Six Records of a Floating Life (Chapter three: Ups and downs 03)

    It was proposed then that Yun might stay at her maiden home, but her mother was dead and her younger brother had run away from home, and she was not willing to go and be a dependent on her kinsfolk.

    Fortunately, my friend Lu Panfang heard of the matter and look pity on us, and asked us to go and stay in his home called Hsiaoshuanglou. After two years had passed, my father began to know the whole truth.

    It happened that shortly after I returned from Lingnan [ in Kwangtung ], my father personally came to the Hsiaoshuanglou and said to Yun, "Now I understand everything. Why not come home?" Accordingly we returned happily to the old home and the family was reunited. Who would suspect that the affair of Hanyuan was still brewing ahead!

    Yun used to have woman's troubles, with discharges of blood. The ailment developed as a consequence of her brother K'ehch'ang running away from home and her mother dying of grief over it which affected Yun's health very much.

    Since coming to know Hanyuan, however, the trouble had left her for over a year and I was congratulating myself that this friendship proved better than all medicine. Then Han was married to an influential person, who had offered a thousand dollars for her and, furthermore, undertook to support her mother. "The beauty had therefore fallen into the hands of a barbarian.

    I had known of this for some time, but dared not mention it to Yun. However, she went to see her one day and learnt the news for herself. On coming back, she told me amidst sobs, "I did not think that Han could be so heartless!"

    "You yourself are crazy," I said. "What do you expect of a singsong girl? Besides, one who is used to beautiful dresses and nice food like her will hardly be satisfied with the lot of a poor housewife. It were better like this than to marry her and find it to one's cost afterwards. "

    I tried my best to comfort her, but Yun could never quite recover from the shock of being betrayed and her troubles came again. She was confined to bed and no medicine was of any avail. The illness then became chronic and she grew greatly emaciated.

    After a few years, our debts piled up higher and higher, and people began to make unpleasant remarks. My parents also began to dislike her more and more on account of the fact that she had been a sworn sister to a sing-song girl. I was placed in an embarrassing position between my parents and wife and from that time on, I did not know what human happiness was.

    Yun had given birth to a daughter, named Ch'ingchun, who was then fourteen years old. She knew how to read, and being a very understanding child, quietly went through the hard-ships with us, often undertaking the pawning of jewelleries and clothing. We had also a son named Fengsen, who was then twelve and was studying under a private tutor.