“I have no commands,” replied her husband. “Our affairs have reached this state: we can do nothing and be nothing to each other. I am banished for life; you cannot go with me, and I cannot help you. There is no use in our talking. You will forget me. Our fate is unlucky, the gods and man are against us.”
With tears streaming from her eyes, and her beautiful face full of trouble, she said, “Alas! alas! You do not believe in and trust me, that I will be true to you. What can I do to prove to you that I mean what I say? You say I am beautiful; the gods have made me so. Because I am so you think that fair promises of wealth and luxury will buy me. If I were homely no one would want me; see, this I do to show how true is my heart to you,” and before he saw what she was about she took some scissors from her sleeve and dug out one of her beautiful eyes, and then, raising her poor disfigured [[134]]face to his, she said, as she tried to smile, “Do you believe me, is it not proof enough? Would anybody want me now?”
Her husband was greatly moved and, as he tried to stop the flow of blood, said, “You are a daughter of the gods, the most true of all women.”
They then talked over their sorrows, and she said, “If in a few months’ time the gods give us a son, what is your wish to name him? If a little daughter comes, name her also and your wishes.”
“I have no wishes or commands, you are able to instruct and have wisdom for all. If the gods give us a son, call him Ting Lang.”
The wife said, “Alas! I may not follow you into exile, I shall go to my old home, but if the child is a son, when he is old enough I shall send him to you.”
Then she took from her sleeve a small mirror, a comb, and a handkerchief. These she divided into two parts, gave one part to her husband, and placed the other in her inner pocket.
“When a boy finds you, producing these, you will know who he is, and wherever you are you must own him.”
With this and many tears they embraced each other, then with much weeping she knelt [[135]]before him, and touching her head to the ground three times, she said her good-bye.
Her husband raised her and gave her into the command of the serving-woman, with many words of instruction to the latter, who was in great distress at the condition of her mistress’s eye. He told her what medicine to get, and how to care for it, and made her promise to stay with her lady as long as she lived. And then the friend came and promised the wife to stay by her husband to the end of the journey and care for him, and urged her to go home as it was late and the cart must be starting.