The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea Read Free Page A

although he was a scholar, not the scholar his father was, poring over ancient volumes, but a scholar for all of that. His book today was a modern one, a history of western nations. His father would not have been pleased had he known that he, Kim Il-han, the only son of the Kim family of Andong, was engaged in such learning, his father who lived in the classics of Confucius and in dreams of the golden age of the dynasty of Silla! But he, Il-han, like all young men of his generation, was impatient with old philosophies and religions. Confucianism, borrowed from China, had isolated this nation already isolated by sea and mountain, and Buddhism had led the hermit mind of his people into fantasies of heaven and hell, gods and demons, into anything, indeed, except the bitter present.
    He paced the tiled floor of his library, a tall slender figure in the white robes of his people, and he listened for the cry of his newborn child while he mused. Then, burning with restlessness at the delay and suddenly feeling himself hot, he slid back the latticed wall. The clear sunshine of the spring morning poured its rays across his low table desk. The desk had been his grandfather’s, a solid piece of teak imported from Burma, made after his grandfather’s own design, and decorated with fine Korean brass.
    “This desk shall be yours,” his father had told him upon the grandfather’s death. “May the thoughts and writings of a great statesman inspire you, my son!”
    His grandfather had indeed been a great man, a premier of the still existing Yi dynasty, and from the Yi rulers he had absorbed the doctrine of isolationism and the emotions of pride and independence.
    “Situated as we are, surrounded by three powerful nations, Russia, China and Japan,” his grandfather had memorialized the Throne half a century ago, “we can only save ourselves from their greed by withdrawal from the world. We must become a hermit nation.”
    His father had often quoted these words and Il-han had listened to them with secret scorn. The absurdity of his elders! He had kept his own secrets even from his father, his share in the first revolt against the Regent, Taiwunkun. He, Il-han, had been only a boy but a useful boy, carrying messages between the rebel leaders and the young Queen. The Regent had married his son, King Kojong, to her when he was far too young for marriage, and because he was young the Regent had chosen a daughter of the noble clan of Min, older than the King, a choice he had cause to rue, for who could believe the beautiful graceful girl was strong and of such brilliant mind, and determined that she could plot to set the Regent aside? He, Il-han, had seen her at first only by candlelight, at midnight, in stolen conference with the rebel leaders, he waiting at the door for a packet thrust into his hand which he must take to the young King when he went to play chess with him the next day. Even then he had known that the Queen was the one who must rule, and that the King, his gentle and amiable playmate, could only be the buffer between the arrogant Regent and the Queen.
    But Il-han had told his father nothing. What could his father do, the handsome aging poet, dreaming his life away in his country house and his garden? For his father, unwilling to wound his grandfather, who had served the Regent, by taking the part of the young Queen who loved China, had early withdrawn from the royal conflict. Queen Min, it was said, though how truly none knew, was herself partly Chinese and her most powerful friend was Tzu-hsi, the Empress Dowager now ruling in Peking. From that capital the Queen still insisted upon buying the heavy silks and satin brocades she enjoyed wearing, and though some censured her for extravagance, he, Il-han, had not the heart to blame her for anything she did. Now in the joy of awaiting the birth of his second child, he thought of the Queen’s only son, heir to the throne, who had been born of feeble mind. In the center of her