Chapter 8

This answer had to be sufficient. The nurse was in terror, and watched the approaches of the room all night for fear lest anybody should hear the rapturous exclamation of the lovers.

The days passed, and Virgin Diamond gradually grew better. Since he admired the beauty of his young wife, his desire to know her hastened his recovery, and the time came when he was able to get up. Still walking unsteadily, he went into the nuptial pavilion to see her who was his bride, and came before the door, supported by his attendants. The nurse was there, and cried out loud:

"My Lord wishes to enter!"

Yu-lang was, quite naturally, holding Prudence in his arms. He hastily released her, and went close to the door.

"You have succeeded in rising, my elder brother?" said Prudence. "You will fatigue yourself."

"That is no matter," he answered, making a deep obeisance before her whom he believed to be his wife.

"Ten thousand happinesses be with you!" Yu-lang graciously replied.

"What an exquisite pair!" cried the wife of Liu, proud of her son and happy at his fortune.

The false bride's beauty was meanwhile strangely reviving the invalid's vitality. And the other lad thought:

"He is a fine boy in spite of his illness: there is no need to pity my sister. But if he can get up, he will waste no time in coming to spend the night with me. I must depart as quickly as possible."

When evening came, he explained his fears to Prudence.

"It is quite necessary to persuade your mother to send me back to my home, that I may change places with my sister. Everything will be discovered if we delay."

"You wish to go? But what will become of me alone?"

"I have already thought of that. Alas. Alas! But we are both betrothed to another. What can we do?"

"If you do not want me living, I must die so that my soul may follow you."

And she sobbed and sobbed. He dried her eyes saying to her:

"Do not meet trouble in this way, but leave me to find a plan."

They clasped each other in their arms, shedding most bitter tears.

Now it must be said that the wife of Liu was a little wearied of seeing her daughter night and day inseparable from her sister-in-law. However, she said nothing, because the marriage was not actually accomplished. But passing before the marriage pavilion on that day, she heard a sobbing. She drew near noiselessly and, through a hole in the window paper, saw them close in each other's arms and weeping.

"This is very odd," she said.

She wished to make an outcry, but remembered that her son was just getting better, and would fall ill again from any sorrow. She gently tried to push the door open, but it was locked. She called out:

"It is strange that this door should be locked!"

The lovers recognized her voice, and made haste to dry their tears and open the door. She came in.

"Why do you lock yourselves in during full daylight, and groan and embrace each other?"

They felt the blood flow to their faces, and answered nothing. The mother's hands and feet were trembling with rage. She seized hold of her daughter:

"You are playing some pretty trick. Let me talk to you a little."

And she dragged her into an empty room. The attendants who saw her asked each other why the girl was being dragged along like that. But by this time the mother had locked the door. When the attendants came and looked through the holes in the paper, they saw her lifting a stick, and heard her crying:

"O wretch, tell me the truth, or I shall strike you! Why were you weeping?"

At first Prudence thought of denial. Then she said to herself that it would be better to confess and to beg her parents to break off her betrothal with the family of P'ei, so that they might marry her to Yu-lang. If they refused, she would die. That was all. So she told the whole matter without evasion.

"We are husband and wife. Our love is boundless, and our vows will endure for at least a hundred years. My brother is recovered, and we fear that we shall be separated. Yu-lang wishes to return to his parents, to send his sister in his place. It seemed, then, to your daughter that a woman cannot have two husbands, and that if Yu-lang cannot marry me, I must die."

As she listened to her, her mother's breast opened with rage, and she stamped her feet: "This rotten carrion has sent his son here and has deceived me. And now my daughter is lost. I must beat him unmercifully!"

She seized her stick, opened the door and ran forth. Her daughter, forgetting her shame, tried to prevent her; but the old woman pushed her away violently, so that she fell down. Prudence got up and ran after her. The attendants also ran.

Now Yu-lang had very well understood that all was discovered when Liu's wife had dragged her daughter away. A moment later, the nurse hurried in.

"O my Gods! And, ah unhappiness! All is well lost! Prudence is being questioned with the stick."

It seemed to him that two knives were piercing his heart. He burst out into sobbing. But the nurse was already taking out his hair-pins and clothing him as a man. In a state of stupor he let himself be hurried to the main door and through the streets. A few moments later he was back at his parents' house.

His father did not fail to say to him:

"I told you to play the girl, not the man. Why have you committed acts of which Celestial Reason disapproves?"

Yu-lang jostled thus by his father and his mother, no longer knew where he stood. Meanwhile the nurse objected:

"But what can they say there? Our young Lord has only to keep himself hidden for a few days, and it will all pass over."

But at Liu's house the nurse, as she went away, had unwittingly locked the door, and Liu's wife had come to it and was shaking it violently, stammering with rage and flourishing her stick.

"Thief, whom may Heaven strike dead! O very vile rascal! For what did you take me? I am going to show you who I am! I will have your life! If you do not open the door, I shall break it open with a great case."

But naturally no one answered. Prudence tried in vain to stay her mother, who loaded her with insults; but at last, in her rage, she succeeded in breaking the lock, and rushed into the room with her stick uplifted. The cage was empty and the bird had flown. She knelt on all fours to look under the bed and under the furniture, crying out all the time:

"Thief, you shall die!"

But, as she was compelled to admit, there was no trace of the ravisher. Then Prudence said to her, sobbing meanwhile:

"And now, after this scandal, the P'ei family is let into the whole secret. I entreat you to have pity on me and let me marry Yu-lang. Otherwise, must I not die in order to redeem my shame?"

She fell on her knees, weeping and groaning.

"What you say is true," answered her mother resuming some measure of calm. "After this wonderful affair, no one will want you."

However, a mother's love cannot be altogether restrained. She drew near to her daughter: "My poor child! All this is not your fault. It is that rotten carrion of a Sun who has caused it. But we cannot, of ourselves, break off the betrothal with P'ei."

As Liu came up in the meantime, the matter had to be explained to him. He was nearly half a day without being able to speak, and it may be surmised that his first words were to throw the blame on his wife:

"The whole fault is yours! By making me say I do not know what, you arranged all this. Instead of altering the date as you should have done! And to crown all, you insisted upon placing our daughter in his arms! She has very well kept him company, has she not?"

His wife's anger was not quite dead, and these remarks rekindled it. Her voice rolled out like thunder:

"You old tortoise!" she began....

But on this occasion he also was furious. He advanced, threatening to strike her. Prudence tried to come between them, and all three were nothing but a rolling, striking, shouting and weeping congeries. The servants then ran to inform Virgin Diamond who rose from his bed and unsteadily ran. His mother was moved with pity to see him, and his father also stopped his vituperation. They both went out muttering.

Virgin Diamond then asked his sister the cause of all this, and why his young wife was no longer there. She answered only with tears; but his mother, who had returned, told the whole story.

Virgin Diamond's anger was so strong that his face became the color of the earth. However, he contained himself, saying:

"Let us not publish this family shame abroad. If the news spreads, everybody will laugh at us."

As a matter of course, their mischievous neighbor, Li, had heard their shouting and weeping. He had quickly climbed on to his wall, but had been unable to understand what was happening. Next morning he watched for the first of the women slaves who came out, and drew her into his house. Fifty pieces of copper decided the girl to speak, and the delighted Li, letting her depart, ran to the house of P'ei, to whom he told all that he knew.

P'ei went straight to the house of Liu:

"I know all," he cried. "Give back the gifts, and let no more be said."

Liu's face became red and white by turns. He thought:

"How does he already know what happened in my house but yesterday?"

Then he denied the matter:

"Kinsman, whence come these words with which you are trying to sully my family?"

"Miserable cheat!" cried the other, "you are in very truth an old tortoise."

And he struck him on the face with his hand.

"Murderer!" cried Liu in a fury. "Do you dare to come to my house and insult me and strike me?"

And he struck P'ei such a violent blow that the old man fell to the ground. Then they began to belabor each other. Virgin Diamond and his mother, hearing their cries, ran up and separated them. Afterward P'ei, pointing with his finger and trembling, cried:

"You know how to strike, old tortoise! We shall see whether you are as clever in speaking before the judge."

And he went out swearing. Liu exclaimed:

"It is all Sun's fault. If I do not bring an action against them, they will even now escape entirely free."

In spite of his son's curses, he hurriedly set about writing an accusation, and ran to the Governor s palace.

The court was sitting, and Liu, holding his accusation, approached the judge. P'ei was already there, and reviled him as soon as he saw him. Liu retaliated, and the battle began anew.

At this interruption, the magistrate sternly ordered the two to kneel and explain themselves. Both spoke confusedly at the same time, but the whole story was none the less made clear. All those who were implicated in the matter were summoned, and they came to fall upon their knees.

At length the judge delivered sentence. All the former betrothals were annulled. Yu-lang became betrothed to her whom he had outraged. But the Sun family owed a compensation to the Liu family, which in its turn owed a bride to the P'ei family. So Pearl Sun was given to the son of P'ei, and Virgin Diamond was bestowed upon the former betrothed of Yu-lang. Having settled the affair, the Governor summoned three red palankeens and the three brides were conducted under escort to the homes of their new husbands. The town of Hang-chow talked of this affair for a long time, but in the end forgot it for some new scandal.

_Hsing shih heng yen (1627), 8th Tale._

End of Project Gutenberg's Eastern Shame Girl, by Charles Georges Souli