The four
corners of the table-cloth dripped downward to the flat green grass. It
was all very strange and ugly. Perhaps it was a garden, but no one would
have guessed it. Dong-Yung longed to put each flower plant in a dragon
bowl by itself and place it where the sun caught its petals one by one
as the hours flew by. She longed for a narrow, tile-edged patch to guide
her feet through all that flat green expanse. A little shiver ran over
her. She looked back, down the wide gravelled way, through the gate,
where the gate-keeper sat, tipped back against the wall on his stool, to
the shop of the money-changer's opposite. A boy leaned half across the
polished wood counter and shook his fist in the face of the
money-changer. "Thou thief!" he cried. "Give me my two cash!" Dong-Yung
was reassured. Around her lay all the dear familiar things; at her side
walked her lord and master. And he had said they were seeking a new
freedom, a God of love. Her thoughts stirred at her heart and caught her
breath away.
The foreigners rose to greet them. Dong-Yung touched the hand of an
alien man. She did not like it at all. The foreign-born woman made her
sit down beside her, and offered her bitter, strong tea in delicate,
lidless cups, with handles bent like a twisted flower-branch.
"I have been meaning to call for a long time, Mrs. Li," said the
foreign-born woman.
"The great wife will receive thee with much honour," Dong-Yung answered.
"I am so glad you came with your husband.
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