Chinese Literature

“She has been spoiled here and become stuck-up like a real concubine,” she said, sneering maliciously, “always complaining about headaches or backaches. She must have been quite different before—like a bitch that has to go searching for food even when she is going to bear a litter of puppies! Now, with the old man fawning on her, she puts on airs!”

‘Why so much fuss about having a baby?” said the scholar’s wife one night to the kitchen-maid. “I myself was once with child for ten months, I just can’t believe she’s really feeling so bad. Who knows what she’s going to have? It may be just a little toad! She’d better not try to bluff me, throwing her weight around before the little thing is born. It’s still nothing but a clot of blood! It’s really a bit too early for her to make such a fuss!” ,

The young woman who had gone to bed without supper was awakened by this torrent of malicious abuse and burst into convulsive sobs. The scholar was also shocked by what he heard—so much so that he broke into a cold sweat and shook with anger. He wanted to go to his wife’s room, grab her by the hair and give her a good beating so as to work off his feelings. But, somehow or other, he felt powerless to do so; his fingers trembled and his arms ached with weariness. Sighing deeply, he said softly, “I’ve been too good to her. In thirty years of married life, I’ve never slapped her face or given her a scratch. That’s

‘why she is so cocky.”

Then, crawling across the bed, he whispered to the young woman beside him,

‘Now, stop crying, stop crying, let her cackle! A barren hen is always jealous! If you manage to have a baby boy this time, Ill give you two precious gifts—a blue jade ring and a white jade. . .’ Leaving the last sentence unfinished, he turned to listen to his wife’s jeering voice outside the room. He hastily took off his clothes, and, covering his head with the quilt and nestling closer to the young woman, he said,

“Tye a white jade... .”

The young woman grew bigger and bigger around the waist. The scholar’s wife made arrangements with a midwife, and, when other people were around, she would busy herself making baby’s clothes out of floral prints.

The hot summer had ended and the cool autumn breeze was blowing

over the village. The day finally came when the expectations of the whole

household reached their climax and everybody was agog. His heart beating faster than ever, the scholar was pacing the courtyard, reading about horoscopes from an almanac in his hand as intently as if he wanted to commit the whole book to memory. One moment he would look anxiously at the room with its windows closely shut whence came the muffled groans of the expectant mother. The next, he would look at the cloudy sky, and walk up to the kitchen-maid at the door to ask, “How is everything now?”

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