ut 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.

"Because you are my cousin, I met you at the feast. Lured by a
maid-servant, I visited you in private. A girl's heart is not in her own
keeping. You 'tempted me by your ballads'[8] and I could not bring
myself to 'throw the shuttle.'[9]

[8] As Ssu-ma tempted Cho Wen1-chuun, second century B.C.

[9] As the neighbour's daughter did to Hsieh Kun (A.D. fourth century),
in order to repel his advances.

"Then came the sharing of pillow and mat, the time of perfect loyalty
and deepest tenderness. And I, being young and foolish, thought it would
never end.

"Now, havi