Ewa, a tale of Korea

Front matter

m^

BOUGHT "WITH THE. INCOME FROM THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUISID

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The Royal Recorder n

Promise of New Dignity 23

CHAPTER I The Royal Recorder

I WOULD not be true to that which the Korean holds dearest in life, namely, the reverence due his ancestors, if I did not, in these first lines, introduce the reader to my father, the Royal Recorder, who was the head of the great Kim clan of the North, and also, to the home over which he ruled.

At a distance, the Sung-ji^ mansion resembled a fortification. A wall enclosing a small village of roofs formed a rectangle of nearly three thousand square yards. It was eight feet high, covered with huge tile coping, but here the resemblance to a fortification ceased. Above the wall, within the enclosure, rose the buildings of our home. They were, like the wall, rectangular in shape, with broad gables and massive roofs resembling the hills that towered above them. The eaves of the roofs, from center to corners, sloped up and outward, giving the group of buildings an airiness, like a dancing girl with her arms raised aloft posed for the dance. The suggestion of humor was enhanced by the arrangement of the buildings. They stood at all angles, as if they had paused in the midst of a mad frolic and

iRoyal Recorder.

were peering over the walls at a noisy, chattering brook that half encircled the outside of the enclosure. The great compound was flanked at the back by a high range of hills called "The Mistress of the Tong River." It rose sharply out of the narrow valley and turned southward by the side of the river with long graceful strides, swinging from its evergreen sides a voluminous trail, which, folding out and in, revealed a village here and hid another there. Days, when the winds blfew heavily from the south and hurtled up through the mountain peaks, there was heard a sobbing and moaning sound, so that, it was said, demons of the mountains were struggling and shouting in the storm.

The main entrance to the enclosure was a huge gate over which, supported by four posts, was an upper structure sheltering a room that opened on four sides, where, in the time of our prosperity, hung a ponderous drum and other instruments of music. Here the curfew was played, and not rung, as is the habit in some lands.

The curfew at my home was an imitation of the cunning fiction practiced at the country magistracies, which regarded the unwalled towns as possessing gates tO' be closed and opened, at regulated times, for the protection of the people. Thus, at night, the people would be called from their toil, and again, in the unreasonable hours of the early cockcrowing, the drums and horns would roar out.

announcing to the sleepy denizens that the gates to the town, of which there were none, were open and the people permitted to engage in their daily toil.

Just inside the main gate stood a small building which inspired my boyhood with awe, exceeded only by the fear that I held for the ghosts and hobgoblins who were hidden in the top of the Mistress of the Tong River. This was the guest house where my father received governors, magistrates, and other high oflEicials who were ready to make long journeys to our country home to solicit favor of the man who stood in the Imperial Presence when at the capital. The building boasted of two rooms separated by an unusually heavy partition, behind which, it was understood, the great Sung-ji on rare occasions Imparted his whispered confidences.

The floor of the main room, covered with oiled paper, was polished daily by a slave girl till it shone like a mirror. As a boy, in tke absence of the usual awe-inspiring dignity, I often gamboled on its slippery surface and measured the room, six strides one way and four the other. The furniture of the larger room, where guests were received, consisted of a large brass candlestick that reached from the floor as high as one's head; the brasier, usually filled with coals for the convenience of the long pipes of guests, and cushions, arranged in order about the room, giving it a sense of luxury. The wall was papered white and decorated with many impossible figures by a skilled artist from the capital, and banners hung from the walls covered with quotations from the classics. The room was warmed by flues passing under the house from a fireplace sheltered at one side, where, often as a boy, I fed into its ravenous maw the pine bough cut from the mountainside and laughed as I dodged the flame that licked out hungrily at me.

As I remember my father last, his hair was as white as snow. It was held in place by a band fastened with punctilious neatness about his head, after the style of all our people. Over the band was drawn a skull cap that opened at the top and expanded with projections at the four sides, bearing a decided resemblance to a crown. His face was round, eyes black, with overhanging brows, mouth slightly drooped at the corners and closed firmly, as if he were in the habit of commanding. I best remember him seated on a large cushion in the guest room on the side farthest from the door. At his back, running from wall to wall, a silk screen adorned with beautiful needle-work representing forests, birds, and animals. He usually wore a silk coat dyed red, over a suit of purest white. To me, his voice wasalways kind, and peering back through the troublous years filled with painful incidents which I am about to relate, I see my father. His benign face and gentle look caress me still, and make the sheet of paper under my hand grow dim.

Ewa: a Tale of Korea ig

When in the capital my father's business was to watch the Emperor and write down all his Majesty's acts, however trivial. It was frequently the case that a close intimacy would spring up between the Emperor and his creature, the Sung-ji, that was denied all other officials, and my father, it was said, often jogged his Majesty's elbow to the advantage of many of his friends, and sometimes to the confusion of his enemies, till he was known as "His Majesty's Friend."

At the period of which I write the fortune of the great Sung-ji had been fast fading away, and many were the schemes devised by which it was hoped that our family would become thoroughly reestablished before he should close his career among the great of earth. Haste in the matter seemed necessary, as that ruthless arbiter. Time, was making sad havoc of this stately patrician of Korean society.

He had held the enviable rank of Sung-ji in the Emperor's service for twenty years, an office denied the North country for a period of more than three hundred years. A powerful family by the name of Song gained control over Korean politics somewhere about 1560, and so successfully connived for its own interests as to secure the passage of a law disqualifying any man living in the northern provinces from securing that rank.

"How," they asked, "is it possible for any good to come out of the North ?"

For centuries the question itself sufificed to settle all cavil. Excellency in scholarship was not decided from the merits of the thesis written at the national examinations, but frona. the locality in which the man lived. When a man was presented for preferment his ancestry was carefully reviewed, and if it was found that the candidate had been so culpable as to have allowed his family to take root in the North country, even though it were a thousand years previous to his own birth, he was quietly turned down, unless, indeed, he had vast sums of money to pay for his rank, and even then he was treated in a spirit of tolerance, but not of fellowship.

The spirit of resentment and jealousy in the North which grew through these years at some periods threatened the country with a revolution ; but when my father secured the rank of Sung-ji it was believed to be a death blow to the old regime, and the whole North rejoiced; while in the South, the innovation was viewed with dismay. The most astonished man among Korea's millions was my father himself. He regarded his good fortune as the gift of the gods which augured well for his descendants through all time.

It came about in this way: my grandfather had inherited a large fortune and by shrewd industry had added to it until he was one of the wealthiest landholders in the country. Success seemed to crown his every effort till, it was said, when he launched a chip on the river it floated back to him acres of lumber. Finally he began to yearn and struggle for national rank. It is fair to him to say that his ambition was more in behalf of his posterity than for himself, with the hopes, however, that a clan of great men would sacrifice at his grave through the centuries to come.

His passion for rank and political preferment burned into his life with an intensity only equaled by the passion of a gambler. He made trips to the capital, spending vast sums of money to curry favor with the powers that controlled these national gifts.

Finally he collected all he had, besides the lands around his immediate home, and left for Seoul, resolved that he would not return until he had secured the position he coveted.

While at the capital, in this desperate search for rank, he met Prince An, who, in the whirl of fortune's wheel, became in after years the Prince Regent of Korea. At this date, however, he was very poor and without great influence. My grandfather deposited with him a large sum of money and received in return the usual empty promises.

Prince An had a son for whom my grandfather took a great fancy and spent whole days in making kites for him and in teaching the boy how to fly them. As he spent much of his time at the home of the Prince, the lad and he were great companions. My grandfather was, it has been stoutly argued, quite unconscious of any possibility that the boy would ever be any other than a playmate to him, but, as he was a great connoisseur of national rank and royal genealogy, he may have possessed knowledge of some facts that gave course to his kites and length to their strings.

Finally the Emperor died, and having left no children, the country was searched for an heir to the throne. Musty records were produced ; claimants in great numbers came forward, but were rejected. At last it was proven beyond a doubt that the son of Prince An was the legitimate heir to the throne.

In the meantime my grandfather had returned to his home a discouraged man. He had struggled against constant defeat and had fretted his life threadbare. He went away vigorous and in the prime of manhood, but returned an old man.

As soon as the new King took his throne he remembered his old playmate and dispatched a courier to call him to Seoul as the one whom the King would delight to honor. The messenger found the home in mourning and the oldest son, my father, hastened to the capital to bear the tidings of his father's death to the boy King. On arriving he was received with many marks of regard and honored with the rank of Sung-ji.

His appointment to this rank and its privileges stirred the whole country, and so earnestly and effectually did the officials at the capital protest that there has not been a repetition of the appointment to this day.

In this country, newly married people do not separate from the original stock, but each new family gathers under the parental roof, and the original household grows small only by dying ofJ at the top, so that, in the palmy days of my father's prosperity, more than fifty persons comprised our home, besides a large number of servants quartered in the village outside of the compound.

I, being the youngest son, enjoyed the advantages which are the usual privileges of that member of a family. Idleness and incapacity, the ideals for children of the rich and those of rank, became my lot. Discouraged from taking robust physical exercise, I developed the physical effeminacy which is supposed to be the mark of a gentleman. Keeping the creases out of my silk coat, my hands white and my little finger nails long were the burdensome occupations of my life, until about five years previous to the period of which this story relates I became greatly attached to a young man by the name of Kim Tong-siki,^ seven years my senior, who, it seems to me, was the most remarkable man of these disturbed times.

My home was composed differently from what critics of the late reform movements would call ideal

» "Kim," is the clan name and "Tong-siki" is the name received from his parents on reaching his majority. In this case and in others of which this story relates the clan name will be dropped.

or intolerable. I was not the son of my father's real wife. If at this time I had been called upon to debate the question of the proposed marriage reforms, I would have asked first for their motives : national economics, improvement of society, utilitarian, or ideal? In any case, it would be a reflection on our honored ancestry and might raise the question of my right to existence. Though I am the son of a concubine, I am glad that I am here. My philosophy may be selfish, and I might wish, for the sake of a beautiful creed, that such as I had not been. The sages have taught us, and there are many of us who believe their teaching true, that there will be a time when we all shall have been absorbed in the mother of all life. In such a scheme to argue out of existence one's personality, it might be as consistent to regret the past as to hope for the future. I fancy, however, that Nirvana, into which Buddhism says we are drifting, and asks us to be glad at the perfection of this system of annihilation, would be less attractive if it was not distant and inevitable. One fact is certain — I am here, and when I am hungry I would rather have a homely meal than listen to a fine discourse on the palace bill of fare.

An older brother and I were the only living sons of the great Sung-ji. That fact was the source of much sorrow on the part of my father. Daughters crowded the compound and fluttered about the rambling old homestead in such numbers that he was as

WOMEN AT SUNG-YO S HOME little able to keep track of them as was his desire to do so. Thirteen lived to weep under the hard hands of mothers-in-law.

"Sons are a blessing, and daughters are a curse," he would say, yet dimpled cheeks and laughing eyes followed him everywhere. A smile from him would set the hills to echoing with merry laughter. The fact that girls are not supposed to be worth the possession of names frequently produces interesting scenes.

"Which one are you?" the Sung-ji would ask, pinching a pair of pink cheeks.

"Rat," would be the reply.

"Yes, yes," he would say, "what are the rest doing?"

"Pig, Cat and Rascal are playing with Twelve and Thirteen and — "

"Yes, yes, never mind, off with you to your play," would be his reply.

Among our servants were a number of female slaves, and, through marriage, three male members of that class who refused their freedom though granted by the law unless their wives could go with them, deliberately choosing to suffer with their families rather than seek their own freedom. On these slaves often fell all the ills of the home. One of their number was more to me than any of my other playmates. It was not often that my father so far lost himself as to lay violent hands on anyone ; but if at any time his wrath was aroused and there was no other outlet the slightest provocation would bring speedy vengeance upon the head of the unlucky slave.

I was about seven years old, when, one day, I happened in the yard and found all our servants gathered, their interest centered upon some object in their midst. Out of curiosity and unnoticed I pushed my way to the center of the circle and what I saw followed me as a shadowing nightmare long afterward. A man lay bound down to the beams of a rough cross, his arms extended, and stripped of nearly all his clothing. Our head servant stood by directing another who was leaning on a long paddle. At a signal the paddle was raised and brought down on the thighs of the prostrate man. A spasmodic upward throw of the head brought his face in my direction, revealing the face of my playmate slave. Sudden anger choked me, and in my puny wrath I ran to stop the next blow. It fell more lightly on my arm, the marks of which I still carry with me. The consternation that followed resulted in the release of the slave.

For slight acts of kindness, this class of people gave me an affection that I found not elsewhere ; and it is the sweet memories that hover around the name of one of these helpless children of misfortune that inspire me to relate the incidents of this tale.

CHAPTER II Promise of New Dignity

At the age of eighteen I was made aware of the scandalous fact that I was not married. This certainly was an abnormal state of afifairs for one in our. grade of society. It was the result partly from my dislike of such a move, partly from my mother's indulgence, but mainly from my father's straitened financial afifairs. Like my grandfather, he had spent large sums of money in the eflfort to buy rank for my ambitious brother, with the result of a well-fed official in the capital, many empty promises and the loss of a large part of his estate. His service to the King brought little revenue; but while enough of his estate remained to maintain the tradition of the clan hospitality, and the rank was still attached to our name, it was sufficient for the dignity of a gentleman. I fear the losses disturbed me little as they served to postpone my unwelcome prospects of marriage.

Finally negotiations were afoot to dispose of me in a fitting manner, though, as was said, it was shamefully late. A young lady four years my senior was chosen to be honored as my bride. She lived three hundred miles from my home, and I had never heard of her before. I exercised every means possible to find out something about her, and grew angry at our customs that treat the bride and groom as if they were the least interested persons in the transaction. By bribing the go-between I learned that the young lady was deformed, or scarred from some great accident. My protests were listened to with patient indulgence as something to be expected from the youngest member of the family. They told me that I had been misinformed, not with the intention of saying that the girl was not deformed, but it was the easiest way to say, "Young man, behave yourself." Like any other of my countrymen I submitted to what I called my fate.

Obedience is the first law of the household, and therein I think we are not behind the best civilized nations of the world. While the prospects of my coming marriage were hateful to me, I had no thought of disobeying. Perhaps, if at the time I had known to what my rebellious feelings would lead me, I would have welcomed the fate of a marriage with this unknown creature. Western nations are fond of saying that it is this spirit that has been the curse of our country. We have lacked, they say, the virile conception of what is right and readiness to suffer for it, and a willingness to enter the hurly-burly necessary for the reformation of our tyrannical customs. Our nation, they inform us with callous frankness, has become a byword among the nations of the world because we lack the courage to fight down the wrongs inflicted upon us by unjust laws and official oppression. They call us cowards, not remembering that it takes no less courage to suffer patiently than to seek revenge.

As preparations for the wedding moved slowly forward I became the object of .interest and considerable attention, now that the disgrace of bachelordom was to be removed and the dignity of manhood assumed by having my hair put up in a topknot. The side of the question that brought me satisfaction was the prospect of being addressed in good language and treated with the respect due a married man.

About this time there came many rumors from the South that foreign nations had nearly all made treaties with our government.

Strange rumors had reached us of these barbarians from the West, their curious customs and incomprehensible names. It was said that they were all large of stature and dressed in black, the conclusion being that if they dressed in black they must be very dirty; but of course one should not be surprised at that, for what could one expect of barbarians ? They were said to have piercing eyes, large noses and huge mouths, restless, energetic habits, ignorant of our customs and impolite. It was rumored and believed by most people that they used human flesh for medicine. Some of them engaged in trade as merchants at the open ports, others were representatives of their governments, while others did not engage in trade or business of any kind, but spent their whole time in teaching a strange religion. These last had penetrated our North country to the famous city of Pyeng-Yang, a city situated on the river fifty miles from our home.

Up to that date I had never seen a foreigner, but since then I have associated with many of them. Some of our first impressions were wrong; but of others, among which are things not flattering, we have had no reason to change our opinion.

When that part of the mansion to which I was to bring my bride had been properly fitted up with its bright new paper and freshly oiled floors, it smiled out happily at me and seemed to be stretching its eaves jovially skyward as if the sheltering of brides was the jolliest kind of pastime; then I became almost contented to make friends with my fortune.

My father had business relations with wealthy men who resided in the city of Pyeng-Yang, and the interests of my approaching wedding made it desirable for someone to visit the city. To my delight, it was proposed to send my friend, Tong-siki, and myself to look after these affairs. My experience did not justify responsibility in business matters, so they were placed in the hands of Tong-siki.

I was delighted with the prospects of a sight of the city with its many shops, the news of the distant outside world, and then, too, perhaps I would have a chance to see the strange foreigner from the West. From the discussions relating to our intended journey I picked up new facts regarding the family of my future alliance. The young lady whom I was to honor by accepting as my bride, having no name of her own, was known as the daughter of Mr. Yi. That gentleman some years previous had discarded his first wife, the mother of the nameless girl, and had taken another and prettier than she. He had owned considerable rice land in that section of the country, which up to the present had supported his first wife. Now, however, on the marriage of her daughter, the property would pass to the hands of my father, to be held secure for me until the time when he should need it no more. This arrangement, while seeming heartless in its treatment of the girl's mother, was an effort to save the lands from the avaricious magistrates, who had begun a new system of squeezing, and there was no way to satiate their ravenous appetites. My father was supposed to be the only man in the North whose property was secure. Mr. Yi, at one time, held powerful influence at the capital, but in the game of politics had lost it all. For the present proposed transfer of property he was to be repaid by friendly political influence that my father might be able to render him.

The property would amount to considerable, and as my father's exchequer was at a low ebb, the proposition pleased him, knowing full well that it was a symptom of Mr. Yi becoming a victim of his imagination, and would part with much more of his property for that Will-o'-the-wisp, governmental preferment. Surely, it seemed that the golden stream that had for years flowed outward had changed its direction to the home of the great Sung-ji.

CHAPTER III An Interruption

When preparations for our departure to Pyeng- Yang were nearly completed, we were suddenly interrupted by the sickness of my father. His illness having so profound an influence upon my future, I find it necessary to relate the incident at this point.

He was attacked by one of those terrible, nameless fevers so common in our land. When all simpler remedies had. failed to effect a cure, members of the household, with the solicitude usual to our people, called in a sorceress to drive away the demon of the disease.

She came on a certain evening, bringing a huge drum and several assistants with her. One of the number was a woman carrying a cymbal. These two persons had the sinister look common to people of their profession, while two others were young and attractive, wearing bright colored garments that showed off well in the torch lights against the dark background of the night.

The best sorceress in the country had been procured by the promise of a large sum of money, and the effort to secure her had advertised the matter so well that the neighboring towns turned out in great numbers to watch the incantations — over the greatest man in North Korea. They were not surprised that he was sick, for what could politically powerful men expect when their evil deeds constantly invited demon possessions ? They knew that at such scenes, where large money was at stake to inspire the sorceress to display her utmost cunning, there would be uncanny incidents enough to please the most morbid curiosity.

My father had been lying on a silk-covered mattress spread out on the floor but at the request of the sorceress he was rolled in a mat and brought out into the yard. He seemed too indifferent or too sick to pay any attention to what they were trying ■ to do with him.

When all was ready the four women took their places in a half-circle about the sick man. The one with the drum struck it tentatively, paused, glanced at her companions, touched the drum again softly, then beat a long monotonous roll. The cymbals clanged, and the dancers began posturing, keeping time with the beating of drum and cymbals. As the incantations proceeded the beating grew loud and rapid and the dahfling more active.

Late in the evening one of the bystanders was asked to hoH a demon-stick — a willow branch about three feet long — over his head in both hands. The woman then announced to the crowd that when the stick should begin to shake beyond the control of the man holding it, it would be a sign that the demon was in the stick ; that the man would be irresistibly forced to run beneath a tree that stood near the yard, and the demon would leap up into the branches. At the root of the tree was placed a bottle into which, she announced, she proposed to force the demon and fasten him in. The drumming and dancing continued all night, and the man with the stick was repeatedly relieved by others; but the demon was very stubborn, the sorceress stated, having many reasons, because of the vicious life of his Excellency, the Sungf-ji, to burrow deep within his soul, therefore it did not yield easily to her power.

"Some of you who have lost your small holdings," she said, "could have prophesied long ago that the worst devils would have him in due time, but be not impatient of my efforts. When the signs become favorable, watch ! My reputation shall not suffer, though the demons prove a hundredfold more fierce than heretofore known."

Finally, glancing through the crowd, she seized hold of a nervous-looking young man and ordered him to hold the demon-stick.

"Now, sir," said she, "someth»g striking will happen. The devil is about to leave the sick man. He can no longer withstand my power. You watch me, think of nothing else, see all my movements, listen to the sound of the drum, give yourself up to the powers of the air. Immediately the demon will leave the sick man and leap upon the stick, and perch there like a bat, while your hands will tremble and shake beyond your control. Don't let loose. He will drag you over yonder wall to that tree. When you touch the tree the spirit will leap into its branches — then let go."