Six Records of a Floating Life (Chapter one: Wedded Bliss 17)

    We then came back hand-in-hand to the boat, and when we stopped at the Bridge of Ten Thousand Years. The sun had not yet gone down. And we let down all the windows to allow the river breeze to come in, and there, dressed in light silk and holding a silk fan, we sliced a melon to cool ourselves.

    Soon the evening glow was casting a red hue over the bridge, and the distant haze enveloped the willow trees in twilight. The moon was then coming up, and all along the river we saw a stretch of lights coming from the fishing boats. I asked my servant to go astern and have a drink with the boatman. The boatman's daughter was called Suyun. She was quite a likeable girl, and I had known her before. I beckoned her to come and sit together with Yun on the bow of the boat. We did not put on any light, so that we could the better enjoy the moon, and there we sat drinking heartily and playing literary games with wine as forfeit. Suyun just stared at us, listening for a long time before she said, 

  “Now I am quite familiar with all sorts of wine-games, but have never heard of this one. Will you explain it to me?" 

  Yun tried to explain it by all sorts of analogies to her, but still she failed to understand. Then I laughed and said, 

  "Will the lady teacher please stop a moment? I have a parable for explaining it, and she will understand at once." 

  "You try it, then!" "The stork," I said, 

  "can dance, but cannot plow, while the buffalo can plow, but cannot dance. That lies in the nature of things. You are making a fool of yourself by trying to teach the impossible to her."  

    Suyun pummelled my shoulder playfully, saying, "You are speaking of me as a buffalo, aren't you?" 

  Then Yun said,"Hereafter let's make a rule: let's have it out with our mouths, but no hands! One who breaks the rule will have to drink a big cup." As Suyun was a great drinker, she filled a cup full and drank it up at a draught. 

  "I suggest that one may be allowed to use one's hands for caressing, but not for striking," I said. 

  Yun then playfully pushed Suyun into my lap, saying, "Now you can caress her to your full." "How stupid of you!" I laughed in reply. 

  "The beauty of caressing lies in doing it naturally and half unconsciously. Only a country bumpkin will hug and caress a woman roughly." 

    I noticed that the jasmine in the hair of both of them gave out a strange fragrance, mixed with the flavour of wine, powder and hair lotion and remarked to Yun,“The 'common little fellow' stinks all over the place. It makes me sick. " Hearing this, Suyun struck me blow after blow with her fist in a rage, saying, “Who told you to smell it?"