"Where were you living before? And why did you move here?"

Hoping to win her favor, Vesperus took the opportunity for a little deception. "I moved here on your account. Surely you realize that? When I saw you in Zhang the Immortal's Temple, I fell in love, and when you gave me a parting look and left your fan for me, I couldn't get you out of my mind. I tried everything I could think of to move here so that we could be together."

"What a romantic you are!" said Cloud, breaking into a broad smile and tapping him playfully on the shoulder. "To think, I almost did you an injustice! But whom do you have living with you?"

"Just a concubine a friend gave me. She's not been with me long. The rest of my family I left at home."

"But why didn't you come by before you moved here? You've made me positively sick, longing for you all this time!"

"At first I couldn't find out where you lived, so there was no way I could see you. As soon as I heard, I moved here to be with you."

"When did you move here, then?"

"Less than six months ago. Four or five months at most." Cloud's smile froze on her face. "Since you've been here all this time," she asked after a pause, "why didn't you pay any attention to me before? Why did those cold ashes of yours take so long to give off a spark?"

Vesperus knew from her tone that he had made a mistake and, flushing with embarrassment, he tried to talk his way out of trouble. "All this time I assumed your husband was at home and, since the last thing I wanted was to get you into trouble by doing something rash, I put you out of my mind and simply endured these past few months. Only just now, when I heard your husband was away teaching and there was no one else at home, did I dare make my presence known. It was caution on my part, nothing more. You surely don't think that I could forget you or that I would deliberately ignore you?"

Cloud said nothing, but retained her sardonic smile. "Well, do you still have my fan?" she asked after some thought.

"I keep it close beside me at all times. It's never away from me for an instant. I wouldn't dare lose it."

"May I see it in that case?"

Vesperus assumed that once she saw the fan her suspicions would be dispelled, her mood would change, and she would be ready to consider sex. He climbed down the ladder, wrapped the fan in a cloth, and handed it to her. To his astonishment she tore the fan into shreds and threw them into her room. Then she flung the cloth back at him.

"What a false-hearted wretch you are! I'm only glad I never got involved with you! From now on it's over between us!"

Fuming, she started down the ladder, pulling herself away from Vesperus's clutches and ignoring his entreaties. Reaching the bottom of the ladder, she burst inexplicably into tears.

Vesperus wanted to climb down and ask what the matter was, but he was afraid of being seen, so he watched her from the top of the wall as she wept. In the midst of his predicament he heard a sudden sound from among the banana palms outside the study door, as if someone was there. Afraid it might be Fragrance, he quickly replaced the boards and climbed down.

He was puzzled. What could be the matter with her? he asked himself. I haven't said or done anything to upset her, so why on earth should she lose her temper like this? Judging from her reaction, she was blaming me for taking so long to contact her, which delayed our lovemaking by six months. But as the saying goes, "In the Qingming festival, it's never too late for the cold food." [65] All that matters, surely, is that I love her. Let me make up with interest all we've missed in the last six months. Why get so upset? I suspect that her reaction wasn't solely due to this, but that there's some other reason for it. What she said just now, harsh as it was, may not have represented her true feelings. It may have been just a trick to make me beg for forgiveness. I can't very well go there in the daytime, but this evening I shall have to get through the wall and find out. Whatever the rights and wrongs, I'll apologize and settle matters between us.

That day passed as slowly as a year. Vesperus waited impatiently until evening, then sent Fragrance off to bed and returned to his study. First he fastened the door and windows securely and took off his scholar's cap and outer garments. Then, putting out the lamp, he climbed up the ladder and removed the boards that he had loosened before, for all the world as if he were opening up a gateway.

He was still worried. So far so good, he thought. But if there's nothing to climb down on, I can hardly jump off a twenty-foot wall! She sounded so harsh before, I'm sure she'll never come and help me if I call out. I won't be able to say a word.

As it happened, Cloud's heart proved softer than her words. Before going to bed she had left him a loophole, not taken the ultimate step in rejection. When he climbed up and stretched out his hand, Vesperus found that the ladder she had used during the day was still there waiting for him.

Overjoyed, he stepped on to it and climbed silently down, as if crossing a wooden bridge. He had gone up with an even tread and he came down with an equally even tread, untroubled by the least difficulty or danger.

Silently he felt his way to the bed, where she lay motionless. He assumed she was asleep and intended to ease his way into her bedclothes. He would take the opportunity to insert his penis into her vagina and gently awaken her, after which they would talk. That would allow him to dispense with the usual overtures. His mind made up, he stretched out a hand to lift aside the bedclothes.

Little did he realize that Cloud was not asleep, but that she had heard him very clearly as he approached. In the hope of saving herself from his overtures, she had faced the wall, pretending to be unaware of his presence. But when she felt him trying to open the bedclothes, she decided that she could hardly let him "burst unannounced into the general's tent." Unable to escape, she had to turn over and pretend to have been startled from a dream. "Who's there?" she cried out. "Creeping into people's beds in the dark!"

Vesperus whispered in her ear, "I'm the one you spoke to today. I know it was wrong of me to neglect you all this time, and I've come especially to beg your forgiveness." As he spoke, he tried to wriggle inside the bedclothes, but Cloud, furious, hugged them tightly around her and refused to let him in.

"What a heartless wretch you are! Who asked you to come here begging forgiveness? Out, and be quick about it!"

"I've worn myself to a frazzle trying to think how to get over here and be with you! You can't call that heartless!"

"Who do you think your fine words are going to deceive? Oh, such good judges of quality your eyes are! You don't have some dazzling beauty to enjoy yourself with, so you turn to an ugly creature like me. You'd betray your own sweetheart to be here with me."

"The girl I have at home was given to me by a friend and I had no choice but to accept her. How can you be jealous of her?"

"It is perfectly proper to enjoy yourself with your own wife. How could I be jealous of her? But you oughtn't to involve yourself with someone like me and then banish me to the ends of the earth. If you lived a long way off and we had no chance to meet, that would be one thing. But there you were on the other side of the wall, and not a word did you utter, as if we were total strangers! A person as heartless as that I'd just as soon leave to others."

"Mistress, where do you get all of this? Apart from my wife and concubine, I've never been intimate with any other woman. This is my very first attempt at an affair. Why are you slandering me for no reason?"

"Answer me this," said Cloud. "On such-and-such a date, three women went into Zhang the Immortal's Temple to pray. Were you, or were you not, the one who admired their beauty so much that he knelt down outside the gate and kowtowed like a madman?"