Back and forth he paced, trying to think of a plan of action while surveying the terrain. The wall outside the study was not high, but it was part of the house and he could not get over it. The wall inside was not very substantial, but he could not drive a hole through it, because it was built of whitewashed brick and any attempt would have left obvious traces on both sides.

So he abandoned the classic methods found in literature and went neither through the wall nor over it, but decided instead to rehearse his own text and drop down through the roof. However, on looking up, he noticed a section three feet high and five feet wide along the top of the wall where the bricks had not reached and the wall had been finished off in wood.

Now that I've found this gap, he said to himself, I won't need to get up on the roof. Why not adapt the expression "drive a hole, climb a wall"? All I need do is pry a few boards off the wooden section and I shouldn't have any trouble getting over the wall. He fetched a ladder and leaned it against the wall, then brought from the study a set of tools that he had purchased but never used, a carton containing a knife, ax, saw, and chisel. Because he had never had occasion to use it, Vesperus had thought it useless and kept it in his study only as a curiosity. Little did he realize that there is nothing in the world without its function; for the tool kit, he had found a function in adultery.

Carrying his set of tools, he climbed up the ladder and took a close look at the wooden section. Fortunately, strong as it was, there were cracks in it. When it was being built, the boards had been tapped into place one by one, not mortised together, which would have made them impossible to budge. He set to work with a small file to grind away a fraction of an inch from the top of one of the boards so that there would be no resistance when he pried it off. Next he inserted a small chisel into the crack and jimmied the board toward himself. Before he realized it, one board was off, and when he went to jimmy the second board, he found he needed no tools at all; one pull and, with nothing to hold it in place, the board came away with ease.

After taking off two or three boards, he craned his neck through to survey the scene. What met his eyes was a woman relieving herself on a commode. Before tying her trousers up again, she went to replace the cover, but it slipped from her hand and, in stretching down to pick it up, she bent her slim waist and raised a fine pair of slender buttocks in the air. The back part of her vulva was directly in front of him. Observing her from behind, he was still not certain that she was the woman he was seeking. But when she pulled up her trousers and turned around, he saw her face and knew that she was indeed the one he had admired, now more fetching than ever.

He was about to call her, but feared someone else might hear. It also occurred to him that she wouldn't know him, hidden as he was, and would scarcely be inclined to give him a welcome. It would be awkward if she made a scene. He would have to think of some way of enticing her up to see him. One look at my face, he thought, and I won't have to plead with her. She'll come to hand of her own accord.

Puzzling over what to do, he suddenly remembered the fan with the three Tang poems on it in her handwriting. "I expect she still remembers. I'll leave the wall open and go and find the poems. When she hears me reciting, she'll understand and come up to see me, at which point I'll work on her with a few clever remarks. She's bound to fall for my line."

He scampered down the ladder and opened the trunk in search of the fan. While staying in the temple, each time he had picked up one of the many tokens of admiration left for him, he had put it away for safekeeping against the day when he found the woman and needed it in convincing her. Confident the women would be willing if only he had something to offer them, he treated the tokens as treasures and saw to it that they were not mislaid. Lest they get mixed up with his other possessions and be impossible to find in a hurry, he had had another trunk made for them, on the lid of which was inscribed, in two columns of four large characters for easy recognition, a line from one of the "Songs of the States" in the Poetry Classic: [63]

BEAUTIFUL GIFTS

WOMEN FROM

As he opened the trunk, tipped out its romantic contents, and picked them over, the first fan he turned up was hers. Its calligraphy, he noted on opening it, was not of the highest artistry but did possess a certain charm. Its three four-line poems were by the Tang genius Academician Li, to the tune "Peaceful Melody." They were written when Emperor Xuanzong was admiring the tree peonies with Lady Guifei and called Li into the palace to celebrate the occasion.

Vesperus would not have dreamed of reciting the poems without the correct preparation. He changed into his best clothes and cap, then lit an incense burner filled with the finest incense. Finally he cleared his throat and, like a singer of Kun opera rendering a long, slow tune, enunciated the poems syllable by syllable so that she could hear them clearly.

Poem One

Poem Two

Poem Three

He recited the poems again. When there was still no response after ten recitations, he read out the date and the calligrapher's name as well, like the dialogue in the middle of an aria. He thought he might just as well let her hear properly, so he repeated those items several times, too, whereupon from the top of the wall there suddenly came a barely audible sound that was something between a cough and a sigh. Vesperus knew that she had climbed up there, so he rounded on the fan and denounced it: "Because of this fan, someone was almost driven to his death. The fan is here, but where is she? If she can be found, I should give it back to her. What's the point of keeping it?"

A reply came from the top of the wall: "The fan's owner is over here. Please throw it up to me. There's no need to be so bitter about it."

Looking up, Vesperus pretended to be astonished: "So the peerless beauty is close at hand after all! There was no need for me to be lovesick all this time! Now I shan't die!" So saying, he bounded up the ladder, took her in his arms, and kissed her so that their tongues copulated together.

"Where have you been all this time, that I never saw you again?" asked Cloud. "And why are you in this place all of a sudden and reciting the poems on my fan?"

"I live here. I'm your next-door neighbor. Didn't you know?"

"There are other people living there. I've never noticed you before."

"I've only just moved in."