Miss Su’s eyes followed him out, while she remained seated in the pavilion. With joy in her heart and not a single well-formed thought except the two lines “Full moon in the sky,/ And half the month gone by” in her mind, she wasn’t sure if it was an old saying or her own inspiration of the moment. It was the middle of April. What would happen by mid-August? she wondered. “The belly of a pregnant woman pasted to the heavens,” she recollected a line of Ts’ao Yüan-lang’s poem with an irrepressible feeling of disgust. Hearing the maids return, she rose and instinctively pulled out her handkerchief to wipe her mouth, as if the kiss might have left some mark behind. She felt the rest of the evening was just like standing on the edge of a diving board by the sea, and she could plunge into the next day’s happiness with one leap. She was trembling with excitement.
Fang Hung-chien arrived home, locked the door of his room, and tore up five or six drafts before he wrote out the following letter:
Dear Wen-wan,
I can’t bring myself to see you again, so I am writing you this letter. Everything that has happened in the past right up until tonight is entirely my fault. I have no excuses and no way to explain. I couldn’t ask for your forgiveness. I only hope you will quickly forget this weakling who lacks the courage to be frank. Because I sincerely respect you, I couldn’t bear to insult your friendship. I don’t deserve the kindness you have shown me in the last few months, but it will forever remain a cherished memory.
Best wishes.
He felt shameful; he could not sleep well the whole night. When he arrived at the bank the next day he had a special messenger deliver the letter. He remained on pins and needles, fearful of further complications. Around eleven o’clock a bank trainee came to call him to the telephone, saying a Miss Su was on the phone. His legs went limp. As he picked up the receiver, he expected Miss Su’s abuse would be heard by everyone in the bank.
In a very soft voice Miss Su said, “Hung-chien? I just got your letter. I haven’t opened it yet. What does it say? If it’s something nice, I’ll read it; if not, I won’t. I’ll wait and open it in front of you to embarrass you.”
He was so horrified that his forehead nearly shrank into his eyebrows, as his eyebrows rose up to his hairline. He realized she had mistaken it to be a letter of proposal and was being pettish to give him a hard time. He said quickly, “Please read the letter right away. I beg you.”
“In such a hurry! All right, I’ll read it then. You wait. Don’t hang up. . . . I’ve read it, but I don’t understand what you mean. Come and explain it to me later.”
“No, Miss Su, no. I don’t dare see you—” Unable to cover it up any longer, he said in a low voice, “I have another—” How should I say it? Hell! The other employees are probably all listening in—“I have another—another person.” He finished as though getting rid of a heavy burden.
“What? I can’t hear you.”
Hung-chien shook his head and sighed. In his agitation he began speaking in fractured French. “Miss Su, let’s speak French. I—love someone—love another woman. Understand? Forgive me. I beg a thousand pardons.”
“Why, you—you rotten egg!” Miss Su cursed him in Chinese. Her voice seemed to have a quaver in it. Hung-chien felt as if her abuse had given him a heavy slap on his ear and in self-defense, he hung up the receiver.
Miss Su’s voice continued to jar his consciousness. At noon he went to eat at a small Western-style restaurant in the neighborhood, afraid to speak to anybody. It suddenly occurred to him that she might kill herself from frustrated love, and he became too upset to eat. He hurried back to the bank and wrote a letter begging her forgiveness, asking her to take care of herself. He gave himself a thorough smirching and declared he wasn’t worth a copper. He entreated her not to keep loving him. After sending the letter, he relaxed a little and began to feel hungry, so he went out again to get something to eat. At around four or five o’clock when his colleagues were all getting ready to leave, he decided he was in no mood that day to go see Miss T’ang.
Meanwhile, the mail office gave him a telegram, and he was terrified, thinking it must be Miss Su’s suicide note. Who could be sending him a telegram? He opened it and found that it had been sent from P’ing-ch’eng, which seemed to be a county in Hunan. His alarm abated but his curiosity increased. He quickly got a telegraph code book and transcribed it as follows: “Offer position as possessor. Monthly salary $340 plus travel expenses. Please ware reply. National San Lü University President Kao Sung-nien.” “Possessor” was a mistake for “professor” and “ware reply” must be “wire reply.” He had never heard of San Lü University. It must be a new university established since the war. He had no idea who Kao Sung-nien was or in which department he would serve as professor. But the fact that a national university did not consider it too far to go a thousand miles to offer him a job was a real boost to his status; for after only one year of war, a national university professor still held an enviable position among the salaried classes.
He learned from Chief-secretary Wang that P’ing-ch’eng was indeed in Hunan. Wang asked to see the telegram and congratulated him for getting the recognition he deserved, observing that the Golden Touch Bank was a small place, and “the flood dragon is no mere creature of the ponds.” Wang also said that a professorship at this National San Lü University was equivalent to the presidential appointment rank in the civil service. When Hung-chien heard this, his spirits rose. This news signified a real change of luck, he thought. He should have no trouble getting Miss T’ang to marry him now. That day certainly deserved to be commemorated as the end of old entanglements and the beginning of new opportunities.
That evening Hung-chien told Mr. and Mrs. Chou about his job offer. Mr. Chou was pleased, his only reservation being that P’ing-ch’eng was too remote. Hung-chien said that he hadn’t made up his mind. Mrs. Chou said she realized he would have to ask Su Wen-wan’s permission first; she remarked further that a traditional couple as close as Hung-chien and Miss Su were would have gotten married long ago. The modern couple who were full of the “Oh, my heart, my flesh,” sort of intimacy before ever getting married probably found that once the initial sweetness wore off, things didn’t turn out so well after marriage. Hung-chien laughed at her for only knowing about a Miss Su.
“Don’t tell me there’s someone else besides?” she asked.
Beaming with satisfaction, Hung-chien replied glibly that he would tell her more within three days.
A pang of jealousy for her deceased daughter made her say, “I can’t see how someone like you could be such a sought-after piece of juicy meat!”
Hung-chien did not bother to counter this coarse remark, and returning to his room he wrote the following letter:
Dear Hsiao-fu,
The letter of two days ago has probably reached you by now. I’ve completely recovered from my illness. If you wrote a letter inquiring after my health it will still be as welcome as an extra dose of medicine after sickness. Today I received a telegram from National San Lü University offering me a position as professor. The school seems a little remote, but it’s still a good opportunity. Please help me decide whether to go or not. What are your plans for the rest of the year? If you want to go to Kunming to continue your studies, I can find a job there. If you enter a university in Shanghai, then Shanghai will be the place where I long to be. In short, I possess you, bind you, follow you like the spirit of a ghost that’s been wronged, and will not leave you in peace. For a long time I’ve thought of me—oops! Instead of “you,” I accidentally wrote “me,” but there’s good reason for such a slip of the pen. Do you know why? To put it simply, I’ve already practiced that sentence a thousand times in my head. I just wish I could invent a fresh and fleeting expression that only I could say and only you could hear, so that after I’ve spoken it and you’ve heard it, it would vanish and in the past, present or future there would never be another man using the same expression to another woman. I’m so sorry that to you who are without equal i
n the whole world, I can only use clichés which have been worked to death for thousands of years to express my feelings. Will you permit me to say it? I really don’t dare be presumptuous. You don’t know how much I fear your anger.
Early the next morning, Hung-chien told Mr. Chou’s chauffeur to deliver the letter. In the afternoon he left the bank and went to the T’angs. As the rickshaw reached the door, he saw to his horror and dismay that Miss Su’s car was there also. Miss Su’s chauffeur tipped his cap to him, saying, “You’ve come at just the right time. Young Lady arrived not more than a few moments ago.”
Hung-chien lied, “I was only passing by I won’t go in.” And he turned and went home. A lie of glass, thin and transparent, he thought. The chauffeur must certainly be laughing to himself. Would Miss Su spread malicious tales and ruin everything for me? But she doesn’t necessarily know I am in love with Miss T’ang. And anyway, she would only disgrace herself by telling everything that has happened in the last six months. Consoling himself in this manner, he stopped worrying.
The next day he waited in vain, for there was no letter from Miss T’ang. The day after when he went to see her, the maid said she was not in. By the fifth day when there was still no letter, and two fruitless visits, he became so nervous he lost both his sleep and appetite. He recited his letter over and over ten or fifteen times, weighing each word carefully in his mind, but could find nothing that might give offense. Maybe she still wanted to go back to college. He was eight or nine years older than she, and if he fell in love, that meant he’d want to get married right away. He couldn’t wait for her to finish college. Maybe that was what made her hesitant. If she would just say she loved him, then whenever she wanted to get married would be fine. He could certainly “keep chaste.” All right, he’d write another letter and ask to see her on Sunday, the next day. Everything would be as she decreed.
That night it grew very windy, and the next day a light rain fell, followed by a heavy downpour which continued without let-up into the afternoon. Hung-chien, bracing himself against the rain, went to the T’angs. To his surprise, Miss T’ang was at home. He sensed something strange in the maid’s manner but ignored it. As soon as he saw Miss T’ang he could tell she was very aloof and without a trace of her usual smile. In her hand was a large paper bundle. His courage completely gone, he said, “I’ve come by twice, but you weren’t home. Did you get my Monday letter?”
“Yes, I did. Mr. Fang,”—her reverting back to the original form of address made him breathless—“I heard you also came by on Tuesday. Why didn’t you come in? I was home then.”
“Miss T’ang,”—he too returned to the old form of address—“how did you know I came by on Tuesday?”
“My cousin’s chauffeur saw you and was surprised you didn’t come in. He told my cousin and she told me. You should have come in that day; we were talking about you.”
“What’s there to discuss about me?”
“We weren’t just discussing you; we were studying you. We found your behavior quite mysterious.”
“What’s so mysterious about me?”
“You don’t think you’re mysterious? Of course, to naive girls like myself, you’re inscrutable. I’ve known about your gift of gab for some time.
You undoubtedly have a very convincing explanation for everything you’ve done. At the least, you’ll just say, ‘I have no excuses and no way to explain,’ and people will certainly forgive you. Isn’t that so?”
“What?” he asked with a start. “You saw the letter I wrote your cousin?”
“My cousin showed it to me. She also told me everything that happened from the boat trip up until that evening.”
Miss T’ang looked indignant, and Hung-chien did not dare look her straight in the eye.
“What did she say about it?” he managed to ask. He was sure Su Wen-wan had exaggerated everything, saying he had lured her and kissed her, and he was prepared to counter lies with facts.
“You mean you don’t even know what you yourself did?”
“Miss T’ang, let me explain—”
“If you have some ‘way to explain,’ then go tell it to my cousin first.”
Ordinarily Fang Hung-chien liked Miss T’ang for her quickness. Now he only wished she were slow-witted and less overbearing.
“My cousin told me a few other things about you too, Mr. Fang. I don’t know if they’re true or not. The Chous, with whom you’re now living, apparently aren’t any ordinary relatives. They’re your in-laws. You’ve been married before.” Hung-chien tried to interrupt, but Miss T’ang was not the daughter of an attorney for nothing. She knew the secret of interrogating a witness in court and that’s never let him argue—“I don’t need an explanation. Are they not your in-laws? If so, then that’s all there is to it. Whether or not you were in love during the years you were abroad I have no idea. But on the boat trip home, you took a fancy to a Miss Pao and got on so well with her that you never left her side for a moment. Right?”
Hung-chien lowered his head and said nothing.
“Once Miss Pao left, you immediately went after my cousin, right up until—I needn’t go on. Moreover, it seems that while you studied in Europe, you got an American degree—”
Hung-chien stamped his foot in anger. “Have I ever boasted to you about my degree? That was a prank.”
“You’re an intelligent person. You have a little fun now and then, but dunces like us take all your jokes seriously.” When Miss T’ang heard Fang Hung-chien choke back a sob, her heart softened. But at that moment the greater the pity she felt in her heart, the more resentful she became and the more she felt like really attacking him. “Mr. Fang, your past is too rich. I want to be able to occupy the whole life of the man I love. Before meeting me, he would have had no past and would be waiting for me with a clean slate.”
Hung-chien kept his head down and remained silent.
“I hope you will have a bright future, Mr. Fang.”
Hung-chien’s mind and body went numb as though an electric current had passed through him. Only aware that Miss T’ang was speaking to him, he was in no state to try to comprehend the meaning of her words. It was as though his mind were covered with a layer of oilpaper, and her words were like raindrops. Though they couldn’t soak through the oilpaper, it still shook under the beating rain. The last remark made everything hopelessly clear to him, and he raised his head, his eyes brimming with tears like a big child who has been spanked and scolded—a face in which the tears have been swallowed into the heart. Miss T’ang’s nose suddenly stung.
“You’re right. I am a fraud. I won’t argue any more or come to bother you again.”
He stood up to go. Miss T’ang wished she could have said, Why don’t you defend yourself? I would believe you. But, instead, she merely said, “Well, goodbye, then.” She saw him out, hoping he had something else to say. It was raining heavily outside. As she reached the door, she seriously thought of asking him to stay until the rain died down. Putting on his raincoat, he glanced at her and was too benumbed to shake her hand. When she noticed his glistening eyes that had been washed over by his tears, she lowered her eyes, unable to look at him. Mechanically, she stretched out her hand and said, “Goodbye.”
Sometimes “Won’t you stay a while longer?” will drive a person away; sometimes “Goodbye” will hold him back. Miss T’ang couldn’t hold Fang Hung-chien back, so she added, “I wish you bon voyage.”
She returned to her bedroom. The rage of a moment ago having completely vanished, she felt tired and remorseful. The maid came in and said, “Mr. Fang is acting strange. Standing on the other side of the street, he’s getting drenched in the rain.”
She hurried to the window to look. Sure enough, Hung-chien was standing with his back to the road outside the bamboo fence of the house diagonally opposite. Like whips of water, wind-blown lines of rain from all directions lashed at his unresponsive body. As she watched, her heart melted into bitter water. If he, after another minute, still stoo
d there, she thought, she would risk the ridicule of others and tell the maid to invite him back in. The minute lasted forever, and she could hardly wait it out and was just about to give the order to her maid when Hung-chien suddenly whirled around. Like a dog shaking out its hair, he shook himself as if trying to shake away all the rain in the vicinity and strode off.
Miss T’ang regretted having believed her cousin so much and in her anger spoken with such finality to him. She also began to worry that Hung-chien would become so despondent he might get run over by an automobile or trolley car. She checked her watch a few times; after an hour, she called up the Chous to ask about him. Hung-chien hadn’t come home yet. Alarmed, she grew more apprehensive. When dinner was over and the rain had stopped, not wishing her family to overhear, she slipped out to a neighborhood candy store to use the telephone. Confused and upset, she first dialed a wrong number; dialing a second time, all she heard was the telephone ringing at the other end. For a long time no one answered. The three members of the Chou family had all gone out visiting.
Hung-chien, who had been sitting in a stupor in a small coffee shop up until this time, finally went home. The moment he entered the house the maid told him Miss Su had called. He turned hot with rage and awoke from his benumbed state. He was just changing into dry clothes when the telephone rang. He ignored it. The maid ran up to get it and had no sooner picked it up than she said, “Mr. Fang, Miss Su is on the phone.” With his sock half on and his left foot bare, Hung-chien ran from his room, grabbed the receiver, and not caring whether the maid heard or not, in a hoarse voice—unfortunately he had caught a chill from his drenching in the rain and already had the beginnings of a stuffy nose, so his throat had lost its vigor—said, “We’re already through, through! Do you hear? What’s the point of calling up again and again? It’s really disgraceful! You’re just making trouble! I doubt if you’ll ever get married—” He suddenly realized the other party had already hung up and nearly called Miss Su up again to force her to listen to his invective through to the end. The maid, who had been listening with great interest at the turn of the stairs, hurried into the kitchen to report.
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