Chinese Literature

sitting beside a red-lacquered wooden wardrobe—something she had never had in her old home. Her dull eyes were focussed upon it when the scholar came over and sat in front of it, asking,

“What's your name?”

She remained silent and did not smile. Then, rising to her feet, she went towards the bed. He followed her, his face beaming.

‘Don’t be shy. Still thinking about your husband? Ha, ha, ’m your husband now!” he said softly, touching her arm. “Don’t worry! Yowre thinking about your child, aren’t you? Well... .”

He burst out laughing and took off his long gown. -

The young woman then heard the scholar’s wife scolding somebody outside the room. Though she could not make out just who was being scolded, it seemed to be either the kitchen-maid or herself. In her sorrow, the young woman began to suspect that it must be herself, but the scholar, now lying in bed, said loudly,

“Don’t bother. She always grumbles like that. She likes our farm-hand very much, and often scolds the kitchen-maid for chatting with him too much.”

Time passed quickly. The young woman’s thoughts of her old home eradually faded as she became better and better acquainted with what went on in her new one. Sometimes it seemed to her she heard Chun Pao’s muffled cries, and she dreamed of him several times. But these dreams became more and more blurred as she became occupied with her new life. Outwardly, the scholar’s wife was kind to her, but she felt that, deep inside, the elderly woman was jealous and suspicious and that, like a detective, she was always spying to see what was going on between the scholar and her. Sometimes, if the wife caught her husband talking to the young woman on his return home, she would suspect that he had bought her something special. She would call him to her bedroom at night to give him a good scolding. ‘So you’ve been seduced by the witch!” she would cry. “You should take good care of your old carcase.” These abusive remarks the young woman overheard time and again. After that, whenever she saw the scholar return home, she always tried to avoid him if his wife was not present. But even in the presence of his wife, the young woman considered it necessary to keep herself in the background. She had to do all this naturally so that it would not be noticed by outsiders, for otherwise the wife would get angry and blame her for purposely discrediting her in public. As time went on, the scholar’s wife even made the young woman do the work of a maidservant. Once the young woman decided to wash the elderly woman’s clothes.

“You're not supposed to wash my clothes,” the scholar’s wife said. “Tn fact you can have the kitchen-maid wash your own laundry.” Yet the next moment she said,

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