man, there were two conflicting ideas in her mind. On the one
hand, she always remembered that she would have to leave after the three years were up.
Three years seemed a short time and she had become more of a servant than a temporary
wife. Besides, in her mind her elder son Chun Bao had become as sweet and lovely a child
as Qiu Bao. She could not bear to remain away from either Qiu Bao or Chun Bao. On the
other hand, she was willing to stay on permanently in the scholar’s house because she
thought her own husband would not live long and might even die in four or five years. So
she longed to have the scholar bring Chun Bao into his home so that she could also live
with her elder son.
One day, as she was sitting wearily on the veranda with Qiu Bao sleeping at her breast,
the hypnotic rays of the early summer sun sent her into a daydream and she thought she
saw Chun Bao standing beside her; but when she stretched out her hand to him and was
about to speak to her two sons, she saw that her elder boy was not there.
At the door at the other end of the veranda the scholar’s wife, with her seemingly kind
face but fierce eyes, stood staring at the young woman. The latter came to and said to
herself,
“I’d better leave here as soon as I can. She’s always spying on me!”
Later, the scholar changed his plan a little; he decided he would send Mrs. Shen on
another mission: to find out whether the young woman’s husband was willing to take
another thirty dollars—or fifty dollars at most—to let him keep the young woman for
another three years. He said to his wife,
“I suppose Qiu Bao’s mother could stay on until he is five.”
Chanting “Buddha preserve me” with a rosary in her hand, the scholar’s wife replied,
“She has got her elder son at home. Besides, you ought to let her go back to her lawful
husband.”
The scholar hung his head and said brokenly,
“Just imagine, Qiu Bao will be motherless at two…”
Putting away the rosary, his wife snapped,
“I can take care of him. I can manage him. Are you afraid I’m going to murder him?”
Upon hearing the last sentence, the scholar walked away hurriedly. His wife went on
grumbling,
“The child has been born for me. Qiu Bao is mine. If the male line of your family
came to an end, it would affect me too. You’re been bewitched by her. You’re old and
pigheaded. You don’t know what’s what. Just think how many more years you may live,
and yet you’re trying to do everything to keep her with you. I certainly don’t want another
woman’s tablet put side by side with mine in the family shrine!”
It seemed as if she would never stop pouring out the stream of venomous and biting
words, but the scholar was too far away to hear them.
Every time Qiu Bao had a pimple on his head or a slight fever, the scholar’s wife ◎◎文◎檔◎共◎享◎與◎在◎線◎閱◎讀◎
would go around praying to Buddha and bring back Buddha’s medicine in the form of
incense ash which she applied to the baby’s pimple or dissolved in water for him to drink.
He would cry and perspire profusely. The young woman did not like the idea of the
scholar’s wife making so much fuss when the baby fell slightly ill, and always threw the
ash away when she was not there. Sighing deeply, the scholar’s wife once said to her
husband,
“You see, she really doesn’t care a bit about our baby and says he’s not getting
thinner. Real love needs no flourishes; she is only pretending that she loves our baby.”
The young woman wept when alone, and the scholar kept silent.
On Qiu Bao’s first birthday, the celebration lasted the whole day. About forty guests
attended the party. The birthday presents they brought included the baby clothes, noodles,
a silver pendant in the shape of lion’s head to be worn on the baby’s chest and a gold-
plated image of the God of Longevity to be sewn to the baby’s bonnet. The guests wished
the baby good luck and a long life. The host’s face flushed with joy as if reflecting the
reddening glow of