Chinese Literature

he never made enough money to support his family and his debts mounted with each passing year. The wretchedness of his life and the hopeless situation he was in caused him to take to drinking and gambling, and he became vicious and bad-tempered. As he grew poorer and poorer, people stopped lending him money, even in small sums.

With poverty came sickness. He grew sallow: his face took on the sickly colour of a brass drum and even the whites of his eyes became yellow. People said that he had jaundice and urchins nicknamed him “Yellow Fellow.” One day, he said to his wife,

“There’s no way out of it. It looks as if we’ll even have to sell our cooking pot. I’m afraid we have to part. It’s no use both of us going hungry together.”

“We have to part?. . .’ muttered his wife, who was sitting behind the stove with their three-year-old boy on her lap.

“Yes, we have to part,” he answered feebly. ‘“There’s somebody willing to hire you as a temporary wife... .”

“What?” she almost lost her senses.

There followed a brief silence. Then the husband continued, falteringly,

“Three days ago, Wang Lang came here and spent a long time pressing me to pay my debt to him. After he had left, I went out. I sat under a tree on the shore of Chiumou Lake and thought of committing suicide. I wanted to climb the tree and dive into the water and drown myself, but, after thinking about it, I lost courage. The hooting of an owl frightened me and I walked away. On my way home, I came across Mrs. Shen, the matchmaker, who asked me why I was out at night. I told her what had happened and asked her if she could borrow some money for me, or some lady’s dresses and ornaments that I could pawn to pay Wang Lang so that he’d no longer be prowling after me like a wolf. But Mrs. Shen only smiled and said,

““What do you keep your wife at home for? And you're so sick and yellow!’

“IT hung my head and said nothing. She continued,

“Since you’ve got only one son, you might find it hard to part with him. But as for your wife... .’

“I thought she meant that I should sell you, but she added,

““Of course she is your lawful wife, but you’re poor and you can’t do anything about it. What do you keep her at home for? Starve her to death ?’

“Then she said straight out, ‘There’s a fifty-year-old scholar who wants a concubine to bear him a son since his wife is barren. But his wife objects and will only allow him to hire somebody else’s wife for a few years. I’ve been asked to find them a woman. She has to be about thirty years old and the mother of two or three children. She must be honest and hard-working, and obey the scholar’s wife. The scholar’s

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