“Because, though born a gee sang, I am by marriage a lady, and not subject to the rules of my former profession,” she answered.
“Hush!” roared the Prefect. “No more of this nonsense. Present yourself here with the other gee sang, or pay the penalty.”
“Never” she bravely cried. “A thousand deaths first. You have no right to exact such a thing of me. You are the King’s servant, and should see that the laws are executed, rather than violated.”
The man was fairly beside himself with wrath at this, and ordered her chained and thrown into prison at once. The people all wept with her, which but increased her oppressor’s anger, and calling the jailer he ordered him to treat her with especial rigor, and be extra vigilant lest some sympathizers should assist her to escape. The jailer promised, but nevertheless he made things as easy for her as was possible under the circumstances. Her mother came and moaned over her daughter’s condition, declaring that she was foolish in clinging to her faithless husband, who had brought all this trouble upon them. The neighbors, however, upbraided the old woman for her words, and assured the daughter that she had done just right, and would yet be rewarded. They brought presents of food, and endeavored to make her condition slightly less miserable by their attentions.
She passed the night in bowing before Heaven and calling on the gods and her husband to release her, and in the morning when her mother came, she answered the latter’s inquiries as to whether she was alive or not, in a feeble voice which alarmed her parent.
“I am still alive, but surely dying. I can never see my Toh Ryung again; but when I am dead you must take my body to Seoul and bury it near the road over which he travels the most, that even in death I may be near him, though separated in life.” Again the mother scolded her for her devotion and for making the contract that binds her strongly to such a man. She could stand it no longer, and begged her mother that she would go away and come to see her no more if she had no pleasanter speech than such to make. “I followed the dictates of my heart and my mind. I did what was right. Can I foretell the future? Because the sun shines to-day are we assured that to-morrow it will shine? The deed is done. I do not regret it; leave me to my grief, but do not add to it by your unkindness.”
Thus the days lengthened into months, but she seemed like one dead, and took no thought of time or its flight. She was really ill, and would have died but for the kindness of the jailer. At last one night she dreamed that she was in her own room, dressing, and using the little mirror Toh Ryung had given her, when, without apparent cause, it suddenly broke in halves. She awoke, startled, and felt sure that death was now to liberate her from her sorrows, for what other meaning could the strange occurrence have than that her body was thus to be broken. Although anxious to die and be free, she could not bear the thought of leaving this world without a last look at her loved husband whose hands alone could close her eyes when her spirit had departed. Pondering much upon the dream, she called the jailer and asked him to summon a blind man, as she wished her fortune told. The jailer did so. It was no trouble, for almost as she spoke they heard one picking his way along the street with his long stick, and uttering his peculiar call. He came in and sat down, when they soon discovered that they were friends, for before the man became blind he had been in comfortable circumstances, and had known her father intimately. She therefore asked him to be to her as a kind father, and faithfully tell her when and how death would come to her. He said: “When the blossoms fade and fall they do not die, their life simply enters the seed to bloom again. Death to you would but liberate your spirit to shine again in a fairer body.”
She thanked him for his kind generalities, but was impatient, and telling her dream, she begged a careful interpretation of it. He promptly answered, that to be an ill omen a mirror in breaking must make a noise. And on further questioning, he found that in her dream a bird had flown into the room just as the mirror was breaking.
“I see,” said he. “The bird was bearer of good news, and the breaking of the mirror, which Toh Ryung gave you, indicates that the news concerned him; let us see.” Thereupon he arranged a bunch of sticks, shook them well, while uttering his chant, and threw them upon the floor. Then he soon answered that the news was good. “Your husband has done well. He has passed his examinations, been promoted, and will soon come to you.”
She was too happy to believe it, thinking the old man had made it up to please his old friend’s distressed child. Yet she cherished the dream and the interpretation in her breast, finding in it solace to her weary, troubled heart.