Nancy's voice was not Kuei-lien's. It was more closely a child's voice, artless, straightforward, and simple, but she sang very clearly, very tenderly, till even the candles seemed to stop flickering and the old woman shut her eyes, letting her mind drift into contented reverie from the peace she got in knowing that Nancy was near.
"Swift the summer sun in his day,
Swift the autumn moon in her night,
Slow the winter frost with its blight,
Trampling golden leaves from its way.
"Gold youth, scarlet love, each must fade,
Moon and stars cease shining in the night,
Winter snows shall long glimmer white,
Scarlet leaves and gold low are laid."
Nancy stopped. She wanted to hide her face again, but there was no place to hide. She had to bear up for the sake of her friend. But the song unloosed such overwhelming memories that she had to sit speechless, tensely careful not to move lest she let free the tears which were poised imminently behind the straining floodgates of her eyes.
The t'ai-t'ai reached for her hand.
"I have lived seventy-three years," she said, "and in all those seventy-three years this is the most peaceful moment I have known. I don't want you to offer me anything else, child—incense, food, money, I don't want them, nothing else but one thing, your happiness. If you want me to rest, you must bring me that."
She sank back in the bed as if to sleep more comfortably. Her eyes closed. Her mind seemed to slip away. The heat of the fever mounted. Nancy busied herself with the expedients the doctor had suggested, but they brought no relief. Again and again she begged the sick woman to give some sign that she heard, but she got no response. At last in despair she woke up her stepmother. The woman came rushing in, half dressed, took one look.
"Ai, she is dying," she cried, and rushed out to call the family.
They had all come in readiness for the worst. It was only the work of a few minutes before they were crowding round the bedside, weeping in terror as they watched the old t'ai-t'ai's struggles for breath. Their wailing filled the room, deafening the last pangs of the dying woman.
Suddenly she sat bolt upright and looked round with the caustic look they knew so well.