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hopelessly his father’s only son.
    And of the villagers and country folk who watched him passing there was not one who was not rejoiced to see him go away again, because they did not understand him or believe in him at all, and Yuan could see their great content that he must go, and this sight remained a darkness in the pleasure of those free days.
    So Yuan rode against his will to his father’s gates, the guard behind him. They did not leave him the whole way and he soon perceived they guarded him not so much from robbers as from himself, lest he escape them somewhere. It was on his lips a score of times to cry at them, “You need not fear me—I will not run from my own father—I come to him of my own will!”
    But he said nothing. He looked at them in scorn and silence and would not speak to them, but rode on as fast as he could, taking a haughty pleasure in his quick horse that kept so easily before their common ones that they must press their poor beasts on and on. Yet he knew himself a prisoner, however he might go. No verse came to him now; he scarcely saw the lovely land.
    At evening of the second day of this forced riding he reached his father’s threshold. He leaped from his horse and suddenly weary to his very soul he went slowly towards the room in which his father commonly slept, not heeding all the secret stares of soldiers and of serving men, and answering no greeting.
    But his father was not in his bed, although it was night by now, and a lounging guard said when Yuan asked him, “The general is in his hall.”
    Then Yuan felt some anger, and he thought to himself that after all his father was not very ill, and it was only a ruse to win him home. He nursed his anger at the ruse, so that he would not fear his father, and when he remembered the pleasant lonely days upon the land, he could keep his anger lively against his father. Yet when he entered the hall and saw the Tiger, Yuan forgot some of his anger, for eye could see here was no ruse. His father sat in his old chair, the tiger skin flung across the carved back of it, and before him was the glowing brazier full of coals. He was wrapped in his shaggy sheepskin robe, and on his head was set his high fur hat, but still he looked as cold as death. His skin was yellow as old leather, and his eyes burned dry and black and sunken, and the unshaved hair upon his face was grey and harsh. He looked up when his son came in, and then down again into the coals and gave no greeting.
    Then Yuan came forward and bowed before his father, saying, “They told me you were ill, my father, so I came.”
    But Wang the Tiger muttered, “I am not ill. It is woman’s talk.” And he would not look at his son.
    Then Yuan asked, “Did you not send for me because you were ill?” And Wang the Tiger muttered again, “I did not send for you. They asked me where you were, and I said, ‘Let him stay where he is.’ ” He looked down steadfastly into the coals and stretched his hands above their shimmering heat.
    Now these words might have angered anyone and especially a young man in these days when parents are not honored, and Yuan might easily have hardened himself more and gone away again to do as he liked in his new willfulness, except he saw his father’s two hands stretched out, pale and dry as old men’s hands are, and trembling and seeking for some warmth somewhere, and he could not say a word of anger. It came to him now, as the moment must come to any gentle-hearted son, that his father in his loneliness was grown a little child again, and one to be dealt with as a child, with tenderness and no anger, in whatever petulance he spoke. This weakness in his father struck at the roots of Yuan’s anger, so that he felt unusual tears come to his eyes, and if he had dared he would have put his hand out to touch his father except some strange natural shame restrained him. Therefore he only sat down sidewise on a chair nearby and gazing at his father, waited silently and