No ONE, I TRUST, WILL CALL TWENTY YEARS OF SERVING OUR ILLUSTRIOUS Ming Emperor a poor record. My late father, it is true, served fifty years, and when he died a Councilor of State, he had just celebrated his seventieth birthday. I shall be forty, three days hence- but may Heaven grant that I shan't be then still alive.

In the ever rarer moments that my tortured brain is clear, I let my thoughts go back to the years that have passed, the only escape now left. Four years ago I was promoted to Investigator of the Metropolitan Court, a signal honor for an official of only thirty-five. People predicted a great future for me. How proud I was of this large mansion assigned to me, and how I loved to walk in the beautiful garden, hand in hand with my daughter! How small she was then, only a child, but she knew already the literary names of every flower I pointed at. Four years-but how long ago that seems now. Like memories from a previous existence.

Now you, threatening shadow, again press close to me; shrinking in terror, I must obey you. Do you grudge me even this brief respite? Didn't I do all you ordered me to do? Didn't I last month, after my return from that fey old city of Han-yuan by its sinister lake, choose at once an auspicious date for my daughter's wedding; and wasn't she married last week? What do you say now? My senses are numbed by the unbearable pain; I can't hear you well.