LOVE REWARDED
Lost in the heart of Peking, in one of the most peaceful neighbourhoods of the Yellow City, the street of Glowing-happiness was sleeping in the silence and in the light.
On the right and left of the dusty road was some waste ground, where several red mangy, and surly dogs were sleeping. Five or six low houses, their white walls forming a line not well defined, whose low roofs were covered with grey tiles, bordered the road.
In the first year of the Glorious-Strength, four hundred years ago, a young man with long hair tied together under the black gauze cap of the scholars, clothed in a pink dress with purple flowers, was walking in the setting sun, stepping cautiously in order not to cover with dust his shoes with thick felt soles.
When the first stars began to shine in the darkening sky, he entered one of the houses. A wick in a saucer, soaking in oil, burning and smoking, vaguely lighted an open book on the table: one could only guess, in the shadow, the form of a chair, a bed in a corner, and a few inscriptions hanging on the whitewashed walls.
The scholar seated himself before his table and resumed, as he did every evening, his reading of the Classics, of which he sought to penetrate the entire meaning. Late passers-by in this lonely thoroughfare still saw his lamp shining across the trellises of the windows far into the night.
Golden-dragon lived alone. Now, on that evening an inexplicable languor made him dreamy; his eyes followed in vain the text; his rebellious thoughts were scattered.
Impatiently at last he was just going to put out his lamp and go to bed, when he heard some one knocking at the door.
"Come in!" he cried.
The door grinding on its hinges, a young woman appeared clothed in a long gown of bright green silk, gracefully lifting her foot to cross the threshold, and bowing with her two hands united. Golden-dragon, hurriedly rising to reply, waved in his turn his fists joined together at the same height as his visage and said, according to the ritual: "Be kind enough to be seated! What is your noble name?" The visitor did not pronounce a word; her large black eyes, shadowed by long eyelashes, were fixed on the face of her host, while she tried to regain her panting breath.