Ah Lai took from his pocket the poem which he had written at Sui-yang, and handed it to the priest. Winter Cherry hesitated between the bowls of Mei and Mooi-tsai. Some of the broth fell on the table. She recovered and filled her own bowl last.
When she had sat down, the priest read the even lines of the poem.
Read thus, the poem hangs together, as a good poem should. Girl, since the poem was addressed to you, read me the odd lines.”
When the priest had given her the paper, Winter Cherry read, in a clear voice as if she did not know what words she was reading:
Then she stopped at the word and broke into noiseless sobbing, her face in her hands on the table before her. The Lady of the Tapestry made as if to comfort her, but the priest interrupted quickly: “Leave her alone. Girl, there are but two words remaining to scan the rhythm—two words and one more line. Read those two words and that one line.”
Winter Cherry looked up, then buried her head again in her hands.
The priest repeated: “Read.”
Everyone had stopped eating.
Winter Cherry said: “I cannot.”
The priest said: “
Then Winter Cherry cleared her throat and cried: “It was a red, veil of blood, with the sword rising and falling between me and the blood, and a gong beating in time with my heart.”
“The gong was your heart,” the priest said. “Now read the two lines.”
Winter Cherry read:
“And the other line,” the priest repeated.
Winter Cherry read:
Father Peng observed: “If I may venture to offer an opinion, I should say that the poem seems rather more highly-coloured than is customary.”
Peng Yeh “asked: “Will she have recovered?”
The priest replied: “Sir, she had nothing from which to recover. Her mind was clouded, perhaps: she suffered from a misapprehension of the nature of man. But now she sees clearly. Eat, child: here are bean-sprouts. A simple dish, but one calculated to introduce others. A misapprehension of the nature of man.” He addressed Father Peng. “Will you, sir, or shall I tell the story of the squirrel, the cat, the hog and the woodman? It will serve to make my point clearer.”
Father Peng waved the suggestion aside.
“I am sure that I should not bring out quite the shade of instruction which is in your mind,” he said.
The priest helped himself to bean-sprouts from the dish, in the middle of the table, added sauce, stirred the sprouts with his chopsticks, took a trial mouthful, and began: “A certain squirrel, when the weather was cold and snow threatened, remembered a store of nuts which she (for it was a female squirrel) had hidden in a disused rat-hole in a rock face. When she reached the place she found that the entrance to her larder had been blocked by a piece of rock washed into it by the rain, a piece of rock too large for her to be able to move. The first flakes of snow fell, and the squirrel looked round for assistance.