If not, I shall at least have done my best. But give me a proof, for
otherwise she would not listen to me."
Not without regret, Chang took from his bosom the little slipper, and
gave it to her, wrapped in his handkerchief. The old woman at once
slipped it into her sleeve with the pieces of money. As she was
leaving him, she said again:
"The affair is delicate. You must have patience and not hurry me. That
would be dangerous."
"I only ask you to do your best. Come and tell me as soon as you have
an answer."
Eternal Life was profoundly agitated. Since that moonlit night she had
had no more taste for food, but had said:
"If I married him I would not have lived in vain. But I know neither
his name nor where he lives. When I saw him beneath the moon, why
had I not wings to fly to him? ... As it is, I had only this red
handkerchief."
Yet she had to live and speak as usual. But as soon as she was alone
she fell again into her musing.
Two days later, old Lu entered their house. The father had gone out.
The visitor said to mother and daughter:
"I received certain artificial flowers yesterday, and have come to
show them to you."
She took a bunch of a thousand shades out of her basket.
"Would you not say they were real?"
"When I was young," said the mother, "we only wore ordinary flowers,
and did not dream of marvels like these.
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