Now the household busied itself. New garments must be made for the dead, and a new mattress for his coffin, new blanket and new pillow. The men who serve the dead must be summoned and also the geomancer, whose duty it was to decide upon the place of burial, a place suited to the winds and the waters. The coffin too had to be built, and of pinewood, for the pine tree is evergreen and is a symbol of manhood. It does not wither or cast its leaves until it dies. Serpents and turtles and lizards and all such reptiles will never nest near a pine tree. Nor does the pine tree rot at the core to remain an empty shell. It dies whole, and quickly, and begins another life, and this, too, is good. The old life should not cling to the new and hamper the growth beyond. What is finished is ended and if dust is the end, then may the end come entire when it comes. The parts of this coffin were put together with wooden pegs for nails, and the cracks were filled with honey and resin, the walls and bottom lined with white cloth, and upon this bottom a mattress was laid. Inside the lid the word Heaven was brushed, and at the four corners the word Sea.
Into this final home Il-han, in his position as master of mourning, now helped his father to lie and the coffin was lifted into the place of honor on a raised platform. By this hour neighbors and friends and relatives knew of the death and they came to mourn. With each guest Il-han made the wail of mourning the suitable number of times, and then the guests were served with wine and food. The next day at sunrise Il-han, still as master of mourning, lit the early incense and again wailed in mourning, and food was brought for the dead as though he were living. So it was again in the evening until all ceremonies were performed according to ritual.
Then Il-han sat alone in the room where as a child he had studied his Confucian books with his old tutor, and while he waited for Sunia, he was aware of a new loneliness. His mother’s death remained in him still as a wound too deep, for he was her only child. But she had long been ill and feeble. His father was his family in those days, and his closest friend, and there had been no estrangement between them, for the elder man had declined political posts and had retired more and more deeply into his books as the years passed. To Il-han he had often said that he could not share the strife and dissensions everywhere, the struggles for power between this man and that, the treacheries of court life, the enmities between surrounding nations. He was content to keep his own spirit pure, and he believed that he could do nothing for his fellow patriots that served them better than to remain untouched by deceit and private profit. Yet he did not judge these faults in others, nor did he change the traditions. He did not, for example, consider sharing the Kim lands with the peasants who tilled it. When Il-han, in his impetuous youth, declared that his father should rectify those sins of the past whereby the Kim clan had, like other yangban clans, seized great portions of the nation’s land, his father had merely replied that each generation must take care of its own sins, and he believed that he himself had committed no sins.
It was past noon of the next day when Sunia arrived with her retinue of children and servants. Il-han met her at the entrance and he saw her face was pale, but she allowed herself no outbreak of weeping. Instead she directed the children to embrace their father, and he lifted them into his arms, first the elder and then the younger. Their eyes were large and frightened and he comforted them, saying that he was glad they had come and that their grandfather could not speak to them now, but they might run into the garden and play with the little monkey chained there to a tree, and he could come to them later. Then he returned to his room and Sunia followed.
“Sunia,” he said, as soon as they were alone. “You must wait upon the Queen, announcing my father’s death. Tell her I will wait upon her myself as soon as the rites are fulfilled.”
She was looking at him with tender and sorrowful eyes, but at these words her tenderness changed.
“Even now you think of her first,” she said.
“Because it is my duty,” he told her.
“Go to her yourself, then,” she said.
With these words she turned away from him and walked to the end of the room which opened upon a small private garden. There in a pool no larger than a big bowl a few goldfish swam in the clear water, and the sun glinted on their ruffled fins.
Il-han was suddenly seized with rage for all women. Queen and commoner alike, they thought first of themselves and of whether they were loved by men. His reason told him that he was unjust, for surely women must think of love, else how can children be born? It is children they desire and for this they seek men’s love above all else. Yet Sunia had no cause to complain of him for lack of love or of children. So his angry heart exclaimed, and then his reason reminded him that he had been many months away from home, and since his return his mind had been much troubled, and Sunia was quick to discern that his whole self was not with her. Yet, because he feared to rouse her jealousy — still inexplicable to him, for how can a woman be jealous of a queen — he had not explained to her the weight upon him, now that he had seen his country whole and the people clinging to its earth and scratching its surface for their food.
He turned his back on her, too, and thus they stood for minutes until his heart took hold again — yes, and his reason. Let these two meet, his wife and his Queen, this time in the palace, and let each take the measure of the other. Surely Sunia would come home to him again and know the depths of her folly. And he was stronger than Sunia, and as man should be stronger than woman he should make peace first.
With such feelings and reasonings, he went to her now and put his hands on her shoulders and turned her about to face him. Her eyes filled with tears and her lips quivered as she looked up at him.
“Do what I ask of you,” he said. “Go and see for yourself. She is your Queen as well as mine.”
His gentleness melted her as it always did, and he went on.
“I left her presence in anger, Sunia, such anger that I was about to ask for immediate audience with the King. Then I thought I should come to my father first, since it was he who had access to the King. When I came here, I found him — as you know. I cannot return to the Queen now, with my mind divided and my heart in sorrow. Do this for me, my wife.”
She put up both her hands then and stroked his cheeks with her palms and he knew she would obey. When she went to prepare herself, he ordered his servant to precede Sunia and ask for audience with the Queen, declaring the emergency, and he ordered her palanquin to be made ready and to be hung with streamers of coarse white cotton, signifying a death in the family.
When she had gone, he escorting her to the gate and seeing her into her palanquin and the curtain lowered which hid her from public view, he returned to his father’s house and gathered together the head servants. When they were assembled, standing before him while he sat on the floor cushion behind the table, he gave his commands.
“I have decided for reasons of state that we must hasten the burial of my honored ancestor. He would not wish to imperil the nation because of his death and our national affairs are not yet settled, although the Queen has returned to us. Therefore the burial must not be later than the ninth day after his death, for as you well know, it must then be delayed for three months. In that time it is possible that we may have war. Therefore we must arrange the funeral for the seventh day.”
The servants looked at one another, stricken. They were elderly men, the four of them, long in the service of his father, and now that their master was dead they were afraid to disobey his son and heir. Yet they wished to do honor to their dead master and they wanted no undue haste.