Soon afterwards, it became time for him to compete in the Literary Examinations, and he was obliged once more to set out for the western capital.
The evening before his departure, he sat in deep despondency by Ts‘ui’s side, but did not try again to tell her of his love. Nor had he told her that he was going away, but she seemed to have guessed it, and with submissive face and gentle voice, she said to him softly: “Those whom a man leads astray, he will in the end abandon. It must be so, and I will not reproach you. You deigned to corrupt me and now you deign to leave me. That is all. And your vows of ‘faithfulness till death’—they too are cancelled. There is no need for you to grieve at this parting, but since I see you so sad and can give you no other comfort—you once praised my harp-playing; but I was bashful and would not play to you. Now I am bolder, and if you choose, I will play you a tune.”
She took her harp and began the prelude to “Rainbow Skirts and Feather Jackets.”[7] But after a few bars the tune broke off into a wild and passionate dirge.
All who were present caught their breath; but in a moment she stopped playing, threw down her harp and, weeping bitterly, ran to her mother’s room.
She did not come back.
Next morning Chang left. The following year he failed in his examinations and could not leave the capital. So, to unburden his heart, he wrote a letter to Ts‘ui. She answered him somewhat in this fashion: “I have read your letter and cherish it dearly. It has filled my heart half with sorrow, half with joy. You sent with it a box of garlands and five sticks of paste, that I may decorate my head and colour my lips.
“I thank you for your presents; but there is no one now to care how I look. Seeing these things only makes me think of you and grieve the more.
“You say that you are prospering in your career at the capital, and I am comforted by that news. But it makes me fear you will never come back again to one who is so distant and humble. But that is settled forever, and it is no use talking of it.
“Since last autumn I have lived in a dazed stupor. Amid the clamour of the daytime, I have sometimes forced myself to laugh and talk; but alone at night I have done nothing but weep. Or, if I have fallen asleep my dreams have always been full of the sorrows of parting. Often I dreamt that you came to me as you used to do, but always before the moment of our joy your phantom vanished from my side. Yet, though we are still bedfellows in my dreams, when I wake and think of it the time when we were together seems very far off. For since we parted, the old year has slipped away and a new year has begun....
“Ch‘ang-an is a city of pleasure, where there are many snares to catch a young man’s heart. How can I hope that you will not forget one so sequestered and insignificant as I? And indeed, if you were to be faithful, so worthless a creature could never requite you. But our vows of unending love—those I at least can fulfil.