Six Records of a Floating Life (Chapter one: Wedded Bliss 02)

    When I was thirteen years old, I went with my mother to her maiden home and there we met. As we were two young innocent children, she allowed me to read her poems. I was quite struck by her talent, but feared that she was too clever to be happy. Still I could not help thinking of her all the time, and once I told my mother, "If you were to choose a girl for me, I won't marry any one except Cousin Su." My mother also liked her being so gentle, so gave her her gold ring as a token for the betrothal.

    This was on the sixteenth of the seventh moon in the year of 1775. In the winter of that year, one of my girl cousins (the daughter of another maternal uncle of mine) was going to get married and I again accompanied my mother to her maiden home. Yun was the same age as myself, but ten months older, and as we had been accustomed to calling each other "elder sister" and "younger brother" from childhood, I continued to call her "Sister Su". At this time the guests in the house all wore bright dresses, but Yun alone was clad in a dress of quiet color, and had on a new pair of shoes. I noticed that the embroidery on her shoes was very fine, and learned that it was her own work, so that I began to realize that she was gifted at other things too, besides reading and writing.

    Of a slender figure, she had drooping shoulders and a rather long neck, slim but not to the point of being skinny. Her eyebrows were arched and in her eyes there was a look of quick intelligence and soft refinement. The only defect was that her two front teeth were slightly inclined forward, which was not a mark of good omen. There was an air of tenderness about her which completely fascinated me.

    I asked for the manuscripts of her poems and found that they consisted mainly of couplets and three or four lines, being unfinished poems, and I asked her the reason why. She smiled and said, "I have had no one to teach me poetry, and wish to have a good teacher-friend who could help me to finish these poems." I wrote playfully on the label of this book of poems the words: "Beautiful Lines in an Embroidered Case," and did not realize that in this case lay the cause of her short life.