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

this son succeeded his father and became King Kumwa.
    “At this point,” the tutor was saying, “the child tore the book from my hands and dashed it on the floor. Then he ran from the room. I searched for him and when I found him in the bamboo grove he was wrenching the bamboo shoots with both his hands and all his strength and throwing them on the ground. When I asked him why he did so, he said he did not want a golden frog for a brother.”
    Il-han was amazed. “Who put that in his mind?”
    The young tutor lowered his eyes again. A red flush crept up from his neck and spread over his cheeks. “Sir, I am miserable. I fear it was I who did so, but unwittingly. He had heard of his brother’s approaching birth and he asked me where this brother would come from. I did not know how to reply, and I said perhaps he would be found under a rock, like the Golden Frog.”
    Il-han laughed. “A clever explanation, but I can think of a better! You might, for instance, have replied that his brother came from the same place that he himself did. And when the child inquired where that was, you could have said, ‘If you do not know, how can I know?’”
    The young man forgot himself and raised his eyes to Il-han’s face. “Sir, you do not understand your own son. He is never to be put off. He pries my mind open with his questions. I fear sometimes that in a few years he will be beyond me. He smells out the smallest evasion, not to mention deceit, and worries me for the truth, even though I know it is beyond him. And when in desperation I give him simple truth he struggles with it as though he were fighting an enemy he must overcome. When he comprehends finally and to his own satisfaction, he is exhausted and angry. That was what happened this morning. He insisted upon knowing where his brother came from, and how could I explain to him the process of birth? He is too young. I was driven to use wile and persuasion and so I fetched the book. But he knew it was only a device and this was the true reason for his anger.”
    Il-han rose from his cushion and went to the door and opened it suddenly. No one was there and he closed it again and returned to his cushion. He leaned forward on the low desk and spoke softly. “I have called you here for another purpose, also. Your father, as you know, was my tutor. He taught me much, but most of all he taught me how to think. He grounded me in the history of my people. I wish you to do the same for my son.”
    The young tutor looked troubled. “Sir, my father was a member of the society of Silhak.”
    He lowered his voice and looked toward the closed door.
    “Why be afraid?” Il-han inquired. “There is good in the teaching of the Silhak that learning which does not help the people is not true learning. It is not new, mind you. It is made up of many elements—”
    “Western, among them, sir,” the tutor put in. He forgot himself and that he was in the presence of the heir of the most powerful family in Korea.
    “Partly western,” Il-han agreed. “But that is good. Were it not treason to the Queen, I would say that we have been too long under the influence of the ancient Chinese. Not that we should allow ourselves to be wholly under the influence of the West, mind you! It is our fate, lying as we do between many powers, to be influenced to an extent by all and many. It is our task to accept and reject, to weld and mingle and out of our many factions to create ourselves, the One, an independent nation. But what is that One? Ah, that is the question! I cannot answer it. Yet now for the sake of my sons an answer must be found.”
    He leaned against the backrest of his cushion, frowning, pondering. Suddenly he spoke with new energy.
    “But you are not to repeat your father’s weakness with me. He told me of evil in other great families, but not in my own family of Kim. Yet in some ways we are the most guilty of all the great families. We early built ourselves into the royal house so that we