antiquity. He had persuaded the workmen to gather every fragment that there was, and then he had settled down to an impossible task. The fragments were almost illegible, but he was determined to decipher the text or die in the attempt. His face was flushed with pride when he took us to his workshop and showed us the tiny clay fragments, and the theories of mathematical probability that he had devised to suggest the sequence of characters in the ancient script. He had been working on it for sixteen years, and already he had deciphered ten whole sentences, and if he lasted another sixteen years he hoped to have four whole paragraphs.
One thing he was sure of. It was a ginseng folk or fairy tale, and it was one of the oldest known to man.
Ho Wen had no money of his own. In my innocence I assumed that the distinction of his scholar's rank was worth more than money, but I soon learned otherwise. I suspect that the rich are the same in every country in that money is their sole standard of value, and was Ho Wen referred to as Master Ho? Venerable Scholar Ho? Second- Most-Learned-of-Mortals Ho? Not exactly. He was referred to as Henpecked Ho, and he lived in mortal terror of the Ancestress, his wife, her seven fat sisters, and his daughter. In a great house a poor scholar's status is just slightly higher than that of the boy who carries away the night soil.
There was no resemblance whatsoever between Henpecked Ho and his daughter. My bride-to-be was a startlingly pretty girl whose name was Fainting Maid. I assumed that the unusual name came from a line of poetry, but I learned better on our first stroll through the gardens when we were chaperoned by Li Kao and her father.
“Hark!” cried Fainting Maid, pausing on the path and pointing dramatically. “A cuckoo!”
Well, I am a country boy.
“Nay, my beloved,” I chuckled. “It is a magpie.”
She stamped a pretty foot. “It is a cuckoo!”
“Precious one, the magpie is imitating a cuckoo,” I said, pointing to the magpie that was imitating a cuckoo.
“It is a cuckoo!”
“Light of my life,” I sighed, “it is a magpie.”
Fainting Maid turned red, turned white, reeled, clutched her heart, and screeched, “Oh, thou hast slain me!” Then she staggered backward, lurched to the left, and gracefully swooned.
“Two feet back, six to the left,” her father sighed.
“Does she ever vary it?” Li Kao asked with scientific interest.
“Not so much as an inch. Precisely two feet back and six feet to the left. And now, dear boy, you are required to kneel and bathe her delicate temples and beg her forgiveness for your intolerable rudeness. My daughter,” said Henpecked Ho, “is never wrong, and I might add that never in her life has she been denied anything that she wanted.”
Is it possible that among my illustrious readers there may be one or two who are contemplating marriage for money? I have a very clear memory of a golden afternoon when the butler was instructing me in the etiquette of a great house, Henpecked Ho's beloved wife and her seven fat sisters were sipping tea in the Garden of Forty Felicitous Fragrances, Fainting Maid was insulting the intelligence of her ladies-in-waiting in the Gallery of Precious Peacocks, and the Ancestress was chiding a servant who had dropped a cup on the Terrace of Sixty Serenities.
“The cook hands the guest a ladle with an engraved handle and a stand which is placed west of the tripods,” said the butler. “The guest takes the handle of the ladle with his right hand, palm inward, and lays the ladle alongside the stand.”
“Off with his head!” roared the Ancestress.
“Then,” continued the butler, “he faces east, at the west of the tripods, to receive the food that is his due and that is determined by his attire, beginning with the state umbrella that is displayed by his servants.”
“Gabble-gabble-gabble-gabble-gabble!” squawked Henpecked Ho's wife and her seven fat sisters.
“The umbrella of First and Second Rank officials have yellowish-black gauze covers, red raw silk linings, three tiers, and silver spires, and the umbrellas of the Third and Fourth Rank officials are the same, except that the spires are red.”
“Forgive me, My Lady! Of course The Gentlewoman's Guide to Needlepointwas written by Confucius!” wailed a lady-in-waiting.
“The umbrellas of the Fifth Rank,” said the butler, “have blue gauze coverings, red raw silk linings, two tiers, and silver spires, and those of the Sixth through Ninth Rank have blue oiled, raw silk coverings, red raw silk linings, one tier, and silver spires.”
“Deposit the corpse in the pigsty!” roared the Ancestress.
Enough.
8. Dancing Girl
One night Li Kao and I stopped by Henpecked Ho's workshop and found him in tears, holding a cheap silver comb in his hands while he wailed. When he had recovered enough to speak he asked us to hear his story, because he had no one else with whom to share joys or sorrows. Li Kao made him drink some wine, and then we sat down to listen.
“A few years ago I managed to please the Ancestress in some way,” said Henpecked Ho. “She graciously allowed me to take a concubine, but I had no money of my own. I could not aspire to a lady of quality, or even the maid of a lady of quality, so I chose a dancing girl from Hangchow. Her name was Bright Star, and she was very beautiful and very brave, and I loved her with all my heart. She did not love me, of course, because I am old and ugly and something of a worm, but I never forced myself on her and I think that she was reasonably happy. I gave her this comb as a token of my love. As you can see, it is not a very good comb, but it was all that I could afford, and she wore it in her hair to please me. I had never been in love before, and in my foolishness I thought that my joy would last forever.
“One night the Ancestress entertained some officers from the fort, and among them was a young captain whose family was so distinguished that it was common knowledge that the Ancestress would choose him to wed Fainting Maid. For some reason the name of Bright Star was mentioned, and suddenly the captain was all attention. She was no common dancing girl, he said excitedly. Bright Star had become a living legend in Hangchow through her skill and courage at the Sword Dance, and the young captain, who was a very famous swordsman himself, said that he would give anything to meet such an opponent. Since no distinctions of rank are allowed in the Sword Dance, the Ancestress ordered Bright Star to perform. When she opened an old wicker case and took out two swords I could see that she kept her heart in those glittering blades. She allowed me to oil her body, and I marveled at the pride and happiness in her eyes, and my beautiful dancing girl walked out the door like a queen.
“Sword Dancers wear only loincloths, of course, and I could not bear to see Bright Star displayed like a piece of meat for the soldiers to leer at. I did not attend the dance, but I did not have to. The wind drifted down from the mansion and with it came a clash of steel blades that grew louder and louder and faster and faster. I heard cheering, and then I heard the audience roaring at the tops of their lungs. The drums pounded like thunder, and when the sand clock ran out the audience continued to cheer in delight and wonder for nearly ten minutes. The judges refused to declare a winner. Only gods, they said, had the right to choose between gods, and the palm was cut in two and half was given to each contestant.
“That night I lay in my bed and listened to the sobs of a dancing girl. She had fallen in love with the young captain, but what was she to do? Her social status was so low that it would be quite impossible for a gentleman of his rank to take her as a secondary wife, and she would be forced to see him as the husband of my daughter but never could she reach out and touch him. All night long she wept, and in the morning I made my way to the fort and had a long talk with a young captain who had not slept a wink, because whenever he closed his eyes he saw the face of Bright Star. When I returned that evening I clasped a gold chain around the throat of a dancing girl, and on the end of it was a beautiful jade pendant that was the token of the captain's love.
“Am I not a worm?” said Henpecked Ho. “I had so little pride that I would even play panderer for the woman I loved. All that mattered was her happiness, and I went about it quite methodically. I discovered that there were two brief periods when the corridor between the walls was unguarded. At sunset, when the guards went off duty, the men in the kennels waited for a few minutes to make sure that everyone was out before they released the
