Love Rewarded
Scary Books: Strange Stories From The Lodge Of LeisuresLost in the heart of Peking, in one of the most peaceful neighbourhoods
of the Yellow City, the street of Glowing-happiness was sleeping in the
silence and in the light.
On the right and left of the dusty road was some waste ground, where
several red mangy, and surly dogs were sleeping. Five or six low houses,
their white walls forming a line not well defined, whose low roofs were
covered with grey tiles,
In the first year of the Glorious-Strength, four hundred years ago, a
young man with long hair tied together under the black gauze cap of the
scholars, clothed in a pink dress with purple flowers, was walking in
the setting sun, stepping cautiously in order not to cover with dust
his shoes with thick felt soles.
When the first stars began to shine in the darkening sky, he entered one
of the houses. A wick in a saucer, soaking in oil, burning and smoking,
vaguely lighted an open book on the table: one could only guess, in the
shadow, the form of a chair, a bed in a corner, and a few inscriptions
hanging on the whitewashed walls.
The scholar seated himself before his table and resumed, as he did every
evening, his reading of the Classics, of which he sought to penetrate
the entire meaning. Late passers-by in this lonely thoroughfare still
saw his lamp shining across the trellises of the windows far into the
night.
Golden-dragon lived alone. Now, on that evening an inexplicable languor
made him dreamy; his eyes followed in vain the text; his rebellious
thoughts were scattered.
Impatiently at last he was just going to put out his lamp and go to
bed, when he heard some one knocking at the door.
"Come in!" he cried.
The door grinding on its hinges, a young woman appeared clothed in a
long gown of bright green silk, gracefully lifting her foot to cross the
threshold, and bowing with her two hands united. Golden-dragon,
hurriedly rising to reply, waved in his turn his fists joined together
at the same height as his visage and said, according to the ritual: "Be
kind enough to be seated! What is your noble name?" The visitor did not
pronounce a word; her large black eyes, shadowed by long eyelashes, were
fixed on the face of her host, while she tried to regain her panting
breath.
As she advanced, Golden-dragon felt a strange feeling of admiration and
love.
He did not think such a perfect beauty could exist. As he remained
speechless, she smiled, and her smile had on him the effect of a strong
drink on a hungry man; troubled and dazed, he lost the conscience of
his personality and his acts.
The next morning the sun was shining when he awoke, asking himself if he
had not been dreaming. He thought all day long of his strange visitor,
making thousands of suppositions.
Evening coming on, she suddenly entered, and it was as it had been the
night before.
Two months passed; then the young girl's visits abruptly ceased. The
night covered everything with its black veil, but nobody appeared at the
door. Golden-dragon the first night, waited for her till the hour of the
Rat; at last he went to his couch and fell asleep. Almost immediately he
saw her carried away by two horny yecha; she was calling him:
"My beloved, I am drawn away towards the inferior regions. I shall never
be able to get away if prayers are not said for me. My body lies in the
next house."
He started out of sleep in the efforts he made to fly to her, and could
not rest again in his impatience to assert what she had said.
As soon as the sun was up, he ran towards the only house that was next
to his. He knocked; no one replied. Pushing the door, he entered. The
house seemed to be recently abandoned, the rooms were empty, but in a
side hall a black lacquered coffin rested on trestles; on a table the
"Book of Liberation" was open at the chapter of "The great recall."
Golden-dragon doubted no longer; he sang in a high voice the entire
chapter, shut the book, and returned home full of a strange
peacefulness.
Every evening from that time, at the hour when she had appeared to him,
he lit a lantern, went to the house next door and read a chapter of the
holy text.
Years passed by; he got beyond his fiftieth year, grew bent, and walked
with difficulty, but he never missed performing the duty he had imposed
on himself for his unknown friend.
The house where the coffin was placed had successively been let to
several families; but he had arranged that the funereal room should
never be touched. The lodgers bowed to the scholar when he came, and
talked to him; the whole town was entertained with this touching example
of such everlasting love.
"So much constancy and such fidelity cannot remain without reward," they
said.
But time slipped by and nothing came to change the regular life of the
old man.
On his seventieth birthday, as he went to his neighbours, he remarked a
violent excitement.
"My wife has just had a child," said the chief of the family, going to
meet him. "Come and wish her happiness; she does not cease to ask for
you."
"Is it a boy?"
"No, unhappily, a girl, but such a pretty little thing."
Followed by the happy father, the scholar with white hair penetrated
into the room; the mother smiled, holding out the baby to him.
Golden-dragon suddenly started; the child held out her arms to him and
on her little lips, hardly formed, hovered the shadow of a disappeared
smile, the smile of the unknown woman.
And as he looked an extraordinary sensation troubled him; he felt he was
growing younger, more vigorous. Soon, in the midst of the cries of
admiration of the whole family, the bent old man grew straight again;
his grey hair turned black, and the change continued; he became a young
man, a boy, and soon a child.
When the Bell of the great Tower struck the hour of the Rat, he was a
fat pink baby playing and laughing with the little girl.
The governor of the town, being informed, personally directed an
inquiry. It was discovered that the coffin had disappeared at the same
hour when the transformation had happened.
The Emperor, on the report of the governor, ordered the two children to
receive a handsome dowry.
As to them, they grew up, loved each other, and lived happy and well as
far as the limits of human longevity.
More
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Farm House 7 Ground Plan Interior Arrangement
The front door opens into a hall 34 feet long and 10 feet wide, with a flight of stairs. On the left of this opens a parlor or dining-room, 22×18 feet, lighted by two windows in front and one on the side, and connecting with the dining-room beyond, wh... Farm House 7 How To Lay Out A Kitchen Garden
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Having essayed to instruct our agricultural friends in the proper modes of erecting their houses, and providing for their convenient accommodation within them, a few remarks may be pardoned touching such collateral subjects of embellishment as may be c... Farm House 7 Miscellaneous
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This is the plan of a house and out-buildings based chiefly on one which we built of wood some years since on a farm of our own, and which, in its occupation, has proved to be one of exceeding convenience to the purposes intended. As a farm business ho... Farm House Design Iii
We here present the reader with a substantial, plain, yet highly-respectable stone or brick farm house, of the second class, suitable for an estate of three, to five hundred acres, and accommodation for a family of a dozen or more persons. The style is... Farm House Design Iv
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A Plantation House.—Another southern house is here presented, quite different in architectural design from the last, plain, unpretending, less ornate in its finish, as well as less expensive in construction. It may occupy a different site, in a hilly... General Suggestions
In ascertaining what is desirable to the conveniences, or the necessities in our household arrangement, it may be not unprofitable to look about us, and consider somewhat, the existing condition of the structures too many of us now inhabit, and which, ... General Suggestions
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This work owes its appearance to the absence of any cheap and popular book on the subject of Rural Architecture, exclusively intended for the farming or agricultural interest of the United States. Why it is, that nothing of the kind has been heretofore... Prefatory
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