksupyo cigarette case peeked out, with three or four flat-tipped cigarettes visible. "He must treasure those," Hyeong-sik thought with a smile, touching his own Joil cigarettes. The urge to smoke struck him, and he took one out. He lit it and drew deeply. The taste was extraordinary.
Hyeong-sik looked around the compartment again. A Japanese woman woke, glanced around dazedly, touched her head and neck a couple of times, searched for something, then buried her face in her shingenbukuro and fell back asleep. Hyeong-sik thought of how tired he would be tomorrow and decided to sleep a while. He folded his handkerchief on the windowsill and closed his eyes. But his mind only grew more unsettled; no matter what, he could not fall asleep. He tried to count the wheel sounds with his eyes shut, hoping it would lull him. His mind became calm as a sea after a storm. Images flickered chaotically through his head: Yeongchae, Seon-hyeong, the old woman, Bae Hak-gam, Lee Huigyeong, the old man he'd seen outside Chilseongmun, Mr. Park's grave, Gye Wol-hwa... They came and went without order. With his eyes still closed, he saw all their faces. Some laughed, some wept; some pouted angrily, their eyes darting; others wore a wooden, detached expression. Yeongchae's face appeared most often and stayed longest. He thought of the bag beside him. Inside were Yeongchae's letter, her ring, and the knife. A chill ran down his spine. He snapped his eyes open.
Ah—have I done wrong? Have I been too heartless? Should I have searched longer for where she was staying? Even if she is dead, shouldn't I have at least tried to find her body? Shouldn't I have stood by the Daedong River and shed hot tears for a long time? She killed herself thinking of me. And I haven't even shed a tear for her. Ah—I am heartless. I am not human. He wished he could stop the train speeding toward Namdaemun and go back to Pyongyang. But though his heart was dragged toward Pyongyang, his body arrived at Namdaemun and got off.