The view from south of the DMZ.

SEOUL--The spectacle of mass weeping, ground-pounding, and hair pulling before statues of Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang revealed a level of adoration for the "Great Leader" beyond the comprehension of most South Koreans, let alone of the foreigners who witnessed the film replayed on South Korean television. "North Korea's propaganda of weeping people on film is hysterical," said one of the South Korean commentators as his own station offered seemingly endless footage of scenes from the life of Kim Il Sung in the days after a rasping, weepy voice broadcast the news of his death over Pyongyang Radio. "We cannot expect such a thing in a normal society."

The key question was how long Kim Il Sung's eldest son, "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il, would be allowed to bask in the afterglow. The bespectacled, portly Kim Jong Il, heightened by platform heels, beautified by artificially curled hair, does not make a strong impression.

In fact, he projects the image of a spoiled brat--the type who might stage an angry temper tantrum one day and fawn on bended knee the next. Above all, as he tries to cling to the throne his father bequeathed him, he may retreat to a cocoon, hiding from all the forces at home and abroad that he fears are out to get him. Although the hagiography has Kim Jong Il becoming "an expert in economics" in East Germany, he has not journeyed abroad except to Peking and Moscow since returning home in 1964 to take up full-fledged membership in the Korean Workers Party Central Committee. Since then, according to diplomats in Pyongyang, he has picked up most of his hands-on knowledge of the outside world from blonde East European call girls, Japanese pornographic films, fast foreign sports cars, and French cognac.

The mythic aura surrounding father and son, however, was not totally foreign to South Koreans, raised on Confucianism's reverence for family and obedience to authority. South Koreans often point out the inability of the Western world to understand Koreans, either North or South. Kil Jeong Woo, director of policy studies at the Research Institute for National Unification in Seoul, dismissed suggestions that North Koreans might soon tire of Kim Jong Il's brattish appearance, xenophobic shyness, and dubious private life. "That's a Western view," he said curtly. "Koreans don't know anything about those things."

The West, however, might have good reason for wondering if Kim Jong Il is an unstable psychopath. It is widely believed that it was he who, in 1983, ordered North Korean agents to set off the bomb in Rangoon that killed 21 people in an effort to assassinate South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan. The incident was assumed to have been an effort on Kim Jong Il's part to prove his revolutionary mettle to skeptics in the armed forces and Party bureaucracy after his father proclaimed him a "legitimate successor" to power. Four years later terrorists planted a bomb that blew up a Korean Airlines jet with 115 people aboard. Again, Dear Leader was thought to be responsible.

South Koreans, however, seemed eager to gloss over the past in their search for stability and tranquility. "I think we are headed in a very positive direction," said Kil, advising his government to press on toward the North-South summit originally set to begin July 25 in Pyongyang. "We should send some positive message."

To many the most disheartening aspect of Kim Il Sung's death was the derailing of the summit. As the news sank in, South Koreans hoped more than anything for perpetuation of the status quo--a state of armed non-war. No one wanted to test how Kim Jong Il would respond if the West again pursued economic sanctions to force the North to expose its nuclear-weapons program before prying international inspectors. "A rat when it is chased by a cat into a corner can fight the cat," said Chang Sung Un, a young computer clerk. "When people are in deep trouble they can do something unimaginable."

"I felt numb," said shopowner Chung Kim Chang after hearing the news over the TV behind him. As North Korea slowly stabilizes, Chung predicted, "leaders will rise up with some common sense who will want peace and trade with the South." But until then, he said, "anything could happen"--including a civil war in the North that could drag the South into war as well.

Such fears were tempered, however, by a certain fatalism--an Asian acceptance of inevitability. "My mother often said, |If war breaks out, so what, we will all die,'" said Chun Sung Hee, a sales executive for a Western company. "But until then we will do our best." There was also the feeling that South Koreans have a better sense than Americans of what is going on in the North. "One reason we are less worned could be that we are familiar with the situation," said Miss Chun, "We know North Korea a little bit more than other people because, even though they invaded us, we are the same people, the same blood, we speak the same language."

Now that Kim Il Sung is gone, some South Koreans said they would miss the man who abided by a heavily armed peace for more than forty years after failing to achieve his dream of reunification by force of arms. "One great star has fallen," said Kim Sun Moon, a young executive at the local branch of Citibank. "Like it or not, good or bad, he was a great personality with great leadership. Otherwise he could not have maintained his regime for such a long time."

Fears for the future did not discourage crowds from pouring into the streets of the young-fashion Myongdong district at the heart of the city, lining up for hamburgers at Wendy's and McDonald's, and sipping beer at local pubs while news and analysis on Kim Il Sung droned on from nearby television sets. Pictures of the Great Leader beamed from the front pages on Sunday's newspapers beneath huge black-bordered headlines. Tensions relaxed almost visibly as Kim Jong Il appeared to consolidate his power. The news was equally welcome that North Korea still wanted to negotiate with the United States over the nuclear issue after the funeral. "It doesn't matter if they agree on anything," said Chang Sung Un. "At least they are talking."