Dragon Seed Page #12

- He was so good.

- I have been cheated of my pleasure.

You were there today, Jade.

You saw him. And now he's dead.

My husband is gone and I'm a widow.

Poison is a woman's weapon.

Yes, it is.

And it was I who used it.

I thought so.

I saw the look that passed

between you and my mother.

You said we must be sure.

I was sure.

He would have betrayed us.

I would not have killed him

had I thought he would not.

You did not kill him.

The enemy did.

No.

No, I killed him as surely

as I'm now here.

And he was one of ours.

It was right that he should die.

And will you hate me?

Why would I hate you?

I am so thin.

My flesh is so hard.

My face is dark

and not like a woman's face.

You do not look as you did

when I married you, it is true.

Would you have married me then

if I had looked as I do now?

Doubtless, I would not.

But I myself was not the same man

that I am now.

And what pleased me then

would not please me now.

- Do I please you now?

- You do.

As always, this feeling between us...

...we can return to it from anything.

And then summer was gone.

And the grain had kept its promise.

Again, the old ones waited for the return

of Jade and her husband...

...who'd been summoned

to the meeting place in the hills.

Someone comes.

It is our children, home from the hills.

- Well, then, you are back.

- Father, Mother.

- You are well.

- Well enough.

You are in time to help us harvest.

If we are clever,

we can pass this winter safely.

The crop is good this year

and the grain lies heavy in the hand.

Yes.

This field would feed many people.

Father, will you call

the heads of the village?

We have a task for them to do.

A meeting? But there is a danger

in a meeting while it is still light.

Tell them to gather

at the first hour of the darkness.

There is a thing we must do,

and at once.

The enemy will never be defeated

if we feed him...

...but without our food, he will starve.

- I will not destroy food nor my house.

- It's too much.

- It's against the law of man to do it.

- It is the task the high command has set.

You must burn all you have

and leave only the ashes behind you.

Can it be that you, my son,

ask this of me and our kinsmen?

I ask it that the enemy may be destroyed.

Not only do we feed them

but we stay here as their work animals.

What we hear are the words

of a young fool.

I, for one, will not listen to any more.

I will not burn my house,

nor leave what I have.

But we... We resist here.

We keep what food we can

from the enemy...

...and we kill him how and when we can.

- It is enough.

- It is not enough.

- Do you not love your country?

- Love my country?

You say that to me? Do I not love this earth

and is this earth not my country?

Though I die, I stay with it.

Can a man love his country

better than that?

But, my father,

this earth is only your country...

...in peacetime when there is freedom.

I know only this. We must hold the land.

You will hold only a handful of dead soil.

You will lose

your whole country doing it.

- I will not listen.

- Ling Tan is right as always.

Yes, we will not leave our land.

We will hold it.

Now, what's wrong

with all these long faces?

We have failed.

Our kinsmen and our father among them

have refused our plan.

- You will not do as you're told to do?

- I will not, nor will the other kinsmen.

There's an answer. Hold a gun

at their heads and make them do it.

- It must be their own will.

- The old should be allowed no will.

The old and the new again.

There must be some meeting.

There's no meeting

what is dead and what is alive.

Father and men like him grow too old

and have walked too long.

Others need the room they take.

You may not strike me.

I should beat you.

Killing and love of killing,

that is all you know.

Yes, but I know it well.

These are other times.

And I can kill you as well as any other.

Yes, you can kill me.

I think you can kill anyone now.

But I will kill no more.

- Come back here.

- I will not.

I've eaten enough foolishness

in this house, and for the last time.

I must go with him.

You will find us in the hills,

for you will follow us.

Happiness in this family is over.

Nothing is left to anyone...

...if the old can no longer

look to the young for obedience.

I have come to this.

I will not grieve the day they tell me

my third son is dead.

He has become the sort of man

I hate and fear most.

Such men will not allow peace

in the world.

War springs from them

as fire does from tinder...

...and is their pleasure in their life.

Such men should die for the good of all.

You blame your son for what he is.

Who should I blame, then?

It was his own arm he raised against me

and his own voice.

You cannot blame him.

Has his life been as it should?

Has he had peace to live and find a wife?

Have sons of his own?

No, he put the will

he would have used...

...into another thing: the will to kill.

So changed from the boy who wretched

at the sight of the first dead...

...that he would strike his own father.

Well, are we not all changed?

Can we get our old selves back

if the devils are not driven out soon?

Can you?

You...

You hate to kill above all else.

Yet you have killed...

...as skillfully as you once tilled the land.

- I will not hear this.

But you shall hear it.

And our mother, has she not changed?

Now she runs, takes up her hoe

and buries the enemy...

...as though the human flesh

were animal.

Can she get back to the old way?

Can she forget what she's done?

And your sons, they all kill. Your third son

because he has come to love it.

Your eldest because it's the easiest thing

to do and my...

Your second son because he must.

But we all kill.

We kill and kill again. Can you deny this?

No, no, I cannot.

I've learned to hold a gun and fire it

from the doorway.

And then go in and feed my son.

And what is the child eat into himself

with the food?

Look at him. Look at him.

Do not turn away.

Even now your grandchild sharpens

his little teeth on an empty shell...

...and does not hate

the taste of gunpowder.

He's young still. His mind, at least,

is untouched.

He can be saved

and taught a decent way to live...

...if the enemy is driven

from our country.

What will become of him

if this horror goes on?

How can I teach him honesty

when he must lie and cheat to live?

How can I teach him mercy when

he must either kill first or be killed?

How can I teach him faith in mankind...

...when he sees nothing but distrust and

when even in his own family are traitors.

- Am I to blame for these things?

- You're not.

But you will be to blame,

we'll all be to blame...

...unless we defeat the Japanese

and drive them from this country...

...and prevent them

from ever doing this again.

How will you answer your son when

he asks you why you left our land?

I will tell him...

I will tell him it was to save him

and his family...

...and his whole country.

You had no...

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