Such a state could be called 'pure' if one wished, or 'clean' if one preferred, but it was no 'person' at all—merely the material from which a 'person' might someday be made, like a block of marble waiting to become a sculpture. Only after chisel and mallet have worked that marble does it become a sculpture with eyes and a nose. So too with one like Kim Seon-hyeong—only after receiving the baptism of fire called life, and the 'person' within her awakens, will she become a true person.
Sunae was different. Through the natural trials she had endured since childhood, the 'person' inside her had partially awakened—but she was like one who had merely turned over in bed under the covers, not yet truly risen.
Lee Hyeong-sik considered himself a 'person' who had awakened on his own, but he too had yet to receive life's baptism of fire. The three young people gathered in this room—what path would they walk before becoming 'people'? Their hearts were like a sea waiting for a coming storm. Now the sea was flat—no waves, no foam, no current. But soon a great wind would descend from the sky, stirring the waters, raising waves, foam, and currents. Only then would it become a true sea. But who could say what that wind was, or who sent it? Even now, in Hyeong-sik's heart, strange clouds drifted at the edge of the sky—harbingers of that approaching wind.
🙝 🙟
Hyeong-sik left Elder Kim's house. Strange clouds drifted toward Baekundae, and a cool wind brushed past his flushed face. He felt refreshed. Perhaps a rain shower was coming, he thought. After it passed, it might cool down a bit. He hoped the rain would come soon.
Hyeong-sik sensed that something had changed from when he had entered Elder Kim's house earlier. It seemed there was something in heaven and earth he had never known before, and that something had flashed before his eyes like lightning among the clouds. And that lightning-like flash felt profoundly connected to him. He thought that hidden within that lightning-flash was an indescribable beauty and joy. He felt a vague new hope and new joy rising in his chest. And that joy resembled the feeling that had arisen when he had faced Seon-hyeong and Sunae earlier—the scent of their skin, the ties of their garments, the sound of their voices. A new aspect of life, one he had never seen before, unfolded before his eyes. Until today, he had thought, 'This is the entirety of life.' But now he realized there was another part, and that this other part seemed far more important and meaningful than everything he had previously known as life. Honor, wealth, law, morality, learning, success—all that he had considered the most important contents of life—now seemed to have gained some new element. But he still could not name it; he could only marvel and think, 'How strange.'
And as he descended toward Gyo-dong, a street he had walked every day for four or five years, he was astonished. The roads, the houses, the things laid out in them, the people walking, the telegraph poles, the upright mailboxes—all were unchanged. Yet he saw a light in them he had never seen before, and smelled a scent he had never smelled. In other words, everything seemed to possess a new light and a new meaning. The people walking were not merely people walking; there seemed to be something unknowable within them. The tofu vendor's cry—'Buy my tofu or bean curd!'—seemed to carry a deeper meaning beyond the mere request to buy tofu and bean curd. Hyeong-sik felt as if a layer of skin had peeled from his eyes. But it was not a layer peeling from his eyes—in truth, it was an eye that had been closed until now opening for the first time. When he had looked at the image of Jesus on the cross earlier, he had not merely seen Jesus on the cross—he had discovered a new meaning within it. That was the first opening of this eye. When he had seen the two young women, Seon-hyeong and Sunae, he had not merely seen two young women—he had seen them as the expression of some unknowable power of the universe and life. That was the second opening. And now, discovering new light and new scent in everything visible on Gyo-dong Street—things he had never perceived before—that was the third. But he still could not clearly name what it was; he only felt a sense of 'strangeness' and a vague joy.
Returning to his room, Hyeong-sik forgot about Yeongchae for a moment and reflected on his newly changing mind. Sitting quietly with his eyes closed, memories of poems and novels he had read before rose in his heart with a different flavor than when he had first encountered them. Everything had strong color, strong fragrance, deep meaning. 'I have been looking at life and books without understanding their meaning,' he thought. Then he drew out all his memories and held them up to this newly opened eye. And indeed, every memory showed new colors he had never seen before. Hyeong-sik smiled softly, as if dazzled. Then he looked at the hardbound books lined up on his bookshelf. He realized that what he had thought he knew and read, he had actually read without understanding. He felt a desire to read all books, life, and the world over again from the beginning. Even if he read every page from the first line, it would be as if he had never read it before—every phrase, every character would appear before his eyes with new meaning. Thinking this, he took down a few books from the shelf and flipped through several passages he had read before. The results were as he had expected.
Now at last, the 'person' within Hyeong-sik had opened its eyes. With those 'inner eyes,' he could see the 'inner meaning' of all things. His 'inner person' was finally liberated. Just as the sprout inside a pine seed hides—or is trapped—for a long time, then, receiving the warm air of spring, bursts through the seed shell with strong force and shoots up into the boundless world, eventually becoming trunk, branches, leaves, and flowers—so the 'inner person,' the seed of the 'person' named Lee Hyeong-sik, had now broken through its shell and stood tall in the wide world, receiving sunlight and dew, growing without limit.
Hyeong-sik's 'inner person' had been ripe for a long time. Like a spring grain seed that has swelled fully in the earth and, with just a little misty rain, sprouts overnight—so Hyeong-sik's 'inner person,' having been soaked abundantly by richer-than-average experiences of real society and the moisture of religion and literature, had suddenly burst its shell and emerged, spurred by the spring wind and rain of two young women: Seon-hyeong and Yeongchae.
If someone were to pose the questions, 'What is the inner person?' and 'How does the inner person awaken?' the answer would be this: One cannot answer these questions any more than one can answer 'What is life?' and 'What does it mean to live?' Only those whose 'inner person' has awakened can know what the 'inner person' is and what it means for it to awaken.
What would become of Hyeong-sik, now 'awakened'? We would have to watch the story develop to find out.
🙝 🙟
The rain shower indeed passed. A part of a delicate rainbow appeared between Dongdaemun and Namsan, visible from Hyeong-sik's room. He sat entranced, staring at the rainbow for a long time, then suddenly thought of Yeongchae. Night was already near. Yeongchae's crisis seemed to draw closer with every passing moment. Hyeong-sik threw on his overcoat and rushed out of the house. But where to go? What to do? For a moment he was at a loss. Then, as if making a decision, he hurried in the direction of Andong. He stopped in front of a gate marked 'Student Dormitory.' Soon a boy came out, dragging his shoes, and saluted Hyeong-sik. Hyeong-sik grasped the boy's hand and shook it, asking with difficulty,
"Who was the student who followed the academic dean the day before yesterday?"
The boy smiled faintly.
"I don't know," he said, looking at Hyeong-sik's face curiously. In the twilight, Hyeong-sik's face looked pale.
"No, Huigyeong! Something's happened—please tell me who followed the dean."
Huigyeong saw Hyeong-sik's suspicious manner, stopped smiling, and thought for a moment. Hyeong-sik's voice had trembled. Finally, Huigyeong said,
"Jongryeol and I went," and turned his head to the right as if expecting a scolding. Hyeong-sik's voice brightened with relief.
"You went, Huigyeong? That's wonderful!" Huigyeong found Hyeong-sik's behavior even stranger. No matter how famous the gisaeng Wolhyang was, surely Hyeong-sik wouldn't be coveting her. So Huigyeong looked at Hyeong-sik more closely and asked,
"Why are you like this?"
Hyeong-sik didn't answer that question. Instead he said,
"Then do you know the house number of that house? The one the dean went to..."
"I don't know the number."
Hyeong-sik looked disappointed for a moment, then grasped Huigyeong's hand again. "I'm sorry, but please show me that house."
Reluctantly, Huigyeong went inside, put on a hat and overcoat, and came out. 'He must be investigating something about the dean,' Huigyeong thought, and led the way toward Jongno. Hyeong-sik followed, thinking many things. What would he do when he got there? Even if he found Yeongchae, what could he do without 'a thousand won' in hand? Even if someone were right now bringing 'a thousand won' and making a contract to take Yeongchae, he—without that 'a thousand won'—would only be able to gnash his teeth nearby.
The night was cool. At the Jongno night market, sounds of vendors hawking cheap goods and of medicine advertisements with long swords being flourished reached his ears. Dozens of people gathered here and there, probably around stalls selling useful items at low prices. People wandered aimlessly, intoxicated by the cool evening air. Among them, groups of young students, two or three together, chattered and ran through the crowd as if on urgent business. A woman in a long overcoat still had a young girl carrying a lantern for her. From the Umi-gwan came the clamor of a Western orchestra—some so-called 'grand drama' was playing. On the second floor of the Cheongnyeonhoegwan, young men were perhaps playing billiards—their lively shadows flickered back and forth. Huigyeong, walking ahead, paused briefly at each gathering of people, then continued when he heard Hyeong-sik's footsteps. Because it had rained after a dry spell, the smell of earth occasionally rose, hot and damp.
Hyeong-sik and Huigyeong turned the corner at Jonggak and headed toward Gwangchunggyo. A tram bound for Sinyongsan rushed past them, its huge eyes glaring. The two entered the dark riverside area of Dabanggol. On the riverbank, men and women sat mixed together on reed mats, talking and laughing. When the two approached, they stopped talking and looked up through the darkness. Once the two seemed out of sight, they resumed their chatter and laughter. A servant girl's head, glistening with camellia oil, peeked through a back window. Huigyeong sometimes seemed to lose the way, stopping to look around before continuing, or laughing and saying, 'Wrong way,' stepping back five or six paces to enter a narrow alley. In front of one house, a rickshaw with a hood was parked, and the rickshaw man sat on the step-board, humming something softly. Lamps with elegant names like 'Gyewol' and 'Seolmae' were visible, and from somewhere drifted the trembling first line of a sijo—'Only half...'—followed by the sound of two or three men laughing together. 'This is the flower-and-willow district,' Hyeong-sik thought. Coming to such a place for the first time, he felt a strange chill in his chest. He quickly turned his head to look behind him, afraid someone might see him. When two gisaeng in red skirts saw Yangin at a street corner, whispered together, and passed by laughing, Hyeong-sik's heart pounded and his face flushed without his knowing why. Yangin walked on without a word. The sound of Yangin's leather shoes echoed strangely against the walls—thump, thump. Huigyeong lost the way several times, but finally pointed to a house with a lamp. 'Gyewolhyang!'
'Gyewolhyang!' Hyeong-sik shook his head. Then wasn't Wolhyang Yeongchae? When a woman becomes a gisaeng, she changes her name, but would she change her surname too? Then wasn't Wolhyang Yeongchae? Then hadn't Yeongchae become a gisaeng? Perhaps, as he had once imagined, his Yeongchae had been taken in by some noble family, attending school and living happily. Hyeong-sik was deeply suspicious. Huigyeong stepped back a few paces and looked at Hyeong-sik's face, pale in the lamplight, and thought, 'He has some worry.'
🙝 🙟
When Yeongchae met Hyeong-sik after seven years, she was both overjoyed and unable to contain her happiness. She had started to cry and tell the story of those seven years, but suddenly stopped, rose, and returned home weeping.
After hearing that Hyeong-sik was in Seoul, her desire to see him flared like fire, but a month passed without her being able to resolve to seek him out. Then, on that morning, she had resolved, 'Today I will definitely find Hyeong-sik.' She came in the afternoon but didn't meet him, and came again in the evening.
In all the world, the person closest to Yeongchae was Hyeong-sik. No parents, no siblings, no relatives—only Hyeong-sik, with whom she had grown up as a child. Until her father and brothers died in Pyongyang Prison, Yeongchae had lived for them. After their deaths, she lived only for the person named Lee Hyeong-sik. Moreover, as she grew older and her body became a gisaeng's, subjected to every kind of abuse from dozens, hundreds of men who knew nothing but lust—beasts—Yeongchae believed that the only trustworthy, dependable man in the world was Hyeong-sik. How Hyeong-sik might have changed in the seven or eight years since they parted, what kind of person he had become—that was not a question for Yeongchae. She simply believed that the person named Hyeong-sik would remain the same Hyeong-sik from their days in that house in Anju, no matter how many thousand or ten thousand years passed. Yeongchae did not know that a good person could change and become bad. She thought a good person was born good and remained good for life. Likewise, an evil person was born evil and remained evil for life. As a child, Yeongchae had never seen an evil person. Her father was good, her brothers were good, and the people who came and went in the men's quarters of their house were good. Hyeong-sik, of course, was good. And when she studied books like the Elementary Learning and the Exemplary Women, the people in those books were also all good. In her childish mind, she thought the figures in those books were the same kind of people as those in her family and surroundings. And she herself was a good person—she thought she was the same kind of woman as those in the Inner Instructions or the Exemplary Women. And she thought the world must be like her family, and people must be like her and those around her. In this respect, Kim Seon-hyeong and Park Yeongchae were alike.
But when she saw that her good father and those around him were instead condemned and subjected to the world's ridicule and scorn, her young mind was shocked. Then, when she went to her maternal relatives' home and suffered abuse from her older cousin's wife and her nephews, when she fled from there and was persecuted by village children, when she suffered that incident at an inn in Sukcheon that evening, and finally when her body was sold as a gisaeng in Pyongyang—young Yeongchae realized that the world was different from her family, and people were different from her and those around her. In other words, she realized that evil existed in the world and evil people existed among men. But she thought this evil world and evil people had nothing to do with her. She could never confuse her good family with that evil world, nor the good people she had once known with the evil people she now saw. So she believed that in the world there were an evil world and a good world, and among people there were evil people and good people—each of a different kind, as unmixable as oil and water. But as she accumulated more experience, she came to realize another truth: 'The evil world is larger than the good world, and evil people outnumber good people.'