Chinese Literature

“Stop singing now, you'll wake up daddy.”

The chair carriers were sitting on the benches in front of the gate, smoking their pipes and chatting. Soon afterwards, Mrs. Shen arrived from the nearby Village where she was living. She was an old and experienced matchmaker. As soon as she crossed the threshold, she brushed the raindrops off her clothes, saying to the husband and wife,

“Ts raining, it’s raining. That’s a good omen, it means you will thrive irom now on.”

The matchmaker bustled about the house and whispered and hinted +o the husband that she should be rewarded for having so successfully brought about the deal.

“To tell you the truth, for another fifty dollars, the old man could have bought himself a concubine,” she said.

Then Mrs. Shen turned to the young woman who was sitting still with the child in her arms, and said loudly,

“The chair carriers have to get there in time for lunch, so you’d better hurry up and get ready to go.”

The young woman glanced at her and her look seemed to say, “I don’t want to leave! I’d rather starve here!”

The matchmaker understood and, walking up to her, said smiling,

“You're just a silly girl. What can the ‘Yellow Fellow’ give you? But over there, the scholar has plenty of everything. He has more than two hundred mow of land, his own houses and cattle. His wife is good-tempered and she’s very kind. She never turns anybody from her door without giving him something to eat. And the scholar is not really old. He has a white face and no beard. He stoops a little as welleducated men generally do, and he is quite gentlemanly. There’s no need for me to tell you more about him. You'll see him with your own eyes as soon as you get out of the sedan-chair. You know, as a matchmaker, I’ve never told a lie.”

The young woman wiped away her tears and said softly,

“Chun Pao.... How can I part from him?”

“Chun Pao will be all right,” said the matchmaker, patting the young woman on the shoulder and bending over her and the child. ‘He is already three. There’s a saying, ‘A child of three can move about free’ So he can be left alone. It all depends on you. If you can have one or two children over there, everything will be quite all right.”

The chair bearers outside the gate now started urging the young woman to set out, murmuring,

“You are really not a bride, why should you cry?’*

The matchmaker snatched away Chun Pao from his mother’s arms, saying,

“Tet me take care of Chun Pao!’

*In old China, a bride usually cried before leaving her family.

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