Hwang - Lost Souls

Lost Souls

WEATHERHEAD BOOKS ON ASIA

WEATHERHEAD EAST ASIAN INSTITUTE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

WEATHERHEAD BOOKS ON ASIA

WEATHERHEAD EAST ASIAN INSTITUTE,

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

LITERATURE

David Der-wei Wang, Editor

Ye Zhaoyan, Nanjing 1937: A Love Story, translated by Michael Berry (2003)

Oda Makato, The Breaking Jewel, translated by Donald Keene (2003)

Han Shaogong, A Dictionary of Maqiao, translated by Julia Lovell (2003)

Takahashi Takako, Lonely Woman, translated by Maryellen Toman Mori (2004)

Chen Ran, A Private Life, translated by John Howard-Gibbon (2004)

Eileen Chang, Written on Water, translated by Andrew F. Jones (2004)

Writing Women in Modern China: The Revolutionary Years, 19361976, edited by Amy D. Dooling (2005)

Han Bangqing, The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai, first translated by Eileen Chang, revised and edited by Eva Hung (2005)

Loud Sparrows: Contemporary Chinese Short-Shorts, translated and edited by Aili Mu, Julie Chiu, Howard Goldblatt (2006)

Hiratsuka Raich, In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun, translated by Teruko Craig (2006)

Zhu Wen, I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China, translated by Julia Lovell (2007)

Kim Sowl, Azaleas: A Book of Poems, translated by David McCann (2007)

Wang Anyi, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai, translated by Michael Berry with Susan Chan Egan (2008)

Choe Yun, There a Petal Silently Falls: Three Stories by Choe Yun, translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton (2008)

Inoue Yasushi, The Blue Wolf: A Novel of the Life of Chinggis Khan, translated by Joshua A. Fogel (2009)

Anonymous, Courtesans and Opium: Romantic Illusions of the Fool of Yangzhou, translated by Patrick Hanan (2009)

Cao Naiqian, Theres Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night, translated by John Balcom (2009)

HISTORY, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE

Carol Gluck, Editor

Takeuchi Yoshimi, What Is Modernity? Writings of Takeuchi Yoshimi, edited and translated, with an introduction, by Richard F. Calichman (2005)

Contemporary Japanese Thought, edited and translated by Richard F. Calichman (2005)

Natsumi Sseki, Theory of Literature and Other Critical Writings, edited and translated by Michael Bourdaghs, Atsuko Ueda, and Joseph A. Murphy (2009)

This publication has been supported by the Richard W. Weatherhead Publication Fund of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.

This publication has been supported by the Korea Literature Translation Institute.

Columbia University Press

Publishers Since 1893

New York Chichester, West Sussex

cup.columbia.edu

Copyright 2010 Columbia University Press

All rights reserved

E-ISBN 978-0-231-52050-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hwang, Sun-wn, 1915

[Short stories. English. Selections]

Lost souls : stories / Hwang Sunwn ; translated from the Korean by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton.

p. cm.(Weatherhead books on Asia)

ISBN 978-0-231-14968-6 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Short stories, KoreanTranslations into English. 2. Hwang, Sun-wn, 1915Translations into English. 2. Korea (South)Fiction. I. Fulton, Bruce. II. Fulton, Ju-Chan. III. Title. IV. Series.

PL991.29.S9A24 2009

895.733dc22 2008051527

A Columbia University Press E-book.

CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at .

References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

It all began, this tutoring job of Taesps, when the wife of his college instructor friend introduced him to the girls family. After the introductions were made and the friends wife had departed, the first thing the girls mother asked Taesp was how long he had known the wife and how he had gotten to know her so well. When Taesp responded that she was the wife of a friend, the girls mother asked him what he thought of a woman with three children who wore her hair short and frizzy and went around in a jade-green jacket. Taesp had always felt that the wifes short hair complemented her face, and he said as much, adding, though, that the jade green of the jacket didnt go well with her unnaturally dark complexion. As he said this he became aware of the filmy gaze of the girls mother. He tried to make eye contact, but the girls mother promptly lowered her eyes. Her face with its impassive expression looked a bit puffy. And her labored breathing gave him the impression that she had a weak heart.

In her breathless tone the girls mother said that she and the wife had the same ancestral home and that their families were familiar with each others circumstances, including the fact that the wifes family had voiced many complaints in opposition to her marriage, but ultimately she had shacked up with the man. The girls mother blushed slightly when she said shacked up, then related that the wife had not been able to return to her family and that all of this had come about because the wife had lost her mother when she was a child and had been raised instead by her stepmother.

Taesp felt uneasy listening to the woman and prepared to leave, saying he would begin tutoring the girl the following day, but the woman said there was no time like the present and asked him to begin that day instead. And then she mumbled to herself that the girl had never been this late coming home from school before, and with a fretful motion she reached inside her skirt and produced a cigarette from the pocket of her bloomers. But no sooner had she taken a couple of puffs than she started. Extinguishing the cigarette, she strained to listen.

From outside the room where they sat came the sound of whistling. When the whistling, and the sound of footsteps that followed, trailed off toward the room across the veranda, the girls mother shouted, Come here, girl! In a solemn tone she asked the girl to present herself, and then she proceeded to remove herself farther from Taesp even though they were already far apart. The girl slid open the door to the room and entered. She was holding a pair of track shoes and it was evident from her flushed cheeks that she had just finished a workout. Her face was round and the eyes beneath the long, dark lashes were small but sparkling with life.

Taesp flipped through the pages of her textbooks, familiarizing himself with her progress to date. He found himself lighting a cigarette to block out her scentless but overwhelming sweat smell, which hung in the air every time she leaned forward to indicate something in one of the books. The girls mother sneaked looks at the two of them in turn and told the girl over and over again to pay attention.

The next day marked the beginning of the tutoring, which took place under the watchful eye of the girls mother. The girl proved to be quick at memorizing her language lessons. But when it came to mathematics she was perversely stubborn; she seemed to consider herself innately incapable of solving the problems. Taesp asked the girl if she had always disliked mathematics, and she vigorously nodded. And yet when she solved practice questions she did it without assistance and could explain her answers when asked to do so. And she understood perfectly the problem areas Taesp explained to herbut only when she had made up her mind to. It occurred to Taesp that he should make sure the girl understood the concepts underlying the math that he taught her. As he considered this he turned toward the girl. She was moistening the end of her pencil with the crimson tip of her tongue.