wing from me.
It is long since you have overcome me in that way. The moon is bright
over the shimmering river. The night is deep and solitary. Will you
not consent to favor me with a song?"

For a little, Shih-niang refused. Then she looked at the moon, and a
song escaped her. It was an affecting melody, taken from one of the
pieces of the Yuan dynasty, called "The Light Rose of the Peaches." In
truth:

Her voice took flight to the Milky Way,
And the clouds stopped to listen.
Its echo fell into the deep water and the fishes hastened.

Shih-niang sang. And in a near-by junk there was a young man called
Sun; his first name was Fu, Rich, and his surname was Shan-lai,
Excellent-in-Promise. His family was one of the wealthiest in Hsin-an
of Hui-chow; his ancestors had owned the salt monopoly in Yang-chow.
He was just twenty years old, and had moulded his character in
accordance with his passion, being a regular visitor at the blue
pavilions, where the smiles of painted roses are to be bought. He was
making a journey, and had cast anchor for the night at Kua-chow. He
was drinking in solitude, bemoaning the absence of companions.

Suddenly in the night he heard a voice more sweet than the sighs of
the bird of passion, or than the warbling phoenix. No words seemed
adequate, he felt, to describe the beauty of this song. Walking out
from his cabin, he found that the music came from a junk not very far
distant from his own.

In his eagerness to know who had enchanted him, he told his men to go
and question the boatmen. But he learned no more than that the junk
had been hired by Li Chia. He obtained no information concerning the
singer. He reflected:

"Such a perfect voice could not belong to a woman of good family. How
can I manage to see this bird?"

He could not sleep that night. In the morning, at about the fifth
watch, he heard the wind roaring on the water. The light of day was
strangely veiled by cloud, and flakes of snow were whirling madly. It
has been said;

The clouds are swallowing
Countless thousands of trees upon the hill.
Footprints disappear on many footpaths.
The fisher in the bamboo hat
On the frail boat
Catches only snow and the frozen river.

This snowstorm rendered it impossible to cross the river, and the
boats could not be set in motion. Sun, therefore, told his rowers to
leave his moorings and to make fast alongside Li Chia's junk. Then, in
a sable bonnet and wrapped in his