Chinese Literature

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Severed air will blend again, Broken dew-drops merge once more; Everything is fixed by Fate And decreed by Heaven's law.

There was a native of Chengchow named Hsu Hsin, who mastered the military arts in his youth and married a daughter of the Tsui family who was quite good-looking. Hsu’s family was well-to-do and he and his wife lived happily together until the Nu Chen Tartars invaded China and carried the two emperors off. Then Hsu and his wife decided that Chengchow was no longer safe, stowed all the valuables they could into two bundles, shouldered one apiece and fled with everybody else, not stopping day or night. When they reached Yucheng, they heard earsplitting cries from behind and imagined that the Tartars must have overtaken them. These were the routed Chinese troops, however, that they heard. The imperial army had received no training for a long time and was completely undisciplined; thus when the soldiers were ordered to resist the invaders, they shook with fear and fled without giving battle; but when they came across ordinary citizens, they displayed great valour in looting and seizing young girls. Though Hsu could acquit himself well in a fight, the routed troops were bearing down on them like an avalanche and one was powerless against a multitude, so he fled for his life. But amid the wailing press of fugitives, he lost sight of his wife; and since there was no way of looking for her with the troops almost upon them, he could only press on alone. When several days had passed with no further sign of her, he sighed and gave her up as lost.

When Hsu reached Suiyang, hungry and thirsty, he went into a country inn to buy wine and food. Now during those troubled times even the taverns had changed: this inn had no wine left and the food was only coarse fare, but, fearing that the refugees might rob him, the inn-keeper insisted on payment in advance before he would serve a meal. Hsu, then, was just counting out money when he heard a woman crying piteously. He could not shut his ears to the sound and it upset him so much that he stopped counting his money and walked out to see what had happened. He found a woman, thinly clad and with dishevelled hair, sitting on the ground. She was not his own wife, of course, but she was about the same age; and Hsu’s own loss made him feel sympathetic. “J suppose she is a refugee too,” he thought. He went up and asked where she was from.

‘My name is Wang Chin-nu,” she told him, “and I am a native of Chengchow. As my husband and I were flying from the soldiers, we became separated and I was captured by some deserters. I walked two days and one night until I reached here; but my feet are so swollen now that I don’t think I can go a step further. The deserters have stolen

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