For amid so many strange sights and sounds he was dazed. Like a great gawk he stood on the main street, with his mouth open. As the crowds went by, he wondered where all the people came from, and how they all got a living. [[122]]
He found the saying true that “There are rude people, even in Seoul,” for one fellow shouted at him asking him whether he intended to swallow the moon. Some of the boys laughed at him and one said his mouth was like a bird box, and something might fly in.
Kim looked at many things in the shops, but when he asked how much they cost he nearly fainted. He was truly scared at the price, and walked on. However, he bought some pretty things for his wife and daughters, such as a fan, a roll of silk for a dress, a box of hairpins, some amber beads, and a silver ring, so that when his oldest daughter, who was soon to marry, became a bride, she would have everything ready.
While in the silk shop the clerk who sold him the goods saw that Kim was from the country and thought he would have a little fun. So he told Kim about the fairies, and pointed out a shop across the way. There, if he looked at the round thing which the shop man would gladly show him, he would see and feel as he never felt or saw before.
At once Kim went across the street and over to the shop, where they made metal things, bright, shining, polished and silvery. There he stood in front of a round thing like the moon. In it was a man’s face. It was the face of some one he thought he knew. It was a man about his own age he fancied, [[123]]yet he could not tell just who it was or call him by name, but he was sure he had seen the person before. When he turned around suddenly, hoping to surprise a friend, and perhaps a neighbor, from his home town, there was nobody near. He looked again. There it was! Had his friend hid himself and then come back?
When Kim dodged he lost sight of the face, but when standing in front of this round thing, there was the same man again in the mirror, for that is what the shining metal was.
When Kim laughed the fellow laughed too. When he made a wry face or grimaces, the other person, whoever he was, did the same. No matter how quickly Kim might turn around to catch him, he was gone.
Now Kim had never before seen a mirror and did not know what it might be. Yet thinking it was almost like fairy magic, he bought the metal disc and took it back with him.
When he arrived home he must first of all unpack the boxes containing the pretty things for the women of his family, for the girls were impatient to see what their father had brought them.
They were so absorbed in their gifts that they did not notice what Mr. Kim had bought for himself. So he laid the case containing the mirror on the table and put some other purchases away in the big cabinet, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, that [[124]]stood in the best room. Then he went out to look after his mill, and the pigs, the donkey, and the bull.