“So there are many of us,” he murmured before he let her go.
… As for Il-han, he took no further interest in the marriage, which was, after all, women’s business. Indeed, as he reflected upon it, the wedding might bring only dissension into his house, for the young woman whom Yul-han wished to marry now broke all tradition by coming herself one day to see Sunia, her future mother-in-law, and, to his surprise, himself, for when the girl arrived alone except for an old woman servant, she asked not only to see the house but her future father-in-law. He was disturbed by Sunia, who came breathless into his library to tell him the strange news.
“She is here,” Sunia exclaimed.
“She?” Il-han repeated.
“The woman — the girl — Yul-han—” She paused, not knowing what to say. Betrothed she was not as yet and to use the word “friend” in relation to a son would have evil implication. “Her name is Induk,” she finished.
“Well?” Il-han asked.
“What shall we do? She wishes to see us both!”
“Tell her I am busy,” Il-han said promptly.
Sunia hesitated. “Will she not think it rebuff? Yet what will the neighbors say if you do see her?”
Yul-han now arrived by another way, in time to hear these words. He came in and slid the wall door shut behind him. “Father — Mother—” He had been running and he breathed hard. “Remember that everything is different nowadays. She teaches the girls and I teach the boys, but we see each other in the corridors and on the playground in passing. I asked her myself if she would have me and she said yes. She wants our wedding to be modern.”
“What is modern?” Sunia inquired with some scorn.
“Well, she does not wish you to give her the usual red and green sets of garments. She says a ring on her finger at the time of our marriage is enough.”
“How does she mean enough?” Sunia demanded. “The red garments signify the passion any marriage must have for happiness and the green signifies that you will grow together, you two young ones. How will you say such things except through these gifts?”
Yul-han shrugged his shoulders. He could not explain to his parents how such things were said nowadays.
Sunia’s sharp eyes saw the shrug and immediately she went on. “Doubtless the girl is not serious. At any rate, we do not know whether the marriage will be propitious. Fortunetellers must be called. We do not even know your two birth years. How can we know the combination of your lives?”
Yul-han smiled. He went to the garden door and stood there. The summer peonies were in bloom, their red and white flowers were vivid against the young green. In the pond a frog croaked. “Only for fun,” he said, “she and I did inquire of a fortuneteller. We were both born in the year of Earth and though she is Tiger, I am Dragon.”
Sunia could not but be pleased. “Can it be so! Earth? Then as every branch of a tree bursts into flower, your children will prosper and grow.” She turned to Il-han, suddenly radiant. “We will be cared for in our old age!”
“If we believe in such things,” Il-han said drily.
Sunia refused to be discouraged. “There is something in such symbols. Do not forget that our ancestors lived by their belief and are we better than they?”
The two men, father and son, said nothing. Each had his thoughts — Yul-han that any happiness his mother could find would be well for himself and Induk, and Il-han that he would not at this time of her life disturb Sunia’s faith and hope. They remained silent while Sunia prattled on.
“Now,” she said happily, “it is a good thing that we do not need to pay fortunetellers. The wedding must be thought of next — a good wedding. We must prepare the wedding hat and belt for you, my son, and we must mend the old palanquin to fetch the bride home to this house after the three days of ceremony. The curtains are in shreds.”
Yul-han turned. “Mother,” he said. “Remember that she comes from a city family. And I, too, do not wish to have an old-fashioned wedding. What! I go through all that clownery?”
He spoke with unusual energy, and Il-han was surprised that his quiet son could for the moment at least again resemble his older brother. But Sunia was not patient.
“Are we not to have a decent wedding?” she demanded. “True, we are poor now as everyone is, but not too poor to see our sons properly married. Sons? That older brother of yours refused to be married. Alas, where is he these many years and he with no wife to care for him? We do not even know where he is. All the more then must we see to it that your wedding is performed according to law and tradition.”
“Mother,” Yul-han urged, “I beg you let it be as I wish.”
It was now time for Il-han to interfere. “Sunia, we must consider. It is true the times have changed and I am not sure the change is evil. I remember our own wedding day with no great pleasure — all that folly of ashes thrown at me when I left this house to go to yours and all my relatives flocking after me as I went and that wedding chest carrier with his face blackened to make people laugh! And you, with your face painted thick with white powder and your yellow-and-blue coat and red skirt and your family bowing when I came in! And all through the wedding feast we were teased until I was afraid you would cry and streak your painted face. And then when they tied my two legs together and hung me from the beam of the house and they pretended to beat the soles of my feet to make me promise them another feast! Those three nights I spent in your father’s house as bridegroom were not joy, I can tell you, what with teasing friends and neighbors listening at our door.”
Sunia heard this with eyes growing wider as she listened.
“And all these years you have kept this inside yourself!”
Il-han laughed. “Until now, when I bring it out to defend my son!”
They stood, two men against the lone woman, and she could only yield unhappily. She looked at them mutely and Il-han nodded to Yul-han and he went out and brought back the tall handsome girl, whose fresh skin and dark lively eyes showed health. She was not bold, in spite of her composed ways, for she bowed to Il-han and did not speak until he spoke.
He put on his tortoiseshell spectacles and looked at her in silence and then he nodded his head.
“Welcome to my house,” he said. “We break custom here but the times are new.” With this he took off his spectacles. “Forgive me,” he said. “It is not discourtesy that makes me put on spectacles. My eyes are not what they once were.”
This was true, for the midnight teaching by the light of flickering candle made his eyes dim.
“Necessity is no discourtesy nowadays, sir,” she said.
There was no more to say, and in a few minutes she went away as gracefully as she had come, pausing at the door to look back at Sunia.
“If you please, good Mother,” she said sweetly. “Come with me.”
She held out her hand and Sunia could not resist the gentle voice, the pleading eyes. Hand in hand, the two women left the room.
Now Yul-han was left alone with his father and he knew the time had come to confess that Induk was Christian. He did not know whether his father would accept the marriage when he knew, and he had tried to prepare Induk. Indeed only yesterday they had talked long on the necessity and he had begun thus:
“How shall I tell my mother that our wedding will be according to the Christian ceremony? You know how women enjoy our old-fashioned weddings.”
“Leave your mother to me,” Induk had replied. “Tell only your father. If we are wise in what we say, we shall win them separately and each will help us with the other.”
She had a calm assurance, this young female who was to be his wife, and sometimes Yul-han felt a certain awe of her. Where did she find this wisdom? Could it be that her strange religion did indeed communicate a power unknown to him? She never spoke of religion, not even to ask him if he had read the book she had given him, nor did she ask him if he would be Christian too. Yet he knew that she made her prayers to the unknown god, and she went every seven days to the Christian temple. Now and then, however, she spoke of the missionary, sometimes with laughter, for he was very foreign, yet always with respect.