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

being, proud and beautiful and brilliant as she was, there was emptiness, and he knew it.
    His absent mind, always pondering affairs of state, was presently controlled by his attention focused at this moment to hear the cry of his child fighting to be born. He paused, listening for footsteps. Hearing none, he returned to his desk, took up a camel’s-hair pen and continued to write a memorial he had begun some days before. Were this document to be presented to the King, he would have been compelled to use the formal Chinese characters. It was written not for the Court, however, but for the secret perusal of the Queen, and he used the symbols of the phonetic Korean alphabet.
    “Furthermore, Majesty,” he wrote, “I am troubled that the British have moved ships to the island of Komudo, so near to our coasts. I understand that they wish the Chinese armed forces to leave Seoul, with which I cannot agree, for Japan is demanding that she be allowed to send troops to Korea in case of emergency. What emergency can arise in our country which would need Japanese soldiers? Is this not the ancient and undying desire of Japan for westward empire? Shall we allow our country to be a stepping-stone to China and beyond China to Asia itself?”
    He was interrupted by the opening of a door and lifting his head, he heard his son’s voice, a subdued wail.
    “I will not go to my father!”
    He rose and flung open the door. His son’s tutor stood there, and his son was clinging to the young man’s neck.
    “Forgive me, sir,” the tutor said. He turned to the child. “Tell your father what you have done.”
    He tried to set the boy on his feet but the boy clung to him as stubbornly as a small monkey. Il-han pulled the child away by force and set him on his feet.
    “Stand,” he commanded. “Lift your head!”
    The child obeyed, his dark eyes filled with tears. Yet he did not look his father full in the face, which would have been to show lack of respect.
    “Now speak,” Il-han commanded.
    The child made the effort, opened his mouth and strangled a sob. He could only look at his father in piteous silence.
    “It is I, sir, who should speak first,” the tutor said. “You have entrusted your son to me. When he commits a fault, it is my failing. This morning he would not come to the schoolroom. He has been rebellious of late. He does not wish to memorize the Confucian ode I have set for him to learn—a very simple ode, suitable for his age. When I saw he was not in the schoolroom, I went in search of him. He was in the bamboo grove. Alas, he had destroyed several of the young shoots!”
    The child looked up at his father, still speechless, his face twisted in a mask of weeping.
    “Did you do so?” Il-han demanded.
    The child nodded.
    Il-han refused to allow himself pity, although his heart went soft at the sight of this small woeful face.
    “Why did you destroy the young bamboos?” His voice was gentle in spite of himself.
    The child shook his head.
    Il-han turned to the tutor. “You did well to bring him to me. Now leave us. I will deal with my son.”
    The young man hesitated, a look of concern on his mild face. Il-han smiled.
    “No, I will not beat him.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    The young man bowed and left the room. Without further talk Il-han took his son’s hand and led him into the garden, and then to the bamboo grove by its southern wall. It was plain to see what had happened. The young shoots, ivory white and sheathed in their casings of pale green, were well above ground. Of several hundreds, some tens were broken off and lying on the mossy earth. Il-han stopped, his hand still clasping the small hot hand of his son.
    “This is what you did?” he inquired.
    The child nodded.
    “Do you still not know why?”
    The child shook his head and his large dark eyes filled with fresh tears. Il-han led him to a Chinese porcelain garden seat, and lifted him to his knee. He smoothed the child’s hair from his forehead, and pride