My frugal wife

1

 "How could it be missing?"

My wife searched for something inside of the closet, and muttered under her breath.

"What's missing?"

I sat blankly at my desk, flipping through the pages of a book, then asked.

"There's one silk jacket left..."

"..."

I remained silent. But I knew what my wife was trying to do with it.

She was going to ask the granny next door to pawn the jacket for her. 

For the past two years, I hadn't made a penny, and my wife did whatever she could to keep us from starving to death. She had no choice but to take household goods to pawnshops or junk shops to get some cash. Even now, her search was for the last remaining silk jacket to buy breakfast.

I licked my lips, closed the book I'd been reading, and sighed. 

Spring is already half over, but the night air, laden with dew, crept from the corners of the room and embraced the atmosphere. Perhaps because of the rain, the night wasn't yet deep, but the street was desolate, and the whole world seemed empty and silent. The pitter-patter of the rain brought endless sorrow.

"Damn it! After me the deluge," I muttered, running my hands through my stray hair, unable to bear it any longer. Even so these words made me more melancholy. I sighed again. 

"Whew—" I collapsed on the desk lowering my head against my left arm and closing my eyes.

At that moment, the event of the day suddenly came to mind.

After a late lunch, I had just finished smoking a cigarette when T, who works at Hanseong Bank, came over to visit me, saying it was his day off. Even though my relatives live nearby, I don't engage with them much because they don't seem welcoming to me, frowning or giving me the cold shoulder whenever I visit them, despite the fact that I never have asked to borrow money. As for myself, I don't want to appear poor, and I stopped going and no one came to visit me, either. However, perhaps because of our close kinship, T visited us often.

He was a man of integrity and obedience, a man who knows how to express sorrow and joy over big or small events. We are the same age, and we are always compared to each other among our relatives. And my reputation is always worse.

"T knows money and is diligent, so he'll end up with good fortune. But K (my name) is a worthless brat. He scribbles out all sorts of gibberish writing in his own eloquent Korean, and yet he claims that he's a famous writer in Joseon*! Such a bastard!"

That's just their evaluation of me. Any mention of me as a writer or something simply offends them. Furthermore, I never offer them a penny for their birthdays or important events, while T, who's a so-called diligent earner, supports them during banquets with noodle soup or bowls of rice.

 "T will soon be well off, and K will be a beggar. Just wait and see!". That was said by my second cousin. Even if they didn't say it out loud, my own parents and siblings would probably think the same in their hearts. However, parents are parents. When they get angry, they scold me, saying, "If you keep going like this, you'll end up a beggar in your final days." But they would also comfort themselves with words like, "Who knows? Maybe he'll be a late bloomer," and "That's what happens to people like that." These words are said to comfort my wife and even themselves. Watching them, I can tell that while they've given up on me, thinking me hopeless, they still hope for the best and wish for my well-being.

Anyway, T's character is quite well recognized to us, too. Whenever he comes to visit, he puts on a cheerful face deliberately and tells amusing stories. For us, who spend each day alone together, it is a joy beyond compare.

Even today, he briskly entered the house, placed a slim object wrapped in newspaper on the floor as if to say, "Look at this!" and busily untied his shoelaces.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Um—it's my wife's new parasol. Old one worn out already, and the ribs are broken."

He couldn't suppress a smile as he took off his shoes and stepped onto the floor, answering with a grin. He looked at my wife and suddenly said, "Would you like to take a look, aunt?"

He then removed the wrapping and the cover and unfolded the parasol. It was a white silk parasol with a couple of plum blossoms embroidered on it.

"Black looks so dull, even though there are so many good ones... I bought this because none of the gray or yellow ones fit my fancy."

He tried to show that he couldn't get anything better than this, talking too much, unlike him. 

"This is also very good."

While praising it, my wife opened the parasol, looking at it from all angles as if entranced, and her eyes clearly revealed her thought, "I wish I had one of these."

Suddenly, an unpleasant thought struck me. As I came into the room, I talked to T, who was looking at my wife amused with the parasol.

"Come in, T. Let's talk." T followed me in and started talking about inflation, his salary increase, how he'd made a decent profit by buying a few shares of stock, how he'd excelled at the recent bank clerk competition, and other such things. After a long chat, he left.

After sending T off and facing the desk, I was contemplating the conclusion of the novel I was writing,

"Honey!"

My wife's trembling voice came right up to my ear. Her pale face flushed slightly, and she sat down next to me.

"You should care about earning a better living."

"..."

The thought, "Here she goes again," flashed through my mind, and an unpleasant thought struck me. But I remained silent, unable to respond.

"We should try living like everyone else!" My wife was deeply provoked by T's parasol. She, possessing a unique determination to be an artist's wife, rarely uttered such words. However, whenever something significantly provoked her, she would utter the words she had held back. Whenever I heard such words, I felt a sense of sympathy, thinking, "That's understandable," but somehow, my heart felt uneasy. This time, too, I felt a sense of sympathy, thinking, "That's understandable," but I also found it difficult to suppress my unpleasant thoughts. After a moment, a look of displeasure appeared.

"What can I do when I'm told to suddenly care about our financial status? There will come a time when everything will work out!"

"Oh dear, stop saying 'gradually'. When, in a thousand years..."

My wife's face flushed a deep red, and she spoke with unprecedented excitement.

Upon closer inspection, I saw tears welling up in her eyes.

I was stunned for a moment. Anger was surging. I couldn't stand it.

"Who asked you to marry me? You should've married a day laborer! What kind of artist's wife is that?"

I yelled at her in a fierce tone.

"Eww...!"

Her face changed slightly, and she looked at me in bewilderment. Her head gradually lowered, and tears fell, one by one, onto the floor. As I pondered these events, I thought of my wife's heart, searching for clothes to pay for breakfast tomorrow. Unspeakable sorrows seemed to rip through my heart and flesh like the autumn wind. 

The lonely sound of the rain, now louder, now softer, sounded even more desolate in the still night air. The light shining from within the sooty lampshade, like moonlight obscured by clouds, wept and drowsed. The gold characters of the titles on the covers of several foreign books I've acquired with great difficulty were gleaming.

* Joseon is the old name of Korea

2

My wife, standing aloof in front of the closet, nodded as if remembering something.

In a faint, barely audible voice,

"Ugh... That's right, that day..."

"Did you find it?"

"No, already... The day when your sister-in-law came from Incheon..."

"..."

That thing my wife had been searching for so desperately was already covered with the fine dust of the pawnshop! Seeing at this woman, who meticulously cared about every single sauce dish, couldn't tell whether she had pawn it or not. One could only imagine how much poverty had gnawed at her spirit.

"..."

"..."

For a long time, we were silent. My chest felt heavy, and a strange feeling welled up in me, a longing to have a fight with someone, to scream, to cry my heart out. It felt like lice were crawling all over my body, and my clothes were clinging to me, unbearably.

I openly expressed my feeling, saying, "You're getting tired of this shabby life, aren't you?"

My wife stood there, lost in thought, until her bleary eyes widened,

"Huh? Why?"

"Of course, you are!"

"I don't dislike it at all."

As our conversations flowed back and forth, my excitement intensified.

So, when my wife asked in a trembling voice, "How do you know that?"

I responded, "Do you think I'm barley porridge?" my voice rising fiercely.

My wife stared at me, a slight glint of resentment in her eyes. I glared at her, as if I felt betrayed,

"Of course I know that! You've been so patient until now, and now you're changing your tune! Of course, that's understandable!" As I spoke, memories of the past flashed through my mind like a moving picture.

Six years ago (I was sixteen and she was eighteen), not long after we were married, I, thirsty for knowledge, had set out on a journey to sip from the ocean of knowledge. Like a willow leaf swaying in a gust of wind, I wandered from China to Japan, but due to financial constraints, I returned home an ignoramus, unable to even taste the ocean of knowledge. When she came to marry me, my wife was like a bud about to bloom, but now, like a wilting flower, the freshness of her cheeks has faded and a couple of thin lines had already formed on her forehead.

Thanks to my in-laws' generosity, we were able to purchase a house and furnish ourselves with the necessary household goods. At first, we managed to get by, but with no means of earning a living, each month became increasingly difficult. I spent numerous days with the sun rising and the sun setting, absorbed in fruitless reading and writing worthless works, never paying attention to whether there was rice or wood. Still, the occasional delicious side dishes were served, and the clothes I wore weren't overly shabby, thanks entirely to my wife's efforts. How could she have earned anything? She'd bravely go to her parents', wary of their mood, and plead for favors. And that would work only once or twice. How could it continue like that over the long years? As time went by, we had no choice but to resort to selling the furnishings and clothing my wife had brought for our marriage. I didn't even care about pawning or selling at all. She just handled all these errands, giving a few pennies to the curt old woman next door and having her do it for us.

Even through these hardships, she deeply believed in and prayed for my success. There were times when I threw my work away in anger because it didn't suit my taste, and she would say, "Why are you so impatient? I believe there will be a day when your name will shine throughout the world. Our suffering is the foundation of our future prosperity."

She would even console me, her own voice tinged with tears with her own growing emotion.

When I traveled abroad, caught up in the so-called "new trend," I developed an unfounded dislike for old-fashioned women. This led me to deeply regret my early marriage.

Every time I heard about a boy and a girl dating, my heart would pound in vain, filled with envy and sadness.

However, as I grew older, those thoughts faded away, and upon returning home and spending time with my wife, I unexpectedly discovered a warmth and purity in her. Her love was not selfish, but selfless. How happy I felt as I gradually came to realize this! She once spent a late night ironing clothes, then collapsed in the clothes. Gazing at her pale face as she slept soundly, I cried silently, overcome with emotion, "Ah, my angel who comforts and helps me!" As I knew, I wasn't particularly gifted, but I longed to establish myself as a writer, so I devoted myself day after day to writing and reading. Of course, I wasn't yet worthy of recognition. As a result, my daily life naturally became unstable.

She had endured this hardship for nearly two years, but my work was rather fruitless. The possessions in our house had dwindled, and the clothes in our dresser had almost all disappeared. 

As a result, even she, who used to be quite tolerant, had recently begun to sigh pointlessly. She would hold onto the doorknob and stand idly at the edge of the porch, gazing blankly at the distant mountains. Or she would stop sewing and sit down, looking lost. In the dim sunlight streaming through the window, I often caught sight of her tearful, worried eyes. At such times, I felt an indescribable loneliness. And when I called out, "Honey!", she flinched, turned her head away, wiped her tears with the hem of her skirt, and uttered a faint, trembling "Huh?" in response. 

My body felt as if cold water had been poured on my back, and a cold, desolate thought flowed through my heart. My existing tendency toward self-criticism intensified, and now I despised myself, saying, "It's my own fault for being unworthy." It was even more unbearable.

I felt a pitying feeling, thinking, "It's understandable." But still, a feeling of discomfort arose,

"Women are limited," I muttered to myself.

As these things unfolded in my mind, one by one, like a magnified image through a lantern, I lost the courage to say anything. Even my wife, my only worshipper and comforter, had now lost faith in me.

She would think, "For six years, you've been cutting and tearing at my flesh! You are nothing but an enemy!"

Thinking like this, even her fiery love seemed to fade. No, it seemed like she'd vanished without a trace. I was flustered and sentimental, 

 “Do you think I’d want my wife to suffer?! I'd want to buy her silk clothes and a nice parasol! That's why I study all day without rest! It may seem like I'm just enjoying myself, but that's not true! You must know this just looking at me."

I gradually shed my mask of strength, revealing my weak true self, and even made this ridiculous excuse: "It doesn't matter if everyone in the world laughs at me and insults me, but what if even my wife doesn't trust me?"

My own words provoked me, and I finally said, "Ah."

I sighed deeply and collapsed. At that moment, my wife, who had been hanging her head and probably biting her lip helplessly, suddenly cried out, "Honey!"

She collapsed on my face, trembling with sobs.

"Forgive me..."

Then, with the sobs welling up within her choked voice, and she wept pressing her face against my cheeks like a ball of fire. Tears well up from her eyes, spreading warmly between our cheeks. Tears flowed from my eyes as well. All my troubled thoughts vanished like spring snow in these hot tears.

After a while, we wiped away our tears. I felt a sense of relief.

“Please forgive me! I didn’t know you’d think that way.”

As my wife spoke, her tear-swollen eyelids fluttered as if in pain.

“How could I ever get tired of all this, whatever the shame?! My mind is set.”

I finally felt a sense of relief, gazing at my wife’s tear-streaked face as she quietly made her excuses.

3.

Perhaps mentally and physically exhausted from the previous day, I woke late the next morning. The rain that had been falling the night before had stopped, and the bright sunlight was high against the sliding door. As my wife was about to open the closet again to pawn something, someone opened the entry door and entered the hallway. We listened intently, wondering who it was, when we heard a voice outside,

"Lady!"

My wife quickly opened the door and went out. It was the old woman servant who worked at my in-laws' house.

She told us that today was my father-in-law's birthday and urged us to hurry.

"Today! Right! Today is the sixteenth day of the second month. I completely forgot!"

"Oh, my lady, you must feel bad. How could you forget your father's birthday?

Even though you're enjoying your married life so much..."

The old woman smiled faintly with an attitude as she spoke.

Concentrating on her meager finances, she had forgotten her own father's birthday. I couldn't have felt more sympathy for her pitiful situation. 

"Today is my father's birthday party at my parents' house. She told me to come quickly..."

"Go quickly..."

"You should come too. Come with us."

My wife blushed endlessly.

I absolutely hated going to my inlaws' house. But it didn't seem right for me not to go, so I had no choice but to put on my durumagi**.

My wife hesitated, her eyebrows furrowing slightly, then glanced at me out the corner of her eye before turning around and quickly opening the closet. 

"Hmm, she's hesitating because there's nothing decent left," I thought, turning around slightly. Even though we were standing with our backs to each other, I couldn't help but picture my wife peering into the nearly empty closet, frowning at the lack of anything to wear.

"Okay, let's go."

I stood there, lost in thought, until I heard my wife's call, and I mechanically turned my head. My wife, having changed into her rugged, plain cotton clothes, seemed to understand my feelings and smiled comfortingly. I felt even more lonely.

My house was next to the Cheonbyeon Bridge, and my wife's parent's house was in Anguk-dong, so the distance was quite long. I tried to take my time, and my wife tried to hurry, but she always lagged behind. When I turned around after a while, she was always far behind, struggling to keep up with me. When I saw any woman walking down the street, most wore silk clothes and fine shoes, but my wife was draped in a shabby, cotton robe, and walked with a plodding step in her humble leather cheongmokdanghye*** shoes. What a sorrowful thought it brought to me! 

After a while, I reached my in-law's wide, high gate. As I entered, strangers glanced at me. I could read in their eyes, "Who is this person? Perhaps a servant here?". 

There seemed to be a disdainful glimmer. As I approached the main hall, everyone greeted me each in their own way. Their greetings sounded both sarcastic and insulting to my ears, making my heart pound and my face flush. 

Among them, the person greeting me most familiarly was my sister-in-law, three years my wife's elder. Since I married young, she had unbearably tormented me. Back then, I had both hated and resented her, but now, those feelings had made us feel casual and close.

She lives in Incheon, and says her husband has steadily earned a hundred thousand won this year through bidding on rice auctions. She seemed to be showing off her wealth, with silk draped down her back, and a sullen expression weighing down her face. However, I noticed a bruise over her eye, despite her trying to hide it with powder. 

"Why are you coming alone, what about your wife?" She asked this with a smile, then looked at the middle door and said, "Then that's right! You're not coming alone, are you?". She sounded like she was making sure to herself. 

Hearing this, I glanced back and saw my wife already inside the main gate.

Her haggard face looked even more so, but her tear-filled eyes smiled endlessly. I looked carefully back and forth between my wife and her sister. Their faces were so similar that a first timer might not be able to tell them apart. But how could their complexions be so different? One looked like a blooming flower, the other like a withered, dry leaf. If I had called my wife elder sister and my sister-in-law younger sister, anyone would have been fooled.

Looking at my wife's face again, an indescribable loneliness weighed heavily on my heart.

I hadn't eaten much else and had downed four glasses of alcohol. Still, I couldn't stand it, feeling like I was sitting on a pincushion. I got up to go home. My head was pounding, and the floor I was standing on was like waves tumbling up and down in a storm, dizzy and shaky, feeling like I'd collapse at any moment. Seeing this, my mother-in-law stood up in a panic,

"Where are you going, so drunk? Just take a nap here and go."

I waved my hand,

"No. I'm going home." I muttered in a drunken voice.

"Oh my goodness!"

My mother-in-law looked worried,

"Granny! Hurry up and call a rickshaw."

Even drunk, I had the thought that if only they'd given me the rickshaw fare instead of taking me, I could have bought a book. Soon after getting into the rickshaw, and I fell asleep.

After a long nap, I woke up to find a lighted stove in the room. My wife, who had somehow arrived, was sitting alone, sewing. Something was bubbling on the stove. Seeing me awake, she quickly touched what was on the stove, saying, "Get up and have something to eat."

She quickly got up, took out a bowl of rice buried under the blanket, put it on the table she'd prepared, and placed it in front of me. Then, pulling open the stove, she scooped up some hot side dishes and said, "Come on, get up."

I got up reluctantly. My head ached, and my throat was parched, so I gulped down some soup and water. "You're only drinking water. You should eat some something." My wife, worried like this, sat at the head of the table, tearing open the meat for me and picking out the fish bones. These were all brought from my in-laws' house that day. I savored a whole bowl of rice. When I was almost finished, my wife began to eat. Then, I thought about how she had waited for me to wake up and not eaten until now, and I thought about what I had seen at my in-laws' house that day. After the previous day, it seemed like a wall had formed between us, but it seemed to be gradually fading away, and I felt a sense of pity and love. So, we chatted about this and that. Our conversation shifted from today's birthday party to my sister-in-law's bruise over her eye.

After making all that money, my sister-in-law's husband wandered day and night between restaurants and gisaeng**** houses. He recently started an affair with a gisaeng and went berserk, harassing everyone in the house and beating my sister-in-law at every opportunity. This time, for nothing over serious, he slapped my sister-in-law with a table tray, leaving her with a bruise right above her eye.

"You see, if you have money, it's like that."

"It really is. Even if you don't have it, living comfortably is happiness."

My wife resonated with her wholeheartedly.

Hearing these words, I felt indescribably satisfied, and I felt a surge of triumph, as if I were a victor.

And in my heart,

"Right, that's it. Living like this is happiness."

**durumagi: Korean traditional overcoat especially for men

***cheongmokdanghye: Korean traditional women's leather shoes

****gisaeng: Korean geisha

4.

Two days later, at dusk, my sister-in-law came to visit us. As I was absentmindedly contemplating something, the closed middle door creaked and the sound of a silk robe rustled. I took over the lower warm side of the room, and my wife, who had been sewing on the upper colder side of the room, opened the door and stepped out.

"Oh, sister, you're here."

I heard my wife's greeting, and then my sister-in-law came in, accompanied by a maid who's holding something.

I greeted her cheerfully.

"You had a difficult time that day. How dare you drink alcohol you can't handle?"

She abruptly snatched something from the maid, pulled something wrapped in newspaper, and gave it to my wife.

"I bought a pair for you while I was buying my own shoes. I saw your shoes that day..."

She started to speak, but then glanced at me out of the corner of her eye and closed her mouth. 

"You didn't have to..."

My wife showed her appreciation while her pale face blushed, her sister-in-law, pretending not to hear her sister's response, began talking again.

"I've pestered my husband and got a hundred won from my husband before I left home. So today, I visited Jongno to get fabric and buy some shoes..."

A gleam of pride and joy spread across her face, and she unwrapped her cloth bundle.

 "This is it!" she exclaimed and spread it out before us.

I didn't know the details, but it must have been expensive, high-quality silk. Plain, patterned, gray, jade, green, pink, and other colors flowed in a variety of textures, and I was ecstatic for a moment. Feeling the need to praise them,"It's really nice."

As I spoke, a loneliness struck me again. A sudden question occurred to me: What must my wife be thinking when she sees this?

"Everything looks so great."

Even though my wife complimented it for sake of being polite, she didn't seem particularly envious of her sister's opulent items. I felt surprised.

Her sister began to criticize her husband. She kept bringing up unpleasant things about him, like how obnoxious he was, how flirtatious he was, and then suddenly stopped talking and stood up.

"Why are you leaving so soon? You've come all this way, so why not have dinner here, even if there aren't any side dishes?" My wife tried to dissuade her.

But "No, I should go soon. We're leaving by train tonight, so I should go and pack my bags. 

I'm not sure that the train is still a long way off. But we should get to the station early. If we miss the train, how much longer will we have to wait? I even wrote a letter saying we're leaving tonight..."

Ignoring our repeated attempts to dissuade her, she left alone. We sent her off and went back into the room. I smiled and said to my wife,

"Why was she in such a hurry over something as trivial as that?"

My wife simply laughed.

"Still, he gave her money to upgrade her fabric, so it must be pitiful to make him wait."

I found her life is pitiful when she feels satisfaction only through materials even though she finds her husband annoying and he's a womanizer. 

"Oh, I see."

My wife smiled and accepted my words. At that moment, perhaps the shoes my sister-in-law had given her caught her eye (or perhaps she was resisting the urge to look at them because of me), but she picked them up and began to carefully unroll them, then hesitated, as if they held some dangerous substance that could harm her.

"Hurry up and unroll them."

My wife hesitated so much that I couldn't wait, and urged her to open it. 

My wife, hearing this, briskly unrolled the newspaper, as if to say, "It's not that bad."

"They're quite pretty." She let out a joyful cry - rare these days - gently placed her shoes on the floor, pulled on her socks, and carefully tried them on.

"How well they fit!"

A faint smile flowed across her face as she let out a chorus of exclamations.

"..."

Silently observing her delight, I thought again, "Women are women!"

The thought crossed my mind, "She was just being careful!" And a deep shadow, like night, darkened my heart again.

So, of course, when we saw her sister's fabric earlier, she must have felt envious inside. She just didn't show it on the surface.

With just a single remark from me, "Hurry up and unfold it."

She had just revealed her thought without deception. Without realizing what I was thinking inside. But she lifted up the new shoes and said, "How do you think the shoes look?"

"They are very pretty!"

Outwardly, I answered happily, but inside, I felt a sense of loneliness. I couldn't buy herself a pair of shoes, so she was content and happy with what she'd gotten from someone else...

For some reason, this time, no unpleasant thoughts arose. I remembered my sister-in-law, who, despite complaining about her husband, hurried to the train, worried that her waiting husband would be angry if she missed it. From that, I could also discern my wife's state of mind. In unavoidable circumstances, she desperately tries to satisfy herself with only mental well-being, but in reality, it's not enough. She can only endure. That's something I have to think about. Thinking about this, I regretted saying those words to my wife the day before.

"There will always be a day when I can repay your kindness!"

I softened my heart a bit and looked at my wife with this thought.

"I wish I could become successful soon and buy you a pair of silk shoes..."

It was the first time my wife had heard something like that.

"Huh?" My wife looked at me with a puzzled look, as if she didn't believe me. Her expression grew slightly heated, and she said forcefully, "It'll happen soon, won't it?"

"Do you really think so?" I asked in response, a little excited.

"Yes, indeed."

She alone deeply acknowledged me, an unknown writer who had yet to receive recognition. That's why she endured her instinctive attraction toward material things, and until today, without a frown, she had helped me.

"Ah, the angel who comforts and supports me!"

I cried this in my heart, grabbing my wife's waist with both arms and hugging her tightly to my chest. The next moment, our burning lips...

Tears welled up in our eyes, hers and mine.