Chinese Literature

‘Pm on my way home; this morning I thought I would be able to walk the whole way.”

The elder lapsed into sympathetic silence and finally hired a litter for her.

It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when the litter carriers entered a narrow and filthy village street. The young woman, her pale face shrunken and yellowed like an old vegetable leaf, lay with her eyes closed. She was breathing weakly. The villagers eyed her with astonishment and compassion. -A group of village urchins noisily followed the litter, the appearance of which stirred the quiet village.

One of the children chasing after the litter was Chun Pao. The children were shouting and squealing like little pigs when the litter carriers suddenly turned into the lane leading to Chun Pao’s home. Chun Pao stopped in surprise. As the litter stopped in front of his home, he leaned dazed against a post and looked at it from a distance. The other children gathered around and craned their necks timidly. When the young woman descended from the litter, she felt giddy and at first did not realize that the shabbily dressed child with dishevelled hair standing before her was Chun Pao. He was hardly any taller than when she had left three years before and just as-skinny. Then, she blurted out in tears,

“Chun Pao!”

Startled, the children dispersed. Chun Pao, also frightened, ran inside the house to look for his father.

Inside the dingy room, the young woman sat for a long, long while. Both she and her husband were speechless. As night fell, he raised his head and said,

“You'd better prepare supper!”

She rose reluctantly, and, after searching around the house, said in a weak voice,

“There’s no rice left in the big jar... .

Her husband looked at her with a sickly smile,

“You've got used to living in a rich man’s house all right. We keep our rice in a cardboard box.”

That night, the skin dealer said to his son,

“Chun Pao, you go to bed with your mother!”

Chun Pao, standing beside the stove, started crying. His mother walked up to him and called,

“Chun Pao, Chun Pao!” But when she tried to caress him, the boy shunned her. His father hissed,

“You’ve forgotten your own mother. You ought to get a good beating for that!”

The young woman lay awake on the narrow, dirty plank-bed with Chun Pao lying, like a stranger, beside her. Her mind in a daze, she seemed to see her younger son Chiu Pao—plump, white and lovely—curled up beside her, but as she stretched out her arms to embrace him, she

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