It was only natural that U Seon's heart would ache. He had Hyeong-sik and Seon-hyeong right before his eyes, and that same train was carrying the Yeongchae he had longed for, pulled by the same locomotive. Besides, Yeongchae was no longer a courtesan, nor was she Hyeong-sik's wife. She was just a maiden... These thoughts flashed through U Seon's mind like lightning. So he followed Hyeong-sik and went to stand outside the door of the next compartment, letting the wind hit him as he secretly peered inside. Hyeong-sik sat beside Yeongchae, talking about something, and Byeong-uk occasionally joined in. The three faces were utterly solemn. U Seon debated whether to go in, then decided to wait for Hyeong-sik to come out. He leaned against the wall, hands clasped behind his back, listening to the thumping of the train wheels and lost in thought.
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After sending off Seon-hyeong and watching Byeong-uk return, Yeongchae took Byeong-uk's hand and made her sit. "So how was it?" she asked, not even knowing what she was asking. Byeong-uk said, "What do you mean? That Mr. Hyeong-sik fellow was all set, playing dumb. Claimed he knew my older brother... said they'd been together in Tokyo..." Yeongchae unconsciously let out a sigh. "What, do you miss Hyeong-sik? I guess you still haven't given up." "No, it's not that, but..." "Then why the deep sigh?" "I don't know why either," Yeongchae said, laughing as she slapped Byeong-uk's knee. "Still, your heart can't be entirely at ease," Byeong-uk said, also laughing. After a long silence, Yeongchae squeezed Byeong-uk's hand tightly. "You're right," she said, smiling shyly, her face red. "I feel a little uneasy somehow." Byeong-uk marveled inwardly—how could a girl who had been a courtesan for nearly ten years be so like a maiden raised in seclusion? Wanting to know what Yeongchae was feeling, she asked, "So what do you mean by uneasy?" "I don't know." "Don't act spoiled. Answer me straight, and I'll buy you something delicious." They both laughed. Yeongchae said, "Mr. Lee Hyeong-sik seems like such a heartless person. Even if I'd gone to die, he could at least have come to look for me... but instead he up and got married..." She trailed off, pressing her forehead against Byeong-uk's knee and rubbing it. "Oh no, Sister, why am I saying things like this?" Byeong-uk stroked Yeongchae's head, neck, and back, as if comforting a child. "What's wrong with saying it? Go on." "He probably knows I'm here, doesn't he?" "He probably does—Seon-hyeong came by just now and told him about you... What of it?" "What of it, indeed. But wouldn't he be shocked if someone who was dead came back to life?" "He'd get a good scare. I bet his heart skipped a beat... There's no reason for him to be so indifferent." "What if he comes looking for me? Should I meet him and talk?" "Of course. What, is he your sworn enemy?" "No, he's not that, but..." "What, are you feeling resentful?" The two sat staring at each other in silence for a while. Then Yeongchae said, "Sister, it was a mistake for you to save me. I should have died right then. If I'd died then, I'd already be rotted away by now... my bones scattered here and there... I should have died then," she said, shaking her head as if in regret. Byeong-uk was shocked to see Yeongchae's complexion suddenly change. She grabbed Yeongchae's arms. "Yah, Yeongchae, why are you saying things like that? From now on, you and I will go learn music properly, the two of us. We'll travel all around America and Europe, see everything to our heart's content, then come back to our country, establish a new kind of music, and live happily. So why are you talking like that?" She shook Yeongchae. Yeongchae sat staring blankly into Byeong-uk's eyes, then tears suddenly streamed down. "No. I'm not meant to live. I'm meant to die. When I quietly think back on my life, no matter how I look at it, I don't seem like I was born to live. My father and two older brothers died in prison, and then the seven or eight years of suffering were all for nothing..." She sobbed. "Yah, what is it with you? You were happily forgetting everything a moment ago—why the sudden breakdown? If you go on like this, what will this older sister do? Come on, don't cry!" "No matter how much I think about it, I have no desire to stay alive in this world." "Why? So you still can't forget Mr. Lee Hyeong-sik? Didn't you tell me back then that you didn't really love him?" "No. It's not just that. It's that this world is my enemy. It took my parents, took my brothers, toyed with my young body my fill... and then... and then finally it took my chastity... and then it paid no heed to the man I'd thought of my whole life... This world deliberately tries to destroy me, so what's the point of me stubbornly clinging to it? If the world hates me, I'll hate it too. If the world rejects me, I'll abandon it and flee... I'll ascend to heaven." Hearing her tearful words, Byeong-uk's own tears flowed involuntarily. "That's why I'm telling you—you've had that much taken from the world, so you should take some back from it. You just keep giving away what's yours! After twenty years of suffering like that, shouldn't you collect on that debt?" "What debt? The longer I live, the more I'll have taken from me..." "No! Why? From now on, you take it back. Your future is boundless—why are you losing heart already? You have to live as hard as you can, and take back as much as you can... take it back through your work and through your happiness... Why would you die without even claiming what's yours?" "Happiness? Happiness? Will happiness ever come to me? Will this world ever give me happiness?" She looked at Byeong-uk's tear-filled eyes.
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Byeong-uk wiped Yeongchae's tears with a handkerchief. "Yah, the other passengers will think it's strange. Don't cry... Why won't this world give you happiness? If it won't give, then demand it. If it won't give even when demanded, then take it by force. And if it won't give even when taken, then take revenge! Think about it. Are you the only one in this world who suffers such sorrow? Especially in our country, there must be countless pitiful people like you. Then we must reform this flawed social system so that our descendants can live in happiness. If not us, who? But if you can't bear your own suffering and die, then you're abandoning your responsibility to our descendants. So let's live as long as we can and work as much as we can... Come on, stop crying and let's eat some strawberries." She stood up and brought down a white rattan basket woven from cane. "What can I do?" "What do you mean, what can you do? God gave you hardship in your youth to mold you into a great worker... See, we have each other. Forget about that Hyeong-sik person and let's live relying on each other. Here, eat this." She placed the ripe red strawberries in front of them and ate one herself. As she chewed, the crimson juice stained her white teeth. These were strawberries they had picked the previous morning when she, Yeongchae, and Byeong-guk's wife went to the cotton field for a farewell party, picking strawberries while eating watermelons. The scene of Byeong-uk's house in Hwangju flashed before their eyes.
Yeongchae knew it was useless to cry, so she stopped. Byeong-uk's words were full of affection, strength, and reason. They were welcome, yet they also bore a weight that pressed down on her. Even when her heart felt like it would burst with sorrow, one word from Byeong-uk would dissolve it all. Yeongchae knew well that despite Byeong-uk's masculine vigor, inside she had warm and sensitive feelings, and when she comforted someone, she truly became one with that person's body and heart. Even if Yeongchae were standing at the water's edge about to take her own life, or holding a knife, just hearing Byeong-uk's voice would make her call out "Sister!" and follow. To Yeongchae, Byeong-uk seemed more like a mother than a sister.
But Yeongchae's sorrow, accumulated over twenty years of life, could not be completely dispelled by Byeong-uk's words alone. Still, she felt it would be unkind to insist on her own stubbornness in front of kind Byeong-uk, so she ate a strawberry. The red strawberries entered the two maidens' pretty lips and stained their white teeth red. Outside the window, rain splattered against the glass, teardrop-like droplets rolling down in clusters, then merging with other droplets and streaming away. Around the trembling electric light, which swayed with the train's motion, swarms of mayflies gathered. When the two girls' lips and fingertips had turned pink from the strawberry juice, Hyeong-sik appeared before them. "Yeongchae!"
Hyeong-sik had entered the compartment a while earlier. He had intended to go directly to Yeongchae, but seeing her crying, he sat down on an empty bench three or four seats away and quietly eavesdropped on their conversation. Though the train wheels made it hard to hear clearly, he could piece together fragments of their words and roughly grasp the gist. He couldn't suppress his sense of guilt toward Yeongchae and shame toward himself, and resolved to sincerely apologize to her.
Yeongchae and Byeong-uk were startled and stood up. The two bowed their heads at the same time. But Yeongchae quickly turned hers away. Hyeong-sik bowed his head. Byeong-uk alone raised her head and said to Hyeong-sik, "Please sit." He sat down. "Yah, sit down," Byeong-uk said to Yeongchae, who also sat, but still kept her head turned. Hyeong-sik's skin crawled as if faced with something terrifying. Yeongchae's back seemed to oppress and threaten him. He wondered if the spirit of Yeongchae, who had drowned in the Daedong River, had come before him to torment him. He imagined her suddenly turning around, glaring at him with a terrible face, spitting hot blood from her mouth, and lunging at him, shouting, "You heartless wretch, be cursed forever!" He regretted not searching more thoroughly when he went to Pyongyang. He regretted not borrowing five won from U Seon and immediately heading down to Pyongyang. What if she turned her head now? He even wished he hadn't come. At that moment, Byeong-uk pushed the strawberry dish forward. "Here, have some strawberries." And she pressed her foot firmly against Yeongchae's foot. "Yeongchae, yah." Yeongchae quietly turned her head. But Hyeong-sik did not look at her.
"Yeongchae, please forgive me. I have no words to say... I am a great sinner before Teacher and before you, Yeongchae. Please reproach me however you wish."
"Not at all. It was childish of me to come to you and cause you needless worry. And I said I would die without being able to die, making you so anxious." She bowed her head. Byeong-uk thought to herself, "This won't do."
Hyeong-sik couldn't bring himself to say more to Yeongchae, so he turned to Byeong-uk. "But how did this come about? Did you know Yeongchae before?" Byeong-uk looked at Hyeong-sik and smiled. That smile gave Hyeong-sik an indescribable shame. He felt she was mocking him. "No, I met her on the train on my way home during vacation." Hyeong-sik's eyes widened. He glanced at Yeongchae, then back at Byeong-uk. "Then she was going to Pyongyang?" "Yes." Hyeong-sik wanted to know more. He wanted to know in detail how Yeongchae had given up her resolve to die, and how she had come to go to Tokyo. So he asked, "And then what happened?" Byeong-uk tilted her head and gazed at Yeongchae's averted face. "So I said, why would you die? Life is joyful, you should want to live as long as possible, why rush to die? And I told her that until now, you have been mocked and abused by everyone..." She hesitated, glancing at Hyeong-sik, then smiled again. "And you were abandoned by the one you had thought of and longed for all your life..." Before she finished, Hyeong-sik's heart felt as if pierced by a needle. Seeing his expression change, Byeong-uk stopped. "But I said that even though your life has been one of tears and resentment, now a broad and joyful future lies before you, doesn't it? So I dragged her off the train." "I'm truly grateful. Thanks to you, miss, my guilt feels a bit lighter. I thought for sure that Yeongchae had passed away." At this, Byeong-uk and Yeongchae smiled inwardly. "So I immediately sent a telegram to the Pyongyang Police Station and took the next train down to Pyongyang." Here Hyeong-sik felt glad to have a chance to explain himself. "But the police said they had searched the station but found nothing. So I also went to ask around at houses that might know, and even visited Teacher Park's grave..." He trailed off as a thought came to him, and he bowed his head. He was thinking how he should have gone to Bukmangsan and searched the banks of the Daedong River, even for just an hour or two, to find her body. Byeong-uk listened for a while, then said, "Yes, I suppose you did that. So you must have worked hard searching for the body." Hyeong-sik thought, "This girl is quite good at teasing people." Indeed, sweat was running down his back.
Yeongchae heard everything Hyeong-sik said. The resentment she had felt toward him eased somewhat. But the gratitude she felt for his immediately following her to Pyongyang and searching so earnestly for her body was overwhelmed by the thought that in less than a month after her supposed death, he had married Seon-hyeong and was now on his way to the United States. Yeongchae saw Hyeong-sik as both a beloved lover and a heartless husband. But since everything was already in the past, what use was regret or anger? It would be better to greet him with a smile and make him feel at ease. She managed to change her attitude, but she didn't want to show a completely happy face and put him at ease. So she said, "I am truly sorry. I intended to write to you as soon as I arrived in Hwangju, but I thought, what use is it to let you know that a body who didn't know when she would die was alive for a moment? I thought it would be more comforting for you to believe I was dead, so I didn't write... Now looking back, how fortunate it was that I didn't tell you." She smiled, feeling she had said too much. "Then why didn't you even send a single postcard?" Hyeong-sik asked indignantly. "How could you torment me like that?" He genuinely resented Yeongchae for that. He felt that if she had sent just one postcard, he would have immediately gone to find her and held her hand. Byeong-uk and Yeongchae saw his angry face. Yeongchae felt uneasy toward Hyeong-sik. "But I thought that letting you know I was alive would only cause you unnecessary worry. If I had become a burden to you and harmed your reputation, then it would have been..." she hesitated, "...not the right thing to do for you. So I forced myself to endure and stayed quiet." Tears flowed from Yeongchae's eyes again. Seeing her tears, Hyeong-sik turned his head away. He felt even more grateful for Yeongchae's heart that had always considered him. The thought that she had tried to die for his sake, and that she had hidden her survival for his sake, made him regret his own heartless treatment of her. Looking at the tearful Yeongchae across from him, and thinking of Seon-hyeong sitting in the other compartment, Hyeong-sik's mind was greatly disturbed. For a while, there was no conversation among the three, and the train made loud noises as it crossed some iron bridge. The raindrops splashing against the window and the sound of flowing water indicated that the heavy rain was still continuing. They wondered if there might be a flood.
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Hyeong-sik came out of Yeongchae's compartment with a boiling head. U Seon, who had been standing guard, tapped his shoulder. "Yeongchae was crying." Hyeong-sik grabbed U Seon's hand. "Ah, what am I to do?" "Why, what happened? Looks like Yeongchae was giving you a scolding... Oh, you fine fellow!" "No, it's not something to joke about... Really, what should I do?" "Tsk, you worry too much... Just take a boat to Busan, then a train to Shimonoseki, then a boat to Yokohama, then get off at Shanghai—that's all there is to it. What's there to worry about?" Hyeong-sik looked at U Seon resentfully, stood thinking for a moment, then said, "I'm thinking of canceling my trip to the United States." "What?" U Seon was also surprised. "Why?"